Western Standard - Western independence takes the stage

00:00:00.000 While other leaders were condemning Palestinian terrorists, Yara Sachs held their hands for selfies.

00:00:11.000 She called Israel racist, then backed millions to UNRWA, Hamas's front.

00:00:20.000 She stood by the liberals, ready to arrest Netanyahu.

00:00:25.000 She is Trudeau's kind of Jew. 0.94

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:00:59.980 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:01:04.680 Today is April 9th, 2025.

00:01:07.680 I'm joined, as usual, by my regular co-hosts, Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:01:14.200 That would be me. Good to be here.

00:01:15.860 And Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:01:18.860 Perched on the end, as always.

00:01:20.060 Indeed.

00:01:20.640 Indeed. We're going to be talking about how the ideas of Alberta or Western independence,

00:01:29.580 possible stateship, have crept into the federal election. What impact is it having here at home

00:01:35.840 in the West? And what impact is it having out East, if any? Next, what's a sensitive topic?

00:01:44.060 Does crowd size matter? The polls are showing the Liberal, most polls at least, are showing the

00:01:50.120 liberals with a lead, some a big lead, some a small lead, some of the conservatives tied.

00:01:55.680 But Pierre Polyev is routinely receiving huge crowds at his rallies. Well, Mark Carney,

00:02:01.580 with a few exceptions, struggles to fill a pub. How could one be in the lead and

00:02:06.300 not really be attracting much of a crowd and the other one be behind and

00:02:10.120 filling aircraft hangars? We're going to talk about it. And the notwithstanding clause has

00:02:17.360 made its perennial appearance in this election campaign. Pierre Polyev saying he is willing to

00:02:23.700 use it, if necessary, to impose mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders, something that the

00:02:29.940 Supreme Court has said in the past that it does not like. The leader of the Bokievikov says that

00:02:35.660 would be right-wing extreme totalitarianism or something like that. The translation from French

00:02:42.240 was a little tough um but he thinks it's a good idea to use the notwithstanding clause

00:02:46.800 to uh effectively ban english in quebec and make sure it is the proper french ethno state

00:02:54.500 that uh the bloc quebecois hopes it can and should be before we get into it oh uh important

00:03:01.480 announcement uh we last week started getting some donations from people unsolicited uh saying that

00:03:09.380 they would donate to us uh a thousand dollars each if um if we would take the paywall down

00:03:16.420 and make the western standard free for the rest of the election campaign so that voters everywhere

00:03:20.040 could read it without hitting that pesky paywall uh it blew us away and we uh we put out a call

00:03:27.780 to western standard members we put out a couple of emails saying hey if we can if we can raise

00:03:32.820 enough money we will take down the paywall make it free for everyone for this election campaign

00:03:36.180 and people came through in huge numbers as a result we have taken the paywall down and it is

00:03:43.000 free for absolutely everyone to read right now so uh make sure you're sending articles sharing

00:03:49.340 those articles uh around your friends family colleagues and sworn enemies even to make sure

00:03:54.780 they're reading it um and getting the full benefit of having paywall down during the election

00:04:00.520 before we get into the show though i have to thank our sponsor this episode of the pipeline

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00:04:30.580 Okay.

00:04:32.000 Okay. Um, I'm not that upset that talk of Western or Alberta or Saskatchewan independence has entered, uh, the, the mainstream media conversation, uh, John tried pretty hard to get the attention of the media, they're all based in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Triangle, for a Western issue, and, um, and well it is, it's in.

00:04:55.640 I mean, this all falls in the context of 51st state talk with Donald Trump, but, you know, Danielle Smith has warned that if, you know, if the next federal government, presumably liberal in the case she's talking about, doesn't take some pretty major action to rectify some of Alberta and the West's major grievances with the federal government and confederation, that it will spark a national unity crisis.

00:05:23.140 she has when asked about referendums on independence she has said well i'm not gonna

00:05:29.860 call it myself but hey albertans through uh initiative legislation uh have the right to

00:05:34.620 start a referendum themselves and they can make about whatever they want hint hint um and then

00:05:40.380 uh preston menning was uh he wrote a piece in the globin mail uh stating that uh if if the

00:05:48.960 Liberals win, you know, a vote for Mark Carney is a vote to break up Confederation,

00:05:52.240 very plainly stating that if Mark Carney wins, Liberals get a fourth term here,

00:05:57.700 then it is very possible, and I don't think I'm interpreting it wrong,

00:06:04.220 saying potentially desirable for the West to stake out on its own

00:06:09.600 and chart its own future independently of Ottawa.

00:06:13.500 uh cory uh what impact has this had on the federal election well i don't know if it will

00:06:21.680 have an impact on the federal election you know but it's brought it into stark relief if anybody's

00:06:26.720 looking at the polls across the country if they're to be believed we've got a red wave of liberal

00:06:32.360 support across this country and a great big blue chunk right in the middle like it's highlighted

00:06:37.280 that difference of opinion that the west holds on federal politics with the rest of the country

00:06:42.700 quite clearly. So, you know, a lot of independence-minded Westerners I've talked to in the

00:06:47.720 past, they talk about, you know, oh, the East hates us and so on. No, it's even worse than

00:06:52.000 that. The East doesn't even think about you. They're indifferent to you. That's what the

00:06:57.020 reality tends to be. And hopefully, at least with that polling, they will realize we're here

00:07:02.500 and the West is not impressed with this. But whether it impacts the election is another

00:07:08.020 question. You know, if I lived in a different region, I'm trying to put myself in an Eastern

00:07:11.020 his shoes, which is difficult for me. Uh, I have a province coming out and saying, you guys had

00:07:16.960 better vote this way or I'm going to do that. Well, I know what my kind of nature is. It's like,

00:07:22.480 kiss my butt. You don't tell me how to vote. I'll vote how I please. I, this, this election is 1.00

00:07:29.680 really going to impact the support for Western independence without doubt, but whether or not

00:07:34.040 the Western independence movement impacts this election, I don't think it's going to register.

