Juno News - October 08, 2022


Danielle Smith becomes the next Premier of Alberta


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

186.64268

Word Count

1,660

Sentence Count

105

Misogynist Sentences

5


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel. I'm
00:00:13.560 filming live from Calgary today, where I was here earlier this week to cover the UCP leadership
00:00:18.520 announcement. We have a lot of great topics for you today. What we're going to be looking at,
00:00:23.080 Alberta has a new premier. Meanwhile, everybody wants to live in this province. Edmonton City
00:00:28.220 councillors have passed their plastic span. They're also discussing $170 million worth of
00:00:33.620 bike lanes. And Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has said he needs the province's help
00:00:39.340 to implement his gun buyback scheme. All that and more happening now on the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:45.120 Okay guys, let's start with the biggest story in the province, maybe in the country right now.
00:00:48.940 Alberta has a new premier. It is Danielle Smith. She won the Alberta premiership on the sixth ballot
00:00:54.440 with 53.8% of voters' support. Now it was a very suspenseful night for those of us that were on
00:01:01.060 the ground. You might be wondering what happened. So it started with an announcement from the party
00:01:04.980 a couple hours before the leadership event was supposed to begin, that it was going to be delayed
00:01:09.900 by about two hours. Now there was lots of speculations, maybe even some conspiracy theories,
00:01:15.500 if you will, about what had gone wrong. But it turned out the counting process was going well.
00:01:19.720 The party just needed a little more time to verify and count the ballots. So they announced that they
00:01:24.400 were adding more volunteers in hopes of getting that process done quickly, and that the results
00:01:28.040 would be announced at 7.30. The results didn't come in until about 8.25pm. And once they did come
00:01:33.860 in, they were given ballot results every 7 to 10 minutes. You guys might be surprised to learn that
00:01:38.820 leadership candidate Lila Ahir was the first to drop off the ballot. I know, who thought that the
00:01:43.820 candidate that sold UCP leadership memberships at a Liberal event with Trudeau would be the first to fall
00:01:48.560 off the ballot for a Conservative Party leadership nomination. Shocking. Ahir fell off the ballot with
00:01:53.900 1.7% of the vote. Following her, Raj and Sani fell off with 2.6% of voter support. Interestingly,
00:02:01.620 shortly before the results were announced, Sani gave a little press conference, and she said that
00:02:06.080 she had no regrets about her campaign and that she would support the leader no matter who they were.
00:02:11.000 Now you guys might remember Sani sort of positioned herself as the antidote to Danielle Smith throughout
00:02:15.540 the leadership campaign. She said she thought many of Smith's policies were dangerous like the Alberta
00:02:19.560 Sovereignty Act, and that she wanted to position herself as a candidate who was an alternative to
00:02:24.060 Smith. But now she's made it clear that she will support Smith in her leadership. After Smith fell
00:02:29.060 off, Independent MLA Todd Lowen fell off the ballot with 7.8% of voter support. The question here is
00:02:34.800 whether or not he'll be allowed back into caucus. He texted me on Friday and said he was in the UCP caucus
00:02:39.860 meeting, so I think that's a pretty good indication that we'll see him back in the caucus
00:02:43.360 pretty soon. Rebecca Schultz was the next to fall off with 8.4% of voter support, followed by Brian
00:02:49.540 Jean with 14.8% of the vote. And then of course, it came down to former Finance Minister Travis Taves.
00:02:56.340 No surprise there, he was trailing Smith in the polls throughout the entire campaign.
00:03:00.480 He came second with 46.23% of the vote, so it was certainly a very tight race that went all the way
00:03:05.880 to the sixth ballot before Smith finally pulled off the victory with 53.8%, as I mentioned, and the
00:03:11.540 crowd was certainly very excited when she had that victory. We're going to play a little bit of her
00:03:15.840 victory speech for you now. Take a listen. We will not have our voices silenced and censored.
00:03:22.740 We will not be told what we must put in our bodies in order to work or to travel.
00:03:28.140 We will not have our resources landlocked or our energy phased out of existence by virtue-signaling
00:03:41.480 prime ministers.
00:03:47.640 Albertans, not Ottawa, will chart our own destiny on our own terms, and we will work with our fellow
00:03:53.680 Canadians to build the most free and prosperous country on earth.
00:03:59.300 Okay guys, Premier Designate Danielle Smith has said she's not interested in supporting another
00:04:02.940 Olympic bid. For those of you who aren't aware, in November 2018, 56.4% of Calgarians voted to stop
00:04:09.540 the exploration of a 2026 Olympic bid. Earlier this week on the Cory Morgan Show, Smith said the people
00:04:15.280 have smoking. She said an Olympic bid would be massively expensive, and there's no appetite for the
00:04:20.520 province to take it on. This next story won't come to a surprise for those of us that are living here,
00:04:25.040 but it looks like everyone wants to live in Alberta. A new report from the Alberta Treasury
