Western Standard - The Rest versus the West

00:00:00.000 good day i'm derek phildebrand publisher of the west

00:00:29.980 Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline today on January 15th, 2025.

00:00:35.280 I actually wrote 2024, just out of habit, still on my little notepad here.

00:00:41.180 I'm...

00:00:41.700 Got to move with the times, Derek.

00:00:43.000 We do.

00:00:43.860 They're changing.

00:00:45.580 I'm joined, as usual, by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:50.180 Always moving with the times.

00:00:51.740 Indeed.

00:00:52.740 Corey is not with us right now.

00:00:55.160 He's somewhere warmer than Calgary.

00:00:56.980 So we've gone to somewhere a little warmer than Calgary, although it's pretty nice right now.

00:01:01.420 But joining us today remotely from Vancouver is Western Standard Bureau Chief Jared Yager, also Managing Editor of West Coast Standard.

00:01:12.900 Thanks for joining us, Jared.

00:01:15.120 Nice to be here.

00:01:17.260 All right.

00:01:17.700 Well, before we get started, though, I want to thank our sponsor.

00:01:22.460 This episode of The Pipeline is sponsored by New World Precious Metals based right here in Alberta.

00:01:29.800 Years of inflationary money printing and rising debt have decimated the average Canadian's savings.

00:01:36.440 Gold and silver are the only currencies that have held their value for thousands of years.

00:01:41.400 Last year saw 30% gains.

00:01:43.300 New World Precious Metals offers unique platforms that help to protect and grow your hard-earned wealth with gold and silver.

00:01:49.360 So check them out at newworldpm.com.

00:01:52.400 That's newworldpm.com.

00:01:55.500 Okay, well, we're going to be, the main theme today is the rest versus the West.

00:02:04.900 The plan that is currently developing right now, kind of as we speak today, of Canada's retaliation in the very near trade war that is coming up when Donald Trump is sworn in as, again, president of the United States.

00:02:25.640 the retaliatory, what is Canada's retaliation going to be, and most of that tends to revolve

00:02:34.840 around making Alberta pay, and to some extent Saskatchewan pay, the burden of that retaliation.

00:02:40.800 We're going to be talking about that. We'll also be talking about the poison chalice that is the

00:02:44.880 Liberal Party's leadership race. Can anything stop Mark Carney? Will it even be a race? Who knows?

00:02:54.400 As liberals are in a bit of a crisis, they might just decide to coronate someone like they did with Michael Ignatio.

00:03:00.420 They're going to Michael Ignatio, Mark Carney.

00:03:03.620 All right.

00:03:04.300 So we're going to start with our main story right now.

00:03:08.500 Today, the premiers and the prime minister met.

00:03:12.240 It might actually be the first time that Justin Trudeau's actually met with all the premiers.

00:03:16.640 He's generally avoided doing so.

00:03:18.560 If he has done it, it's been a long time.

00:03:20.280 Probably made it a little easier that two of them, including Danielle Smith, came in over Zoom. 0.99

00:03:27.680 The close proximity wasn't quite so unnerving.

00:03:30.940 Yeah, it wasn't quite as awkward in the room. 0.95

00:03:33.660 You know, Canadians tend to be, we can be real jerks online, but face-to-face we tend to be a bit more polite. 0.53

00:03:39.200 But the relationship between Justin Trudeau and Danielle Smith is awkward, to say the least. 0.95

00:03:47.220 So, yeah, probably made it a bit easier that she was there via Zoom or however she was attending.

00:03:52.520 But, you know, this all opened up earlier today with Doug Ford.

00:03:56.700 You know, let's put a picture of Doug Ford. I'm wearing this hat.

00:04:00.280 His Canada's not for sale hat. Kind of a Trumpian.

00:04:04.760 I hate how it says, oh, that's being Trumpian. That's like Trump.

00:04:07.700 But I mean, he was boring the baseball cap political visible messaging thing.

00:04:11.760 So, you know, somewhat pioneered by or made famous by Donald Trump.

00:04:18.860 I actually would like to know where that hat was made, because he was loviating towards the end of the press conference about how we've got to get things made in Canada.

00:04:28.420 Where was that hat made?

00:04:30.300 You know what? Right now, I know one of our reporters is watching.

00:04:34.020 She should make a note of that.

00:04:35.320 I want to know where Doug Ford's hat was made.

00:04:38.840 they don't tend to make things like that in Canada and Ontario. The hat itself is likely

00:04:46.200 made overseas. The printing of it, maybe the printing of the messaging on the hat was done

00:04:51.320 in Canada, but I'm highly doubtful that that hat is made in Canada because it makes no economic

00:04:56.920 sense for us to actually make these things here anymore. But that's a very, very good point that

00:05:01.400 I know someone behind the camera here has just taken very wise note of. But okay, so back to it.

00:05:07.880 The real big issue right now is Canada does have to retaliate.

00:05:16.680 You know, Trump puts in tariffs.

00:05:18.320 We're going to have to do something back because it's not just some bad policies we have like border security, et cetera, anymore.

00:05:25.120 It's he.

00:05:27.000 He wants tariffs.

00:05:28.180 And so we're going to have to retaliate.

00:05:29.400 That much, I think, is pretty clear.

00:05:30.900 The problem is that if you really want to hit the Americans where it hurts, there's one pretty clear answer how to do that.

00:05:39.260 And that is Alberta and to a lesser extent, Saskatchewan oil.

00:05:43.460 The trade deficit that Donald Trump talks about doesn't really exist.

00:05:46.980 I don't think he's gone into the numbers here.

00:05:49.960 If you removed oil exports to the United States, the United States is actually in a huge trade surplus with Canada.