00:07:39.380 Well, it is, Nigel, getting at least some attention.

00:07:43.020 I don't know if it'll impact it or not,

00:07:44.840 but it's certainly getting attention in the commentariat.

00:07:48.840 You know, Smith's statements,

00:07:50.760 Preston Manning's opinion column in the Globe and Mail.

00:07:56.960 At a minimum, I think the person who is unhappiest about this most

00:08:00.980 is Pierre Polyev.

00:08:03.080 You know, there's a lot of people in the East who,

00:08:06.260 for some reason or another, they're like,

00:08:07.460 I don't like that the Conservative Party is Western-based.

00:08:10.200 You know, the Westerners really like them.

00:08:11.980 You know, they're going to have to try really hard

00:08:12.900 to get our votes out here in the East.

00:08:15.320 Why would Smith and Manning raise this during an election

00:08:18.480 at a time that Pierre Paulyab's probably not too pleased about?

00:08:22.200 Can't speak for either of them as to why they would do

00:08:24.920 what they would do, but certainly from Pierre's point of view,

00:08:29.480 it's not helpful.

00:08:30.300 But I don't think it required the intervention

00:08:32.460 of either Premier Smith or of Preston Manning

00:08:35.360 for this to be an issue.

00:08:36.640 You just know, because of the value difference that there is in the West and in the East, that another disappointment in the West is going to be bad for Confederation.

00:08:54.120 You know, go back 40 years and look at what Banning was talking about in this article, and he said, look, you know, we had the same thing in the 1980s, disappointment in the West.

00:09:05.820 Well, we launched a campaign, the West wants in, 0.95

00:09:09.140 and we sort of got the door open enough

00:09:11.480 that we could have nearly 10 years of Stephen Harper government.

00:09:15.320 That was the West getting in with the assistance 1.00

00:09:18.660 of much of the rest of the country,

00:09:20.600 but you can only do that once in a lifetime,

00:09:24.360 and that's not going to happen again.

00:09:26.240 So if one part of the country, whether it's Western Canada

00:09:31.480 or whether it's Quebec, is consistently denied the respect

00:09:37.420 of the rest of the country, they are going to get restless.

00:09:41.460 And it didn't take Premier Smith to point that out.

00:09:45.180 We were saying it, or out saying it, however you want to put it.

00:09:51.120 But, you know, it's not like this comes out of nowhere.

00:09:55.340 The only thing I'd just refer you to is what Mr. Harper said

00:09:58.860 as he introduced Pierre Bolivar in that massive rally in Edmonton, and he said that the last

00:10:04.860 nine years show the inadequacies of all the problems that Canada have.

00:10:13.020 Maybe you want to blame Trump, but the problems actually come from nine years of liberal policies

00:10:19.980 that have not done well. Those policies have been at the expense of the West for the most part,

00:10:25.340 especially the energy ones so again if you have one part of the country slamming the door in the

00:10:31.940 face of another part it's a problem it doesn't bring you to snow so pardon me um cory you know

00:10:41.380 ontario uh ontario is it's the one part of the country more than any other that does not see

00:10:47.600 itself with any regional identity it's not ontario it's upper canada i you know i've said before

00:10:54.400 If you drive around Ontario, even in rural Ontario,

00:10:58.320 you will never see a single Ontario flag on private property.

00:11:02.720 It's on the courthouse, it's on the town hall,

00:11:04.960 in the municipal buildings, provincial buildings.

00:11:07.360 It's there as an official flag.

00:11:09.320 But most Ontarians couldn't tell the difference between that and the Red Ensign.

00:11:12.200 There is no such thing as Ontario.

00:11:13.940 There is Upper Canada.

00:11:15.120 There is such a thing as Quebec.

00:11:16.620 It's not Lower Canada.

00:11:17.620 But Ontario has, at times, when national unity has been threatened by Quebec, voted for the federal party, most seen, at least, as best able to keep Quebec in the fold, make Quebec feel a part of Canada, if you're being less charitable, more to my view, appease Quebec and give it what it wants.

00:11:42.920 Ontario was often voted that way. But I don't think ever, and including now, there is a large group of Ontarians who see a threat to national unity coming from the West, discontent in the West.

00:11:58.960 I don't know, maybe you discreet the premise of what I'm saying

00:12:03.700 but if not, why would Quebec, sorry Ontario

00:12:07.700 not follow that traditional pattern that it's had in the past

00:12:11.680 of voting for the party, Liberals, most able to keep Quebec happy

00:12:15.700 when Quebec is upset. Why would they not repeat that with the Conservatives, with the West?

00:12:20.260 Well again, it shows that indifference I was sort of speaking of. They don't even realize

00:12:23.620 I think how upset we are out here. They don't think the threat is real coming from the West

00:12:27.980 and they better understand when we're polling now over 30% of people considering leaving a country

00:12:33.160 and I'm seeing dismissive attitudes on social media from people out there already. Well,

00:12:37.340 two thirds of the province doesn't want to leave. Boy, an independence movement consistently hitting

00:12:43.100 at 30%. This is before this election is over. That is significant. You better bloody take it

00:12:48.920 seriously. If those numbers, I mean, you know, right now Quebec, they're sitting around there, 0.65

00:12:53.360 but not they come and go a bit again it shows how explosive things can turn out here because yes

00:12:59.400 quebec gets pandered to quebec gets attention quebec gets asked to stay they asked what must

00:13:05.220 we do to make you feel happy with the federation when we show 30 they say you're selfish you're

00:13:11.220 bitter you uh you know you're you're rednecks we get an aggressive response coming back to us in

00:13:18.140 the West. And that, of course, will only inflame it further. But again, I don't think it's a wish

00:13:23.700 on the part of Ontario to want to see secessionist movements grow in the West. They just don't take

00:13:29.540 the West seriously. And that's part of what's built it for a long time, whether it comes to

00:13:34.040 attacks on our resources or other such things. And the West thought they were going to get a break.

