Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Extended interview with Alberta premier Danielle Smith

00:00:00.000 tonight a one-on-one interview with alberta premier danielle smith

00:00:18.580 it's december 21st and this is the ezra levant show

00:00:22.260 shame on you you sensorious bug

00:00:28.480 alberta's next general election is on may 29th just five months away and it's actually neck and neck

00:00:43.780 between the new leader of the ucp the united conservative party that was selected after

00:00:50.000 jason kenney imploded between danielle smith the premier and leader of the ucp and rachel notley

00:00:56.460 the leader of the socialist ndp who was the accidental premier elected in 2015 the same

00:01:03.700 year justin trudeau was elected it was a double whammy for alberta that put the province on the

00:01:08.520 back foot for half a decade well this is going to be a very important election and there's a lot of

00:01:13.720 people trying to shake danielle smith already remember she was an outsider who took over the

00:01:19.960 ucp it was jason kenney's baby he fused together the provincial progressive conservatives in the

00:01:25.900 old wild rose party and he installed himself as leader in it it was his party in every way but that

00:01:30.600 unraveled pretty quickly and came to an end this spring in my view it was two things jason kenney

00:01:36.980 was too deferential to the federal government he was always keeping an eye at the bigger opportunity

00:01:41.480 of later one day running for prime minister and i don't know what happened to him but he became a

00:01:46.840 lockdown enthusiast he went from being the wrong desantis of canada the freest lightest touch to being

00:01:54.000 the guy who was arresting and jailing christian pastors i don't understand it i don't think a lot

00:01:58.740 of alberta conservatives did either and thus he is not premier i'll talk with the premier that exclusive

00:02:04.540 interview is next

00:02:05.820 thanks very much for meeting with me it's nice to see you in your home turf thanks to see you i want

00:02:20.580 to ask you about this meeting because some conservative politicians get nervous about rebel news and other

00:02:28.160 journalists do too we were banned from the alberta legislature press gallery by our rival reporters we

00:02:33.660 have to get special permission from the speaker to come in um why would you meet with rebel news what

00:02:39.340 what what was your thinking there because it's different than some other people you know what

00:02:43.660 i've liked about rebel is that you you you've created a new model for journalism that i think

00:02:48.840 is probably going to be the future of journalism is i've been watching media struggle so print media

00:02:54.600 struggled radio media struggled television media struggled but you managed to find a subscriber model

00:03:00.340 so that you're supported by the the people who want to see you do well and so i'm i'm seeing that

00:03:05.640 that may just be the the new wave of journalism and there's been a number of other alternative

00:03:10.400 media that have come about in the time that you've been there i i look at you as one of the first but

00:03:15.920 it's been left and right i mean i look at western standard and counter signal and uh on the left you've

00:03:21.320 got canada lands and thai and i i think that we get really robust debate by making sure that all voices

00:03:28.060 are represented so i i think that you do a really good job of getting of getting your viewpoint out

00:03:33.140 some of the companies you just listed are completely independent they don't take any

00:03:37.960 government money canadaland on the left really uh refuses to take government money to their credit

00:03:43.520 but in canada most news uh media take government money from the federal government from justin trudeau

00:03:52.020 i believe that that's coloring their their coverage even of you i i believe it makes them a little bit

00:03:58.240 more obedient to the person who pays them is that just me talking as a competitor or to you as a

00:04:04.480 political challenger to the establishment in ottawa do you sense that too i think there's been a couple of

00:04:10.940 things i noticed this with the crtc and the fact that the that radio and television do have really

00:04:17.880 life or death decision of their broadcast licenses being held by the crtc and if you get too many

00:04:23.620 complaints there's always this worry um are we going to be able to defend our licenses and i think

00:04:28.340 what the net result of that is is that you end up with journalists less willing to take risks because a

00:04:35.220 lot of stories are very controversial and if you if something is likely to elicit a strong reaction

00:04:40.640 i i fear fear that the media will keep on pulling its punches and so what's happening is that

00:04:45.460 you're beginning to see alternative media go where the mainstream media is afraid to go but i think in

00:04:51.680 the end that whole universe of opinion is vitally necessary to make sure that we have robust public

00:04:57.160 decision making because if you only have one view represented and a politician is looking to be able

00:05:03.860 to get good advice about the decisions that they need to make you're just not going to get good

