Juno News - August 10, 2024


RCMP criticized for slow response to Alberta murder


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

183.89886

Word count

2,148

Sentence count

115

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

There are killers on the loose in Alberta. The RCMP are continuing its manhunt after a young father was killed on Tuesday. At the time, residents were told to shelter in place at their homes. But the RCMP are now being lambasted for their response. They did not warn residents that the killers were driving around in a stolen city truck. And now, five days later, they still have not released descriptions of the suspects.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 There's killers on the loose in Alberta. The RCMP are continuing its manhunt after a young
00:00:06.420 father was killed on Tuesday. At the time, residents were told to shelter in place at their
00:00:12.160 homes. But the RCMP are now being lambasted for their response. They did not warn residents that
00:00:19.800 the killers were driving around in a stolen city truck. And now, five days later, they still have
00:00:25.700 not released description of the suspects. Let's dive into the details. I'm Rachel Parker and you're
00:00:31.600 watching the Alberta Roundup. Alberta RCMP have released a photo that is believed to be of
00:00:45.240 potential witnesses in Tuesday's fatal shooting that has led to a province-wide manhunt for two
00:00:52.120 suspects. On Tuesday, just before noon, two people were shot and wounded, one fatally, in an incident
00:00:58.020 that resulted in a manhunt for the two suspects who fled in a stolen vehicle. A Rockyview County
00:01:03.380 employee was murdered on the side of the road. He was a young father named Colin Hoff. A Fortis
00:01:08.800 employee was also shot in the arm at the scene of the crime. Description of the suspects still are not
00:01:15.400 available. On Thursday, RCMP said investigators are looking for help identifying the occupants of a car
00:01:20.640 that may have witnessed Tuesday's fatal interaction. It's a dark gray Volkswagen golf sport wagon,
00:01:27.040 potentially from between 2013 and 2015. You can see it pictured here. While Calgarians were told to
00:01:32.860 shelter in place, another controversy was erupting, that of the RCMP's slow response time. Western
00:01:38.740 Standard columnist Corey Morgan documented the RCMP's brutal response throughout the week. In a Wednesday
00:01:44.720 column, he wrote, yesterday while driving, my phone and radio station blew up simultaneously as an
00:01:50.580 emergency alert had been issued. The voice warned that two extremely dangerous armed individuals were
00:01:56.480 at large east of Calgary and that people in the area should lock their doors and windows while
00:02:01.480 sheltering in place. That was it. No description of the gender, age, size, clothing, or race of the
00:02:07.920 individuals. Just a warning to say how much danger people are in and that they should cower at home.
00:02:14.200 The situation didn't change for hours. People were expected to hide out and await word of new
00:02:20.240 developments. It sounded as if nothing was happening, but indeed it was. Details were emerging on a local
00:02:26.600 meta page of a county of Rockyview work truck being chased through people's property. They even posted
00:02:32.100 pictures of the truck and it was known, at least to the people on that group, that the violent offenders
00:02:37.400 were in that truck. Early in the evening, the RCMP reported that the scene of the crime was secure,
00:02:42.960 but that the dangerous criminals were still at large. They were confident the criminals had fled the area
00:02:48.340 and that people could again emerge from their homes. Nothing more. Corey went on, at the time of this
00:02:55.160 writing, the RCMP still hasn't let us know anything. We don't know anything of the description of the
00:03:00.800 killers, which way they went, what their motive may have been, or if there are leads. Why the hell
00:03:07.260 are they remaining silent? At the time of recording this episode on Friday afternoon, the RCMP still
00:03:12.440 had not released descriptions of the suspects. Moving into our next story here, a surge in
00:03:17.720 immigration has forced the province of Alberta to dip into its coffers to spend hundreds of millions
00:03:22.700 more on educating in the coming year. The Alberta government has approved an influx of $250 million
00:03:28.340 to be distributed through the province's school boards for the 2024 to 2025 school year. The announcement
00:03:34.660 follows Alberta's unprecedented population growth, resulting in a surge of new students. Education
00:03:40.280 Minister Dimitris Nicolaitis said the provincial government seldom announces funding outside of
00:03:45.000 the budget cycle, but the rising cost pressures caused by the population growth had to be addressed