00:05:55.820 Canadians, if you exclude oil and gas, Canadians buy significantly more from the United States than the United States buys from Canada.

00:06:03.080 But we export a huge amount of oil to the United States, which is why there's technically a trade deficit.

00:06:08.280 But the United States, because they're our only real customer and Ottawa for decades has been less than helpful in getting pipelines built across Canada and to the coasts, we have to sell our oil at a huge discount.

00:06:21.700 So the Americans buy it dirt cheap, and then they get to refine it and upgrade it and add value to it for themselves and for export.

00:06:28.460 It's a good deal for America. 0.92

00:06:31.220 And if you want to hit America, there really is the obvious thing to do is you put an exit tax on Alberta oil or you refuse to pump Alberta oil.

00:06:44.780 Now, that latter option of turning off the tap to America, that's all bluster. 0.56

00:06:50.000 because if you look at the map, actually, let's put that map up on the screen, that map shows that

00:06:56.080 to get Alberta oil to eastern Canada, it has to go through the United States first. Now, if only

00:07:03.040 someone had proposed some kind of energy ease pipeline that would bypass the United States to

00:07:07.360 get there. So that option's off the table. But what's really being talked about right now, Nigel,

00:07:12.080 is probably an exit tax on Alberta oil to hurt the United States. But that would be really making

00:07:19.280 human shields, economic human shields, out of Alberta and Saskatchewan to protect the

00:07:25.300 manufacturing that's being hit by tariffs in Ontario and Quebec.

00:07:29.080 Well, that is, you know, that is such an obvious, easy hit.

00:07:32.100 It just happens to be that if it is applied, then it's Alberta, Saskatchewan that pay the

00:07:37.240 price.

00:07:38.520 And the way the auto industry runs in eastern Canada, the chassis of any given vehicle

00:07:46.680 goes backwards and forwards across the line several times.

00:07:50.600 The engine goes in here, the back axle goes in there,

00:07:53.440 it goes over here to be painted,

00:07:55.080 back and forth across the border at Windsor-Detroit.

00:07:59.920 So just the accounting would be a nightmare.

00:08:02.500 But more to the point, if you actually try to put a stop to that,

00:08:05.920 say, no, we're not going to do it anymore.

00:08:08.980 First of all, it's Ontario that gets hit,

00:08:11.820 which in the Canadian pantheon of priorities

00:08:15.000 is just the worst possible outcome.

00:08:19.160 And secondly, you're going to get a very fast and immediate response

00:08:22.880 from the United States, policy decision to move the entire

00:08:26.280 auto manufacturing enterprise over the border to Detroit, Michigan.

00:08:33.080 They'd be very glad to do that, actually.

00:08:35.360 So that's probably not going to happen in any practical way.

00:08:39.420 The thing with turning off the Alberta oil is that not only is the effect immediate,

00:08:45.000 it is also a particular type of oil that their refineries are set up to crack.

00:08:53.240 And, you know, you can get it from Venezuela, I guess,

00:08:57.500 but nobody really wants to deal with Venezuela.

00:09:00.060 And it still takes a little time to turn the ship around.

00:09:03.660 So the immediate impact of turning off the taps to the United States

00:09:08.740 is an extremely attractive option for those who want to make a fist.

00:09:13.300 and get into a serious trade war with the United States.

00:09:19.480 Problem is, it's very localized in its effect.

00:09:23.900 Notwithstanding all the talk, we heard about 20 minutes ago

00:09:26.940 about how the effects of any trade war are going to be shared around

00:09:31.400 and it's all going to be very fair and equitable.

00:09:34.040 You know darn well it's not going to be fair and equitable.

00:09:36.400 It's going to be at Alberta's expense.

00:09:38.440 And that's why I think the Premier is so concerned,

00:09:41.500 and she should be so concerned,

00:09:42.820 And so should every Albertan who has hopes of doing well in this part of the world.

00:09:48.600 Jared, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has taken, has got some options on the table.

00:09:58.880 And, you know, I was noodling this around actually with Nigel about some of the actions we could take.

00:10:05.140 And all of them were pretty radical things that we would have to do to retaliate against Ottawa.

00:10:10.960 Because, you know, I shouldn't think I was going to say at this point, but actually, historically, Ottawa has been a more hostile foreign power to us than the United States.

00:10:19.700 The United States actually tends to take our products and happy for us to make money.

00:10:23.440 Ottawa, historically, much less consistently so.

00:10:29.020 But one of the options she is preparing behind the scenes, according to some reports, and this is quite a genius,

00:10:35.300 is that if Ottawa slaps an exit tax on Alberta oil and Saskatchewan oil going into the United States,

00:10:45.000 that she will circumvent it by the Alberta government actually buying all of the oil

00:10:49.380 and then shipping it to the United States.

00:10:51.760 Because constitutionally, one order of government in Canada cannot tax another.

00:10:56.080 The federal government could tax our oil when it crosses international boundaries.

00:11:00.840 They have that power. It would be extraordinarily unfair and unjust.

00:11:04.500 but they could legally do so.

00:11:06.800 But they couldn't tax Alberta oil going south

00:11:08.940 if it's owned by the government of Alberta.

00:11:13.220 Your thoughts on this is, it's funny,

00:11:16.620 there's the Canadian retaliation to Washington

00:11:19.160 and then the Alberta retaliation against Ottawa.

00:11:22.160 Your thoughts?

00:11:23.540 It's been very interesting to watch

00:11:25.260 and it's nice to see the premiers kind of,

00:11:28.500 you know, take the lead on this

00:11:29.780 because obviously the government in Ottawa

00:11:32.060 is almost leaderless.

00:11:33.240 And I mean, he's there, but, you know, we know that it's the premiers who are going to be pushing the solutions.

