Juno News - Jason Kenney on lockdowns, freedom, and western alienation

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.660 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.720 Coming up, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney sits down for a year-end interview

00:00:16.860 on COVID-19, economic recovery, and Western alienation.

00:00:23.220 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.780 Welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:31.740 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:35.440 Very special edition of the program as we wind down 2020 and near the year-end.

00:00:40.540 And this is going to be, in this episode, my interview with Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney.

00:00:46.540 Now, I traveled out to Edmonton to meet with Premier Kenney for a couple of reasons.

00:00:51.620 Number one, Alberta has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19's economic challenges

00:00:58.340 in many ways because Alberta was already grappling with an energy sector in decline.

00:01:03.860 This is not a new phenomenon by any stretch, but it's one that was very much exacerbated

00:01:09.120 by the COVID-19 pandemic.

00:01:11.580 But the other side of that is that Premier Jason Kenney, up until very recently,

00:01:15.960 was very resistant to the idea of putting in a lockdown.

00:01:19.780 He was very resistant to putting in the massive, sweeping economic shutdowns,

00:01:25.460 especially in the second wave that a lot of other provinces embraced.

00:01:29.320 Now, eventually, he did put in some severe restrictions,

00:01:32.080 although he talks about this with a fair bit of regret,

00:01:34.700 talking about it as though it is a last resort,

00:01:37.600 and very keenly aware of the civil liberties challenges

00:01:40.460 and the economic challenges that these measures tend to unleash.

00:01:44.860 So I wanted to sit down and speak with Premier Kenney,

00:01:47.200 not just about COVID-19, but also in general,

00:01:50.100 the look at the year ahead, economic recovery,

00:01:52.880 and still the growing sentiments of Western alienation

00:01:55.820 that we've explored on the show in the past.

00:01:58.140 So here's my interview with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

00:02:02.480 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:02:06.220 Sitting down in Edmonton with the Premier of Alberta

00:02:08.880 for a look at the past year,

00:02:10.380 and of course, the more optimistic look at the year ahead,

00:02:13.380 Premier Jason Kenney.

00:02:14.800 Premier, good to be with you. Thanks very much.

00:02:16.360 Welcome to Alberta. Welcome to God's country, Andrew.

00:02:18.400 Thank you very much. I always enjoy my time here.

00:02:20.300 I haven't had as much of an opportunity this year to come out here,

00:02:23.480 so very grateful to be sitting down with you

00:02:26.000 at what's been a very challenging year for a lot of Canadians,

00:02:29.440 certainly for Albertans.

00:02:30.560 But I wanted to ask about how it's been for you,

00:02:33.160 because you were elected about a year and a half ago.

00:02:35.760 You had this big, ambitious agenda

00:02:37.980 that you wanted to bring to the province,

00:02:39.640 and a lot of that, like with so many leaders,

00:02:42.160 has had to be put on hold.

00:02:43.560 How has that been for you?

00:02:44.640 Well, look, the whole thing has obviously been

00:02:47.480 incredibly challenging for everyone.

00:02:50.700 We've had to learn how to cope with the largest public health crisis

00:02:54.240 and the largest economic contraction in a century,

00:02:57.440 and on top of that, for Alberta,

00:02:59.520 the largest collapse in energy prices ever

00:03:01.940 that has deepened the damage to our economy.

00:03:06.460 So we've been dealing with what I call

00:03:07.780 three black swan events at the same time,

00:03:10.020 while trying to implement one, as you're quite right,

00:03:13.720 one of the most ambitious reform agendas

00:03:16.400 that any government's been elected on.

00:03:18.120 We ran on 272, I believe, specific platform commitments.

00:03:22.940 Because we had been through five years of tough economic times,

00:03:25.860 we really needed to be bold in getting the province

00:03:28.800 and its economy back on track.

00:03:30.300 We continue to do that work, Andrew.

00:03:32.200 A lot of it's not been noticed,

00:03:33.320 because everything's about COVID these days.

00:03:35.180 But we just finished, for example, the longest,

00:03:38.560 we've sat more than any legislature in Canada,

00:03:40.740 including the House of Commons, by far,

00:03:43.120 passed more legislation.

00:03:44.620 We've now passed, I think, 78 bills.

00:03:46.860 So we continue to plug away at building the foundations

00:03:51.280 of our economic relaunch through policy reforms

00:03:54.720 that will be very important when we emerge from the COVID crisis.

00:03:58.060 But when you look at those platform commitments,

00:04:01.080 how has that triaging process really manifested,

00:04:04.020 where you've had to look and say,

00:04:05.580 listen, this is now a pipe dream?

00:04:07.400 Has that happened, I guess?

00:04:08.780 Well, I think on some of these things,

00:04:11.400 for example, in the last few weeks,

00:04:15.920 we've had this big spike in cases in Alberta

00:04:17.740 that we're focused on.

00:04:18.620 So we've just put a hold on any new announcements

00:04:20.820 or public initiatives on the economic front.

