Western Standard - When the ethnic vote votes ethnic

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

00:00:27.540 Today is May 13th, 2026, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:31.840 I've got our normal crew of misfits here, our former opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:37.780 Former because I'm a misfit, I guess.

00:00:40.620 Nah, you retire.

00:00:41.680 I retire. 1.00

00:00:42.160 I'm still here because you're a misfit. 0.97

00:00:43.560 Yeah, that's too fit. 0.98

00:00:46.020 Senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:47.960 And news editor, Dave Naylor. 0.86

00:00:51.120 Head misfit. 1.00

00:00:52.860 Head mistress.

00:00:53.660 all right you know sometimes it kind of fits with the business right uh we are going to talk

00:01:00.460 about uh alberta's big carbon tax sellout uh confirmed today that uh the alberta ucp government

00:01:10.780 has agreed to pay a carbon tax of 130 per metric con getting to that by uh 2040 in exchange for

00:01:20.700 Well, we'll get the details of it tomorrow, unless it leaks out earlier.

00:01:24.280 But we'll get the details at least officially tomorrow.

00:01:27.020 Friday.

00:01:28.320 Oh, yes.

00:01:28.760 Friday.

00:01:29.200 Not tomorrow.

00:01:29.960 I'm ahead of myself.

00:01:31.120 But Friday at a press conference between Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney,

00:01:37.680 where I guess there'll be some kind of announcements of a pipeline or towards pipelines.

00:01:42.980 We'll see.

00:01:44.020 But either way, Alberta has had to sell the farm to get this.

00:01:47.820 So we'll talk about it.

00:01:48.700 um the canada haters are rallying to save canada from alberta the only uh the only thing the canada

00:01:59.000 haters hate more than canada it seems is alberta uh efforts by some in the foreign-owned and eastern

00:02:08.520 owned uh mainstream media press to paint every every alberta independent supporter as a hater

00:02:16.820 of canada while conveniently overlooking the people who genuinely hate canada people who topple

00:02:22.260 statues of our founders people who change the lyrics of oh canada people who denigrate the

00:02:27.460 military that kind of thing so we're going to get into kind of the hypocrisy around that

00:02:31.460 but uh first uh what happens when the ethnic vote votes ethnic um you know we've had uh it's it's a

00:02:41.460 thing not just in canada or alberta it's it's really everywhere in the western world that has

00:02:45.860 mass migration, you get kind of balkanized pockets of people from different ethnicities,

00:02:54.920 and they'll often vote, normally vote for someone of their own ethnicity once they reach a critical

00:03:01.780 mass of the voting public. But there's a very interesting case we want to zero in on from

00:03:08.580 Ontario, I think Scarborough, so you know, in the GTA, where Nate Erskine-Smith, he is a member of

00:03:15.840 a Liberal Member of Parliament, and he's trying to become a Liberal Member of the Ontario Parliament

00:03:20.000 because he's seeking the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party. He has spent his entire political

00:03:24.800 career supporting open border, virtually unlimited mass migration, Dave. There's video clips of him

00:03:32.560 going back a decade and a mile long of him pandering to that local ethnic community,

00:03:38.560 which is Bangladeshi primarily.

00:03:41.880 And I guess he was expecting a little gratitude

00:03:44.280 for the support he's given them.

00:03:47.520 And it didn't pan out so well

00:03:49.160 when he was running for the Liberal nomination,

00:03:50.980 which is kind of a precursor for him

00:03:52.240 to become Ontario Liberal leader, right?

00:03:53.760 Yeah, be careful what you do 1.00

00:03:55.500 in case it comes back and bites you on the ass, 1.00

00:03:57.380 I guess is the way to look at it. 1.00

00:03:59.920 Yeah, he, in the nomination race for Scarborough,

00:04:04.220 he lost to a gentleman called Ashenol Hafiz,

00:04:07.200 who is a local Bangladeshi businessman, owns 15 Domino's pizza outlets.

00:04:15.880 And he lost, Erskine Smith lost by 19 votes.

00:04:21.040 And it was just, it looked like a mess.

00:04:24.360 I mean, it looked like Northeast Calgary politics at its worst.

00:04:29.000 They were handing out Bangladeshi voting cards and telling them,

00:04:33.340 You know, basically having these people, I don't mean these people like that, but not in a Don Cherry way.

00:04:40.920 But, you know, he got the Bangladeshi community motivated and they came out and supported their Bangladeshi client, you know, or candidate.

00:04:52.280 So, yeah, liberals all for mass migration. 0.96

00:04:55.500 But now it's turning into, you know, hey, we can't even get elected in Toronto right now because of the ethnic group. 0.95

00:05:02.720 And apparently he doesn't speak very good English, so I'm sure he'll be a worthwhile member of the Ontario Parliament. 1.00

00:05:10.540 I think there's a good headline in there about the dominoes falling or something along those lines. 0.98

00:05:17.480 Corey, you know how ethnic politics works.

00:05:23.520 We've got our pockets here in Alberta.

00:05:25.960 Northeast Calgary is one spot.

00:05:27.980 Southwest Edmonton is another.

00:05:29.380 And those enclaves continue to grow into other quadrants of both cities, even areas outside of both cities, increasingly.

00:05:38.380 And all parties play this game.

00:05:41.880 The Conservatives are absolutely no better on this.

00:05:47.080 You know, Conservatives often...

00:05:49.960 Doug Ford just the other week saying, hey, I wish I could snap my fingers and you could all stay and then become citizens.

00:05:57.260 Everyone plays this game.

00:05:58.860 I think the Liberals probably lean into it the hardest, but the Conservatives do it pretty well.

00:06:04.680 They don't get any pass on this kind of thing.

00:06:08.880 But the assumption has generally been you're going to support the politician that lets you in.

00:06:17.700 Our party has been in power for 10 years.

00:06:20.360 We let you guys in.

00:06:21.620 We let your cousins and your uncles and your grandparents and all of these people in, and we've provided generous benefits.

