Juno News - Ottawa police are charging a trucker 14 months after the Freedom Convoy

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

00:00:05.120 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:11.700 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:14.200 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show, the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:19.120 On this Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023.

00:00:22.940 Yes, May is upon us.

00:00:25.060 And it has been pouring rain for like the last five days, anywhere I've been.

00:00:29.380 and that includes different cities.

00:00:31.420 I was told there'd be May flowers.

00:00:34.200 I'm still kind of getting the lingering of the April showers,

00:00:38.140 but you know what?

00:00:38.540 It's not a May blizzard,

00:00:39.760 so I guess I shouldn't complain too, too much.

00:00:42.140 Hope you all had a wonderful weekend

00:00:44.380 and start of the week,

00:00:45.400 whatever it is you were doing.

00:00:47.600 Busy, busy time for news,

00:00:50.180 but I just want to talk about my interview

00:00:53.060 on Friday's show with Candice Malcolm,

00:00:55.020 the founder and editor-in-chief of True North.

00:00:57.640 You were all, barring a couple of meanies, but we always get a few of you on our comment section,

00:01:02.200 you were all so delighted to see her, and she was very moved and very pleased that you were all so excited about that.

00:01:09.040 And as she said in the interview, she'll be coming back before you know it, but it was nice to see Candice.

00:01:15.260 The downside of working in a remote, well, the upside, I should say, of working in a remote environment,

00:01:21.220 which True North is, is that we don't actually get to see our colleagues all that much in person,

00:01:25.740 which is I guess sometimes good for my colleagues because they don't have to see me but the downside

00:01:31.880 is that we don't actually get the camaraderie that all happens when we're in the same city so

00:01:36.600 I was glad we had as it was discussed last week a bit of an opportunity to gather together and I

00:01:41.340 don't know if I'm allowed to tell you what happened at the True North retreat I mean I wasn't even

00:01:46.320 going to say there was a True North retreat but Candice spilled the beans on that one we had this

00:01:50.780 one team building activity that was a an amazing race style scavenger hunt of sorts which was kind

00:01:57.520 of fun and we were all put on teams and I but someone is telling me to not say anything about

00:02:03.400 this uh but I think he only doesn't want me to say it because he lost and my team won uh so uh

00:02:10.160 you know what sucks to be you Phil and sucks to be you Sean because team Andrew Lawton won the

00:02:15.880 grand prize. And that's why you don't want me to reveal it. So I'm being accused by my own 0.97

00:02:22.760 colleague of cheating now. They don't believe that it was a well-earned victory and a hard

00:02:28.040 won victory, but it was. We do not stoop to cheating on the Andrew Lawton show. And Rachel

00:02:33.120 Emanuel, who we'll talk to on this show, a True North Alberta correspondent, she was also on the

00:02:38.280 winning team. So we'll have a bit of a victory lap, I guess, on this show. Please don't pull the

00:02:44.020 feed of this show, People Who Lost, because you have the power to do that right now.

00:02:48.540 In any way, in any case, we will talk this program in just a few moments time about the

00:02:53.780 Alberta election. We are now in the midst of the campaign and Rachel Notley is always, always,

00:03:00.100 always going to her bag of tricks of just accusing everyone else of being extremists. So no surprise

00:03:05.640 there, but it's amazing how brazen they are about it. The big story I was going to talk about today

00:03:11.040 was the federal government's renewed call for firearms bans,

00:03:16.880 the ban on what they call assault-style firearms.

00:03:20.780 They have tried to do this once again,

00:03:23.540 and we are going to talk about that in a bit of depth tomorrow

00:03:26.300 because today I wanted to speak to Harold Jonker,

00:03:29.080 who is a man that may be very familiar to many of you.

00:03:31.920 He was a mainstay, I think, in the Freedom Convoy protest last year in Ottawa.

00:03:37.020 He's also had his run-ins in his town of, I think, West Lincoln, when a lot of people didn't like that he took a stand for freedom.

00:03:45.060 And now, 14 and a half months after the Freedom Convoy packed up and left Ottawa, he is facing four criminal charges for his role in this protest.

00:03:57.560 Here's a clip of Harold Jonker after he checked in with the police in his area of Niagara region and learned what he was being charged with.

00:04:07.020 Harold Jonker here and I just came out of the Niagara Police Station. I've been officially charged with four counts of criminal charges. One count of mischief, obstruct property. One count of intimidation by blocking or obstructing highway.

00:04:29.980 and then two counts of counsel, counsel and uncommittable, no, sorry, counsel and uncommitted

00:04:38.420 indictable offense, whatever that means. We'll find out when we go to Ottawa, I imagine.

