Juno News - NDP leadership candidates already taking aim at Smith

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

00:00:14.720 Four NDP MLAs have announced that they are seeking the leadership for the Alberta NDP,

00:00:21.040 along with a union leader and a very popular former mayor of Calgary.

00:00:26.800 Today, we are joined by Cheryl Oates. She used to work for Alberta NDP leader and former premier

00:00:33.840 Rachel Notley. She was the executive director of communication, and she's going to break this

00:00:38.000 all down for us. Cheryl, thanks so much for joining the show today. 0.94

00:00:41.120 Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:00:43.280 So when we look at the candidates, we've got a bunch of candidates joining so far. We have until

00:00:47.120 Friday if anyone new wants to join. What direction do you think the NDPs are looking to go in? Are

00:00:53.920 they looking for someone more moderate, maybe someone like Nenchi, or are they looking for

00:00:57.840 someone who's going to take their party a little further to the right?

00:01:02.160 Yeah, I think there's a divergence of opinions, just like any party. This is a coalition of people,

00:01:06.880 and I think, speaking for myself, I'm looking for a unicorn. I'm looking for someone who can

00:01:12.240 uphold the values of the party and the history of the party and the things that the NDP

00:01:16.000 has long fought for, and also have the ability to be competitive in 2027. We know that Daniel Smith

00:01:23.360 is an expert, expert communicator, and the next leader of the NDP will have to be just as good

00:01:28.880 of a communicator to be able to stand up to her. Right. When we look at the candidates,

00:01:34.480 you know, we've got a bunch of MLAs and NDPs. As I mentioned, we've got two former cabinet ministers.

00:01:38.560 We've got Kathleen Gainley and Sarah Hoffman. They have a little more profile than some of the other

00:01:42.960 Edmonton MLAs that we have, including Raki Pancelli. You know, she was just elected in 2019.

00:01:48.480 We have another MLA who was just voted in 2023. Those MLAs that have the ministry behind them,

00:01:54.240 are they someone with a little bit more profile? Do you think that will benefit them during the

00:01:57.120 leadership race? For sure. I mean, any time that you're looking to win over existing members and

00:02:02.640 continue to build the party, having those decades, in some cases, of experience where you've had the

00:02:07.520 chance to build one-on-one relationships with people, build your profile, have a little bit of

00:02:11.440 history of getting things done behind you. Obviously, that's really helpful in terms of having people

00:02:17.280 hear your message, but also having a record to point to. And certainly the MLAs that have multi

00:02:22.480 terms as MLAs have tons of profile and a really big base of relationships to work from.

00:02:27.920 Let's talk about Nahid Nenshi for a moment. He announced that he was going to be seeking

00:02:31.840 leadership earlier this week. I think a lot of people were sort of expecting him to jump in the

00:02:35.600 race. He was obviously a very popular mayor of Calgary, and I think a lot of people are taking this

00:02:39.440 announcement pretty seriously. And he actually already commented on Danielle Smith earlier this

00:02:45.280 week. He took a stab at her government. Let's play that clip now. $14,000 a bottle on Tylenol when

00:02:51.040 the federal government had already ordered some, just so you could own the libs. $100 million on the

00:02:57.600 failed privatization of Dynalife. $9 million on advertising for the Alberta pension plan, something

00:03:05.360 that in the election she said she would never do. And the list goes on and on and on and on.

00:03:10.160 And yesterday I had a very busy day, so I haven't had a chance yet to look at what they're suggesting

00:03:15.600 they're going to fix in the utility system. But what they broke in the utility system has caused

00:03:21.600 utility bills to quadruple in Alberta to be by far the highest in Canada. Our insurance rates,

00:03:27.360 our auto insurance rates are something like two and a half times what they are in Saskatchewan next door.

00:03:32.240 This is direct results of UCP government policy. Setting aside the crisis and family doctors,

00:03:38.480 the closure of emergency rooms, the fact that here in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world,

00:03:44.160 you can't be guaranteed that you'll get an ambulance when you call 911 when you're in need.

00:03:48.320 This is sheer incompetence combined with the lack of any moral fiber. And I will call them on that

00:03:54.480 every single day. So I thought it was really interesting that Nenshi is already attacking

00:03:58.160 Danielle Smith. Do you think he's seeking to sort of place himself as her opponent and by that,

00:04:03.680 you know, gain some profile for himself? I'm not running against the other candidates in this race.

00:04:07.520 I'm actually running against the current premier.

00:04:10.160 Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both because truly any party, whether it's the NDP or the

00:04:15.280 Conservatives want to believe that they're setting themselves up for success and they're choosing

00:04:19.440 the best leader who can be competitive in the next election and hopefully form government.