00:13:40.520 They thought they were going to get another Stephen Harper, even if only for one term. I mean,

00:13:43.900 We've had nine years of horrific government at our expense.

00:13:47.140 We thought, okay, there's the turnover.

00:13:48.640 There's the flush of the toilet.

00:13:50.040 We can get some change for a little while.

00:13:52.420 And it turns out at the first opportunity,

00:13:54.100 Central Canada said, no, you know what?

00:13:56.420 We're going to give you maybe another 10 years of Liberals.

00:13:58.620 I don't think they have any clue.

00:14:00.780 I'm just bubbling up out here.

00:14:02.400 And, you know, it's not like Polly Evans is campaigning

00:14:04.120 on a hard West once in program.

00:14:07.280 Stephen Harper did not fix equalization

00:14:09.300 from Alberta Saskatchewan's perspective.

00:14:11.140 Pierre Politev has said he will not touch equalization.

00:14:14.880 It's a sacred cow for Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

00:14:19.800 So it's not like, there's no talk of changing the Senate and the Conservative.

00:14:23.980 We're just hoping for government to be less bad.

00:14:26.300 Screw the West less than is the status quo.

00:14:29.360 It's not like this is going to be a rah-rah Western government. 0.84

00:14:32.920 It was just screw the West less. 0.82

00:14:34.120 Nigel

00:14:36.640 Andrew Coyne

00:14:38.500 wrote a rebuttal

00:14:40.520 of Preston

00:14:42.500 Manning's piece in the Global Mail

00:14:43.880 he's also a Global Mail columnist so in the same

00:14:46.360 pages

00:14:46.700 you know saying that

00:14:49.980 Preston Manning and

00:14:51.200 Western secessionists and what not 0.99

00:14:53.560 they're sore losers 0.99

00:14:55.160 that they're 0.99

00:14:56.800 willing to leave if they're not

00:15:00.220 getting their way

00:15:01.120 I mean sure

00:15:03.380 But that's also been Quebec's attitude.

00:15:06.580 The English side of the Laurentian commentariat

00:15:10.160 seem to have no problem that if Quebec is shut out of power permanently,

00:15:14.900 well, then they, you know, they at least have a bone to pick with us,

00:15:17.480 and maybe we should rectify ourselves to accommodate ourselves to Quebec

00:15:21.600 rather than the other way around.

00:15:25.020 There is no talk in the reverse whatsoever.

00:15:28.840 And, you know, if someone is permanently shut out of power,

00:15:31.380 that means there probably is a fundamental difference if there's not a regular turnout

00:15:35.680 of power you know california 50 of the time is on the winning side in american elections

00:15:40.560 texas is on the winning side in american elections roughly 50 of the time or even if

00:15:46.440 it was 40 60 in either direction there's a rough balance of power but the west is out of power in

00:15:53.060 the last hundred years about 80 of the time and when it is in power it's actually not getting

00:15:58.080 very much. It's just, as I said, getting screwed a little less. What do you make towards the sore

00:16:03.400 loser mentality that the West doesn't have any kind of natural right to secede, to become either

00:16:09.880 independent or join the States, et cetera, because it's on the losing side consistently in elections?

00:16:17.160 The Eastern attitude to the West is the same attitude as the colonial power has to its

00:16:25.800 colonies. This has often been remarked, this is not a deeply original thought, but it is the fact

00:16:32.380 of how we are operating today in Canada. We are treated as a colony, and we instead have

00:16:42.780 a strong sense of identity in Alberta, less so perhaps in BC, which is very, very diverse these

00:16:51.700 days. But Alberta, we've got a really good history and people are proud of that and they're proud of

00:16:55.920 what we've accomplished. And we get the sense that there's no recognition of what Alberta has done

00:17:02.260 and how much Alberta is doing and to the extent to which the whole of the country depends on the

00:17:10.280 money that comes out of Alberta. You know, we're going to great lengths to save the auto industry

00:17:16.760 in Ontario, and so we should. But the auto industry is about a fifth of the size of the

00:17:23.200 Alberta energy industry. And yet there, the rest of the country looks passively at what Mr. Carney

00:17:30.260 is proposing to do, or what we believe he is proposing to do, because I don't know that he's

00:17:35.940 necessarily being totally upfront with us on his plans for the energy industry. But we know what

00:17:41.560 said in the past and what he has done in the past and so it's that sense of a total lack of

00:17:48.120 appreciation and we're just here as few as it would and uh drawers of water drawers of water

00:17:54.520 and of oil up to a certain point all right well uh we're gonna switch it up a little stay with the

00:18:04.680 the federal election here um uh the polls since mark carney has become liberal leader have just

00:18:12.460 had a radical reversal uh you know we've it's gone from goddard damarung for the liberals

00:18:18.360 to goddard damarung for the ndp uh and you know uh the conservatives in either far behind if you

00:18:28.900 believe, drunk polls like ECOS, or fairly far behind, if you believe Ipsos, to more or less

00:18:37.520 Tide, if you believe Nanos. But none of them showing the Conservatives ahead, and certainly

00:18:42.580 nowhere close to where they were just, say, three, four months ago. So the polls are showing,

00:18:49.000 the aggregate of the polls has the Liberals in the lead, and fairly in majority government

00:18:54.980 territory, winning new seats that they didn't have before. But this is incongruent with the

00:19:03.280 crowd sizes now, Joel. Yeah. And okay, so the argument is that people are just quietly giving

00:19:11.640 their decisions to the pulses, but they don't feel any need to go out and listen to Mr. Carney.