00:11:41.600 And we've seen in in British Columbia, Premier Eby, he's pushed back pretty hard against Trump's claim that, you know, there's nothing in Canada that the U.S. needs.

00:11:50.980 For example, yesterday, he he proposed maybe cutting off supply of rare minerals that the U.S. needs for night vision goggles and other electronics.

00:12:00.780 And the thing with these minerals is you can only find them in B.C. or in China.

00:12:06.980 And the U.S. has said they're not going to do that business with China.

00:12:11.040 So it's pretty much Canada or nothing.

00:12:15.160 Yeah.

00:12:15.660 So, you know, rare minerals is, I mean, it's far down after oil.

00:12:20.620 But rare minerals is one of the major strategic ways that Canada could hit back against these tariffs.

00:12:26.660 and that would disproportionately hurt British Columbia

00:12:31.760 although as a proportion of its economy

00:12:35.840 rare minerals are pretty small fish

00:12:38.640 compared to oil relative to Alberta's economy

00:12:41.680 but it is significant and it is a way to punch back

00:12:44.260 Nigel I can see, so you were alluding to

00:12:48.160 the press conference held at the end of the first minister's meeting

00:12:52.140 today

00:12:52.920 Yes. Where they said, you know, the burden will be shared. So if, you know, if one part of the country is disproportionately affected by retaliatory measures against the United States's tariffs, then we're going to have to find a way to join together, help each other.

00:13:06.980 That was pretty ill-defined. But let's say for sake of argument, you know, the federal government decides, okay, we're going to cut off rare minerals to the United States as a part of this retaliation.

00:13:22.260 Okay. The federal government could theoretically then step into those companies and say, we're going to make you whole.

00:13:29.260 well, how much were you making per month before this?

00:13:32.220 And we're just going to pay you that in the meantime.

00:13:34.940 And the B.C. government, oh, okay, how much were you making?

00:13:37.260 Nobody loses their job.

00:13:38.940 Yeah, everyone, you're just going to get furloughed.

00:13:40.760 Everyone stays at home and gets paid.

00:13:42.780 And the B.C. government, we're going to make you whole on the royalties that you would otherwise get from it.

00:13:49.020 Okay, well, you could, it would be very expensive to do that, even just for rare earth minerals.

00:13:54.540 But there is no way in hell Ottawa could make things whole to Alberta and Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, but particularly Alberta.

00:14:05.380 It's such a gargantuan amount of money.

00:14:07.780 We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars USD a year.

00:14:14.160 You know, for the federal, like Trudeau's already doubled the size of the federal debt in his time in office.

00:14:18.880 The deficit is wildly out of control.

00:14:21.640 It's not going to be very long till creditors start getting pretty itchy around our balance sheet.

00:14:26.680 We simply don't have the physical capacity for Ottawa to step in and say, OK, well, we're going to cut off Alberta's oil to the United States, but we're going to make Alberta oil companies whole.

00:14:38.340 Essentially, we're just going to give you money for not producing and we're going to make the Alberta government whole for the royalties that's missing.

00:14:45.400 Even if they even if Ottawa wanted to be that generous to us, they simply couldn't.

00:14:50.720 don't have the money it's not it's simply not physically possible you know that that's so true

00:14:55.920 and it was actually frustrating to listen to that particular press conference and realize that all

00:15:03.840 this is based upon borrowing money there is there is not the money to pay for it the only way to do

00:15:13.920 what ottola is talking about or more particularly what mr trudeau is talking about is to

00:15:20.720 borrow money. Well, they have borrowed, what, $700 billion in the past 10 years. They've

00:15:27.300 given it out as CERB. They've given it out in so many different directions.

00:15:30.700 And add to that, most of the Harper government was also under deficit as well. Some of them

00:15:34.760 pretty significant. They got to a balanced budget at the very end of it, but essentially

00:15:39.160 one balanced budget in 20 years almost here.

00:15:41.420 Oh, no, no, no. It was better than that. It's considerably better than that. What actually

00:15:44.740 have they had?

00:15:45.760 We were in deficit from 2008 until the very end of the Harper government.

00:15:48.720 Well, which is 2014, so 2015 was the end.

00:15:52.180 But, I mean, don't forget, we had the Great Recession in 2008.

00:15:57.760 Regardless of cause, though, Canada's been boring money for 20 years.

00:16:01.260 Yeah, but not at that rate.

00:16:02.520 No, it's massively accelerated under Trudeau.

00:16:05.140 But we have not been paying down our debt for 20 years.

00:16:09.460 I'm going from memory here, Derek, but it seems to me that the Harvard government put on about $65 billion in debt

00:16:16.720 over a period of 2008 to 2014.

00:16:20.680 Trudeau was not in a year, I know.

00:16:22.260 And that was just last year's over.

00:16:25.360 I know you're defending the record of the Harper's Department here.

00:16:27.740 Of course I am. As a matter of fact,

00:16:28.540 what I'm saying is Canada has not been balancing its budget

00:16:33.200 or significantly paying down its debt for 20 years.

00:16:37.200 Let's say that Mr. Trudeau has not been paying down the debt for 10 years.

00:16:42.800 This is not the topic of what we're talking about today,

00:16:45.040 But Stephen Harper borrowed much more money than he paid down on the debt.

00:16:48.160 And he was overall a fairly reasonable and responsible physical manager.

00:16:51.940 But he borrowed much more than he paid down on the debt.

00:16:54.660 And that's just arithmetic.

00:16:57.160 And so?

00:16:58.040 What I'm saying is Canada has not been running balanced budgets for 20 years.

