Juno News - April 27, 2025


Albertans cast advance ballots in record numbers


Episode Stats

Length

9 minutes

Words per Minute

171.35634

Word Count

1,559

Sentence Count

89

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Canada's federal election will occur tomorrow on Monday, April 28th, and True North will be
00:00:15.120 providing content from across the nation. As for this show, we'll take a quick look at what we
00:00:19.760 learned from advanced polling and the large proportion of Albertans that voted ahead of
00:00:24.340 election day. The Edmonton Centre riding will also be an interesting riding to watch this
00:00:28.800 election as this will determine who takes over Randy Boissoneau's seat after he was forced to
00:00:33.960 step down in November by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following Boissoneau's many scandals.
00:00:40.260 We'll also explore how China is turning to Alberta for oil due to its ongoing trade war with the United
00:00:45.660 States and remind you about Mark Carney's ties with China. My name's Isaac Lamoureux and I'll cover all
00:00:51.500 of these stories on the Alberta Roundup today. Let's hop into that first story now. So while
00:00:55.940 there's not much time left to speculate about the election results, as we'll know who Canada's next
00:01:00.260 Prime Minister is by tomorrow, Alberta is looking like it will be more blue than the rest of the
00:01:05.280 country. As of Thursday's projections, 338 Canada projects that Alberta would see 31 out of 37
00:01:12.300 federal districts go conservative, with five to the Liberals and one to the NDP. While I know it may be
00:01:18.400 surprising that the NDP will win a seat given their party's downfall, this is of course projected in
00:01:24.160 Edmonton Strathcona, an NDP bastion both federally and provincially. Rachel Notley dominated the seat
00:01:30.460 provincially between 2008 and 2024, and it has been similarly held federally since then.
00:01:36.680 Currently in Alberta, the Liberals hold two seats, as do the NDP, while the Conservatives hold 30 for a
00:01:42.240 total of 34 districts. However, Alberta will be home to 37 districts this federal election. Two of the
00:01:49.140 districts expected to lean towards the Liberals are in Calgary, while one is in Edmonton, in the Edmonton
00:01:54.140 Centre riding. Then, 338 Canada has three Calgary ridings as toss-ups between the Liberals and
00:01:59.380 Conservatives. Edmonton has five toss-ups between the two parties. Every single riding outside of the
00:02:05.240 two major cities in Alberta is considered to be a safe Conservative seat. Still, no other region is
00:02:11.080 projected to have a Conservative representation like Alberta. In second place is the Prairies, which is
00:02:16.100 projected to have 19 out of 28 federal districts be Conservative, followed by seven Liberal ridings and
00:02:21.560 two NDP ridings. Overall, however, 338 Canada is projecting a Liberal majority as of Thursday.
00:02:28.920 But some have raised concerns about Canada's most popular poll aggregator. Juno News conducted its own
00:02:34.400 poll, showing the Liberals and Conservatives were in a dead tie at 39% as of Wednesday. Juno News' poll was
00:02:40.760 conducted by one persuasion among 1,507 Canadians, with a margin of error of 2.5%, 19 times out of 20.
00:02:49.520 Juno News also ran a seat model, which projected a Liberal minority. Some have suggested online that
00:02:55.460 the record-breaking numbers at advanced polling proves that Canadians are eager for change and that
00:03:00.460 the polls may be wrong, similar to what happened with Kamala Harris in the United States.
00:03:05.340 Elections Canada estimated that around 7.3 million Canadians casted their advanced ballots between
00:03:11.720 April 18th and 21st, which was a new record and a 20% increase in turnout at advanced polls compared
00:03:18.120 to 2021. As for the provinces that saw the biggest representation of voters show up in advance,
00:03:23.700 I ran some rough calculations based on slightly outdated total elector lists, but the Atlantic region
00:03:29.000 actually came out ahead, with around 33% of PEI voters showing up in advance, followed by 32% of
00:03:35.940 those in New Brunswick, and around 27% of Albertan voters casted their ballots in advance. The lowest
00:03:41.900 percentage of a population that voted in advance was in Nunavut, where only around 4.5% of residents
00:03:47.440 went in advance. Maybe that's because they aren't expecting big waits on election day. Over the advanced
00:03:53.360 polling period, some Canadians reported waiting for hours in line. We saw a few interesting
00:03:58.860 advanced polling stories come out of Alberta. Firstly, the polling station in Crossfield saw
00:04:04.820 such a high turnout that the station ran out of ballots. A spokesperson for Elections Canada told
00:04:10.640 True North that they were notified of the shortage and that it was rectified within the hour. There
00:04:16.120 were also complaints about two Northern Albertan villages from residents who had their polling stations
00:04:21.420 removed and had to end up driving long distances to their closest station. Elections Canada also
00:04:27.020 revealed that they were still short hundreds of volunteers in four Alberta ridings. Hopefully,
00:04:32.080 the problem can be sorted and no issues occur on election day. But moving on to our next story
