The Alberta General Election is right around the corner, and the media has their own ideas about what the real election issues are, but I think these people are completely out of touch with reality. Will Alberta be stricken with collective madness one more time and stick a toe or jump right into the ocean of socialism by sending NDP leader Rachel Notley back to the Premier s office in a repeat of 2015 s four long years of darkness? Or will Albertans stay the course and ignore the fear-mongering of the NDP and the screeching of the liberal media, and send freedom-minded, pro-business, United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith back to her chair in the premier s office?
00:06:20.880I mean, if you think of any political issue on the left,
00:06:23.480you can probably list off five to ten think tanks that have popped up in the last five years to deal with that.
00:06:29.080Conservative side, we don't really have that level of influence on the ideas side of things.
00:06:34.140So policy ideas that are generated have a tendency to, we face a tremendous amount of opposition from left-wing think tanks.
00:06:41.540So the idea with a think tank is to try and change what the public's opinion is on an issue at any given point in time.
00:06:47.680So a party, like I said, takes a snapshot of what they think they can win on.
00:06:51.880A think tank's job is to try and change what people think on a particular issue,
00:06:56.260try and persuade people to support a particular issue.
00:06:59.600And when it comes to Western alienation, it's a big issue that we don't want to inflame tensions any more than they necessarily need to be.
00:07:09.160If they get inflamed, we think it should be the federal government that we're pointing the finger at,
00:07:13.020not at ourselves for being overly aggressive.
00:07:16.480But it's one of those things where if we take the right approach,
00:07:19.400I think we can manage to sway enough people on side to our positions that we can get genuine change.
00:07:25.360I mean, we did, one of our positions was to hold an immediate referendum to abolish equalization from the Constitution of Canada.
00:07:32.720Alberta did hold that referendum in 2021, and it passed with a 63% success rate.
00:07:39.480It's one of those things where if we can put the right ideas out there at the right time,
00:11:58.440I've seen this, these types of legislative or motions or whatever form of political theater, you want to call it,
00:12:07.140trying to force banks to dictate or trying to dictate to banks how they can lend their money.
00:12:14.420We've seen pushback from that in the United States with a lot of these large scale bankers such as Jamie Dimon.
00:12:21.160He's one, I think he's JP Mergen Chase CEO, one of the biggest on Wall Street, they've been pushing back.
00:12:28.220So even if the government does move forward with this motion, I don't necessarily think that the banks will get in line.
00:12:34.200They did in terms of the Emergencies Act.
00:12:36.660But it's one of those things where from an economic standpoint, if you essentially are dictating to banks what kind of energy products they can invest in,
00:12:47.460and the energy products they're investing in are more expensive than the existing infrastructure that we have, it's going to drive costs up.
00:12:53.220And that's not something that's going to be popular amongst the public if they see their heating and their energy costs and their electricity bills skyrocketing.
00:13:01.880And it's something that I think is already leading to some bleeding from more of the staunch green left individuals.
00:13:09.020I don't think that their policies are as popular as they think they are.
00:13:12.100So if they do, if they do bring this legislation, and I anticipate that we'll be pushed back from bank CEOs about, you know, these are just basic micro and macro economic concepts.
00:13:25.260We're talking about bankers have a tendency to understand these better than politicians, I would say, in most cases.
00:13:31.540So I do think there will be pushback on it.
00:13:34.540I don't see it being successful in the long run.
00:13:36.460Yeah, I hope I hope you're right from your lips to God's ears.
00:13:40.000I mean, this sounds like it was written directly from by Mark Carney, which is sort of his role at the United Nations right now is implementing these ESG ideas hatched in a inside of the United Nations into the financial sector.
00:13:53.620And then you see this motion brought forward motion 84.
00:13:57.880It's, it's going to be debated, hopefully it dies a quick death.
00:14:02.320Um, just changing, um, changing lanes here to the Alberta election.
00:14:34.240I don't want to be a mouthpiece for a politician, but I care about jobs and I care about the impact of, uh, you know, the government on normal people, farmers, rakehands, all those things.
00:14:44.180And I just think Rachel Notley would absolutely destroy any sort of economic recovery that we're undergoing here in Alberta.
00:14:52.280Uh, what, what do you think really are the main issues in this election?
00:14:57.700Because if you paid attention to the mainstream media or to the NDP, uh, it would be things Daniel Smith said in a podcast.
00:15:05.840But I don't think the, uh, general public actually cares about those things.
00:15:10.480I actually, and I'm going to put my prognosticator hat on.
00:15:42.840I don't think it's working because I think most people in this province, at least the ones that were here four to eight years ago, they remember Notley's record.
00:15:50.620And the media may try and change the channel and, uh, Twitter will just exsoriate, um, Danielle for what she said.
00:15:59.660But I don't think Twitter is an accurate representation of what is going on in the mainstream of public thought.
00:16:06.700I actually think in a lot of ways that the media itself, the mainstream media has lost, um, public trust.
00:16:12.760Um, and I think that it's going to be one of those things where they are going to try and change the channel.
