Western Standard - January 31, 2026


WATCH LIVE： Smith Addresses Conservatives at High-Stakes Calgary Convention

Mentioned
Pierre Poilievre Danielle Smith Damien Karach Justin Trudeau Stephen Harper Preston Manning Pierre Strong Pierre Paglia Ralph Klein Peter Lahey
On the Floor at the CPC 2026 Convention THE PIPELINE： Poilievre’s leadership on the line this week

Episode Stats


Length

27 minutes

Words per minute

76.03

Word count

2,124

Sentence count

95

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Learn English with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau speaks at the Conservative Party of Canada convention in Calgary, Canada, where he was joined by his wife, Danielle Smith, and former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
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00:07:30.000 Thank you.
00:08:00.000 Thank you.
00:08:30.000 .
00:09:00.000 It is now our honor to welcome a proud Albertan, a principled conservative, and a respected
00:09:23.060 voice within the Conservative Party. Someone who works every day to stand up for rural
00:09:29.940 communities, families, and Canadian values. And he's my mama's favorite.
00:09:39.220 Please join us in welcoming. Join us in welcoming a real conservative man,
00:09:45.380 Damien Karach
00:09:59.380 Thank you all for that very warm welcome.
00:10:15.220 I cannot tell you how much I appreciate being in a huge room filled with dedicated conservatives from coast to coast.
00:10:27.280 And folks, what a weekend.
00:10:29.380 We know that led by Pierre Polyev, a united Conservative Party has come out of this weekend
00:10:35.500 telling Canadians that we are ready to govern and fix the problems that the Liberals have created over the last decade in this country.
00:10:47.160 My friends, truly, it is time for hope.
00:10:51.280 I haven't had a moment of doubt since my wife, Danielle, and I did what we did.
00:10:57.440 that Pierre Polyev is the right man to lead this country forward.
00:11:06.980 Seeing him connect with millions of Canadians across this country,
00:11:11.920 I know that we are with the right man.
00:11:16.180 He has inspired so much hope and optimism in Canadians
00:11:20.320 who are sick and tired of a liberal government
00:11:22.400 that exists simply to help themselves.
00:11:25.720 You know, from the general election to going from small town to small town in Battle River
00:11:32.320 Crowfoot, I got to see firsthand how desperate the people are to see a conservatives, to
00:11:39.040 see the conservatives in government under a Prime Minister, Pierre Paulyev.
00:11:44.240 And folks, a story to emphasize that.
00:11:53.980 We started one of the days during the by-election campaign in Oyen, Alberta, a small town of
00:11:59.740 about 700.
00:12:00.740 Like, man, we need to make a few stops along the way.
00:12:04.340 So we texted the mayor of Delia, Alberta, a town of about 150, just a little town, and
00:12:10.880 said, hey, we'll be by in about half an hour.
00:12:13.680 We'd love to meet and connect with some folks on Main Street.
00:12:16.960 So we pull into town, and I've been to Delia a whole bunch of times, and I've maybe seen
00:12:21.860 you know, one, two, maybe three or four vehicles on Main Street. Well, Main Street was packed.
00:12:27.700 I said, well, my goodness, what's going on? Well, between that half an hour from when we had texted
00:12:32.780 the mayor saying that Pierre was going to stop by, more than a hundred people, doubled the population
00:12:39.420 of Delia, I think, stopped by the local restaurant. And we heard for the next couple of hours, story
00:12:45.160 after story of how people were desperate for that hope, desperate for change. And folks, every step
00:12:51.280 of the way, whether in Delia, Alberta during the by-election, or every day since Pierre
00:12:56.060 Pauliev has been leader of this party, that is the hope that he brings to this nation
00:13:01.380 and as leader of this Conservative movement.
00:13:10.000 And it is great to see that the Conservative movement remains united and driven in its
00:13:15.420 mission to get canada back on track with hope and common sense look folks
00:13:26.220 speaking of common sense i have the honor to introduce someone who has long been dedicated
00:13:33.340 to this conservative movement who knows what it is to be a fighter particularly
00:13:40.620 here in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith.
00:13:48.480 She fights for the values and freedoms that Canadians cherish
00:13:53.080 and never backs down, even in the most challenging of circumstances.
00:13:59.200 She is in the arena every single day, 0.94
00:14:02.040 pushing back on the Liberal government to deliver results
00:14:05.300 for both Alberta and Canada.
00:14:10.620 and friends that means fighting for freedom of expression that means fighting for sane policies
00:14:19.980 on crime so that we stop giving criminals an easy out that are the policies that are making our
