Western Standard - War： What is it good for？ Alberta’s budget

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.

00:00:28.160 Today is March 4th, 2026, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:32.720 I've got the usual crew here, former Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Aniford.

00:00:37.180 Good afternoon.

00:00:38.400 Senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:40.240 Good day.

00:00:40.960 And News Editor, Dave Naylor.

00:00:42.900 Thanks for sticking me with the guy who's got pickled sausage gurgling around his stomach.

00:00:47.740 Most of it's cleared out now.

00:00:49.740 It's not the stomach where the problem is.

00:00:51.660 Yeah, lucky I left my pickled herring at home, but that's my jam.

00:00:56.880 I mean, that's probably much worse than just...

00:00:58.780 The pickled sausage you're eating?

00:01:00.140 Yeah, well, I went to seven persons,

00:01:01.760 and they got a beautiful big sausage shop, actually, down there.

00:01:05.760 I had to buy something, so I bought a big jar of pickled sausages

00:01:08.400 and ate them while I drove for a few hours.

00:01:10.820 That's what's on sale.

00:01:11.800 Well, it was a sausage place, you know what I mean?

00:01:15.980 These are good road snacks.

00:01:17.720 Either way, everybody, including Jane, is paying the price for my indulgence.

00:01:21.820 Okay, all right.

00:01:23.500 Price it is.

00:01:24.280 All right, well, we're going to be talking about the war between Israel and Iran and the United States, the implications there, Canada's reaction to it, and the broader West's reaction to it, the politics going on around it.

00:01:43.060 uh and also the the local effects what this what the war means for canada and in particular for

00:01:48.740 alberta does danielle smith regret tape not tabling her budget just a few days later as

00:01:54.740 oil goes to wartime levels uh but we're going to start first with a curious decision of the

00:02:02.940 federal government wasn't even a court decision just decision federal government uh to give

00:02:07.520 vancouver away sort of maybe opening the door to having to give it away um musqueam first nation

00:02:14.480 i guess had laid claim to van not metro vancouver and quite an area around it uh fishing rights and

00:02:23.460 whatnot and ottawa just said yeah sure have it and this is uh started squabbles now with some

00:02:29.320 other uh indigenous groups in the area i think um it was it was the one that was fighting this

00:02:34.080 now in court. Is it the Cowichan?

00:02:36.080 I don't know. Squamish?

00:02:37.680 I think it's the Squamish.

00:02:39.580 Cowichan's on the island. No, it's Wershman.

00:02:42.840 No, the Cowichan got

00:02:43.960 a different strip of land that people live on.

00:02:47.480 So, Corey,

00:02:49.280 the Muscleum now,

00:02:51.000 it's not fair to say

00:02:52.140 they own it. They can just walk in any office

00:02:54.060 tower and kick everyone out, and this is

00:02:55.980 their land now, but

00:02:56.900 Ottawa has granted some significant rights

00:03:00.000 to them that seem

00:03:02.060 to further

00:03:03.540 erode the quicksand below the feet of British Columbians very basic property rights yeah people

00:03:10.820 are rightly concerned because of the Richmond one everybody was told not to worry about that either

00:03:15.160 and suddenly they found that they can't get their mortgages renewed and businesses pulling the heck

00:03:19.280 out of there because they can't finance things because I mean they might not have taken the land

00:03:23.040 but they put such a question mark on it that it's virtually valueless unless something is

00:03:26.780 is resolved this isn't the same with Musqueam but what people are seeing is it's a step in the same

00:03:31.880 direction so yeah it's talking about just giving increased control for fisheries and and uh

00:03:37.320 emergency management marine things which are kind of odd considering they just had dug up canoes to

00:03:41.640 begin with but it's another one of those just endless agreements and as it covers a lot of land

00:03:48.360 but it's again these question marks let's make sure we got an image up on the screen there of

00:03:52.660 this thing this is a this is some of the most expensive real estate in north america oh yeah

00:03:56.940 in the world and the musquehams if you might remember you might not but in the 90s there was

00:04:00.760 a big stink with that because they had a lot of expensive housing leased on what was Musqueam land

00:04:05.540 and they turned over the leasing ability to the ban because it used to be run by the federal

00:04:09.780 government and they hit people with like retroactive 4,000% increases in their lease

00:04:14.480 rates. Oh yeah, look it up. People walked away from their homes. This happened in the 90s. Though

00:04:19.920 to be fair, it was a gross like $100 a year lease rate they'd been getting for a long, long time.

00:04:25.300 Either way, it's an active ban in some very valuable land down there. It's the question

00:04:30.320 marks, again, are part of the problem. So the

00:04:32.380 Chief, Wayne Sparrow,

00:04:34.240 I'm looking at this, he's saying, you know, because there's

00:04:36.320 discussions, it's only federal

00:04:37.880 crown lands considered for potential

00:04:40.180 land transfers and other negotiations.

00:04:42.100 Again, he's already talking about land transfers.

00:04:44.620 But as we know, too, it doesn't

00:04:46.400 tend to stop there.

00:04:48.160 So people are rightly worried anyways,

00:04:50.380 and there's a lot of lack of clarity on this.

00:04:52.580 So, Dave,

00:04:56.200 BC's

00:04:57.120 land claims are a mess

00:04:58.280 because they're, for the most part, not covered

00:05:00.140 by treaties, the way you say Alberta and Saskatchewan

00:05:02.300 are. So it is

00:05:04.240 you know, to be fair

00:05:06.280 to these bands, it's a bit more ambiguous.

00:05:08.280 There are probably some legitimate claims

00:05:10.280 but, you know, as we saw with the Cowichan decision

00:05:12.280 with Richmond

00:05:12.980 you know, they say, hey

00:05:15.440 you know, my great-great-great-great-grandfather

00:05:17.920 was fishing there once, so therefore it's mine.

00:05:22.120 These things are flimsy

00:05:23.300 but Ottawa just

00:05:25.800 made the decision on its own and now you've got

00:05:28.340 the Cowichan

00:05:29.560 putting up its hand and saying, no, no, not so fast.

00:05:33.420 It's our land, or at least big portions of that are ours.

00:05:36.960 Yeah, it's very, very weird.

00:05:41.020 The biggest idiot in all this is David Eby.

00:05:44.840 He's, excuse me, he's running around claiming he doesn't know anything

00:05:49.120 and doing a Sergeant Schultz impersonation.

00:05:51.560 I know nothing.

00:05:53.120 But the federal officials say he attended the briefings

00:05:55.920 and he was there at the signing.

00:05:58.540 So somebody's not telling the truth.

00:06:01.580 It might be David Eby.

00:06:02.500 It might be David Eby.