00:19:18.360 Having listened to several of his speeches, he is not the kind of man who's going to draw a lot

00:19:24.880 people and because it's exciting he is about as interesting as a long drink of warm water

00:19:32.240 however the reverse is true of mr polyev he knows how to work up a crowd and i would

00:19:39.280 have accepted that argument up to the point if polyev was not getting huge crowds in parts of

00:19:48.960 the country where conservatives typically don't get huge crowds and i remember back to going to

00:19:54.480 going to eastern canada for example brunswick you know people turned out to see the prime minister

00:19:59.680 when stephen harper was prime minister but they didn't come out in their thousands i do not

00:20:06.160 recall an occasion in eastern canada when we had 6 400 people packed into a an aircraft hangar

00:20:14.960 for a party event and at the same time when mr carney famously holds a little gathering at a

00:20:23.120 probably is a good thing to do now and then just a change of pace shows a different side of him

00:20:28.480 but most of his meetings with the single exception last night here in calvary of uh

00:20:34.080 when he had 2 000 people apparently you know he doesn't get large crowds so is there an enthusiasm

00:20:40.800 for the liberals and i kind of doubt it because if people are not enthusiastic enough to go out

00:20:47.440 to a meeting if they're not enthusiastic enough to give the way the conservatives give

00:20:54.320 will they be enthusiastic enough to go out and vote when the day comes and this i think must be

00:21:00.960 very much on the minds of the liberal party organizers cory just doesn't mean the polls are

00:21:07.680 quite possibly wrong or just that maybe the polls are right but conservative voters tend to be just

00:21:13.200 much more excited, uh, and enthusiastic about voting and angry at the status quo. Uh, I mean,

00:21:19.260 it is hard to work up a crowd of saying, you know, uh, give us a fourth term, nine more years of the 0.78

00:21:25.360 last crap we've had, um, and doing it with a guy who's even less charismatic, uh, than, uh, than 0.95

00:21:31.780 Trudeau. I don't know. Are the polls wrong or, uh, is this, is there, is it? A lot of us are 0.99

00:21:36.160 hoping the polls are wrong and conservatives are often underrepresented in polls. That's nothing

00:21:40.220 new. I still, I mean, I don't want to be negative on things, but in a sense of how it might turn

00:21:46.660 into votes, but it could also show differences in organizational techniques and what the

00:21:50.560 conservatives are trying to do versus what the liberals are trying to do. They're playing their

00:21:53.700 strengths. As you said, Carney's a little dull. It might not be your best thing to bring a bunch

00:21:57.640 of people into a room and have them board for an hour. Mr. Polly has been very effective even

00:22:02.940 through the leadership and getting large groups together and having an exciting meeting and

00:22:08.440 getting your ground game together to get those volunteers to get the word out to make sure

00:22:12.540 people get to these events the event planning event planning if you've worked politics is a

00:22:16.500 nightmare they've got some really good people on it and they're getting them out to these and it's

00:22:21.400 good it shows energy i mean it shows to people watching it even on the news if they haven't gone

00:22:24.940 there boy something's going on here there's some enthusiasm and hopefully it's catching but i don't

00:22:30.100 know if we can draw that to a direct correlation to upcoming votes either well let me give you this

00:22:35.260 hopeful thought. Angry people get out to vote. People who are satisfied will vote if they feel

00:22:40.440 like it. I think that a lot of the people who are giving a yes to the liberals are people in our

00:22:46.780 demographic, you know, the baby boomer generation. They're not ideas people, and they don't have a 0.92

00:22:53.060 problem. Now, the younger people, they want a place to live. They want a job. They want an 0.84

00:22:58.320 education. They want to make some money. And it's not happening under nine years of the Trudeau

00:23:03.620 government. So yes, they're mad. They have all kinds of ideas of why this is, and it is to them

00:23:10.220 that Mr. Polyev has been speaking, and he will get them out to vote. Well, and that's another

00:23:14.720 aspect of it. If you're organizational, I mean, the GOTV for, you know, get out the vote, that's

00:23:19.740 an important part of the campaigning. And if the ground game is that good with Polyev and getting

00:23:23.940 people out to the rallies, that could also be reflected on his group of organizers getting the

00:23:28.520 identified supporters out to those polls when they open up. So some of that can translate that

00:23:33.060 way as well just got to be careful with it that's all i would say sometimes the dull candidate still

00:23:37.820 wins the the race well i mean uh stephen harper's brand i think uh was bored a bit from bill davis

00:23:45.660 for the preview of ontario i think you know the saying was uh uh bland sells or something stephen

00:23:51.320 harper with a few exceptions was generally not a fiery speaker uh you know he deliberately put

00:23:58.100 Ford the, very much like Mark Carney, the economist look.

00:24:02.280 You know, he was trained as an economist, didn't really practice as it, but trained it as an

00:24:05.800 economist, almost putting forward, like, I'm the bean counting accountant here.

00:24:10.800 You can trust me to mine the shop.

00:24:12.280 It might not be exciting, but it'll be competent and no big surprises.

00:24:18.600 I think a big part of that was it ran counter to the perennial liberal narrative of the

00:24:25.660 hidden agenda which i always hoped that stephen harper had and turned out we just couldn't find

00:24:30.200 it when i came to it yeah i was very disappointed that that was my very disappointed but uh and it

00:24:34.600 worked until the shiny pony uh justin trudeau came around and that wore off perhaps you know

00:24:41.320 nigel do you think there is an appetite for boring after because justin trudeau was not boring he was

00:24:46.380 not dull and i mean well i think he's got a lot more mental uh chops than just trudeau obviously

00:24:53.020 In a way, Pierre Polyev, because he is colorful, because he is charismatic, is in a way, you know, is he maybe working against the desire of voters, if there is a desire of voters, to have a boring bean counter prime minister?

