Juno News - Danielle Smith triggers Rachel Notley on Day 1

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel. It has been a very

00:00:13.620 interesting week in Alberta politics and we have a great show planned for you today. So let's take

00:00:18.040 a look at what we're going to be talking about. Alberta has a new premier. Danielle Smith was 0.90

00:00:22.220 sworn in earlier this week and she's already making waves. In fact, so much so that it seems

00:00:27.240 like the Alberta NDP are going to live in a constant state of being triggered by the new

00:00:31.160 premier. In fact, they're already calling on Premier Smith to apologize for comments she made earlier

00:00:36.100 this week. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergencies Act inquisition has begun in Ottawa and Alberta is

00:00:41.520 participating saying it was unnecessary. We're going to be talking about all that and more happening now

00:00:46.260 on the Alberta Roundup. Okay guys, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was sworn in this week on Tuesday at

00:00:51.160 a ceremony at the government house at Edmonton following the Thanksgiving weekend. In her remarks

00:00:55.640 following the ceremony, Danielle Smith said, Albertans freedoms and rights have been tested

00:01:00.040 over the last two years and she's looking to strengthen them. Like most Albertans, Smith said

00:01:04.680 she believes freedom is foundational. The premier also said she's going to protect Alberta's jurisdictional

00:01:10.080 rights from Ottawa, something she campaigned on as you know, and she spoke about the need to protect

00:01:14.980 Alberta's most vulnerable, especially during the cost of living crisis that we're currently in.

00:01:19.580 Take a listen to her comments now. Together we will stand up to defend Albertans'

00:01:23.560 charter rights as well as defends Alberta's exclusive rights over our areas of provincial

00:01:28.760 jurisdiction which are enumerated clearly in Canada's constitution. But we will also demonstrate

00:01:35.560 the compassion Albertans expect of us by ensuring the vulnerable and our seniors can afford the

00:01:41.460 necessities of life during this time of inflation. We must ensure our children have the support they need

00:01:47.680 to succeed. We must address the mental health crisis that is stealing our young people from us. We must give

00:01:53.920 real help to those on our streets who don't know where to turn. In her first press conference just hours

00:01:59.200 after being sworn in as premier on Tuesday, Danielle Smith began making waves. Premier Smith said she will

00:02:05.120 no longer be relying on public health advice from Dr. Dina Henshaw. Now let's get the story right. A lot of

00:02:10.640 outlets were reporting that Henshaw had been fired or was going to be fired. Now that might be the case but

00:02:15.680 that's not what Premier Smith said on Tuesday. She simply said she won't be taking health advice

00:02:19.760 from Henshaw anymore. I asked the Premier's office does this mean Henshaw has been fired or will be

00:02:24.240 and they said no decisions have been finalized currently. Something else noteworthy from the

00:02:28.560 press conference is Premier Smith said she has not been able to get a hold of former Alberta Premier

00:02:32.880 Jason Kenney. Smith said she sent an invitation to Kenney to have a meeting and discuss an orderly

00:02:37.680 transition but he hasn't responded. Still, Smith was more than forgiving of the former Premier,

00:02:43.360 who she said she still admires greatly. Smith said the leadership race did not go the way

00:02:48.880 Kenny would have liked and that he had a preferred candidate, former finance minister Travis Taves,

00:02:53.280 and she said he might need a little more time just to adjust to things. Let's move into the

00:02:57.360 controversy of the week. I'm sure you heard these comments by now but we're going to go over them

00:03:00.880 anyways. Premier Smith made some more comments in a press conference this time talking about the

00:03:05.120 discrimination the unvaccinated have faced. She said she doesn't know of another group that faced

00:03:09.680 more discrimination in her lifetime than the unvaccinated. Of course Alberta like all other 1.00

00:03:15.120 Canadian provinces implemented a vaccine passport barring the unvaccinated from places of work at

00:03:20.400 times as well as movie theaters and things like restaurants. They were treated like second-class

00:03:25.120 citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic while the vaccine passports were replaced and Smith acknowledged

00:03:30.560 this discrimination in her first press conference as Premier on Tuesday. The community that faced the most

00:03:36.000 restrictions on their freedoms in the last year were those who made a choice not to be vaccinated.

00:03:42.000 I don't think I've ever experienced a situation in my lifetime where a person was fired from their job

00:03:49.840 or not allowed to watch their kids play hockey or not allowed to go visit a loved one in long-term care

00:03:55.760 or hospital. We're not allowed to go get on a plane to either go across the country to see family or even

00:04:02.000 travel across the border. So they have been the most discriminated against group that I've

00:04:06.880 ever witnessed in my lifetime. That's a pretty extreme level of discrimination that we have seen.

00:04:12.480 I don't take away any of the discrimination that I've seen in those other groups that you mentioned

00:04:17.520 but this has been an extraordinary time in the last year in particular and I want people to know that

00:04:24.640 I find that unacceptable that we are not going to create a segregated society on the basis of a medical

00:04:31.040 choice. Now today's victimhood culture was out in full swing following the press conference with

00:04:36.080 everyone and their mother taking to twitter to say no they in fact have been the most discriminated

00:04:40.080 against. But the loudest of these voices was of course you guessed it the Alberta NDP who are

00:04:45.200 demanding that Premier Smith apologize. In fact NDP leader Rachel Notley hosted an entire press conference

00:04:51.600 for the sole purpose of asking the Premier to apologize for her comments. You can't make this stuff

00:04:56.320 up. Take a listen for yourself. Given the amount of hurt and pain that has genuinely been expressed to

00:05:02.240 us over the last two days I call on Premier Daniel Smith to reconsider her decision to not apologize and

00:05:10.800 in fact to profound an immediate or I'm sorry and in fact to offer up an immediate and authentic apology to

