Juno News - August 03, 2024


“She almost got booed” - Is Danielle Smith losing support？


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

204.059

Word Count

9,448

Sentence Count

580

Misogynist Sentences

33

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was elected as a leader of the United Conservative Party
00:00:13.440 less than two years ago. She won on the sixth and final ballot and at the time
00:00:18.660 was considered one of the most, if not the most conservative candidate in the race.
00:00:24.320 However, in the months since, some conservatives, including those who supported her during the
00:00:29.520 leadership race, are starting to feel a little bit disillusioned with Danielle Smith. They're
00:00:33.740 saying that she is failing to deliver on promises and policies that she backed during the leadership
00:00:38.940 race, like an Alberta pension plan, an Alberta police force, and lowering taxes. Today on the
00:00:45.780 Alberta Roundup with Rachel Parker, I am joined by Tariq Angala and Marty Belanger, otherwise known
00:00:51.780 as Marty Up North, to discuss. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure, Rachel.
00:00:56.460 Pleasure to be back. Wasn't I here just a couple of days ago?
00:00:59.520 Yes, fan favorite. I had to bring you back pretty quickly. The people were demanding
00:01:04.040 it. So Tariq, I wanted to start with you. Part of the reason I want to have you both
00:01:07.620 on is because you've been pretty vocal and pointing out some of the inconsistencies and
00:01:11.480 what Danielle said that she was going to deliver on versus now what she has done about two years
00:01:16.100 into her premiership. And you kind of have been pointing out, listen, we need to see some
00:01:19.600 action on her. So Tariq, why don't you start by saying whether or not you supported Danielle
00:01:23.320 during the leadership race and in the ways you feel she's not delivering now?
00:01:27.400 Okay, great question. So I definitely did support Premier Smith during the leadership race. And
00:01:32.240 I think I did everything I can as an Albertan to support the UCP in their run. So whether that was
00:01:39.980 buying a membership, donating to the party, volunteering. I remember running really a
00:01:44.980 campaign against the NDP seat by seat in Calgary and pointing out the flaws of every candidate. So I was
00:01:51.020 very, very energized and enthusiastic. And if anything, Rachel, if you remember, you and I met at the
00:01:55.780 Big Four last year, and you interviewed me, as Danielle was in her government was just getting
00:02:01.300 elected. Now, I feel like we've done our part to support Premier Smith and to support the UCP.
00:02:07.740 It was up to her now to do her part. And I expected big, bold moves in the first 100 days.
00:02:13.740 Because again, nobody makes big, bold moves in the last 100 days. I expected, you know, aggressive tax
00:02:18.620 cuts, aggressive size of government jobs, etc. None of that has happened. Exactly zero things of the
00:02:24.300 things she's run on have happened. So she's likable, she's visible. But in terms of results,
00:02:29.300 we haven't seen any. Marty, why don't you go ahead and say if this is sort of your sentiments as well,
00:02:33.780 or if you would take different issues with Danielle? No, it's my sentiment as well. And like
00:02:40.660 Tariq, I, you know, I remember I was there on election night. But I remember very specifically,
00:02:47.380 you know, for the three months leading up to the election, I was doing a weekly podcast with
00:02:52.080 somebody else where we were specifically focused on promoting Danielle. Like that's how much we
00:02:56.700 that's how much I faith I had in her, you know, Tariq says she's a conservative, I thought she was
00:03:03.200 supposed to be beyond a conservative, I was hoping she'd be a libertarian. Because I, you know, I believe
00:03:08.820 in small government, almost no government is what I believe in. And so, and yeah, I agree. Not I in
00:03:17.660 industry, we talk about the 90 days, not even 100 days, we go 90 days, you know, you have to make
00:03:24.000 an impact in those first 90 days. And after that, you either settle into a routine or you run out of
00:03:29.260 time. And for me, I was being critical at first. And every time I'm critical of her, I get a lot of
00:03:34.880 pushback. So but in but to answer your question, yes, she right now, I'm not I'm I my patient is
00:03:41.740 exhausted. I don't think she's moving in the right direction. She needs a course correction.