00:04:44.840 And as indicated there, a herald has to go to Ottawa on May 10th, I believe it is. So in just

00:04:52.260 over a week's time, but we are now 14 and a half months after the Freedom Convoy ended and the

00:04:58.700 ottawa police are still hunting people down and charging them here is a clip of former interim

00:05:05.360 police chief steve bell warning about this exact thing and it's a shame we didn't take him seriously

00:05:11.740 erica ibrahim the canadian press um i'm wondering uh what your message is to protesters and

00:05:17.720 canadians more broadly who might be upset and angry with uh images uh being published of police

00:05:23.080 hitting protesters with batons and other types of force um there are images of some people um

00:05:29.080 there are some police striking crowd members with batons who were retreating and not being aggressive

00:05:34.280 toward them there were media in the crowds that that have witnessed and reported on this i'm

00:05:38.440 wondering what you would say to um to those who may be concerned by that as i indicated earlier

00:05:44.120 we will have the opportunity to review all of those files there are complaint mechanisms for

00:05:48.040 people to enter into if they feel that there is excessive use of force by members of our police

00:05:54.600 service what i will also say is we have been here for three weeks i have been at this podium for the

00:06:02.360 last five days imploring people to leave asking them to get out of our streets this occupation

00:06:09.240 is over we have advised them that if they peacefully leave they may go home that still

00:06:14.840 exists we also indicated that we would escalate and forcibly remove people from the streets if

00:06:21.640 they did not comply some of that is what you're seeing so i will stand here today again and say

00:06:27.320 this demonstration is over go home if you don't go home we will remove you from the streets

00:06:36.760 so that uh i apologize for that was not the the right clip that was uh my bad there the

00:06:42.360 The one that we were looking for, he talks about how people who go home may still be hunted down and tracked down by Ottawa police and have financial sanctions put on them and be charged after the fact.

00:06:56.540 So the Ottawa police back in February of 2022 were already promising to continue this little hunt.

00:07:03.540 And it's very similar to what you've seen in the U.S. where the process is the punishment when it comes to people who had even peripheral roles in the January 6th incident, which I don't even like talking about in the same breath as the Freedom Convoy because they were very different things.

00:07:17.920 But now we have Harold Jonker, formerly of the Freedom Convoy, as a supporter, as a member, now facing criminal charges 14 and a half months later.

00:07:27.040 We have Harold joining us now, I believe, from his truck, which is quite fitting given what we're discussing here.

00:07:33.300 Harold, it's good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:07:37.900 Yeah, thank you for having me.

00:07:39.780 I hope I have enough, good enough service here at Mazzaluna.

00:07:48.600 Every eight hours, I got to take a half hour break.

00:07:51.440 So I'm taking that half hour break while I'm on the show here.

00:07:54.740 So sitting here in a truck stop.

00:07:57.120 Well, I'm honored you're spending your break talking to us.

00:08:00.320 We had a bit of a lag at the beginning, but it corrected at the end.

00:08:03.620 So hopefully we'll be able to get through this.

00:08:05.240 I played the clip of you reading the charges, but did this come out of nowhere for you?

00:08:11.020 Or was this something you kind of saw coming?

00:08:19.800 Yeah, hopefully you can still hear me.

00:08:22.620 Yeah, I can hear you now.

00:08:24.280 My question was whether you saw this coming or whether this came out of nowhere for you.

00:08:30.320 Oh, we have lost Harold Jonker.

00:08:34.420 I don't think this is Bill C-11 in action.

00:08:36.680 I think this might just be a technical glitch, unfortunately.

00:08:39.740 We'll hopefully get that corrected in just a moment here.

00:08:42.820 But I just want to put in context here what he has been charged with.

00:08:47.360 Now, here's a guy who was not one of the so-called ringleaders of the convoy.

00:08:51.620 He wasn't one of the people.

00:08:52.660 whatsoever to the money, which I know was a big point of contention for

00:09:01.980 this truck and was a supporter of this movement and has continued to be

00:09:09.980 a supporter of the freedom movement. And I'm looking at the charges here,

00:09:14.560 two counts of counseling an uncommitted indictable offense of mischief obstructing property. So he

00:09:21.360 counseled people to do something they never did is how i read that okay i have harold back on here

00:09:28.160 now so i'll try asking this again sir did you expect this or did this come out of nowhere for

00:09:33.640 you these charges now maybe it is bill c11 that we're grappling with here i believe we might be

00:09:45.160 able to try getting him on with audio only which I mean you've already seen his beautiful face in

00:09:51.880 his truck there so it might make for a bit of a cleaner connection we'll get that sorted out and

00:09:56.600 I apologize for the issues and thank you for your patience but to go back to those charges two counts

00:10:02.560 of counseling an uncommitted indictable offense of mischief one count of mischief obstructing

00:10:08.740 property and one count of intimidation by blocking or obstructing highway. So these are

00:10:16.620 relatively serious offenses. All of them are coming out of the criminal code. And when I bring that

00:10:24.000 up, I mean, these are things that follow people. And I don't know, and maybe we'll get a chance to

00:10:28.200 talk to Harold about this if the connection starts out, if he needs to go across the border for his

00:10:33.120 trucking once the uh you know the vaccine mandate lifts and if so with having criminal charges uh

00:10:38.720 can get in the way of that i'm crossing my fingers here harold do we uh do we have you now

00:10:43.360 yeah i hear you good there now so okay it stays good um perfect maybe maybe the connection just

00:10:51.620 didn't like my my question the surprise yeah no carry on yeah um it came as a surprise but not

00:11:00.760 is a shock right because like you said you were going to show that clip from the Ottawa chief

00:11:06.260 there and so it came aside that 14 months later they're still doing this and we'll see I'm very

00:11:15.260 thankful the the JCCF has been willing to take my case on they're helping me with a few other

00:11:23.920 lawsuits that we were named in so yeah we're going to be busy with with lawyers for a while so

00:11:30.020 May 10th, I've got to turn myself in and we'll see what happens.