00:05:07.600 decisions if everybody is saying the same thing and so i you know i welcome the the many many voices

00:05:12.320 that we see now one more question about media it looks like the federal government is set to pass

00:05:18.240 a series of bills c11 c18 and others to come that would regulate these independent media could even

00:05:25.880 regulate independent independent individuals on facebook or twitter and one of the things that the

00:05:32.920 federal liberals are talking about is changing the algorithm so that government approved sources

00:05:39.480 would be boosted by facebook and instagram and google and youtube is that something that that

00:05:46.900 you've given any consideration to i know it's in federal jurisdiction to a large degree but that

00:05:51.500 strikes me as as meddling with our constitutional rights well freedom of speech freedom of expression

00:05:56.800 freedom of the press should be foundational to our country foundational to our charter um during the

00:06:02.680 campaign i talked about whether we might be able to invite and entice elon musk to come up here with

00:06:08.200 starlink and if that becomes one of the ways in which you can continue to have um an opportunity to

00:06:14.360 to broadcast freely into our province i don't know if we can do that i mean part of the issue is that

00:06:19.040 when you've got all of the various carriers that are regulated by the federal government

00:06:23.620 then they seem to hold all the cards so um i'd be interested in seeing if there's some way that we

00:06:28.960 would be able to assist those who want to continue to have that free speech platform for instance i i know that

00:06:34.920 there's a a broadcaster who broadcasts into the ontario market from florida so he already saw that

00:06:40.440 this is the direction things were going and so he's now moved outside of canada so that he's able to

00:06:45.920 broadcast freely into into canada which who would have ever thought that that would be the thing that

00:06:50.840 we'd be talking about years ago there i think the federal government has has done a massive

00:06:55.120 overreach here and the question will be how how much are we able to provide an environment that will

00:07:00.640 allow for that kind of freedom part of the issue around facebook and twitter is it sounds like they

00:07:05.340 want to pull out because of how they're being regulated by the federal government and the

00:07:09.960 alternative media i've spoken with have said that they look at those platforms as a way of getting

00:07:14.880 their message out more broadly they they're they're quite happy with the status quo the question is can

00:07:20.200 we can we do much about that i don't know the answer to that yet you mentioned elon musk he

00:07:25.120 recently bought twitter and he actually called it a crime scene and over the last few weeks he's

00:07:30.980 released hundreds of internal documents showing that the fbi and politicians and bureaucrats were able

00:07:39.100 to get twitter to boost certain voices or to censor other voices and they were really directing and

00:07:47.160 commanding twitter to do so that's riveting for americans but i wonder if that was happening in

00:07:54.020 canada i don't know why it wouldn't it was the same company they react to politicians and cops the

00:07:59.980 same way are you worried that that governments the federal government maybe even previous provincial

00:08:06.500 governments maybe even your predecessors were directing twitter facebook youtube to muffle

00:08:13.660 critics and boost propagandists do you think that happened in canada i wonder if it would ever rise to a

00:08:19.720 level where where musk would allow for a journalist to go in and look at that because i've been watching

00:08:24.080 i think it's matt taibbi and barry weiss and michael schellenberger so i've been reading the threads as

00:08:29.200 they've come out as well and it's shocking i i've already heard that in the u.s they're going to be

00:08:34.560 uh i believe they're going to be doing a congressional hearing in january to find out what exactly went

00:08:39.160 down there because the idea that you would have law enforcement stepping in to suppress certain voices

00:08:45.500 on the pretext that they're stopping misinformation when in fact it's really just to try to tip the

00:08:51.100 scale in favor of one particular political view i i sincerely hope that hasn't happened in in canada

00:08:57.540 but uh those big tech companies have had an undue influence on determining what gets printed in our

00:09:03.580 our mainstream media coverage um i think twitter probably is the worst but i suspect that we're seeing

00:09:08.420 the same thing with facebook as well so i'm watching it with interest i haven't seen anything yet

00:09:11.980 that suggests that the same thing has happened here but we should be asking the same question

00:09:15.980 since it was quite clear that there was a an an extraordinary amount of intervention by the fbi

00:09:22.420 in in coverage in in on twitter and what was allowed to be to be printed it's one thing for the company

00:09:29.040 to make censorship decisions i don't like it but i can understand their statement this is a private

00:09:34.080 company you start your own twitter but when a government agency when a health agency like dr fauci