00:06:04.760 I think if I was a Vancouver owner, one of the questions I would be asking is,

00:06:08.940 the BC government promised to, I don't know if the right word is insure,

00:06:15.360 insure the homeowners in Richmond, 120 of them or so that were affected,

00:06:19.740 they would back their mortgages.

00:06:22.120 If I'm living in Vancouver now, hey, is somebody going to back my $4 million mortgage?

00:06:26.160 You know, it's, as Derek says, some of the priciest real estate in the world, and a lot of money involved here.

00:06:35.760 Nigel, I can't imagine how the federal government could backstop every mortgage in Vancouver.

00:06:42.780 That'll also then open up, we're not talking, that'd be a gargantuan enterprise to undertake.

00:06:47.580 I mean, you'd end up having taxpayers backing some mortgages that probably should not be backed, even if you didn't have a land claims issue.

00:06:55.240 It would cost a wild amount of money.

00:06:58.360 Huge amounts of Vancouver are owned by Hong Kong and China anyway.

00:07:02.660 So we'd be backing foreign mortgages just to try and back our domestic mortgages at the same time.

00:07:10.480 But there's a dark part of me that's kind of chuckling.

00:07:15.080 It's a part of me that shouldn't exist, but I can't help that this part exists.

00:07:18.200 That's like all these downtown Vancouver types who just vote.

00:07:22.980 Oh, yeah, I'll vote for, you know, New Democrats and liberals who support UNDRIP, UN Declaration on Indigenous Protection or whatever.

00:07:31.680 I'll vote for all these crazy things.

00:07:33.580 They like to say land back, return the land, because they assume the land back is in the bush somewhere.

00:07:40.980 some hillbilly owns it

00:07:42.900 and it doesn't really bother them

00:07:44.440 and people can return to hunting and gathering

00:07:47.000 and everything will be great

00:07:49.020 before the European came

00:07:50.840 but it turns out what they

00:07:52.860 wanted was downtown Vancouver

00:07:54.520 their house

00:07:56.140 I don't know, maybe you're a better

00:07:58.880 person than me, but there is a dark

00:08:00.740 part of me that's kind of like

00:08:01.980 you voted for it

00:08:03.920 I mean the reason that I stayed with you three years

00:08:07.100 Derek is that I think there's

00:08:08.640 the same dark part

00:08:10.080 And I found it sort of easy to feed, you know.

00:08:13.900 Look, some of these people really deserve what they're getting, and now most don't.

00:08:20.440 But I was informed anecdotally just yesterday that there are people in the affected areas putting signs on their lawn saying,

00:08:30.520 proud to live on native land.

00:08:34.840 Well, if that's what you think.

00:08:37.460 Well, that could mean either way.

00:08:39.260 cory might say something like that trying to piss people off so i'm not actually sure what's meant

00:08:43.860 by that that could that could be two very different things well no it means they are

00:08:50.100 sucking up they are the kind of people who probably thought exactly what you thought

00:08:55.780 this wasn't going to come close to them but it would be very good if somebody else gave land

00:08:59.900 back that would be the right thing to do so they put these stupid signs on their on their uh on

00:09:05.500 their driveways and on their front lawns so there's a certain part of me that says oh you know if you

00:09:10.960 keep giving land acknowledges and say we're very proud to be here on unceded territory or very

00:09:16.640 proud to be on the traditional territory of the such and such tribe one of these days somebody's

00:09:22.180 going to come calling and say yes you're right you are on our land get off it or pay for it or

00:09:27.760 something like that and that's what we are now starting to see but what is a puzzle to me and

00:09:33.600 and I think probably a puzzle to all of us,

00:09:35.920 is why our senior politicians go along with it so easily.

00:09:40.940 And that's where the dark part of Nigel Hannaford

00:09:43.380 starts to bubble up and froth,

00:09:46.100 because I actually think that our senior politicians

00:09:49.160 would rather do this, and face up to it, and deal with it.

00:09:53.840 In the interest of reconciliation,

00:09:56.400 they would rather do this,

00:09:58.140 because they feel that if they take a hard line,

00:10:01.340 they will have protests

00:10:03.620 terrorism perhaps

00:10:05.120 more repeats of what you saw

00:10:07.380 on the northern pipeline

00:10:08.820 to Kitimat a few years ago

00:10:11.020 and that it will be a situation

00:10:13.540 that they can't control

00:10:14.940 it's cowardly

00:10:16.780 and I could be wrong but that's what it looks

00:10:19.500 like to me

00:10:19.960 this looks like a big opening for

00:10:23.060 the BC conservatives

00:10:25.600 and the federal

00:10:27.600 conservatives to Vancouver

00:10:29.460 voters, really everyone in BC

00:10:30.940 to say, you know, we'll put

00:10:32.620 an end to this madness. We will repeal

00:10:34.720 undrip. I think

00:10:36.540 what's her name? She's kind of the leading

00:10:38.420 she's leading some of the polls. Christine Elliott?

00:10:40.840 Christine Elliott. I think she's talked about

00:10:42.400 am I correct? She's talked about repealing undrip?

00:10:45.660 I'm going to say that.

00:10:46.760 Okay, I don't want to put words in her mouth.

00:10:48.780 But I know some of the candidates are talking

00:10:50.440 about that. Oh no,

00:10:52.460 maybe I'm confusing with 1BC. 1BC's

00:10:54.440 talked about it, but you know. They might have finally

00:10:56.460 pushed things too far though. I mean, people have been to Vancouver

00:10:58.460 North Van, nice houses, and there's a reserve

00:11:00.460 right there down by the water side, right there.

00:11:02.940 I mean, it's three quarters.

00:11:04.300 But there's those champagne socialists, loads of them.

00:11:07.340 And it's kind of like we've all been saying.

00:11:09.580 It's great when you're giving away somebody else's stuff,

00:11:12.140 but it's amazing how quickly their tune changes when it's their own.

00:11:16.340 So maybe that's what Canada needs.

00:11:18.800 Let's lose some houses so that people of bloody will wake up

00:11:21.820 on the ridiculousness of where you've been going.

00:11:24.800 Corey, we can't be too smug on this here in Alberta.

00:11:28.540 Well, our land is treaty land.

00:11:30.080 I actually looked it up before I came to Engleworth.

00:11:33.160 Total 100% treaty land.

00:11:35.500 However, we have a judicial system that rewrites the rules on the fly.

00:11:42.100 Nobody could have predicted this Cowichan decision last year.

