Western Standard - The Pipeline： Voting deadline arrives with UCP leadership review

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is May 11th, 2022. I'm Derek Fulbright, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:25.800 and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:27.720 I'm joined, as usual, at least on the good days,

00:00:30.480 by Western Standard News Editor Dave Naylor.

00:00:33.060 How are you feeling, Dave?

00:00:33.840 I'm feeling a bit worried.

00:00:35.320 Why?

00:00:35.860 Well, Corey had pepperoni for lunch, and it's...

00:00:38.800 It's reverbing.

00:00:40.860 Sorry.

00:00:41.820 For those of you watching at home, these two share an office.

00:00:45.500 It's, um...

00:00:46.740 I don't like to visit it.

00:00:48.240 I don't blame you.

00:00:49.080 Yeah.

00:00:49.720 Also joined by Mr. Pepperoni himself,

00:00:52.200 Western Standard Opinion and Broadcast Editor Corey Morgan. 1.00

00:00:54.660 And Corey, oh, you're such a jerk. 1.00

00:00:57.360 It just comes naturally to me. 1.00

00:00:59.160 That's why we like you.

00:01:01.100 Yeah, thanks.

00:01:02.020 Okay.

00:01:03.960 All right, well, we've got a good show today.

00:01:06.120 The no more pipelines bill might be no more.

00:01:09.820 An Alberta court, Alberta court of Queens bench ruling that the federal government's no more pipelines bill is unconstitutional.

00:01:17.800 But it's a bit more complicated than that.

00:01:20.000 So we're going to dive into it.

00:01:21.960 As of, I think, last night, or is it today?

00:01:26.380 No more vote counting for UCP?

00:01:28.420 Today, after 5 p.m.

00:01:29.740 As of now, the deadline for voting in the UCP's review of Jason Kenney's leadership is over.

00:01:40.380 Then it'll be a week-long wait.

00:01:42.340 We're going to talk about where that stands right now, how the voting is going, and what we can expect.

00:01:48.540 and uh speaking of conservatives fighting conservatives boy it's getting fun in the

00:01:53.800 conservative party leadership race uh over the weekend uh debate in ottawa on saturday

00:01:59.040 from the canada strong and free networks uh annual networking conference and then another debate

00:02:04.960 coming up right after the show actually uh in edmonton the first official conservative

00:02:10.060 leadership debate uh so we're gonna talk about how the last one the first leadership debate went

00:02:14.660 and what we can expect tonight at the Edmonton Showdown.

00:02:18.220 Before we get going, though, we want to thank our sponsor,

00:02:21.200 the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.

00:02:23.320 The CSSA is a fantastic organization that's standing on guard for thee

00:02:28.720 and your right to own, use, responsibly have some fun with firearms in Canada.

00:02:36.860 The Liberals are reintroducing a form of the long gun registry.

00:02:40.300 These guys were a big part of the fight of getting rid of the first

00:02:43.500 Liberal Long Gun Registry, and these guys are at the forefront of fighting against the Trudeau

00:02:49.000 government's long gun registry. If you own guns or just believe in the right to own guns reasonably

00:02:56.000 and safely in Canada, then this is an organization you need to support. I've supported them for over

00:03:01.000 a decade as a loyal member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association. I trust them with

00:03:06.060 my membership dues to do what's right for me as a gun owner, and you should too. Check them out

00:03:11.160 their website at cssa-cila.org. That's my favorite part of the show when I write you to Cory for that

00:03:19.480 crazy long uh CSSA I love you but like your your url is that's tough you gotta get a better url.

00:03:27.240 It's another bilingualism thing it gets us all. Ah the bilingualers okay uh before we get started

00:03:32.680 here we want to thank all of our western standard members for your support um we've actually launched

00:03:37.960 a brand new website. It's huge. I know it's new. Some of you are, you know, new is scary sometimes.

00:03:45.920 I guarantee you, you're going to, this is going to be a much, much better experience. We've now

00:03:50.860 got provincial sections. We've got the West Coast Standard, the Alberta Report, Saskatchewan

00:03:54.680 Standard, Manitoba Standard, even the Ontario Standard for you Eastern Bastards. Yes, we've 0.99

00:04:00.340 got a lot of them reading us. And, you know, we got to welcome them into the broader Ontario

00:04:06.900 wants to join the West, we can have that conversation.

00:04:10.360 You were one of them at one point, weren't you?

00:04:12.020 That's a, that's, we don't like to talk about that.

00:04:16.540 I am a, I identify as a Westerner.

00:04:19.980 I'm Trans Mountain.

00:04:22.400 So, yeah.

00:04:23.080 I like it.

00:04:23.560 Yeah.

00:04:24.300 Okay.

00:04:25.140 Let's get started.

00:04:26.600 No more pipelines, Bill.

00:04:28.800 No more, Dave?

00:04:30.420 Kind of no more, Derek.

00:04:32.600 Alberta Court of Appeals struck it down as unconstitutional this week.