00:11:34.080 The Lord willing, the truth prevails.

00:11:36.580 It always does.

00:11:37.260 It just sometimes takes a long time.

00:11:40.360 You know, I mentioned earlier, and I didn't mean to downplay your role in this,

00:11:44.460 because I know a lot of people speak very favorably of you.

00:11:46.760 I know you were interviewed in my colleague Rachel Emanuel's documentary

00:11:50.140 about the convoy, the freedom occupation,

00:11:52.940 but you were never one of the most high-profile front and center people in this.

00:11:57.220 You weren't the one that was on TV doing the press conferences.

00:11:59.840 You weren't the one handling the money.

00:12:01.300 So why do you think you're being targeted?

00:12:06.380 That's a good question.

00:12:07.720 Like what one of the other leaders said too, it's like, you know,

00:12:12.380 why are they going after a father of 13?

00:12:16.200 You know, I've got a grandfather.

00:12:18.780 I've got one granddaughter.

00:12:20.580 And yeah, like why me out of everybody that was there?

00:12:25.200 So it's kind of interesting.

00:12:26.820 you definitely scratch in your head but at the same time i was um i was niagara's captain going

00:12:32.900 in and it was um so yeah interesting definitely everybody's scratching their head now are you

00:12:41.940 nervous about and again i don't know the nature of your trucking business so perhaps you could

00:12:45.940 elaborate on that but are you nervous about the effect that these charges could have on your

00:12:49.460 ability to do your work yeah that's where the the greatest concern is I I I don't think um well I

00:13:04.260 know I'm not guilty that's one thing but to see where it ends up if I do have criminal charges

00:13:09.380 against me and I and and that sticks then I don't think I'll be able to cross the border I

00:13:15.620 I, that's going to suck.

00:13:17.880 I don't need to per se.

00:13:19.800 I got other work that I can keep busy with in the office,

00:13:22.380 but I do enjoy what I'm doing and that's trucking across the continent

00:13:27.260 and enjoying that part of the job.

00:13:30.020 So there's some concern there, but at the same time, no, I'm not concerned.

00:13:35.760 You know, the truth, like I said earlier, the truth will prevail.

00:13:39.140 And I don't, you never know where it goes, right?

00:13:42.780 But hopefully we can show to the judge and the courts there that we're not guilty and continue on in our life of traveling this continent into the U.S. as much as I do and crossing Canada as much as I do.

00:13:57.720 So, yeah, if I do get charged, we'll have to adjust life somewhat, but not to worry.

00:14:05.820 Right now, you're coming across, as I'd say, quite nonchalant about it.

00:14:10.000 But I know in that video, the full version that I played the clip from earlier, you were cracking jokes about being a mischievous person.

00:14:17.560 So how do you take this and not be angry?

00:14:20.560 How do you take this and not be upset about this?

00:14:23.080 I mean, how do you just let this roll off your back as well as you seem to be doing?

00:14:31.320 My Christian background, I'm comforted in the fact that we are called to speak the truth.

00:14:38.100 and after that it's not up to us so we're that that does give me the greatest comfort that that

00:14:45.360 anybody can receive you know we were called to to do the best we can and after that we we need to

00:14:51.560 leave it in in the good lord's hand and that's where it is with me i i'm confident that the lord

00:14:57.120 has a plan what it exactly is we'll find out and yeah it's uh it might be interesting where it goes

00:15:06.280 But life is supposed to be interesting.

00:15:09.160 So looking forward to whatever the Lord decides to do with me.

00:15:13.640 Now, you mentioned that the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is taking up your case.

00:15:19.140 And I should just disclose to my audience, as I do whenever I bring up the JCCF,

00:15:23.380 that I am on the board of that organization, but that has no bearing on me doing this interview.

00:15:28.540 But I will say that the one thing we've seen in a lot of the cases that came up in the convoy,

00:15:34.640 a lot of the criminal cases that they've been quietly dropped we've seen over the the last 14

00:15:39.700 months uh in in several instances of the crown just withdraw charges or decide not to proceed

00:15:44.920 with them and i do find it just baffling that they're still adding new charges when they've

00:15:50.700 already decided that many of the previous people they've charged were not worth prosecuting

00:15:55.080 yeah that's where when i talk to a few of the people that i trust in my life that i've met

00:16:04.020 since um well in the last year and a half that's the same thing they're they're they're they're

00:16:08.900 all struck struck scratching their heads going why now and and why you and yeah it is um something

00:16:17.700 that uh is interesting but definitely thankful for the uh the work that a bunch of uh lawyers

00:16:24.660 are doing and are willing to do and what the jccf is doing has been um it's been great it's it's um

00:16:30.660 And that gives you that comfort, right?

00:16:34.680 We're not alone.

00:16:35.820 There's people out here that are willing to help.

00:16:38.360 And I've been humbled by the amount of support I've been receiving from people across Canada,

00:16:44.820 people praying for me, people frustrated and angry,

00:16:50.800 and all kinds of emotions that you're, and you're feeling them yourselves as well, right?