00:17:02.180 The last 10 of those 20 years, we have borrowed incredibly recklessly with total abandon and out even the pretense of getting back to a balanced budget at some point.

00:17:11.620 So we are not in any position now to open up the spigots again on a scale that would be even greater than the borrowing that took place under COVID.

00:17:19.020 We have not been responsible for a long period of time here, and we simply don't have the fiscal capacity to spend like this, even if we thought it was a good idea.

00:17:27.720 Actually, I have to go back to the 60s before the last century before you get to the sequence of balanced budgets.

00:17:34.920 No, 1990s.

00:17:36.280 Well, Mr. Trudeau, how much do you want to know about the history of the national debt?

00:17:41.220 We're not, I know that's pretty inside and out, Nigel, but we're not debating the last time we've been, this is not a well-run country.

00:17:50.480 No, and we simply don't have the capacity to borrow like this.

00:17:53.660 I agree.

00:17:54.860 We've already maxed out the credit card, and now we're talking about taking on new credit cards.

00:17:59.940 That's exactly what they're talking about.

00:18:02.080 They're not saying it, but that's what they're talking about.

00:18:06.340 Jared, what was your impression from David Eby with the first minister's meeting today?

00:18:11.220 I thought he made some good points look pretty strong. But I think like you guys are pointing out, like, you know, rare minerals in BC, that's, that's small fish compared to, you know, oil in Alberta and everything that Ontario has to offer. So I think when it comes down to it, it's going to be Alberta and Ontario, that we see the most, the most action coming out of this.

00:18:33.560 um so let's talk about some of the things

00:18:39.200 Canada might just put in place a 25 percent uh tariff against the United States I think that's

00:18:48.240 probably the main given is okay they do 25 against us we're gonna do 25 against them 0.99

00:18:53.140 you know I actually can live with that uh I mean it's bad we shouldn't these trade wars are stupid 0.98

00:18:59.340 to begin with, shouldn't be in it. Trump might be good for the United States, but this action's not 0.94

00:19:06.440 good for us, obviously. But he's not the president of Canada. He is the incoming president of the

00:19:10.480 United States, and they're all about America first. So, fine. I can live with a 25% tariff

00:19:17.560 on American goods coming into Canada as a retaliation until we can finally come to some

00:19:22.620 resolution hopefully one day but the problem is that we're we're the mosquito

00:19:29.520 getting shot with a cannon we simply cannot retaliate our 25% tariff against

00:19:34.980 them will annoy them it will hurt them a bit but their tariff against us will

00:19:42.060 kill us it'll absolutely devastate Canada which is why Ontario Quebec and

00:19:48.420 and by extension Ottawa are looking at more targeted measures in addition to a blanket tariff

00:19:55.060 and that is Alberta energy um this sorry and Saskatchewan um I don't know uh Nigel

00:20:07.140 what's the fight back strategy for this because uh you know the left-wing media uh subsidized by

00:20:13.060 Ottawa has been pretty, they've been saying some nasty things about Danielle Smith. The Toronto Star

00:20:20.100 just last night said, Danielle Smith is essentially a traitor. 1.00

00:20:25.380 You know, Alberta oil is responsible for the fire in Los Angeles. And if Alberta really wants to

00:20:31.540 keep on increasing its oil production, maybe it should just join the United States. Now that's

00:20:35.700 That Toronto Star article by Gillian Stewart is probably the outer reach of the craziness coming from the legacy media here.

00:20:45.700 But the tone has been that Alberta's not playing on Team Canada.

00:20:49.800 Alberta's being selfish here. 1.00

00:20:51.980 And that was echoed by Doug Ford a bit more diplomatically.

00:20:55.700 But he echoed it himself at the opening of the First Minister's meeting today that the provinces need to put their own interests aside.

00:21:01.860 It's about Canada first. 0.71

00:21:03.660 Well, it's about the country first.

00:21:05.700 Well, the problem is when the premiers of Ontario and Quebec or the Prime Minister of Canada speak,

00:21:10.700 normally they're talking about Ontario and Quebec first and the outlying hinterlands of the country.

00:21:16.700 Well, they just need to take one for the team.

00:21:19.700 Where were they when we were being attacked by the federal government?

00:21:26.700 I mean, look, in the end, I suppose it's what's going to happen.

00:21:30.700 But let's not pretend that it's what ought to happen or that it is fair.

00:21:35.700 In 2015, 2016, Alberta lost more than 100,000 jobs from the energy sector as a consequence of actions dictated in eastern Canada.

00:21:50.300 It's the Liberal government that was the executor, but because they pursued the policies that they did,

00:21:57.920 many head offices from international oil companies went back to where they came from.

00:22:03.300 investment was cut off

00:22:05.740 something like

00:22:08.160 80 billion dollars worth of

00:22:09.800 projects were cancelled in one year alone

00:22:11.940 I forget what the final

00:22:13.880 figure was

00:22:14.860 but it was an absolutely

00:22:17.600 massive

00:22:18.940 depreciation of industry

00:22:21.900 here in Alberta

00:22:23.320 and the point is

00:22:25.200 I would like you to think about

00:22:27.040 is where were

00:22:29.000 the eastern premiers

00:22:30.860 at that time

00:22:32.180 when alberta was suffering did anybody raise their voice and say actually having a pipeline

00:22:39.080 to eastern canada would be a good idea mr trudeau maybe you shouldn't be doing what you're doing

00:22:44.580 did anybody in quebec say actually you know it makes a great idea to bring oil here and we can

00:22:49.540 that can be refined in new brunswick no they put a they put a block on taking a an alberta pipeline

00:22:56.040 across Quebec. So there's a lot of one-sidedness on this, and if Albertans are mad about it,

00:23:03.500 I don't blame them. Jared, you know, this is a, I just thought of another fun twist