00:05:20.000 the hundreds of thousands of Albertans whose experiences she has negated and and who she's

00:05:26.640 her remarks have hurt. The following day Smith released a clarification statement but did not

00:05:30.960 apologize. She said she did not mean to trivialize the discrimination that marginalized groups in Alberta

00:05:36.640 have faced. I suspect she won't apologize it's already been a couple of days and we haven't heard anything

00:05:41.600 from her about that apology but the NDP are not stopping their calls and are demanding the Premier to

00:05:47.040 apologize nonetheless. Okay guys let's briefly move over to discuss the Emergencies Act Inquisition

00:05:52.320 which began in Ottawa this week. On Thursday's witnesses gave their opening remarks. Alberta along

00:05:57.680 with the government of Saskatchewan is participating in the process. Now for those of you who need a

00:06:01.920 little refresher Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February invoked the Emergencies Act for the first

00:06:06.560 time in Canadian history to grant himself special emergency powers to deal with freedom convoy protesters

00:06:12.480 who were in Ottawa to protest the federal government's COVID-19 restrictions including vaccine

00:06:16.800 mandates. Now I can say with some certainty that the protesters were peaceful because I was in Ottawa

00:06:21.920 covering the federal government at the time of the freedom convoy and we already know that the

00:06:26.000 Ottawa police say they did not ask the federal government for the Emergencies Act to be invoked

00:06:30.400 contradicting earlier claims from Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. Now the government of Alberta's

00:06:35.600 and Saskatchewan are saying they also didn't need the Emergencies Act to deal with their respective

00:06:39.280 border blockades. In Alberta we had the Coutts border blockade and the Alberta government says it was able

00:06:44.240 to deal with that blockade without powers needed under the Emergencies Act. Okay guys what we're

00:06:48.960 watching in the weeks to come just after Danielle Smith was announced the new premier in the UCP

00:06:53.360 leadership race I had a 30-minute interview with her and I asked her about what some of her plans are

00:06:57.680 in the weeks to come. I also asked her about the 160 million dollars that former premier Jason

00:07:02.720 Kenney announced in his final week in office. That includes 73 million dollars to the aviation sector

00:07:08.800 and with a partnership with WestJet and Premier Smith said she might have to take a closer look at some

00:07:13.760 of those funding announcements. She has said her chief of staff Marshall Smith who worked in the

00:07:18.400 Kenny government flagged some of the items and said the government might need to take a closer look at

00:07:22.320 them. So it'll be interesting to see if she decides to roll back any of those funding announcements.

00:07:27.440 One other thing for you guys to be aware of and to watch for in the weeks to come is that

00:07:30.640 Danielle Smith confirmed that she will be running in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election.

00:07:35.280 As you know UCP MLA Michaela Fry resigned on Friday morning just after Smith won the UCP

00:07:40.560 leadership race and encouraged Smith to run in that riding. Smith confirmed on Saturday that she

00:07:45.920 will run in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election and if she's confirmed in that seat she could be 0.99

00:07:50.400 in the legislature as early as November 29. So I think we can see the house being recalled in late

00:07:54.800 November. It is worth noting that the seat is a conservative safe seat and it's also a rural riding

00:08:00.080 with Smith saying that she wants to run in that region because she wants to present rural Albertans.

00:08:05.200 Something else worth noting that I told you I'd follow up with is that UCP MLA Todd Lohan has

00:08:09.280 been confirmed back to the UCP caucus. I told you guys last week that he was in the UCP caucus

00:08:13.600 meeting on Friday morning and he's confirmed that he's now back in the party once again.

00:08:18.000 Okay guys moving into the Alberta politics funniest moment of the week. Premier Smith has announced that

00:08:21.760 she will run in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election but she said she's going to leave the Calgary

00:08:25.840 Elbow seat open. You guys might remember the former MLA Doug Schweitzer who was also a Kennedy cabinet

00:08:30.800 minister resigned from both his cabinet post and later his month his seat in Calgary Elbow. That

00:08:36.720 seat's been sitting open since then. A couple people have expressed interest in running for it

00:08:40.320 including John Horseman. He told me he's interested in the seat. He of course was a UCP leadership

00:08:44.880 candidate for a brief period of time. Daniel Smith said she's going to leave that seat open because there

00:08:49.200 needs to be a race between all the candidates who are interested in running for the UCP and winning that

00:08:53.280 nomination. And of course the Alberta NDP just can't handle it. They've decided to make an enormous

00:08:58.320 deal about the fact that Smith is leaving this seat open despite the fact that seats sit open all the

00:09:02.720 time ahead of a general election. In fact listen to Rachel Notley's comments for yourself. For over a

00:09:08.800 month this area hasn't had an MLA and so we're here today to call on the UCP to call a by-election in

00:09:15.120 this area before the next election so that the people of this area can have their voice. It's no

00:09:20.400 surprise that the opposition would want to attack the government that is in fact their role. But

00:09:24.160 you'd think that the opposition in this case would be able to find something a little more meaningful

00:09:27.760 or substantial to attack the Primaron. I guess we'll have to keep hoping. All right guys that's 0.61

00:09:33.360 all I have for you today. I want to take a quick moment and thank my listeners. This show has grown

00:09:37.360 so much in the number of weeks since we started it. We're at about 17,000 to 19,000 weekly listeners

00:09:42.080 which is so exciting. I feel so lucky that I get to do this. I love my job. So thank you so much for

00:09:46.800 tuning in and of course if you support our work over at True North please visit donate.tnc.news

00:09:52.400 and show us your appreciation so that we can continue bringing you the independent news.

00:09:57.040 Thank you so much. Have a great week and I'll see you next weekend.

Juno News - October 15, 2022

Danielle Smith triggers Rachel Notley on Day 1

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