00:03:45.280 So why don't we take a little look at some of the policies that she has said she supported during
00:03:50.440 the leadership race that we haven't seen any action on. One of the main things is obviously
00:03:54.280 an Alberta provincial police force. I think this is something that a lot of conservatives,
00:03:57.700 Albertans feel very strongly about. They feel that this would give us a level of separation from
00:04:02.680 the federal government and from Ottawa that we don't currently have, and that they would like to
00:04:06.580 see. Now, Daniel Smith said she was in favor of a provincial police force during the election,
00:04:11.000 but we haven't seen any dollars for that. Tariq, why don't you go first? Why do you
00:04:15.080 think that is? You bet. So I think a couple of things. I think one, she bought into the pushback
00:04:22.340 from, ironically enough, the urban voters from Calgary and Edmonton that do not have the RCMP
00:04:29.340 and have their own municipal policing force. She introduced what I would call very half measures
00:04:35.500 around it rather than just being bold and being aggressive. So Grand Prairie is the only municipality
00:04:40.080 in the last, what, 18 months that have voted to transition from the RCMP into their own police force.
00:04:47.180 And then, again, half measures. She's like, well, we're going to backstop the policing shortage with
00:04:52.280 the Alberta sheriffs. In my mind, if I was to do this, we were going to replace the RCMP with the Alberta
00:04:58.220 sheriffs. And then constables can, if they wanted to, apply into the new police force and get accepted.
00:05:04.140 So I'm pretty disappointed, I think, in her move to the left and realizing that, again,
00:05:10.480 she won Calgary by a very narrow margin. She's now starting to cater to the left rather than say,
00:05:16.180 you know what, the sky isn't going to fall if we get the police force and the pension plan and so on.
00:05:20.440 Do it now so that in four years when you're up for re-election, you're good. You're in a good spot.
00:05:25.280 And you could tell your voters, hey, this worked and crime rates have dropped, drug overdoses have
00:05:30.000 dropped, drug crime has dropped, like the things that she really, really cares about.
00:05:34.180 Which is a key, which is a key for her, right? If I can just add to that, like when you listen to
00:05:39.300 Danielle, yeah, she'll talk, she knows all the priorities that she was elected on. She can rhyme
00:05:45.040 them off, right? She'll say she was elected to lower taxes, defend Alberta against Ottawa,
00:05:49.560 promote her industry and things like that. By the way, she's very good with words. I mean,
00:05:53.620 her 30 years in radio and media serves her well, but she speaks about the priorities. But when you
00:06:01.360 compare her priorities with ours, you see sort of a little bit of a disconnect, which is she is a
00:06:07.860 politician and she has her favorite projects and her favorite projects get advanced. And the ones that
00:06:13.000 she doesn't favor, she'll find an excuse not to advance them. That's one of my...
00:06:18.320 Let's be specific. What are those favorite projects in your mind?
00:06:21.440 Well, she wants to be... I think she's happy fighting Ottawa. She looks like she's happy. So
00:06:26.880 she wants to be remembered as somebody who stood up to Ottawa for Alberta. Maybe that's because she's
00:06:31.340 thinking of a longer career in Ottawa. So, you know, the Sovereignty Act and things like that,
00:06:36.140 she's very, very proud of that. She doesn't seem to want to tackle making government smaller. She
00:06:42.680 doesn't want that to be her legacy. I don't know why. You know, she's not a Ralph Klein that way.
00:06:46.540 She's absolutely not interested in tackling Alberta Health and going after them and the College of
00:06:52.700 Surgeons. She's, you know, she's... Yeah, her legacy as far as a defender of Alberta, I think is one of
00:07:00.400 the ones that she wants to be known as. She just wants to be, you know, she wants to, in her mind,
00:07:04.620 make Alberta great. And, you know, and then... Go ahead. Sorry.