00:04:36.060 I think it was a four-to-one vote, and basically said it infringed on provincial authority.

00:04:44.600 Jason Kenney had a jump in his step that day, and he was excited, wasn't he, Corey?

00:04:51.260 He was a big, huge smile, big win for Alberta, historic day, all that kind of rhetoric.

00:04:58.020 Our beloved Prime Minister Trudeau stood up in the House of Commons and said,

00:05:02.140 don't get so excited, Alberta. He plans on taking it to the Supreme Court. And he took the time to

00:05:09.780 remind everybody that the last time this happened, when Alberta ruled that the carbon tax was

00:05:14.740 unconstitutional, he took it to the Supreme Court and the carbon tax was declared constitutional and

00:05:21.600 Alberta lost. So I think Trudeau is basically saying, hey, he may have won the battle, but the

00:05:27.400 war is still continuing. I know he said the exact phrasing was interesting. He said it was a

00:05:33.020 question period point. He said that Alberta court, as if it doesn't really matter because it's an

00:05:37.520 Alberta court. You know what matters? The court in Ottawa stacked by liberals. That's the only

00:05:41.920 court that matters. And he's actually not wrong. That's the one that matters. As Corey pointed

00:05:46.040 out in his show, a lot of liberal appointed judges in the Supreme Court from Eastern Canada.

00:05:51.080 Well, and even the Harper appointed judges on that bench are, they tend to rule pretty liberal.

00:05:56.160 uh it's you know people like to criticize uh the american supreme court for being politicized that

00:06:02.980 there's conservative and liberal judges in canada we just have liberal judges so um i don't know

00:06:09.920 which of you can answer this but it's not actually really dead though is it it's like it's hurt

00:06:17.880 it's flesh it's a wound it's not really dead is it no no i don't think so uh and that'll

00:06:23.640 the final ruling will come through the Supreme Court and only they can drive a stake through

00:06:29.060 its heart completely. So yeah, it remains to be seen. I don't know if it's on life support,

00:06:35.200 I don't know if it's that bad, but it's been injured, no doubt about that. It was a big blow

00:06:39.940 because, don't forget other provinces, I think it was Saskatchewan and Ontario, also joined in

00:06:45.020 with Alberta in appealing against it. So, you know, it's not just Alberta that's upset about

00:06:52.060 the law. It's, you know, it was other promises too. So it's not quite dead, but yet, but hopefully

00:06:58.160 soon. Corey, Trudeau has said he's going to appeal this. How important politically do you think this

00:07:06.260 bill really is to the liberals? I'm not sure how many voters they get from it. That's a good

00:07:10.560 question to put out on, you know, because I don't think this is a burning issue for Central Canada

00:07:13.800 where his voters are anyway. So I don't know how much capital he might invest into fighting this.

00:07:18.560 I mean, he's a stubborn, prideful guy, though.

00:07:22.160 I mean, we see that personally, I think, with the vaccine mandates.

00:07:24.380 He won't drop them just because he's still ticked off because people pushed back on it.

00:07:27.880 And when it comes to this, he might dig his heels in, even if it's not really going to do him any benefit.

00:07:32.420 I mean, a reasonable prime minister would say, because there was a dissenting opinion, we got some things.

00:07:36.940 Maybe we can put this back in and look at amendments then or things like that.

00:07:40.680 But he's gone straight to saying we're going to appeal it.

00:07:43.680 I don't know how politically good that is for him, but it won't be bad either.

00:07:47.240 I mean, you know, if he wins the appeal, it's only going to infuriate the West, but they already despise him.

00:07:53.500 Sorry, I've always said Trudeau's safe as long as, you know, it's not affecting people economically wise.

00:08:02.500 Now central Canada is paying over $2 a liter for gasoline.

00:08:06.940 They're dealing with 6.7% inflation.

00:08:10.860 We did a story today on people are having to take second jobs.

00:08:14.100 They're having to postpone their retirement.

00:08:15.940 It is starting to hit home economically now in Canada.

00:08:19.720 And people might think, okay, well, yeah, you know, geez,

00:08:22.620 maybe a pipeline, we could save some gas or, you know,

00:08:26.020 that tech mind thing sure sounds good now, doesn't it?

00:08:29.160 Like beating on energy infrastructure doesn't look as good today

00:08:31.400 as it did two years ago.

00:08:32.360 Well, those are indulgence virtues.

00:08:35.520 You know, like this hardcore environmentalism,

00:08:37.220 it's an indulgence virtue.

00:08:39.400 Societies can only afford to do that when there's a society of plenty

00:08:42.840 and there's enough wealth creators that you can suck that money out of.

00:08:46.160 But as things are changing, as inflation runs out of control,

00:08:50.640 as supply lines are blocked up,

00:08:52.500 I think a lot of these very bourgeois, nice-to-have virtues

00:08:58.360 become a lot less convenient for regular people.

