EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta's legacy of political innovation： An interview with Derek Fildebrandt
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Summary
A special interview with Derek Fildeprant, the publisher of Western Standard, talks about Alberta's role as a political laboratory and a laboratory for political experiments and freedom, and the challenges facing the rest of the country.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today, a special interview with Derek Fildebrandt. He's the publisher
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of Western Standard. We're going to go deep on Alberta, not just because I'm sentimental
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for the place I come from, but I think it's important in Canada. A lot of ideas are generated
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there. It's like an idea laboratory. And they're innovators in politics. So what's going on?
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Does Danielle Smith have a chance? Are the media going to slice and dice her? Can she
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beat Rachel Notley? We'll get into all that with Derek. That's ahead. But first, let me
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invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast.
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Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get my show every
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weeknight, Sheila Gunn-Reed's show too, every week. And we get the $8, which doesn't sound
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like a lot, but I tell you, it sure adds up. And we really rely on that to pay our bills
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around here because we don't take any money from Trudeau. All right. Here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, a heart-to-heart conversation with Derek Fildebrandt, the publisher of Western
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Standard. What's going on in Alberta these days? This is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you sensorious bug.
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Sometimes we talk about international news, the war in Ukraine, what China is doing,
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Joe Biden. These are interesting and exciting things because these are the big players and
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also because the big media talks about it. So shouldn't we, as the littler media, be following
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their example? And true, what Joe Biden does or what the war in a faraway land that touches
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oil prices or agriculture prices, that does have an effect on us back here in Canada. But most
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of the things in our lives are decided at a more provincial or local level. They may not quite
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be as exciting as the lead up to a third world war, but they affect our everyday lives very much. And
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a place in Canada that I think is a laboratory for political experiments in smaller government and
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freedom and also a battleground between the authoritarian, centrally planned worldview of,
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say, a Justin Trudeau and a more rugged individualist world, of course, is the province
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of Alberta, a unique province both economically and politically. I think it really does live up to its motto,
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also strong and free. I was born in Alberta and I still regard myself as an Albertan at heart,
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even though I've been in exile in Toronto for more than a decade now. But I like to keep in touch
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with what's going on in the province of my birth, not just for sentimental reasons, but also because
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what happens in Alberta will have an effect on the rest of the country. And if Alberta is punished
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economically, it will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the country. If Alberta succeeds and thrives,
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it'll have a beneficial effect for the rest of the country. And how political leaders from Ontario
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and Quebec deal with Alberta, I think, shows what kind of a person they are, if they're punitive and
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looking to demonize the other, as sometimes Justin Trudeau does, or if they want to truly
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build a harmonious confederation. And so I often look to my friends at the Western standard to let me
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know what's really going on out West, because they are owned and operated out West and they are led
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by our friend Derek Fildeprant, who will join us for the next half hour to talk about the sweep
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of these things and Alberta's place in them. Derek, great to see you again. Welcome back.
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Well, you know, it's great to see you. And I'm sort of jealous because you're out there
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fighting the good fight, really on one of the important political battlegrounds,
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which is Alberta. I really think you could go back not just to Preston Manning or to Ralph
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Klein, but you can go back decades earlier to Bill Eberhardt, to Ernest Manning. I think Alberta
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has always been a place where political innovations happen. Even the NDP had one of its formative
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moments in Alberta. There's something in the air out there, isn't there?
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Yeah. And you use the term, the two terms that have some historical resonance in exactly this.
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You talked about Alberta being politically innovative or a laboratory. You know, I remember
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when I was in university, I read Preston Manning's book, The New Canada. That was written right after
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the Charlottetown Accord referendum, which, of course, the entire political establishment in
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Canada lost to a hodgepodge group, including the Reform Party. And this book was very, it was
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influential on me. He talked, you know, he said there's only two regions in Canada that are
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political entrepreneurs or like to experiment beyond traditional party systems. And that's
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Quebec and the West. Alberta, probably more so than the rest of the West. But I think the West very
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broadly are political entrepreneurs or innovators. They're willing to break beyond the traditional
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molds of things. You know, that's why in, you know, BC, you have a two party system.
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The NDP and the BC Liberal, now maybe sort of BC United, whatever you call it, but also the Green
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Party. I mean, not a cup of tea of myself or you, I'm sure. But, you know, it's the only place that
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kind of consistently elects Greens. You know, in Alberta, you had the social credit, you had the
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United Farmers Movement, come from here, you had social credit. The Canadian Commonwealth
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Federation, which became the NDP, came from sort of a combination of Saskatchewan and Alberta together.
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You had, you know, federally, you had the Reform Party, you had the wild, provincially, you had the
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Wild Rose Party. And, you know, it's a place where people are willing to step outside the traditional
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bounds of the typical two or two party system, you know, liberal and Tory or two party plus liberal Tory
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and NDP system that you see more traditionally in Ontario. Yeah, you know, I mean, what you're talking
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about there is innovation, progressive ideas, newfangled ideas. I think that's the Alberta way. You can be a
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right wing progressive as an innovator and experimenter. So often, though, these parties are looked down,
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on and condemned by the center of power. They mock them. I remember being a young man involved with the
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Reform Party of Canada, absolutely demonized by the central Canadian establishment, was never accepted.