00:04:23.580 We need to not just focus,

00:04:25.760 but be seen to focus on job number one,

00:04:28.500 which is keeping people safe.

00:04:31.580 We've always said, though, through the COVID crisis,

00:04:33.400 is that we are seeking a balance

00:04:34.860 between protecting lives and livelihoods.

00:04:37.160 Because, Andrew, for the huge economic damage

00:04:40.780 also has health implications,

00:04:43.340 mental and emotional health,

00:04:45.100 domestic violence has gone up in this province,

00:04:48.200 opioid addictions and overdoses have gone off the charts.

00:04:51.360 So there are many challenges that we are facing.

00:04:54.260 I think broadly, we've continued to implement

00:04:56.040 our one big ticket item, obviously,

00:04:58.740 that where we've been set completely off course,

00:05:01.960 is our commitment to balance the provincial budget

00:05:04.220 in this term of government.

00:05:05.860 We were doing so through a bold but reasonable plan

00:05:10.120 to reduce spending by about 3%.

00:05:12.340 But with the collapse of energy prices

00:05:15.280 and the global economy,

00:05:17.080 there is no realistic path

00:05:18.880 to balance the budget in this term of government.

00:05:21.060 So that we're unfortunately going to have to defer

00:05:22.900 to the future while we focus on investing

00:05:25.160 in health care and then economic recovery.

00:05:27.880 That balance between lives and livelihoods

00:05:31.060 is one that we don't hear a lot of discussion

00:05:33.300 about from other leaders.

00:05:34.380 And you talked about all of these other things

00:05:36.400 that aren't even really being measured or assessed.

00:05:38.940 You know, the impact on mental illness,

00:05:40.520 on familial situations, domestic violence,

00:05:43.360 all of these things that are very much real.

00:05:45.920 You had been very resistant,

00:05:47.980 as a lot of people have heard,

00:05:49.420 and certainly as a lot of your opponents,

00:05:51.940 your political opponents,

00:05:52.840 were very negative towards,

00:05:54.880 very resistant to putting a lockdown in place,

00:05:57.440 understanding that.

00:05:58.860 You had said that that initial distinction

00:06:01.480 between essential and non-essential was a mistake.

00:06:04.460 When did you realize that?

00:06:06.060 And how did you realize that?

00:06:06.940 Well, I think we realized that in the spring.

00:06:09.600 I'll admit that in March,

00:06:11.440 like every other government,

00:06:12.840 we, in a sense, were rushing

00:06:14.480 and sometimes tripping over ourselves

00:06:16.840 to respond with great speed

00:06:19.500 because we all saw on our television screens

00:06:22.820 the meltdowns in Milan and Madrid

00:06:24.900 and in Tehran and New York,

00:06:27.420 and we didn't want that to be in Calgary and Edmonton.

00:06:29.800 So I think we erred, if you will,

00:06:32.300 on the side of extreme caution

00:06:35.620 with respect to the public health.

00:06:37.600 Even though, even there though, Andrew,

00:06:39.320 even there, Alberta had the least stringent

00:06:42.960 public health restrictions in phase one

00:06:45.360 in the spring of all the Canadian provinces

00:06:47.360 and less stringent than most U.S. states

00:06:49.840 and almost all of the European countries,

00:06:51.740 except perhaps famously Sweden.

00:06:53.900 So we did take a more balanced approach

00:06:57.020 because we were facing the double whammy

00:06:59.120 of the collapse of the energy sector here.

00:07:02.280 But I think we learned.

00:07:03.860 Hopefully, as I said,

00:07:05.480 hopefully governments will have the humility

00:07:07.260 in all of this to admit where they have been wrong.

00:07:11.040 And certainly one area where we were wrong

00:07:13.640 was to make a totally arbitrary distinction

00:07:16.120 between essential and non-essential retail businesses,

00:07:18.120 which effectively meant

00:07:19.460 the mom-and-pop clothing store had to shut down.

00:07:23.660 But people went and bought their clothes at Walmart

00:07:25.520 because they had a grocery section or a pharma store.

00:07:28.200 So that was totally unjust.

00:07:30.600 The way we've done it now is to say

00:07:32.060 there's a 15% cap on a fire code capacity

00:07:35.940 for all retail businesses.

00:07:38.260 And that little mom-and-pop store,

00:07:40.020 they should be able to operate safely

00:07:42.400 with three or four customers in there at a time,

00:07:45.740 with masks and all the appropriate protocols,

00:07:49.220 just as hundreds of people can operate safely

00:07:52.040 in a grocery store.

00:07:53.260 So I think we've got the right balance

00:07:55.020 on a lot of this, as we've learned.

00:07:57.160 One of the challenges is that some provinces

00:07:59.520 are not taking that retrospective look

00:08:02.080 and are, in fact, doubling down.

00:08:03.640 I think the most notable example of that is Manitoba.

00:08:06.680 And I know that every province has to look out

00:08:09.200 for its own interests and make its own decisions.

