Juno News - September 21, 2024


Can Alberta handle Trudeau’s mass immigration policies？


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

168.4727

Word Count

3,239

Sentence Count

202


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith delivered her Fall 2024 address this week.
00:00:04.620 She announced more emergency school funding, but warned that this new investment may still
00:00:09.720 not be enough to counteract Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's mass immigration policies.
00:00:14.560 These education investments are becoming an almost monthly occurrence for Smith, it seems,
00:00:18.980 as the school's capacities struggle to keep up with population growth.
00:00:23.500 I'm Isaac Lambrou, your host of the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:30.000 This will be my second week hosting the show, and while I'm pretty happy with how the first
00:00:40.180 episode went, hopefully I can improve even more on this one.
00:00:42.640 After all, last week I literally made an error in the first sentence of the episode, calling
00:00:49.060 Yves-François Blanchet Quebec's Premier, when he is in fact Bloc Québécois' leader, as
00:00:55.500 many of you let me know in the comments.
00:00:56.800 And I immediately thought to myself, well, let me check my notes, and I did.
00:01:01.540 And in no case during my notes did I call Yves-François Blanchet Quebec's Premier.
00:01:07.320 At each instance, I called him the Bloc Québécois leader.
00:01:10.440 So I'm really not sure how that error came to be, but I guess it's your first episode.
00:01:16.760 Things are just destined to go wrong, even if you prepare as well as you can.
00:01:20.400 Let me just double check my first line here.
00:01:22.480 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith, yeah, she did in fact deliver her Fall 2024 address this
00:01:28.480 week.
00:01:28.840 So this episode is already going better than the last one.
00:01:32.320 But let's jump back into that story now.
00:01:34.180 The Premier delivered her more than eight-minute monologue to the province on Tuesday night.
00:01:38.660 She said that more than 200,000 people immigrated to Alberta last year, which she added is like
00:01:44.300 adding two red-deer-sized cities in a single year.
00:01:47.760 She did say, however, that Alberta has historically always welcomed newcomers with shared beliefs
00:01:53.220 like freedom and hard work, along with those that contribute to society and abide by the
00:01:58.820 law.
00:01:59.320 She added, quote,
00:02:01.020 Equally as important, though, Canada's previous immigration policies under leaders like Prime
00:02:05.920 Minister Stephen Harper, as an example, focused on ensuring that immigration levels matched
00:02:10.960 our nation's economic needs and was commensurate with our ability to build enough houses and
00:02:15.760 infrastructure to keep up with that growth.
00:02:18.340 However, the Trudeau government's unrestrained open border policies, permitting well over
00:02:22.580 a million newcomers each year into Canada, is causing significant challenge and has broken
00:02:27.440 this delicate balance.
00:02:29.160 True North's Candace Malcolm previously reported that after accounting for permanent residents,
00:02:34.220 temporary foreign workers, international students, and illegal immigrants, about 2.2 million
00:02:39.560 people immigrate to Canada every year.
00:02:41.760 The unprecedented immigration has led to housing and job shortages, as well as problems with
00:02:47.400 social services like health and education, according to Smith.
00:02:51.140 She added that the additional strain affects all Albertans, old, new, and everything in between.
00:02:57.960 Smith vowed to join other provinces in the fight against immigration.
00:03:02.000 She said the following.
00:03:03.420 So I am joining with other premiers across our country in calling on the current federal government
00:03:07.840 to immediately reintroduce sensible and restrained immigration policies, similar to levels we saw
00:03:13.560 under Stephen Harper, so that all provinces have some time and resources to sustainably catch up
00:03:19.400 with growth and to ensure those coming here closely align with our country's economic needs
00:03:24.380 and our core values.
00:03:26.080 And if the current federal government won't make these changes, our government will certainly
00:03:29.800 support a new one that will.
00:03:30.960 The newly added education investment comes as the premier said the province is adding about
00:03:36.340 33,000 students per year, or equivalent to 35 schools.
00:03:41.340 Alberta already invested a record $9.3 billion in its education system for the year 2024-25.
00:03:48.660 The province added an additional $215 million in July to address the population boom.
00:03:54.700 Despite $2.1 billion of that investment being set towards the construction of new schools,
00:04:00.200 aiming to add about 33,000 spaces, it wasn't enough.