00:16:55.360 And that's what's been so, so beautiful about being where I am today is, is this country has a lot of great people and they're, they're, they're willing to help where they can. And that's, that's part of my comfort as well. I'm not going to be facing this alone.

00:17:12.240 I've been blessed with a wife for 25 years, and she crackingly said a joke that, yeah, if you end up in jail, then, yeah, you're, whatever.

00:17:24.200 I can't really say it online, right?

00:17:26.000 But it was kind of funny that she actually said it.

00:17:28.540 I think I know what the joke was, and you're a wise man to not repeat it.

00:17:32.700 But, Harold, I'm so glad you're taking this as stride.

00:17:36.400 I'm so glad you have that background and faith to guide you through this.

00:17:40.380 And I'm very grateful that we got that connection working

00:17:43.720 because it was a delight to talk to you

00:17:45.200 and we wish you well in this.

00:17:47.720 Yes, stay in touch.

00:17:48.720 Thanks, Andrew.

00:17:49.300 All right.

00:17:49.820 I haven't been able to read your book yet,

00:17:51.460 but someday when my emotions have the energy to do it,

00:17:54.160 I look forward to going through that.

00:17:56.060 It's sitting on my counter

00:17:58.540 and it's going to have to be read sometime.

00:18:01.480 But well, that's kind of you to say,

00:18:02.720 and I think it's also an audio book.

00:18:04.000 So if you want to listen to it on your drives,

00:18:05.740 it is available to you.

00:18:07.060 But I appreciate that very much, sir.

00:18:08.480 all right thank you all right thank you that was uh harold jonker in in true trucker fashion

00:18:14.260 joining us from the road glad he uh was able to spend a bit of his break with us and and again i

00:18:19.880 thank you for your patience through that first uh little bit of technical glitches but it all

00:18:24.140 resolved itself which often isn't the case so we are very grateful for that but i i will just say

00:18:30.540 on this i mean the freedom convoy was a pivotal moment in canada and i had decided maybe about a

00:18:37.440 month ago, a month and a half ago, not long after the report from the Public Order Emergency

00:18:42.560 Commission came out, that I was done talking about it. And I don't mean that in the sense that

00:18:46.780 I was tired of it, but I covered it. I spoke about it for months after. I wrote a book about it.

00:18:53.200 I did interviews about it. I covered the Public Order Emergency Commission. And after the

00:18:57.840 commission's report came, I did a post-mortem and a recap of it. And I basically said, I have

00:19:03.640 nothing more to say about this. I have nothing more to add about this. And I had sort of said

00:19:09.400 that, well, not sort of, I mean, internally, I mentioned to myself, I converse with myself often

00:19:14.620 because other people don't like speaking to me. So I take what I can get, that I didn't have as

00:19:19.540 much to add. And I've had to amend that because when the government is still charging people,

00:19:26.780 the government is still going after people, talk about kicking you when you're down.

00:19:31.500 And it was very much akin to, in my mind, when Donald Trump is on his way out of the

00:19:37.080 White House, the transition is happening in, I don't know, five days, and the Democrats

00:19:41.520 decide they want to impeach him just because.

00:19:44.080 I mean, Mark Stein, when he covered the impeachment, talked about it as being like when they dug

00:19:49.440 up Oliver Cromwell and executed him posthumously just to make sure he was really, really dead.

00:19:54.980 The Freedom Convoy is over.

00:19:56.480 It's not a thing.

00:19:57.340 the freedom movement exists and I can only surmise from this that the government is just so tired of

00:20:03.400 people standing up for freedom it wants to continue to go after them in this way so I revoke my

00:20:10.060 previous pledge to stop talking about this when the government is still prosecuting and persecuting

00:20:16.140 people months after more than a year after the protest disbanded and it's a shame that we did

00:20:23.440 not take more seriously the call from the Ottawa Police Service that they were just going to keep

00:20:28.580 hunting things down and all the like and I just kind of as we talk about this the United States 0.97

00:20:34.680 which is you know the land of liberty the land of the free and all that jazz a load of crap many

00:20:39.340 many times the U.S. still as of this day has its cross-border vaccine mandate in effect now

00:20:46.920 finally we have gotten confirmation from the White House that they are going to stop with the vaccine

00:20:53.280 mandate to enter the country as of May 11th. Now this has been one of the most ridiculous 0.92

00:20:58.380 things to keep on the books as this goes on and I bring this up for two reasons. Number one

00:21:04.780 because it's always been a porous border as we've seen where people who go across by land even though

00:21:11.540 they technically need to be vaccinated have generally been able to go in without having

00:21:15.800 too much in the way of questions and moreover let's say you were the first to get vaccinated

00:21:21.440 in, oh, January of 2021.

00:21:23.700 And three weeks later,

00:21:24.480 you got your second dose

00:21:25.560 in January of 2021.

00:21:28.020 And you have now been fully vaccinated

00:21:31.240 for over two years,

00:21:33.720 which no one would tell you

00:21:35.600 gives you any immunity whatsoever

00:21:37.060 at this point. 0.96

00:21:38.720 Even the most like ardent pro-vax people

00:21:40.900 will say that your vaccination immunity wanes

00:21:43.540 after considerably less time

00:21:45.540 than two years and three months.