00:09:02.740 Corey, I'm going to come back to you again.

00:09:05.520 Jason Kenney, as Dave said, he was pretty happy about this.

00:09:09.100 He hasn't had a lot of good news in a lot of time.

00:09:12.840 for the sake of argument, let's say he sticks around.

00:09:17.860 Let's say a week from today,

00:09:21.140 UCP members decide it's a good idea to keep this guy.

00:09:25.180 Is this going to be a significant win for Kenny politically

00:09:28.120 if he is able to stick around?

00:09:30.680 Yes, because I mean, I'm sure he wishes this really came two weeks ago

00:09:35.000 because it's not going to do much benefit for the voting as far as that goes.

00:09:38.740 But as you said, let's assume he's still there afterwards.

00:09:41.300 He's going to have a very shaky party, even if he's won that leadership.

00:09:44.500 He's going to have to pull in some unity, and he's still going to have to convince them

00:09:47.340 to not cross the floor, not join other parties.

00:09:50.580 He's going to have to say, we've accomplished something.

00:09:52.460 And this is one thing he can point at.

00:09:53.800 He can say, I stood up to Ottawa, and we won.

00:09:56.320 Because people did say, you know, not lay another, said, you're wasting your time.

00:09:59.260 Quit taking this stuff to the courts.

00:10:01.020 In this case, Kenny was right.

00:10:02.120 He took it to the courts.

00:10:03.000 They ruled in Alberta's favor.

00:10:05.460 And it gives him some political capital to work with.

00:10:07.860 So yeah, he's pretty happy about this.

00:10:09.140 It gives him something to talk about because he doesn't have a lot, really, of substance otherwise.

00:10:15.880 I guess I'll put it to you, Dave.

00:10:17.480 Do you think this is going to have any kind of serious impact on the conservative leadership race and the debate we're going to get to tonight?

00:10:22.580 Well, it's a good question.

00:10:24.180 I think Roman Babber put out a thing today saying, you know, end to end of equalization.

00:10:30.420 So I think, yeah, it's right now, it's all the arguments all kind of done.

00:10:36.480 And now we just have to wait however long it takes the Supreme Court to rule on it.

00:10:42.880 But yeah, if a candidate, you know, starts strongly supporting that kind of thing, you know, and clearly differentiates himself from the other, it could be a good vote-getter for them.

00:10:55.180 I don't know. I'm not sure there's really, I think this is one of the issues where all the candidates tend to be on the right side here.

00:11:01.480 they all tend to be fairly pro-pipeline.

00:11:03.960 Even Charest, he's been offside in a lot of issues,

00:11:06.940 but has tended, I think, to be fairly pro-pipeline.

00:11:09.480 As he keeps reminding everybody,

00:11:11.220 the last pipeline that was built

00:11:12.420 was through his province and was him, right?

00:11:15.280 So, yeah, he's...

00:11:17.460 He carried money straight from Alberta.

00:11:19.080 Straight from Alberta, equalization.

00:11:20.760 Straight in the Quebec City.

00:11:21.640 Exactly.

00:11:22.380 Yeah.

00:11:23.300 Okay.

00:11:24.880 Well, segue now to the Kennedy leadership vote.

00:11:28.780 voting ended ends right now pretty much. And the results will be released approximately this time

00:11:36.240 next week on a special edition of the pipeline. Yeah, we'll. Yeah, actually, it will be a special

00:11:43.580 edition of the pipeline. I guess as a programming note, we were going to have extended live

00:11:49.040 coverage beginning at a quarter to four Wednesday next week, the results will be expected sometime

00:11:54.560 time between four o'clock and six o'clock. And so we're going to be in here. We're going to have

00:11:59.280 a ton of special guests. We've got, no, I guess I won't spoil the lineup yet. We're still confirming

00:12:05.320 people, but we've got a great lineup of experts who are going to come in and weigh in on,

00:12:10.980 you know, what could happen. And after we have the results,

00:12:15.360 where do we go from here? I mean, it's pretty simple. If Kenny's gone, well, we know what

00:12:19.920 happens. Get a new premier. Actually, even then, it's not that simple. There's a lot of what ifs.

00:12:24.540 Anyway, I think we're going to have a great program for that.

00:12:28.960 So, Dave, tell us what's happened so far with voting procedures,

00:12:32.720 what's happened so far, and what's happening between now and a week from now.

00:12:35.820 Okay.

00:12:36.300 Party members had until, as you mentioned, just now to get their ballot in the mail.

00:12:41.260 If it's postmarked any time after 5 o'clock today,

00:12:45.040 Canada Post will not deliver it to Deloitte, who's sort of overseeing the vote.

00:12:50.940 Between now and next Wednesday, party scrutineers will be going into the ballots.

00:12:57.060 Apparently, there's like two secret envelopes or one secret envelope just to confirm that

00:13:01.880 the vote is from a party member, their party ID, identification and all that sort of stuff

00:13:07.160 just to make sure that the ballot is legit.