00:03:50.280 immediately. He said, quote, I am confident that this new funding will help ensure that Alberta
00:03:55.720 students continue to receive a world-class education. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith previously told True
00:04:01.620 that Alberta's unprecedented population growth of 200,000 people last year resulted in over 22,000
00:04:08.740 new unfunded students. The $250 million in funding will be split up, with $125 million allocated toward
00:04:16.280 operational funding, and another $90 million meant for modular classrooms. Finally, some good news for
00:04:23.060 Albertans who are hoping for some relief in their pockets. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith said that an
00:04:28.260 accelerated tax cut plan is in the work for the province. Take a listen. This is from my friend
00:04:34.120 Adam Seuss at Rebel News.
00:04:35.380 There is a plan for tax cuts, but I think what you're asking is if people will see an accelerated
00:04:39.640 plan for tax cuts. And I can say yes. From what we are seeing, one of the things that we were concerned
00:04:44.800 about was making sure that any tax cut that we do is not going to put us into a deficit position.
00:04:51.320 With the uncertainty that we saw in oil and gas prices, some of the uncertainty about how other
00:04:56.580 sources of revenue would grow, with the growth in the province and the growth in revenue, we wanted to
00:05:01.600 be absolutely certain that this $1.4 billion tax cut wouldn't put us into deficit. We're getting more of
00:05:07.780 that certainty, and as my finance minister gets more confidence, we'll be able to develop an
00:05:13.840 accelerated timeline.
00:05:14.900 And Adam did a full interview with the Premier. You can head over to his X account or to the Rebel News
00:05:19.760 website to watch that full interview, which I absolutely recommend you do as Adam is an
00:05:24.900 incredible Alberta reporter. Moving into the controversy of the week, I'm going to try to
00:05:29.500 get through this one without laughing because I know that some of you guys are still living in
00:05:33.540 Calgary and that this is just probably quite painful for you at the moment. Turns out that there
00:05:39.380 are 16 more sites that need to be repaired in Calgary's major water feed main that burst earlier
00:05:46.420 this summer, and we are going to be going back into stage for water restrictions. Take a listen
00:05:52.160 to Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek.
00:05:53.660 There are 16 locations where there are stress points or weaknesses in the feeder main, and
00:06:00.660 we need to act in the short term to do those repairs. That's why we're giving people three
00:06:06.100 weeks' notice to understand that on August the 26th, we will need to commence the repair work,
00:06:12.160 and it will probably take until about September 23rd. If we don't address this now, we could have
00:06:18.320 another unexpected failure like we did in June. We do not want to take that chance right now.
00:06:23.360 Obviously, this entire situation was incompetent from start to finish. They should have taken more
00:06:29.880 time to ensure that the feeder main was in working condition before they refilled it. Now it needs to
00:06:36.040 be drained and repaired again. We're basically just moving backwards at this point. I do have the
00:06:41.160 greatest amount of sympathy for the people of Calgary. Let's just hope that next fall you all
00:06:46.560 take your anger to the voting booth and do something about it. Finally, moving into what
00:06:52.080 we're watching in the weeks to come, this is a happier story for those of you living in Calgary
00:06:56.200 and for the rest of Alberta, generally speaking. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says that the fall
00:07:00.860 update to the province's Bill of Rights will protect Albertans' personal medical choices,
00:07:05.680 including the right to refuse a vaccine. Smith's pledge came during a town hall in Bonneville
00:07:10.740 with over 300 UCP members, where she discussed strengthening residents' liberties and freedoms,
00:07:16.960 lowering taxes, protecting the province from federal overreach, and improving health care.
00:07:22.460 She confirmed the plans in a statement to True North, saying, quote,
00:07:25.660 In the fall, we will be introducing legislation to amend Alberta's Bill of Rights. Several amendments
00:07:31.260 are being considered to strengthen Albertans' individual and property rights, including an amendment
00:07:35.920 to guarantee Albertans' the right to accept or refuse a medical treatment. Before becoming Premier in 2022,
00:07:42.520 Smith pledged to amend the Alberta Human Rights Act to prohibit employers from terminating employees
00:07:47.180 based on their vaccination status. But she ultimately scrapped these plans after she was elected. 0.95