00:21:46.840 So the idea that this is a useful metric

00:21:49.320 and a useful qualification and categorization

00:21:52.800 for people entering a country is absolutely absurd.

00:21:56.260 But the U.S. has been clinging to this,

00:21:58.480 forcing people to hand over their proof of vaccination

00:22:00.880 to get on a plane to if they want to go to Florida or something.

00:22:04.260 And the fact that it's taken until May of 2023,

00:22:06.980 when even far less free countries have done away with this,

00:22:11.400 is absurd.

00:22:12.280 And I think it's exactly why the convoy existed.

00:22:14.980 And it is an absolute shame.

00:22:17.280 And I mean, too little, too late.

00:22:18.640 but you know what it's good that it's ending at least i want to turn back to canadian politics

00:22:23.220 and specifically in alberta where an election is once again underway it's been a bit of a tumultuous

00:22:30.540 time in alberta politics jason kenney was defenestrated by the members of the united

00:22:36.020 conservative party largely i think but not exclusively because of the wake of the freedom

00:22:41.600 convoy which claimed more political casualties on the right than it did on the left like aaron

00:22:46.820 O'Toole and then Jason Kenney and you had rising from the UCP leadership race Danielle Smith in 0.59

00:22:53.840 one of the most stunning political comebacks in Canadian history she went from being a premier

00:22:59.680 and waiting to a pariah to now the premier seeking re-election I think the polls are generally

00:23:06.840 favorable but not in a manner that is a slam dunk so let's get the details on what's happening

00:23:12.560 in the weeks ahead with True North's own Alberta correspondent, Rachel Emanuel.

00:23:17.960 Rachel, good to talk to you again.

00:23:19.460 Thanks for coming on, and thank you for contributing to the winning team

00:23:23.200 at last week's True North retreat.

00:23:26.920 Absolutely.

00:23:27.660 I mean, there's still a couple photos that we haven't taken,

00:23:30.060 and I'm hoping to get them still, but we'll have to take our win for now.

00:23:34.820 Yeah, it was a photo scavenger hunt.

00:23:38.100 So there are like, you know, 19 unflattering selfies of Rachel and me and our other teammate.

00:23:44.240 But you know what?

00:23:44.700 We got the win, so it all works out well.

00:23:46.960 Let's talk about Alberta politics here.

00:23:49.380 And, you know, the big theme that's been coming out of this race is that it's going to be decided in Calgary.

00:23:55.240 I think it tends to be the case that people view Edmonton as going to the NDP, rural Alberta is going to the UCP,

00:24:01.560 and Calgary being the battleground that will really decide it.

00:24:04.600 Is that, in your view, a pretty accurate assessment or is it an oversimplification here?

00:24:10.940 That's a very accurate assessment, especially for this election.

00:24:14.160 I would say I think one of the things that we can observe is that both Danielle Smith and Rachel Notley decided to kick off their campaigns in Calgary as it has viewed as the battleground.

00:24:24.520 As well, I've spoken to the UCP about their plan for the campaign and all my sources are telling me you're going to want to be in Calgary.

00:24:31.720 Most of the events are going to be here.

00:24:33.160 There's going to be a couple in Lethbridge, and they said a couple in Edmonton as well, but not very many.

00:24:38.000 So the UCP is certainly focusing their efforts in Calgary, and the NDP will be as well, because that's going to be where the election is decided.

00:24:46.480 So how do you win in Calgary?

00:24:48.820 I mean, I don't know if there's one simple roadmap, but a lot of people outside of Alberta think of Alberta as being the conservative place.

00:24:56.760 But it's a suburban environment.

00:24:58.840 It's partly urban.

00:25:00.100 There are some more rural aspects here.

00:25:02.100 Is there like a quintessential Calgary voter that they can go after?

00:25:07.580 Yeah, and I guess one of the other things that you have to think about when we're looking at Calgary is the demographics are now changing.

00:25:12.800 We have thousands of voters who are flooding in from outside of the province into provincial immigration in the province has never been so high.

00:25:19.540 And most of those people are going to Calgary.

00:25:21.700 So the parties might be looking at their tactics a little bit differently than they have in the past.

00:25:25.500 I think when we look at what the parties need to do to appeal to voters here they're really looking

00:25:30.720 at the big bread and butter issues of the election campaign so to speak so one of the ones on

00:25:35.440 everyone's mind is health care the COVID-19 pandemic proved that our health care system

00:25:40.280 is a disaster maybe public health care isn't as great as we think it is that's a conversation for

00:25:45.380 another time but what we do know is that provinces are realizing they have a big crisis on their

00:25:49.560 hands and they need to work on it here in Alberta like another province but especially here we have

00:25:53.920 a big problem with not having enough family doctors. So Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has 0.53

00:25:58.720 made some work in her first couple months as premier to re-attract more doctors to the province

00:26:03.660 and to reinvest in the health care system and Rachel Notley is going to be making claims about

00:26:08.940 her promises to bolster health care in the province as well. She's also been saying things like

00:26:13.580 Danielle Smith wants to privatize health care. The left loves to make this claim about conservative. 0.99

