Trudeau’s War on the Constitution
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Summary
Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford and Senior Alberta Columnist Corey Morgan join host Derek Fildebrandt to discuss Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's latest comments on the need for provinces to do what he wants them to do, and what they should do if they don't.
Transcript
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Good day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching
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the pipeline. Today is April 24th, and we've got a great show coming up for you. I'm joined
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as always by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford. Good to be here. And Western
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Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan. Always thrilled to be here. Yeah, we actually
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screwed up getting the show earlier. We had a great little tent of tent going, but when
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you're just starting over again, you just kind of, you lose the flow. Just can't recreate
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it. It would just lack the magic. Okay, well, we've got a great show. We're going to be
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talking about Trudeau's war on the Constitution. More recently and specifically, his comments
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that if the provinces don't do what he wants them to do, he's just going to go around them
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into their areas of jurisdiction. We're going to be talking about those comments specifically,
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but also putting it in the broader context of his regular attacks on the Constitutional
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Order of Canada, constantly hammering into areas of provincial jurisdiction, areas that have gotten
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him in trouble at the Supreme Court, basic constitutional violations like, I don't know,
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seizing bank accounts without just cause, things like that. We'll also be talking about his
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dangerously weak response to something within his jurisdiction, which is condemning terrorism.
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marches over the last week, right past Parliament Hill, with thousands of people carrying a Hamas
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terrorist insignia, chanting Hamas terrorist slogans, calling for the removal of Jews from Israel,
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brazenly and very clearly praising the rape and murder of Israeli civilians on the October 7th attacks,
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and just the very weak-need response to it, and the even somehow weaker response of Chrystia Freeland.
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We're going to talk about the Global Mail dug something up very interesting, although their response
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to it was a bit odd. Alberta's new review of the province's COVID response. You'll recall the Jason
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Kenney government had a review conducted by doctors that agreed with the Kenney government,
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and no surprise, they agreed with the Kenney government. Well, Smith has appointed
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some doctors who did not agree with the Kenney government, and the media are shocked that these
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people might not agree with what the Kenney government did. And we're going to do an update
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on the NDP leadership race. There was a cutoff for the membership sales for those who could vote in the
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NDP leadership race. It's shaping up much less interesting than I had hoped it was before
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Nenshi. Before Nenshi's entrance, it looked like it could really be anybody's game, but increasingly
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it looks like purple is the new orange. So let's get into it from the top. Trudeau is saying pretty
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clearly if, you know, provinces don't do his bidding, well, he's just going to go around them.
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I'm just going to try and figure out ways to help Canadians directly as necessary. I'd always
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rather work with provinces, but if we have to, I will go around them and be there for Canadians,
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because this economy deserves young Canadians getting the support they need.
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Nigel, do you think he was just maybe getting a little excited about himself or is this something
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he means? Oh, he means it. And I think the interesting takeaway from that one, apart from
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the substance of it, is that it is always in these little unguarded moments when he's away from the
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teleprompter that he reveals what he really thinks. You know, we've got more than a 10-year supply of
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this from the time that in 2013 when he was asked on a, like he was nobody at the time, not even the
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official opposition. That was the NDP. Now he was asked on a women's TV program, what other country
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than Canada did he admire? And he said, China, but it was their ability to get things done.
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Everybody kind of, well, that's a funny thing to say, but he meant it. He actually was...
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And he's not actually wrong. They can actually get things done.
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Well, yeah. Tremendous human cost, but they can actually get something done.
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All of these ghost apartment blocks, I don't know whether they really, they're so great.
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But the point is, he thinks they are. And it was an unusual thing to say, and he said it in a
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casual moment. And then he'll say other things in casual moments. You think, you really think that?
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Well, here is another where he's away from the teleprompter. So, sir, what are you going
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to do? I just go around them. Well, you know what? We have a constitution. We have a set
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of rules. We have custom and procedure. And it is the observation of these things that
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has actually given Canada incredible stamina as a nation over the years. You know, to find
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there's only four countries that you can find that have got a really long, enduring history
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of uninterrupted governmental action. Great Britain, the United States, Iceland, and Canada,
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going back to 1867. Now, sure, there are older countries, but you know, the French are on
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their fifth republic. Germans are on, you're not allowed to call it the fourth right.
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Second, you know, you've got a second republic.
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Second, all right, the second republic. You know, all of this in the last, you know, in
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the time since Canada entered Confederation. So we got something right in 1867, and we've
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been doing it right. And now Mr. Trudeau thinks that we've been doing it wrong, and he can
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do better. He has not proved his case, gentlemen.