00:08:11.240 But there is a big comparison game

00:08:13.500 that the media is playing,

00:08:14.980 and I think that a lot of voters might be playing,

00:08:16.700 of looking and saying,

00:08:17.520 well, hang on, how come Premier Kenney's doing this,

00:08:19.820 but Premier Pallister's doing this,

00:08:21.320 and Premier Ford's doing that?

00:08:22.940 And how much, if at all,

00:08:24.780 do you take other provinces' responses

00:08:26.700 into consideration?

00:08:27.580 Well, first of all,

00:08:28.120 I think none of us should criticize each other.

00:08:30.240 We all have our own urgent circumstances

00:08:34.620 that we have, and our own local circumstances, too.

00:08:37.420 You know, I recall some of the so-called smart,

00:08:42.160 Laurentian elite types in Ottawa

00:08:43.880 were writing articles recently saying

00:08:46.060 the federal government should take control of everything.

00:08:48.120 Well, I'll remind you,

00:08:49.100 this is the same federal government

00:08:50.080 that was arguing against border closures

00:08:51.560 from COVID hotspots,

00:08:52.740 that was arguing against mask usage

00:08:54.460 right through April,

00:08:55.900 that got a lot of things wrong

00:08:58.320 and arguably was late to the mark

00:09:00.400 on getting these vaccine contracts signed.

00:09:03.480 But my goodness,

00:09:04.520 how could bureaucrats in Ottawa,

00:09:06.160 and I've been there in Ottawa as a minister,

00:09:08.200 how could they know about the nuances

00:09:10.100 of what's happening

00:09:10.820 on a particular First Nations reserve in Alberta

00:09:13.060 versus a neighbourhood in North Calgary?

00:09:16.240 Like, they have no capacity

00:09:17.700 to respond in a targeted and local way

00:09:20.000 like provinces do.

00:09:21.520 Having said that,

00:09:22.240 we keep an eye on what other provinces are doing,

00:09:24.260 and I think they do on us.

00:09:25.320 We try to see what might be working

00:09:28.600 and what isn't working.

00:09:30.640 I'll offer a generalization.

00:09:32.500 I think that generally,

00:09:35.380 Alberta's response has been quite similar

00:09:37.140 to that of British Columbia.

00:09:39.420 In terms of stringency of public restrictions,

00:09:41.560 these have been the two least stringent provinces.

00:09:44.000 They've been most likely to take

00:09:45.520 targeted regional approaches

00:09:46.960 and focus on public education and compliance

00:09:51.300 rather than enforcement and coercion.

00:09:54.140 And isn't that interesting,

00:09:54.900 because you've got neighbouring conservative

00:09:56.420 and NDP governments.

00:09:57.640 I think the point is,

00:09:58.920 this should not be seen through political,

00:10:00.660 partisan or ideological lens.

00:10:02.740 I think the two Western provinces

00:10:04.340 have done quite well.

00:10:06.260 Much lower levels of infection hospitalizations

00:10:08.680 and fatalities than the large population

00:10:11.360 central Canadian provinces,

00:10:12.800 with a lighter touch on restrictions.

00:10:14.940 Not to say that it's been perfect,

00:10:16.320 but I think the Western model has worked quite well.

00:10:19.060 When you bring up the Laurentian elite,

00:10:21.140 a lot of the criticism towards what your government

00:10:24.120 has done seems to be coming from people

00:10:25.760 that aren't in Alberta.

00:10:26.900 And of course,

00:10:27.460 the NDP notwithstanding,

00:10:28.840 but how do you address or respond

00:10:31.580 to that characterization,

00:10:32.880 that Alberta has just been this free-for-all,

00:10:34.660 that bodies are piling up in the streets?

00:10:36.480 Because the numbers you've said

00:10:37.780 don't seem to add up to that.

00:10:39.820 You know, I call this Alberta bashing. 1.00

00:10:42.920 A lot of this,

00:10:43.620 I'll just take a bit of a step to the South here

00:10:47.260 and say,

00:10:47.940 I see a lot of that focused on the governor of Florida,

00:10:51.360 while the governor of New York is being praised.

00:10:54.080 He's actually getting awards from the media.

00:10:55.840 He's getting an Emmy

00:10:56.540 with the highest per capita death rate in North America.

00:11:00.360 And Florida has one of the lowest

00:11:01.760 of the large population US states

00:11:04.380 with much less stringent restrictions

00:11:06.860 when New York has been on various kinds of lockdown

00:11:09.380 for nine months.

00:11:10.180 That's how I feel here in Alberta.

00:11:12.100 We are well below the national average

00:11:13.980 for COVID fatalities,

00:11:15.680 well below the Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba,

00:11:19.920 and only slightly ahead of British Columbia.

00:11:23.020 So, and we are well below the COVID fatality rate

00:11:26.000 of, I believe, all 50 US states

00:11:27.980 in all but a couple of the 35 or so European countries.