00:07:53.060 At the time, she called Albertans losing their jobs for declining to take the vaccine,
00:07:57.420 a, quote, human rights violation. However, the Public Health Act takes precedence over all laws,
00:08:02.920 except the Alberta Bill of Rights, meaning an amended Alberta Human Rights Act,
00:08:07.500 would have done little to protect medical choices in the face of public health edicts.
00:08:12.220 Finally, moving into our weekly comment roundup, last week I hosted a panel discussion with Tariq
00:08:16.980 Elnaga and Marty Belanger, better known as Marty Up North, and they said that they are feeling
00:08:23.060 a bit disillusioned with Danielle Smith's premiership and that they hope she makes changes
00:08:28.260 in the coming weeks so that they can continue to support her as Premier. I'm going to take a look
00:08:32.920 at a few of those comments from last week's episode now. User Edgar Edgerton said,
00:08:38.100 the only other option for Alberta is the NDP. That would be devastating. The problem with Alberta
00:08:43.200 is that we are stuck with Eastern Canada's liberal NDP co-conspirators. I wanted to respond to this
00:08:49.680 comment specifically because I saw many similar comments. I don't really agree with the idea that if
00:08:54.860 you are unhappy with a politician that you would otherwise support or who represents a party that
00:09:00.260 you would typically support, it means that you automatically want the opposition to win,
00:09:04.600 in this case the Alberta NDP. I think it simply means that you are holding that political leader
00:09:08.960 to a higher standard and you want them to actually push for the policies that they said they supported
00:09:14.560 when you elected them. So I think holding a politician to account and saying that you don't
00:09:18.800 feel they've done an adequate job, as the panel was saying last week, I don't think it means that
00:09:23.620 you are hoping for, you know, an NDP win. Just as when we look at the federal conservatives and say,
00:09:28.960 oh, you know, we don't like that they've done a good job on this. You know, Pierre Polyev took a
00:09:33.480 long time to come out and say that he was going to lower immigration numbers and he was criticized
00:09:37.800 that for a while. And I don't think that people criticizing him were saying, oh, you know, it's
00:09:41.380 better if we have four more years of Justin Trudeau. I think that what they were actually saying was,
00:09:46.300 Pierre, we need to lower immigration. And that criticism worked because Polyev eventually came out
00:09:51.400 and said that he's going to drastically reduce immigration numbers. And I think that's what
00:09:54.700 the criticism of Danielle Smith here is seeking to do. It's saying, listen, Danielle, we want an
00:09:58.840 Alberta provincial police force. We want lower taxes. And I think maybe they've been effective
00:10:04.220 in that. We just even today and we had a segment on the show about tax cuts coming for Albertans.
00:10:09.360 So I think it's misguided to say that to criticize a politician is to desire that their opponents
00:10:15.580 would be elected. User BB10 said, quote, no one was handed a bigger mess than Javier Millel of
00:10:22.980 Argentina, yet he has made incredible progress in just seven months. He has slashed the size of
00:10:28.040 government, is running a balanced budget, and is effectively tackling runaway inflation.
00:10:34.440 Last month saw the first month in 40 years with zero food price inflation. Some people were also
00:10:40.100 arguing that Danielle Smith hasn't had enough time to make changes. And this user is arguing that
00:10:45.320 some politicians are able to make strides within just seven months. He appears to be arguing that
00:10:49.440 that, you know, that point is not quite correct. And it's true, Javier Millel is doing amazing things
00:10:55.980 in Argentina. It's been quite amazing to watch. Sorry if I keep mispronouncing my words. I am
00:11:01.300 quite congested. I have a little bit of a lingering flu. I'm doing my best to get through today's
00:11:05.800 content. So hopefully you guys can all understand what I'm saying. Okay, and finally, user at
00:11:10.140 Blade 797 said, quote, I like this woman, but I want her to dig her heels in regarding immigration 1.00
00:11:16.240 and even harder stance on trans ideology than her current one. So, you know, those were some of the
00:11:22.200 comments that were also raised in last week's episode, which I highly recommend you go in and
00:11:27.380 give it a watch, give it a listen, and post your thoughts about it in the comment section below.
00:11:32.420 Okay, everyone, that's all we have time for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Alberta
00:11:36.220 Roundup. I'll be back next week with more content for you guys. Have a great weekend and God bless.