00:11:46.120 If you go through the thing carefully, you find that the judge was quite creative in

00:11:50.460 her interpretations and indeed used a lot of native language as a politeness to the

00:11:57.000 other side suggesting um some people have suggested she might be a little sympathetic to them

00:12:03.160 so you get a judge with a very different idea about whether the treaties were ever

00:12:08.820 fairly negotiated in the first place and just says that doesn't count anymore guess what calvary

00:12:15.900 edmonton are you listening well i'm aware of it i'm going before a judge on june 30th on a uh

00:12:21.860 indigenous uh uh canadian canadians are just they're just sheep it's frustrating why isn't

00:12:28.500 there marches in vancouver of all these homeowners saying hands off our land right i mean you know

00:12:36.340 i would think maybe at some at the moment at some point yeah at some point it's got to happen but

00:12:42.100 it could happen quicker than people think well let's stop that from happening because people

00:12:46.980 People will, you know, look at all the, you know, the elbows up types, you know, they're defending, you know, they've got these big home values, they're voting kind of status quo political parties, you know, their vote for Carney and stuff. People do not mess around when it comes to their homes. It's their biggest overwhelming number of people. It's the biggest asset if they have a home.

00:13:05.420 the feds are not going to allow it to happen so what you probably would see is just couching

00:13:11.420 times a million where okay the feds come in and they start backstopping it we're going to continue

00:13:16.980 to socialize this cost out to people across canada canadians across the country are going

00:13:22.880 to be forced to carry the mortgages of people in vancouver if say all of vancouver flipped over i

00:13:28.400 mean that seems almost dystopian but i mean it happened on a small scale with blocks of vancouver

00:13:33.820 be into the billions.

00:13:35.700 So what you're going to see is this is

00:13:37.680 going to get socialized because

00:13:39.300 I think these people, you know, West Van, they're

00:13:41.680 beside a reserve and, you know, say

00:13:43.640 their land comes into question.

00:13:46.620 They're not going to

00:13:47.660 want to be me. They're not. I don't

00:13:49.720 think they're going to flip and say, F

00:13:51.680 off. This is my land. You pushed

00:13:53.680 it too far. We're not friends

00:13:55.620 anymore. They're not going to do that.

00:13:57.120 They're too wrapped up in it.

00:13:59.340 They're going to plead and Ottawa

00:14:01.740 is going to come in and the taxpayer

00:14:03.540 is going to bail them out and we're just going to socialize this cost yeah but we the whole thing

00:14:08.760 is we've got to stop sucking up to first nations we've got to stop these ridiculous land

00:14:14.080 acknowledgements uh we were shocked last week derek sitting listening to a uh ucp cabinet

00:14:19.920 minister mike ellis do a land that uses lander do a land acknowledge other ministers have been

00:14:26.340 doing it in alberta too that's just the first time somebody popped it up to us with a video

00:14:29.480 Well, we did a search.

00:14:30.280 No, we did an in-depth dive.

00:14:32.940 He's the only one.

00:14:34.240 Okay, good.

00:14:35.580 Otherwise, I'm glad to be wrong.

00:14:37.200 It's done in the legislature every Monday to kick off the week,

00:14:41.440 and it's done at the opening of a session.

00:14:43.360 Still too much.

00:14:44.100 Still too much.

00:14:45.720 And, yeah, but this is a cross-Canada problem.

00:14:47.860 It's not Alberta.

00:14:49.100 I mean, every single press conference in eastern Canada starts with a land acknowledgement.

00:14:54.100 I go to a gym and lapidary club general meeting once a month.

00:14:57.040 Yeah, I know.

00:14:57.440 I hang out with the cool kids.

00:14:58.240 They start those out with a land acknowledgement.

00:15:00.820 It pains me.

00:15:02.080 Well, in Calgary itself, we changed the name Fort Calgary to the Confluence,

00:15:06.860 which just sounds like, I don't know, a hotel or some kind of posh bar or something.

00:15:12.240 Fort Calgary, the very heart that built Calgary.

00:15:15.980 There was no Calgary before Fort Calgary.

00:15:18.400 We don't have Fort Calgary anymore.

00:15:19.920 The previous administration changed that.

00:15:22.680 Unfortunately, we've questioned the current mayor when he was running.

00:15:25.620 uh if you would change that uh jeremy parkas he says no uh you know yeah that's a frustrating

00:15:30.500 thing there's no there's no action on it we've got a whole new revamp council and not one of

00:15:34.820 them wants to touch it and they're doing lat acknowledgements before the meetings no everybody's

00:15:38.820 afraid disgraceful why are we still afraid of this this is chicken i mean you go to city hall as well

00:15:44.820 look at that garbage dump of a memorial they have from way back when the uh the camelos buried

00:15:49.620 children hoax began and there was a fenced area with a bunch of teddy bears and shoes

00:15:54.260 to represent the children buried at a canvas, even though it's become almost clear as day

00:15:57.700 that this was a hoax. And that thing's been vandalized multiple times. There's some of

00:16:01.500 the irony. It turned out when they chased the vandal, it wasn't a white nationalist. It was

00:16:04.340 almost First Nations person who burned it. But it's still there. It's still there. It looks

00:16:10.060 awful. It's a mess. But nobody's got the courage ever, whether it's an official or real, just say,

00:16:16.640 you know what? It's done. It's time. It's time to raise the flag from half mass Canada.

00:16:21.660 You know, we have been in figurative half-mast for too long.

00:16:26.640 Okay.

00:16:28.420 Let's do something more cheerful.

00:16:30.280 War.

00:16:33.240 Or gang up on Derek time.

00:16:35.300 Gang up on Derek time.

00:16:38.720 A supreme leader of the office.

00:16:43.100 All right.

00:16:44.300 So, I don't know.

00:16:47.320 I interviewed Stockwell Day.

00:16:49.260 We had kind of a friendly debate.

00:16:51.660 just Monday

00:16:54.960 I think it was, I talked to Adam

00:16:56.960 Zivo, an independent journalist who was

00:16:58.520 hanging out in Tel Aviv

00:16:59.800 and I've already kind of made my

00:17:02.280 own views known, this is

00:17:04.620 I just, this is not

00:17:06.840 America's war, this is not in America's

00:17:09.180 interest, in fact it in some ways

00:17:11.120 I think is against America's interest

00:17:12.920 I think

00:17:15.120 they've been drug into it by Israel

00:17:17.200 which has geopolitical aims

00:17:19.100 for the region

00:17:19.900 and who knows how far out this could spin out of control.

00:17:25.360 It's already resulted in Gulf nations being hit with Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles.

00:17:34.180 I don't know.

00:17:35.600 It's hard to tell how bad this could get.

00:17:38.520 Maybe it's kind of similar to the 12 Days War.

00:17:40.660 They just pound Iran and nothing much changes.

00:17:44.640 But in America's interest or not, I propose to you, Corey.