00:07:10.200 So just to, you know, push back or to be fair for a little bit, she did tackle all about her health
00:07:14.020 services in one capacity. She did break them up, divide them into different sections, sort of get
00:07:19.360 rid of the centralization of power in that regard. But what I'm hearing you address specifically is
00:07:23.920 that you maybe wanted to see a shakeup with more management, maybe people who are responsible, and
00:07:28.520 this is me just assuming, so jumping if I'm incorrect here, people who are directly responsible for
00:07:32.360 policies that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, maybe seeing a shakeup and having them rid of
00:07:36.360 their positions. Is that more of the change that you were looking for?
00:07:39.660 When we were... When I'm looking for a change, and I think the Conservatives in general are that way,
00:07:44.280 we sort of had an overall plan, which is we'd like to see smaller government, we'd like to see lower
00:07:50.380 taxes, we'd like to see Ottawa be, you know, fought and pushed back into their lane, and we do our
00:07:56.460 lanes, and they're all intertwined. They're not separate. And that's the thing, you can't make these
00:08:00.520 things separate. So how do you lower taxes? By finding efficiencies in government somewhere.
00:08:07.420 And where's a place where we think there's efficiencies? In Alberta Health. It's, you know,
00:08:11.360 Alberta Health, we're not target... Well, we are targeting Alberta Health, because it is a bit of
00:08:15.140 a corrupt organization. But we're targeting them because it's just the biggest chunk of our budget.
00:08:21.900 Like, I think it's $29 billion goes to Alberta Health. So, you know, go after that money. Like,
00:08:27.680 it's multiple birds with one stone, cut the taxes, reform Alberta Health, find us some savings and
00:08:34.300 improve it. So you don't do them separately. And whenever she starts to do them separately like
00:08:41.120 that, that's where it falls apart. You know, there's a reason... You're not going after Alberta
00:08:46.040 Health just because we're vindictive or COVID. You're going after Alberta Health. You need to go
00:08:51.420 after Alberta Health because it's a $29 billion juggernaut. Like, you know.
00:08:57.140 So, Tariq, when Marty talks about needing to go after Alberta Health for one reason, to save money,
00:09:01.980 to cut the budget. I mean, it seems fairly obvious to me that one of the reasons that
00:09:05.860 Danielle Smith has not found ways to cut costs is because the government is spending so much money.
00:09:11.440 She's actually, you know, spending more than previous governments. So I don't know. You know,
00:09:15.060 Marty, I believe that she is, ideologically speaking, libertarian, or at least was. She's
00:09:20.500 certainly not governing as one. She's spending a lot of money. And I'm seeing policies that no one
00:09:25.640 asks for, like the railway system. It doesn't seem like, you know, the best time to be implementing
00:09:30.320 a policy like that when what Albertans are really asking for are for tax cuts. But what's your take
00:09:35.420 on the situation? Do you think her government, their high cost of spending, are we as Albertans
00:09:39.580 getting value for the things that our government's spending money on right now?
00:09:45.640 Unequivocally, no. I mean, you know, we used to have sort of a $40 billion a year budget. And
00:09:51.420 we're, I think we're approaching $70 billion. I mean, for me, the most current budget was a
00:09:56.420 shocker when it came out. And I actually did a detailed analysis. I compared the growth of our
00:10:01.700 budget with the growth of our population. And our budget is outpacing growth by a factor of four to
00:10:07.020 one. So it's crazy. And then when you look at spending per capita, in some categories,
00:10:14.220 we're the highest, like, you know, we, I think we're almost the highest in spending per capita
00:10:18.200 on healthcare. And we're not, we're not getting value compared to other places. So that's one
00:10:24.060 answer. And to your, you know, she, you're right, she's not acting like a libertarian. She is a
00:10:28.920 libertarian. I mean, at first people were, she has a tattoo, she literally has a tattoo on her arm,
00:10:33.880 like, from a libertarian organization that she's attended, and she liked it so much,
00:10:40.420 she got it tattooed on her arm. But, but, you know, just this week, she mentioned something like,
00:10:44.680 you know, that, that a provincial auto insurance is not off that, not out of the question. I'm like,
00:10:53.700 wow, like, that's, no, that's out of the question. If you're libertarian. In fact, it's almost out of the
00:10:58.600 question. If you're a conservative, like, you know, more, more state organizations, that's,
00:11:04.280 that's contrary, that's completely contrary to what we've asked her or elected her to do.