00:14:26.540 communities less safe and it means fighting to build and getting alberta's energy out and to the
00:14:34.860 world she she is a tireless worker and man does she work hard she doesn't stop when her critics
00:14:46.860 speak up and folks she is a believer in this country and someone who will always answer when
00:14:54.460 public duty calls folks i am honored to call premier smith my premier my colleague but most
00:15:02.460 of all my friend please join me in giving an enormous welcome to premier danielle smith
00:15:32.460 Well, welcome to Alberta.
00:15:39.520 And thank you so much for that very warm welcome to Damien.
00:15:44.080 And a personal thank you to Damien for stepping aside to make room for our leader in the Parliament.
00:15:49.420 That was incredible. Thank you for that.
00:15:54.160 It is a true pleasure to welcome Conservatives from across the country to Calgary,
00:15:59.020 into the heartland of Conservatism in Canada.
00:16:01.680 And also congratulations, of course, to our leader, Pierre Polyev, who won 87% of the vote in last night's leadership review.
00:16:14.760 Yeah. Oh, I want to thank all of the delegates here for giving our leaders such a strong mandate,
00:16:20.020 because we are going to need Pierre Strong to fight for our values and reverse the terrible policies of the last 10 years.
00:16:26.920 Thank you very much.
00:16:56.920 I just add a sentence every time I try.
00:17:12.260 I've got to give it a whirl, right?
00:17:13.620 From Peter Lahi to Ralph Klein to Preston Manning
00:17:16.920 and to the great Stephen Harper.
00:17:19.080 And now to Calgary's own Pierre Paglia.
00:17:20.760 This province has a legacy of being the bastion of free thinking
00:17:24.540 and economic strength since Alberta joined Confederation.
00:17:28.140 But what I want to talk about today is the last 10 years.
00:17:34.600 Because for 10 years, we saw a Prime Minister that did everything he could to devastate
00:17:38.680 the West and drive our investment and jobs out while implementing radical activist policies
00:17:45.860 that ramped up disorder and chaos.
00:17:48.560 And it got worse over time when we saw the formation of a federal left-wing activist
00:17:53.040 coalition government in ottawa led by then prime minister justin trudeau and his friend ndp leader
00:17:58.800 jagmeet singh that were doing all they possibly could to choke off and ultimately destroy 1.00
00:18:07.280 our province's energy and agriculture sectors they also led an attack on provincial jurisdiction
00:18:13.040 energy health education child care you name it they want they wanted control over it they placed
00:18:20.320 a production cap on our nation's most valuable strategic asset the alberta oil sands and along
00:18:27.280 with it an effective moratorium on the pipelines and oil tankers needed to take that oil to markets
00:18:33.680 around the world they put a greenpeace activist stephen gibault
00:18:41.760 thankfully no longer at the cabinet table in charge of this assault on canada's economy
00:18:50.320 and that is where the real damage to canada was done by justin trudeau and his allies they
00:18:55.520 intruded on areas where the provinces have prime jurisdiction they violated our constitution and
00:19:03.120 the very ties that bind canada together in the name of top-down bureaucratic onslaught
00:19:09.200 pierre polyev and our conservatives believe in our constitution in leaving the provinces
00:19:15.120 to be provinces focusing on what the federal government needs to do things like bail reform
00:19:20.720 and building projects and supporting jobs for canadians
00:19:31.360 like getting out of the way of investment and projects
00:19:34.960 and building a new pipeline to the west coast a true nation building project
00:19:39.360 Conservatives believe in enhancing economic opportunity for Indigenous communities by
00:19:49.040 providing ownership stakes and assets that will create billions of dollars in revenue
00:19:54.200 every single year, like pipelines and mines and countless other projects.
00:19:59.200 Under Pierre's leadership, these projects would be no-brainers.
00:20:02.220 The private sector would build them, and the provincial and federal governments would use
00:20:06.020 the billions in royalty and tax revenue to fund critical services that Canadians rely
00:20:10.740 on.
00:20:11.740 You see, Conservatives supported building new pipelines long before the elbows-up crowd,
00:20:16.940 and they will support them long after all the elbows come down.
00:20:21.240 As I've said many times before, we need to build pipelines to the west, to the east,
00:20:34.100 to the north, and to the south.
00:20:35.740 I would love, as the Prime Minister said, for pipelines to be boring again.
00:20:40.000 I would love to just get them built.
00:20:42.060 But it's not just about energy.
00:20:44.520 Conservatives believe in fixing immigration, something that the federal government broke.
00:20:48.860 Trudeau and his NDP friends ramped up immigration to an entirely unsustainable level, bringing