00:17:49.900 that uh the two main i mean the excuse for the war changes hourly at this point but the two main

00:17:58.280 ones they went with which were pretty much the the iraq excuses which is nuclear on the verge

00:18:03.960 of nuclear weapons which according to netanyahu they have been weeks away since 1995 um that's

00:18:10.500 one excuse and the other one is regime change which i mean who knows if that happens it's not

00:18:15.860 gonna just happen through a peaceful color revolution best case scenario it'll be a big

00:18:19.400 civil war god knows how many people die and we get flooded with uh refugees again that's probably

00:18:26.700 the best case scenario for regime change more likely the regime just clamps down gases and

00:18:31.320 shoots a bunch of people and nothing changes um those are the two big excuses given for the war

00:18:38.960 Or, I'm being unchartable, justifications given for the war.

00:18:44.540 Do you buy either of those?

00:18:46.780 I don't know.

00:18:47.520 I mean, I admit that with the second Gulf War, when they were looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,

00:18:52.900 and they turned out not to be there, it speaks a lot to the limits on intelligence or the justification they'll put out.

00:18:59.180 But it's undeniable that Iran was not just a benign wart hanging out in the police stall by itself.

00:19:05.460 It was funding terrorism all over the place.

00:19:08.660 And they were, it's the most cowardly way, I think, of these dictators.

00:19:12.040 At least, you know, Saddam wore it on his sleeve.

00:19:14.080 Iran funds others to take care of their ugliness, whether it's Hezbollah, Hamas, their Houthis, you name it.

00:19:20.220 As well, you know, against their own people.

00:19:23.540 I mean, we talked 30,000 demonstrators slaughtered in five days for trying to stand up to him.

00:19:28.360 As you said, a civil war would be bloody over there.

00:19:30.620 The question, I guess, is whether or not it's the place of America to play police and go in and do that.

00:19:36.600 But Israel has very directly been hit and threatened and rocketed.

00:19:44.000 Well, yes, but they started a war.

00:19:45.760 October 7th never would have happened without loads of Iranian help going into Gaza for years to get them armed up and trained up and able to hit as they are.

00:19:56.820 No, there's a very direct connection between Iran and Hezbollah, because they're both radical revolutionaries.

00:20:04.920 And Hamas.

00:20:06.420 A bit with Hamas, but not much.

00:20:07.400 No, they funded October 7th, Eric.

00:20:10.180 They're involved, but they're not the main backer of Hamas.

00:20:12.840 Hamas is radical Sunni, kind of mixed with local parochial nationalism, but they're radical Sunni Salafists.

00:20:20.920 The Shiite-Sunni thing gets set aside, because one thing they can agree on is they all hate the Jews.

00:20:25.580 and so there's no difficulty with

00:20:28.300 Iranian money coming into Hamas

00:20:30.120 even if they weren't as tightly a bed as Hezbollah is

00:20:32.160 but I mean the bottom line is

00:20:34.200 and how many times has

00:20:35.460 the Ayatollah had to say we need to wipe Israel

00:20:38.300 off the map, I think it's a pretty good

00:20:40.120 direct threat for Israel to respond to

00:20:42.100 Israel's argument

00:20:44.380 but there's no big

00:20:46.580 American

00:20:46.940 of course there is, let me, sorry I don't mean to interrupt

00:20:49.940 you were just going on

00:20:50.660 Iran has been killing Americans for decades

00:20:55.000 Right?

00:20:55.340 One of the first things that happened when the Ayatollah came back from exile

00:20:59.880 is they captured those American hostages.

00:21:03.600 They kept them for 448 days.

00:21:06.460 The Marine Station in Beirut, blown up.

00:21:10.060 Hundreds of dead Americans.

00:21:13.140 Americans have been killed all over the world by Iran-funded terrorists.

00:21:17.700 So is this a vengeance mission?

00:21:20.460 No, it's to prevent Americans being killed in the future.

00:21:23.600 When's the last time Iran killed an American soldier

00:21:25.640 before this?

00:21:26.380 Not talking soldier, I'm talking terrorism.

00:21:28.980 Or civilian. When's the last time Iran

00:21:30.920 targeted someone on American soil?

00:21:33.160 Like, it just hasn't really happened.

00:21:35.440 What about the Austin,

00:21:37.780 Texas

00:21:38.080 shooting this week was

00:21:40.520 inspired by...

00:21:42.520 Inspired, maybe. Who knows?

00:21:44.780 ISIS, there's ISIS-inspired people.

00:21:47.020 Look, the Iranians are

00:21:48.460 they're about as bad as you get.

00:21:52.120 But

00:21:52.880 They're not a direct security threat to the United States.

00:21:55.380 They're a security threat to Israel, no doubt.

00:21:57.440 They're not a threat to the United States.

00:21:59.100 And we'll see if the proof ever shows up.

00:22:00.720 As I said, I have some skepticism after the last 12 war,

00:22:03.800 but it's not beyond belief that they were having a nuclear program getting close to.

00:22:07.180 And if there's any state in the world that is ideologically crazy enough to actually use a nuke,

00:22:12.900 maybe it's an option.

00:22:14.120 But then that would put lie to the 12 days war,

00:22:17.120 where they said they set their nuclear program back by years, if not decades.

00:22:20.680 That wasn't even a full year ago, was it?

00:22:22.880 So either they were lying then or they're lying now, or lying both times.

00:22:27.100 But they can't be telling the truth both times.

00:22:28.580 Sending it back by years isn't enough when you want to completely eliminate it.

00:22:31.680 Yeah, but Netanyahu says weeks away.

00:22:33.340 And he is on the record saying we are mere weeks away since 1995.

00:22:37.940 I was 10 years old, is at least as far back as it goes, saying literally weeks away.

00:22:44.100 If nothing had been done to Aaron over all these years, they probably would have had one by now.

00:22:48.240 Well, gents, I've got a rather different take on this.

00:22:50.460 And I don't think any of you are, I don't think you're actually wrong.

00:22:55.380 It's just that you haven't perhaps explored whether this isn't really about Iran, but is about China.

00:23:05.560 China is basically has colonized Iran in the sense that it has created a forward operating base in the Middle East, sitting right on top of 80 percent of the world's oil supplies.

00:23:19.340 You might recall that very recently, the Yanks pulled Maduro out of Venezuela.

00:23:24.620 What did he do wrong?

00:23:25.720 Well, he was a bad dude.

00:23:27.160 But the significance of Venezuela wasn't one more bad dude being pulled from the game.

00:23:33.060 It was the fact that the Chinese, who were buying 90% of what Venezuela produced,

00:23:38.840 suddenly had to find a place for oil.

00:23:41.820 And they had been working on Iran for decades to develop Iran as that source.

00:23:48.580 so actually we think about american imperialism and we think about the old british empire and we

00:23:56.100 have our sort of our forces distributed all over the world to seek our best advantage but that is

00:24:02.980 what china was doing and they were doing it in iran they were doing it in venezuela so this really

00:24:09.060 is about kicking China out of the Middle East.