00:04:03.960 Smith announced a new school accelerator program on Tuesday, accompanied by an additional $8.6
00:04:10.320 billion increase to the province's K-12 capital budget.
00:04:15.160 The program is set to build 50,000 student spaces over the next three years and 150,000 spaces in the
00:04:22.120 subsequent four, which Smith said is the fastest and largest build the province can feasibly manage with its available resources.
00:04:29.960 Additionally, a portion of the fund will be dedicated towards building 12,500 charter school spaces and investment in non-profit private schools to emphasize school choice.
00:04:41.140 The extra funding might be possible to Alberta's recently revised surplus, which grew to $2.9 billion from $367 million, an almost eight-fold increase.
00:04:51.720 Smith also mentioned that her promised income tax cut will be delivered in the next budget, which she said will help address things like the federal carbon tax and other federal policies driving inflation.
00:05:02.180 Sort of sticking with the provincial government, we'll now move to the back and forth between the provincial government and Calgary regarding the Green Line LRT funding and leadership.
00:05:12.460 Alberta's Minister of Transportation, Devin Dreeshan, delivered a five-minute monologue, which he posted to X on Monday night.
00:05:20.060 He explained that the Green Line was introduced in 2015 by former Calgary mayor and current Alberta NDP leader, Nahid Nenshi.
00:05:27.780 The project initially promised to be a 46-kilometer line with 29 stations, costing $4.65 billion.
00:05:36.560 Dreeshan said the following about the city's planning.
00:05:39.860 The only issue, the city council back then failed to do any of the proper costing, engineering, or planning before coming up with that $4.65 billion price tag.
00:05:49.900 At best, it was drawn up on a napkin.
00:05:52.180 By 2017, due to improper planning, designing, and engineering, Dreeshan said that the project was slashed in half to 23 kilometers and 15 stations.
00:06:03.680 The project was then cut further to 18 kilometers but was still deemed impossible.
00:06:09.280 The LRT project was cut even further to 10 kilometers and 7 stations.
00:06:13.500 Based on the initial projections, the LRT's distance was reduced by over 78% and the number of stations by more than 75%.
00:06:22.600 So surely, as you'd imagine, with all of these cuts, the price must have gone down as well.
00:06:27.100 Well, if you thought that, you would be incorrect because it in fact somehow did the opposite.
00:06:32.140 Yes, all of these cuts were accompanied by an additional cost.
00:06:35.360 The project somehow increased to cost $6.2 billion.
00:06:40.440 Dreeshan said that based on the current costs of the project, taxpayers would be paying $630 million per kilometer.
00:06:48.580 Montreal's REM track cost about $86 million per kilometer, seven times less.
00:06:54.680 Dreeshan said that based on the current costs of the project, the Green Line LRT in Calgary would be among the most expensive and least effective LRTs in all of North America.
00:07:04.100 He said that with Calgary's ongoing water crisis, the city really doesn't have money to waste.
00:07:09.780 Dreeshan said that the provincial government must ensure that taxpayers' money are spent responsibly.
00:07:16.140 We are not going to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars on a vanity project that fails in every way to address the actual transit needs of Calgarians, he said.
00:07:24.840 Aside from this Calgary rail, the province promised a commuter rail to connect the province at the end of April 2024.
00:07:30.960 The rail plan plans to be completed by summer 2025.
00:07:35.080 A 15-year delivery plan will be presented and the project aims to be completed by 2040.
00:07:40.680 Now moving to a different portion of Alberta politics.
00:07:43.800 Some of you may remember MLA Jennifer Johnson when she was previously excluded from sitting with the UCP caucus
00:07:50.880 after an uproar from the transgender community who said that she likened transgender children in schools to, quote,
00:07:57.480 adding a teaspoon of feces to a batch of cookies.
00:08:00.440 So despite winning the 2023 election in Lacombe Pinocca by a country mile,
00:08:05.620 as a UCP candidate, Johnson has been sitting as an independent.
00:08:09.860 Following the remarks, Premier Danielle Smith reaffirmed her commitment to not letting Johnson sit in her seat
00:08:16.360 with the party she represented when she rightfully earned the seat.
00:08:20.260 However, Smith has recently hinted at potentially letting Johnson back into the party.
00:08:25.820 But that's not why we're here today.