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You know, federalism, as we think of it, I think evolved out of the feudal system, because
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feudalism, in a sense, had a lot of the characteristics of feudalism, of federalism, and you think kind
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of the structure of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a feudal relationship, but they were
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still sovereign in their own right, post-Thirty Years' War. But I think Trudeau views federalism
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in the older feudal sense of owing allegiance to. And it's the senior legion's job, merely
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to protect the lower one, the lower one's job, to do the bidding of the higher. Or perhaps
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it's just more that he views the provinces as departments of the federal government that
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are annoyingly elected on their own. But they're simply just elected departments of a greater
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whole. And that's very much not the way it works. There is a queen of Alberta,
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there is a queen of Saskatchewan. It happened to also be the same as the queen of England
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and the queen of Canada. But there are crowns in the real town.
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Yeah. But, Corey, I mean, a father like son here. The father had very, very little respect
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for the provinces. You know, would criticize Joe Clark as trying to be head waiter to the provinces,
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which is probably the nicest thing I've ever said about Joe Clark. But
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I don't know how much he can win here, because he's sparking such backlash. Coming right out of
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this, the Smith government here in Alberta introduced, I forget what they're calling this
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bill, but essentially forbidding municipalities in Alberta, which are constitutionally a part
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of the province, not separate on their own, forbidding them from dealing directly with
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the federal government, because the federal government for decades has tried to come in
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to deal with municipalities directly as a way of circumventing provincial jurisdiction. So
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Trudeau is just creating more and more backlash here, I think making it increasingly difficult
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I mean, Trudeau Sr. had no respect for the provinces, but at least he was smart enough to
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Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Justin Trudeau, I don't think he really understands. We're a
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federation. We're not a unitary form of government. Like, we are built to have a degree of autonomy
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in these provinces. I don't think it's... I don't think he really understands it. So this is just to...
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As far as he's concerned, it's paperwork. It's in the way. And he's got a bit of a... I think he's losing
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it to a degree. A messiah complex. I know what's best, and darn it, I'm gonna get it done. And these
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guys are in the way, and I will do, by hook or by crook, what citizens need of me. It's
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really hitting that point when you... And Nigel said it starts to slip out. We're seeing it slip
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out more and more. He's been in too long. He's been surrounded, almost cloistered by people
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who, you know... Yes, people. He's lost grip on what the role really entails, what the country's
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really built upon. And he doesn't understand what he's doing to this country, because unity
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is more fractured now than it's ever been. He should have understood, after the Supreme
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Court rejected his flagship, Bill C-69, the no pipelines rule. Up until then, you could
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have said, well, he just doesn't get it. He doesn't think about monetary policy. He doesn't
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read his briefings. Okay, you know. But when the court actually turns around and says, no,
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what you did there was unconstitutional, and the best that he's got is come back and say,
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well, you know, we don't care. You know, we think it's constitutional. So he should have
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understood at that point. Now, I think this is just perverse.
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It is. And, you know, he's trying a game, almost. I mean, it's political play. When he
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goes to the municipalities, he's taking the money, and he's trying to play sugar daddy and
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bringing it back, because that's how he's fighting with the provinces. And then as soon
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as the province speaks up, because he's bypassing him, he's trying to portray the premiers as
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being the ogre, say, look, they're preventing me from doing good things. But I think most
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Canadians, and it's showing in the polls, understand Trudeau's dangling money he took
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Well, and it isn't just this most recent case where he openly said, well, the provinces
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don't do what I want. I'm going to go around them. There's been a lot of major constitutional
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court defeats for Trudeau. Now, he's had some wins that I think were dubious judicial
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merit, like on the carbon tax. That's going to get dismantled just to the plain old democratic
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system, not through constitutional protections. But he lost on the plastic straws ban and bans
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on water bottle drink box things, if you can recall that. He lost on the Emergencies Act,
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you know, where it was found pretty clearly to have been done inappropriately, not necessary
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in a violation of basic constitutional rights. So it's, it's not just against the provinces
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where he's been found, let's say, having a rather liberal interpretation of the Constitution.
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But even as it involves going out violating the rights of individual people as well.
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Well, you'd think someone who is the son of the man who's the primary author of the Charter
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of Rights and Freedoms would have some conception of its basic parameters and how it would be
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Well, you would, wouldn't you? But, you know, you just, you just ran through a whole list
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of things. Well, here's a few more. He does not understand the ethics of what a prime minister
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can accept as a gift and what he must refuse on principle. It is unusual to have a prime
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minister reviewed by the ethics commissioner. I think it's five times that the ethics commissioner
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has come into his area and said, well, actually, sir, you know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't
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actually do this. You have the whole scandal surrounding SNC level and were very clearly
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longstanding customs and traditions of how things are done. We're completely overlooked.
