Globalist CEO Ed Sims dismisses Alberta’s Wexit movement as economically harmful, comparing it to Brexit despite the UK’s post-exit economic strength. Drawing parallels to Quebec’s decades-long separatism—marked by terrorism and autonomy gains like police control—and Czechoslovakia’s peaceful split, the speaker warns Albertans of likely opposition tactics, including exaggerated threats like Wattpad’s alleged (but unsubstantiated) relocation from Calgary. Sims’ criticism, framed as condescending toward unemployed Albertans, may ironically fuel separatist momentum by silencing dissent over pipeline cancellations, carbon taxes, and equalization. The episode suggests his globalist stance and lack of Canadian roots undermine his credibility to dictate Alberta’s political discourse. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, a globalist CEO says Albertans should shut up about Wexit.
They have nothing to complain about.
It's December 10th and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Last month when we had our Wexit town halls in Edmonton and Calgary, great events by the way, almost a thousand people came between the two events.
Great questions and comments and it was pretty snowy out there, so great turnout.
Well one of the things I said on the panelists was that we could all learn from how separatist movements have succeeded or not succeeded around the world.
The separation of the Czech Republic from Slovakia, used to be called Czechoslovakia, was done in a shockingly quick time.
I mean depending on exactly how you measure, it was really done in six months.
Both sides had just sort of got tired of each other, I think.
They had different political parties in their parliament already representing the different regions.
There were definitely some economic issues, almost like our Canadian equalization issues, but actually not even as dramatic as the difference between, say, Alberta and Quebec.
But really, I think they just wanted out.
And part of it was that the Berlin Wall had just come down and the idea of dissolving artificial national boundaries was normalized and they just did it.
Fast, not really acrimonious.
My cursory research suggests it was done very quickly, almost presented as a fait accompli.
In fact, I don't know if it could honestly be said to have been done fully, democratically approved.
It was just, it was sort of shotgun, but it happened.
Now compare that to Quebec separatism, the opposite in so many ways.
I mean, seriously, it's been almost 50 years since the FLQ crisis alone.
That was an actual terrorist group, Front de Libération du Québec, that planted bombs, kidnapped people.
They even committed murder.
It's hard to imagine.
The whole place was put under martial law by Pierre Trudeau.
That's when he said, just watch me, you know.
Well, Quebec is still part of Canada, and so you'd think it was a failure, but really by every other measure, the FLQ and the legal partique and the federal bloquécois.
By the way, today, in 2019, they're still the third largest party in our parliament.
By any other measure, you must say the Quebec separatist movement is a roaring success.
Sure, they're still part of Canada, but they only get the good parts, I think.
Massive recipients of equalization.
I mean, Quebec's provincial government has a multi-billion dollar surplus, while Alberta is in a multi-billion dollar deficit.
But Alberta still sends them equalization money.
I mean, riddle me that one.
Quebec has a guaranteed one-third of the seats on the Supreme Court, even though they have less than 25% of the population.
Quebec has control over everything from their own provincial police force to their own immigration policy to their own pension fund.
I mean, they are even bringing in anti-hijab laws, and no one in Ottawa dares question it.
They have this Teflon on them.
It really is like a divorce from Canada, but with bedroom privileges, as many have called it.
So yeah, probably more successful than if they actually were to separate and become an economically weak ethno-state, sort of like the Greece of North America.
Quebec's got it all figured out.
What's to learn from Quebec?
For a wexetir?
Well, Quebec got so many things because they had an or else.
There was always a threat of separatism that was more terrifying to the rest of Canada than actual separatism probably would have been.
I despise the FLQ terrorists and I am utterly against them in any way.
But I think it worked.
I think it was all a dance actually where one Quebecer in Quebec City would play fight with another Quebecer in Ottawa, the prime minister, to decide how much payoff was to be paid to Quebec.
I mean, right there, out of the past 50 years or so, there's been a non-Quebec prime minister for what, like, if my math is right, 14 years out of the last 50.
