Alberta takes a stand against Guilbeault’s war on cars
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
220.76562
Summary
In this episode of The Andrew Lawton Show, host Andrew Lawton sits down with Alberta's Transport Minister, Devon Dreeshan, to discuss the challenges facing the province's rural areas, the lack of infrastructure in rural Alberta, and the need for new roads.
Transcript
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i'm at the canada strong and free network conference the country's conservative movement
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gathered in one place we've heard from all sorts of speakers and all sorts of interview guests
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on a range of subjects but you can't talk about the conservative movement in this country
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without talking about the conservative heartland of alberta it's a province i love i end up there
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all the time so much so that when i'm there people assume i live there which is i think a great
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compliment because i do love the people there but i did get the chance to do a fireside chat with
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premier danielle smith and i have the great privilege of now sitting down with alberta's
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transport minister devon dreeshan minister good to talk to you thanks for joining me today thanks
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for having me on your show really appreciate it so obviously there's been a fair bit of strain on
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alberta's relationship with ottawa over the the last say the last couple of years but but we've seen
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even some flashpoints on this in the last couple of months uh what is it you've brought here to
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uh ottawa what's the message you're trying to send what is it you were trying to get out of this trip
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so roads roads roads uh we have minister guibo that has gone out in the media saying that the federal
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government isn't going to be funding new roads he clarified those comments by saying well not just
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any big new roads um and that's actually caused a lot of concern not just in alberta but in other
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provinces and even within first nations across this country because obviously it's the responsibility of the
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federal government to be building roads and maintaining roads on first nations and we actually
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had a delegation of the ochi's first nation as well as clearwater county the county that surrounds
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the first nation to advocate for a road project that we have provincial dollars municipal dollars we
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just need federal dollars but for years we've been getting blocked and those types of comments from
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minister guibo saying the federal government has no interest in building roads really uh has has a lot
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of people really concerned about that that direction by the federal government yeah and despite the the
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pseudo backtrack on that i i think it does show a pretty big sense of misunderstanding how life is in
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alberta i mean certainly in in cities like calgary and edmonton you have mass transit systems people
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are able to use those but uh not year-round in some cases and then you also look at rural alberta where
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you can't just say well we don't need the road and and that just seems to be an utter mismatch here and
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is it a gaffe or is it accidental honesty i think it's just it's a lack of understanding of how rural
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alberta truly is uh this specific road and so many in in alberta it's there's one way in and out for
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for people that live in that community and uh obviously they had a bad forest fire last year so
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even on safety egress it's not just a a smooth way to get to town or get to the hospital or doctor
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or uh or get to school but it's it's a life or death situation of being able to in the case of a
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wildfire to have evacuation it's a gravel road that needs to be paved so the dust that kicks up
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and the unsafety or the the lack of safety on this road because it hasn't been uh hasn't been
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repaved is is a huge issue for that area and i think people just don't understand because in in
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towns and cities there's lots of ways to get around but when there's one way in and out i just think
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the federal government doesn't understand that in rural alberta i know there's obviously been a fair
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bit of difficulty with your government and stephen gilbo in particular for for a range of issues
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have you found with your federal counterparting on the transport file that there's at least been a
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a fairly constructive relationship or has it really been like pulling teeth to get anything
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any cooperation from the feds well well i've said this at federal provincial territorial meetings
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before if alberta was a hockey team when it came to transportation and our power play was the the
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national trade corridor fund which has been a huge huge you know advantage to have within the country
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alberta's zero for nine so if that was our power play that'd be a pretty bad power play and i think
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people would ask lots of questions about what's going on so that's something that we're going to
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continue to advocate for i've met with minister rodriguez to really push the renewal of that
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national trade corridor fund because it's been fully allocated though even though there's a couple
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years left on it uh so we want to make sure that alberta we at least get our money back when it comes to
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the transfers that we give to the federal government when you talk about national trade i mean it's
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important to know that there are still barriers that exist on interprovincial trade which people don't
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really realize are front and center and i i was wondering if you had anything on that that you'd
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like to see some movement on so we actually before our election in alberta we signed a an agreement with
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saskatchewan manitoba we call it our prairie mou to work on harmonizing our capital plans on on road
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projects that come to the the border uh as well as look at regular regulation that we can try to
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eliminate the borders across our provinces to make sure that it's easy for big nation building
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projects to finally be built again to kind of de-risk politically the approval process so that
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actually spawned on work with bc the three prairie provinces and the three territories to work
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together on a similar type of agreement uh we'd love to see the federal government at at those talks
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because obviously national trade and interprovincial trade is a federal jurisdiction but uh we're not
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waiting for the federal government to do that in alberta we're taking the lead and uh we'll we'll see
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what happens on on a lot of these negotiations we're having with other provinces well it's funny you
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mention that i mean there have been a lot of issues where we we've seen especially between
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alberta saskatchewan a lot of cooperation on areas where the federal government is either not present
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or is working against what you guys want and uh certainly on some issues like the carbon tax you
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have provincial government saying hey we want a meeting and the federal government not wanting to
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grant that are you able to do what you're trying to do without the federal government do you have an
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option to really do an end run around the feds are you really at their mercy on some of this
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well obviously the constitution we we have a lot of latitude to to do what what we need to do to
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to promote alberta and to protect and make sure that our economy is is strong but there's always it's
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always great to have strength in the numbers um whether it's saskatchewan manitoba bc quebec
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ontario the maritime provinces to be able to to join forces to say you know the federal government
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has a role to be able to partner with provinces on certain issues but the federal government should
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stay in their lane at the end of the day minister thank you awesome thank you so much appreciate it
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