00:06:27.640 I'm such a good guy, I show up to the

00:06:30.440 cultural events, I put on the costume, I do

00:06:32.520 the dance, I eat the food

00:06:34.040 and

00:06:36.260 they expect an electoral reward

00:06:38.400 for that. Well, they might still be willing to vote for the party

00:06:40.420 but they still want their

00:06:42.300 guy in

00:06:44.000 and that seems to be the lesson of

00:06:46.260 Nader's Smith here

00:06:48.440 His campaign put out a video

00:06:51.760 detailing what, it sounds pretty fraudulent

00:06:54.180 but none of it sounds surprising

00:06:55.900 you know they got people voting without proper id they're like the flimsiest of stuff that they're

00:07:01.820 allowing to take place sounds like people got to vote more than once it sounds totally fraudulent

00:07:07.420 but it's kind of a what else did you expect when you're playing this is tammany hall

00:07:13.580 politics just in 2026 what else did you expect yeah well that the ethnic game is totally different

00:07:20.220 as we've all suffered through it i'll just kind of quickly go back to a past story we had

00:07:24.220 a nomination in northeast calgary with the wild rose party when it was up and coming

00:07:28.140 we had five people four people running in it three were of ethnic minorities and one wasn't

00:07:33.500 the three who were running immediately submitted thousands and thousands of brand new memberships

00:07:38.620 and it's determined we quickly determined that actually all three had sold to the exact same

00:07:42.780 three members over and over the duplicates were out of control so our executive director actually

00:07:48.940 went door knocking and documenting and checking on these we had households with supposedly 20 people

00:07:53.180 in them uh things like that and we disqualified all three of the others and kept the white guy

00:07:57.900 i tell you the backlash looked awful but what are you supposed to do they play politics differently

00:08:03.660 in blocks and they play the nomination game heavily so on the liberals well it looks good

00:08:08.740 on you you back towards it you didn't put in the controls and you learned another hard lesson

00:08:14.300 it's also a symptom though i think of not having good policies of multiculturalism but when these

00:08:20.620 blocks and these enclaves are starting to turn so predominant for one group or another group or

00:08:25.220 another. We're going to see more of that, whether it's conservative or liberal, because you don't

00:08:28.380 play based on policy any longer. You've got to play based on finding community leadership and

00:08:33.560 whatever that particular ethnicity that dominates a riding is. And I don't think it's healthy for

00:08:38.380 Canada democracy, but we're just seeing it starkly with the liberals now having it happen to them.

00:08:43.240 And we're going to see more. So a ton of people voting in this, it's claimed we're not citizens,

00:08:50.300 which is allowed under the Liberal Party, but many of them were even temporary foreign workers,

00:08:54.720 like they're not even permanent residents. But the Conservatives really can't get on their high

00:08:59.340 horse here. The Conservatives don't at least officially allow temporary foreign workers to 0.99

00:09:03.640 vote, but the Conservative Party voted against limiting membership and therefore voting in the

00:09:09.120 Conservative Party federally to Canadian citizens at their most recent convention here in Calgary.

00:09:13.660 The Conservatives voted against it. So they've got, they don't really have any high horse to

00:09:18.920 stand on here themselves um but i think one of the lessons here is i don't know how to put it

00:09:26.040 um in a way that's not going to get in trouble so i'm just going to get probably some trouble

00:09:30.320 here i'll have to discipline myself um you know regular proviso not all migrants are cheats and 0.74

00:09:36.760 engage in tammany hall style uh dirty politics but a lot do if you import people from the third

00:09:45.320 world, you cannot act surprised and shocked when you get third world politics. Some people do leave 0.59

00:09:53.140 that behind, and they want nothing to do with it here. But a lot don't. I mean, these are

00:09:59.060 multi-generational habits. Democracy is not just the flip of the switch. You know, everyone sounds

00:10:04.540 nice on paper, but it's a culture. It's a practice. It's something that often takes generations to be

00:10:10.820 truly inculcated with. And then there's the other side, which is where I probably get in more

00:10:19.200 trouble for saying that every other group in the world plays tribal politics. In the West,

00:10:28.280 white people, we've generally been told that's a bad thing. We don't play tribal politics.

00:10:33.680 We're colorblind. You know, a brown guy could represent a white riding, an Asian guy could

00:10:39.140 represent a black riding, and none of it should matter 0.96

00:10:41.280 because it's, you know,

00:10:43.260 we're not playing tribal politics.

00:10:45.920 But the fact is, that is a

00:10:47.360 uniquely 0.99

00:10:48.960 European

00:10:50.020 idea among European descended peoples,

00:10:53.260 that we don't do that. 0.98

00:10:55.800 The rest of the world didn't get

00:10:57.340 the memo. So Nader,

00:10:59.180 Skinsmith,

00:11:01.080 you know,

00:11:03.120 color him surprise, no pun intended,

00:11:05.100 that his

00:11:07.200 opponent showed up playing

00:11:09.120 tribal politics

00:11:11.000 I don't know where this leads

00:11:14.140 I don't know how we get

00:11:15.040 other groups to stop playing tribal politics

00:11:18.220 without eventually

00:11:19.440 everybody playing tribal politics

00:11:21.460 and when we get to that, that's a bad spot to meet

00:11:23.480 This is the triumph of everything

00:11:25.500 that the liberals have done since Pierre Trudeau

00:11:27.880 father of the

00:11:29.760 father of the

00:11:31.340 unfortunate Justin Trudeau's

00:11:33.180 first started opening

00:11:34.920 immigration offices

00:11:37.340 in non-traditional areas

00:11:38.900 back in 1967 they have always tried to play the race card play the cultural card in order to

00:11:47.120 weaken conservative holdings we go back to the 1970s when joe volpe prominent liberal mp at the

00:11:53.280 time uh basically stole the the uh ridings along the the shore of the lake there by importing

00:12:02.500 portuguese immigrants and eventually they managed to get the the the majorities that they needed

00:12:08.640 he was italian okay well he was but he used the portuguese and immigrants so uh yeah like

00:12:17.280 everything they have done has been to expand the influence of immigrants as at the expense of the

00:12:23.520 the conservatives lord knows jason kenny did a hell of a fine job trying to reverse that for

00:12:29.440 for the time that he was in office you know mr curry in a hurry was the was the joke around the

00:12:34.720 hill but uh you know it didn't stick so what we got we have got the full we are now seeing the