00:13:10.300 Once the ballot has been confirmed as being legit, it will then go into the special big

00:13:15.280 box now that takes that starts as of tomorrow morning thursday and that continues all the

00:13:21.840 way to next wednesday they're not counting a single vote until next wednesday so they start

00:13:27.020 counting wednesday morning uh and uh as you said hopefully uh they're gonna live stream that from

00:13:33.540 what i understand the vote counting process the vote counting will be live streamed yeah

00:13:37.040 uh and then yeah we'll know between uh between four and between four and six so uh the voting

00:13:45.280 is done now it's just a matter of tabulating it and trying to make sure there's no fraudulent

00:13:50.080 activities well actually let's go to that corey i think the the real worry is that the fraud's

00:13:55.920 already taken place uh most experts seem to have a fair bit of confidence in the counting process

00:14:04.400 The question is, who is allowed to vote? Bulk buying memberships. I know the CBC had something

00:14:09.560 on that today. They're about four weeks behind the report we did on that with the exact same data.

00:14:17.220 Corey, are people still raising concerns about the legitimacy of the vote right now?

00:14:20.700 They're raising concerns, but I mean, it doesn't look like it's going to matter.

00:14:23.820 You know, at this point, it's by the time Wednesday comes around. I mean,

00:14:27.600 Elections Alberta has stayed mama, but whether they're actually going to follow through with

00:14:30.740 investigation they know it's been brought to them i mean this is all uncharted too when did you ever

00:14:34.980 expect elections alberta to deal with a leadership review it's not even a nomination or a leadership

00:14:39.540 race sorry what's elections alberta have to do with anything because it is membership sales in

00:14:43.300 a party oh yes because yeah because it's uh it's illegal yeah but i mean that will definitely not

00:14:50.420 be resolved by next wednesday so again the questions will come on whether people will

00:14:55.620 trust the results after that. I mean, as you said, we'll trust the counting, but there's a lot of

00:15:01.320 voices speaking up, raising concerns, and they're going to be raising concerns no matter what the

00:15:05.500 results are. I don't know. He's going to need a very strong showing, Premier Kenney, in my view,

00:15:12.300 to have any chance of a unified party after this. Rick Horman, the Tory stalwart in the provinces,

00:15:18.340 is overseeing the vote, and he told Arlinda Slobodian this week that, hey, you know, I'm

00:15:23.280 confident in the integrity of the counting but as you brought up there's all these allegations of

00:15:29.120 before the votes are handed credit cards buying bulk memberships and all that sort of stuff so

00:15:35.440 you know the the problem is the the the controversy is out there it's not going away

00:15:42.000 uh so no matter what the results are whether it's 40 or 80 people aren't going to trust it okay so

00:15:48.480 Let's talk about the fallout, or let's kind of get our crystal ball out a little bit.

00:15:55.140 There's, well, the more predictable scenario is, okay, Kenny loses, then, okay, he's gone,

00:16:02.220 maybe he tries to stick around as an interim premier, but whatever, but it's more or less

00:16:05.420 predictable what happens. He loses, he's gone. I think it's, nobody's expecting a resounding

00:16:12.060 endorsement, the kind of endorsements of party memberships that are generally required to stay

00:16:15.520 as a party leader, which is bare minimum 75.

00:16:19.280 Like, there's no leader that can stick around with less than 75.

00:16:23.000 I think 0.0 people expect that Kenny's going to get over 75.

00:16:29.380 He's going to get some resounding vote that a leader would normally get if they stay.

00:16:34.940 But let's, you know, let's say it's somewhere in the range of 51 to 65 or something.

00:16:42.780 um would what do the scenarios look like then well he's repeatedly said that all he needs is

00:16:50.300 50 plus one so let's give him the benefit of the doubt he gets 52 and he decides that's enough to

00:16:56.660 stay uh ralph klein and ed stalmack both left when they had mid-70s so if he's uh klein left

00:17:03.340 with 55 still mac left in uh around 78 or so okay yeah um certainly nowhere near uh what uh what

00:17:13.000 kenny could get so if he decides to stay that's i think the end of the ucp in alberta there'll be

00:17:18.520 floor crossings and mass uh they may go sit as independents they may join uh uh um drew barnes

00:17:27.360 and todd lowen and and form their own little opposition party and get research grants and

00:17:31.720 and all that sort of stuff.

00:17:33.260 But, you know, unless he gets more than 70%,

00:17:37.880 I don't see the caucus being overly excited with just 50%.

00:17:42.260 Corey, if Kenny managed, let's just go with 55.

00:17:47.360 You know, he gets 55.

00:17:50.100 What are the chances that he can hold it together at all?

00:17:54.040 Extremely slim.

00:17:55.220 I mean, again, I don't even know if he could with 70.

00:17:57.640 I mean, it's just such a tumultuous mess in there right now.