00:08:28.300 Johnson recently attended a meeting with the Lacombe Pride Society, the Pinocca Pride Society,
00:08:33.420 the Central Alberta Pride Society, and others when she was confronted by a transgender woman
00:08:38.620 who essentially tried to hold her hostage.
00:08:41.020 The interaction caught global attention with famed author J.K. Rowling sharing the clip to X with the caption,
00:08:48.760 quote, honestly, you don't even need to turn up the sound.
00:08:52.340 And you don't.
00:08:53.080 Take one look and you can guess what's going to happen.
00:08:56.040 Will you state on the record right now that trans women are women?
00:09:02.240 I've never been asked that before.
00:09:04.540 Will you say that on the record right now?
00:09:07.220 No, I want to have some time to think on that.
00:09:09.080 Okay, well, that's me.
00:09:11.520 Have a great day.
00:09:12.900 And I will be speaking out against this meeting because you are clearly not ready to have this.
00:09:17.540 So I'm not going to be added to the list of meetings that you are going to have with people
00:09:21.060 where you say, well, I met this person and this person.
00:09:24.120 Because no, no, no, no.
00:09:26.460 You can't say I've had these consultations and use that as justification
00:09:29.420 for you to work your way back into caucus, which is why we know you're really here.
00:09:33.540 So I'll give you one last chance.
00:09:35.620 Are trans women women?
00:09:37.000 Will you say that on the record right now?
00:09:38.360 Victoria, we can disagree on things.
00:09:41.140 Not on that.
00:09:42.000 Not on my identity.
00:09:43.240 No, no, no, no.
00:09:44.080 Not on that.
00:09:44.300 And I can still care about you even if we disagree.
00:09:46.840 Wonderful.
00:09:47.440 But I will be speaking out against this meeting 100% if you can't say that right now.
00:09:52.400 Because I'm not going to have you add my name to the list of meetings that you've had
00:09:55.480 to show that you're, quote, doing the work.
00:09:57.660 Because you're not doing the work.
00:09:59.200 The work is the inner work.
00:10:00.780 You're learning the outer work.
00:10:02.140 You're learning what you're allowed to say in public and what you're not.
00:10:04.560 So you don't get in the situation again.
00:10:06.160 Because you got caught saying what you really thought.
00:10:08.760 And you did think that.
00:10:10.580 But you haven't shown that you've changed.
00:10:12.920 Because if you can't respect us, then how can I work with you?
00:10:17.680 If you don't believe that I am a woman sitting right here, right now, how on earth are you
00:10:24.640 saying that you're working with me?
00:10:25.560 What work have you done, then, if you can't start with, yes, Victoria, you are a woman?
00:10:32.980 Can we disagree and still respect each other?
00:10:35.340 No.
00:10:36.080 Goodbye.
00:10:37.480 The clip garnered so much attention that even Elon Musk replied with a laughing face emoji.
00:10:42.920 But wait, it gets worse.
00:10:45.260 Members from the Lacombe Pride Society, Pinocca Pride Society, by the way, they spelled Pinocca
00:10:50.120 wrong in their release.
00:10:51.260 Holmes Red Deer, Central Alberta Pride Society, and Buchholz from Queer Citizens United and
00:10:56.740 Momentum Canada issued a joint release slandering Johnson.
00:11:01.220 The release said that, quote, Johnson stated that we would have to, and they quoted this,
00:11:05.880 disagree and respect each other.
00:11:08.440 Which, firstly, is a misquote because she did not say that.
00:11:11.140 The statement continues, saying,
00:11:12.960 This statement denies the livid experiences and reality of transgender, two-spirit, and
00:11:18.140 non-binary Albertans.
00:11:20.140 It demonstrates that Emily Johnson has not changed her views on the subject and should
00:11:24.480 not be welcomed back into caucus.
00:11:26.780 To do so would be a sign to all 2SLGBTQ plus Albertans and their allies that homophobic
00:11:33.640 and transphobic views are tolerated within the United Conservative Party and caucus.
00:11:38.700 Wow, there were a lot of lies in that statement, but I really feel for Johnson, who essentially
00:11:44.400 just sat there during the whole interaction getting attacked by Buchholz.
00:11:48.960 So Johnson released a statement of her own.
00:11:51.840 She said, quote,
00:11:52.700 This statement addresses the meeting between me, Jennifer Johnson, the independent MLA for
00:11:57.880 Lacombe-Pinocca, and the Lacombe Pride Society, Pinocca Pride Society, Central Alberta
00:12:02.660 Pride Society, and multiple others.