00:12:41.600 start of the full flowering of all of those policies over a period of some 60 years and

00:12:47.600 you get somebody like erskine smith who by the way is not a particularly sympathetic character

00:12:52.880 for people like us i'd say no more i went through the how many stages of grief is it five i you know

00:13:00.640 three seconds i was done and so so there you are the thing is this is a little bit unique in the

00:13:10.640 sense that after the war we had a lot of ethnic communities from europe displaced dps displaced

00:13:16.880 persons uh coming here germans austrians italians uh they didn't get into politics they showed up

00:13:26.080 they got the job they did it uh took the paycheck went home to their families what's different is

00:13:32.160 that the uh this particular group of uh immigrants from bangladesh and others like them do get into

00:13:39.680 uh into politics because they have actually bought the package they think that this is a good thing 0.61

00:13:45.200 this is how you get influence this is how you make things happen so let's play the game it's just

00:13:49.200 and they play dirty.

00:13:52.880 I forgot, we should have shown it earlier.

00:13:55.760 We've got to show that picture.

00:13:57.480 Someone captured this picture. It was on social media

00:13:59.460 and it really just, it captioned

00:14:01.440 both Nate Erskine-Smiths

00:14:02.920 and perhaps the Liberal Party, maybe even

00:14:05.280 Western Civilizations

00:14:06.800 predicament

00:14:09.180 here perfectly.

00:14:11.120 You'll see it's Nate

00:14:12.800 walking out of the hall, the building where

00:14:15.140 the nomination was held. There's trash 0.94

00:14:17.500 all over the ground it doesn't look like a first world country it's gloomy out in the distance that 0.99

00:14:23.680 he's walking to and there is a with the Canadian flag flying there's the weird uh trans pride

00:14:32.620 progress flag flying at the same time like it uh whoever captured that photo I don't know if they

00:14:39.140 that was intentionally meant but it was it's almost like a renaissance painting in its significance

00:14:45.100 and the symbolism captured right there.

00:14:49.460 I'll tell you one thing, Derek. 1.00

00:14:50.320 I bet it wasn't the Bangladeshi community 1.00

00:14:53.040 who put the trans flag there.

00:14:55.520 No. 1.00

00:14:57.300 I think that's a fair...

00:14:59.900 You might be prejudging things here,

00:15:02.220 but I think it's probably a fair prejudgment.

00:15:05.540 Yeah.

00:15:06.260 You know, the thing is, I would actually...

00:15:08.380 Maybe I'm just being very British about this,

00:15:11.320 but I would rather have somebody like Shothmajumdar.

00:15:15.100 or giovanni who are respectively of south asian origin and jamaican origin who are true conservatives

00:15:23.580 i would rather have them representing me in ottawa than i would have somebody

00:15:30.940 who is of the same persuasion as mr erskine smith who has totally unconservative ideas and is

00:15:38.860 actually part of the problem of how this country is going down to the point we can come out of a 0.90

00:15:44.540 nomination meet and see you trash on the ground on a trans flag that's give me the give me the

00:15:51.420 guy with the right ideas every time yeah but as we're quickly discovering though uh 0.98

00:15:59.180 the rest of the world didn't stop playing tribal politics just because you know we kind of

00:16:03.100 collectively decided as european societies some did break out i guess you could see like shoo he's

00:16:08.300 in calvary heritage i think yeah i mean he's not going to get a block of south asian voters that's

00:16:13.020 not an ethnic right he's he's won it based on his own merit and campaigning and uh he's a very

00:16:17.500 popular member of parliament down there so we can we can break out of that that that thing and to be

00:16:21.980 fair i think if shu ran in northeast calgary he would probably collect some of your support based

00:16:26.540 on your your ethnic community but but shu've won a non non-ethnic rotting yes i said you want to

00:16:33.580 well he's actually harper's right yeah it was harper's old right preston manning's running at

00:16:37.020 at one point,

00:16:38.920 for lack of a better term, he wanted a white rotting

00:16:41.020 based on values. 0.96

00:16:42.580 People liked what he stood for, he won the nomination,

00:16:44.960 he won the general. A bunch of people like us voted

00:16:46.900 for him. Yeah.

00:16:49.920 But I don't

00:16:51.020 think, even if we shared the

00:16:52.980 values, I think it's highly improbable

00:16:54.980 any one of the four of us at this table

00:16:56.960 would get elected in Northeast Calgary.

00:17:00.280 I'm willing to say

00:17:01.080 that with a fair bit of confidence. Well, part of the way

00:17:02.880 that game works is if we did, it would mean we

00:17:04.920 would have had to get some endorsement from some community

00:17:06.900 leaders in those ethnic

00:17:08.100 it gets into that

00:17:11.000 whole intricacy of northeast Calvary politics

00:17:12.720 we would owe them a favor

00:17:14.020 and you know I know some people

00:17:19.100 are going to watch this and they're going to try and play it back

00:17:21.040 to us at some point and lord it over us

00:17:23.200 and they're going to say this is so awful

00:17:24.740 how do you keep saying it

00:17:25.740 maybe some know nothings will not know better

00:17:29.000 but political operatives

00:17:31.220 in left wing parties

00:17:32.540 you might condemn us for saying this but you

00:17:34.880 know what we're saying is true

00:17:36.860 you play these games, you know

00:17:39.660 it's true, you know that

00:17:41.640 this is just the way it works

00:17:43.580 so, you know, save us

00:17:45.520 the self-righteous condemnation

00:17:47.960 when it comes for

00:17:49.200 saying the truth out loud that

00:17:50.980 you know, until very recently

00:17:53.320 people only said in hushed tones

00:17:55.620 Okay, well, I mean, that's a

00:17:59.180 sort of... Derek's never said

00:18:01.420 anything in hushed tones, has he?

00:18:03.200 Never, yeah

00:18:03.940 Touche

00:18:06.340 All right. Fairly decent segue then, I think, into our next segment here.

00:18:16.180 The Canada haters rallying to save Canada against Alberta.

00:18:20.100 So I don't mean to pick on him. He's actually a decent writer. I don't often agree with him.