00:24:16.880 So let me just consult a couple of notes.

00:24:21.400 The relationship between China and Iran

00:24:25.580 has extended far beyond the oil that I'm talking about.

00:24:31.040 They have gone into a military-industrial entanglement.

00:24:35.020 Iran was on the verge of acquiring Chinese-built ship-killing missiles,

00:24:40.060 things that evade the defenses on American ships, hypersonic.

00:24:47.040 They have been developing diplomatically,

00:24:50.980 and with the Belt and Road Initiative all through that area,

00:24:55.040 what's the object?

00:24:55.920 It is to diminish American power in the area

00:24:59.760 and elevate Chinese power around the world.

00:25:02.780 So I would make the point to you that this is about dismantling and disrupting this emerging Chinese power projection before it becomes permanent, rather than solely about the Israel-Iran conflict.

00:25:20.740 and I admit that it is partly to do with that

00:25:23.420 for very obvious reasons

00:25:24.800 but that's not all that's going on here

00:25:26.960 it is China trying to be

00:25:29.540 the new British Empire

00:25:30.860 the new American imperialism

00:25:32.500 but this time it's us

00:25:34.940 who are supposed to be at the disadvantage

00:25:36.700 so Trump, whatever he may say

00:25:39.100 in his news conference

00:25:39.940 it's because of this, it's because of that

00:25:41.680 this is where he's got to look

00:25:43.740 for the real reason

00:25:44.920 I've seen the argument made around China

00:25:47.240 I actually think that is probably

00:25:49.080 at least from a reason for america to be involved i mean israel's got its own reasons for america

00:25:55.120 to be involved it's probably the best i've seen but it it's not compelling to me to launch a

00:26:02.700 potential large-scale war right now it's i can't say it's contained but it's you know we'll see

00:26:08.520 what happens with the kurds coming over the border maybe uh but you know every big war most big wars

00:26:14.420 start a small wars and i i don't want to play chicken little and say this is definitely going

00:26:19.300 to spiral into something big and goes on for years and millions die i i can't tell but but

00:26:25.360 so the you know the pushing back a potential chinese outpost okay that one i could see is

00:26:32.220 in america's interest but this would seem to be not the normal correct american way to do it like

00:26:39.380 In the Cold War, you know, someone flirted with the Soviet Union.

00:26:45.440 You did just invade the country.

00:26:47.500 You funded their neighbor to push back against them or something.

00:26:52.300 You know, a bit more finesse, a little less death, a little less blood, a little less treasure.

00:26:57.600 This would just seem to be, if that's the case, if it is pushing back a Chinese forward operating base, maybe,

00:27:03.100 this would just not seem to be the smartest way to go about it.

00:27:06.120 I don't know how else you really would.

00:27:07.840 I mean, a couple of things.

00:27:09.780 One is that it's good for the Americans that the Israelis are involved

00:27:13.340 because Israeli intelligence in that area is vastly superior to American resources.

00:27:20.700 Nobody's come out and said this, but it would be highly surprising

00:27:24.880 if I were to learn that that operation in which on the first day

00:27:29.300 the leadership was totally eliminated is a consequence of Israeli intelligence,

00:27:35.180 not American.

00:27:36.000 They knew where it was.

00:27:37.160 that was my assumption because they run through the window that's my assumption because the

00:27:41.200 masad's legendary but uh a lot of what i've seen it actually is to the contrary because it was the

00:27:46.820 united states actually watching a lot of this so it's probably a combination of all i i've heard

00:27:51.120 the opposite the second day when all the clerics were together uh they dropped a bomb on them

00:27:56.300 brilliant intelligence nobody does it better than the masad and apparently they had control

00:28:01.080 or viewing control of every traffic

00:28:03.500 station, every traffic camera

00:28:05.460 in Tehran. So they could

00:28:07.460 monitor when the supreme leader

00:28:09.360 left his mosque and when all

00:28:11.400 these 80 people gathered, they're watching

00:28:13.400 it on TV. And I just

00:28:15.220 got to note the irony and the

00:28:17.000 beautiful part of that though because it is a

00:28:19.000 totalitarian state and they put those cameras

00:28:21.220 in, I'm certain, with a lot of intent to oppress

00:28:23.040 their own people. It is that irony

00:28:24.900 sounds great. I like the pagers. Hey, we actually

00:28:27.140 sold you the device to blow your nuts off

00:28:29.300 And here you are. You put that in to oppress your own people, but we've hacked it so that we can track your own leadership around the streets.

00:28:37.140 It's brilliant.

00:28:37.760 It's absolutely brilliant.

00:28:38.860 If I may, we talk about Iran's government.

00:28:42.620 What we really have is a Muslim equivalent of the Hells Angels running a country.

00:28:48.280 This is not a normal government.

00:28:50.620 Well, this is like...

00:28:52.300 We all agree the Iranian government's bad. I don't think that's really a point of...

00:28:56.240 Well, no, they hear that they're bad.

00:28:57.700 It's just that it is criminal organization.

00:29:00.620 It is.

00:29:01.160 And my skepticism, I mean, part of my enthusiasm in a way, I wouldn't call it enthusiasm, but optimism or whatever.

00:29:06.660 I think it's almost time for the world to start having it with radical Islam, which I know is a broader thing to define and so on.

00:29:13.960 But at the same time, well, how well has regime change ended up working on Afghanistan or Syria or Iraq or any time they try it?

00:29:21.920 that's part of the problem, is that

00:29:23.660 if you still have a core of radical Islam

00:29:25.940 in the country, the next regime

00:29:27.760 typically isn't any better than the one you just got

00:29:29.860 rid of. They've just changed

00:29:31.780 names. So you're going, oh, I mean, so

00:29:33.340 why, it's not us,

00:29:36.140 but I guess us is the West,

00:29:37.900 but why is America and the

00:29:39.900 West still trying

00:29:41.940 to fight radical Islam over there when

00:29:43.920 we're not really doing it here? Oh, you don't hear me

00:29:45.940 disagreeing with you there.

00:29:48.460 Radical Islam is a much

00:29:50.060 bigger threat here

00:29:52.180 than it is over there.

00:29:54.440 Over there? It's

00:29:56.040 still a problem. I wish it wasn't over

00:29:58.060 there either, but I have an

00:29:59.920 infinitely bigger problem with it right

00:30:01.760 here, yet we don't do shit

00:30:04.020 about it here. There was a memorial

00:30:05.700 for the Iretilton of Van Brampton

00:30:08.120 held, and as I treated it, which got

00:30:10.020 a fair response back, I would say, what a perfect

00:30:12.040 place to choose candidates for deportation.