00:18:01.380 I mean, there's a number of MLAs who burned their bridges. There's no way they're staying

00:18:04.640 in that party the day after this vote. If they did, I mean, how can you possibly contain that

00:18:10.140 with some of the things they've said publicly? I just don't know. I mean, he's got to have some

00:18:15.020 sort of card up his sleeve or he's just riding the tiger right now because I don't see a good

00:18:20.780 outcome. There's so much malcontent. We can't forget. This is just a measure of the membership.

00:18:26.040 You know, this isn't across Alberta as a whole. This is just saying among your party members,

00:18:30.200 this many support the leader. Across the province, we see a lot of those numbers. They're more like

00:18:34.700 20%. This is really problematic. I mean, I don't know how he's going to consolidate it. I imagine

00:18:40.940 he's going to really push and just say, look, it's so important to hold it together now because

00:18:46.040 we've got an election a year from now. We've got to keep Notley out. Now you've got to rally around

00:18:49.720 me despite our differences and we'll fight it out. See if he can pull it off, I guess, but I just

00:18:54.340 don't see how. It's going to be hard. So as a professional courtesy, I'm not going to name

00:18:58.020 pollster but there is a pollster in alberta who's generally considered the gold standard the best

00:19:04.260 pollster one of the best in canada definitely the best in alberta and um this pollster showed

00:19:09.840 the ucp with kenny way behind the ndp for like two years plus um and then they had one poll

00:19:17.160 that showed the ucp up slightly over the ndp and the ucp illegally leaked that poll out because

00:19:24.740 They want to get some good press showing that they've got some support.

00:19:30.740 That pollster I've now confirmed as a new, more recent poll, and it does not show the UCP slightly ahead.

00:19:37.600 It shows the UCP getting annihilated, like just crushed.

00:19:44.900 I mean, if Albertans in general were voting, well, then it's no contest.

00:19:49.920 But they're not. This is a vote of party members.

00:19:52.600 It was already going to be the ones who were in-person.

00:19:54.320 As Kenny originally won because he thought that played to his advantages,

00:19:57.020 he was going to get smoked.

00:19:57.980 Based on the numbers I saw, he would have been lucky to get 35%.

00:20:00.880 It was going to be a crushing blowout.

00:20:05.080 But now it's a rejig system designed to help Kenny.

00:20:11.100 I've avoided this because, you know,

00:20:12.580 you don't really want to be on the record and be wrong,

00:20:15.780 but I'm going to require a yes or no.

00:20:18.480 Does Kenny survive?

00:20:21.040 The vote?

00:20:21.900 The vote.

00:20:22.600 I think, yes.

00:20:23.900 Yes?

00:20:24.920 Yes.

00:20:27.620 I don't have to answer.

00:20:28.700 I don't...

00:20:29.700 You know, no.

00:20:36.500 No.

00:20:37.380 And ironically, I think your outcome might be the most unifying of the bunch

00:20:41.200 if that's what happens.

00:20:42.760 It is the only way, I think, to keep that party united at all.

00:20:47.400 It's new leader or boss, I think.

00:20:50.220 Yeah. And the question now is we're a year away, probably a year this month away from the election. And if they're still polling around 20 percent, how do they turn that around in a year?

00:21:01.380 The only conservative Alberta PCs turned it around all the time. You know how they did it? They got a new leader. That's the only way to turn around polls like that. Once you get that low, you're done.

00:21:12.180 it's a new leader or a destruction. Okay. Well, before we move on to the federal conservative

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00:22:23.640 your money. Absolutely. Okay. So last Saturday, there was a debate for the conservative leadership

00:22:32.360 race in Ottawa, hosted by the Canada Strong and Free Network that I was at.

00:22:40.600 We also, we had, well, we had our producer, Nico, there, who's back here in Calgary in

00:22:45.200 our headquarters.

00:22:46.040 We also had reporters, Matthew Horwood and Rachel Emanuel there.

00:22:51.820 Pretty fighty, Dave.

00:22:53.620 You know what?

00:22:54.000 I don't think it was Saturday, though.

00:22:55.120 Was it Thursday?

00:22:55.760 Oh, it was Thursday.

00:22:56.640 You were in the air, right, I think?

00:22:58.240 Yeah.

00:22:58.420 And yeah, Corey and I hosted the debate show.

00:23:01.080 I thought I was going to get a good 90-minute nap in while it was going on,

00:23:05.800 but it started right from the beginning, Derek, when Paulyev walked on stage

00:23:10.300 and there was no handshaking between him and Sheree.

00:23:14.480 But did the others shake hands?

00:23:15.700 Some of them did, yeah.

00:23:17.040 And then it went right downhill from there, didn't it?

00:23:18.840 And holy cow, was it heated?

00:23:21.320 And, you know, there was some hatred going on.