00:18:24.400 But the Calgary Herald's Don Braid wrote in his column,

00:18:30.540 The Alberta independence people hate Canada. They have to show hatred and contempt for Canada.

00:18:35.160 He quotes some people saying, I don't think anything really hate, I don't know how in front of me, but, you know, that, you know, an independent Alberta would probably seek American recognition, which, I don't know, any country in the world seeking independence seeks American recognition, all the more so one that borders it.

00:18:52.860 So I don't know how that's a newsy thing, but he says, you know, these people hate Canada.

00:18:57.760 They have hatred and contempt for Canada.

00:18:59.620 and that got me thinking

00:19:06.840 Nigel

00:19:08.480 the Canada haters

00:19:10.700 I'm sure there are a few

00:19:12.900 but it's a vanishingly small number

00:19:14.940 when I think of Canada haters

00:19:16.760 I think of people who topple the statues

00:19:19.040 of Sir John M. Macdonald

00:19:20.160 I think of the people who changed the lyrics of

00:19:22.840 Old Canada to make it gender neutral and politically correct

00:19:25.240 I think of the people who either

00:19:26.980 cheered or stood by as 112

00:19:28.740 churches were burned to the ground or significantly

00:19:31.120 vandalized. I think

00:19:32.980 of the people who

00:19:33.860 kneel ritualistically for Black Lives Matter,

00:19:37.220 people who lowered the flag on Parliament

00:19:38.880 Hill for five months, people who

00:19:40.820 put down the

00:19:42.880 history of Canada as a 0.99

00:19:44.600 genocidal state founded on stolen 0.52

00:19:46.940 native land. When I think of Canada

00:19:48.960 haters, those are the

00:19:50.860 people I'm thinking of.

00:19:52.840 Not people who, for

00:19:54.880 the most part, have been

00:19:56.600 patriotic Canadians their whole life. They might be

00:19:58.660 born in Alberta or born elsewhere, loved Canada, loved what it stood for.

00:20:04.960 They don't hate Canada, at least as they were born into,

00:20:07.620 but they might hate what Canada has become and what Canada is becoming.

00:20:11.420 Well, I've had 50 years plus to observe the difference between Canada that was

00:20:16.060 and the Canada that it has become.

00:20:19.120 And so I can 100% see where you're coming from that on, Derek,

00:20:23.480 and actually agree with you.

00:20:24.860 But, you know, people are always going to put the best, go into a back room.

00:20:31.540 Well, what are we going to say now?

00:20:32.840 Obviously, somebody like Mr. Nenshi, a one-time mayor of Calgary,

00:20:37.660 now a leader of the opposition.

00:20:39.700 Well, how are we going to fight Daniel Smith on this one?

00:20:41.860 Well, we'll be very pro-Canadian.

00:20:43.220 Well, this is the same guy who tried to take one of the Canada Day celebrations

00:20:47.860 and then turn it into a provincial lament for all the sins of racism,

00:20:53.220 colonialism i don't know there was a long list and he didn't want to do canada day he wanted to

00:20:59.060 he wanted to make it a day of protest so when you got people like that you have to wonder about the

00:21:04.340 sincerity of it and you know because this came up i ended up looking around uh to see where where we

00:21:11.300 were going with this and um you know there's something on facebook i'm sorry instagram from

00:21:19.380 one court ellingson he's a an mla and this is the kind of ndp oh yeah very ndp so he says a few weeks

00:21:29.300 ago this would be last week a few weeks ago the alberta ndp organized a day of action to fight

00:21:34.500 against alberta separation here's what they got 75 people in calgary and 200 people across our

00:21:43.300 province showed up on a snowy april day to talk to neighbors about why alberta is better leading

00:21:50.180 canada than leaving it so you know after all the sound and fury and all the frankly the bs

00:21:57.700 they managed to get according to this individual 275 people out so i don't think the tide is

00:22:05.220 flowing their way because i think the what derek has just said about who it is who actually really

00:22:13.300 hates canada and the kind of things that the ways that they choose to express it don't fit well in

00:22:20.820 alberta um i think yeah sure go on take it from there but dave um you know i i uh i wrote a column

00:22:30.900 on this and you know

00:22:32.280 I kind of very broadly try to put

00:22:34.560 Alberta nationalists in two camps

00:22:36.420 one is

00:22:38.080 probably disproportionately Alberta born

00:22:40.880 that

00:22:42.540 understands the very long history of Alberta

00:22:44.900 struggle with Ottawa

00:22:45.800 structural constitutional issues

00:22:48.640 going back forever

00:22:49.820 all of these things

00:22:52.240 and that's one group and the other one

00:22:54.620 I called readout 0.91

00:22:56.320 Canadians

00:22:57.900 my guess is they probably come disproportionately 0.99

00:23:00.800 from other provinces uh because those other provinces are going to hell and they came to

00:23:06.720 alberta for an opportunity they come to alberta because of what it stands for um and they're

00:23:12.800 they're not anti-canadian at all they they're patriotic canadians but they see that canada

00:23:17.840 has gone to hell and it's continuing to go further down into hell and there does not appear to be

00:23:23.440 any real sign that that is being reversed 0.67

00:23:27.700 right now. And so the idea is that

00:23:31.480 you're actually able to save a slice of Canada

00:23:34.660 by leaving it, essentially. The rest of Canada is irreversibly

00:23:39.780 I think it's roughly 125-127%

00:23:43.360 debt to GDP, $4 trillion of debt.

00:23:47.660 These things are never, ever getting paid by us, our children, or even our

00:23:51.420 grandchildren.

00:23:53.680 We're still literally paying debt

00:23:55.340 taken out by Pierre Trudeau

00:23:57.780 before I was even born.

00:24:00.940 The idea

00:24:01.640 is to save a piece of Canada

00:24:03.100 by saving at least a little

00:24:05.520 piece of it.

00:24:08.600 I don't

00:24:09.640 see this being a deeply anti-Canadian

00:24:11.900 movement the way they say that

00:24:13.360 even Quebec would be. I'm not even sure Quebec is

00:24:15.460 necessarily anti-Canadian. It just wants to be its own 1.00

00:24:17.640 thing. I don't know.