00:26:18.960 They think it's going to be a sticking point for the election. Another big thing that we're going

00:26:22.680 be looking at is simply just the cost of living crisis. Everything costs so much right now with

00:26:27.700 the runaway inflation that we're experiencing and people are having a really hard time getting by

00:26:32.500 so we can expect to see the parties making pitches as to how they're going to help

00:26:36.240 put more money back in Albertans' pockets. It doesn't look like any of the parties are

00:26:41.260 promising to cut government spending right now. That doesn't seem like a very popular trend at

00:26:45.800 the moment. So we're seeing ways they can directly put money back into taxpayers' pockets. One of

00:26:51.220 the things we're seeing is taxpayer spending cuts. Danielle Smith had a big announcement to that

00:26:55.580 effect yesterday. It was one of her big campaign pitches. And then of course, another one that we 0.99

00:27:01.440 can expect to see is education. People want to see more investing in education. And finally,

00:27:06.220 public safety. We are in a public safety crisis and Calgary is absolutely feeling the effects of

00:27:11.560 that. Anecdotally, it seems like you're hearing about someone getting stabbed in the city almost

00:27:15.740 every day, but the data matches those numbers with a significant spike in crime since just last

00:27:21.160 year and especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We know now that Rachel Notley has also

00:27:26.820 committed to hiring more police officers if she's elected premier on May 29th. Meanwhile, Danielle

00:27:32.440 Smith has already worked on hiring more police officers in her tenure as premier and she's

00:27:37.040 looking at tackling the root issue which one of is bail reform. We know that the Alberta government

00:27:42.340 kind of has its hands tied behind the back as that is mostly a federal issue and certainly they've

00:27:46.520 been applying pressure on the federal government to get that bail reform in as it's often repeated

00:27:51.140 offenders that are committing these violent crimes on the streets and then of course the

00:27:54.680 addictions crisis is another thing that daniel smith's government has been looking at more so

00:27:58.800 than i think any other province they're really targeting treatment and they say we're going to

00:28:02.660 target treatment but we're not going to put people at risk in the meanwhile we're also going to hire

00:28:06.480 more police officers especially along those transit centers where a lot of those really

00:28:10.200 violent crimes are happening and something that somebody in the premier's office said to me this

00:28:13.940 week is it's such a hot issue right now because everyday people who have used transit every

00:28:18.920 single day of their lives to get to work, to get to school, are now rethinking it. And when they

00:28:23.480 do go out and use the transit, there's someone there who is homeless, who is kind of acting in

00:28:29.220 an aggressive manner towards them. Maybe they've witnessed a criminal activity happen. And so this

00:28:33.340 is something for those people living in Calgary that they are really thinking about and they're

00:28:36.760 concerned about. So that's going to be a huge issue for the election. Let's talk about the

00:28:41.820 healthcare issue specifically, because I know that accusing conservatives of wanting to

00:28:46.440 privatized health care is like something that happens in any election, regardless of whether

00:28:50.600 the conservative has ever said that. Now, in Danielle Smith's case, she has talked about a

00:28:54.780 lot of bolder ideas for health care. I know the one that came up during the leadership race was

00:28:59.240 this health care spending account. So basically putting dollars in the hands of Alberta residents

00:29:03.960 and letting them be a lot more selective about which care they access. Has any of that translated

00:29:09.100 into UCP policy or the UCP platform yet? Like, has there been anything bold she's come out with

00:29:14.160 on health care or is it just this public health guarantee that she has on her website which

00:29:18.460 basically says no we're not privatizing things i think that currently what we're seeing from

00:29:24.180 the ucp is a bit of damage control on some of the attacks that rachel notley has made against

00:29:29.160 danielle smith's previous comments when she wasn't premier on health care you know as you mentioned

00:29:34.540 she's been a radio host so she's said a lot of things she's made a lot of comments discussed a

00:29:38.940 lot of ideas the ndp are now dragging those out and i'm sure we're going to be able to see that

00:29:42.920 throughout the whole election they're going to be dragging out a laundry list of ideas and policies

00:29:47.020 she's discussed in the past to use that to attack her so right now we're seeing the ucp just be very

00:29:53.060 straightforward and say that they are committed and they're not going to privatize health care

00:29:56.260 and you're not going to have to pay to see your family doctor that's a big attack right now but

00:30:00.660 daniel smith was actually asked about her specific policy of a health spending account yesterday

00:30:04.560 the ucp war room are doing these little videos with the premier every night where albertans can

00:30:09.940 send in their questions and she was asked about a health spending account and she says it is still

00:30:13.920 something that she's interested in and if her government is re-elected she would look at

00:30:17.880 implementing it. I don't know if we can expect to see a formal policy being trot out during the

00:30:22.980 campaign just because it has led to some negative publicity and maybe just even a mischaracterization

00:30:28.600 of what that policy really is so I would be surprised if we see her sort of bring that

00:30:33.220 forward as an official UCP policy but she still seems to be committed to the idea and you know

00:30:37.520 Certainly for anyone who's ever had a health spending account, it's a really great policy and it's something that you can use very successfully.

00:30:43.840 However, if you're not really familiar with what it is, I can see how it could be mischaracterized.