00:11:32.780 So, you know, in the Western world,

00:11:35.620 by which I mean sort of North America plus Europe,

00:11:37.700 we have done very well, not perfectly,

00:11:42.360 and it's true that over the past six months,

00:11:46.020 we did see a significant spike in cases,

00:11:49.040 but on the day that we are doing this interview,

00:11:51.860 it appears that we have stabilized that.

00:11:54.420 Our rate of transmission is back to one,

00:11:57.980 and basically we've seen flat or declining

00:12:00.420 total active cases in the province

00:12:02.120 and roughly flat hospitalizations.

00:12:05.220 So I, and that's before we announced

00:12:07.300 our more stringent measures recently.

00:12:09.100 So I think that we've hopefully, knock on wood,

00:12:13.540 have turned a corner and we've got control of this thing

00:12:16.560 to avoid the exponential growth

00:12:18.280 that really could be catastrophic.

00:12:20.180 How much of that is due to, in your view,

00:12:22.560 the response from the healthcare system,

00:12:24.380 from the government, from public health,

00:12:26.100 versus simply Alberta's demographics

00:12:27.860 of a very young population relative to other provinces?

00:12:30.400 I think it's actually both.

00:12:31.900 So let me pitch to you,

00:12:33.520 because there's a lot of Alberta bashing, 1.00

00:12:35.240 let me pitch the Alberta model.

00:12:36.740 One thing I've learned in all of this

00:12:38.380 is that the famous Alberta spirit of enterprise,

00:12:43.120 of risk-taking,

00:12:44.640 lives in many areas of our public service

00:12:48.200 and our healthcare system.

00:12:49.400 Give you an example.

00:12:50.660 Back in March and April,

00:12:51.680 what was everyone talking about?

00:12:52.920 Running out of PPE in the hospitals,

00:12:54.840 running out of ventilators.

00:12:55.600 We were by far the best prepared province,

00:12:59.240 I would argue, jurisdiction in North America,

00:13:01.420 because we have entrepreneurial public servants

00:13:04.720 in procurement at our health department,

00:13:07.040 which surged orders

00:13:09.040 and had very strong relationships with suppliers

00:13:11.840 around the world

00:13:12.780 that got us in front of the queue

00:13:14.620 to the point where we were able to share

00:13:16.640 millions of units of masks and PPE

00:13:19.100 with Ontario and Quebec,

00:13:20.740 dozens of ventilators.

00:13:22.200 It seems that those Laurentian elites

00:13:23.600 who are bashing Alberta forgotten all about that. 0.94

00:13:26.400 We were the first province

00:13:27.580 to have an online assessment tool.

00:13:29.340 We have the strongest contact tracing system in Canada.

00:13:32.600 We have consistently,

00:13:33.700 this is a fact, not an opinion,

00:13:35.860 consistently had the highest per capita level of testing

00:13:38.460 in the country,

00:13:39.680 one of the highest in the world.

00:13:41.560 We were the first to develop

00:13:42.680 our own wireless tracing app,

00:13:46.160 which is connected into our contact tracing,

00:13:47.920 unlike the federal app.

00:13:49.100 We have innovated in so many areas.

00:13:53.200 It was recognized by the NHL

00:13:54.900 that chose Edmonton to be their playoff final hub

00:13:58.500 because we had the best COVID record

00:14:00.160 of any large population jurisdiction in North America.

00:14:03.700 Now, again,

00:14:04.300 and a great credit goes, of course,

00:14:06.740 to our frontline healthcare professionals.

00:14:08.740 Obviously, having a younger population

00:14:10.380 does help with the demographics

00:14:11.700 and being a newer province,

00:14:13.100 by which I mean many of the long-term care home deaths

00:14:17.420 in central Canada that we tragically saw

00:14:20.320 were because they are operating

00:14:22.700 with older infrastructure,

00:14:24.400 smaller rooms,

00:14:26.240 two or three or four patients in a room,

00:14:28.380 sharing one washroom,

00:14:30.280 older ventilation systems.

00:14:32.540 That made those nursing homes more vulnerable.

00:14:35.840 We have a more modern housing stock.

00:14:37.340 So yes, younger population,

00:14:39.060 more modern infrastructure,

00:14:40.080 but also I would say a very nimble

00:14:42.420 and entrepreneurial public sector

00:14:44.400 which helped to lead the way here.

00:14:46.580 You mentioned earlier

00:14:47.340 that this shouldn't be viewed

00:14:48.640 through a political lens,

00:14:50.260 but there is still a public buy-in that's necessary.

00:14:53.740 And I think we've seen,

00:14:54.580 especially at the federal level,

00:14:55.580 and you noted a couple of great examples

00:14:57.300 why people lost trust

00:14:59.160 in the public health advice

00:15:00.760 they were getting from the federal government.

00:15:02.960 Provincially, though,

00:15:03.840 how is it really manifesting in your view

00:15:06.320 when you have people on one hand

00:15:07.740 that are saying nothing is ever enough,

00:15:09.500 you need to go further and further?