00:24:19.480 You used to work with these guys.

00:24:21.420 So what plan are they living on thinking that this is somehow a Canada hate fest?

00:24:28.280 Well, you've got to remember Dawn, who I consider a friend.

00:24:31.460 He's a very left-wing, very left-wing writer, has been for decades.

00:24:36.620 But just look, I mean, the facts tell the story.

00:24:39.340 People are moving to Alberta en masse.

00:24:42.640 Thousands of people from B.C. are fleeing the wacky government of David Eby.

00:24:47.100 thousands of people are leaving

00:24:49.380 Ontario, Waikiki

00:24:51.480 government of Doug Ford

00:24:53.120 and where are they going? They're going to Alberta

00:24:54.780 which is causing stresses for us in terms

00:24:57.480 of education and

00:24:58.640 school building and getting enough teachers

00:25:01.280 and stuff like that but I don't think all the

00:25:03.400 people coming here are coming

00:25:05.440 here as okay Alberta is going to

00:25:07.380 separate, let's go to Alberta

00:25:09.260 you know they're coming here

00:25:10.920 you know to try and get the best quality

00:25:13.500 of life for their families

00:25:14.480 and you know

00:25:16.880 I'm sure some of them would probably vote for independence, but I think most of them would still be happily Canadian or happily say they're Canadian.

00:25:30.640 Okay, Corey.

00:25:36.060 It makes for, I mean, neither the nationalist camp or the federalist camp are homogenous, as you and I well know.

00:25:43.180 who we can't agree on much really often,

00:25:47.500 even within the nationalist camp.

00:25:49.340 But the Federalists, there's odd bedfellows.

00:25:54.780 I mean, we'll give the devil his due here.

00:25:59.140 Jay Zkenny, I don't consider to be a Canada hater.

00:26:02.140 He's Canada first, not Alberta first.

00:26:04.440 And that's a legitimate position to take.

00:26:06.840 That's fine. That's his choice.

00:26:09.040 But he's not a Canada hater.

00:26:10.340 but he has to share

00:26:12.840 a campaign

00:26:14.820 and a stage essentially here

00:26:16.220 with people who do hate Canada

00:26:18.780 or at least demonstrate

00:26:20.000 contempt for them

00:26:21.900 you know you've got

00:26:25.100 you know depending on the poll

00:26:26.980 we look at we'll say 35%

00:26:29.180 of Albertans support independence

00:26:30.340 30% at the low end, 38% at the high end

00:26:32.640 depending on the polls you're looking at

00:26:34.020 we'll say 35% split the difference here

00:26:36.860 So among the roughly two-thirds that are currently opposed to independence, a majority of those are on the left, and they're backing parties that stood by as churches were burned down.

00:26:50.900 They vote for politicians that wanted to change Canada Day from a celebration of Canada into a ritualistic self-flagellation of national guilt.

00:27:00.800 voted for politicians that kept the flag

00:27:03.980 at half-mast for five months

00:27:05.400 for a genocidal hoax.

00:27:09.760 I don't know, maybe I'd like your thoughts

00:27:12.000 on how can those people

00:27:17.080 now drape themselves in the flag

00:27:19.740 as the patriotic defenders of Canada

00:27:22.380 when two, three years ago

00:27:25.640 they were calling Canada

00:27:28.180 an illegitimate settler colonial slave state founded on stolen native land it's hypocrisy

00:27:34.740 and a purposeful cognitive dissonance i you know i like stirring things up when i get bored on x if

00:27:40.420 i just wanted to get things worked up and that still works now i've took i've posted that about

00:27:44.420 five times over the years i just a simple canada is not a genocidal country and the hornet's nest

00:27:50.980 is poked i'm a racist i'm a denier i am you name it this and that the people who get so upset for

00:27:57.780 me daring just to say that the country isn't genocidal. Their idea of where we're supposed

00:28:03.680 to be sitting and where we're supposed to be thinking is we're always staring at our shoes.

00:28:07.040 Canada is an awful place that did terrible things that probably shouldn't exist. It's a post-national

00:28:11.960 state. We're settlers. We're colonialists. And then when we see independence movements blossoming

00:28:17.880 on each side of the country, all I had tried to ask these guys, what the hell did you think was

00:28:22.620 going to happen. You've been undercutting any sense of pride or identity or unity in this country for

00:28:29.020 years. And lo and behold, some people said, well, I'm not about to stand up and hand it all off to

00:28:34.040 the indigenous bands, but I don't feel any connection to this god awful state. So yes, 1.00

00:28:37.940 I won't feel bad for a second saying, you know what, I might embrace an independence movement

00:28:41.200 because you guys told me this country is not worth saving anyways. So yes, it's not helping

00:28:45.700 them when they suddenly have cloaked themselves in this flag that they were so recently burning

00:28:49.000 and pissing on and i got no use for them as samuel johnson said two centuries ago patriotism is the

00:28:55.640 last refuge of a scoundrel he was of course speaking of the americans but uh it applies 0.67

00:29:01.480 equally today well i think it's contextual i think uh the scoundrel can uh rely on patriotism to

00:29:09.800 cloak his actions but i i would reject that patriotism is uh is a negative thing to begin

00:29:17.320 with you know i believe in nationalism i believe patriotism uh it is often a force for good people

00:29:23.480 doing bad yeah you can fall back and you use it as a cloak that's exactly what johnson was talking

00:29:28.760 about and that people with dishonest or selfish motives will often use patriotic further to cover

00:29:34.520 their tracks it's a tried and true method yeah i you know i i guess it doesn't need to be said

00:29:41.560 but I'll say it anyway to be fair

00:29:43.420 not everyone in the Federalist camp 0.98

00:29:45.800 is a hypocrite here

00:29:47.520 not everyone in the Federalist camp is a hater 1.00

00:29:49.660 that would be less ridiculous 0.60

00:29:51.800 than I think what Don Braid

00:29:53.600 was arguing that the Alberta nationalists

00:29:55.680 hate Canada

00:29:56.220 there's just not particularly much evidence to support that

00:29:59.680 you know there are plenty

00:30:01.460 of people in the Federalist camp

00:30:03.560 who

00:30:05.240 are not self-loathing, self-flagellating

00:30:07.740 who think Canada is an illegitimate state

00:30:09.580 but

00:30:10.720 what i am saying is it makes for awkward bedfellows when your goal is to save save canada uh i'm not