00:11:08.900 Tariq, I'll just go ahead and let you answer the same question there. Where do you think things have
00:11:12.100 gone wrong with the budget? I think she, I mean, her budget is $20 billion more than Rachel Notley's
00:11:19.140 biggest budget for, for, for an indication. And I, I don't know how you justify that. And I don't know
00:11:25.000 how you justify even the front bench, like the minister of finance going on TV and saying,
00:11:29.360 Nate Horner and saying, here's our budget. Oh, and by the way, we're deferring taxes because we
00:11:34.580 can't, we, we still have to spend and we want to grow the heritage funds and what have you.
00:11:39.440 I think she could have made some bold moves in the first hundred days to chop out ministries that
00:11:44.360 aren't, I will call essential for today. So for example, if you're in a crunch and you have
00:11:49.640 $77 billion of debt, which the province does, and you need to lower taxes, I get health
00:11:54.980 care spending. Obviously we are inefficiencies in healthcare are gigantic. But then you look
00:12:00.480 at ministries, like for example, sport, recreation, tourism, those can instantly that you can go,
00:12:07.520 like we will still function as society. If, if these ministries go and think about the millions
00:12:13.800 and millions of dollars of staffing, real estate policy, et cetera, that you could save on ministries
00:12:18.360 like those to start with. And she hasn't done that. She hasn't brought small government solutions
00:12:24.340 of opening up the utilities market or the aviation market or the telecoms market or so on. So open up
00:12:32.260 those. So make it cheaper for us as, as consumers to, to get into. So I'd like to see small government
00:12:39.000 solutions, the private, like privatizing parts of the government where we, they're not essential
00:12:44.540 services, but you, the public, the private sector does it better, cheaper, faster. And then ultimately
00:12:49.360 the thing that kind of shocks me the most, Rachel, and I don't know if we're going to talk about this
00:12:52.620 a little bit later, is she's put her foot down and said, I want to double Alberta's population
00:12:57.360 and just the unbridled immigration that we're seeing here. And I understand that immigration
00:13:02.240 is a federal policy item from a total aggregate number, but there's certain tools within Premier
00:13:09.040 Smith's hands that she could do to at least slow it down. But no, she's, she's encouraging it.
00:13:13.900 I mean, 200,000 people in the last, did you, did you hear why she's taken the strategy? Like,
00:13:20.560 you know, she, I, by the way, coincidentally, I, I, I, I listened to her yesterday. So she was in
00:13:26.960 Calgary here yesterday. There was a, what do you call it? A, not an open house, but a, a town hall
00:13:33.120 at, at one of the local constituency associations. And she came out to speak. So, and she, she,
00:13:38.780 she reiterated this, she views, she wants to grow Alberta by to 10 million people as a way to
00:13:45.440 increase our clout within Confederation. And it's like, well, that's, that's a flawed theory
00:13:50.120 anyways, because there's a giant flaw in Confederation, which already dictates who gets
00:13:54.640 however many seats. There's a formula. So increasing our population will barely have an impact on our
00:14:00.960 clout. And, and so it's a, that's a troubling, that, that one really troubled me.
00:14:07.240 If I may, if I may already, I think it's flawed for more than one reason. I think it's also flawed
00:14:11.840 because I don't know that the people that you're bringing here are going to be on board with your
00:14:16.100 conservative agenda. Typically speaking, you know, the people who live in Alberta are very unique.