00:09:40.420 when the fbi get involved and especially when they pressure the private company then it feels

00:09:46.340 like government action i want to ask you i don't want to put you on the spot but you made me think

00:09:50.380 of it we can only wait for twitter to release things about canada but you as premier have access to

00:09:57.520 what the alberta government did in the past would you consider and i don't want to put you on the spot now

00:10:02.460 but you could release the alberta government side if there's anything i don't know if uh during the

00:10:11.100 lockdowns for example public health officials were ordering twitter to silence certain voices and boost

00:10:17.200 others it might be something that you would shine a light of scrutiny on the same way elon musk is doing

00:10:22.340 it to his own company it's it's a good it's a good point i'd be interested in in knowing if there was

00:10:26.540 any of that going on you know the sense that i got of it is that everyone was doing what everyone

00:10:30.620 else was doing and i thought that youtube and sandra pachai made it very clear when he was in

00:10:36.920 congressional hearings in the u.s he said he wasn't going to allow anything to go on youtube that

00:10:40.960 contradicted anthony fauci yeah and that seemed to to set the tone for what mainstream media covered

00:10:46.180 and it seemed to have had an overlap effect in in canada so it it may be just that everybody was

00:10:52.160 following the lead of these tech giants but if there's something more there we should know the

00:10:56.480 answer to that i i'll make a note to look into it i haven't been i haven't had anyone break me

00:11:00.560 on that to well i don't think they would i think they'd probably want to hide it as they hit it

00:11:05.500 from elon musk and we talked briefly about the lockdowns and i think you're right there was sort

00:11:09.520 of a mania and everyone it was like a giant game of simon says everyone would do what the other

00:11:14.540 uh jurisdiction did because i guess if everyone was doing it you couldn't get in trouble for doing

00:11:20.100 it and i think there was a madness that took over but we're almost three years to the anniversary

00:11:25.240 of you know the the two weeks to flatten the curve in the beginning of the lockdown so

00:11:30.320 i really think alberta has moved on completely you don't even see nd peers wearing masks anymore

00:11:36.060 well you're doing the legislature that's right what am i saying

00:11:38.860 for theatrical purposes i guess but i i think that a lot of people have moved on

00:11:44.120 in canada and around the world but i feel like some parts of this government have not

00:11:51.980 just last friday a pastor from calgary arthur pavlovsky was in court being prosecuted for a

00:12:00.100 potential one hundred thousand dollar fine for a a public health order that's a couple years old now

00:12:07.620 now it was stayed and it was there was no conviction and and he's won a few of his other

00:12:13.460 cases but there's another pastor uh church in the vine eighty thousand dollar fine they're still

00:12:18.540 battling in court there's a restaurant turning in chris scott so there's all these pastors and

00:12:23.680 small businessmen none of them violent and the world has moved on but alberta health and alberta

00:12:30.540 justice are still prosecuting and they haven't had a lot of wins but they've had a few yeah and it just

00:12:35.980 feels like a hangover from a from a bygone era yeah it doesn't feel like it's in sync with the times

00:12:43.300 is there a way to to move on it feels like a vendetta from some prosecutors that really want

00:12:53.260 to punish these guys that's how now i'm i'm coming from a very strong point i support these guys yeah

00:12:57.560 and i know you've got to be you know you you can't meddle in a judicial process but boy it doesn't

00:13:03.420 feel like it's in the public interest you know i think we learned a lot about how our justice system

00:13:07.540 works in watching things at the federal level and how the attorney general and the crown have an

00:13:12.900 independence from the the premier's office the questions that i can ask and have asked and continue

00:13:19.360 to ask is is it in the public interest yeah and is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction

00:13:25.600 yeah and i think the longer that we go on seeing that prosecutions are not being successful it makes

00:13:32.700 a stronger case yeah on both of those fronts that uh if the conviction isn't likely we we know that we

00:13:39.860 have a lot of pressure on our courts yeah and if the public has now come to terms with wanting a

00:13:45.020 different approach is it in the public interest it's it'll it's becoming increasingly hard to answer

00:13:49.440 those two questions now i i put it to the prosecutors and i've asked them to do a review

00:13:55.420 of the cases with those two things in mind and i'm i'm hopeful that uh we'll we'll see a true turning

00:14:02.240 of the page because i think you're very right that something something changed in february uh when the