00:23:24.080 It was quite an exciting, you know, Dwayne Barath,

00:23:26.980 the respected political scientist out of Mount Royal University says it was the wildest political

00:23:32.060 debate he's ever seen. And that's saying something. So it was sure more interesting

00:23:37.260 than watching that last federal leaders debate on CBC, which was sleep inducing. Yeah, highly

00:23:43.900 entertaining. Some great shots going both ways. And should be another good show right

00:23:52.620 after this one tonight in Edmonton uh Corey do you think um from last Thursday's debate um

00:24:00.500 were there any clear winners and any clear losers uh yeah in some senses I mean clear winners

00:24:07.720 I still put Sheree and Polyev up there because they dominated it they demonstrated this is a

00:24:12.960 two-person race like the other three were fighting for oxygen in that debate you know just to be seen

00:24:18.340 and recognized and noticed.

00:24:21.380 They were also the losers at the same time, though.

00:24:23.840 If there was any broad critique of the debate,

00:24:27.620 it was how vitriolic it is.

00:24:29.480 And I mean, they can't forget that, yes,

00:24:31.400 you're fighting for an internal party race,

00:24:33.580 but everything you say and do reflects on you

00:24:35.400 when you go to the general election.

00:24:36.720 And if you look like you're at each other's throats

00:24:39.320 and being even childish and vitriolic,

00:24:44.200 that doesn't reflect well in a general election.

00:24:46.460 I thought it was very ironic

00:24:49.100 Premier Kenny telling them

00:24:51.160 hey guys unite

00:24:51.960 you guys need to show

00:24:55.240 you guys need some unity

00:24:59.020 exactly

00:24:59.600 I feel like that was a little projection

00:25:02.900 there may have been a little projection going on

00:25:05.200 Preston Manning told everybody to

00:25:07.100 cool it too

00:25:07.720 I don't know why it makes for a much more entertaining

00:25:10.960 watch doesn't it

00:25:11.900 we like watching it but does it instill confidence

00:25:15.120 I guess that's kind of what the, you know, do you want it as a morbid show of curiosity or do you want it to look like prospective leaders?

00:25:22.040 I don't know.

00:25:24.180 The American primaries are vicious.

00:25:26.960 They rip each other's, I'm not even going to say that part, but they rip off.

00:25:31.120 You know, you remember, you know, Trump would sit there talking about little Marco and low energy.

00:25:35.720 I remember when he called Jeb Bush low energy Jeb and the camera went to Jeb Bush.

00:25:39.880 You could see him deflate like a balloon just went, you know, these things.

00:25:45.120 It was the same on the Democrat side, maybe not as colorful about Trump.

00:25:48.320 She was vicious with Biden questioning his mental capacities and things, and now she's the vice president. 0.97

00:25:54.800 Yeah, she's in charge now.

00:25:57.260 I don't know.

00:25:58.120 I'm not convinced that these things are always going to reflect badly in the public.

00:26:03.620 In fact, I think it's better because you're battle testing a leader.

00:26:07.200 You know, like you had Aaron O'Toole.

00:26:09.160 He went through the last leadership race with no discernible differences with Peter McKay. 0.77

00:26:15.120 Um, Leslie Lewis was different, but she was still too green to really land a punch of any kind. She was too nice. So like guys like Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer, uh, these were like generals leading troops onto the field who had never fought the battle themselves. 0.87

00:26:31.000 Uh, I, I don't know. I, I think when you go through a hard campaign like this, you're, there's a better chance you're gonna have a leader who comes out the other side who can take it and give it.

00:26:39.220 Yeah, when Poliev was attacking Shreya on Huawei, that's what I can't say, you can't say Poliev.

00:26:49.940 Polivar knows how to say Huawei.

00:26:52.740 When Poliev was attacking him on that issue, how much, Mr. Shreya? How much? How much did you get paid? How much? How much?

00:26:59.500 I think, you know, some people found it annoying.

00:27:02.160 I thought it was, hey, if this is the way he's going to go after Trudeau in question period, that is going to be awesome.

00:27:07.520 yeah so he's done you see everybody see these little clips on youtube and facebook of him like

00:27:13.320 you know grilling someone at a committee or in uh or on question period you'll ask like okay how

00:27:17.880 much did this cost and this liberal will not answer the question he'll just say how much

00:27:21.560 number please if you could just provide uh just a dollar sign and a number behind it uh that'd be

00:27:28.320 lovely thank you how much that's a great imitation for the guy the guy whose name you can't pronounce

00:27:33.120 Do you like my Oliver impression?

00:27:35.140 Yeah, that's a great impression.

00:27:37.560 Yeah, okay.

00:27:38.940 Now do Sheree.

00:27:42.240 You'd affirm it.

00:27:43.620 Yeah.

00:27:45.380 Yeah, I don't know.

00:27:48.160 I think they're going to come out stronger from it, 0.80

00:27:50.740 and it's definitely playing to – Sheree is generally considered a good debater,

00:27:54.580 but he's from a different era.

00:27:56.780 I mean, you know, when he was running in 97, he was running for – he was the last time he was PC leader on a national campaign.