00:14:20.740 I've, I've lived in Ontario. I've spent much, much time elsewhere in the country. Alberta is a very
00:14:25.220 unique and special place. And I don't know if that policy does enough to address and to want to
00:14:31.600 conserve the uniqueness and the specialness of Alberta. I think that that's being missed. And I
00:14:35.900 remember a few months ago, the premier said, we want to have a million people in Red Deer,
00:14:39.740 a million people in Red Deer. The people who live in Red Deer don't want a million people there.
00:14:43.460 The people who live in Red Deer like that it's a smaller city. They like that they can get into
00:14:47.200 Edmonton quickly. They like that they can get into Calgary quickly without dealing with all the
00:14:50.600 business. And frankly, the expense of those cities.
00:14:53.380 Yeah. Yeah. I find, you know, I'm from an Alberta when there was 1.9 million people here at four and a
00:15:01.000 half. I find this place overwhelming, like overcrowded. So, you know, if it gets to 10 million,
00:15:06.180 I'll be suffocating. So yeah, no, I agree. That's a, that's a great point. She addressed it by saying
00:15:11.220 that, um, actually somebody brought up a good point of perhaps addressing that, which is, you know,
00:15:16.940 make, uh, make the, um, the temporary foreign worker as a stepping stone. So accept workers here
00:15:24.020 under that program. And then if you show yourself as being a valuable, uh, worker, then you can apply
00:15:31.520 for, uh, permanent status afterwards, which was a great idea. And, uh, but, but it's going to be
00:15:37.260 difficult for her anyways, because immigration is kind of like a weird shared responsibility between,
00:15:42.440 um, yeah. The other thing as well is we're not a system or a country that builds quickly. So roads,
00:15:49.100 schools, hospitals, et cetera. So the funny part is, uh, we're, we're already behind capacity. Like
00:15:54.080 if we stopped immigration as a temporary hold for, let's say three to five years, we'd barely still
00:15:59.560 catch up. Um, yet it's absolutely unbridled. Like if you look at the cost of housing, Alberta used to
00:16:04.420 be affordable. Like that was one of, and we wasn't affordable by choice. It was affordable due to
00:16:09.200 organic, organic growth and small governments, uh, low taxes, et cetera, and strong economies.
00:16:14.180 So it wasn't, it wasn't just by, by happenstance that we're affordable. We're losing that now.
00:16:19.160 The Alberta advantage I think is either gone or just about to be gone. Um,
00:16:25.100 yeah, Tariq, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Yeah. It depends on where you live. It still depends
00:16:30.040 on where you live. There are still pockets in Alberta. There's some smaller towns, especially if
00:16:34.360 you go further North where not as many people want to live because of the weather, you can still get a
00:16:38.080 lower cost of living. But you know, one of the reasons that I myself moved to Alberta was partly
00:16:42.360 for a good job opportunity, but also because as a young person, I was priced out of Ontario
00:16:46.300 and most recently living in Calgary, my rent is more than I would have paid if I was living in
00:16:51.800 Niagara. Like my husband and I moved now, but for a two bedroom townhouse, very narrow, I think it
00:16:57.100 wasn't even about nine feet wide. It was almost $3,000 a month. Well, the numbers don't lie. I mean,
00:17:03.060 we, we were letting in, uh, about 250,000 people came to Alberta last year and, and our record year
00:17:11.080 for building housing units is, uh, is 48,000 housing units. And you know, that was in the 1990s. We've
00:17:17.160 done it three or four times, three or four times in the last 50 years, we've had years where we
00:17:21.780 suddenly managed to build 40, 50,000 housing unit. And if you think of a housing unit as holding three
00:17:27.320 or four people perhaps, and I don't even think it's that high, then, then that only accommodates
00:17:32.620 160,000 people. So when we let in 250, we're just falling behind. And the craftsmanship of these homes
00:17:38.520 that are being slapped up are often coming into question as well. Like these new bills are not
00:17:42.320 quality. They're not made to last and they're not providing a good quality of life either.