00:16:17.260Whether voters go for it or not is another question.
00:17:18.260And the third, and I, I think that this ties in is in this province, especially energy policy is central to our economy.
00:17:26.340I mean, everything runs on energy and, and in Alberta, that's especially so.
00:17:30.400So it's one of those things where I think the NDP, because of their alliance with the federal government in 2015 to 2019, I think most people are remembering that.
00:17:40.600I think the people are, don't want to see further attacks to the energy industry, whether they be from, uh, we'll call it foreign, uh, attacks from the federal government or domestic attacks from our own provincial government, carbon taxes, stronger environmental regulations that are necessary, things like that.
00:17:58.660I think, um, those are, those are the issues people care about.
00:18:01.880And I think because the NDP is not really speaking on them or, and the UCP is, I think that's why we're seeing the polls relatively stable, um, given the attacks, like some of them are, like, I don't, I don't know if they're even accurate attacks, but the attacks that the NDP have been leveling on Danielle.
00:18:20.420Yeah, I, uh, I just saw some reporting from the Western standard who've done some great work on this, um, that it's on a main street research poll that shows that the undecideds in Alberta are very recently breaking in favor of Danielle Smith.
00:18:39.140So these, um, um, attacks on social media and Twitter is definitely not real life.
00:18:44.940Like the, the farmers down at the A and W in the morning, they're not on Twitter.
00:18:51.200They care about the price of fertilizer and carbon tax is not helping with that.
00:18:56.040Um, it shows that the undecideds who, um, I think we're probably conservative, but also Jason Kenney skeptics, um, who were waiting to sort of plant their vote with Danielle Smith.
00:19:24.540I think it's, you're going to see, you're going to see more of their desperation.
00:19:28.160You're going to see more of the attacks.
00:19:29.300I'm sure they've got more controversial things that Danielle has clipped, uh, at certain points in her career.
00:19:35.860I don't know if those are really going to impact the bottom line anymore.
00:19:39.440They should, if they were, they should have been, and the polls haven't really moved.
00:19:45.140So at this point in time, I think that it, we are, I don't want to say hopefully, cause that's not fair to any of the other parties.
00:19:53.400But I think that just in terms of the direction that the election is going, that it should be UCP majority territory, um, which given that this is really the NDP's last cry.
00:20:07.060Um, it'll be interesting to see what happens post-election.
00:20:10.560Then again, I am thinking way too far in advance.
00:20:12.960There's a lot that could happen between now and then, um, maybe some with the wildfires go sideways.
00:20:20.800I mean, it's impossible to predict those types of events, but if everything remains equal, um, and the wildfires are put out with no, no real loss of life or, or, or property damage.
00:20:31.620I, I do think that the UCP is in good shape to hold onto power.
00:20:47.320We should just build a wall around Edmonton and just leave it.
00:20:50.180The UCP, Daniel Smith, has rightfully suspended her campaign so that she can focus her attention on the state of emergency here in Alberta.
00:21:00.360But, uh, but the NDP, they're going hard.
00:21:04.520They are taking every opportunity, um, to attack the premier, hold campaign events.
00:21:09.940As we're recording this, I think this is day two in Lethbridge.
00:21:13.240I think they were in Medicine Hat, Lethbridge yesterday.
00:21:32.060Do you think that's going to impact people's perception of them?
00:21:35.500It, I mean, I couldn't think any less of them, but there are people out there who probably have, like, a middle-of-the-road opinion of the NDP.
00:21:42.020Is this going to affect how they feel?
00:21:43.520It really depends on what's said and the tone of the campaign.
00:21:48.800And I know that they've been negative, but it's one of those, it's, it's going to be very interesting because I do think that they've got, I mean, the UCP has some challenging candidates that have said some controversial things.
00:21:59.800But I think the NDP is in a position where the more they talk during a wildfire, the more likely it is that someone says something akin to an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quote.
00:22:11.580So, I think it's a risky move on the NDP part.
00:22:15.600I think that if the NDP continues to campaign like this, eventually someone is going to say something that, at least from their vantage point, is damaging into the electoral chances of the NDP.
00:22:31.460I mean, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a lot of things, but she's unelectable in the province of Alberta.
00:22:36.520And I think there's a lot of NDP candidates that are adherents to her philosophical inclinations.
00:23:01.980I mean, you have to, but I think it's a risky move.
00:23:05.800It's one of those things where, yeah, if you're out there campaigning and someone says something controversial about the wildfires, especially if someone's farm is burning at the same time, it's going to impact their electability, their chance of electability.
00:23:19.100In a place like Lethbridge, where Lethbridge East, like the south side of Lethbridge, at least, is pretty conservative leaning.
00:23:25.400That is, it's a potential swing riding.
00:23:27.480I know that there is a reason they're down there.
00:23:29.780But if it, if, if Shannon Phillips says something controversial, it could turn people off in south Lethbridge or even north Lethbridge that maybe don't think we're going to die in seven years from climate change like AOC.
00:23:40.320Although she didn't clarify her remarks, but she did say that one.