Brexit vs. Quebec00:09:21
But the comparison I'd like to make now is that of Brexit.
Everyone was against Brexit.
The media, the pollsters, the pundits, big business, the globalists, fancy people, all the political parties, including the Conservative Party, which actually called the Brexit referendum because they assumed it would fail and then people like Nigel Farage would finally shut up about it.
Everyone was against it except the people and the amazing Nigel Farage.
You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.
And the question that I want to ask, the question that I want to ask, that we're all going to ask, is who are you?
I'd never heard of you.
Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you.
I would like to ask you, President, who voted for you?
And what mechanism?
Oh, I know democracy is not popular with you, Los.
And what mechanism do the peoples of Europe have to remove it?
Is this European democracy?
Well, I sense, though, that you're competent and capable and dangerous.
And I have no doubt that it's your intention to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of the European nation states.
You appear to have a loathing for the very concept of the existence of nation states.
Perhaps that's because you come from Belgium, which of course is pretty much a non-country.
So Brexit was won by the Levers over the Remainers.
But of course, that was in 2016.
It was even before Trump won.
And here we are, almost 2020, and the UK is still not out of the European Union because the Remainers simply refused to abide by the democratic results.
So they stalled by any means, legal or illegal.
Parliamentary means, judicial means, excuse after excuse.
I think they'll finally be out when Boris Johnson wins the UK election, as it seems he's set to do.
But it almost wasn't so.
And certainly until these very final moments, the establishment is cooking up ways to stay in.
I bet they're still going to try, even if Boris Johnson wins.
The Remain side actually named their strategy Project Fear to terrify Brits into voting to remain.
It failed.
They said there would be mass layoffs.
No one would want to trade with the UK, the essential trading nation.
That was the dumbest thing I ever heard until the British Sandwich Association said, I'm not even making this up, that if Brexit were to pass, there just wouldn't be any tasty sandwiches in the UK anymore.
But certainly, there would be serious problems in terms of some of the fresh ingredients we bring in from the European Union and also from overseas, particularly if we have problems at ports and we can't get ingredients through because they're all fresh and don't have a very long shelf life.
And we've got no chance of stockpiling fresh ingredients.
So I think the answer from the sandwich industry is going to be that it's going to limit the amount of choice that consumers have if we suddenly crash out Brexit in the way that it's being talked about.
Imagine saying that with a straight face.
That's when I ripped up my lifetime membership in the British Sandwich Association right on the spot, by the way.
My point is, learn from these other places.
Learn from Czechoslovakia.
Learn from Quebec.
Learn from Brexit.
If there were a genuine WEXIT movement in Alberta, what would it face?
It would face Project Fear times 100, I think.
It would face everyone lying about what a tough time Alberta would have on its own.
There would be no appeasement as there was for Quebec.
It would be lies and smears and attacks and meddling, make no mistake about it.
Which brings me to today's news.
A story in the Financial Post.
It doesn't cite anyone.
All of it's off the record.
No one's quoted.
It's all rumors.
But they ran it anyways.
They claim that a high-tech company called Wattpad, I'd never heard of it, chose to locate in Halifax instead of in Calgary because of the threat of WEXI, which, by the way, is a Facebook page right now.
I'm serious.
Someone told someone who told someone.
And so there you have it, guys.
You see what your Wexit talk is doing?
Wattpad isn't coming to town.
That would have revolutionized Alberta's economy.
Let me read from the Financial Post gossip column.
That company was Toronto-based Wattpad, a tech firm with fewer than 200 employees that hosts user-generated fiction.
Sounds like a moneymaker.
The platform has over 80 million monthly users.
According to a source familiar with the negotiations but not authorized to speak publicly, the firm outlined its concerns in a written statement sent to CED, that's Calgary Economic Development, earlier this year.
Wattpad issued a request for proposals to cities interested in housing its second headquarters.
Oh boy.
Calgary, you missed out on it.
There's less than 200 workers there and they got this cool blog where people can write fiction.
I mean, that would have transformed your Alberta economy.
I don't know.