00:30:14.540 Here's the ones. Here's

00:30:15.880 self-identification. What about a Canadian ice van?

00:30:17.860 Extreme lunatics supporting

00:30:19.900 monsters, get them the hell out of here.

00:30:22.260 I fully agree there. Clean up our own...

00:30:23.860 Americans,

00:30:25.160 you know, I saw a good meme.

00:30:28.720 We'll put it up right now.

00:30:30.280 It has, you know,

00:30:32.240 it's from the office.

00:30:34.220 It says, you know, Mega was promised

00:30:36.120 mass deportations, you know,

00:30:37.880 getting rid of all these illegals.

00:30:39.880 And instead of, you know, Michael Scott

00:30:41.880 saying mass deportations, he says

00:30:43.820 mass deployment in Iran.

00:30:47.040 Trump

00:30:47.480 ran for president three times

00:30:49.820 no new wars, and no war with Iran in particular, because Iran was the neocon wet dream. They've

00:30:56.700 always wanted Iran. And he said, no war with Iran, and they get Iran, and Americans are not

00:31:03.060 getting mass deportations. The ICE thing, it's a thing, but it's not nearly as big as everyone's

00:31:08.580 promised. In fact, Obama's deported more people as president. It was just done with less fanfare.

00:31:13.180 um so we're in america itself where you've got trump they're not dealing with radical foreign

00:31:21.800 elements the way uh republican and mega voters were promised but instead they're getting a war

00:31:28.540 with iran that they were promised would not happen so yeah radicalism is a big big problem

00:31:35.060 you know i i oppose the war for different reasons and some on the left would these guys do not see

00:31:39.800 a problem with radicalism i do but i see it as a problem here we should fight it here but we have

00:31:45.820 to take the speck out of our own eye before we take the log out of our out of our neighbors we

00:31:50.360 have to do both let's let's only start here before we launch these gigantic wars overseas that are

00:31:57.140 going to kill thousands of people disrupt the region and potentially at least spiral out of

00:32:02.520 control into something we can't control and then we've got fifth columns here let's deal with that

00:32:08.740 first before we go do it well this might expose those fifth columns actually and what are we

00:32:13.700 going to do about how many deportation vans were sitting in brampton waiting for the ayatollah we

00:32:18.420 do things right on october 19th we can deport them at least out of over

00:32:24.900 hard for me to argue with that one you you you were listening you brought me right back in

00:32:31.380 there's your headline for tomorrow dave well speaking of bringing this conversation back

00:32:36.500 to alberta can we just have a quick i'll comment on this the other thing that nobody talks about

00:32:43.300 is that if you actually separate china from a consistent oil supply china is going to come

00:32:49.940 looking for it they've got a reserve that's supposed to keep them going for about 100 days

00:32:54.660 but this whole situation of starving amount of oil reminds me of the 1930s when the americans

00:33:02.100 cut the oil off to Japan.

00:33:06.500 Are you mentioning

00:33:06.900 that turned out to be a very

00:33:09.160 bad idea. It resulted in war.

00:33:10.960 The Japanese came looking for oil

00:33:13.260 because they needed it for their economy.

00:33:15.260 And they, well, you all know the story.

00:33:17.920 So,

00:33:18.480 this could work.

00:33:20.480 If this is actually the plan.

00:33:22.880 So, if it does work, then

00:33:24.720 that is where the greater danger of a

00:33:26.960 wider war may come in.

00:33:30.060 Okay, I just want to make sure

00:33:31.180 understanding you are i don't know if you're making pro or con but like if if you're making

00:33:35.140 the analogy there that you know the united states froze their assets cut them off from oil

00:33:38.360 and it left the japanese with two choices which was essentially surrendered full down the empire

00:33:43.900 without a fight or roll the dice on pearl harbor i don't i don't want to push china into a position

00:33:51.500 where they got to roll the dice on a pearl harbor i'm not recommending it i'm just saying that this

00:33:55.580 is where this could go.

00:33:57.700 So if you're making investments, Derek,

00:34:01.680 You just scared the hell out of me,

00:34:03.500 because I think that...

00:34:04.800 History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes there are these

00:34:07.560 echoes that come by, and

00:34:09.460 it's a similar circumstances.

00:34:12.000 That is...

00:34:13.520 Okay, well, a great

00:34:15.520 segue to how this affects oil.

00:34:17.500 You read it here first.

00:34:19.620 You're going to have to tease this one out a bit, Nigel,

00:34:21.360 because I...

00:34:21.900 I don't like that. That's scary. I like

00:34:25.300 beaten up on China, constraining China, but

00:34:27.100 I don't want to push them into a Pearl

00:34:29.240 Harbor. Okay.

00:34:31.840 So,

00:34:33.060 excellent, but terrifying segue

00:34:34.760 into how this affects Canada,

00:34:37.180 and Alberta, particularly with oil.

00:34:39.680 Dave,

00:34:40.800 last Thursday,

00:34:43.700 the Alberta government

00:34:45.220 tabled its budget in the legislature.

00:34:48.440 Record deficit,

00:34:49.440 9.2, 9.5 billion.

00:34:52.180 Just

00:34:52.740 a bloodbath of redding.

00:34:55.300 think um and i'm not too sympathetic to the alberta government's excuses on this one oil's at 60

00:35:01.580 it's lower than they had projected but 60 people are still making money it's not bad oil prices

00:35:06.940 um this is overspending some of it's because yeah we've been swallowed by migrants but a lot of it

00:35:12.100 is we just haven't controlled spending that we can control it's both but over the week she tables

00:35:19.040 up thursday uh we wake up saturday morning to find you know war is broken out and uh oil is

00:35:26.880 going to certainly spike when markets open monday morning if you're daniel smith how much do you

00:35:31.440 regret not waiting a week to table your budget well the deficit certainly would have been billions

00:35:36.640 of dollars less uh every every dollar above that 60 budgeted mark uh is worth uh about 700 million

00:35:45.920 to the alberta treasury so it's now trading about 74 today which is 14 above so it's a good chunk

00:35:54.640 of money i failed math but it's several billions several billions of dollars and it's not just the

00:35:59.760 alberta go it's all there's a lot of people in canada that are going to make money off this war

00:36:05.280 the energy minister tim hodgson was in toronto today saying and the quote was we see money

00:36:11.200 right which is maybe a bit crass but no it's a bit crass but but it's not wrong the potential

00:36:17.920 is there for if this war if this war goes on for a month or so uh we could wipe out that deficit

00:36:25.020 completely and uh actually run a budget surplus which you know had to be the greatest budget

00:36:31.700 turnaround in uh in budget history i would think uh yeah i mean if it's a short if it's like the

00:36:39.280 14 days war, it goes back,

00:36:41.720 you know, then the price will probably reach

00:36:42.960 somewhat more of an equilibrium again, but

00:36:45.380 I think,

00:36:47.500 Nigel,

00:36:48.260 US and Israel, I don't

00:36:50.580 think they thought that the Iranians

00:36:52.460 were going to be able to shut down the

00:36:54.380 Strait of Hormuz as effectively as they

00:36:56.420 did, because they wiped out

00:36:58.420 their navy. Their navy was no contest.