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Preston Manning was mocked ideologically, personally. They mocked his voice. They mocked his hair. They mocked his
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glasses. I remember Sheila Copse called him David Duke of the North. Anything goes to smash down a political innovator
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from Alberta. I think it hurts, by the way. I think it hurts the feelings of Albertans who want to be
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good Canadians that they're so rebuffed. But let me give you a modern example. Look at Danielle Smith,
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the current premier, a young woman premier. I'm not sure how many young women there are as premiers right
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now. There's a few. But Danielle Smith is, I think, the most energetic and active. She's with a new party,
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the United Conservative Party, fairly new. And, you know, she's a good talker. She's a lot of time
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on talk radio. And she's a political innovator in terms of policy. Now, those things on paper
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are what the CBC and the Toronto establishment claim they love to see. We need more women in
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politics. We need more young people. I mean, she's, I don't think she's, maybe she just turned 50,
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which in the realm of premiers is not old. She'd be on the younger side. She's certainly
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open-minded in terms of politics. You would think she would be the star of Canada. And maybe if she
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was on the left, she would be. But she's nothing but derided and demonized by the establishment media,
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especially the CBC, which is so obvious they're doing their best to kill her.
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Well, you kind of hinted into what I think the real issue is there. You know, the left or
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progressives say they want more women in politics or minorities in politics, all these different
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so-called equity-deserving groups. What they really mean is they want more of these people in
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politics on the left. You know, you have to have the right politics to be in politics and deserve it
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and have it being a part of any of these groups. You know, Danielle Smith has had a very rocky
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history in Alberta politics. She's achieved what is probably the biggest comeback in Canadian political
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history. Even I have to pinch myself sometimes wondering how she managed to come back from the
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hole she had managed to dig herself in at one point. But, you know, it's also not just that she's
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a conservative. She comes from the anti-establishment, politically innovative and
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populist Wild Rose tradition. And, you know, in the Alberta UCP, there's a lot of different...
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It's very tribal. It's very factional. And, you know, there were differences between the
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Wild Roses and PCs. Generally, the Wild Rose was further to the right. It had more social
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conservatives and more libertarians. But, you know, but there were sometimes, you know,
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there'd be like the right wing of the PCs would ideologically match up relatively closely with
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portions of the Wild Rose. But the differences between those parties were more cultural and
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tribal. A lot of the cleavages that still plague that party today are very cultural and tribal.
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And she comes from the tribe that has been deemed to be politically unacceptable by most of the
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establishment, both media and business. You know, there are a lot of people, you know,
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even within the UCP, who just don't think it's right that someone who came from the Wild Rose
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side of the legacy parties should be there. And so that paints an even larger, another target on her
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back beyond just not fitting the mold of what a progressive woman politician should be in the
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You know, I think about some of the challenges that Danielle Smith faces, and one of them
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is her own team. You talked about tribal and different factions, but I think Albertan politicians,
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especially those on the right, and some on the left, are often populist, individualistic,
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sort of lone ranger. There's a party out there called the Maverick Party. And I love that because
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that, you know, what a maverick is, you know, it's a critter that won't go with the flock, really.
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And there's nothing more different than the Trudeau caucus. Like, Justin Trudeau's liberals
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are the most disciplined MPs in the country. They will never say anything against their boss,
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and he will never say anything against them. And they have this pact, never explained, never
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apologized, never dissent. And that makes it hard to pick one of them off. In Alberta, I think it's
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sort of the opposite. I mean, you yourself got offside with your party on occasion, and I think
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it's the individual spirit of the province. That makes it tough, though, to go into a campaign,
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because I think Danielle Smith, from time to time, may be playing, you know, defense on her own team,
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some of whom I don't think have fully accepted her as the new premier. Am I wrong on that? I'm a
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little bit worried that the rebelliousness of the United Conservative Party and that Western streak,
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that maverick streak, makes it hard to operate in the current kind of campaign environment.
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Yeah, no, it absolutely does. And it's for better and worse sometimes. So right now,
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the main cleavages in the party are between Smith and the Kenneyites. And that was largely reflected
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in the leadership race. You know, Travis Tabes, the finance minister under Kenney and under Smith,
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was widely perceived. And he didn't do much to disabuse anyone of the notion that he was the
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anointed Kenney successor. And the battles that are taking place right now are, a lot of it is over
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nominations. So before Kenney was ousted as leader, he ensured that the nominations of some of his key
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allies were opened up. And, you know, for those who might not follow this stuff too closely,
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the nomination is what essentially gets you your seat for the most part. There's only a handful of
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seats in the middle that are actually competitive between the NDP and the UCP. The rest are safe NDP
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or safe UCP. You get the party nomination, you were almost 100% guaranteed to be the MLA in that seat.