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And the man is, I don't know, I still don't have an opinion as to whether he's foolish or whether
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he is ignorant or whether he's actually the smartest one of all of us because he's getting
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what he wants. But certainly there are enough people in the Privy Council office and around him
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in the prime minister's office to say, this you can do, this you can't, sir. And then he says,
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well, we're doing it anyway. Now that is the, that is the, the, the fracture in, in this whole thing.
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He thinks he can do anything if it's in a good cause.
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Well, to a degree he's right. As I said, maybe it's not so much brilliance, but I see it as more
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as a spoiled child, but he's realizing too, that I can do this. I'll face sanction two years from
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now. The Supreme court says, don't do that again. Oh, okay. I mean, there's no consequence.
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There never has been. And also once things gets, it takes a long time for things to get struck down
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in court. This morning I, uh, you know, I was, I was getting something at the coffee shop. Uh,
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I was getting a cold coffee and I just brought a plastic straw from my truck that, you know,
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like this contraband straw I bought on Amazon. Um, and the coffee shop still has paper straws.
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Uh, actually the guy who runs it, he's angry about it, but it's just this unconstitutional
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paper straw law, uh, was imposed on them. And now it's just kind of stuck, even though the laws struck
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down, they've managed to largely get their way. I think the municipality still bans them under Gondek.
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We've got layers and layers to go through. Yeah. Well, because the, the, the issue there was that
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the federal government didn't have the right to do it, but provinces and municipalities,
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perhaps, um, on a constitutional level. Um, but what it meant is that even though this was
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unconstitutional, it was in place for long enough that it just largely became the norm
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among large corporations that are pretty slow to change tack on these things. So he still kind of
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got his way, even though it was found to be totally unconstitutional. All right.
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I'm going to try to get better at doing like, not just immediately going in, doing a segmented segmented.
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All right. Um, we're going to stay on the topic of Trudeau here, uh, but something that is within his
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area to control legally. And that's just what he says in reaction to events.
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October 7th is proof that we are almost free. Long live October 7th. Long live the resistance.
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Long live the indifada. Long live every form of resistance.
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Openly cheering the rape and murder of women and children from the October 7th attacks,
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um, hailing Hamas, hailing Hamas's goals, carrying Hamas's symbols. Uh, you know, we can remember
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when there was one, uh, one person had a national socialist flag on Parliament Hill or near Parliament
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Hill, uh, during the trucker freedom convoy. Um, and it was found that that person was almost certainly
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a false flag, almost certainly not a part of it, but appeared there. And in an instant,
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Trudeau had a comment. He knew to denounce that. I mean, that's an easy thing and a right thing to
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denounce, even though it was pretty clearly a false flag. We suspected at the time and have a large
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amount of evidence to prove afterwards, but he denounced it immediately, right then and there.
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Freeland immediately right there. Um, this happens and it takes, uh, how long, how long did it take
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Trudeau? It took, it took Freeland days, several days, um, took Trudeau forever. And, and, uh, actually,
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let's just play, uh, Trudeau's own response here, his own words.
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So, I, he's got to say it for himself. I'm not going to put words in his mouth. Uh, Nigel, uh, would it
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have been difficult to say something a little tougher and sooner? Well, you know, I think the obvious thing
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would have been to denounce people who, um, had unacceptable opinions for the most part,
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misogynist and racist, you know, I mean, how racist, how much more racist can you get than
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calling for the destruction of other people? How much more misogynist can you get than
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raping people? Or, or just, uh, well, let's not even, let's not even go there. No, I mean,
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clearly this should have been the easiest thing in the world to say that's unacceptable in Canada. We don't
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go for that. We do not tolerate that. If we find out who's responsible, we're going to line them up.
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Yes. Canadians have a right to protest. He did say that, but they do not have a right to call
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for the extermination of a people. And especially if people, it already knows far too much about
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extermination. Um, that should have been easy. It writes itself. I didn't come prepared to say that.
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It just, it just rolls off the tongue. That's who we ought to be, but apparently we're not,
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we have to really carefully think about it. And why do we do that? Probably because you don't want
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to upset all those potential liberal voters. And frankly, gentlemen, if that's who a liberal voter,
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if that's who that government is now depending on, it is even more a time for change.