And it sounds like the Financial Post doesn't know either.
But that's the narrative.
It's Project Fear.
Come on, guys.
You didn't get a few jobs of a fiction website company.
Shame on you.
And that totally outweighs the 200,000 six-figure oil and gas jobs that were lost in the oil pass.
Come on, Alberta.
You could have had some cool jobs coding for fiction blogs.
Give up your oil and gas obsession.
Leave it in the ground and get with the Trudeau program and learn how to code.
Well, here's WestJet's CEO to say the same thing, really.
WestJet CEO on WEXIT, I won't tolerate that kind of language.
WestJet CEO Ed Sims said talk of Alberta separating from Canada runs counter to the economic interests of both the Calgary-based airline he leads and the province as a whole.
You know, Ed Sims really is the president of WestJet, so I guess he guess he finally lives in Canada now.
But he really is a globalist of the first order.
He's lived and worked around the world, wherever the headhunters sent him next.
He's got that great British accent that I've learned to love from my trips over there.
He lived in the UK, then he lived and worked in New Zealand for a bit, then he switched companies down there.
Now he's up here in Canada for a bit.
Who knows where he'll go next?
He's that globalist CEO.
Borders mean nothing to him.
Gazillionaire.
He's exactly the kind of guy who would be a Brexit remainer, remainer.
And so don't be surprised that he's rolling out Project Fear here, too.
And he's lecturing Albertans about what they can and can't say about their lot in life.
He's doing just fine, Jack.
Multi-millionaire.
He was lured here.
Big paycheck, big bonuses.
Don't you unemployed oilmen speak up about your lot.
You might upset his sweet, sweet gig.
Let me quote again, I won't tolerate that kind of language, Sims said when asked in an interview for his thoughts on Wexit, the movement that promotes an independent Alberta, and that has come into the spotlight in the aftermath of the recent federal election.
Okay, got it.
So guy moves to Canada two years ago, so I guess he's not a citizen yet, right?
But he's got some stern instructions for citizens.
Having come from the UK, I've seen three years of total economic paralysis and stagnation caused by Brexit, Sims added.
I don't envy our UK colleagues trying to deal with attracting people to a UK that feels very divided.
And there's no reason for Alberta to feel divided from the rest of Canada.
Oh, shut up, you prat.
First of all, he's lying about the UK, or at least uninformed, I'm not sure which.
The UK actually has the strongest economy in the European Union.
He's lying when he says it's been rough.
How would he even know?
He's been in New Zealand for a decade.
And hey, he just came to Canada to run an airline, so maybe he didn't bother to learn about Canada and the Energy East pipeline being canceled and the Northern Gateway pipeline being canceled and the Transmountain pipeline being delayed or canceled or the carbon tax or any of that because it all happened before he came here or when he was busy running the airline and not running his mouth.
If we are not careful, we will start using the language of a depression rather than a recession, he said.
I worry because we, WestJet, are a Canadian operation headquartered here.
Hey, you unemployed oilmen down there, stop talking about your situation because you see, according to this guy, your talk is why Alberta is in a recession.
Because you're talking about it, because you're unhappy with your lot in life, you're unhappy with the carbon tax, you're unhappy with the blockade on the pipelines.
Take it from this Brit who followed the cash to New Zealand and now is ringing the bell here in Canada with WestJet, but he has his eyes on the main chance.
Wherever it is, he's going to go next.
So in the meantime, can you please shut up, you guys?
I mean, you heard the man.
I won't tolerate that kind of language.
Yeah, mate, I don't know how it is, where you come from.
I don't even know where that is anymore, and maybe you don't either.
But here in Canada, foreigners don't usually tell Canadians to shut up.
Of course, there is one more possibility.
Maybe this Ed Sims is secretly working for Wrexit.
Because like Project Fear and that idiot from the Sandwich Association, nothing will push people towards separatism like a condescending blowhard telling the little people to shut up.
Peloton Ad vs. Impeachment00:14:43
Stay with us for more.
Professor Carlin, you gave $1,000 to Elizabeth Warren, right?