00:30:47.700 I just want to play a clip from Rachel Notley and get your take on it here.

00:30:52.640 This is Rachel Notley outlining what I think is probably going to be the major narrative of the campaign.

00:30:59.120 Let's take a look.

00:31:00.500 You also know Danielle Smith and you know that she will tell you what she thinks you want to hear.

00:31:07.520 And then she will go ahead and she will do whatever she wants.

00:31:11.740 Privatize your health care, gamble with your pensions, pander to extremists. 0.99

00:31:16.240 We'll lead a government that takes phone calls from nurses, not extremists.

00:31:23.640 We won't make seniors pay more for medical exams.

00:31:28.200 We'll cover more of their medications and, yes, their vaccinations,

00:31:32.260 because we believe in science and evidence, not conspiracies.

00:31:35.240 conspiracies and my friends we will not we will not make women pay for reproductive health care

00:31:42.020 will cover the cost of contraception for free so we see all the usual tricks there uh rachel 1.00

00:31:50.560 notley bringing up the abortion question even though danielle smith is quite socially progressive 1.00

00:31:55.500 and uh more importantly accusing danielle smith of picking up the phone for extremists and not

00:32:01.180 for nurses. So that's the big line here. Rachel Notley says that when a nurse calls, she'll answer

00:32:05.520 it. But when an extremist calls, she won't. So really, the NDP is digging into this idea that

00:32:10.420 Danielle Smith is an extremist or that she's surrounded by extremists. And is this basically

00:32:15.220 going to be the entire campaign? I think it's going to be the campaign. I think it's going to

00:32:20.620 be a very dirty campaign where we see a lot of personal attacks being made against the leader. 1.00

00:32:25.960 It doesn't help, as I mentioned, that Danielle Smith had so much time as a radio host and 0.99

00:32:30.460 discuss so many ideas you know i think that's actually what led to her winning the ucp leadership

00:32:34.860 race she really earned back people's trust during her time as a radio host and her willingness to

00:32:39.460 discuss sometimes controversial issues really led people to admire her and to respect her that was 0.59

00:32:45.320 something i heard around the province when she was campaigning to be the leader of the united

00:32:49.700 conservative party however now the ndp has this huge backlogs of things they can log against the

00:32:55.400 premier to sort of try to attack her and just credit her so i think it's going to get very

00:32:59.380 personal i think we can expect to see a lot more of these types of complaints from the ndp that

00:33:05.140 being said they also have their own record to run against so that's certainly something interesting

00:33:09.560 to look at here it's not like they haven't governed before and certainly they were responsible for many

00:33:13.820 unpopular policies and so the ucp can very effectively point out rachel notley's own

00:33:19.300 record as a former premier i i don't put too much stock in polling but i admit it's tempting to get

00:33:25.800 drawn into the horse race uh sort of stuff here as far as the polls go have there been any that

00:33:31.240 have showed the ndp as within arm's reach of a victory or is it looking fairly certainly like a

00:33:37.200 ucp victory with everything so far it's looking pretty fairly certainly like a ucp victory victory

00:33:43.420 right now they are ahead by a couple points some of the polls i just saw come out in the last day

00:33:47.860 or two i think showed them a little bit closer maybe the ndp a little bit pulling ahead in

00:33:52.840 calgary but that's just some polls but i also find that alberta is very difficult to pin down

00:33:57.820 when it comes to polling we know that in the last election won by former alberta premier jason kenny

00:34:02.840 the polls actually showed him about 10 behind of the support he actually ended up receiving

00:34:07.300 now of course kenny was viewed as someone who was quite a bit more moderate than smith is viewed at

00:34:12.220 you know correctly or incorrectly so but it is interesting just that the polls were so off in

00:34:16.860 the last election and i am really interested to see how things are going to play out this time

00:34:20.660 around and just for people who aren't from alberta or aren't as familiar with the politics like there

00:34:25.040 are no other parties that are contenders here for even winning seats are there no we have a host of

00:34:30.780 other parties lots of different little conservative spinoff parties and independence parties but

00:34:34.760 they've all really struggled to gain any momentum i think that daniel smith is so popular with the

00:34:39.860 really conservative base in a way that jason kenney just wasn't and in a way that a lot of

00:34:44.420 conservative leaders aren't a lot of conservative leaders kind of ignore the further right crowd in

00:34:49.760 turn for a more mainstream route they're trying to appeal to those moderates and obviously while

00:34:54.140 Danielle Smith is appealing to those moderates now in the official general election campaign

00:34:58.800 during the United Conservative Party leadership race she appealed to those who are really far

00:35:03.240 to the right those that are socially conservative those that are very you know faith-based and the

00:35:08.100 libertarians that often get left to the side and ignored by other contenders and so she still has

00:35:13.500 most of their support of course you know you're going to lose a little bit of support to the

00:35:16.600 Independence Party and stuff. But they've also had their own fair share of issues. They just

00:35:21.460 recently got rid of their former leader. That was Archer Pawlowski. And so they're kind of

00:35:25.940 bleeding support right now. And when I talked to the party board, they said, yeah, we know we're

00:35:29.740 not going to do very well in this election. We don't even have a leader headed into things.