00:23:10.180 to the pipeline saga. You know, so let's put the map up again of the pipelines

00:23:16.300 across North America. So, you know, obviously the premiers of Ontario and Quebec and Justin Trudeau

00:23:24.340 are toying with the idea of turning off the taps of Alberta's oil and Saskatchewan's oil going to

00:23:30.780 the United States. Look at the map. They literally can't do it. And so I'm in a really weird way,

00:23:37.640 kind of grateful that Energy East wasn't built, that they can't turn it off. Now, if they turned

00:23:44.880 it off, I think it would behoove Daniel Smith to turn off the oil pipelines to eastern Canada

00:23:51.180 anyway. So Energy East might not have saved it anyway. But look on the West Coast. This is where

00:23:57.500 I'm coming to you in a second, Jared, is, you know, there was a lot of opposition to the Northern

00:24:02.780 Gateway pipeline going to the West Coast. Saskatchewan is the only non-major oil producing

00:24:11.380 province that could end up with Alberta oil, theoretically, to keep its cars running, to keep

00:24:16.460 its houses warm, to keep any number of products still functioning. And there was sizable opposition

00:24:25.120 to the Northwest, to the Northern Gateway pipeline. But all of a sudden, British Columbia

00:24:30.140 has got to be looking at that pipeline right now, Jared, thinking, huh, kind of glad we have that now.

00:24:39.780 Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. And, you know, this whole saga, it makes me think, you know,

00:24:44.780 how are the other provinces going to think about Alberta oil going forward?

00:24:51.140 Might it change how they interact with the province?

00:24:54.120 And might we see some more of these projects being built?

00:24:58.960 Only time will tell.

00:25:00.500 But yeah, it's really putting things in perspective for the other premiers right now. 0.99

00:25:06.560 Before we move on, I want to come back to that beautifully idiotic column 0.99

00:25:12.380 from Gillian Stewart in the Toronto Star. 0.99

00:25:14.780 She is the local viceroy representing Toronto.

00:25:22.020 Oh, sorry, I was referring to Trans Mountain.

00:25:25.940 Not Northern Gateway, I was referring to Trans Mountain.

00:25:27.880 Sorry, yes, I was referring to the Trans Mountain pipeline earlier. 0.99

00:25:30.740 So I want to come back to that beautifully idiotic column from Jillian Stewart. 0.93

00:25:34.760 But in it, she, you know, she criticized, you know, she blamed the L.A. fire on Alberta oil and Danielle Smith and conservatives, you know, you know, you know, the narrative. 0.97

00:25:52.580 But then, you know, said, you know, criticized Danielle Smith and Alberta's government for wanting to double oil production.

00:25:58.560 How dare we try to actually make money without government subsidies in Alberta?

00:26:03.480 That's such an Albertan thing to do.

00:26:04.860 It should be more like Ontario and build government-subsidized EV batteries for cars that absolutely no one wants to buy anymore.

00:26:12.740 But said, you know, if Alberta really wants to double its production, maybe it should just become the 51st state and join the United States and leave Canada.

00:26:22.600 And it's just things that make you go, hmm.

00:26:28.560 Like, think that through, Toronto Star.

00:26:32.520 What would happen to Canada if Alberta's hook you up on the offer? 1.00

00:26:38.420 I'm pretty sure Donald Trump would jump at it in a nanosecond.

00:26:43.360 It's like, oh, actually better than Canada would be just taking Alberta.

00:26:46.020 Let's get all the oil. 0.62

00:26:46.840 Let's get the wealthiest province of Canada.

00:26:49.540 It would turn British Columbia into a northern East Prussia exclave.

00:26:54.540 and it would bankrupt Canada overnight. 1.00

00:27:00.320 It's almost hard to respond to something this idiotic, Nigel, 1.00

00:27:03.660 but it's for fun. 1.00

00:27:06.040 Your thoughts on the Toronto Star here?

00:27:07.880 Well, if we're just talking about having fun,

00:27:10.920 we've got some municipal elections coming up.

00:27:13.460 Let's put it on the ballot.

00:27:15.220 All across Alberta, do you want to be part of America?

00:27:18.780 I think the issue will have been long resolved by then,

00:27:21.380 but as long as we're just talking about having fun,

00:27:24.540 and also as while we're talking about having fun i think jillian stewart made her made her

00:27:32.620 political orientation very clear back in the days when she was she was managing editor of the calgary

00:27:38.380 herald before conrad black bought the paper back in 1997-98 and those were the days when

00:27:47.020 you had a very left-wing newspaper serving what was then very right-wing city so

00:27:51.900 don't take her too seriously to be fair she probably doesn't take me that seriously but 1.00

00:27:59.500 you know i don't think albert is taking her very seriously she is the stupid column okay that's 0.98

00:28:04.860 what we're really saying here it was a she is the voice of the toronto star in the outpost of 0.99

00:28:09.180 alberta to try and equate alberto oil with wildfires in california is just you know yeah i just like

00:28:19.020 i'd like her to just walk through the thought experiment let's take you up on that toronto 0.99

00:28:23.020 star uh yeah okay you don't want our oil and us in it uh let's just see how that works out for you

00:28:30.140 okay all right we're gonna switch now uh to our our next headline here um the liberal leadership

00:28:39.980 race such as it is um i guess there are technically two declared candidates

00:28:46.620 one of which I've barely

00:28:49.280 heard of, the other of which I have

00:28:51.160 never heard of

00:28:52.960 there's Gould, what's her

00:28:55.180 first name? Karina

00:28:56.160 Karina

00:28:56.860 I've almost never heard of her

00:29:03.360 she is the house leader for the

00:29:05.260 liberals in the house of commons

00:29:06.580 and is essentially the person who kind of quarterbacks

00:29:08.740 question period, organizes things on the ground

00:29:10.380 it's a big deal in the house of commons

00:29:13.920 but people outside of a legislature

00:29:15.800 you have no idea who a house leader is. She's got 0.0 national profile. I don't know a thing 1.00

00:29:21.600 about her other than that she's a liberal and an MP and their house leader. Next, we can disregard

00:29:27.080 her. Not a serious contender. The other one, I can't even name him. He is a deep backbench MP

00:29:35.020 from Ottawa representing Nepean on the west side of the city. He was asked on the CBC,

00:29:42.080 do you speak French? He says no. But if you listen to him, he also barely speaks English.