00:14:07.400 when the freedom convoy took place that i think people uh realize that now we know more about this virus

00:14:13.860 we have more effective means to be able to address it that some of the extreme measures that were

00:14:18.860 that may have may have had a lot of widespread support early on they they just don't have the

00:14:24.680 same widespread support today and so do you continue on in uh prosecuting when when the public

00:14:31.640 has has moved on that's the big question that the crown has got to come to terms with that's really

00:14:36.440 how marijuana decriminalization happened i mean it did happen legislatively but for years

00:14:42.380 prosecutors just did not prosecute small possession of marijuana even though it was against the law

00:14:48.180 there are three truckers from lethbridge not not violent not no firearms this is one of them was a

00:14:55.200 town counselor in fort mcleod they're being prosecuted the prosecutor wants 10 years in prison

00:15:00.680 this is for the at the coots blockade and i'm glad you're looking into that and yeah well and you can

00:15:06.080 see as well i mean we we do have some latitude to decide how we're how we're going to prioritize our

00:15:11.900 policing resources i mean we've seen our our justice minister for instance say that he does not think

00:15:17.500 that the federal gun confiscation scheme is in line with what our policing priorities are our policing

00:15:23.660 priorities are going after hardened criminals people who are smuggling guns across the border and so

00:15:28.740 i think that we're we're in the process of trying to to sort through some of that remember i've only

00:15:33.820 been in office now for i think 11 weeks i just finally became an mla on november 29th so there's a

00:15:41.300 there there is uh i do know i'm i'm asking the questions and i'm doing it in a way that i i think

00:15:47.400 is um consistent with how our system works that in the end if there is no reasonable likelihood or

00:15:53.460 conviction and it's not in the public interest the the crown's going to have to be mindful of that

00:15:57.920 my next question is partly a lockdown prosecution but it actually makes me think about oil and gas

00:16:03.660 because that same pastor pawlowski is on trial in february for violating the critical infrastructure

00:16:08.900 defense act i don't think it's going to succeed but that law was designed to fight eco-terrorism

00:16:15.380 designed to fight anti-oil patch activists it's never been used for that purpose what is the state

00:16:21.640 of play in the globally funded globally directed war against alberta's oil sands because oil has never

00:16:30.860 been more in demand from russia from opec natural gas has never been more in demand it's war in ukraine

00:16:39.000 proves that yeah but we still don't have access to blue water yeah i would say that there is again

00:16:48.060 we're in the middle of i think a reassessment we have to be because people are now seeing a spike in

00:16:54.360 their gasoline and diesel bills we're seeing electricity go up we're seeing home heating go up we're seeing

00:16:59.660 the cost of everything go up and the and consumers especially those who are low income on fixed

00:17:05.060 income they're really hurting so i think that that's creating a bit of a wake-up call for politicians

00:17:11.120 that affordability is number one we know here we've had to make a number of measures to to try to address

00:17:17.020 some of that affordability crisis energy security too this is the interesting thing i'm seeing in the

00:17:22.180 u.s as well is that those on the democrat side are concerned about affordability those on the

00:17:27.820 republican side are worried about energy security and they're all looking up to canada and saying

00:17:32.460 hmm maybe that's one of the answers we sent sonia savage to cop 27 because quite frankly i just don't

00:17:37.920 think the federal government does a very good job of representing our views that's a little warning

00:17:41.480 summit correct and we had john carey ask the environment minister stephen gubeau what are you doing

00:17:48.240 up in alberta what are you doing up in canada you guys are miles ahead of us on environmental issues

00:17:53.060 and so if we are the very best in the environment the very best in energy security and also able to

00:17:59.520 provide affordability that that seems to me to be a way of restarting the the the conversation so i'm

00:18:06.460 i'm hopeful that we'll be able to have a bit of a breakthrough with our american friends because i

00:18:13.140 think that that's very influential on justin trudeau um i'm almost i'm getting a sense as well that

00:18:18.520 there's some pragmatism at the federal level with um uh champagne and christ freeland and jonathan

00:18:25.740 wilkinson uh i think perhaps they they recognize just how much alberta contributes to federal coffers i

00:18:31.660 mean we're only what 10 of the population contributing 16 of of gdp that that has an impact on on federal

00:18:39.080 revenues and if there's a way for us to be able to achieve all those targets we should be working

