Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford returns after a long weekend to talk about the People's Party of Canada and the upcoming Alberta referendum on independence from Canada. Plus, why is a federal political party, ostensibly dedicated to Canada, supporting a referendum on a part of that country?
00:01:39.340Well, we're going to be talking about why the People's Party of Canada,
00:01:46.640note the last part of the name on that party,
00:01:48.100The People's Party of Canada has endorsed the yes side in the expected upcoming, at some point, not yet set, Alberta referendum on independence.
00:01:59.880So why is a federal political party, ostensibly dedicated to Canada, supporting a referendum on a part of that country, leaving it?
00:02:10.560It's a head-scratcher. We'll talk about it.
00:02:12.180uh everyone already knows i'm sure uh everyone listening watching knows about uh nova scotia's
00:02:20.640ban on walking in the forest or going fishing uh but there's been a new development on that front
00:02:29.780uh the fire the ban on hiking and fishing because fishing on the water might create a forest fire
00:02:38.240uh that ban no longer applies uh as long as you they ask first to first nations natives so now
00:02:49.800i guess the ban on fishing and hiking in nova scotia is going to be racially based we'll talk
00:02:55.420about it uh but first we're going to start with mass migration mania uh the floodgates of mass
00:03:05.920migration have been thrown wide open in Canada. Over the last five years, we already had mass1.00
00:03:11.720migration to quite, yeah, we already had mass migration for a long time before it, but then the
00:03:16.940gates were just thrown completely open five years, five, six years ago. Mark Carney, as a part of his
00:03:24.280campaign to reassure the Canadian people, said that he is not Justin Trudeau, said he's going to bring
00:03:30.100those numbers down we have a report from black locks reporters on our pages today that um the
00:03:38.240cap he has put in is uh well they're not really living up to the cap the the borders continue to
00:03:45.740be porous mass migration continues unabated night they don't even know how many people they've got
00:03:50.900you know a lot of people have uh just sort of you just intuitively know if the immigration is
00:03:56.720taking off like a rocket or what what's the sense of that there was a time when you had to be highly
00:04:01.640qualified to come to canada at all that's 50 years ago 25 years ago we've got a lot of family
00:04:08.720reunification again you could see why you could make the case somebody wants to bring members of
00:04:14.760their family and so they can enjoy the benefits they've uh they've been experiencing themselves
00:04:19.240in canada all of those things made sense and around about 200 000 people a year would come in
00:04:25.820Then it just took off, and I think after a lot of years,
00:04:30.200when it was 400,000 and 500,000 during the first years of Mr. Trudeau's reign,
00:04:36.640we hit a million new people in Canada.
00:04:40.480Not a million new Canadians who had all gone through the sausage machine,0.70
00:06:20.320But I think it's, and we see this in Western countries everywhere, I think it's more than just trying to juice the overall gross national product, gross national product here.
00:06:37.260I think it's trying to stack the electorate, because the progress of this worldview is that so-called old-stock Canadians are reactionary, they're not sufficiently progressive, they're racist, gun-owning, vaccine-hesitant, etc.
00:06:56.000You know, add whatever epithets you want to it.
00:06:59.020I think it's, in their view, a way of also, in the long term, intentionally changing the demographic and therefore electoral makeup of the country.
00:07:10.760I mean, that's a bit more taboo to get into, but hell, for at least just standard, we can say what we want here.
00:08:49.700So, unfortunately, it ties very much into their electability and building the demographic they think they need to build to win.
00:08:57.160Well, as you're saying, I mean, like now, Canada's foreign policy is not dictated by what is in the Canadian national interest.
00:09:05.060It is, and foreign policy in all democratic countries has to keep an eye on domestic opinion.
00:09:10.780But domestic opinion is changing with mass migrate, unrestricted mass migration from around the world.
00:09:16.360And that means even more so than in a normal country, you know, our foreign policy is dictated by, you know, which diaspora population are we able to please or not aggravate, etc.0.54
00:09:34.120A diaspora politics is in large, pretty much runs our foreign policy at this point.
00:18:05.780Well, did you apply for any of those jobs?
00:18:09.200Where I want to know is, where are the unions?
00:18:13.260Unions, which are supposed to, in theory,
00:18:16.100represent the interests of the organized labor working class.
00:18:21.480Now, most unions now tend to be the government sector
00:18:25.960working in very often white-collar office jobs.
00:18:29.580But, you know, even the private sector unions, you know, where you're supposed to be able to go get a job, not have to necessarily have a bunch of post-secondary degrees to do it and support the broader interests of the working class.
00:18:43.780The single working class voters are voting more on the right now. Working class voters are very conscious of the problems around mass migration. But the union leaderships themselves are definitely silent on mass migration, which brings in people willing to work cheaper than someone who's maybe grown up in Canada and undercuts their wages.
00:22:26.020Uh, these Westerners, I don't think he actually put it very rudely.
00:22:29.860I don't think he's actually incorrect when he says it's, you know, these Westerners are more libertarian and, you know, they're and I don't like it when he's sort of piping about how we were doing our business.
00:22:39.400So, OK, it goes both ways. I get it. But he's saying, you know, we're more communitarian out here. I take issue with that.
00:22:46.500I think that actually in many ways we're more communitarian. We just rely less on the state to do it.
