An intense man in a suit talks on a phone while looking at a laptop with a video call, another man sits blurred in the background, in a dark, stylized illustration.

“Is that David Wallace?” Western Standard CEO Derek Fildebrandt asked reporter David Wiechnik after he had muted the Zoom call they were on. “Yeah,” Wiechnik replied. “Holy shit,” Fildebrandt said. “That guy is the most untrustworthy guy there is.” Fildebrandt grabbed his phone and added, “You cannot trust anything that guy says,” as he rushed out of his office to make a call to one of the other video call participants. Sitting out of view of the rest of the participants, Wiechnik could hear Wallace ask, “Where’s he going?” Over the next several minutes, a few people on the call made small talk while Wiechnik sat silently in his boss’s office waiting for his return. Fildebrandt eventually came back in and sat down at his desk. “Okay, let’s listen to what they have to say,” he said, and unmuted the call. In late September, the Western Standard met with Tyler Argue, CEO of risk management firm Westbridge Ventures Canada LP; political provocateur David Wallace; and Argue’s cousin Heidi McKillop — who had previously done work with the outlet. The group — whom Argue has said were under directions from Bryan Ward of Park Law LPP — approached the outlet asking if it would be interested in publishing a new angle about the Corrupt Care scandal that had rocked the Alberta political scene for months after being broken by the Globe and Mail reporter Carrie Tait in February 2025. Many of the claims presented to the Western Standard during that meeting — particularly those involving See more