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You're going to win the election. And Kenney opened up the nominations in some of these seats
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and disqualified any challengers to his allies. And that was obviously very controversial. People,
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it angers people. But at the end of the day, Alberta voters tend to just kind of hold their
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nose, say, hey, I might not like the way it happens, but that's just, you know, politics is
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dirty. And I guess they're all dirty. I'll hold my nose and vote for the party.
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Okay. So Smith comes in, wins the leadership. I remember I asked her in an interview right after
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that, if, you know, if she would be opening up some of these kind of crooked nominations where
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there had been no democratic due process taken just to protect some of these Kenneites. And she
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said, that'll be up to the local boards. And in one constituency, say, Ruby Rock Mountain House,
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Sundry, that was the constituency of Jason Nixon, where, and he was kind of the right hand man in
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government house leader and a senior minister for Kenney, where Kenney had essentially just
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given him the nomination and they disqualified anyone who challenged him. The local board threw
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out the MLA, Nixon's people, they elected a whole new constituency association board,
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and they demanded that the nomination be reopened. The central party board, there was a big fight over
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that at the party's first convention right after her leadership. Only half the board comes up for
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election. Every single one of those spots were won by kind of an insurgency group in the party
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called Take Back Alberta that was generally supportive of her and was opposed to, you know,
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lockdown restrictions of the Kenney government and things like that. And that's created deadlock
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in that party's board, where you have 50% who are essentially more aligned with Smith,
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the anti-establishment, anti-Kenney stuff. And then 50% that came from, they were already elected
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there before it came from there. And the party just quashed reopening any nominations. And the way that
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happened is there was an organized revolt, even though it's not in Smith's hands, it's up to the
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party. There was a revolt in the caucus of the Kenneyites who threatened to quit and create all
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sorts of trouble if she didn't find a way of protecting their nominations and kind of strong
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armed her to do it. And that's what's happened. So now you've got, you've got these, you're going to
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have some candidates going to the next election who have no democratic legitimacy from the local
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constituency association members in those ridings, uh, because they, they threatened, uh, to try and
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overthrow Smith as the leader. If, uh, if the party reopened their nomination so that local people can
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actually vote who their candidate is. And so this is, uh, just a long line in the continuing fight and
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civil war in Alberta. Uh, it is worth noting that the last conservative premier or leader in Alberta
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to retire of their own free will was Peter Lockheed around the time I was born. I should say something.
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Uh, and the last conservative leader to actually complete a full term of an election in Alberta
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was Ralph Klein in 2001. That was the last time there was an election in Alberta where the,
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where the conservative premier finished their term because he won again in 2004. Uh, but then he was
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pushed out, uh, before that term was over. Ed Stelmack comes in. Ed Stelmack wins, pushed out before his
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term's over. Allison Redford comes in, pushed out before her term's over. Uh, Jim Prentice comes in,
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defeated. Uh, Jason Kenney comes in saying Rachel Notley's going to be one and done. Well, he's pushed
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out before even his term's over. Rachel Notley lasted longer than him. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, um,
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even, even if people like, uh, Smith, the history is not on her side here. Uh, if she manages to win
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the next election and make it to the next election, uh, that'd be the first time since 2001 that anyone's
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done it. And if she happens to ever retire on her own terms, well, that's something no conservative
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or no premier period of any party has pulled off in Alberta since around the time I was born in the
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80s. Well, it's a volatile place in some ways. That's good. You don't want politicians to be too
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permanent. Uh, you know, you look at the United States Senate, there, there are politicians who
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were there 30, 40, almost 50 years. Look at Joe Biden himself. I think there's some healthiness
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to, uh, you know, a turnover it, although it sounds like Danielle Smith has a bit of a mutiny on her
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hands. Um, I think that it's hers to lose as in, I think that she's on an inertia that she'll win
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unless there's an eruption in their party, unless there are people who want to stab her in their
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back. And I'm worried that there are some people who resent her coming in as the premier, as an
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outsider, as a, as too libertarian, as too, uh, too critical of Jason Kenney. And they might rather
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lose the election and get rid of Danielle Smith than win under her. Is that too crazy?
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No, no, it's, it's entirely true. In fact, I think Jason Kenney probably even fits in that mold.
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Uh, Jason Kenney, uh, I've never seen before in any party, in any province, uh, the sitting head
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of a government criticizing the front runner, uh, of the leadership race to replace them.
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And then refusing to be part of a transition. Like he refused to be like that. I've never heard of,
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like, it's one thing to be partisan in your party, but to say, I hate my successors so much,
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I literally will not help them become premier. That's unheard of.
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You'll, you'll, you'll remember, uh, you know, you see the Lubrano's poster from the old Western
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center when you ran it there, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin hated each other's guts. They had a,
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if they could have gotten away with it, they would have shot each other. But, um, you know,
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when Paul Martin was running to succeed Jean Chrétien, Jean Chrétien stayed out of the leadership
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race, at least publicly. I mean, everyone's got a private favorite and you might, you know, call
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in some favors and pull some strings here and there, but you, you never got directly involved.