00:15:11.200 And on the other hand,

00:15:11.920 people that will take any restriction at all

00:15:14.240 as an affront to their liberty,

00:15:15.420 and a lot of people, I would say,

00:15:16.900 in that camp are supporters

00:15:18.060 of the United Conservative Party,

00:15:19.780 or at least were in the last election.

00:15:21.900 And how has that balance been for you?

00:15:24.640 Well, it's not been easy to balance.

00:15:28.860 But we've been explicit from the beginning

00:15:30.540 that we need to protect both lives and livelihoods.

00:15:33.840 And I've been, I think,

00:15:34.940 the only government leader in Canada

00:15:37.380 who has spoken consistently

00:15:39.520 about the need to minimize

00:15:42.380 the impairment of fundamental rights and freedoms.

00:15:45.560 Now, I have said that I do believe,

00:15:47.100 as the Constitution, Section 1 says,

00:15:48.820 that impairments or abridgements

00:15:51.300 of constitutional rights

00:15:52.920 can be reasonably justified

00:15:54.880 in a free and democratic society.

00:15:56.980 But as the courts have told us,

00:15:58.780 to justify them,

00:16:00.380 they have to be proportionate,

00:16:01.800 they have to have a clear, legitimate policy goal,

00:16:04.720 and they have to be limited,

00:16:05.880 limited impairments of rights.

00:16:07.660 So that's the approach we've tried to take.

00:16:11.160 I'll give you an example.

00:16:13.640 Places of worship.

00:16:15.300 Well, most of the provinces

00:16:17.180 have completely shut down,

00:16:18.220 at least in their hot zones,

00:16:19.240 places of worship.

00:16:20.140 But the second fundamental freedom

00:16:22.440 enumerated in the Charter

00:16:23.640 is freedom of religion,

00:16:25.660 which is obviously inextricably connected

00:16:27.660 to freedom of worship,

00:16:28.740 which means as well congregate

00:16:30.320 and not just personal worship.

00:16:32.120 And so to impair or bridge that,

00:16:34.600 you've really got,

00:16:35.780 I mean, you've got to demonstrate

00:16:36.720 that it's a last and limited resort.

00:16:39.680 So what we've done is to say,

00:16:41.660 just as we've limited retail to 15%,

00:16:43.620 we've limited places of worship to 15%.

00:16:46.620 Rather than going to the extreme,

00:16:48.840 where some would like us to go,

00:16:50.560 which is to completely shut those places down,

00:16:52.220 we say, look, we believe at that,

00:16:54.420 it is a real impairment.

00:16:56.000 We regret that.

00:16:57.740 But we do have to reduce

00:16:59.020 general social contact

00:17:00.380 to avoid exponential growth

00:17:02.180 and the overwhelming

00:17:03.160 of our healthcare system.

00:17:04.480 What I'd like to say, Andrew,

00:17:06.040 is at least our government

00:17:06.980 is trying to think through those things

00:17:09.340 in a balanced way,

00:17:10.980 rather than picking one or two

00:17:12.700 of the extreme lanes

00:17:13.720 in the increasingly polarized debate.

00:17:15.500 Well, that's a hugely important point

00:17:18.000 because a lot of the times

00:17:19.300 the emphasis has been,

00:17:20.860 and for good reason,

00:17:21.800 some might say,

00:17:22.460 on the one singular metric

00:17:24.600 of COVID cases or COVID deaths.

00:17:26.780 But there are civil liberties concerns.

00:17:28.720 There are the other issues

00:17:29.560 we were talking about earlier.

00:17:30.980 And at a certain point,

00:17:32.400 when you were talking about

00:17:33.600 the need to protect fundamental freedoms

00:17:35.200 and resisting,

00:17:36.380 even as recently as the end of November,

00:17:38.100 putting in place a lockdown,

00:17:40.520 what was the point

00:17:41.500 at which that switch flipped

00:17:43.320 and you said,

00:17:43.820 OK, we have to do

00:17:44.940 what I've been saying

00:17:45.640 we didn't want to do?

00:17:46.460 I would argue that

00:17:47.140 we don't have a lockdown.

00:17:48.480 I think a lockdown is defined

00:17:50.080 by stay-at-home orders,

00:17:51.480 shelter-in-place orders,

00:17:52.940 the suspension of most business activity,

00:17:55.420 and really a coercive approach.

00:17:57.640 That's not our approach.

00:17:59.220 The restrictions are real

00:18:00.500 and they're painful.

00:18:02.000 And it pains me

00:18:04.160 to think about the number

00:18:06.420 of businesses

00:18:06.960 who may never come back from this,

00:18:08.440 the tens or hundreds of thousands

00:18:10.080 of people who have lost their jobs,

00:18:12.100 the mental and emotional anguish

00:18:13.800 that they are going to be going through

00:18:14.860 during the holidays,

00:18:15.840 the separation of families.

00:18:17.940 What disturbs me a little bit

00:18:20.080 about some of those

00:18:21.280 who have always wanted

00:18:23.260 the harshest restrictions

00:18:24.600 from day one

00:18:25.580 is it seems to me

00:18:28.660 an unwillingness

00:18:30.920 to really contemplate

00:18:34.240 the deep and huge damage

00:18:36.840 to the lives of people

00:18:39.300 as a result of these kinds

00:18:40.820 of restrictions.