00:25:10.320 Well, you know, it could be that way.

00:25:13.240 Like, change is threatening, and Pierre Polyev is offering change.

00:25:17.120 now he i think he's offering change that people want um especially if you're one of the homeless

00:25:23.120 jobless ones living in your parents basement so yeah you would get excited about that but i suppose

00:25:28.480 if you are a if you are a comfortable person you may not find that particular urge for change so

00:25:36.480 so much of a driving factor.

00:25:40.240 Nevertheless, the older generation does hold the purse strings,

00:25:48.960 and they could be anxious that somebody like Pierre Polyever

00:25:53.260 is going to change everything to their disadvantage.

00:25:56.380 So maybe they're quiet voters.

00:25:58.780 You know, I've said this before, that very quietly,

00:26:01.660 I think Pierre Polyever promises, you know,

00:26:04.500 know if you can make it come true or not, of building more homes and bringing housing

00:26:07.360 prices down, very quietly, a lot of older voters who are sitting on a huge equity in

00:26:15.220 their homes, they've got to look at that and say, that's not in my interest.

00:26:18.880 Can I say that of Mr. Carney, too, though?

00:26:22.200 I mean, yesterday he was promising to build millions of mouse dorms.

00:26:25.980 Well, maybe they are projecting on him the way I projected on Stephen Harper, that he

00:26:29.620 has a hidden agenda, that, oh, well, he doesn't really mean it.

00:26:32.520 Yeah, there'll be some building, but it won't be so much building that it's going to endanger the value of my home, where we have a real generational divide here.

00:26:41.820 And normally it's older voters who vote conservative, younger voters voting for progressivist parties.

00:26:47.340 We're going to flip here.

00:26:48.560 I guess it depends, Derek, on whether your children are living in your basement.

00:26:53.640 If they are...

00:26:54.280 Well, then you buy a lot.

00:26:55.880 You know, you're motivated.

00:26:58.340 Maybe we're in a lawn chair.

00:26:58.740 Yeah, so the grandparents who don't have to deal with that, they want to hold on to the limited housing market.

00:27:06.680 The parents with their, you know, 28-year-old kids living in the basement, they might be a bit more sympathetic to getting them the hell out.

00:27:14.620 I think so.

00:27:15.840 Okay.

00:27:17.200 Well, let's talk about, before your eyes all glaze over, the notwithstanding clause.

00:27:25.520 It's the part of the Constitution that allows Parliament or provincial legislatures to essentially throw out or preempt court rulings that say something is unconstitutional under the Charter.

00:27:38.820 And some people on our Senate, it only applies to the Charter part of the Constitution, nothing else.

00:27:42.420 Peter Polyev

00:27:45.360 said that

00:27:46.700 this is

00:27:49.120 three strikes and you're out

00:27:50.880 rule today and it seems

00:27:53.200 highly

00:27:54.480 possible if not probable that the Supreme

00:27:57.060 Court would say that's not constitutional

00:27:58.940 that's cruel and unusual punishment

00:28:00.360 and so that the notwithstanding clause

00:28:02.940 would need to be invoked

00:28:03.940 to

00:28:05.060 for that kind of law

00:28:08.880 to come to force

00:28:10.000 the leader of the Bloc Québécois

00:28:12.280 says uh well that's just lunacy you can't be treating the poor criminals this way uh we have

00:28:18.840 to respect the charter oh and then in the very next sentence he says and i would invoke the

00:28:25.200 notwithstanding clause um uh to get the federal government's official bilingualism requirements

00:28:31.640 out of quebec so quebec can be fully unilingual uh cory there's part of me that likes that

00:28:38.060 Why don't we get the federal government out of official bilingualism in all provinces?

00:28:42.860 And, you know, we could make the official language of Alberta English, Punjab or Swahili if we like.

00:28:49.480 Well, I mean, if you're going to do it just if we're going to be bilingual and we did it just by demographics.

00:28:53.480 Yeah, I'm not sure if Cantonese or these days now it might be Punjabi is the second language.

00:29:00.760 Then let's address that.

00:29:02.140 I mean, when's the last time you've run across a unilingual French person in Alberta anyways?

00:29:07.180 They're pretty hard to find unless you go to a federal office,

00:29:09.620 and I dodge those for all I'm worth.

00:29:10.940 Yeah, like the only time I ran into a French accent in Quebec,

00:29:13.520 other than one of my buddies down the street,

00:29:15.520 is when I have to pay at the ticket booth going into Banff.

00:29:19.500 Well, that's a French accent, but it looks perfectly fine,

00:29:22.480 because, you know, so it is ridiculous that they put it here.

00:29:26.360 I think it would be a great precedent to set, as you said.

00:29:28.720 I mean, seeing Premier Smith say, you know, we're just wasting too much time.

00:29:31.620 I want to see Punjabi on the back of the cereal box when I read it in the morning, 1.00

00:29:34.460 along with my English ingredients.

00:29:36.840 Or we could just end French and have just English.

00:29:38.960 Or just have English altogether.

00:29:40.380 Is this something we should take the block up on?

00:29:43.040 That we use the notwithstanding clause, not just for Quebec, official bilingualism, but for the whole country, perhaps.

00:29:49.940 Well, again, as an independence-minded guy, I'd like to see that constitution and charter challenged quite often.

00:29:55.640 And hey, it was that old Pierre who put that notwithstanding clause in the charter in the first place.

00:30:01.280 So we're only using the rules that Trudeau's data gave us.