00:30:18.740 sure what canada they're trying to save it seems to be the canada i i was born into was just long

00:30:23.560 gone but yeah let me just say this what i notice about the people who i encounter in the alberta

00:30:30.940 independence movement is that there isn't some culture or language that binds them together as

00:30:37.340 be the case with quebec it is a set of values that they hold and all seem to hold which is

00:30:47.420 what where we entered this discussion talking about the people who say that patriots for canada

00:30:53.820 are the ones who have said everything about canada is wrong but those things that they

00:30:58.860 say about canada being wrong are the things that uh alberta patriots if i can use that expression

00:31:05.980 they're the ones they're trying to hold on to uh fair play decency parliamentary democracy

00:31:11.580 you know this is a uh they're rejecting the socialists so okay you know we got a nice flow

00:31:19.020 one topic's actually going to another fairly well today um we're going to talk about alberta's

00:31:24.620 carbon tax sellout um so in november i think was the day before the ucp convention

00:31:33.020 Daniel Smith and Mark Carney signed an MOU, Memorandum of Understanding,

00:31:38.540 about working together if some give and take on environmental policy

00:31:42.260 in exchange for fixing the situation around pipelines

00:31:46.300 and possibly tanker access on the West Coast and things like that.

00:31:51.440 I had a pretty open mind to it, Corey.

00:31:55.120 I was actually shocked when we all showed up to the UCP convention covering that there. 0.85

00:32:00.040 And I, in a very awkward moment, found myself to be the squishy moderate in the room.

00:32:06.220 Most people were very much opposed to it.

00:32:09.500 But I said, you know, I mean, we should encourage the premier to make a good faith effort on these files.

00:32:18.760 I mean, it's just an MOU.

00:32:20.280 Let's see how it goes.

00:32:21.980 Negotiate in good faith.

00:32:23.600 Maybe she can make some progress. 1.00

00:32:25.400 But, I mean, she can't sell the farm to do it.

00:32:27.360 this Friday 0.53

00:32:30.400 there's going to be a press conference

00:32:33.360 I believe here in Calgary

00:32:34.540 that's what we understand

00:32:35.900 we'll be covering that live

00:32:38.300 where I guess the results

00:32:41.320 of this will be put forward

00:32:42.640 we don't yet know is there going to be a pipeline

00:32:45.280 built is it just fixing the

00:32:47.340 process to potentially get to a pipeline

00:32:49.180 I don't know one thing we do know

00:32:51.200 that's come out early

00:32:52.480 is that the Alberta government

00:32:55.100 has now signed on

00:32:57.220 the dotted line, it's agreed firm that Alberta will agree to increasing the industrial carbon

00:33:02.960 tax to $130 per metric ton, elevating up to, uh, into 2040. Um, Corey, I, I went into this with an

00:33:14.960 open mind. I took some guff for being too soft, which is a pretty rare thing for me to have and

00:33:21.680 take, but

00:33:23.580 I don't think it was wrong to keep an

00:33:25.660 open mind, but I think

00:33:27.220 we know enough now.

00:33:30.000 Alberta has now agreed to

00:33:31.540 completely capitulate on the carbon

00:33:33.560 tax, and we are going to accept the legitimacy

00:33:35.520 of Ottawa dictating our own

00:33:37.560 internal environmental policies.

00:33:40.240 To me, this

00:33:41.620 looks like a total salad.

00:33:43.200 I'm not going to celebrate this.

00:33:44.880 I understand in the role of Premier,

00:33:47.500 your job isn't to walk right into a room with

00:33:49.520 the Prime Minister and just give him the finger right off the bat.

00:33:51.680 you know okay well let's see what we can do to potentially find mutually beneficial agreements

00:33:56.280 for the country and for the province but the carbon tax I mean come on we've talked about

00:34:00.800 this for a decade it doesn't do a damn thing to save the environment it never will it's a tax

00:34:06.080 that's all it is is something Premier Smith has always been very clear about whether it's the

00:34:09.800 consumer one or the industrial one and it puts Canada at a disadvantage around the world and

00:34:16.340 trying to sell its products. Now, it puts Alberta at a disadvantage. The baloney we're seeing from

00:34:22.960 guys like Corey Hogan, you know, that lone liberal MP, talking like the rest of the world is 0.99

00:34:28.740 demanding decarbonized oil, this fictional imaginary crap. No, they aren't. And in fact, 0.97

00:34:35.640 Canada isn't demanding it as they get Venezuelan, Russian, Saudi Arabian, and every other tanker to

00:34:40.040 the East Coast they could possibly can get. But Alberta is the one and only beacon that apparently

00:34:45.120 has to decarbonize its oil she capitulated i think she should have told him to go to hell

00:34:51.580 it'll be interesting to see on friday i imagine they got something else but let's see where this

00:34:55.980 proponent is then do you have a proponent have you got rid of the tanker ban have you said that

00:35:00.540 the indigenous don't have a veto there's a whole lot more things i expect out of this if you're

00:35:04.740 going to call it a victory so maybe she's letting something out and has a big announcement coming i

00:35:09.020 don't know but i gotta see more there there is reporting now coming out of ottawa that

00:35:13.040 Prime Minister Carney will declare this

00:35:15.500 a project of national interest

00:35:17.200 which basically means the Indigenous

00:35:19.160 lose all their rights to complain 1.00

00:35:21.200 and bitch and block it. 1.00

00:35:23.580 But that's what in theory is going to happen. 1.00

00:35:25.900 But it's going to unleash

00:35:27.340 a tidal wave of protests

00:35:29.000 and we're going to have highways

00:35:31.380 blocked and railways

00:35:33.440 blocked.

00:35:34.720 But hopefully at the same time

00:35:37.140 it's getting built.