00:18:41.360 But ultimately,

00:18:42.680 what compelled us

00:18:43.740 to go to the most recent

00:18:44.820 restrictions was this.

00:18:47.140 We had gone from

00:18:49.640 100 people in hospital

00:18:51.160 with COVID.

00:18:51.760 This is not about cases.

00:18:52.660 These are about hospitalizations.

00:18:53.740 I know there's a big debate

00:18:54.760 about the accuracy of PCR tests

00:18:56.940 and false positives

00:18:57.820 and infectivity and all of that.

00:18:59.200 Put that all to the side.

00:19:00.960 The metric that matters most,

00:19:03.560 really, for us,

00:19:04.440 is how many folks

00:19:05.680 with COVID are in hospital

00:19:06.660 because of COVID.

00:19:07.860 We went from 100

00:19:09.040 on August the 26th

00:19:11.140 to 650 a week ago today.

00:19:15.040 600% growth in hospitalizations.

00:19:17.860 Now, we could expand capacity

00:19:20.260 by canceling surgeries

00:19:21.660 and denying other people

00:19:22.760 non-urgent care

00:19:23.620 for non-COVID-related health care.

00:19:26.340 But at great cost to them,

00:19:29.120 in many cases,

00:19:30.520 shortening their lifespans,

00:19:31.640 putting them in pain as well.

00:19:32.880 And ultimately,

00:19:34.920 if we were to get up to

00:19:35.840 2,200, 2,400 COVID patients

00:19:39.440 in the hospital,

00:19:40.160 we'd be at our maximum.

00:19:42.020 We would be stretching the system

00:19:43.760 to a breaking point.

00:19:45.260 And we could not responsibly do that.

00:19:48.120 We had, in our view,

00:19:49.280 to act to prevent exponential growth,

00:19:52.860 spinning out of control

00:19:53.860 in terms of the pressure

00:19:55.160 on the health care system

00:19:56.880 with the collateral impact

00:20:00.400 on other patients

00:20:01.940 waiting for other kinds of care.

00:20:03.700 That's why we had to step in

00:20:04.820 when we did

00:20:05.300 as a last and limited resort.

00:20:07.600 When you say

00:20:08.140 it's not a lockdown, though,

00:20:09.600 I agree it probably,

00:20:11.120 well, it does, in fact,

00:20:12.000 fall short of what

00:20:12.760 some other jurisdictions have done.

00:20:14.640 But if you're in one

00:20:15.640 of those sectors

00:20:16.320 like a massage therapist

00:20:18.200 or even a restaurant

00:20:19.260 that has to do takeout

00:20:20.420 instead of being able

00:20:21.340 to be allowed in,

00:20:22.560 that nuance is less important.

00:20:24.780 I agree.

00:20:25.140 And, Andrew, I hope you recognize

00:20:26.900 I've been giving a voice

00:20:27.940 to those people

00:20:28.740 as a leader.

00:20:29.980 And this was not something,

00:20:31.920 I think it's rather evident

00:20:32.900 that we were reluctant

00:20:35.300 precisely because of that damage.

00:20:38.340 And, you know,

00:20:38.740 one of the things

00:20:39.440 I find kind of distasteful

00:20:43.240 or unfortunate in this debate

00:20:44.480 is some who support

00:20:46.980 like sustained

00:20:49.520 and extreme lockdown policies

00:20:51.500 almost, you know,

00:20:53.520 mocking the concern

00:20:55.140 about economic damages

00:20:56.180 is you're just concerned

00:20:57.260 about money,

00:20:57.860 not people's lives.

00:20:59.440 It's about people's lives.

00:21:01.500 You take away

00:21:02.140 someone's livelihood.

00:21:03.560 You take away

00:21:04.280 their life savings

00:21:05.140 that they've worked towards

00:21:06.700 running a small business.

00:21:08.320 You take away

00:21:09.120 their ability

00:21:09.460 to pay their mortgage,

00:21:10.680 to put food on the table

00:21:11.760 for their families.

00:21:13.780 And some people say,

00:21:14.720 well, just let the government

00:21:15.380 fill the gap.

00:21:16.040 You know what?

00:21:16.300 There's a lot of people

00:21:17.260 who never want

00:21:20.980 to be dependent

00:21:21.560 on the government

00:21:22.260 and who may lose

00:21:25.240 their life savings

00:21:26.220 with these kinds

00:21:26.880 of restrictions.

00:21:28.020 So all I'm saying

00:21:29.260 is you're absolutely right

00:21:30.840 to spotlight that.

00:21:32.920 And all I can say

00:21:34.420 is that I have

00:21:35.540 the deepest regret

00:21:36.360 for those people

00:21:36.980 facing that.

00:21:38.040 But if somebody

00:21:39.640 could give us

00:21:40.520 an alternative approach,

00:21:43.140 a policy response,

00:21:44.540 that did not involve

00:21:46.000 any painful restrictions,

00:21:47.220 I would have taken it

00:21:48.300 from day one.