00:37:00.240 They destroyed it, so I think they

00:37:02.400 were thinking more conventionally that, well,

00:37:04.700 the Iranian navy doesn't stand a chance of blocking it,

00:37:06.760 but what the Iranians did is they go and they

00:37:08.200 sunk one of, they scuttled one of their

00:37:10.100 own oil tankers and got

00:37:11.940 every insurance company on the planet to say

00:37:13.720 we're not covering oil tankers going through

00:37:16.060 the strait right now, so everyone voluntarily

00:37:18.260 shut their tankers down

00:37:19.980 so without really a

00:37:21.980 military action, the Iranians managed still

00:37:24.000 to shut it

00:37:24.500 the

00:37:26.620 anti-air defenses against these

00:37:29.980 the Iranians are now deploying hypersonic

00:37:32.260 missiles, not a lot of them are regular ballistics

00:37:34.100 some of them are hypersonic

00:37:35.080 the anti

00:37:37.480 The missile interceptors are not as effective as they say they were in the 14 days war.

00:37:44.780 They were pretty effective then.

00:37:46.860 But, you know, the Iranians are now hitting all these Gulf countries that host American bases to try and get them to put pressure on the Americans to call this off.

00:37:56.700 And that is now starting to do serious damage to the oil infrastructure around there.

00:38:01.360 So even if this war is over in 14 days or something, and it's not looking like it will be right now, but who knows, even if, if serious damage is done to the infrastructure over there, as much as I might think this is not a good war, we might come out ahead because oil infrastructure over there being seriously damaged, that will have knock-on effects for some time.

00:38:25.220 Yeah, I think that's a reasonable expectation

00:38:27.820 that Alberta can only do well out of this.

00:38:31.740 It's kind of crass to point it out, but...

00:38:34.220 Alberta secretly started this war to save the budget.

00:38:36.940 Yeah, so what was Danielle Smith doing that weekend anyway?

00:38:41.100 So I think the facade's good.

00:38:42.420 You should see the rat patrol.

00:38:43.460 As far as the exact way this war is conducted,

00:38:48.860 the weapons used and how effective they are,

00:38:51.620 there are people better qualified than me to pass an opinion.

00:38:54.700 But, to your point about the hypersonic missiles, I was not aware that the Iranians had received hypersonic missiles.

00:39:04.820 They got everything else.

00:39:06.180 That's a very particular type of weapon that you wouldn't waste on an oil tanker.

00:39:10.020 You'd be looking for aircraft carriers without one.

00:39:13.620 But they can actually do the damage they want to do with drones that cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars a copy.

00:39:19.820 And, you know, the most sophisticated anti-aircraft defense system that you can build sort of can handle a number at a time, but a swarm of a couple of hundred? No. That's the leverage they have.

00:39:35.800 So obviously, what we're seeing now is strikes on Iranian territory, along the coasts of the strait, particularly, to just isolate and eliminate the launching pads for these things.

00:39:50.620 Well, and these things, the Iranians, I mean, they're launching different kinds of missiles here, but a lot of the ones they're launching, they cost about a quarter million dollars a pop to build.

00:39:59.320 I mean, to the average person paying taxes, that seems like a lot of money, but that is cheap like borscht.

00:40:05.800 for a missile.

00:40:08.140 On a bang for the buck.

00:40:09.040 Yeah, and most of these interceptors

00:40:11.820 cost $2 million a pot.

00:40:14.260 And you'd only have to fire several interceptors

00:40:16.280 to have a pretty good chance of taking out a missile.

00:40:19.080 The economics of this are non-good.

00:40:21.340 Now, the American economy is

00:40:22.540 infinitely larger than the Iranian economy.

00:40:26.460 The Israelis are a fairly strong economy.

00:40:28.500 But the Iranians have figured

00:40:29.960 how to build this stuff cheaply and fast.

00:40:33.460 So they might be able to keep this up

00:40:35.780 for a while and then you run out of interceptors

00:40:37.880 it's

00:40:39.080 plausible Dave that

00:40:41.380 again I'm making an argument just for purely crass

00:40:43.840 self-interest for Alberta

00:40:45.560 now I'm on the other side I'm like yes war

00:40:47.700 is good for oil

00:40:48.480 it's not implausible that the Iranians

00:40:51.920 are going to be able to do also the Americans

00:40:53.700 the

00:40:55.640 Gulf states are kind of getting very angry

00:40:57.840 at the Americans because they've deployed

00:40:59.140 the bulk of their interceptors

00:41:01.460 to protect Israel not the Gulf

00:41:03.800 States which they've found to protect here

00:41:05.560 So these guys are getting hit, and they were promised protection in this.

00:41:09.920 So that oil infrastructure, if the Iranians can keep this up, could do a lot of damage to refineries, to shipping facilities.

00:41:19.140 This could shut down major oil production, or retard oil production in the Middle East for quite a while to come.

00:41:25.720 I didn't think you could use that word.

00:41:27.740 Retard is back.

00:41:28.740 And I didn't even use it offensively in this way.

00:41:31.160 This was purely an animal.

00:41:32.800 it one of the big winners that may may or may not come out of this is the ukraine they were

00:41:39.120 they were getting pounded by iranian made drones given to russia and now that pipeline has dried

00:41:47.840 dried up they're not getting russia's not getting anymore the iranian drones so that uh that will

00:41:53.440 work well for the for ukraine uh and yeah it's you know i was talking to a friend in government

00:42:02.320 yesterday you know a hundred dollar oil is not out of the question if this all goes to hell

00:42:07.620 i mean yeah there's so many ways we can follow this now but the ukraine war is it's been had

00:42:15.140 like three very distinctive phases you had an initial kind of blitzkrieg phrase phase where

00:42:19.400 the russians were going to rush it with tanks and aircraft and most people thought it would succeed

00:42:23.900 it did not then you had kind of a trench war then you went backwards the world war one style

00:42:28.280 trench warfare now you're into very innovative drone warfare uh i mean the instagram reels are

00:42:35.000 wild to watch this we've never seen warfare like this but it's been pioneered in ukraine and now

00:42:41.800 we could see it um it's difficult this is bombarding drones but you want to bet that

00:42:48.040 the ukrainians sorry the uh the iranians have certainly built kind of anti-personnel drones

00:42:54.120 So that, you know, say if the Kurds start coming over, maybe they want to fight a typical kind of asymmetrical insurgency against the Iranian regime.