00:35:39.120 But obviously still years away

00:35:41.260 from uh uh being constructed and and and completed so the whole thing about the uh you know the

00:35:49.580 shipping bans and and whatnot can be dealt with at a bit of a later time because there is

00:35:55.180 because nobody's going to invest a nickel that's true unless they know it's gone that's the fair

00:35:59.020 that's that chicken and egg game that's been great though now that would be a relatively easy thing

00:36:03.340 for him to do now and say look we're making progress you know we've got rid of the tanker

00:36:07.020 Tinkerban, there are no pipelines, we've eliminated that legislation, you've still got the promises

00:36:13.440 you have hinted at to the indigenous peoples to deal with, but the things that we could

00:36:17.840 do now and that we could do easily, we're doing. 1.00

00:36:20.260 So this is the way it's going to, but we don't see that.

00:36:23.320 Well, Nigel, even if, let's say there's a bunch of victories on those fronts, the West

00:36:29.560 Coast Tinkerban gone, it's a project of national importance, all of these things. 0.98

00:36:37.020 I know, and it looks likely, okay, we could get a pipeline of this. 0.55

00:36:41.140 I don't care if we get a dozen pipelines or if they build them to the moon.

00:36:44.660 Alberta will have signed away its sovereignty.

00:36:47.900 What happened to, you know, Premier Daniel Smith has said she's not backing independence for Alberta.

00:36:54.280 She's backing a sovereign Alberta within a united Canada.

00:36:57.440 This doesn't sound like a sovereign Alberta.

00:37:00.660 The carbon tax is a matter for Alberta to decide.

00:37:04.080 This is an Alberta carbon tax, yet it's being dictated in terms of these negotiations to buy Ottawa.

00:37:10.640 That doesn't sound like a sovereign Alberta with any United Canada to me.

00:37:13.560 No, and you know, if I were Danielle, I don't know whether I'd be doing that.

00:37:17.860 But I have to go back to where Corey started in this segment when he said, 0.96

00:37:23.680 oh, she can't go in there with boxing gloves.

00:37:26.440 And you've got to try to make it look like you're working along.

00:37:31.740 but she has the really has the world against her on this one for all the reasons we've just talked

00:37:36.140 about the cost of burying carbon dioxide to make decarbonized oil is going to put 50 a ton or two

00:37:44.940 onto oil this is what they tell me but people who know more than i do 50 a ton and you're going to

00:37:50.860 go out and try and sell this overseas what exactly you know how long do you think the round war is

00:37:55.580 going to last it's uh this is not going to work but she goes in and says what she has to say

00:38:01.300 i've got a feeling that the thought may be by 2040 carney will be gone somebody else will be in

00:38:10.500 charge it is inconceivable that the liberals should govern for another you know 14 years

00:38:17.080 they've done it before we'll get well that would be a 24-year run you're starting to get back in

00:38:22.040 mckenzie king territory but anyway you know this can't possibly last we've even got al gore saying

00:38:27.880 like global warming which is the foundation of all this is going to be replaced by global freezing

00:38:34.520 i mean i don't know who takes al gore seriously anymore but al gore is prepared to stake his

00:38:39.320 reputation on being wrong this this i think is going to go away meanwhile as long as he's talking

00:38:47.560 The Western, you know, the Alberta independence crowd cannot use that as a wedge against her.

00:38:54.980 I don't know. I do agree that she, you know, can't walk into a meeting with Carney and just punch him in the nose.

00:39:01.880 As good as that would all make us feel that is not what she should do, she should be negotiating in good faith.

00:39:10.520 The problem is she's negotiated us $130 on carbon tax, and maybe Carney has gone by then.

00:39:18.720 Maybe he is replaced by a more radical liberal.

00:39:22.200 Maybe he's replaced by a crappy conservative because many conservatives won't take a standing even against the industrial carbon tax.

00:39:30.740 They're, you know, they're going to hem and haw and they got they got a they don't want to rock the boat too much to win votes in central Canada.

00:39:37.400 But also, I don't think we can rely one bit necessarily on the Conservatives being committed to repealing the carbon tax.

00:39:43.780 Conservatives changed their mind about a bunch of things in the last two weeks of that last campaign when they thought it would maybe save the election for them.

00:39:49.880 Didn't.

00:39:51.860 So she has then agreed to the principle that Ottawa has legitimacy in dictating this to us.

00:40:02.400 That is a moral loss.

00:40:06.020 That is a loss on an important principle.

00:40:09.800 So, you know, yeah, it's 2040 is, I guess, a ways off.

00:40:16.200 Maybe Carney's gone by then.

00:40:17.720 Maybe things change, but I wouldn't bet on it.

00:40:20.060 I mean, we're still dealing with the disastrous policies of Justin Trudeau 10 years ago.

00:40:26.640 You can't really bet on this.

00:40:28.200 I think this is a strategic mistake.

00:40:31.300 I don't think it's going to appear.

00:40:32.940 I think this is,

00:40:34.440 Carney needs this to keep the Stephen Gilboa wing

00:40:36.900 of the Liberal Party in the tent,

00:40:40.680 keep the NDP down,

00:40:41.920 keep the Greens down.

00:40:44.460 But this is, in Alberta,

00:40:47.080 I have a feeling that

00:40:48.760 there's going to be a lot of people on our side

00:40:51.620 who are upset about this.

00:40:54.060 I think this should be on the ballot in October.

00:40:57.500 There should be a referendum question at this point.

00:40:59.220 we have uh five questions on constitutional reform which i generally more or less agree

00:41:05.740 with but that are never going to go anywhere because the rest of canada will not say uh

00:41:09.660 yes to it we've got i think four questions on immigration what one's four one's five

00:41:13.740 uh that's fine so and then probably independence as well let's put this one on let's let's see

00:41:21.220 where albertans stand on this maybe i'm wrong but uh i this is not a deal i think i would vote for

00:41:27.340 so look i think that mr carney has an incentive to to at least appear to offer a pipeline because

00:41:37.900 if enough people believe that it's a real prospect that is going to subtract from the independence

00:41:45.980 movement so he is not totally unmotivated to do something good or at least appear to do

00:41:51.980 something good for daniel smith on friday that would have an impact now whether it's real

00:41:58.940 that's a whole different discussion for next week but um i wouldn't write it off just yet

00:42:05.740 all right all right uh party shots dave uh very disturbing video this week of uh gang of girls