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Well, that's, that's where I want to go with you, Corey is, you know, is, I mean,
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the liberals have traditionally been strong with, uh, newer immigrant groups, you know,
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first and second generation. And, and that, that goes back some time. And, uh, there was an
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aberration for that after the 2011 election, uh, with Harper's majority government win, but,
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you know, traditionally the liberals and not just in Canada, across most, much of the Western world,
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center left and left parties tend to do better with immigrant groups, right parties tend to be a bit more
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nationalistic and less welcoming of at least mass, large numbers of migration. Um, but the liberals
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seem, have never been this, you know, they've always been a bit pandering, you know, like they'll
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wear the clothes and they'll shut up to the events and, oh, fine, whatever. That's fine. That's it.
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That's retail politics. I get that. But I've never seen it so radically impact the domestic politics
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and the foreign policy of a government the way it has in the, you know, since October 7th here.
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How strong is the influence of this kind of hardline Islamist, um, uh, voter constituency as an impact
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on the liberal party's fortunes that, that they seem so reticent to denounce the most easily
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denounceable things in the world? I don't know. I don't get it. I mean, that there's, that's just a fringe
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of an immigrant group that, I mean, most Islamic people have no interest in slaughtering and wiping
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out the Jews. And we've got large immigrant communities that certainly want no part in this fight,
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whether it's the Hindu community or Sikhs or so many others. So you're pandering to this micro of a micro
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of an offensive group that is, is been building, you know, it's been permissiveness for months with
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this group and excuses. So they're, they're just criticizing Israel and then, or from the river to
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the sea. Oh, you're interpreting that wrong. No, you're not. They want to squish Jews guys, but okay,
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fine. We let that slide. But as it's gone on, the few who were a bit moderate, the few who perhaps
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really thought they were just being critical of Israel, they've left those protests. And that's
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why we're seeing the ugly core of it a lot more. Some of them are getting worse, but I mean,
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I think of an example we saw in Calgary the other week with that clown standing there with a big
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beatific grin on his face, doing a Nazi salute, holding up a picture of the Ayatollah
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and, uh, at a group of Jewish people. And I mean, the messaging wasn't very subtle there. And a blue
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haired, usual, typical, uh, white bread, uh, progressive came up and you could see her saying,
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you know, could you do that? And he basically told her, the media is looking, maybe don't do it right
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here. You know, jam it up your ass woman. He told her, and she wandered away in frustration.
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She might not be back to that demonstration. That was the voice. That was an example of seeing the
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voice of the moderate trying and losing. And now as we're seeing that core and we're seeing
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how emboldened they are, that demonstration we saw earlier, they're not hiding it anymore.
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They're not criticizing Israel. They're celebrating openly celebrating October 7th,
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the act of terrorism. And Trudeau's gotten himself into such a habit that he can't critique these people
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that even when they're practically on the veritable point of waving swastikas, he can't immediately say,
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okay, this is it. The line has been crossed. And they're going to be more bold next week.
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And the week after, because as long as they realize there's no close to this though,
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that extreme group is going to keep coming out. I don't think there's a large voter constituency,
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but it's like they've trained the liberals. You know, I, I, I don't think there's a large
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constituency for, uh, people demanding Canada do something to assist in the annihilation of the
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Jews and the river to the sea stuff. Um, but I, I think there's also, you know, moderate anti-Israel,
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if we can call it that, you know, they, uh, they want to cut down the size, you know,
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give it a bit of a thrashing, but they're not necessarily in the, the full blown genocide.
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The naive two state solution idea that every time Israel tries it, they get bombed for trying.
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But either way, I think it's a well-meaning, maybe not.
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They, that's gone. This is, this is pure hate now.
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Yeah. But I, I think he's afraid of offending them too, by seeing to take a side. And it's seen,
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and Trudeau, I think, sees it as taking a side, Nigel, to condemn a march in front of Parliament Hill,
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calling for the annihilation of the Jews in Israel.
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Well, and he sees that as taking a side and therefore not engaging in the
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Canadian doublespeak, you know, uh, what is it, uh, peace broker role where we don't have to take a side.
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And that really is how he sees it. Then the only thing I can say is he is wrong.
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You cannot, you cannot give any room to a group of people recommending that another group of people
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be killed. That's in Canadian. That's not, that's not what this country is about. It's not even
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ethically defensible in any other country, but good Lord.
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I want to discuss also where the hell are the police on hate speech here? Where are the hate
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speech laws? You know, you could get some crank, you know, in his basement and, you know, 1988,
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some Keekstra type putting out nasty things. And like, I don't know, maybe his pamphlets were read
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by like a couple of hundred people, probably very few of which ever gave it a second thought until he
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appeared on television, uh, after being charged, you know, just some crank and we go after him.