00:28:09.220 That time he got like, I don't know, 14 seats or something.

00:28:12.780 He – you know, guys like me were in like the third grade.

00:28:18.420 And it's – yeah, I think he's having a hard time connecting.

00:28:21.340 It's just a very different style of politics.

00:28:23.200 and these debates play exactly to

00:28:26.440 Polyver's strengths. But I think you're

00:28:29.260 right, Corey, that this is clearly a

00:28:32.720 two-man race. The other ones are

00:28:36.340 struggling to get oxygen because they're

00:28:38.400 just not aggressive enough. Atchison, I

00:28:41.860 have no idea. Is he on your show tomorrow?

00:28:44.820 No, he might come in on Friday. We're

00:28:46.820 looking to have him and Roman Babber

00:28:48.620 might be coming in tomorrow. We're

00:28:49.680 grabbing these guys while they're in

00:28:50.720 Alberta. And Atchison, he impressed

00:28:52.700 some people in the sense that he came across actually

00:28:54.780 that was a good calm voice of reason. So he kind of

00:28:56.700 stood out in that he was

00:28:58.120 being relaxed. But does that win you or not?

00:29:00.880 Well, he came across as more

00:29:02.800 level-headed

00:29:04.640 and whatnot than maybe some of the more

00:29:06.280 combative combatants. But

00:29:08.300 it didn't seem like he had any idea

00:29:10.760 any policy just other than we need to get

00:29:12.740 along. We need to unite. That was

00:29:14.720 really all he had to say.

00:29:18.040 So I

00:29:18.760 was being interviewed by Matthew on the floor

00:29:20.580 of the debate there after it was over.

00:29:22.700 And he asked me, was you think Atchison was like the least visible candidate on the stage? And I said, no, it was Patrick Brown. Patrick Brown just skipped the debate. He apparently said there was no votes in that room for him to get.

00:29:41.300 It was a bunch of wackos and yahoos or something. 1.00

00:29:44.580 Very interesting message to take towards the biggest annual gathering of conservatives nationally, except if they were to gather for a Kenya leadership review, that exempting. 1.00

00:29:56.480 And a lot of the movers and shakers of Canada's conservative movement, tons of conservative caucus members were there.

00:30:01.280 And he says there's no votes to be had there.

00:30:04.480 What the hell is Patrick Brown doing?

00:30:08.220 I can't figure out his strategy.

00:30:09.840 I really can't.

00:30:10.500 I mean, he's also, I've seen mainstream media members complaining.

00:30:13.120 He won't give sit-down interviews.

00:30:15.520 He just puts out press releases.

00:30:17.100 He's remaining invisible.

00:30:18.140 It's a bizarre strategy.

00:30:20.100 I mean, tonight we're going to see him for the first time at a leadership event of any kind.

00:30:25.620 Is he actually going to be there?

00:30:27.020 Well, I'll believe it when I see it, I guess.

00:30:28.500 Maybe he's keeping his powder dry.

00:30:30.220 So, I mean, with this invisible campaign so far, I would hope he's going to explode onto the stage

00:30:34.740 because now it's going to be six people fighting for that spot.

00:30:37.580 watch like uh so the 30th of may uh we'll live stream this as well the independent press gallery

00:30:42.740 um you know that includes you know the western standard some of the other uh media in canada

00:30:47.400 don't take government funding uh i'm going to be there helping to uh moderate that debate

00:30:52.840 and patrick brown's not going there either i mean and this is put on by generally more

00:30:57.860 conservative leaning media and he's still not going this is i don't understand what he's doing

00:31:04.140 This is a membership across the country thing. Not everybody's going to go to events in person. You need them to see you on broadcasts.

00:31:10.660 He's not just doing, he's barely doing events in person. He is, the best I can tell, and maybe I'm wrong,

00:31:17.720 maybe from their campaign will correct me that he had one or two meetings that were not like this,

00:31:21.460 but the best I can tell, he's doing 100% purely ethnic political outreach. Nothing but. 0.97

00:31:28.100 He swung through Calgary a couple of weeks ago, and he visited some religious minority temples or mosques or gudwaras or something like that, and then he left town. He didn't even say like, hey, local supporters or interested conservatives, meet me for like a pub night for two hours somewhere. Nothing. I have seen zero attempt from him to reach out to a single existing conservative member. He's just doing purely the ethnic politics.

00:31:57.400 I don't get it because he doesn't have national profile. It's not like he's well known outside of political, you know, wonks outside of Ontario. And I mean, I would have thought he has some assets. He's young, you know, good looking guy, well spoken, things like that. Like he could have done outreach, maybe gain support across the West in areas where people don't know him, but you got to get out to them.

00:32:15.400 And look at it compared to Roman Babber.

00:32:17.640 Nobody knows who the hell Roman Babber was either.

00:32:20.160 But he's starting to catch on now.

00:32:21.940 He did well.

00:32:23.160 Corey and I both thought he did well in the debate.