I believe so.
You gave $1,200 to Barack Obama?
I have no reason to question that.
And you gave $2,000 to Hillary Clinton?
That's correct.
Why so much more for Hillary than the other two?
Because I've been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all of the poor people in the United States.
You can't wait for calmer times.
The time for you is now.
And I would say that what Trumbull said has even more bearing today, because I believe that this is much like the Johnson impeachment.
It's manufactured until you build a record.
I'm not saying you can't build a record, but you can't do it like this.
And you can't impeach a president like this.
Kings could do no wrong because the king's word was law.
And contrary to what President Trump has said, Article 2 does not give him the power to do anything he wants.
And I'll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility.
So while the president can name his son Baron, he can't make him a Baron.
Well, those are short clips from the impeachment circus in Washington, D.C. They're all entertaining.
The whole story is so complicated.
I think that most Americans simply aren't following it.
I have some proof.
Look at this.
It is the Google search trends for two different words.
One is impeachment, and the other is Peloton.
What is Peloton, you might ask?
Well, it's sort of like a home exercise bike that's connected to the webcam and the internet.
There was a slightly quirky Peloton internet ad that got the whole country talking.
My point is people are not watching the circus, but the circus continues.
Joining us now via Skype from Breitbart World Headquarters is our friend Joel Pollock, the senior editor-at-large down there.
Joel, you have been following this meticulously.
I think you're one of maybe 50, probably 20 people in the whole country that's actually going through this meticulously.
My point about the Peloton versus impeachment is that I don't think this has gripped the nation in the way that, say, Bill Clinton's impeachment did a couple decades ago.
Well, your point about the Peloton is actually interesting because I missed all of the initial excitement over the Peloton ad.
By the way, if you've ever seen these bikes, they're pretty intense.
I actually was on an elliptical machine during the Houston Democratic debate a few hours before, and there was a guy next to me on a Peloton.
That Peloton's pretty serious.
Anyway, the Peloton ad is actually completely unobjectionable.
There's nothing wrong with it, except that at one point, the wife in the ad who is getting the Peloton as a Christmas present is looking back at the camera and she has sort of a look on her face that critics,
particularly I guess those of the feminist persuasion, interpreted as almost a cry for help or some kind of disingenuous glance as if to say, thank you, husband, for giving me the ability to shape my body to suit your whims.
But in other words, the criticism was based on interpretations of an expression.
Oh, yeah, I thought it was a very quirky ad.
I didn't find it.
I had to study it twice to see what the offense was.
I think in that way, the ad was a huge success.
It got everyone talking about the Peloton.
Right, right.
So the impeachment is pretty much like that Peloton ad because there's nothing actually wrong with what Trump did, but the Democrats are interpreting a kind of inflection in their own imaginations in what Trump might have said to the Ukrainian president or might have suggested, you know, implicitly with some kind of signal that there was something amiss.
You know, that's a great, I didn't make the connection, but you're so right.
I mean, I watched the ad and I thought, well, there's nothing wrong here.
And that's what the impeachment is.
You've got to have some intuition that something's wrong because there's nothing more than that.
Well, not even intuition.
You've almost got to be kind of coached to see it.
I mean, I can tell you that when my wife encouraged me to go to the gym, I had an experience like that woman in the ad.
You know, it changed my life.
I mean, you know, I don't stand before you here as a quivering mass of muscle, but I definitely feel healthier than I was before.
So, you know, it's something nice to do for your spouse.
I don't see anything wrong with it.
I don't see anything particularly gendered about it because my wife was the one going to the gym and I was not.
So, you know, I didn't see anything objectionable about it.
And it's something one spouse should do.
Now, of course, they're all interpreting this woman's expression as somehow an indictment of the husband.
And in the same way, Adam Schiff used that whistleblower complaint, not the transcript of the conversation, but used a whistleblower complaint to launch this investigation.
Of course, Trump released the transcript, and that wasn't really part of the plan.
They didn't expect him to do that because they figured from the whistleblower complaint that whatever Trump said must have been terribly damning.