00:35:33.420 So it's not going to be a good showing for us this time around, but we're going to rebuild

00:35:36.960 and come back stronger after this. And then on the left, you have the Alberta Liberal Party,

00:35:41.940 the Alberta party, but they're basically non-entities right now. No, it's been very

00:35:47.160 interesting how the NDP have really been able to capture the left as a whole in the province.

00:35:52.780 You know, it makes things maybe a little bit more difficult for the Alberta, though it is

00:35:56.240 traditionally a much more conservative province than elsewhere we see in Canada. We're not going

00:36:00.200 to expect to see the NDP picking up too many seats outside of, you know, downtown in the immediate

00:36:05.060 Calgary area, as well as Edmonton. There may be a few other seats. They usually pull some in

00:36:09.140 Lethbridge, but they've really been able to capture that left-wing vote in a way that other

00:36:13.620 parties just haven't been able to break into. So just before I let you go, Rachel, how are you

00:36:18.080 going to be covering this? What are you looking out for? I'm looking for some of those main

00:36:22.820 better and broader issues that I think most people are going to be really following. Public safety,

00:36:27.200 for example, I'm really curious to hear. I know the NDP have been avoiding talking about it,

00:36:31.620 but they obviously, for a time when they were governed, were very for, you know, safe injection

00:36:35.860 sites. And so I'm curious if those are still policies that we can expect to see them pushing

00:36:40.720 forward. They don't want to talk about it right now. I know they're going to get asked about it

00:36:44.120 at some point. So I'm curious to hear what they have to say about that. And then with Danielle

00:36:47.520 Smith, you know, I'm going to keep a close eye on how much government money she is promising away.

00:36:52.620 She just promised a new Calgary arena. That was a really great deal for the party that they

00:36:57.120 announced, but that's about $330 million worth of provincial spending. Of course, very popular in

00:37:02.380 calgary but it is a lot of government we're looking at and alberta still has a large deficit

00:37:06.020 to pay off so i'm curious to see how they're going to be appealing to those moderate voters

00:37:10.000 and especially in danielle's case appealing to those moderate voters while still making sure

00:37:13.940 that she doesn't turn her back on her base because they will notice and they will not accept it

00:37:18.120 all right well we'll definitely have you back on and keep an eye out for your coverage which will

00:37:23.260 be at tnc.news and also every saturday on the alberta roundup and i also mentioned earlier

00:37:29.200 Harold Jonker was in Rachel's and her brother's fabulous documentary with True North distributed

00:37:35.860 and I was also in it so that might be why I think it's fabulous that is the freedom occupation which

00:37:41.440 Rachel did a bang-up job with and it ties into the first topic so we all bring it together and

00:37:47.300 I guess this episode all roads lead to Rachel so good to talk to you thanks so much for coming on

00:37:51.640 today thank you for having me all right well that does it for us for today I just want to give a

00:37:58.140 A little bit of a gloss over because we talked last week about the PSAC strike, the big public workers strike.

00:38:04.980 And this is when I get to do a bit of a victory lap because we saw that the government ultimately folded here.

00:38:10.720 They gave the public sector workers a huge rage, 3% a year over four years, so 12% raise total.

00:38:22.660 absolutely astronomical especially compared to what workers in the private sector typically get

00:38:29.120 over that time which is oftentimes bupkis but uh here is um franco terrizano and i last week

00:38:35.040 kind of predicting that this is where things were headed right i know that mona fortier the

00:38:40.120 treasury board president has said that she wants an open dialogue and all of this stuff and and

00:38:45.420 you know she says the union has given 500 and some odd uh demands and of those you know a few

00:38:50.180 are those core sort of critical ones. Do you think the government folds here?

00:38:54.160 Well, I'm not at the negotiating table and I don't have a crystal ball, but let me just point

00:38:58.440 out the obvious. The only way that these union negotiators can even go to the table with these

00:39:03.220 types of outrageous demands is because you have a government that doesn't care about reining and

00:39:09.420 spending, that has been so frivolous for so long and has no plan to actually exercise restraint.

00:39:15.160 yep franco called that a government with no plans to exercise restraint which is why we shouldn't

00:39:21.400 be all that surprised that they uh give the union pretty much everything they want and try to claim

00:39:26.680 like they kept the unreasonable demands at bay so uh public sector workers decide they don't want

00:39:32.060 to work they do all of these convoy-esque tactics and somehow don't get the emergencies act but you

00:39:37.160 know what in their case they get what they want because the government doesn't actually care about

00:39:41.620 the taxpayers and about anything resembling fiscal restraint. So I can't say it is newsworthy. In

00:39:47.560 fact, it's so un-newsworthy we popped it in the back of the show. I hate to say I told you so,

00:39:52.120 but there we are. So that does it for us. We will be back tomorrow with more of Canada's

00:39:56.640 most irreverent talk show. We'll do a deep dive into the firearms regime, the Liberal government's

00:40:02.560 second swing at major sweeping gun control, and lots more as the week progresses. So we'll talk

00:40:08.540 you soon. Thank you. God bless and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton

00:40:13.760 Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - May 02, 2023

Ottawa police are charging a trucker 14 months after the Freedom Convoy

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