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Jason Kenney was directly involved in that leadership on an almost daily basis, going almost
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exclusively after Danielle Smith, uh, which he saw, I think as a threat to his legacy, which had been
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pretty much defined by lockdowns and mandates and things like that. And, uh, you know, she,
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he was, he was making government spending announcements literally the day of the leadership
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rate, a vote. Uh, so, you know, by that evening, his successor will be selected. It was assumed to
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likely be Danielle Smith that morning. He was making spending announcements in the same damn city
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trying to take the spotlight. So, you know, you had the most chaotic transition I've ever seen in
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government. There's generally two kinds of transitions in Canadian or Westminster, uh, governments.
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You have, uh, the one most people are aware of is when one party defeats another in an election.
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So, you know, UCP defeats NDP. Well, the NDP, uh, you know, uh, the government will take normally
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three to five weeks for transition. The old government goes into caretaker mode. They're
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not allowed to make decisions. They're just kind of there to make sure that the police still arrest
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bad guys and the fires get put out. They don't do anything in the assisted transition and the new,
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there's no expectations on the new government because they're not actually sworn in yet because
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they're not technically the government till they're sworn in. And that's, you know, what a lot of
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people see. And then there's internal transitions. You saw this really recently in BC where, uh, the
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new NDP leader was elected to replace Adrian Dix and they took two months, a very long transition.
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It was within the same party, but it was a new administration coming in. They took lots of time
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and the new premier could hit the ground running here. Smith, I think felt the necessity of taking power
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immediately because Jason Kenney was not acting as a caretaker, interim premier. He was acting as a
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very hostile premier and going to govern in his own right until he was gone. So Daniel Smith, I think
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won the leadership on a Thursday night, Monday morning, she was sworn in as premier and the rest
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of her cabinet wasn't even sworn in for a month. She essentially just fired Jason Kenney from the
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cabinet and took his job. Um, and that resulted in a very chaotic turnover. He had no premier's office.
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You had a premier, but no, no real premier's office. You just had kind of her campaign staff
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trying to pick up the pieces, but all of a sudden because she's premier, there's an expectation
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from the media and the opposition that they're going to govern as the premier, but even without
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any of the infrastructure. So it was, it was a very chaotic, uh, transition of government.
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It's kind of a third kind that I've never even seen before. Even when you have two, you know,
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a hostile new leader replacing a hostile old leader, like Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin,
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uh, just, you just never see that kind of thing. And I think it resulted in a pretty rough start
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for the government. Yeah. I didn't realize it was that bad. Um, there is one thing that
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usually works in Alberta and it also works in Quebec, works in Newfoundland. I think it works
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in BC and Saskatchewan. And that is you can unite your province against Ottawa because Ottawa plays
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favorites. And, you know, Westerners like to think that Ottawa plays favorites benefiting Quebec,
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but sometimes Quebecers feel misunderstood or, or threatened in some way. I think Alberta has a
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legitimate claim and Newfoundland does too. I think the best moments of Danielle Smith
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have been when she pushes back at Justin Trudeau, when she challenges his goofy concept of a
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just transition off of oil and gas. And when they met a few weeks ago and she was very reluctant to
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shake his hand, I know a lot of people on Twitter chirped about that and thought it looked childish.
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I really liked it. I mean, it was a little bit passive aggressive, but I think it telegraphed to
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Albertans. I don't like this guy. I'm like my opponent here. Just take a quick look at that
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awkward half handshake. Take a look. People thought that looked small minded or petty. I thought,
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no, no, that's an expression of Alberta's views towards Trudeau. Am I right on that? I think
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almost any quarrel that the premier of Alberta has with Justin Trudeau is going to be a winner.
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If you're talking about Trudeau as Alberta premier, you are winning. If you're talking about
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health care or other more mundane matters, you may be losing, especially against an NDP.
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But you're fighting Trudeau. You're winning every day. What do you think?
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Well, actually, on the handshake, we discussed it a lot around the newsroom here. I actually had a
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reporter ask, one of our reporters, Jonathan Bradley, I think, asked Premier Smith about that to the
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press conference when she got back. What she had said, actually, is that they had met before the
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cameras started clicking and all the press are in there. They had already met. They'd already been
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introduced and already shaken hands. And then they walk up to the chairs and Trudeau puts his hand out
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to shake her hand again. And so she said she was just kind of confused by it. They had already
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said hello. They were already shaking hands and was just kind of confused by the stage.
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So it wasn't as deliberate. It wasn't really a deliberate statement.