00:20:54.180 in millions of new people on visas and putting up housing costs and putting a strain on health
00:20:58.860 care and education and creating a national youth unemployment crisis.
00:21:03.440 Now make no mistake, immigration is so important to Canada's success.
00:21:08.420 New Canadians from other countries have been essential for our economic prosperity and
00:21:12.080 rich culture for over 150 years.
00:21:14.800 And the rapid and unsustainable rate at which the federal government increased immigration
00:21:27.960 that has damaged public programs and our economy, and it needs to return to the world-renowned
00:21:33.240 system that it was under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
00:21:43.620 On top of their mishandling of immigration and their tax on our economy, they've completely 0.99
00:21:47.680 overturned the social order of this nation with their woke ideological justice policies
00:21:52.900 such as the so-called safe supply of drugs, soft on crime bail and sentencing rules, and
00:21:57.880 institutionalized censorship of free speech.
00:22:01.440 I've welcomed the stalwart defense public order from Pierre and his caucus.
00:22:06.020 He has always stood for the right to safety and freedom.
00:22:09.760 Pierre has been advocating to fix the ridiculous bail laws that woke activists put in place,
00:22:14.740 laws that continue to let repeat violent criminals back on the street instead of keeping them behind bars where they belong.
00:22:22.080 These same criminals who are arrested half an hour after they get bail,
00:22:26.820 like we recently saw in Lethbridge, where an accused criminal was released
00:22:30.140 and immediately re-arrested the same day for breaching his conditions.
00:22:35.440 Conservatives believe in funding, not defunding, the police.
00:22:45.520 Conservatives believe in justice for victims, not excuses for the guilty
00:22:49.720 and letting them roam free to cause more havoc.
00:22:53.000 And conservatives believe in actually helping those with addiction through treatment, not
00:23:00.320 free drugs for them to use in playgrounds and parks.
00:23:09.320 And rather than taking guns and punishing law-abiding firearms, things we certainly
00:23:14.160 won't be doing in Alberta. Conservatives!
00:23:40.160 see there's a few gun owners out there but it's because conservatives believe in addressing the
00:23:47.120 actual problem the smuggling of illegal guns from outside Canada through the porous borders that
00:23:52.640 Justin Trudeau created Pierre also believes in protecting our women and girls and upholding
00:23:57.500 fairness and safety something that we've done here in Alberta because Pierre myself and the
00:24:01.640 majority of Canadians agree biological men do not belong in women's sports period
00:24:10.160 Canadians recognize that the left-wing activists have gone too far.
00:24:29.560 They want order, they want justice, and they want to take their kids to a playground without 0.78
00:24:33.520 worrying about discarded needles or attics shooting up.
00:24:36.880 Public safety is a cornerstone of society.
00:24:39.380 When we can't guarantee that Canadians are safe in their own communities, it is a failure.
00:24:43.820 One that any Conservative government would alleviate immediately.
00:24:47.740 Because the Conservative Party of Canada has strong leadership.
00:24:50.920 Leadership with moral clarity, with a plan to restore Canada's economic leadership,
00:24:55.400 to return Canada to an international economic engine, a stalwart defender of global freedom
00:25:00.960 and a place that holds true to the promise that if you work hard, you can get ahead.
00:25:07.000 And that is the leadership that Pierre Polyev brings.
00:25:16.720 That is the vision he has for Canada and is one that he learned right here in Alberta
00:25:22.620 when he was growing up.
00:25:24.520 I am proud to work with him to be a member of this party under his leadership and I know
00:25:28.500 that he'll lead the Conservatives back to victory in the next election.
00:25:58.500 Minister Smith and especially I want to thank you very much for your excellent
00:26:03.240 friends been very appreciate thank you Premier Smith and also thank you for
00:26:13.080 being such a strong voice for Alberta and for conservatives and now all you
00:26:20.700 folks that are not Albertans know why this premier is so popular here we love
00:26:27.420 her we love you danielle okay time for lunch you've all worked hard just like yesterday due
00:26:35.340 to space restrictions in our meal hall we are asking that you stick to your allotted lunchtime
00:26:40.620 based on your last name noon last name starts with a to f 12 30 p.m last name starts with g to m
00:26:49.660 1 p.m last name starts with n to z please be cognizant of the limited seating
00:26:56.140 and don't hold seats after you've eaten there's lots of room to socialize in the
00:27:01.500 exchange on the second floor see you all after lunch
00:27:26.140 Thank you.