00:12:04.480 These societies requested a meeting with me, and I was happy to meet with them and hear
00:12:09.280 their concerns as my constituents.
00:12:11.880 I looked forward to a respectful and informative meeting with them.
00:12:15.300 This meeting was at the request and arranged by a constituent of the Lacombe-Pinocca Riding,
00:12:19.840 and I was happy to accept their invitation to meet.
00:12:22.380 Danielle Smith, her office, and the UCP caucus and party were in no way involved in or aware
00:12:27.980 of this meeting, and contrary to speculation, this meeting has nothing to do with my future
00:12:32.860 as an independent member of the legislature.
00:12:35.500 I support the work of Danielle Smith and her UCP government and look forward to working
00:12:39.900 with all members of the legislature in the fall session on the parental rights legislation
00:12:44.940 and other important bills.
00:12:46.620 Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me in the last couple of days.
00:12:49.800 I very much appreciate all of your kind words and encouragement.
00:12:52.900 Look, after this interaction, I should preface this by I didn't know too much about Johnson
00:12:58.600 previously, despite her previous controversies with the UCP government, but I am very interested
00:13:06.480 to see what happens with the future of Johnson's political career.
00:13:10.880 I certainly honor her for not bending the knee to a transgender person essentially trying to
00:13:16.720 impose authoritarian measures on her and saying that if you don't believe what I believe,
00:13:21.720 then you're not worthy of my time, and I'm going to sit in a meeting for three minutes
00:13:26.020 essentially spending the entire time yelling at you.
00:13:28.860 Yelling at you for how bad of a person you are, and not really listening to what you have
00:13:32.960 to say, not even giving you the time to respond.
00:13:35.220 I think in politics, we actually need more people like Johnson who are brave enough to
00:13:39.160 stand up to people like this who are trying to impose essentially authoritarian belief systems
00:13:44.120 on them.
00:13:44.720 All right, I thought we'd switch to something a bit lighter for our last story of the day.
00:13:47.920 So just to lighten things up, we'll just cover Angus Reid's most recent poll, which actually
00:13:53.480 showed that Daniel Smith's approval ratings have recently improved since last quarter.
00:13:57.920 So the poll showed the approval ratings of all the premiers across Canada, and yeah, Manitoba's
00:14:02.860 Wob Canoe honestly led the race by a country mile with a 66% approval rating.
00:14:09.220 However, behind him in second place and tied with Newfoundland and Labrador's Andrew Fury,
00:14:14.000 who himself had fallen nine points, was Danielle Smith at 46%, with a 1% rise from last quarter.
00:14:21.800 The premier with the lowest approval rating, interestingly, was New Brunswick's Blaine Higgs,
00:14:26.080 despite just recently doubling the province's surplus in their most recent fiscal projection.
00:14:33.180 In front of him in second last place was Ontario's Doug Ford.
00:14:36.880 The approval jump for Smith comes despite the survey highlighting that she accepted some
00:14:41.800 tickets to a Stanley Cup final game, but she defended that action, saying that all the
00:14:46.300 ethical guidelines were followed.
00:14:47.940 The spike comes despite the previous story we discussed, which of course was the province
00:14:52.020 pulling funding from Calgary's Green Line LRT.
00:14:55.480 However, it could be that Calgarians and other Albertans agree with Smith when she said that
00:15:01.140 she saved them, essentially, from what was, quote,
00:15:04.400 in danger of turning into a $6 billion boondoggle to nowhere.
00:15:08.900 The rising polling numbers for Smith probably come as a relief with her upcoming leadership
00:15:14.140 review on November 2nd.
00:15:16.180 Leadership reviews are held at one of every three AGMs on a non-election year, where delegates
00:15:21.120 get to decide whether they trust the current party leader or want to swap to someone new.
00:15:26.200 The UCP's governance manual reads, quote,
00:15:29.000 A yes vote of less than 50% of the total valid votes cast shall automatically trigger a leadership
00:15:35.700 election.
00:15:36.680 I hope you guys enjoyed the stories today.
00:15:38.900 Let me know in the comments if you plan on voting at the upcoming leadership review.
00:15:43.140 Now, jumping into the comment roundup after my first episode.
00:15:47.040 The first comment comes from TemplarRising6299, who said, quote,
00:15:52.680 If the bloc was doing well, Quebec wouldn't need welfare from Alberta.