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Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't think it was. I think that's a I think a fair I think was a fair
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explanation. You know, others had posited that Trudeau had just like grabbed her hand and kind of
00:24:44.580
manhandled it. You know, like when he elbowed Ruth Ellen Brousseau, the MP, the chest. I actually don't
00:24:51.340
even think that either. I think it was just awkward because they'd already shaken hands and been
00:24:54.660
introduced. You know, it's like when, you know, you go for dinner with somebody and you say goodbye
00:25:00.380
at the door of the restaurant and you turn out to walk the same direction down the sidewalk and you
00:25:05.000
have an awkward second goodbye. I think it's probably an equivalent of that. So, yeah, I think
00:25:12.120
that's what it was. But to your to your larger point of is a good politics to fight Ottawa? Yeah,
00:25:16.860
it generally is in Alberta and in many provinces, you know, a little less so Ontario because it kind
00:25:24.260
of just sees itself as upper Canada. It's not really not as much a thing. But the the caution
00:25:30.840
is that it can't look like some contrived silly fight. It has to be it has to be genuine over an
00:25:37.640
issue. It can't be, you know, every once in a while, like Rachel Notley would try to work
00:25:42.560
herself up and do a tiff and say, Justin Trudeau is, you know, could do better. And people are
00:25:50.060
like, I'm not really buying it. But conversely, you know, if you know, if Danielle Smith, you
00:25:56.780
know, came had a grievance, but Albertans weren't bought into it, they thought it was just for
00:26:01.760
political show. And really, this was part of Jason Kenney's problem. He you know, he ran against
00:26:05.780
Ottawa in the last election, he ran against Ottawa and the UCP leadership when he got made leader.
00:26:10.580
Uh, and then he, you know, for his roughly three years as premier, he would talk a game
00:26:16.040
against Ottawa, but he never actually really did anything. And so talking against Ottawa
00:26:20.400
gets you can get you in office, but it, you know, if you can't show anything for it, that
00:26:25.480
you're actually willing to do something about it, it can be on the negative side. And that
00:26:29.280
was, you know, after, after his mandates and lockdowns and things like that, that was probably
00:26:36.020
the clear second biggest reason why Jason Kenney, uh, lost the leadership of his own party
00:26:42.140
was, uh, just, it was just a bad joke that he would write an angry letter and hold a press
00:26:47.540
conference about Ottawa, but never actually did anything.
00:26:50.100
My theory on that is, um, as follows. Jason Kenney is the consummate member of parliament
00:26:57.660
in Ottawa. He has traveled to every place in this country. He was Stephen Harper's ambassador
00:27:04.500
to new Canadian communities. So he knows every ethnic group across this country. He speaks
00:27:09.080
pretty good French for a Western MP. He was, uh, a great performer in parliament. He had foreign
00:27:17.700
affairs and military, and he had a lot, he had a lot of big things he did. And my theory, and
00:27:24.440
I don't think it's that outlandish a theory, was that he, he just was in Alberta as premier,
00:27:29.380
as a holding pattern, uh, until it was more opportune to run for prime minister federally.
00:27:37.820
And he didn't want to be the one to dash himself against the rock of Justin Trudeau in 2015,
00:27:43.240
2019, 2021, let someone else soften up Trudeau. Kenny would do a term or two as premier. Kenny's
00:27:49.340
still pretty young. He was early fifties. And then he would go back to his natural and destiny.
00:27:54.140
Um, and, and my point is, if you're going to run for prime minister and woo Ontario and woo Quebec,
00:28:02.780
you don't want a bunch of footprints behind you where you condemned Ottawa or Canada too hard.
00:28:09.800
You don't want to be able to be pigeonholed as a small time provincial guy who only cares about
00:28:17.540
Alberta. And I think that one of the reasons Kenny was so ineffective is that he was always thinking,
00:28:23.580
how's this going to look when I run for prime minister? And I think he never actually accepted
00:28:31.400
being premier as his main and ultimate job. He was always thinking it's like when you're at a party
00:28:36.540
and someone is obviously looking around for someone more interesting to talk to than you.
00:28:40.920
I think that was Jason Kenny. He was looking around for someone more interesting to be the
00:28:45.960
premier of than just Alberta. What do you think of that theory?
00:28:48.220
Yeah. Uh, I think it's, I mean, a law, a lot of people have speculated that I, I think it's,
00:28:55.400
I think it's true. Um, I mean, he was a creature of, of Ottawa representing Alberta, but, um, you know,
00:29:02.400
he, he was rarely in Alberta, uh, you know, and people didn't hold that against them. I mean,
00:29:09.200
you know, he was out doing, uh, he was generally considered a very successful MP and minister,
00:29:14.000
uh, you know, had my support for, for a good time. Um, but you know, it's not like the United States
00:29:21.400
where there's a very long list of people who have been success, have successfully been governors of
00:29:29.220
a state, uh, built executive experience and then gone on to become a president. There,
00:29:34.280
there's quite a few of them. There is not a similar record in Canada. Um, I, so while you were talking
00:29:41.320
there, I just verified, I, I thought there had been only one premier in Canadian history who had
00:29:46.980
become prime minister and that it was an insignificant one. And boy, was I right. The
00:29:51.300
only premier in Canadian history who has gone on to become prime minister was John Thompson.