00:30:04.060 Well, under some pressure from Alberta's own Peter Lockheed, let us remember, I mean, that notwithstanding clause is actually the provincial protection against the overweening power of a majority in the rest of the country.

00:30:18.240 We need that.

00:30:20.000 And there's an opportunity.

00:30:21.280 Absolutely.

00:30:22.280 I mean, whether Polyev is going to be willing to use it federally, it gets a little more dicey with those things.

00:30:28.020 Does he want to go to war with the judiciary?

00:30:31.340 I think it needs to be.

00:30:32.340 we've seen some pretty horrific cases of sentencing of some very violent people

00:30:35.800 being released. But it opens a big discussion. I'm not huge on mandatory minimums, to be honest,

00:30:42.540 because I think the nuance of individual circumstances in a crime should be taken

00:30:45.840 into account by a competent judge when they decide these things. But when we see so many

00:30:49.780 failures of them to judge on those, I don't know if mandatory minimums are the best way to deal

00:30:55.980 with that, though, or trying for judicial reform. But I was ready to shake stuff up. But if that

00:31:01.520 translates into provincial use of it, I'm

00:31:03.480 all game for it.

00:31:07.600 Well, let's talk about it for crime.

00:31:09.680 But the Polyab's three strikes and you're

00:31:11.560 out proposal, just on its own merits,

00:31:13.880 Nigel.

00:31:15.260 I'm a little extra

00:31:17.700 peed about this right now. Just yesterday

00:31:19.660 when I left the newsroom to go home, I got on

00:31:21.720 my motorcycle.

00:31:23.860 But as I was walking up to it, the parkade,

00:31:25.640 it was robbed. The saddlebags on it

00:31:27.620 were just emptied out. Some

00:31:29.600 meth heads stole some gloves 1.00

00:31:31.480 glasses and a bag of Werther's originals this episode of the pipelines brought to you by

00:31:36.480 Werther's originals so good the meth heads love it too um i was actually not as uh i was actually

00:31:42.920 almost relieved because the last time a meth head got at my bike he pushed it over it caused

00:31:45.920 thousands of dollars of damage um but you know crime is just wildly out of control um the police

00:31:53.480 do nothing about it i don't think this is all just the courts the police do nothing about it

00:31:58.000 like when a when a meth head knocked my bike over uh you know a year and a half ago i went i looked

00:32:03.560 at the security footage i found the guy i rode around downtown gave him right to the police they

00:32:08.220 charge him arrest him release him he just never shows up to court and because he's a homeless

00:32:13.020 drug addict the police spend no effort to try and find the guy i guarantee he's probably within 500

00:32:18.040 meters where we're sitting right now the police do nothing which is why i didn't even call the

00:32:22.440 cops when my bike was robbed yesterday they do nothing uh something has to be done about this

00:32:28.380 three strikes and you're out seems okay maybe it'll help but i think policing is where the

00:32:34.100 issue is well it is but look i mean the reason it's three strikes and you're out is because it's

00:32:39.020 a baseball term everybody understands it it's an easy sell so what do they say they say once

00:32:43.900 is happening twice is a coincidence and three is a pattern so all right somebody somebody knocks

00:32:51.180 over your bike once is a happening say they do it again somebody else is that a coincidence

00:32:57.820 if it's the same guy no already the pattern is establishing itself three times what are you

00:33:03.820 going to do with this guy well we already had the third and fourth uh i remember last summer we had

00:33:07.180 methods jumping out trying to get hit by my motorcycle and insurance scams so we i've already

00:33:11.460 had four all right so look what do you do with uh people who make crime a habit i am i get the

00:33:20.440 argument that you're making uh cory that there is nuance and subtlety in some situations and maybe

00:33:27.320 the judge shouldn't be bound oh now speaking on mandatory minimums well they're tied together but

00:33:31.960 a three strikes thing i mean uh you know if if the if you if the guy is back for the third time for

00:33:38.520 the same kind of offense obviously if it's serious you're trying to take him off the street i do you

00:33:45.000 know it does work i remember the back in oh gosh must be 20 years ago now but uh

00:33:51.080 in manitoba they had a horrible problem with car car thefts so one day they went out and

00:33:58.120 picked everybody up who had a habit of stealing cars and they incarcerated them and for the

00:34:02.520 duration of the incarceration they had virtually no car thefts now you know car thefts is an

00:34:11.640 insurance job is to talk to some you don't want it to happen but for serious things like rape

00:34:17.720 grand robbery murder how many how many chances are you going to give a guy to get over it so i

00:34:25.720 actually am largely in favor of three strikes in europe oh and that's the exact question and so am

00:34:32.920 i if it's done right there's part of the issue i think california was where they screwed it up in

00:34:37.320 the 90s i believe it was but they kind of put in a three strikes law that was broad and they were

00:34:41.960 getting suddenly people who had a marijuana possession ticket on their third strike getting

00:34:45.720 15 year sentences which was they messed up the law which had the right intention but you got

00:34:51.240 to get a little more careful with it i mean an armed robber three times i'm worried because

00:34:55.480 he's going to kill somebody uh you know by the way i think in the harper ministry we did have it

00:35:01.240 right but the idea that government should actually make the rules rather than the judiciary offended

00:35:08.040 the judiciary and so one of the first things that mr trudeau did when he took over was to get rid

00:35:14.040 of that that's just because it's tough to do the law doesn't mean i don't feel it should be done

00:35:19.720 i'm just saying there's going to be challenges and uh i i hope paulia follows through on those

00:35:25.320 again we just got to make sure we're at least prioritizing too we only have so much jail space

00:35:28.520 because that's what happened in california you've got the the pothead who's taken up a cell and then