00:29:48.580 He's an immigrant to Canada, which is fine, but he's not actually been in Canada all that long

00:29:53.540 to be running for prime minister. But he's a citizen, so he legally can. But, you know,

00:29:59.260 you should probably speak at least one official language fairly proficiently. Although some

00:30:03.000 people said that about Jean Chrétien, that he spoke neither well. But disregard those two.

00:30:08.620 The race now with Christy Clark's kind of disastrous soft launch where she ended up lying about her history with membership in the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.

00:30:19.720 She crashed and burned real fast, so it never got off the ground. 0.72

00:30:23.460 All eyes are really just on two names, Christy Freeland and Mark Carney.

00:30:30.220 um let's uh so mark carney is going to be uh launching his campaign uh probably within 24

00:30:39.140 hours or so uh but he soft launched his campaign all but saying you know when a politician says

00:30:44.520 well stand by i'll have an announcement soon you know you know that thing he did that on

00:30:48.940 with john stewart on the daily show uh just the other night uh let's roll a small clip from that

00:30:53.760 let's say the candidate wasn't part of the government let's say the candidate did have

00:31:00.880 a lot of economic experience let's say the candidate did deal with crises let's say the

00:31:06.020 candidate had a plan to deal with the challenges in the here and now you sneaky you're running as

00:31:11.720 an outsider i am an outsider okay so we showed you one short clip uh the whole thing was 20 odd

00:31:20.020 minutes long. So I don't want to take anything out of context

00:31:23.200 here. I don't think we are. I'd say he was actually a fairly

00:31:27.580 smooth interviewer. It was boring, but he didn't have the

00:31:31.840 back five fingers yet, the punchable face that Justin

00:31:35.180 Trudeau had, he has that going for him. He does not have a

00:31:38.000 punchable face, which is some, you know, the next liberal

00:31:42.100 leader, the liberals would be smart to punch a leader without 0.98

00:31:44.440 one. But to choose a leader without one from Freudian

00:31:49.900 slip. Yeah, you're thinking in German and speaking in English. It can happen there.

00:31:55.580 But it was overall, I think, reasonably well. If we're trying not to be partisan here,

00:32:03.940 it was a fine interview. But that part there, Jon Stewart doesn't know the intricacy of

00:32:10.780 Canadian politics, so I can forgive him for it. But not calling him out when he says,

00:32:17.140 I'm an outsider. Nigel, you've got a piece on this. Tell us just how much of an outsider Mark

00:32:24.200 Carney is. Well, he's not an outsider at all. He's a conservative insider. Look,

00:32:29.120 he has been a bank governor, not only in Canada, but in Great Britain. He is a member and associates

00:32:37.580 with about five international organizations, all of which share a common view of something that

00:32:45.240 Mr. Carney is deeply interested in, which is, of course, is climate change and cutting production of carbon to apparently to ameliorate that.

00:32:55.460 So he's in with the World Economic Forum. He's in with the Bloomberg group. He's in with the Chatham House.

00:33:02.860 There's a list. Read my column. They're all listed there. And these are where the great or the Bilderberg is. That's the other one.

00:33:10.400 And the UN special envoy. And he's the UN special envoy on climate change.

00:33:15.240 so you know he's about as in as he can be with that but in addition he has also been

00:33:23.400 special advisor to the prime minister from at the time of covet so if you don't like what was done

00:33:31.160 during the covet era you probably have to ask wonder or be suspicious of because it's never

00:33:38.120 been fully revealed what was the influence of mark carney when the federal government

00:33:43.880 was making regulations to control the spread of COVID.

00:33:52.240 And then since, I think, was it about April of last year,

00:33:56.260 he has been back as a special advisor.

00:33:59.540 This is not a guy who gets his phone calls returned.

00:34:04.180 This is a guy that the federal government phones

00:34:07.620 when they want to know what to do.

00:34:09.480 So that's the relationship.

00:34:10.920 And I think Michelle Rempel-Garner put it beautifully when she said in, I think it was a Substack article that she wrote, I know I stole the line and I thank you very much for it, Michelle, if you're watching, but he's not in the club, he runs the club.

00:34:29.840 So he is not an outsider, he's the shoe-in boy. 0.84

00:34:35.040 Before we go to the other major likely contender for the leadership, Chrystia Freeland, I'm going to go to you, Jared, for the major third candidate who is no longer the third major likely candidate.

00:34:53.760 For some time, Christy Clark, former BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark, has been trying to pave the way, putting up the flag.

00:35:03.760 She's been putting up the flag for like a year or so, as it became clear to anyone whose name is not Justin Trudeau, that Justin Trudeau should probably not lead the Liberals into the next election.

00:35:13.140 She's been putting up the flag saying, well, keep me in mind, folks.

00:35:17.120 You know, I'm here, you know.

00:35:20.380 And she was very much gearing up for a run.

00:35:22.740 She was organized.

00:35:23.540 She had gotten her donors behind her. 1.00

00:35:25.180 She had assembled her campaign team.