00:04:29.700 Board suggests that Alberta is increasingly a desirable destination for Canadians struggling
00:04:34.440 under a cost-of-living crisis. The report said that interprovincial immigration to Alberta
00:04:38.620 has not been this high since 2014. That's the last time oil prices were over $100 per barrel.
00:04:44.980 This story hits home for me because I was one of the people that moved to Alberta in the second
00:04:48.500 quarter from Ontario. I know some of you told me at the time that I was another Ontario plant,
00:04:53.540 but by and large people have been very friendly since I've been here, and I think that's the
00:04:56.580 experience for most newcomers. Ontario, meanwhile, lost the largest number of people to interprovincial
00:05:02.440 immigration and contributed the most number of new Alberta residents. I wonder why. Okay guys,
00:05:08.540 I told you I would keep my eye on this story for you, and I have. Unfortunately, I have to tell you
00:05:13.080 that Edmonton City Councilors have approved their plastics bylaw. It will take effect beginning July 1,
00:05:18.140 2023. Councilors approved the proposal in an 11 to 13 vote on Tuesday. For those of you who aren't
00:05:24.120 familiar what the bylaw is going to look like, essentially plastic utensils and condiment
00:05:28.100 packages will be restricted under the bylaw, unless a customer requests them. And restaurants must serve
00:05:33.320 dine and drinks in reusable cups. Okay guys, moving into the controversy of the week. Edmonton City
00:05:38.920 Councilors this week approved a proposal for building 100 kilometers of bike lanes that will cost the
00:05:43.960 city $170 million, plus another $11 million to maintain annually. City administrators presented
00:05:50.880 four options, with the lowest option costing $25 million, and the most expensive option being the
00:05:56.300 $170 million option. That option would have construction finished by 2026. Now, I must note
00:06:02.320 that final approval still has to come in fall during budget talks. And I'm not saying that this is a waste of
00:06:07.620 money. Of course, as a journalist, I would never give my opinion. But people online were quick to know that
00:06:11.660 you can sometimes Oling bike in Alberta for three to four months. In the winters, temperatures sometimes
00:06:15.920 drop to, oh, I don't know, negative 49 degrees Celsius. So if you're one of those people who's
00:06:21.340 biking all year round, that'll be great for you. But I suspect there's only about four people who
00:06:25.160 really fall into that category. What we're watching in the weeks to come, I'm sure you guys are aware
00:06:29.380 that Danielle Smith is the Oling UCP leadership candidate who didn't have a seat in the Alberta
00:06:33.680 legislature. She still doesn't have a seat, of course, but she'll be looking to run in a by-election.
00:06:37.940 She said that some people have come up to her, some UCP MLAs have come up to her,
00:06:41.480 and suggested that, you know, maybe she could run in their seat. They're willing to step down so she
00:06:45.300 can run. On Friday morning, Michaela Fry posted on Twitter that she was stepping down and that she
00:06:49.600 was encouraging Daniel Smith to run in her riding. So I'll let you know as soon as we hear whether or
00:06:54.500 not Smith is going to run in that by-election or in another one. Of course, something else to keep
00:06:58.640 your eye out for if any of the UCP leadership candidates that were unsuccessful decide to give
00:07:03.380 up their seat in the legislature ahead of the next general election this spring.
00:07:07.060 All right, guys, and the funny Alberta politics moment of the week. Federal Public Safety
00:07:11.560 Minister Marco Mendicino has admitted that he needs the province's help to implement his gun
00:07:16.120 grab scheme. You guys are familiar with the details of this story by now. Essentially,
00:07:20.900 three provinces, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Minnetoba, have told the government they don't
00:07:25.300 want to help its gun grab scheme, and they definitely don't want their provincial resources
00:07:28.700 being redirected to act as confiscation agents when they're already in dire shortage of the
00:07:34.140 provincial resources. Now, at a Tuesday's hearing of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Safety,
00:07:38.920 a Conservative MP asked Mendicino whether he has a Plan B for provinces that won't aid
00:07:43.320 in the gun grab buyback. The minister acknowledged that he has no Plan B and said he's still focused
00:07:47.860 on Plan A. Quote, advancing a fair buyback program that will compensate law-abiding gun owners for the
00:07:54.000 salt-style rifles that they're originally purchased lawfully is consistent with keeping our community safe,
00:07:59.100 and we will always be collaborative with our provincial and territorial partners, he said.
00:08:04.260 My door will always be open to working with them in a wide variety of priorities to achieve that goal.
00:08:10.100 Now, the minister did not recognize the already strong opposition he's received from three provinces
00:08:15.580 and how he plans to address that. Okay guys, that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for
00:08:19.760 tuning in. I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, and I will see you next week.
00:08:23.660 I'll see you next week.