00:35:32.600 the murderer gets loose because you got the pothead wasn't hurting anybody these people are i've got a

00:35:38.280 much more radical idea and it it is fraught with problems um i think we have almost a blanket

00:35:48.280 notwithstanding clause for essentially dealing with homeless drug addicts for a year and essentially

00:35:56.200 just a roundup a brutal roundup it would require building almost prison camps to take the numbers

00:36:03.160 but like you walk around calgary calgary is traditionally one of the safest cleanest cities

00:36:08.160 in the country even we're overrun you could just imagine how downtown east side vancouver is which

00:36:13.660 is just apocalyptic i think we we we use the notwithstanding clause essentially spit suspend

00:36:19.900 their charter rights for a year and we just round them up uh put them through forcible on a shorter

00:36:26.860 term though that that's the uh i mean it's compassionate intervention policy that premier

00:36:32.380 smith has been proposing uh i'm talking a much broader i know you're talking i'm talking pretty

00:36:38.780 old school brutal because i think the problem is at that level it's crazy we're digressing but

00:36:44.220 onto something very good i think because that's where we've got a lot of the crime both dangerous

00:36:47.820 and property is it comes down to that addiction epidemic we've got and the mental health crisis

00:36:52.600 we've got and if we took the people and still have been maybe not looked at it as so much as

00:36:57.680 a punitive roundup but still as a these are people who are so out of control we can't allow

00:37:03.140 them agency any longer the same as with the mental health act we already have clauses for it

00:37:07.400 if a person looks like they're going to harm themselves or others we can hold them and hopefully

00:37:13.660 treat them and make it so that would stop happening that should be applied to these people

00:37:18.340 on the street level when they're that at that degree and we've seen it as you said anybody's

00:37:22.780 been out of town you see the zombies they're not going to pull themselves out of that hole

00:37:26.200 they're they're they're covered in sores they're skinny they're not in their right mind

00:37:29.820 and let's quit pretending they aren't dangerous we see the stabbings on the train platforms we

00:37:35.380 you know i i'm with you just think we could package it a little better to sell it i remember

00:37:40.420 You mean you're not too much about the brutality of you?

00:37:43.380 No, it'd be the brutal on crime act.

00:37:47.140 Forget tough on crime, the brutal on crime.

00:37:49.480 And people's rights would be wrongfully violated.

00:37:52.500 That would be an inevitable consequence that there would be some wrong people caught up in the net of something like this.

00:37:57.920 But I think we are at such a crisis level of crime.

00:38:01.560 I didn't report it.

00:38:03.420 I didn't report that someone robbed my bike.

00:38:05.540 Because what's the bloody point?

00:38:06.880 I'll just spend a couple hours talking to cops so they can scribble it down.

00:38:09.920 absolutely nothing it's bad for our statistics too because it means there are a lot more you're

00:38:14.440 not alone there's a lot more crimes happening the people you know the people want to get to

00:38:17.440 their car and the windows smashed out and somebody's taking why am i going to bother

00:38:21.020 you know i i might as well just get it fixed there's more happening than than the statistics

00:38:26.480 indicate and that that frustrates me i mean if we're going to keep down the the rabbit hole but

00:38:30.620 around these safe injection sites the crime in those areas are horrific but who's going to call 0.71

00:38:34.240 because somebody stole something off your lawn or tried to break into your back you don't know where

00:38:38.040 your catalytic converter.

00:38:38.680 They call the police from the guy

00:38:39.540 who tries to stop you

00:38:40.780 from stealing from you.

00:38:41.300 Yes.

00:38:43.440 Sorry, Nigel.

00:38:44.360 I just,

00:38:45.240 do you know where

00:38:45.900 your catalytic converter is?

00:38:47.420 Yes.

00:38:48.340 Apparently they take

00:38:49.160 about 30 seconds

00:38:49.960 to tape whip off

00:38:50.900 if you know what you're doing.

00:38:52.160 Nothing but a revenue stream

00:38:53.880 for the crooked class. 0.98

00:38:55.980 Wow.

00:38:56.560 And that shows some 0.74

00:38:57.180 of the madness of progressives.

00:38:58.700 I watched a debate among,

00:39:00.140 actually,

00:39:00.540 just to sign out again,

00:39:01.640 because in Calgary,

00:39:02.480 that's where justice

00:39:03.480 comes into municipal politics too.

00:39:05.600 And there was a municipal politician

00:39:06.820 down in the States

00:39:07.580 And there was a great clip of her standing up chiding Toyota because they were apparently

00:39:12.360 one of the more targeted catalytic converter vehicles for thefts, saying it was their fault

00:39:17.340 because they made it so easy to get at that these guys could steal it like it is.

00:39:22.180 It's under a car.

00:39:23.680 You need a tool.

00:39:24.980 You need to cut that thing.

00:39:26.100 We're not talking about a laptop left on a coffee table that you're, you know, when

00:39:29.580 somebody went to the bathroom and somebody snatched as a crime of opportunity, these

00:39:32.800 are planned, but the progressive mindset blames the victim.