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That's actually hateful. And then we have cases that are not hateful. Like when the human rights
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commissions came out for the Western standard and McLean's and the mid two thousands for publishing
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articles that, uh, radical Islamists found to be offensive or cartoons that were found to be
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offensive. These things authorities are willing to go after as hate crimes, but then openly and
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brazenly calling for genocide. There's been nothing. There's been absolutely nothing, not even of the
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organizers, let alone other participants who are just shouting, uh, genocidal slogans. So Derek, if you
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have got a lone solitary hate merchant in his basement in a small rural community, it doesn't take much
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for three squad cars to pull up outside the door, five to kick down the door and haul him away and
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charge him and put him through the ringer. When you have got hundreds, if not thousands of people,
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not nearly in one city, but in several others, you're starting to look at what the police are
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physically capable of doing. Do you want to call out the, uh, the army in support of the civil power?
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That is enough. Well, they thought about doing it for a couple of truckers. Well, they did,
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but you notice that they didn't think of doing it for this. They will let this go in the hope, uh, that
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it will stop, that it will all blow over and it will cease to be an issue by October of 2025. I don't know
00:24:54.660
that it will, but that is the strategy. They do not have the force to counteract this.
00:25:02.580
I couldn't, I could see you. You couldn't stop it while it's an action without causing a potential
00:25:06.340
riot. I mean, it would have been problematic, but we're hearing even progressive voices. I mean,
00:25:11.780
we're watching Warren Kinsella, for example, he is mortified by this and he's saying openly,
00:25:17.300
and he's always pro immigrant and everything else. A lot of these people are not Canadian citizens yet.
00:25:22.660
It wouldn't be that hard. You know, if you picked out 20 from each of these protests and suddenly
00:25:27.460
they found themselves on the plane back to where they were going, I gotta, or where they came from,
00:25:31.700
I've got a feeling a whole lot of people who are not Canadian citizens within those protests. I think
00:25:35.860
maybe I should just kind of tone my message down a little because I don't want to be the next one
00:25:39.940
back over there. Free Gaza trips. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm not saying mass deportations,
00:25:44.180
but just some examples. You came here to be a Canadian citizen. You're welcome. That's great.
00:25:48.100
Make a life. But if you want to do that crap on our streets, here's the ticket home guys. We don't
00:25:53.220
have room for that. We got a lot of other people who would gladly fill your spot in this country.
00:25:57.700
There's, there's things the federal government could do if they found the will,
00:26:00.740
They don't have the will. And I, I, I'm not sure they do have the, the strength,
00:26:05.220
like the physical boots on the ground. It would be tough.
00:26:07.540
The courts and human rights commissions have intimated to a significant degree that they
00:26:13.380
generally don't find it to be hateful if it's not essentially a white guy.
00:26:20.100
Yeah. If it's Christian and white, that kind of stuff.
00:26:24.340
Because, because there can't be reverse racism and, and, and, and in the, uh, yeah, in the,
00:26:30.900
in the, in the, in the critical race theory world and all of this stuff, uh, the Jews are now white.
00:26:39.140
Some appear to be white. Some do not. In Israel, majority do not appear to be white.
00:26:44.180
Exactly. They're, they're not, they're not most of the Jews we would know would say Canada.
00:26:48.580
Most are not Sephardic here, but, uh, they have essentially become white.
00:26:53.860
In the, in this worldview and therefore they are capable of racism.
00:26:58.260
They are capable of, uh, uh, what's the term they use?
00:27:03.220
Um, privilege, privilege in these things, oppression, they can be an oppressor group.
00:27:09.140
Yeah. And, and so there's just so much of this weird stuff going on.
00:27:11.780
So, and therefore the, you know, these groups that are marching,
00:27:14.180
which are generally not white, although a lot of people cheering for genocide are now just
00:27:18.660
dumb liberal white college kids. Um, but they're apparently not privileged.
00:27:23.860
Um, but yeah, it's just that they're not able to be charged because they're not,
00:27:28.260
uh, they're a part of, uh, equity seeking groups is what they call it now. So.
00:27:34.580
So the old twin campus solution for Columbia University.
00:27:44.980
Let's just, uh, set up a new, uh, new, new campus for the wind gas. I'll let them go.
00:27:49.300
All right. So when Kenny was premier, you know, he had a chess conduct a review of how they did.
00:27:57.460
And, you know, the, uh, the doctor appointed to head it and the panel appointed to do this.
00:28:04.260
Um, they had all come into this generally supporting the government's view of crackdowns,
00:28:11.060
mandates, uh, arrests, that kind of stuff. And surprise, surprise, they agree that this was a
00:28:16.420
good thing that the government had conducted itself generally effectively and well.