00:35:27.000 And then she went on the CBC and, you know, every once in a while, CBC does its job.

00:35:32.400 And they did their job there.

00:35:33.760 They had receipts for her claims that she's a lifelong liberal and never been a member of the Conservative Party.

00:35:41.200 And for those not in British Columbia, the term liberal is a nebulous and confusing term.

00:35:46.960 Yes, it means liberal, but it also used to also mean some Conservatives as well.

00:35:53.020 Not NDP.

00:35:53.940 In B.C. on the provincial level, it meant not full NDP.

00:35:58.080 Jared, why don't you just give us, just kind of lay it out beyond what I've done here about Christy Clark's plan to run.

00:36:11.320 I think it would have been safe to say she would have been a credible and major contender for the leadership.

00:36:15.780 She could have won. Possibly would have been their best bet. 0.99

00:36:19.300 She's probably the least far left of them. 0.99

00:36:21.240 but lay out where her campaign was going

00:36:25.520 and how it was so disastrously went off the rails

00:36:28.360 and essentially crumbled in the span of five minutes.

00:36:31.600 So, yeah, like you were saying,

00:36:33.020 she was doing a great job for the past year or so,

00:36:35.880 putting out some good messages,

00:36:37.220 and especially on Twitter,

00:36:38.240 she was acting as if she was going to be running,

00:36:41.600 even before there was a leadership race announced.

00:36:44.420 But then, like you said, in a span of 10 minutes,

00:36:48.840 she kind of burnt it all to the ground,

00:36:50.700 and it was completely unnecessary too if she had said yeah you know I was a member of the party

00:36:55.620 back then but now you know that's behind me now I'm ready to lead the liberals I think people

00:37:02.720 would have forgiven her but after after coming out and a week before like the day of Trudeau's

00:37:09.180 resignation she said on Twitter as a lifelong liberal and then just days later it comes out

00:37:17.180 that she was a member of the Conservative Party back in 2022. Not only that, but she actively

00:37:22.440 endorsed Jean Charest for leadership. Who, who, let's just, sorry to interrupt, but just for

00:37:28.800 context here, she took out a Conservative Party membership to support the former Liberal Premier

00:37:35.440 of Quebec to become the federal Conservative leader. It's all very incestuous between

00:37:41.580 federal conservatives and provincial liberals it's all pretty messy yeah yeah and i don't know

00:37:49.480 what she was hoping to achieve when she went on the cbc and just outright lied because she knew

00:37:55.340 you could tell she knew because she was asked you know have you ever been a member of the

00:38:00.120 conservative party and she just outright said oh never never and in today's day and age you know

00:38:06.120 all the records are there and within minutes the conservative party had all the information sent

00:38:10.940 it to the cbc yeah and that was that she tried to apologize she went on twitter saying i misspoke

00:38:16.940 it's like no you lied yes sometimes we misspeak uh yeah i misspeak probably uh you know i my fair

00:38:25.980 share of times like old mccarthy isn't it how yeah are you now or have you ever been a member

00:38:31.260 of the conservative well i mean i mean it's a fair question um it was a big issue against jean

00:38:36.300 Charest that he used to be the liberal premier of Quebec, and many conservatives didn't want a

00:38:41.560 liberal leader of the Conservative Party. He was a conservative before that. Progressive

00:38:46.420 conservative, yeah. So it's a fair, it's, you know, from in the, I'm not one, but, you know,

00:38:53.200 spoiler, but it's fair for liberals to say, oh, well, we don't want a conservative as the liberal

00:38:58.380 leader. Okay. But also, you know, she could have explained it away. Yeah, well, I was voting for

00:39:03.400 a liberal to become the conservative leader that's why I took a conservative party membership

00:39:07.320 and it was unnecessary you know it could have been very reasonably explained away

00:39:12.100 but you know you know who had the proof not her political allies the conservative party of Canada

00:39:19.040 had that you know Jenny Byrne uh you know essentially uh the woman who uh you know the

00:39:25.400 right-hand woman of Pierre Polyev she she has the receipt she put it out and that just cooked

00:39:30.260 Christy Clark. She blamed it on, no, she said her reason for running is, oh, there's just not enough

00:39:35.520 time to run. I mean, it's a short race, very short race, granted. But also, you know, my French just

00:39:40.800 isn't good enough. Are you buying the French excuse there, Jared? No, not at all. And to contrast

00:39:48.540 what she said with what Chandra Aria said, you know, I think it's a pretty, you know, pretty lame

00:39:57.020 excuse to say, oh, my French just wasn't

00:39:59.080 good enough, when some of the other candidates are

00:40:00.980 just openly declaring that

00:40:02.400 I'm not even going to bother to speak French.

00:40:05.120 To be fair, those candidates have no

00:40:06.940 chance. Christy Park would have

00:40:09.000 been running as a major, actual

00:40:10.840 serious contender. She's not Gould, and she's not 0.96

00:40:13.140 as Paul Wells puts it, that

00:40:16.940 guy.

00:40:19.280 No one knows. It still seemed like a bit of a cop

00:40:21.020 out to me. Yeah, it was obviously a cop

00:40:23.000 out. Alright, well, we're going to turn to

00:40:24.900 our parting shots now. Actually, I don't know,

00:40:26.860 Well, Jared, were you prepared for parting shots of our last final thoughts that have not been mentioned here?

00:40:31.680 I'm going to let you go last so you can think about it if you haven't done your homework.

00:40:35.080 And that might be my fault for not even telling you how you can do this.

00:40:38.320 Nigel, your parting shot.

00:40:39.640 Well, I've just actually mesmerized by this decision to deploy the Black Hawk helicopter on the border.