And so they were primed to interpret what Trump said in the worst possible light.
But of course, Trump didn't say anything damning or illegal.
In fact, Trump was doing his job.
And so when they introduced this issue into the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff gave a dramatic reading to the transcript.
He basically invented words, invented things, sort of a mob dialogue that simply wasn't there.
So in a way, the Peloton ad is exactly right.
And you said it's complicated.
It's actually not complicated at all, except Democrats have made it complicated.
You know, if this were simple, they wouldn't have to make it complicated.
If the president had done something wrong, it'd be very clear, and you'd have no disagreement from Republicans.
There are plenty of never-Trumpers in the Senate, especially, who would love to impeach the president and pretend the last three years never happened.
They want to keep all the judges, and they want to keep the low taxes, and they want to keep the economy and so forth.
But they don't want to acknowledge that he did anything, especially the Mitt Romneys of the world.
They can't stand that this guy won what they couldn't win and did what they promised to do, but probably wouldn't have.
And so they want him out of the way.
But the Democrats gave these never-Trump Republicans nothing to work with.
There's no case.
Basically, the first article of impeachment, which Democrats released Tuesday morning, alleges that he abused his power.
Get this, by asking a foreign government to help us with an investigation that the Democrats' own witnesses said was probably necessary.
Now, they didn't like the fact that Trump was the one asking for it.
They said it should have gone through the department or whatever, but it wasn't illegal to ask for it.
So they're going to impeach him because they say he abused his power because Joe Biden happened to be a political opponent.
There is no immunity, as Trump learned, against investigations if you happen to be running for election.
Trump got investigated for alleged ties to Russia, which he didn't have.
Joe Biden actually has ties to Ukraine.
So there's that.
Article two is that Trump obstructed Congress.
Now, this is a bogus charge.
In fact, both charges are bogus.
They picked the two articles of impeachment that Cass Sunstein, Obama's, one of Obama's White House advisors, you know, Cass Sunstein's liberal, married to Samantha Power, very left-wing guy.
He came out with a book called Impeachment, a Citizen's Guide, in 2017, when all of the liberals, all the people on the left, they were really interested in impeaching Trump for whatever reason they could find.
And Cass Sunstein, even in that feverish atmosphere, wrote in that book that abuse of power and obstructing Congress are not valid reasons to impeach the president because every president has abused the power by definition, has abused their power because every president gets sued for overstepping the bounds of their authority.
And, you know, it's very hard to find grotesque abuses of power, but unless you've got some other crime that it's linked to, you can't just impeach a president for abuse of power.
It's a term of art, really.
It's not really anything impeachable.
It's certainly not in the Constitution.
And then obstructing Congress is not impeachable because otherwise Congress could just come up with any farcical investigation and then impeach the president for refusing to cooperate with it.
So they chose to introduce an article of impeachment on obstruction of Congress, basically saying President Trump should be impeached for asking the courts to do what the courts are supposed to do, which is to adjudicate disputes over document and witness production between the executive branch and the judicial and the legislative branch.
It's ridiculous.
And your American system, even better than ours, checks and balances the president is supposed to.
The Constitution counts on him to push back at Congress and vice versa and the judiciary.
These are branches of, I mean, it's the balance of power.
And we don't have that in Canada where our parliaments, like the executive and the legislature, are combined.
I wish we had the ability for Congress or our parliament to fight with the executive and vice versa, but they can't.
I don't know.
It sounds pretty weak to me, but you make a good point.
If you have such a complicated accusation, it's probably to hide the fact that you don't have a simple accusation.
Right.
When Richard Nixon takes so many words to explain a very simple accusation, that's why Democrats wanted to charge Trump with bribery, because the public understands bribery.
Only one problem wasn't any bribery.
One witness after another was asked, did you see a bribe?
Did you know about any bribe?
They all said no.
And after going through these intelligence committee hearings, there was just no evidence of bribery.
So Democrats dropped that in their articles of impeachment.