00:28:20.660
Um, uh, I think it's Carrie Tate, uh, of the global mail. Um, uh,
00:28:26.740
global mail had an article, an interesting article, uh, story, I think just yesterday, uh,
00:28:31.140
that, uh, there's a second panel, uh, in AHS, uh, commissioned by the Smith government
00:28:38.100
to review the response. And unlike the Kenny panel, there are at least some doctors involved
00:28:43.780
here that did not agree with everything the Kenny government did. Um, so it's an interesting story
00:28:50.020
that we're having a second review. I thought that was a good thing, but the general reaction from
00:28:55.780
the pundit, uh, the pundit class, the media class has been horrible. How could we possibly have a
00:29:02.420
review of government actions for people who were critical of the government? Because the report that
00:29:08.580
that report could be critical of the government's response. And I think here, we'll start with you,
00:29:13.380
Corey. I think the reason the media is so upset about this is because the media was so all in on
00:29:20.020
following government talking points during COVID. Um, you know, we tried to position ourselves as a
00:29:25.540
standard here between the mainstream media, which saw themselves as conveying good and reliable
00:29:32.500
information, which unwittingly turned them into propaganda, propagandists for the government.
00:29:37.300
And then on the other side, you know, some people who, uh, you know, read some unnamed blog from
00:29:42.740
Azerbaijan that you've never heard before. And it, yeah, full of conspiracy theories and just baseless
00:29:48.580
loopholes and things like that. We tried to be independent, uh, finding middle ground on a lot
00:29:53.940
of these issues. Um, but the Canadian legacy media and most of the legacy media around the planet,
00:29:59.620
they were so all in on just repeating the government's message on these things
00:30:03.540
and changing the message whenever the government's messaging changed as well.
00:30:07.380
I think that's why they're so defensive here is that how could there possibly be a credible review
00:30:12.420
conducted by doctors that could come to the conclusion that the government was wrong and therefore
00:30:16.900
we were wrong. Well, that's part of it. There's pride. They invested themselves in that messaging
00:30:22.260
the whole time. But I mean, do we want to learn from this or not? You know, do I mean, if we did
00:30:27.460
have an unvarnished look and it turned out, boy, yes. In fact, what they did saved, if we could find
00:30:32.820
a measurable way, this many lives, fine. We've learned from that. But the problem they have is
00:30:36.900
that doctor, and I'm forgetting his name, Davison. He said the emperor has no clothes and there's some
00:30:41.860
truth to it. I mean, that messaging was considered blasphemy at the time, but there was truth
00:30:45.860
to it. The hospital hallways were empty. They'd shut down the hospitals except for the most dire
00:30:50.900
of emergencies and deferred procedures, which had a very serious cost and health implications of
00:30:56.740
people later. It is ridiculous that we don't talk about this because this, whether unintentional or
00:31:02.260
not, was a cost of the government policies. Did they save theoretically so many lives that it was
00:31:08.100
worth deferring those cancer treatments, those hip surgeries, those other things or not? Let's have a
00:31:13.620
look at it. Let's have a look at it from a government, a doctor who was willing at least
00:31:17.540
to break the orthodoxy. He's still presumably a doctor, still cares about the well being of people
00:31:22.020
and patients. And it's ridiculous to shoot this down at this point, just because you don't like the
00:31:27.060
voice of the doctor who's questioning it right now. Nigel, the media seemed to have had no issues
00:31:35.940
with the preconceived notions of the previous chair of the previous Kenny panel,
00:31:40.500
who went into it generally believing in the at least the broad outlines of the government's
00:31:46.820
actions at the time. That wasn't considered coming into this with a bias of preconceived notions.
00:31:53.140
But now you have a guy who was critical of at least some government measures during this
00:31:58.420
period, openly so, and all of a sudden that's having preconceived notions about what we should have.
00:32:04.340
Going into this with a bias, let me untangle that for us. Well, gosh, let's start with the gentleman
00:32:12.740
himself. He was at one stage in his career, head of emergency medicine, I believe it was in Red Deer.
00:32:21.860
And so we're not talking about a fellow out in a rural area who can't get employed in town
00:32:31.860
because there's something about him that people, this is a serious professional whose ideas may be
00:32:39.540
right and they may be wrong, but they're not based on prejudice. This is somebody who's actually
00:32:46.740
in the dill and who saw what was going on and had doubts about what was going on. So,
00:32:54.580
like I said, I wouldn't presume to say that because he differs from the narrative, therefore,
00:33:00.980
he must be right. But I absolutely wouldn't say that because he varies from the narrative,
00:33:07.700
he absolutely must be wrong and we should get somebody else who actually really understands this
00:33:11.780
stuff. You know, we've seen this before. In 2022, the Canadian Medical Journal published an article
00:33:20.180
in which it purported to review how Canada had done to that point, June 2022. Well,
00:33:27.380
guess who they got to write the review? The people who wrote the rules 18 months before.