00:42:14.940 and uh yeah we'll show some of the video very disturbing uh uh poor girl in red deer beaten

00:42:22.220 senseless swarmed kicked in the head repeatedly elbowed in the face repeatedly and then when she 0.69

00:42:28.860 was unconscious she was dragged to a group of nearby trees and and dumped um disgusting behavior 1.00

00:42:36.220 our linda slobodian wrote about it today you know nothing's stopping these miscreant teens

00:42:41.660 uh nothing will stop because there's no justice no justice for them so uh rcmp under great pressure

00:42:49.940 to make some arrests i think it'll be quick but uh yeah go go and check out the video because it

00:42:55.340 really is really is disturbing you know i i got to my share of scraps as a teenager and uh we fought

00:43:02.960 one-on-one and when someone lost it was over and if someone didn't stop your own friends dragged

00:43:10.960 you off uh i i forget even the law here uh there's just doesn't see maybe there's just no code of

00:43:18.020 how to have a proper scrap in high school anymore there's always going to be people fighting in high

00:43:21.860 school it happens it's never going to go away but uh yeah we just there seems to be no common

00:43:27.240 sense about how to have a proper scrap now no no cory uh so i guess due to good marketing and

00:43:34.940 good branding tim horton's got practically a monopoly in the donut and coffee industry in

00:43:39.220 Canada, and then devolved into what I think was one of the most overrated institutions in the

00:43:43.500 country. So we're seeing that getting withered away with Dunkin' Donuts moving in and some

00:43:48.680 others moving into the country. I'm just enjoying seeing competition come back. And I just want to

00:43:53.560 say, I miss Robin's Donuts. I guess they still exist in other parts of the country, but they

00:43:58.180 aren't in Alberta anymore because they just couldn't compete against Tim Hortons that really

00:44:02.640 just kind of took everything by wave. But maybe we were reversing things. I want to see some

00:44:06.180 competition in the donut and coffee world so come on back robbins we missed you so more more work

00:44:11.880 for temporary foreign workers oh well you know you guys have a donut shop actually hired canadians

00:44:17.560 that that's a bigger debate but i tell you as a serious industry owner put out an ad and see how

00:44:23.460 many show up for it yeah fair enough but yeah tim hortons really is uh the canadian health care of

00:44:29.240 uh of buddhist service delivery in canada where it's something where uh we have no right to be

00:44:34.000 very proud of at this point. 0.99

00:44:36.100 Nigel.

00:44:36.940 Yeah, so I couldn't help noticing that story

00:44:40.220 that we picked up out of Black Locks.

00:44:42.460 Black Locks does the research and puts it out,

00:44:45.400 and we're happy to pass it on to everybody else.

00:44:48.700 But on World Press Freedom Day, Prime Minister Carney

00:44:52.180 praised a strong independent press.

00:44:55.360 What Black Locks revealed was that just about 10 days before,

00:44:59.080 officials in all of the most powerful ministries have got together

00:45:04.000 and we're trying what they were trying to do is work out who's a real journalist who should be

00:45:07.680 allowed to go into me and i i'm just touting ahead i think we're going to put this out on friday uh

00:45:15.120 i did a little rap this morning because i was kind of mad so watch out for it on friday talking

00:45:19.440 about the hypocrisy of uh somebody who will stand up and say on one day that uh press matters and

00:45:27.440 freedom press freedom matters and meanwhile is trying to sort of ways find ways to exclude

00:45:32.960 people like us people like rebel news juno from being able to ask questions at government meetings

00:45:40.320 uh mine i've got uh call them up now uh we don't report on rumor here but we ended up in a weird

00:45:49.520 kind of twilight zone of information uh i've had some very good sources tell me that alberta

00:45:55.600 finance minister nate horner uh not sure the reasons around it but he'll be stepping down

00:46:02.000 or something to that effect in the coming weeks,

00:46:05.240 and he will be replaced as Alberta's finance minister by Jason Nixon.

00:46:10.500 So I've got pretty good sources tell me that.

00:46:13.040 But there's also pretty good sources in the government who deny it to me.

00:46:17.260 And I've got other sources in the government who deny it, but unconvincingly.

00:46:22.240 So you read it here first.

00:46:25.660 You read it here first.

00:46:26.860 the column, if you read it

00:46:29.800 you'll see

00:46:30.180 I make, I unambiguously hedge 1.00

00:46:33.820 and try to cover my ass 0.99

00:46:35.020 this is not gospel 1.00

00:46:37.420 you can't take it to the bank because I've got

00:46:39.480 official government sources denying it

00:46:41.380 but I've also got some

00:46:43.520 pretty good sources in the government

00:46:44.900 confirming it, and then others who

00:46:47.460 denied it, as I said, very

00:46:49.360 unconvincingly, so

00:46:51.100 take it

00:46:53.540 for what it is

00:46:54.340 if this is on poly bet

00:46:57.500 it's a good bet that this is happening

00:46:59.860 Jason Nixon is going to be the next finance minister

00:47:02.000 of Alberta and Nate Horner is either

00:47:03.700 retiring or moving out of the portfolio or something

00:47:05.400 I don't know what's happening on that side

00:47:07.220 it's probably a good bet

00:47:11.000 to roll the dice on

00:47:12.460 but it's a roll of the dice

00:47:13.980 I hate to have an unconfirmed story

00:47:16.620 we don't do rumor

00:47:17.540 but in this case

00:47:18.800 we're reporting what some people confirm

00:47:21.860 and we're reporting at the exact same time

00:47:24.180 that others are denying it, such

00:47:26.360 as it is. So

00:47:27.500 we'll see.

00:47:30.260 I think I'm right, but we could have

00:47:32.180 I could have egg on my face.

00:47:33.780 Time will tell.

00:47:35.660 Such is the world of political

00:47:36.860 sometimes.

00:47:39.460 Okay, Dave, Corey,

00:47:41.140 thank you. Thank you, John, running

00:47:43.180 the studio and all of you who joined

00:47:45.300 us, give us your precious

00:47:47.160 time today. Thank you for your support.

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00:48:23.100 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 14, 2026

When the ethnic vote votes ethnic

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