00:22:51.200I cooperate. I'm I'm building a I'm building stuff around my property with my neighbors, doing things that are kind of almost quasi municipal.
00:22:59.400We don't bother asking a government. We just
00:23:01.100come together, pool our resources, pool our
00:23:03.480labor, do it ourselves. We're communitarian
00:29:11.640You know, I mean, a restriction of your freedoms can, in some circumstances, be justified if the tradeoffs are appropriate, if you're not going intentionally too far.
00:29:27.240There is a circumstance under which lockdowns could make sense, theoretically.
00:29:32.560um but the abuse of government power by virtually nearly every government around the world
00:29:42.660uh and especially in canada uh during covid make sure that it destroyed our trust in institutions
00:29:50.900it destroyed social trust to the point where if we got the big one if we got you know black plague
00:29:57.940coming um so many people uh if it happens within i think 15 years of covid here people are going to
00:30:06.200say ah you got you got us last time yeah we've been through this i'm not going yes yeah people
00:30:11.420are people will not follow uh reasonable recommendations or reasonable restrictions
00:30:16.760uh you know you do have to curtail some activities during a forest for high risk of forest fire like
00:33:09.080And sometimes we'll see them because maybe they are there, but it'll also lead us to see things that are not there because our trust in institutions, our formerly high trust society is no longer a high trust society.
00:33:21.640um and so we've lost um and this might rub off on otherwise institutions that otherwise still
00:33:29.760actually do a good job um i generally trust my doctor generally um but i'm probably just
00:33:39.620naturally more suspicious of you know the medical institutions in general because they threw their
00:33:46.340lot in and got political uh i mean you can't trust some wings of of even the scientific
00:33:52.220community now because they've made themselves explicitly political be it on global warming
00:33:56.820on vaccines uh and so but this is going to rub off then on people who have not violated our trust
00:34:03.820um yeah so to your point about the scientists many fit the description that you've given them
00:34:12.760But here is another illustration of where the central government moves in and creates the opinions that it wants, because scientists need money to do research.
00:34:23.820They don't much care what the research is, but they do need the money. That's what pays the bill.
00:34:29.160So the government sets up the guidelines for giving grants that you have to think certain things.
00:34:36.460So prove the point, try and get a grant as a climate scientist that says no, all this stuff about global warming is way, way overrated. You will not get the grant. It just won't happen.
00:34:51.740But if you take the other view, then you will. Much better chance anyway. So again, yes, some of our friends have let us down, but you can see why in the behest of the government.
00:35:06.460So just giving a pat on the back to the honest scientist.
00:39:37.780Something Ted Byfield mentioned a couple of times, I remember back when I was leading the AIP too, though, was it was refederation.
00:39:44.900And it was more along the premise almost, though, that, yeah, I guess if the federation fell apart, we could redraft it with a new contract.
00:39:52.660And province leaving could be the catalyst that leads to that.
00:39:56.580So the negotiations begin, but now we're at the beginning of the negotiations as independent nations, and we're going to try to come together under a new agreement.
00:40:03.960Well, I've argued before, like, sometimes I've asked people the question rhetorically, if Alberta was an independent country right now, would we join Canada under these terms?
00:40:15.140No one, no one, whatever, even the most hardcore Federalist, they have to admit, no, I probably would not.
00:40:22.840But, you know, we've, you know, Alberta independence has thought of the other question of broader Western independence.
00:40:27.500If Alberta went, there's a very good chance, Saskatchewan would follow, probably start a domino effect.
00:40:32.400Quebec is then gone because Quebec would have to pay into Canada. They'll never do that. And that means at that point, then BC, maybe Manitoba and territories come along. And then it raised the question, would Canada just be refounded under the new constitution? Because I fundamentally, you know, I didn't grow up not liking Canada. I grew up as a passionate Canadian nationalist. And I, if it was possible to save Canada, that would be my preference. I think it's the preference of most even hardline Alberta nationalists.
00:41:00.260I no longer want to be outvoted by the East all the time
00:41:53.020the Constitution. We could probably make
00:41:55.060Canada work without Quebec. Well, perhaps.0.99
00:41:57.240Leaving would strengthen Canada. That chunk
00:41:59.020The problem with Quebec is we're going down a rabbit hole, you know, but it is a geographic problem.
00:42:04.940They have an interest when you free trade, but the country such where the Maritimes are subtly isolated and then we've got some other issues to deal with.
00:42:12.580Yeah, but they're not exactly going to be a Danzig corridor.
00:42:15.100Like, I doubt they're going to arm it.
00:45:47.200And Parks Canada, in pursuit of its values, has been very strong.
00:45:51.160They'll say, oh, you know, the residential school system was cultural genocide.
00:45:55.880And they would put that on the plaques when they were designating some of these schools as historic sites.
00:46:01.040Well, let's just say that they really do have values.
00:46:05.040What are we to make of the fact that on this one, there was no reference to cultural genocide?
00:46:10.340Is Parks Canada, which takes his marching orders directly from the federal government, starting to go, I think, more moderate view of what the residential school was, were about, could it be anything to do with the fact that Mr. Carney's father actually ran a residential school in the North Estuary?
00:46:32.880There's no evidence that he was a genocidal.