00:29:57.540
Can anyone tell me who John Thompson was? I think this is one of those guys. Uh, yeah, I, I, I'm, uh,
00:30:04.520
99% sure this was one of the, I think roughly four prime ministers who came immediately after
00:30:09.120
Sir John and McDonald, some of them lasted just a couple of weeks and died. And I think several of
00:30:13.660
them all died in office. Like it was just like a bunch of old drunks who were just like had gout
00:30:18.480
or something replacing a McDonald and they just dropped, were dropping like flies. So John Thompson,
00:30:23.760
I think was prime minister maybe for a couple of months or something. Um, so as far as I know,
00:30:29.440
there hasn't been a single premier in Canada who's gone on to at least win an election
00:30:33.460
as prime minister. We just had this one little anomaly. He's not even a footnote. Uh, you know,
00:30:40.240
he's got a painting on a wall somewhere in the house of commons and that's, that's the extent of
00:30:44.140
his contribution. So, um, and it's because, uh, because I think it's largely because of the extreme,
00:30:51.480
uh, regional nature of Canada. Canada is not, um, a nation in the traditional sense of the word.
00:30:58.500
It's, it's a, it's a polity. It's a state. Uh, you know, Quebec is a nation, but, uh, the Canadian
00:31:04.660
nation, you know, Trudeau has said post-national doesn't have a strong sense of itself. We have a
00:31:09.600
stronger provincial identities in Canada than we do as a single overriding national identity. And
00:31:15.580
especially if you want to come from, you know, you can't be Alberta premier and stand up for Alberta
00:31:24.320
in a real way and then speak nationally. You just can't do it. Uh, particularly so with Quebec. I
00:31:30.980
mean, I can't imagine people electing someone who's been the premier of Quebec. It didn't work.
00:31:34.860
Jean Charest tried, uh, you know, many people have tried to go from premier to prime minister.
00:31:41.480
In Kenny's case, he never got to actually put it to the test because he, you know, failed his job
00:31:45.800
as premier and got ousted by his own party. Um, that isn't to say he won't even try again someday if,
00:31:51.940
if the opportunity presents itself. But I guess I think the extreme, the extreme regional nature
00:31:56.340
of Canada makes it too difficult for premiers to make the change successfully.
00:32:00.260
Now, what's Kenny doing? I saw, I saw a news release that he's joined a law firm
00:32:04.640
as a senior advisor. Now he's not a lawyer by training. In fact, I'm not sure if he,
00:32:09.220
if he in fact finished his undergraduate degree, he's obviously a smart cookie with a ton of connections.
00:32:14.400
I was slightly surprised that he's sticking around Alberta. I think he had such a ignominious
00:32:20.380
ending. I'm surprised he didn't decamp for, I don't know, England or America. Have you,
00:32:25.580
have you heard from him or of him? What is he doing? Is he upbeat and moving on with his life?
00:32:32.760
Is he grumbling? Um, what, what's Jason Kenney up to now?
00:32:37.960
Well, uh, I haven't got a Christmas card from Jason Kenney in some time, so I, I, I can't, I,
00:32:43.380
I can't give you an honest insight into where his headspace is at. Uh, I know he's,
00:32:47.820
he's grown, uh, kind of the playoff beard. Uh, many of us do that when things get, uh,
00:32:53.060
rougher in politics, but, um, you know, the revolt against Kenny was from kind of the populist right
00:33:01.180
in Alberta, generally, you know, blue collar people, uh, middle-class people, uh, small oil patch,
00:33:09.360
you know, guys who own like three, four rigs kind of thing. The, the big business establishment
00:33:15.600
for the most part still continued to back him. And so, you know, I, I, yeah, it's not that
00:33:21.760
everyone was against them. Um, the wild rose style populist right was against him and it was very hard
00:33:30.800
against them and made it impossible for him to continue with the premier. But, you know, he still
00:33:35.200
kind of had that old PC business elite behind him. So, you know, I, I, you know, it's not like he
00:33:42.360
was run out of town. Alison Redford had to go to Afghanistan after her time as premier. She had,
00:33:47.600
she, she had worn out all welcome, uh, I think, but, uh, you know, like Jim, you know, Jim Prentice
00:33:53.740
found a soft landing in business. He never lost the support of kind of the PC business establishment.
00:33:59.300
And, uh, similarly, I think, uh, Jason Kenney has still got some friends, uh, in that area. So I,
00:34:06.140
you know, if he wants to remain around, uh, I, I can see that happening. Yeah. Well,
00:34:10.160
let me ask you about the two elections that are on the horizon. The first one, and it's a scheduled
00:34:15.460
one is the Alberta provincial election. And I follow some of the left wing bloggers in Alberta and
00:34:21.340
they're worried that Danielle Smith is picking up a bit in the polls, has find her, found her feet a
00:34:27.280
little bit and is taking on Trudeau and this just transition business. So I like the fact that the
00:34:32.280
NDP bloggers in Alberta are a little bit nervous, but I'm still nervous that Danielle Smith is going
00:34:38.060
to have a, a rocky go of it, especially when the media engages the, I, I believe that the Alberta
00:34:44.840
media is atrociously opposed to her and are out to kill her. Um, give me your prospects. Uh, what do
00:34:51.540
you think is going to happen in the Alberta election? That's just a few months away.