00:15:56.400 You hit the nail right on the head there, Templar.
00:15:59.000 And I've written about equalization in the past.
00:16:01.680 Remember in August when Smith demanded an overhaul of the, quote,
00:16:05.040 Broken Equalization and Federal Transfer Scheme as Alberta shouldered the biggest burden?
00:16:10.800 She's not the only premier that feels that way, but I can't see Quebec vowing for change,
00:16:15.500 considering while Alberta contributed $244.6 billion between 2007 and 2022,
00:16:23.500 Quebec received $327.7 billion.
00:16:27.400 Next comment here from AtBikeChickLovesToGroove, who said that coalition governments and appointing
00:16:33.900 senators should not be allowed.
00:16:36.080 I agree with you about the senators, and as we've seen with the Trudeau government,
00:16:40.860 they've stacked the Senate with left-wing partisans.
00:16:43.600 Again, something Smith called him out for after he completely disregarded Alberta's Senate elections
00:16:49.620 and handpicked senators that would follow his marching orders.
00:16:52.620 I agree with you, too, about the undemocratic nature, but I'd take it even a step further.
00:16:59.620 For example, the Conservatives won the popular vote in each of the two last elections.
00:17:04.660 How is it then democratic that they lost the election by such a large margin,
00:17:08.600 despite having the most people vote for them?
00:17:10.880 People argue that with our seat system, it gives smaller places like the islands more power,
00:17:16.480 but I don't know that that's necessarily true.
00:17:18.940 For example, almost every election year, the election is called before the West is even counted
00:17:24.460 because of the amount of power that Quebec and Ontario themselves hold.
00:17:29.220 So with popular vote, this would remain to be the case,
00:17:32.820 because obviously Quebec and Ontario have the highest populace,
00:17:36.380 so I don't really know what the best way forward is.
00:17:38.880 On to the last comment from tigsbigs8949, who said,
00:17:43.880 Alberta needs to table a referendum.
00:17:46.740 Alberta does not need Canada, but Ontario and eastward need Alberta.
00:17:51.400 You got that right.
00:17:52.380 The rest of the country would be in shambles without Alberta,
00:17:55.800 but I'm not sure how easy separating is.
00:17:58.620 I'd be interested to see how the cost of everything would change.
00:18:02.100 Imagine if we saw a separation of the sort in our lifetimes.
00:18:04.760 I mean, it's hard to even imagine.
00:18:06.500 So I'd just like to thank everyone real quick for bearing with me
00:18:08.900 through my second episode hosting the Alberta Roundup,
00:18:12.800 and I hope you liked it as much or even more than the first episode.
00:18:17.360 And I also wanted you to know that I do read every comment that you leave,
00:18:22.060 and I appreciate them all, even the negative ones, though there weren't that many.
00:18:27.000 Yeah, even for those who critique,
00:18:28.780 there's little I value more than constructive criticism,
00:18:31.500 because I find it's often easier for others to see ways that we can improve
00:18:36.060 rather than us finding them ourselves.
00:18:39.060 So I hope that you keep the comments coming,
00:18:41.600 even the negative ones,
00:18:42.680 but I will be honest, I do prefer the positive ones.
00:18:46.520 So thank you all, and have a good day.
00:18:48.320 Thank you.
00:18:50.600 Thank you.
00:18:51.100 Thank you.
00:18:51.840 Thank you.
00:18:52.920 Thank you.
00:18:53.800 Thank you.
00:18:55.240 Amen.
00:18:55.520 Correct.
00:18:56.620 Thank you.
00:18:58.000 Thank you.
00:18:59.000 Thank you.
00:18:59.840 Thank you.
00:19:00.440 You
00:19:00.920 Thank you.
00:19:02.740 Thank you.
00:19:02.940 Thank you.
00:19:03.520 Thank you.
00:19:03.760 Thank you.
00:19:04.840 Thank you.
00:19:05.940 Thank you.
00:19:06.920 Thank you.
00:19:07.400 Thank you.
00:19:08.420 Thank you.
00:19:09.560 Thank you.
00:19:09.600 Thank you.
00:19:09.680 Thank you.
00:19:10.280 Thank you.
00:19:11.120 Thank you.
00:19:11.560 Thank you.
00:19:12.440 Thank you.
00:19:12.820 Thank you.