00:04:23.920 So I think Nenshi's tactic here is one to let people see that he has the ability to sort of

00:04:29.520 go toe to toe with Danielle Smith in terms of communication, but also to position himself to

00:04:34.160 say, I can take her on, I can win and I'm the candidate position to do that. And I mean, the NDP

00:04:39.200 historically leadership races have been pretty friendly. So I think it makes sense for him to

00:04:43.280 take his aim outside the party rather than at the other candidates. Out of all the candidates

00:04:47.040 currently in the race, who do you think would have the best chance of beating Danielle Smith? 0.93

00:04:50.640 Honestly, this is an awesome slate of people and any of them would make a really great leader. I

00:04:56.720 think I'm waiting to sort of see how their positioning comes out, what they think of themselves

00:05:01.200 in terms of what they see for the party going forward and how they're going to listen to the

00:05:04.480 membership. And the person who will do the best is a person, like I said, who can be a concise,

00:05:09.520 compelling communicator because we know that's what Danielle Smith is and someone who can uphold the 1.00

00:05:14.000 values of the party and bring Alberta along with them. We need the party to continue to grow if we want

00:05:18.800 to be competitive. The NDP has seen incredible success growing over the last decade. And if we

00:05:24.160 want to win in 2027, we need to continue to grow. We need to win more seats in Calgary and more seats

00:05:29.680 outside of both the major cities and whoever positions themselves to best do those things is

00:05:34.640 the person who's going to be successful. Raki Pancelli said that she would abolish the

00:05:38.560 carbon tax if she was elected the leader. What do you think of that? Is she maybe seeking to attract 1.00

00:05:42.160 people who wouldn't have traditionally voted for the NDP? Or is this a policy that's actually quite

00:05:47.600 popular within the party's base? I think, you know, having served in government

00:05:52.480 at the time that the carbon tax was brought in, I still believe this was the most effective and

00:05:57.520 efficient policy to curb emissions. Now we have seen it is absolutely not the most popular policy

00:06:03.520 and it doesn't have durability. This is politically poison now. And I think it makes sense for candidates

00:06:08.880 to start talking about how do we, is there a better approach? How do we combat climate change in a way

00:06:14.560 that we can bring Albertans along with us, something that people can buy into? And the carbon tax just

00:06:19.760 isn't politically popular in Alberta and it's not politically palatable. So I think she's one

00:06:23.840 of many candidates saying, is there a better solution here? Yeah, I think that's really interesting

00:06:27.280 to hear you say that you thought it was a good policy, but it's obviously not very politically

00:06:30.720 popular anymore. Do you think that it's always been that way or has something changed to make it just

00:06:35.440 such a detrimental policy to any party that tries to put it forward?

00:06:38.560 Yeah, I think, I mean, certainly at a time of peak unaffordability, it's hard to swallow an

00:06:45.120 additional tax. Even if people are getting a rebate that is beyond what they're paying for the tax,

00:06:49.200 it's hard at the time to swallow the fact that we're paying more. So I think at the time the NDP

00:06:55.360 looked at this, we got the advice from experts, we got the advice from outside academics to say,

00:06:59.760 what is the best way to curb emissions in our province? And this is the advice that we got.

00:07:04.960 But since then, the policy has been weaponized. It has been brought into public discourse in the

00:07:11.120 realm of affordability. And it's just not durable. It's just not a policy that's going to last beyond

00:07:17.440 multiple changes in government. So I think it's time for us to look at what could actually work

00:07:21.680 and what could stay in place for multiple changes of government to come.

00:07:25.200 As I mentioned before, candidates have until Friday for anyone else hoping to join the race.

00:07:29.840 I'm wondering if you think there's anyone else that might jump in. I know there's been some

00:07:33.280 speculation online that former cabinet minister Thomas Lukasik might join in the race. What do

00:07:38.080 you think? I think it's probably set. I could be surprised and see someone jump out of the

00:07:44.480 woodwork in the last couple of days here. But I think most of these people who have announced that

00:07:49.600 they are in the race have been thinking about it for a long time and have been doing some work behind

00:07:53.600 the scenes. And once they were approved, doing a lot of work on the ground to sell memberships and

00:07:58.960 raise money. And I just I think it would be hard for anyone joining the race at this point.

00:08:03.200 Sure. Just my last question for you here. If you think this is everyone who's going to be in the

00:08:06.160 race, any predictions for who might win it? I do not have any predictions for who might win it. I

00:08:11.840 think that we are going to see a lot more debate and ideas and platforms from candidates in the coming

00:08:18.720 weeks. And I think that NDP members, a lot of them are still open and still thinking about who's

00:08:22.880 best to lead the party. And as we see those ideas and demonstrations held up in contrast,

00:08:28.560 I think a lot more people are going to start making up their minds.

00:08:30.880 Cheryl, thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

00:08:32.960 All right, everyone. That's all we have time for today. As always, I will be back on Saturday

00:08:37.040 with my regular programming. You guys will not want to miss this week's episode. We've had some crazy

00:08:41.440 news in Alberta this week, something to do with the prime minister being here and guests who wasn't

00:08:46.000 allowed into his press conference. I'll be back with that on Saturday. Have a great week and God bless.

00:08:52.880 you

Juno News - March 14, 2024

NDP leadership candidates already taking aim at Smith

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