00:18:43.260 together rather than fighting i i still think we have an incredible incredibly ideological environment

00:18:49.300 minister stephen gibault and he's going to be a constant challenge for us as part of the reason

00:18:54.080 why we put up the shield of the sovereignty act is that we during our leadership race he started

00:19:00.540 floating ideas like a 30 percent emissions reduction on fertilizer and a 42 percent emissions reduction on

00:19:07.180 on oil and natural gas but before we'd even have put a new premier in place so i think the federal

00:19:12.400 government were was taking us for granted just thinking that they could pass laws and that we

00:19:16.960 would just sit back and then hopefully spend years fighting it through court but we can't do that

00:19:21.840 anymore this is this is just too crucial so i don't know that we've seen necessarily a a complete

00:19:28.500 a complete change but i i was encouraged by the fact that gibault did not sign on to the the final

00:19:34.460 agreement at cop 27 because he recognized it wanted to talk about a phase out of oil and natural gas he

00:19:40.040 recognized as provincial jurisdiction and that he would face a legal challenge from the provinces that

00:19:44.380 he would not win so maybe we're having a bit of a breakthrough and i'm delighted to see that scott

00:19:48.780 moe is going down the same track as we are with the saskatchewan first act i think i think this is the

00:19:52.840 kind of conversation we need to have i've heard you mention scott moe before and he's very strong on

00:19:57.520 these things have you had any communication with other premiers and i'm actually thinking of quebec here

00:20:02.800 because the language you're using about the sovereignty act if you were saying it en français

00:20:07.320 every quebec would say oh yeah we've been saying that for a generation it's only when alberta

00:20:12.560 talks about you know being masters in our own house yeah that you get this odium from the media

00:20:18.760 party have you talked to all the other premiers so many other premiers have they talked to all the

00:20:24.440 other premiers we've had a couple of meetings together as premiers and it's interesting to hear

00:20:30.000 them all say that they've got the same frustration with the federal government that in different ways the

00:20:34.120 federal government is invading a provincial jurisdiction is there any support for your

00:20:39.140 sovereignty act from other provinces is it just wait and see or i mean other than scott moe who's

00:20:43.840 sort of emulating it um but has quebec given you a view on it uh quebec uh when i've spoken with

00:20:51.040 francois legault part of what he i i think sees us now as an ally when it comes to federal interference

00:20:59.380 in our jurisdiction federal government always wants to overtax and then dribble money back to

00:21:03.900 the provinces with strings attached and uh we've taken the view if you want to cost share with us

00:21:09.060 great but we are going to run our programs our own way and that has been a consistent position

00:21:12.780 that quebec has taken and they're i think they're very pleased that we're doing that too i'm still

00:21:16.700 trying to have a breakthrough with quebec because they've got immense natural gas resources

00:21:20.880 and they really could be a champion in developing their natural gas talking about hydrogen getting

00:21:27.460 into this uh this green technology world we do great work with carbon technology carbon carbon capture

00:21:33.740 they could do all the same things and can you imagine if quebec actually decided to develop its

00:21:38.640 resources and offered itself as a solution to the energy crisis in europe i think that that would be

00:21:44.620 really powerful if we could if we could partner that way i haven't had that breakthrough yet but

00:21:49.560 i'm working on it and how about with justin trudeau sometimes politicians have a public banter that's

00:21:56.200 more aggressive than a private working relationship um i don't want you to give away any confidence

00:22:01.900 because obviously you need a working relationship with prime minister but how has he been in his

00:22:06.440 dealings with you well i can tell you a couple of things that i've i've raised with him i've said that

00:22:11.340 if you want to move down this pathway of reducing carbon emissions just know we're not doing it

00:22:16.440 quebec's way we're not going to be shutting in oil and natural gas i i think our solution is more

00:22:20.960 lng export if you can reduce the amount of of reliance on other um heavier polluting fuels that's

00:22:28.400 that's a should be a win for the planet we have a great amount of interest in developing out a hydrogen

00:22:34.700 economy we've got a number of different companies that are looking at small modular nuclear and other

00:22:39.820 technologies so that they can reduce the amount of emissions that they have and and if they want to

00:22:44.840 partner with us on those things then we can get along just great but if they think that they can

00:22:49.580 can put unilateral arbitrary restrictions on our industry we're going to fight them on it so i i'm