00:40:47.640 First of all, as you said this morning, it's amazing that the RCMP can round up a couple of helicopters in a week

00:40:53.100 when it takes us 30 years to order a replacement for the Sea King.

00:40:56.860 But beyond that, I mean, this is a true fighting machine.

00:40:59.780 If you go on and look at Blackhawks on YouTube, they're black, they're wide. 0.91

00:41:05.800 There's lots of photographs of them stacked with rocket launchers and machine guns.

00:41:11.220 And I dare say that won't be part of the package on the border.

00:41:14.460 But if you want to really defend the border, they should have some rockets.

00:41:16.680 Well, you know, they've got the hard points to mount them later if needed.

00:41:21.020 I'm just amazed by that choice.

00:41:22.960 But I am impressed by the fact that they got them so quickly.

00:41:25.520 Yeah.

00:41:26.860 All right. I want to point out that some of Trump's trade war is likely to be very positive for Canada.

00:41:33.840 There is some silver lining here. One is he is likely to demand that Canada scrap the Online News Act.

00:41:40.760 You guys, regular watchers and listeners will know how much I and the Western Standard passionately hate this grifting piece of legislation.

00:41:49.320 The idea was not to break up Facebook and Google's monopoly on online advertising, which would be a potentially worthy venture.

00:41:56.780 But it was instead to cash in on their monopolies, take money from Facebook or Meta and Google and give it to lazy, bankrupt Canadian news publishers.

00:42:09.260 Google gave them a little bit of money and Facebook quite rightfully said, this off, we want nothing to do with it, we're going to block the news in Canada.

00:42:18.020 Well, I think it seems likely Trump is going to put that on the agenda as an anti-trade measure that Canada is going to have to get rid of.

00:42:26.740 I think Peer Polly would want to get rid of it anyway, so that's an easy one. 0.92

00:42:29.500 But the really good one is the big cheese.

00:42:32.860 If there is anything crazy about trade and consumers in Canada is that it is damn near illegal for us to get foreign cheese.

00:42:41.360 We have to pay massive, massive tariffs to bring in dairy from anywhere outside of Canada.

00:42:48.020 because of our supply managed Soviet style command and control economy over the dairy sector. 0.95

00:42:55.120 That is some damn low hanging fruit. 0.80

00:42:57.900 So if you're a dairy farmer watching this right now, it's coming to an end. 0.90

00:43:03.460 You're going to have to compete very likely within the next year on a North American market,

00:43:08.760 the protected Canadian supply management Soviet system.

00:43:12.440 I'm going to call it right now.

00:43:14.660 It's going to be one of the first things to die in trade because there is no defense of it.

00:43:19.380 And the people it hurts worse are not American dairy producers who can't send to Canada.

00:43:23.160 It's Canadian consumers.

00:43:24.920 I'm a father with two kids.

00:43:26.500 One of them is very young and drinks over probably a gallon of milk a day.

00:43:30.920 The other one drinks probably a gallon of milk.

00:43:32.280 We go through two to four gallons a day of milk in my house.

00:43:37.980 And the cost racks up pretty high.

00:43:40.940 and I'm doing it to put someone else's kid through college.

00:43:44.620 So the good news of the trade war is going to be the end of the Online News Act

00:43:48.460 and supply management of dairy.

00:43:50.220 It's going to be good for cheese eaters in Canada.

00:43:53.440 Jared, your parting shot.

00:43:55.820 Well, thinking back on it now, I think the implosion of Christy Clark's campaign

00:44:00.640 could be the best thing that happens to the Conservative Party

00:44:03.540 because she was kind of a more moderate boy.

00:44:06.160 She could have led the Liberals in a new direction and maybe gained some more votes. 1.00

00:44:09.520 but now we have what do they call them carbon tax carney and christia christia freeland who has been

00:44:16.440 pretty much tied to trudeau for for the past few years and so when you have those two options it's

00:44:22.820 you know you're going to get less people voting for the liberals than you would have

00:44:27.660 if a more moderate voice had come in so i think with clark out of the race now we're going to see

00:44:35.340 an even bigger conservative win, and in the end, I hope that'll be better for the country.

00:44:43.060 You know what? I'm going to give myself a second little final parting shot here.

00:44:46.640 Just because you mentioned, you know, the conservatives have tried to brand Mark Carney

00:44:50.240 as Carbon Tax Carney. It's a very unimaginative nickname. I feel like Donald Trump would come up

00:44:56.400 with a way better nickname for him. His last name is Carney, like a guy who works at the carnival,

00:45:02.240 you know like scary carnies i'm sorry if any actual carnies are watching unless your name's

00:45:06.940 mark but i mean i i haven't got one yet but i feel like donald trump would have a much better

00:45:11.360 nickname for the you know the circus carny or something like that clown show carny there you

00:45:17.900 go oh look at the donald here uh donald jaeger all right well you know that's you know you're

00:45:25.260 welcome conservative party we're trademarking it right now you're gonna have to pay royalties for

00:45:29.320 using that one. All right, Jared, Nigel, thank you very much for joining. It was a pleasure.

00:45:35.180 And thank all of you for joining us today on The Pipeline. Remember, the Western Standard is

00:45:39.320 one of the very, very few genuinely independent publications left in Canada that refuse to take

00:45:46.080 Justin Trudeau's federal media bailout subsidy with your tax dollars. We need you to support us.

00:45:52.340 To get to support us and to get past the pesky paywall, get all Western Standard content,

00:45:56.780 go to westernstandard.news right now, click on subscribe. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year.

00:46:02.620 You're going to love it. Thank you very much for joining us today. God bless.

00:46:26.780 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - January 16, 2025

The Rest versus the West

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