00:04:37.180 now, we'll take a quick look into a specific Albertan riding. Despite resigning from cabinet in
00:04:43.160 November, Randy Boissoneau did not vacate his seat as the MP for Edmonton Centre. However, he did announce
00:04:49.520 in March that he would not be seeking re-election. Despite the many controversies that plagued Randy,
00:04:54.740 the new Liberal candidate, Eleanor Olszewski, will be in a tight race with Conservative candidate
00:05:00.300 Saeed Ahmed. Going back to polling, as of Thursday, 338 Canada has the riding at 43% votes Liberal,
00:05:06.680 38% Conservative, and 16% NDP. The poll aggregator gives the Conservatives a 22% chance of winning the
00:05:14.720 riding. The Liberals replaced Boissoneau, who had the controversy surrounding his company,
00:05:19.240 getting federal contracts, and his false Indigenous claims. However, they replaced him
00:05:24.220 with Olszewski, a senior lawyer, army reservist, and pharmacist. Saeed Ahmed is a senior official in
00:05:30.180 the Alberta Department of Health and came to Canada after being born into famine and civil war
00:05:35.000 in Somalia. Since the last election, the riding's boundaries have shifted, meaning the Conservatives
00:05:40.380 would have actually won by 700 votes under its current boundaries. The NDP also did pretty well in the
00:05:46.540 last election and are expected to perform much worse this time around. The riding of Edmonton's
00:05:51.600 downtown core has a younger population than average, with only 16% of people being 65 or older. Nearly
00:05:58.040 3 in 10 households in the riding make $100,000 yearly or more, and a third of the population are
00:06:04.180 visible minorities. Definitely a hot seat to watch, and we'll see whether that seat will flip from the
00:06:09.820 Liberals to the Conservatives or whether people will forget about Randy.
00:06:13.540 But hopping into our next story, which is about China turning away from U.S. oil and ramping up
00:06:18.780 Canadian imports. According to Bloomberg, Chinese refiners have slashed U.S. oil purchase by roughly
00:06:25.340 90% in recent months, while setting new records for Canadian imports. In March alone, 7.3 million
00:06:32.600 barrels were shipped from Canada's Pacific coast to China, a figure expected to grow further this month.
00:06:38.700 Conversely, Chinese oil imports from the U.S. have fallen from 29 million barrels in June
00:06:44.500 to 3 million barrels monthly. Bloomberg said that the turning point came after the Trans Mountain
00:06:49.740 Expansion Project opened last May, increasing Albertan oil exports to British Columbia's Pacific
00:06:55.400 coast and expanding access to Alberta's oil sands for Asian buyers. China still imports more oil from
00:07:01.640 Russia and the Middle East than from North America. Still, Canadian oil sands provide reliable and quality
00:07:07.300 crude oil that China's refineries can process, while reducing China's reliance on coal and other
00:07:12.240 climate-damaging energy sources. The surge in Canadian oil exports comes amid rising scrutiny
00:07:17.800 of Liberal leader Mark Carney's anti-oil stance and ties to China. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
00:07:23.640 previously called out Carney for his continuous flip-flop on Canada's energy future and his vague,
00:07:28.960 non-committal responses on key issues. She said, quote,
00:07:32.300 So it would appear Carney is now just fine with Canada continuing to be 100% reliant on the United
00:07:38.520 States to purchase all of our oil and gas and to purchase all of the fuel used by Ontario and
00:07:43.540 Quebec from the U.S. through Line 5. Carney had previously told Smith he opposed Bill C-69,
00:07:49.460 dubbed the No More Pipelines Bill, only to reverse course later and defend it. He also flip-flopped on
00:07:55.040 supporting an oil and gas production cap, changing his position within days. Smith previously said,
00:08:00.560 This has been the same story for the last 10 years. Liberals come to Alberta, smile for the
00:08:05.740 cameras, tell everyone how much they are going to work with Alberta and support the energy sector.
00:08:10.140 Then they leave, go home, and proceed to do everything in their power to roadblock and
00:08:14.560 scare away investment from the energy sector. Conservative leader Pierre Polyefre has been
00:08:19.260 calling out Carney's inconsistent energy positions and foreign entanglement for years. Polyefre said to
00:08:24.800 Carney during a 2021 committee hearing, quote,
00:08:27.400 It's a double standard. You make billions of dollars off foreign pipelines and you shut them
00:08:32.440 down here at home, putting our people out of work. He also said that China was helping Carney in this
00:08:38.000 election. Polyefre said, quote, Beijing has interfered both in the liberal leadership race,
00:08:42.940 helping Mark Carney, and again in the general election to support Mr. Carney. The election results
00:08:48.140 could affect Canada's future with China and the United States. The results, of course, will be in
00:08:53.460 tomorrow. And again, True North will be covering it from coast to coast during election day.
00:08:58.980 That wraps up this week's show. My name's Isaac Lamoureux, your host of the Alberta Roundup.
00:09:03.620 Have a great weekend. Thank you and God bless.