00:33:32.740
What would you expect them to say? Oh, just everything worked just great. Well,
00:33:36.340
this was actually a time of lockdowns, enormous economic damage, children being kept out of
00:33:42.740
school. We're still seeing the effects of that. There is no way that you can go back to the authors
00:33:48.980
of the rules and say, well, how did it work out? Of course, it's going to work out great. So maybe you
00:33:53.220
should have somebody like, I believe his name is Davidson. You should have somebody like that come in
00:33:59.300
and say, well, let's just look at this again. The whole problem is who do you trust to review something
00:34:05.140
like this? I don't trust, none of us should ever trust any agency of the federal government because
00:34:12.500
they are the same people who wrote the rules. They are going to say it was great. Do I trust,
00:34:18.900
you know, do I trust the National Citizen Inquiry? I'd like to. I think they did wonderful work. But
00:34:25.780
when all is said and all is done, they don't have the official imprimatur of an agency that you can hold
00:34:32.580
to account. Well, Preston Manning had some, I thought his report was helpful, didn't go far
00:34:38.260
enough. I hope this report goes the distance. All right. Well, I want to turn towards the NDP's
00:34:47.860
leadership race in Alberta here. You know, I hate to say it, but man, New Democrats are so much nicer to
00:34:54.980
each other than conservatives. Conservatives. Conservatives know how to have a leadership
00:35:00.020
race. It's World War III every time. I mean, it's never a tame affair. It's life and death. Now,
00:35:11.140
normally because you're fighting to be the premier. Now, this is the first real NDP leadership race
00:35:17.460
ever. The NDP leadership race in 2014 that elected Rachel Notley, I could be wrong. Someone
00:35:24.100
correct me after if I'm wrong, but I think it was about 5,000 people voted. Yeah, something like
00:35:28.820
that. It was very small. There are UCP local nomination races that get that in a single
00:35:33.300
constituency. The entire NDP across Alberta had about 5,000 votes cast in that leadership race
00:35:39.380
because you were running to be the leader of the fourth party. It was an insignificant fringe party that
00:35:44.580
became the government because of the wild set of circumstances that we won't have to re-ash here.
00:35:49.940
This is the NDP's first real leadership race where you are auditioning to be the leader of the
00:35:55.220
opposition and potentially premier. The NDP can conceivably win power in Alberta now.
00:36:04.260
So it's actually a decent political job. If you're on the left in Alberta, it's probably the best job
00:36:09.060
short of being a federal liberal cabinet minister. So it's a big deal-ish, but it's been so low
00:36:17.780
profile. So before we get into, I guess you can take it wherever you want. We'll start with you,
00:36:23.140
Nigel. Why do you think it's been such a polite and dull affair compared to the last two UCP leadership
00:36:30.500
races that were just short of Omaha Beach? Well, a couple of reasons. One, of course, is that
00:36:43.060
conservatives worry about principles and they get very defensive of them. I'm not sure that's a bad
00:36:49.700
thing. I'm not sure the NDP don't here. There's a lot of dedicated socialists there who care about
00:36:54.420
their ideas. That was my second point. I'm not in front of the children. You know, we can rip each
00:37:01.140
other apart behind closed doors, but let's, you know, let's look respectable when we present ourselves
00:37:07.780
to the public. We'll see how it goes in some of the debates, because there are some personalities
00:37:12.580
in that group of five people who I think won't be able to hold back when it finally comes to it.
00:37:18.420
Well, they haven't had debates yet. We'll see old Gil. He's still, you know,
00:37:22.420
he's going to have a hard time playing. It's going to be too bad for him. I guess it's a 100%
00:37:30.100
membership vote now. There's not a 20% allocation for the unions anymore.
00:37:34.180
Yeah, it's an allocation on the board of the party, but not in the leadership.
00:37:39.220
So, yeah, that's going to, no, I imagine they're busy cutting each other's throats behind closed doors,
00:37:46.100
but they'll deny it. Because I expected more to like, this is an existential race for this party.
00:37:50.500
It's, are we going to swing to a more moderate left of center under Nenshi, Alberta party, old
00:37:56.980
red Tory sort of look, or are we going to stay true to our NDP principles? And I thought there'd be a lot
00:38:01.540
more fight. And I got a feeling with those first membership numbers, this is just a guess on my
00:38:07.140
part though, is that Nenshi's blown them out of the water so badly already, they realized that any
00:38:11.780
more fighting at this point is going to be detrimental to the party. So let's ride out this race,
00:38:17.140
put across our points, but it's going to be a coronation. That's, that's what I'm thinking is
00:38:21.700
probably the, there's probably two things. One is the left tends to not, not to eat their own as
00:38:28.500
much as the right does, particularly in Alberta. We, we love nothing more than killing ourselves.