So yeah, bribery is simple, but problem was there was no evidence.
Yeah, I mean, everyone could understand, okay, Richard Nixon approved breaking into the Democrats' campaign office, if that's what Watergate was, I think.
I mean, that's pretty clear to understand.
But Trump was just his blustery self on a phone call.
I don't know.
Let me ask you how it's playing out, because I know that the edgy wing of the Democrats, the squad, they were all very bullish on this Tom Steyer, just dumping buckets of cash.
But Nancy Pelosi was sort of hesitant.
They're all locked in this now.
Do they regret it?
Is this backfiring on them?
I see polls from across America suggesting that Trump and the Republicans are pulling ahead and that maybe grassroots Americans are saying, this is ridiculous.
This is a setup.
We're less than a year away from the election.
Stop these games.
Am I misinterpreting?
Am I cherry-picking my information?
Well, let me put it this way.
I think Pelosi was forced into the impeachment by the left wing of her party.
And I also think she was forced into making a decision on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement by Trump.
Because Trump repeated over and over again that the Democrats were failing to move ahead on things that are important to Americans, like the USMCA, because they were busy with impeachment.
So it was a win-win for Trump, right?
Because if Pelosi didn't pass the USMCA, he could blame her for focusing on impeachment.
And if she did pass the USMCA, which looks likely now, he could say he achieved this major rewriting of NAFTA, one of his core election promises, something the unions have wanted.
I mean, the AFL-CIO is endorsing it now.
And that's the Democratic core.
I mean, that's their turnout machine.
So win-win for Trump.
And I think Pelosi essentially had to stay in the impeachment fight to stay on top of her caucus because the left was really advancing and gaining in strength and power.
And she, I think, successfully bargained for time and for additional power by giving the left what they wanted.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been relatively quiet since the impeachment started.
And in that sense, I think Nancy Pelosi scored a victory here because she was able to defang one of her most important rivals and bring her into the tent.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is causing far fewer problems for everybody, including Pelosi, but also Trump, since this impeachment started.
So in a way, Pelosi did what she had to do politically and is now the beneficiary of this process.
Although, I think in the long run, this is possibly going to take the gavel out of her hands.
I think the Trump supporters are so angry about this, and independent voters are so angry about it, that Democrats have now placed their control of Congress in jeopardy.
Oh, and by the way, it's a census year next year.
So if Democrats get swept at the polls next year, Republicans will largely be in control of redrawing the congressional districts if the Republican voters also show up for state legislative elections.
So let's just put it this way.
Nancy Pelosi is making decisions under duress.
They happen to be clever decisions because she's a very canny politician.
But her strategy, as opposed to her momentary tactics, her overall strategy is a dead end.
She has no way of getting out of this.
Trump and the left have boxed Pelosi in, which does not vote well for the future of her leadership.
Now, I've underestimated her before, so I want to be careful before pronouncing any sort of end to her political career.
But I don't see how she and the other members of the Democratic establishment, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, I don't see how they last much longer after this impeachment.
They are going to lose power in the next Congress, whether Democrats hold the gavel or not.
Interesting.
I got one last question for you.
I appreciate your time.
You and I have been talking about Kamala Harris, the California senator who we both thought had the winning combination, but she bowed out in recent days.
Bloomberg's Humorous Impeachment Dilemma00:04:43
And the new entrant, Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, he's jumped in with a shocking amount of money.
He is spending $20 million per week in ads.
I mean, if he keeps that up, he'll be at a billion dollars.
That's his own personal wealth.
The guy's worth more than $50 billion.
He's in his 70s, so I guess he's thinking, what else do I got to spend it on?
Harris is out.
Bloomberg, I think he's unacceptable and unpalatable to most of America.
But if you're willing to spend a billion dollars of your own money more than every other opponent combined, do you think he's actually got a shot at things?
No.
Bloomberg has no shot.
And that's for a variety of reasons.
But one of those reasons is that I don't think Democrats look to him for leadership in what's called the moderate lane of the party now.