00:22:56.600 hopeful that that we'll we will find some common ground there the prime minister has said he's not

00:23:02.020 interested in a fight we um it remains to be seen if they if they come through with some of the things

00:23:08.020 that they've been talking about in the last couple of years or the last year in particular then they then

00:23:12.880 they will get a fight because uh we we just know what that the the kind of aggressive targets they're

00:23:19.500 talking about they call them emissions caps if you cannot achieve them because the time frame is too

00:23:25.060 short and the technology doesn't exist it's a de facto production cap and if you are trying to

00:23:30.740 limit our production it's a violation of the constitution and so we're going to make sure that

00:23:35.400 we defend that vigorously trudeau has a hatred for carbon which is very strange it's just an element on

00:23:40.840 the periodic table and i think he is developing a hatred for nitrogen another element uh in in

00:23:48.100 respect of farmers and i know in other countries like the netherlands they've actually had a farmer

00:23:52.840 uprising a farmer rebellion because just out of the blue they said we're going to transition off of

00:23:58.260 fertilizer intensive food production are you worried that that is going to be trudeau's next

00:24:04.060 transition away from a real economy to his fantasy utopia economy have you talked about that at all

00:24:10.540 completely well i mean when you look i mean that was one of the issues that came up during our

00:24:16.320 leadership contest and and scott moe to his credit he drew a hard line and said no we're not doing this

00:24:21.560 and it seems like the federal government backed down but then uh it appears that federal agents were

00:24:27.080 going under private property and testing water to presumably to see what the nitrogen levels were so

00:24:32.440 scott moe took another step and said that he was going to charge those officers with trespassing so

00:24:36.900 i think what you'll find is that alberta and saskatchewan are very much in sync on working

00:24:42.720 together to defend our our jurisdiction and it's not the only one um you also recall in the last year

00:24:48.580 they talked about having a warning label on ground b as well and i think that that expands out the the

00:24:55.260 war onto our ranchers as well so we we know that all of these things are interconnected and we know that

00:25:02.660 there are better ways to achieve the outcome that they're looking for and that's what we're going to put on the

00:25:06.040 table is if we want to have better environmental quality lower emissions we can do that but we've

00:25:11.140 got to do it in a way that works for our economy it's my observation and i'm not the first to make

00:25:17.100 it but uh any alberta premier is successful defending alberta against ottawa i mean it goes back to the day

00:25:25.240 this province was born i think that one of the failings of jason kenney's tenure was that he never

00:25:32.140 really grappled with ottawa in my mind i think kenny was looking to maybe run federally one day and

00:25:37.240 he said we didn't want to do anything that was too pro-alberta that he might have to defend later

00:25:42.240 when he's running in ontario quebec i i think he didn't stand up strongly enough um

00:25:47.700 other than the sovereignty act are there other issues like i look at ron de santis who's a governor of a state

00:25:55.200 but he finds legitimate ways to push back against joe biden and he not only wins florida but he wins

00:26:02.780 for the national support he's become a kind of national hero do you see yourself as an counterweight

00:26:10.020 to justin trudeau or do you see yourself as just i'm the premier of alberta and i'm just going to flick

00:26:17.120 away trudeau if he comes marauding around but could you be a kind of um alternative or or opposition to

00:26:26.680 him even i think the way i'm looking at it is anything quebec is doing we should be doing too

00:26:32.940 because i think quebec is really operating within its full sphere of jurisdiction the way our founders

00:26:39.900 intended and so it's part of the reason why i've asked our finance minister for instance

00:26:44.660 to look at what would happen if we collected all of our own taxes uh should we have an alberta pension

00:26:50.580 plan um i've charged our our public safety minister with looking at creating an alberta provincial

00:26:57.080 police i've asked our immigration and citizenship minister if we can establish higher targets so that

00:27:03.240 we can manage our own immigration program not just quebec does that but so does manitoba so when i look

00:27:09.260 at the at the firewall letter for instance from back in 2001 that that put up forward a strategy

00:27:15.360 for how we would we would start taking over those areas of jurisdiction agriculture is another one we

00:27:20.780 could be far more self-sufficient in how we how we regulate our agriculture industry that's under

00:27:26.400 section 95 of the constitution you can see as well with our justice minister we have a really great

00:27:32.420 firearms officer terry bryant and it was her suggestion that we take over the administration of the