00:38:34.420
It's, it's fun. We're guilty of it. Yeah. I'm fewer more guilty than me and you like we do. We,
00:38:41.060
we just love it for very bad reasons, sometimes good reasons, but, uh, the left tend to, yeah,
00:38:46.580
they kind of deal their dirty laundry behind closed doors more. Uh, when they're, if they have a defeated
00:38:51.540
candidate, find them a job or they kind of take care of their own, you know, like, like a union,
00:38:57.380
uh, the right, much less so. But I, I think one of the big issues here is that it, the other
00:39:04.420
campaigns might know that Benji has essentially got this in the bag. So going too hard after him
00:39:10.420
could see you not be on the front benches anymore. It could see you on the outs and also just overall
00:39:16.740
hurt the party. Why, why tarnish the purple paint that they're putting on? Um, Nigel, do you think,
00:39:23.620
uh, like the anecdotal numbers we're hearing out of the NDP is that he's doubled the membership and,
00:39:29.860
you know, if you have doubled the membership, you need to convince, you know, a very small number
00:39:34.100
of existing members at that point to vote for you. Uh, does it look to you like this is, uh,
00:39:40.180
just going to be a purple coronation? Well, be the sensible, be the sensible opinion to hold,
00:39:45.780
wouldn't it? Uh, new members, you have to make sure they vote as well.
00:39:51.380
The old members will, uh, to the degree which he has won the party. It's interesting to note now,
00:40:03.700
having an endorsement from a sitting MLA is not the same as signing up a hundred new members for a vote,
00:40:10.100
but it is interesting to note that, um, Hoffman has got, uh, five existing MLAs and seven who,
00:40:18.580
next MLAs, Ganley eight plus six. And then she has got nine plus two, which isn't bad, but you know,
00:40:24.740
it's not as if everybody is just falling in behind the procession to the throne. So I'm still looking
00:40:31.220
for a vigorous debate and maybe, uh, maybe a second ballot. Most MLA and MP endorsements,
00:40:39.300
99 times out of a hundred mean nothing. Well, look how many MLAs, uh, endorsed. Um, uh,
00:40:46.580
it was the main opponent of Smith in the leadership race, former finance. Oh, Taves. Oh yeah,
00:40:50.420
Travis Taves. Uh, damn near the whole caucus. Smith, uh, started off. She eventually scrapped
00:40:57.700
together one. I think by the end, she had maybe three or four out of, out of the government,
00:41:02.900
large governing caucus. She had a very small number. Um, because most local MPs and MLAs
00:41:09.300
can't carry anyone in their riding. They're, they're just there. Um, they'll be the odd
00:41:15.940
local MLA who can organize and can turn out a constituency, but they're pretty rare in most
00:41:21.940
circumstances. So the endorsements look nice. I think they might matter in the sense of, oh,
00:41:27.060
does this person have support and caucus therefore can, you know, build a team might matter from that,
00:41:33.380
but actual MLAs and MPs, only the rarest of circumstances can actually bring more votes along
00:41:39.620
than their own household. Well, and then she's showing to have a good organizational mechanism.
00:41:44.020
I mean, that's the thing, selling the membership is one thing you got to get them out too,
00:41:46.900
but looking at the well communicated, well organized rallies, he's been holding all over
00:41:52.580
the province, uh, good turnouts for this sort of race and a quiet time for the NDP. Presumably
00:41:58.260
that organizational group also knows that they have to stay in touch and get these people out to vote.
00:42:02.740
So he's showing quite a demonstration of strength. It'll be difficult.
00:42:06.500
And stay tuned. Word is one of the lesser known candidates, uh, that'd probably be Gil McGowan or, um,
00:42:13.460
what's her name? It's going to be Kalahoo Stonehouse.
00:42:16.980
Yeah. Uh, one of those two is likely to drop out and back Hoffman. So are we also now going to see
00:42:23.620
the anybody but Nenshi movement come? We don't have time for it today. I hope so.
00:42:27.860
Stay tuned next week, kids. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much for joining today. I thank all of you
00:42:33.860
for joining us on the pipeline. I hope you've enjoyed yourself and, uh, walk away a little more informed
00:42:39.140
than when you sat down. Uh, remember that the Western standard does not accept any of the federal
00:42:43.700
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