Now, you know, Bloomberg's now moderate, even though he's all in on climate change and so forth.
The decline of Joe Biden's fortunes does not automatically benefit the other moderate candidates.
What it means basically is that the party establishment is shoved out of the way.
So actually, it may create more room for candidates on the left.
And if there's to be any sort of moderate candidate who benefits, it's likely to be South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigeg, who's rising in the polls, not Michael Bloomberg, age 77, 40 years older than Pete Buttigieg.
I mean, Democrats have always gone for younger candidates, but Buttigieg is also just more exciting.
He's also going to be the first serious gay presidential nominee if he wins the nomination.
Now, Bloomberg would be the first Jewish nominee, so there's kind of historical significance in that.
I just think his age, in a sense, disqualifies him.
And he is not, and has never been actually a leading ideological voice within the Democratic Party.
He's also a former Republican.
So all of this basically makes life much harder for Bloomberg.
Biden's decline doesn't mean Bloomberg's gain.
If I were one of Bloomberg's heirs, I'd be calling dad or granddad right now and telling him, why are you squandering the family legacy on a vanity project?
You're 77 years old.
You should donate money to foundations and build buildings and contribute in a civic way, which he's going to do anyway.
And at least if you're on the left, he's been giving a lot of money to your favorite causes.
But this is a vanity project.
He's not even getting on the ballot until Super Tuesday, which is the fifth contest.
His opponents are going to get a month of free media coverage in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina.
Oh, and here's another thing.
This ties back into impeachment.
And this is just delicious.
The Senate conducts the trial.
The senators all have to be there.
You know, you watch Congress and members float in and out.
They're there.
They're not there.
They have to sit there during the trial because they are members of a jury, essentially.
And so all of the senators have to be in the Senate chamber during the trial.
It's within Republicans' discretion, since they control the Senate, when to schedule this trial.
Now, they've said they want to get it done quickly, but they've also hinted they could do it over six to eight weeks.
Either way, Republicans are going to be able to force the senators to sit in Washington during a crucial part of the buildup to the Iowa caucuses in the New Hampshire primary.
So they're going to force Corey Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennett, and anybody else to sit in Washington while Pete Buttigej gets to go and use his vast army of volunteers and his big money war chest to campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire.
So by the way, Biden's also going to have to be in Washington because he might be a witness.
He says he'll defy a subpoena.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Biden is going to be called as a witness.
And even if he's out on the trail, he's going to be asked questions about this impeachment trial.
So essentially, impeachment takes most of the other candidates out of the race for about two or three weeks, let's just say conservatively.
And you get Biden also taken out.
So that means you got Buttigej, Andrew Yang, and one or two others who will have free reign.
And so Republicans can really mess with the Democratic primary because of the Democrats moving forward on impeachment.
So it's really funny.
I mean, and I get angry about this stuff too, but at some point you have to laugh because it really just is comical.
This is not a serious impeachment, but it does have a very funny side.
Yeah.
Well, it's quite a circus.
Comical Impeachment Circus00:01:21
And we enjoyed our role, even though we were in Canada.
We certainly covered the Trump campaign in 2016 more so than any other Canadian outlet.
I think that's how we really got a lot of U.S. fans.
And I look forward to us playing a similar role in the 2020 election.
We have a new reporter joining us who's actually from Hawaii, Tulsi, a Gabbard country.
And I look forward to ramping up our own coverage of the 2020 campaign.
And Joel, thank you for being so generous with your time every week to give us the update from your point of view.
It's great to see you again.
You're welcome.
All right.
There you have it.
Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large of Breitpark.com.
Stay with us for more.
And what do you think about that WestJet CEO?
I mean, listen, I believe that corporate leaders can have something to say about our country.
Absolutely.
And WestJet's an important company.
Absolutely.
I don't think Ed Sims is a Canadian yet.
And I think it's really gross for him to tell unemployed Albertans they have nothing to bitch about.
And then in fact, it's their complaining that's leading to the bad economy.
I think he owes all Canadians and Albertans in particular, an apology.