00:34:54.600
Well, you know, I, I'll, I'll be not quite as cowardly as everyone who gets asked this question
00:35:02.760
on camera. Um, I, I, I would give Smith and the UCP, uh, I make them the odds on favorite Alberta. So
00:35:11.980
it's kind of like, I, I, it's just like, I would give, you know, if you have two evenly matched teams,
00:35:17.220
I, I give the odds to the home team, whoever's playing on home ice and it's Alberta conservatives are on
00:35:23.300
home ice. So I give them the odds. They're roughly evenly matched. Uh, Rachel Notley is a capable
00:35:31.040
political operator. Uh, it's the first time in Alberta history and it's very rare in Canadian
00:35:36.740
history period where you have, um, the ex premier or prime minister of a government trying to get the
00:35:43.660
job back. Uh, Sir Johnny McDonald did it successfully. Um, uh, McKenzie King did it
00:35:50.500
successfully, but only technically he never really lost. I guess Pierre Trudeau did also after
00:35:55.640
the aberration. And Pierre Trudeau did. Yeah. And that's about it really. Yeah. Yeah. And it may
00:36:01.780
have happened in other provinces. It's definitely never happened in Alberta. In fact, normally when a
00:36:05.780
party loses government in Alberta, they completely disappear from history. Um, United Farmers lost an
00:36:11.780
election. They disappeared. Social credit lost. The liberals lost an election, gone. United Farmers
00:36:16.820
lost an election, gone. Social credit, gone. PCs, one election, sort of gone. They kind of came back
00:36:25.140
and controlled the UCP. Now it's kind of a more of a equilibrium between the Wild Rose and PCs,
00:36:30.040
but the PC party itself disappeared and would not have come back without the merger into the UCP.
00:36:35.920
Uh, the, the NDP did endure and, uh, Rachel Notley is a skilled political operator. Uh,
00:36:40.980
they've been massively out fundraising UCP for a long time under Jason Kenney as, as core UCP donors
00:36:46.440
walked away. That's changed. Uh, the UCP has now got a slight, uh, at least in, in, in the final quarter
00:36:52.960
of the year, the UCP took the lead. They more or less tied overall for the year because the numbers were
00:36:57.920
so low for the UCP for the first half of it. Um, yeah, I mean, uh, there could be bozo eruptions
00:37:05.280
to sink the UCP. Uh, the media put a lot of scrutiny on the UCP. Some of it's warranted. Some
00:37:10.960
of it's kind of gotcha. Hey, someone said something controversial once they were for, they must be a
00:37:14.900
Nazi. A lot of it's that. Uh, but you don't see any kind of similar, uh, lens put onto the NDP,
00:37:22.040
which is, you know, one reason I, I, uh, you know, I, I've always operated the Western standard.
00:37:29.060
Uh, one of my principles has always been, we were here to fill vacuums. If, if part of the
00:37:34.200
media is doing something well, well then we don't need to do a bunch of it. Uh, we should do something
00:37:40.080
that needs to be done and there's a market to be done, but isn't being done. And I don't see a lot
00:37:43.980
of scrutiny on, on the NDP, which is why we're, we're, we're trying to at least shine light on their,
00:37:48.880
their candidates and their policies. What do they stand for? What's their
00:37:51.940
record? How is that applicable? Uh, potentially in the next four years, if they were to win.
00:37:56.760
Uh, so the NDP is more or less going to get a pass, I think from, uh, from the media, they,
00:38:02.300
they consider it very unthreatening. Um, but yeah, if I'm going to, if I'm going to handicap it,
00:38:07.560
I'd say advantage UCP as home ice advantage, but a home ice advantage obviously doesn't win you every
00:38:13.420
time. Last question about the federal election, Justin Trudeau, I think he likes to demonize people.
00:38:20.620
Um, he, he likes demonizing people as racist and sexist and transphobes and Islamophobes. And
00:38:27.580
that's what he did to the truckers. Um, I think he tries to be a little bit more careful in his
00:38:33.120
language about Alberta, but at the end of the day, you know, he, you don't have to say,
00:38:38.660
I hate Alberta. You can use code language. Like we have to transition off the oil sands.