00:27:37.980 firearms act and so we've announced that we're going to be doing that so i'm looking for more and

00:27:41.980 more ways that we can we can take over those areas of jurisdiction i think that the federal government

00:27:47.480 used to be helpful maybe that's why we allowed them to assist us in delivering our programs they're

00:27:53.180 not helpful anymore and haven't been for for at least the last seven years and because they're being

00:27:58.420 unhelpful and i think in some ways outright destructive to our ability to attract investment and to manage

00:28:04.920 our economy we've got to become more self-protective so i'm looking for all of those areas so that so

00:28:09.900 that we can this so that we can stand on our own two feet i think that's what we're supposed to do

00:28:13.300 as a province we're now at a point where we're um our we're almost the second largest economy uh we're

00:28:19.560 we're neck and neck with quebec which is quite remarkable considering they're twice our population

00:28:23.440 and we have the means to be able to to start doing more things on our own and i think we should

00:28:28.880 because when the federal government comes and interferes with telling us how to run our programs

00:28:34.160 they always under under share when it comes to cost and then they have all of these new rules and

00:28:40.140 restrictions for how to run the program which makes it more expensive and so it would be far better

00:28:45.380 for us to just take the quebec approach no thank you we'll run our programs our own way uh transfer us

00:28:50.920 money if you um if you want if you want to help cost share but but we think that we can do things

00:28:55.560 better i just have two more quick questions about the campaign because i appreciate your time you're

00:29:01.300 spending with us i know it's very busy um two political parties that are trying to beat you and

00:29:08.200 one is rachel notley's ndp and uh they're a lot more able a lot more competent a lot more experienced a

00:29:16.460 lot better funded a lot more familiar now than they were when they accidentally wound up in government

00:29:23.540 in 2015 but i think there's an even deadlier political party i call it the media party and

00:29:30.440 i've observed a swarm of think-alikes in the media party just getting back to our first point about

00:29:38.680 government funded media and i see the cbc leading the charge on that and i wonder how can you resist

00:29:49.500 20 think-alike media party voices saying how dare you talk about the sovereignty act how like just

00:29:59.360 they they are more powerful opposition party because they have the megaphone rachel notley has to borrow

00:30:07.060 their megaphone they have one how do you not succumb to the siren song of the media party how do you

00:30:13.300 stay in touch with what real albertans want again i think that was a failure a failure of your

00:30:17.780 predecessor i think kenny fell out of touch he used to drive around his pickup truck and go to town halls

00:30:24.300 and yeah i mean the ban on gatherings probably stopped that he he really had dome syndrome as they

00:30:31.060 call it how do you make sure you're not over sampling the bickering cbcers and how do you stay

00:30:39.340 rooted uh well from time to time i'll do a shift washing dishes at my husband's restaurant i'm gonna

00:30:47.300 be doing that on new year's eve actually but washing dishes okay you're talking to the other but that's

00:30:51.720 part of it and that's one of the things that klein always did was that he made sure to go where real

00:30:56.800 people were to have real conversations and i have so many opportunities to do that because i i live in

00:31:02.300 a small community and so there's plenty of opportunity to just go out to the local restaurants

00:31:08.460 and people will always come up and i always have interesting conversations with people i i try to go

00:31:13.660 to as many public events as i can and be in as many communities as i can and that i think is is going to be

00:31:20.320 the key because one of the things i learned on radio is that the the things that the twitterverse talks

00:31:26.060 about are totally different than what real people talk about i used to often say twitter's not the

00:31:31.020 real world and uh and i think it's unfortunate that so much news media coverage is driven by what

00:31:36.380 trends on twitter especially going back to our original conversation knowing how heavily curated

00:31:40.720 and influenced it has been over the over the last number of years but that's the only the only

00:31:45.840 thing that you can do is you've got to make yourself available to real people um so i i uh have done

00:31:51.660 my show on on saturdays my premier my province always make sure to get lots of call-ins so that

00:31:59.200 people can tell me what's really on their mind and i'll i'll just keep on talking to to regular people

00:32:04.500 the i think that in some ways the the new ways of communicating have created an advantage to be able to

00:32:12.500 directly get your message out to people in a way we never used to before we we used to always have to

00:32:17.560 use the media filter now you've got alternative media that you can talk to you can do long-form