00:43:03.480 I'm betting the Iranians have probably learned from the Ukrainians now because the Iranian drone technology is cheap and effective and they're watching what's happening in Ukraine.

00:43:12.160 This would be drone warfare again, second drone war going on.

00:43:16.360 If it's still available. It may have been bombed out of existence by the Americans.

00:43:21.000 Maybe. I don't know.

00:43:24.120 all right all right i don't know we can talk this shit all day but i don't know if yeah if there's

00:43:32.440 any silver lining it's that maybe this fixes the alberta deficit but temporarily because we'll

00:43:38.620 never we never seem to get spending under control okay uh put a pin in that there and have our

00:43:44.500 parting shots uh nagel yeah well to your last point there derrick about the never getting

00:43:50.160 spending under control. So last year we had the teachers on strike, you had the doctors,

00:43:55.260 the nurses asking for more money. It's the same all the time I mentioned last year, but it goes

00:43:59.620 on and on and on. And always the advice from the general population, they deserve it, give them

00:44:06.400 what they want. Well, that's mostly where the deficit comes from. 80% of the provincial budget

00:44:10.980 is wages, and 80% of that goes to those two professions, the medical profession and the

00:44:17.140 teaching profession so all of a sudden we have a you know oil prices are down or we're down at the

00:44:22.900 time and people's and they present a deficit budget very small that's terrible they got to

00:44:29.680 get spending under control it's the same people who are saying give the doctors more money give

00:44:33.960 the nurses more money give the teachers more money but so what are you got to get spending

00:44:37.700 under control what do albertans want well what that's why every politician promises we're going

00:44:42.860 to trim the fat. We're going to get

00:44:44.880 rid of the unnecessary duplication

00:44:46.920 of bureaucrats. Guess what?

00:44:48.720 The government just has that no matter what.

00:44:50.600 No matter what party's in power, you're always going to have that.

00:44:53.220 So anytime the politicians

00:44:54.580 come out and they don't give you very specific

00:44:57.000 big line items what they're going to cut,

00:44:59.200 it's the same bullshit.

00:45:01.160 That's the way it goes. Corey?

00:45:03.020 Back to the bumper sticker, which is a

00:45:04.880 brilliant one that comes out about every eight years.

00:45:06.920 It says, oh God, let there be another oil boom.

00:45:08.860 I promise not to piss it away this time.

00:45:10.740 And we never learn.

00:45:12.020 I wrote a column that'll come out in the standards soon,

00:45:14.240 where I said the best time for Daniel Smith to cut spending is now when the

00:45:17.740 oil prices are high.

00:45:20.460 Yep.

00:45:21.000 Yeah.

00:45:21.360 I don't care.

00:45:21.960 No excuses.

00:45:22.840 It's never when they do it,

00:45:23.660 but he hasn't got a nickel.

00:45:25.360 No.

00:45:26.140 Dave.

00:45:26.920 It's been a tough week to be British.

00:45:30.960 Our Royal Air Force base in Cyprus was bombed.

00:45:34.880 And unfortunately every single ship in the formerly mighty British Navy was

00:45:40.180 in port.

00:45:40.740 at the time. So, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dispatched a destroyer, but it will take a week

00:45:47.700 to get there. So, the RAF is under the protection of other people, I guess.

00:45:53.100 I'm fairly personal. My nephew is in that very base at Akritary Amendment.

00:45:57.700 Oh, well, stay safe. Can we talk to him?

00:46:01.580 Yeah.

00:46:02.400 Well, I can say all I want, but he is professionally cautious about what he says to me.

00:46:08.280 And the week sort of ended yesterday with President Trump correctly noting that Keir Starmer, quote, is no Churchill.

00:46:20.460 All right.

00:46:22.440 Well, you've all got war, war, war.

00:46:25.500 I'm sick of war.

00:46:27.020 Let's talk about the dad in Grand Prairie.

00:46:31.320 This guy is, he's trans and so thinks he's a woman.

00:46:35.520 and he brutally stabbed and attempted to murder his own children.

00:46:39.980 One child had, I think, three-quarters of her esophagus cut,

00:46:45.020 miraculously survived.

00:46:47.880 This guy was, I guess, brought up on some kind of aggravated assault or something,

00:46:51.680 but not even attempted murder.

00:46:52.780 It's clearly attempted murder.

00:46:54.540 He only got five years, and the Crown only asked for five years

00:46:59.320 for a psychopath who brutally attempted to murder his own children this guy is clearly nuttier than

00:47:07.740 a fruitcake and should be locked up in a mental facility for a long time but you notice what it's

00:47:12.520 a trans person they don't they don't go like the route of crazy they're just going to keep them in

00:47:17.500 traditional corrections this guy is clearly crazy and uh there was a very heavy publication ban

00:47:22.880 banning us from covering this dave you and i talked about this god knows how many times

00:47:26.920 we broke the publication ban

00:47:29.160 finally when this guy came out

00:47:30.960 and posted a crazy

00:47:32.780 maniacal video of himself on social

00:47:34.980 media we're like well he's broken it so we can share

00:47:37.100 his social media post

00:47:38.700 but we were banned by law from

00:47:40.960 reporting on this for a long time

00:47:42.720 for this psychopath and he got only five

00:47:45.020 years for attempting to murder his own

00:47:46.840 children this guy needs

00:47:48.740 mental help but he's not being

00:47:51.000 put in a mental facility here

00:47:52.460 it's just the way we do business

00:47:55.960 At least he had the sense not to commit a mischief charge in Ottawa.

00:48:00.360 Yeah, if he would have blown up a bouncy castle, he'd be facing a lot more.

00:48:04.600 And it's worth pointing out, Grand Prairie, it's only, what, two hours away from Tumblr Ridge.

00:48:08.060 If you consider Grand Prairie a big place, it's the only big place near Tumblr Ridge.

00:48:15.820 It's kind of the metro center of gravity for a place like Tumblr Ridge and Peace Country.

00:48:22.120 Okay, so lots of break topics to end on today.

00:48:25.960 It all sucks, Derek.

00:48:27.420 Yeah.

00:48:28.340 Corey, Dave, Nigel,

00:48:30.200 John and Production,

00:48:30.800 thank you very much.

00:48:32.000 Thank you all of you

00:48:32.900 for putting up with us today.

00:48:34.520 Remember to go to

00:48:35.380 westernstandard.news

00:48:36.420 if you're not yet a member.

00:48:37.960 Click on subscribe.

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00:48:55.960 Outro Music

Western Standard - March 05, 2026

War： What is it good for？ Alberta’s budget

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