00:32:24.960 And now he's touring and meeting people and being public,

00:32:28.860 issuing press releases, issuing platforms.

00:32:31.460 Compare that to Patrick Brown, who is very, very strange.

00:32:35.680 So Babber is, you know, I'm not sure he's considered to be a particularly strong contender to win,

00:32:42.820 but he's making an impact here.

00:32:44.080 And, you know, it's the Western Centre, so a lot of our viewers, listeners, don't know who he is. 0.97

00:32:49.360 He's a member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament, as it calls itself, because it's Ontario, dammit. 0.78

00:32:55.300 And although I think we should call it as a parliament, or we should go Quebec. 0.93

00:32:59.940 Quebec calls there as a National Assembly.

00:33:01.640 I think we should have the Alberta National Assembly.

00:33:03.620 Quebec does it.

00:33:04.440 Why not?

00:33:05.040 Sure.

00:33:06.040 And he was kicked out of the Ontario PC Party Caucus by Doug Ford for opposing lockdowns and vaccine mandates,

00:33:12.940 mandatory masking, that kind of stuff. So he's become kind of a folk hero in the anti-lockdown

00:33:17.600 movement in Ontario, much less known out West here. But he's making a play for it. He released

00:33:22.000 a statement today, which is far and away the most aggressive Western-friendly policy we've

00:33:31.340 seen on equalization from any candidate at the federal level, period. He outflanks Maxime Bernier

00:33:36.740 on equalization now. He said he will end equalization, just completely kill it. Even

00:33:42.800 Bernier doesn't go that far. So it's quite extraordinary. One thing I heard from several

00:33:49.620 people after the debate in Ottawa last Thursday, as I heard a few people tell me, he's not going

00:33:57.960 to win. And I think Polliver should probably win in the end. But I'm going to give Baber my first

00:34:04.620 ballot, because I think he's earned it. He's, you know, he is, he put his political ass on the line 0.99

00:34:09.560 in Ontario, gotten kicked out of the Ontario PC party by lockdown Ford. You know, he's stuck his 0.98

00:34:15.820 neck out. He's putting out the right policies. So, you know, I heard from several people, I don't

00:34:20.240 know how widespread this will be, but people say, I'm going to mark first ballot for Babber,

00:34:25.140 probably going to get knocked off, you know, in the earlier rounds of voting, and then your

00:34:31.940 second ballot go to Polliver. Do you think that's his strategy here? Is it to win? Or is it just to

00:34:39.660 have an impact, put himself on a national stage, maybe set himself up for a seat in the federal

00:34:46.100 parliament since he's been kicked out? You know, can't win his independence in Canada, really?

00:34:51.080 Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. And surely in his heart of hearts, he knows he's not going

00:34:55.020 to win but he can get himself a national profile out of this he can uh you know be the hero to the

00:35:02.260 right and uh yeah set himself up for the next uh campaign where he runs as a federal conservative

00:35:08.360 gets a seat in parliament and becomes a cabinet minister absolutely and he's come across well

00:35:15.120 like when he first surfaced i only heard a little bit about him before when i had him on the show

00:35:18.780 actually it was prior to the debate no this was good and calm and reason because you kind of

00:35:22.740 wonder, I mean, we get some kind of flaky members of the legislatures across the country now and

00:35:27.160 then, and he might be a bit out there and on the fringe, but no, he's clearly showing there's more

00:35:31.600 to him than just a rebellious MPP in Ontario. And, you know, to make that leap from there into

00:35:38.820 a federal seat, he's showing the world that he is a rational, good politician. And I think he's

00:35:44.380 positioning his future and he's a young guy. He could be going places. All right. We're going to

00:35:49.580 wrap it up there. But first, we want to thank all of our Western Standard members for your support.

00:35:54.460 God, we've been fortunate with the levels of which you guys have subscribed to memberships

00:35:59.480 of the Western Standard. We're one of the only media left in Canada that refused to accept

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00:36:20.820 check it out westernstandard.news that's the new website westernstandard.news uh check it out

00:36:26.860 click on membership sign up uh we'd be great very grateful for your support but uh i think you're

00:36:32.780 going to like what you get out of it uh we're not asking for charity here we're asking for you to

00:36:36.820 support bailout free western journalism uh guys i enjoyed it thank you yeah cory cory held it in so

00:36:43.700 It's all good.

00:36:44.880 Oh, God.

00:36:45.560 I'll drop it in the newsroom.

00:36:46.840 Oh, jeez.

00:36:47.600 I'm not in my office, though.

00:36:49.100 You're not on the air, guys.

00:36:50.880 Jeez.

00:36:51.780 Okay.

00:36:53.060 Dave and Corey, thanks.

00:36:56.000 You're not invited next time.

00:36:57.360 Goodbye, everyone.

00:37:13.700 Thank you.

Western Standard - May 12, 2022

The Pipeline： Voting deadline arrives with UCP leadership review

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