00:32:21.840 interviews you can do podcasts you can do your own videos you can do facebook lives you can do

00:32:27.940 telephone town halls and so uh the i think you're you're right that there has been it's it's surprising

00:32:34.520 to me that i'm not seeing a lot more a lot more balance i i grew up in a media environment where

00:32:41.400 fairness accuracy and balance was the mantra and i hope that the mainstream media gets back to that

00:32:46.440 again one day but in the absence of that we we have to make sure that we're getting our message

00:32:51.400 out um directly and that i've got to make sure that i'm always in touch with with regular people

00:32:57.040 last question yeah you know when people go to vote they vote for the party they vote how their family

00:33:04.600 voted they vote based on personality but often they vote on the issue of the moment the ballot question

00:33:10.600 yeah the what is the defining ballot question that when someone goes in to vote in the spring

00:33:17.060 that you want them to be thinking about that you think will push them towards the ucp because the

00:33:23.100 party's had a bumpy ride it has what is the one way to pull a majority back or at least get it out of

00:33:31.480 the hands of the socialist hordes i think there's two things one is that if if we don't make some real

00:33:37.600 progress on helping to improve the capacity of health care that's going to be a problem i mean

00:33:44.560 i inherited a system when i came in where i was reading about 29 hour waits in emergency rooms

00:33:49.780 and ambulance lineups that were 22 deep as people waited to get dropped off at the ambulance and

00:33:55.160 a surgical backlog of 69 000 surgeries so and the fact that so few people even have a family doctor

00:34:01.760 those are four areas that is part of the reason why i realized that we just couldn't rely on the

00:34:07.300 same people who've been making the decisions for the last 15 years that we needed to put an official

00:34:11.760 administrator in there so that we could make some real progress on those so i think if we can demonstrate

00:34:17.020 that we listen we heard and we can solve problems and we can do it competently and you can trust us

00:34:21.740 that is going to be one issue because i think that that's maybe where some of the confidence has been

00:34:26.160 shaken based on what has happened over the last three and a half years the the other is that the people

00:34:31.780 in this province just want opportunity people come from all over to be able to get a job get a well-paying

00:34:38.240 job um be able to get trained in an area that allows for for them to uh make sure that they can

00:34:45.020 potentially get on a path to be an entrepreneur start a business bring their family here and and those are

00:34:50.800 things that uh were the reverse in the previous government we had six consecutive quarters of people

00:34:56.220 leaving the province we had an energy minister who told people well you know maybe go hang out in bc for

00:35:01.760 a while until things improve and so we have seen that total totally reverse because of the policies of

00:35:08.540 this government that we've been able to attract large investments massive investments not only in the

00:35:15.920 edmonton area with hydrogen dow chemicals and air products but also in calgary with emphasis and

00:35:21.620 emphasis big tech uh tech companies we have seen an increase in venture capital it got as low as 24

00:35:28.240 million a year now we're over 500 million a year uh we've got consumer confidence at 2.9 percent is up

00:35:34.900 the rest of the country it's down and that doesn't happen by accident that happens on purpose those are

00:35:39.920 because of good policies good tax policy creating good environment being open for business celebrating

00:35:45.660 entrepreneurs wanting to have wealth creators here reducing red tape and that i think is going to be

00:35:51.580 i think the the point of differentiation is do you want to go back to the way things were under

00:35:56.620 the other guys or do you want to just keep on going forward yeah we have a little bit of trust

00:36:00.620 that we um that we need to restore but uh i think if we can give people confidence that we can

00:36:07.160 competently manage the business of government but also be able to create an environment where they

00:36:11.540 can flourish i think that those are going to be the two things that make the make all the difference

00:36:15.420 well thanks very much for meeting with me and uh merry christmas and uh good luck to you it's a

00:36:21.100 difficult job but uh uh we'll know soon i mean it's coming up soon right yeah it's only a few months

00:36:27.380 it is thank you appreciate it good seeing you

00:36:30.460 well that's my sit down interview with premier danielle smith what do you think

00:36:45.180 send me an email to ezra at rebelnews.com that's our show for tonight until tomorrow

00:36:51.180 on behalf of all of us here at the western outpost of rebel news to you at home good night

00:36:56.680 and keep fighting for freedom

Rebel News Podcast - December 21, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Extended interview with Alberta premier Danielle Smith

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