00:39:36.720 as you said you know they're gonna go after the person who uh the gun is responsible not the

00:39:40.820 person yeah it's absurd and we've got you know if we want justice reform it's a huge issue and i

00:39:46.380 love seeing discussion of it because it's bugged me for a long time but it's also a big issue you

00:39:50.740 know so speak of the old onion with a lot of layers uh to begin with though just just getting

00:39:55.300 our most violent as probably wants to do and using uh the notwithstanding to do it getting

00:40:00.140 those dangerous ones and those sex offenders locked up yeah i'm all for it i think it's start

00:40:04.400 i just don't think it's gonna it's not gonna get it because we need it's not just bad judges it's

00:40:10.000 police who are overwhelmed by the guy you know i handed the guy they charged him i said what's

00:40:15.200 gonna happen next they said nothing he's not gonna show up there's nothing we can do we

00:40:20.960 we're gonna need to build bigger temporary prisons and deal with this stuff because it's

00:40:25.680 it's killing our communities well it's something else mental health facilities we need nut houses 1.00

00:40:29.840 again and they don't make not houses great again absolutely i mean they don't have to look like

00:40:34.860 they did and one flew over the cuckoo's nest but we need secured facilities and we've been closing

00:40:38.820 those down for decades and where do the people that used to reside in them go they're right

00:40:42.940 they're over the streets and they're desperate and they're in trouble indeed okay uh well

00:40:48.900 let's turn it to our parting shots uh we didn't discuss this in advance so hopefully you guys

00:40:54.020 don't preempt uh what i had uh we'll start with you nigel well hopefully uh hopefully we don't 0.87

00:40:59.500 Look, we had a story this morning about how Kearney supporters steal and vandalize hundreds of conservative campaign signs in Ottawa.

00:41:09.680 I couldn't help thinking how very appropriate that was for Kearney supporters to steal the signs after Kearney himself has stolen so many of polyurethyls.

00:41:18.920 Oh, this is a true, that's nice.

00:41:20.780 I switched it in there.

00:41:21.700 That's good.

00:41:23.940 Okay.

00:41:24.560 Well, just a side note.

00:41:25.640 Don't rip it on that any longer.

00:41:26.700 Okay.

00:41:27.020 That was a real party shot. 0.71

00:41:28.540 That one.

00:41:29.080 Okay.

00:41:29.500 There's been some interesting vandalism. I saw a whole bunch of Shuv Majumder signs. I've got 0.85

00:41:34.880 free Palestine spray painted all over them in South Calgary for whatever reason, but the liberal ones

00:41:38.980 untouched. Shuv's been pretty outspoken for Israel for quite a while, though it just does 0.99

00:41:45.700 get frustrating. I mean, we all know Shuv is a good guy. That's just the usual sign BS. For my

00:41:50.340 thing, it ties in a little with polling and wondering and some of those national trends.

00:41:54.540 This one floored me and it's Epsos. As you said, they tend to be more liberal friendly.

00:41:58.440 this isn't about the part well it is about the parties but

00:42:00.880 they found apparently with a large

00:42:03.080 poll that Canadians feel that

00:42:05.100 liberals are the best to manage

00:42:07.240 the energy and resources

00:42:08.920 across Canada. We were just

00:42:11.200 talking about mental health issues being

00:42:12.680 widespread in society. This party

00:42:14.960 that was led by a man who said there was no

00:42:17.140 business case to export liquid natural gas

00:42:19.060 we could already be exporting it if that ding dong hadn't been 1.00

00:42:21.140 shutting it down back then. This

00:42:23.200 party that shut down the Trans Mountain

00:42:25.060 pipeline that shut down Energy East

00:42:28.440 And Canadians still think that they are the best party to manage our resources. 0.99

00:42:35.140 Gets back to why I think the West is saying, we can't reason with you guys anymore.

00:42:39.880 You're beyond reason.

00:42:41.440 This is absurd.

00:42:43.080 And we're talking a widespread 3825 sort of thing going on.

00:42:46.840 Now it's Ipsos.

00:42:47.920 Who knows?

00:42:48.600 But they're not as bad as Frankie.

00:42:50.880 Really people.

00:42:51.820 I mean, you could love the liberals for many, many things, whatever they might be.

00:42:55.460 but to say that they would be the best at managing our resources and energy is getting into madness

00:43:02.320 but you know if they if the east truly does feel that way then we might have we might already be

00:43:09.080 effectively different countries we're not talking the same language here pretty much i was just

00:43:13.920 floored when i saw that one all right uh well geez we're uh we're all flowing real nice here uh i

00:43:21.320 want to talk uh just note uh mark carney in calgary today uh saying he's gonna make canada

00:43:28.600 an energy superpower i've heard that before yeah yeah who who uh stephen harper yeah um what

00:43:38.180 happened in the meantime yeah nine liberals years of liberals um but i just want to remark on the

00:43:43.280 language of it you could tell he almost said we want to make canadian energy great as you

00:43:46.680 you could like i i thought that actually would have been a fine alternative headline although

00:43:52.280 energy superpower you could put in actual quotes make uh canadian energy great again

00:43:56.820 you couldn't put it in it um he had some interesting you know he was talking about

00:44:02.320 approvals process and not duplicating with the provinces and whatnot i'm gonna have to wait and

00:44:07.800 see uh you know more in-depth analysis by experts of what it means you know we've got sean pulser

00:44:12.740 in the newsroom. Oh, you could see him over

00:44:14.880 Corey's shoulder there. Sean, we're going away

00:44:16.840 on that very thing, I think.

00:44:19.440 Maybe it cuts down on red

00:44:20.840 tape for project approvals. If so, I mean,

00:44:22.740 credit where it's due.

00:44:24.980 But it also could mean

00:44:26.780 that if a province has denied

00:44:28.680 an application,

00:44:30.520 Quebec, that means that

00:44:32.160 does that mean that the federal government

00:44:34.180 by default also denies

00:44:36.860 an application to build a pipeline or something

00:44:38.840 like that, or a cobalt mine,

00:44:40.760 etc. Hard to say. It's an interesting policy. We're going to need better analysis from experts.

00:44:47.980 I know more about it than I do. But just remarking on the language, you could tell he almost wanted

00:44:53.540 to say we're going to make Canadian energy great again. For obvious reasons, he did not use that

00:44:58.460 phraseology. Okay, that's it for today's show. Remember, because of the extremely generous

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Western Standard - April 10, 2025

Western independence takes the stage

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