00:21:50.520 We took the lightest hand,

00:21:52.700 took restrictions

00:21:53.680 as a last and limited resort.

00:21:55.560 But at the end of the day,

00:21:57.740 a viral spread

00:21:58.480 had become so widespread here

00:22:00.080 that not even

00:22:01.740 the most careful business

00:22:02.660 could prevent it.

00:22:03.980 The restaurants,

00:22:04.680 I pointed out,

00:22:05.140 they only had 1%

00:22:05.900 of traceable cases,

00:22:06.920 went back to restaurants

00:22:07.760 before our contact tracing

00:22:09.340 was overwhelmed.

00:22:10.360 But now we're at a stage

00:22:11.840 where any customer

00:22:12.840 or staff might be coming in

00:22:13.940 with the virus

00:22:14.420 because of no fault

00:22:15.140 of their own.

00:22:15.840 So we simply had to act

00:22:17.260 to preserve the health care system

00:22:19.200 and to prevent

00:22:19.820 exponential growth

00:22:21.160 and its catastrophic consequences.

00:22:23.680 I want to look forward

00:22:24.580 after looking backwards

00:22:26.480 a fair bit

00:22:27.120 just as we wind down here

00:22:28.420 and ask you about

00:22:29.380 one of the biggest issues

00:22:30.200 I've heard about

00:22:31.280 in my visits to Alberta

00:22:32.480 and even just in the last

00:22:33.520 few weeks.

00:22:34.300 Because you are correct

00:22:35.140 to note that because

00:22:36.000 of the energy sector's

00:22:37.240 issues here,

00:22:38.160 this province has been

00:22:39.040 disproportionately affected

00:22:40.220 economically by

00:22:41.160 the pandemic.

00:22:42.200 Western alienation

00:22:43.440 hasn't gone away.

00:22:44.920 A lot of the media coverage

00:22:45.940 of it might have mitigated.

00:22:47.340 But a lot of these concerns

00:22:48.280 are still there.

00:22:49.260 I know we have

00:22:49.820 next year the referendum

00:22:51.360 that you've announced

00:22:52.220 for equalization.

00:22:54.040 But how do you respond

00:22:55.500 to that sentiment,

00:22:57.260 which I think

00:22:57.620 has probably only grown

00:22:59.140 in the last year

00:23:00.480 as people still feel

00:23:01.580 like the federal government

00:23:03.080 just doesn't care

00:23:03.880 what happens here?

00:23:05.140 Well, highlighted

00:23:05.680 by the most recent announcement

00:23:06.760 about the 476% increase

00:23:09.280 in the carbon tax,

00:23:10.320 which we've been predicting

00:23:11.200 from day one.

00:23:12.600 And remember all the Laurentian elites,

00:23:14.580 your friends in much

00:23:15.320 of the central Canadian media,

00:23:16.800 ridiculed the suggestion

00:23:18.200 that the carbon tax

00:23:19.760 was going to go up to $200.

00:23:20.800 Yes, I recall Catherine McKenna

00:23:22.000 last year laughing

00:23:23.460 at that very idea.

00:23:24.460 Well, it's not a laughing matter here.

00:23:25.740 In resource-producing regions,

00:23:27.220 a part of this is

00:23:28.200 a huge transfer of wealth

00:23:30.240 from energy-producing sectors.

00:23:32.420 The largest sector

00:23:33.100 in the Canadian economy

00:23:33.720 is oil and gas

00:23:34.480 in this province.

00:23:35.800 That's the largest export industry,

00:23:37.320 the largest creator

00:23:37.940 of employment,

00:23:38.540 the largest creator

00:23:39.200 of government revenues.

00:23:40.640 And it seems like

00:23:41.500 we have a government in Ottawa

00:23:42.420 that is basically

00:23:45.200 at best indifferent

00:23:46.220 and at worst hostile

00:23:47.060 to that industry

00:23:47.800 much of the time.

00:23:49.860 And secondly,

00:23:52.160 this huge increase

00:23:53.160 in the carbon tax

00:23:53.800 represents an enormous

00:23:54.580 transfer of wealth

00:23:55.240 from rural areas

00:23:56.240 to urban areas

00:23:57.240 because rural people

00:23:57.980 obviously consume more energy

00:23:59.360 in what they do

00:24:00.000 and how they travel

00:24:00.900 and how they live.

00:24:02.580 So, look, you're right.

00:24:04.060 The frustration is deep here.

00:24:05.760 People want us focused

00:24:06.600 on protecting lives

00:24:07.980 and livelihoods right now,

00:24:08.840 which has meant

00:24:09.380 obviously trying to work

00:24:11.040 constructively

00:24:13.020 with the federal government

00:24:14.000 on the COVID response.

00:24:15.640 But when we're past COVID,

00:24:17.480 we will be right back

00:24:19.360 to our fight

00:24:20.100 for a fair deal

00:24:20.920 for Alberta

00:24:21.800 in the Federation.