00:38:43.700
We have to transition off nitrogen fertilizer. You know, you don't have to say, I hate Alberta
00:38:49.220
farmers. You can just say we're banning farming. We're transitioning off oil. Do you think Justin
00:38:58.400
Trudeau is going to run? If there's an election this year, do you think he's going to run against
00:39:03.300
the West and make carbon a campaign theme? What do you think? Well, he has for the last few
00:39:10.340
elections. So I wouldn't be surprised if he did it again. Um, also I think Danielle Smith presents,
00:39:16.360
um, you know, it, it, it, it depends also a lot of it'll depend on how Polyev responds to it. Uh,
00:39:22.860
Polyev was born and raised Albertan. Uh, you know, he spent his, his entire career in Ottawa, but,
00:39:28.060
um, he, he was born and raised Albertan, went to university of Calgary. I think he even went to
00:39:32.420
school at the university of Calgary with Danielle Smith and, and several others of, of the generation.
00:39:37.460
Um, uh, I think liberals generally run against Alberta. The question is how hard do they lean
00:39:45.480
into it? Uh, I think the hardest anyone's ever leaned into it was the 1980 federal election that
00:39:50.220
gave us the national energy program with, uh, Trudeau, the seniors, uh, uh, national energy
00:39:56.260
program there. Um, but, uh, you know, Trudeau's run against Alberta to one degree or another in
00:40:02.280
every election. And, and, and, and I have to be fair. Some, it is fair to run against the leader
00:40:07.700
or the politics of a province without necessarily running against the province. Um, you know,
00:40:13.740
they tried to make an issue out of Jason Kenney in the last federal election. I don't think that's
00:40:18.720
necessarily running against Alberta. Uh, they can be carefully conflated. Um, you know, it's,
00:40:26.920
I don't have a problem with Quebec, but I generally have a Quebec problem with every Quebec government.
00:40:30.980
Um, and you know, but that can, and that can be easily conflated. So, you know, Trudeau ran against
00:40:35.880
Kenny last time. Uh, you know, his, his COVID plan had been a disaster. Not that Trudeau's was any
00:40:41.960
better, but, um, uh, but Danielle Smith, you know, her talk, you know, she won the leadership of the
00:40:47.960
UCP largely on the back of the sovereignty act, just scary word for some people. And, uh, you know,
00:40:55.480
it, and there's just no votes to lose for him here. Uh, the liberals, I think have one seat right
00:41:01.700
now. Uh, the porch pirate guy, uh, Georgia hall in Northeast Calgary, there's virtually no seats or
00:41:08.200
votes for them to lose here. I don't think they have earned or any illusions. They're going to win
00:41:11.820
a bunch of seats here. And so in politics, you know, you always need, everybody demonizes,
00:41:17.760
everyone has enemies. No one's completely sunny ways. And if you're going to, you know, just the
00:41:22.720
pure politics of it are, if you're going to pick an enemy, make sure you, you pick an enemy where
00:41:26.320
you have nothing to lose. And, you know, uh, the liberals can pick Alberta because they can make
00:41:33.680
a boogeyman out of it to win seats in the swing areas around the GTA, suburban Vancouver, things like
00:41:39.840
that. And, and virtually lose no substantial votes in Alberta because those votes aren't going to
00:41:44.420
translate the seats in this system. So yeah, buckle up. You're going to see another anti-Alberta election
00:41:48.640
run by Trudeau. Uh, question is, is it going to be more or less than every other
00:41:52.640
election he's run? Well, interesting days ahead. Derek, it's great to catch up with you. Give us
00:41:58.660
30 seconds on Western Standard. What, what are you guys working on these days and what's the best way
00:42:03.420
for people to support you? Well, uh, you know, uh, one of the big things we're working on is preparing
00:42:10.060
for the Alberta election here. As I said, uh, most of the media here, give it a pass. All four major
00:42:15.300
daily papers in Alberta are operated out of Toronto and owned out of New Jersey. And, uh, we're, uh,
00:42:21.540
we're actually the only kind of print style newsroom left in Western Canada that I'm aware of between
00:42:26.500
Mississauga and Vancouver. Um, so, you know, what we're trying to do is, uh, provide a lot of context
00:42:32.720
and coverage, not just during the Alberta election, but in the long lead up to it. That's, that's one of
00:42:37.160
the big exciting things we're working on. And, you know, like, uh, like the rebel, we are one of the
00:42:42.400
only media outlets in the entire country that refuses to accept the federal government's media
00:42:46.120
bill out. So, you know, we rely on memberships or subscriptions from, uh, people who want to
00:42:52.740
voluntarily make a business exchange. We give you a valuable product in exchange for $10 a month or
00:42:58.700
a hundred dollars a year. And, uh, and that's how we do what we do. You can go to Westernstandard.news,
00:43:03.440
click on membership, join us, and, uh, of course, continue to support the rebel at the same time.
00:43:08.780
Right on Westernstandard.news. Great to see you. Keep up the fight out there. Look forward to
00:43:13.160
catching up with you again soon. Anytime. Take care of it. Right on there. You have a Derek
00:43:17.780
Fildebrandt, the boss of Western Standard, and you can visit them at westernstandard.news.
00:43:24.480
That's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:43:29.120
Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.