00:24:22.740 We will be having

00:24:23.360 a referendum

00:24:24.240 on equalization

00:24:25.200 next fall.

00:24:26.820 We are pursuing

00:24:27.580 the possibility

00:24:28.280 of our own Alberta

00:24:29.040 provincial police

00:24:30.020 and pension plans

00:24:31.040 like Quebec has, 0.89

00:24:33.080 Ontario has with police.

00:24:34.100 We will be establishing

00:24:35.660 our own provincial

00:24:36.280 chief firearms officer.

00:24:38.120 We will be doing

00:24:38.620 everything within our power

00:24:40.240 to strengthen

00:24:41.560 this province

00:24:43.160 in the Federation

00:24:45.600 along the lines

00:24:47.140 of the original vision

00:24:48.140 of the Constitution.

00:24:49.620 I always say

00:24:50.060 Albertans are big Canadians.

00:24:51.340 We are the most

00:24:51.820 free-trading province.

00:24:53.020 We're the most against

00:24:53.980 internal trade

00:24:54.920 and labor barriers.

00:24:56.240 We are leaders in that,

00:24:57.360 but we also are leaders

00:24:58.280 in defending

00:24:58.920 the power of provinces

00:25:01.140 together with Quebec

00:25:03.300 on that, by the way.

00:25:04.580 So much work to be done

00:25:05.440 on that post-COVID.

00:25:06.560 We began by talking

00:25:08.000 about the items

00:25:09.100 that you were elected

00:25:09.960 wanting to do

00:25:10.800 and which have had to

00:25:12.040 perhaps take a bit

00:25:13.120 of a back seat

00:25:13.900 with the pandemic,

00:25:15.100 but it sounds like

00:25:15.780 this isn't one of them.

00:25:17.220 Well, in a way,

00:25:19.000 we had to switch

00:25:21.020 to our focus on,

00:25:21.940 obviously,

00:25:22.420 on COVID,

00:25:23.240 on lives and livelihoods,

00:25:24.300 but we continue

00:25:25.080 to do a lot

00:25:26.000 of the policy work

00:25:28.200 under the surface

00:25:29.560 on issues like

00:25:31.200 provincial police,

00:25:32.620 provincial pensions,

00:25:34.260 democratic reforms,

00:25:36.680 and other issues.

00:25:38.100 So, you know,

00:25:38.860 we have to do multiple things

00:25:39.840 at the same time,

00:25:40.840 but the focus,

00:25:41.920 obviously, right now

00:25:42.720 is lives and livelihoods.

00:25:44.040 So just in closing,

00:25:45.340 outside of everything

00:25:46.320 you've had to deal

00:25:46.960 with in the last year,

00:25:47.760 what's the plan

00:25:48.700 and the hope

00:25:49.080 for Christmas and the New Year

00:25:50.160 for Jason Kenney,

00:25:50.880 the person?

00:25:51.480 Well, I'm going straight

00:25:52.580 from this interview

00:25:53.200 to receive the very first

00:25:55.960 dose of vaccines

00:25:56.900 in Alberta,

00:25:57.560 not personally,

00:25:58.500 but the shipment,

00:25:59.560 and we seem

00:26:02.180 to have stabilized

00:26:02.800 the growth of the virus

00:26:04.320 in Alberta.

00:26:05.340 I believe that we're

00:26:06.260 going to end,

00:26:07.220 we have a very good chance

00:26:08.180 we're going to end this year

00:26:09.160 with great hope

00:26:10.100 and optimism

00:26:10.660 by the end

00:26:11.460 of the first quarter,

00:26:12.280 2021.

00:26:13.180 We hope to have vaccinated 0.54

00:26:14.360 the 10% of the most vulnerable

00:26:16.140 in our population.

00:26:18.280 Growth is going to return

00:26:19.680 and I believe

00:26:22.320 once we get past

00:26:23.220 all of this,

00:26:24.520 that 2021

00:26:25.540 is going to be

00:26:26.300 a banner year.

00:26:27.200 People,

00:26:27.800 Albertans are natural optimists,

00:26:29.560 they just need a reason

00:26:30.580 for their optimism

00:26:31.320 and I believe

00:26:32.400 once we get past

00:26:33.120 the worst of COVID,

00:26:34.120 there will be

00:26:34.460 a lot of reasons

00:26:35.160 to be optimistic

00:26:35.800 about this young

00:26:36.920 entrepreneurial province

00:26:38.580 filled with energy

00:26:39.520 and creativity.

00:26:40.640 Premier Jason Kenney,

00:26:41.560 thank you very much

00:26:42.300 and Merry Christmas to you.

00:26:43.440 Merry Christmas, Andrew.

00:26:44.180 Thanks for listening

00:26:45.120 to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:26:46.640 Support the program

00:26:47.360 by donating to

00:26:48.180 True North

00:26:48.600 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - December 17, 2020

Jason Kenney on lockdowns, freedom, and western alienation

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