00:17:46.040 Marty, you mentioned something that I think we need to mention, which is the fact that immigration is
00:17:50.540 federal. That being said, there are things provinces can do to discourage people from, from moving here.
00:17:55.480 I know that you were talking about this a little bit on X. Why don't you share some of your ideas?
00:17:58.360 What are things you think the premier could be doing if she had a stance that we need to slow
00:18:01.880 immigration down? Well, well, like I said, you, you, you, you would have, you would have to show
00:18:07.240 that you have a place to live or a place to, um, to work. Like you could put, I think, I think she
00:18:14.320 could put rule, the province could put rules like that. I mean, uh, language laws are also a rule,
00:18:20.120 right? Um, Quebec does it all the time. You don't speak French within a certain, you, you can't work in
00:18:24.700 Quebec. They won't let you in. I don't know how they do it technically, but Quebec does things
00:18:29.060 like that. So there, there are things to discourage people from coming here or, or things we can do to
00:18:36.140 pick and choose, but, but it would be very difficult. I, the, the way confederation works,
00:18:41.320 once somebody is in Canada, they're almost free to move anywhere they want. And what happens right
00:18:45.620 now, we're letting in millions of people and they're going to Ontario, they're going to Toronto,
00:18:50.240 Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. It's, it's just, you know, no, I think that's the reality.
00:18:57.740 I mean, she's not, it's by the way, she's not willing to change other things that I think are
00:19:01.320 easier to change. So she's not going to tackle Ottawa in terms of immigration. She'll fall back
00:19:05.940 to a, well, the rules are the rules. And she, she wants more people anyway. She's, this is not one of
00:19:10.760 her pet projects. She wants more people in, in, in Alberta. So she's absolutely not going to interfere.
00:19:15.600 I don't. Sure. Just before we maybe change directions here, I was just going to say like,
00:19:19.240 there might not be a lot that she could do to dissuade people from moving here. But I think
00:19:23.520 some obvious things is maybe to not encourage them to come here. Like we have the Alberta's
00:19:26.960 calling campaign and I get that those are targeted tax credits. But if you talk to someone in Ontario,
00:19:30.840 they're like, I hear you guys, people want people to move there. And I hear it's a cheaper cost of
00:19:34.100 living. I'm thinking about moving there. And I'm like, well, it's not what you think it is.
00:19:37.580 Well, ironically, there's programs in place to encourage long-term Albertans to stay here.
00:19:43.040 So like we're, this is getting ridiculous because new people are coming and people who've been here
00:19:48.140 a long time are leaving. There are tools. Like I would say one to start with, get on TV tomorrow
00:19:54.440 and say, Alberta's not calling anymore. We're full. Okay. Like to start with, right. Like just from a
00:19:59.180 marketing standpoint. And then the other tools that are within her control, because they're provincial
00:20:03.240 is healthcare and education. You say, you know what, if you move here for the first 24 months,
00:20:08.780 starting September 1st, it's a pay into system. So there's a holding period of 24 months until you
00:20:14.760 get free healthcare and free education. That's well within her control easily, right? That will stop
00:20:20.820 70% of people right away. Cause they're like, Oh, I have to move to Alberta, but I have to pay for
00:20:24.240 healthcare and education for two years. But yeah, it's fair. You need to build into the system until
00:20:30.200 you could start to take out of it. Um, so there's certain tools within, within her, within, within
00:20:35.340 her realm that she can take that, if not to control the federal immigration numbers to at least control
00:20:41.660 the movement of internal immigration within the country. Another thing that I want to ask you guys
00:20:47.260 about is this idea of an Alberta pension plan. Now this is something that the premier has said that
00:20:51.620 she supports even while in, you know, within the last few months, um, it's something that would likely
00:20:55.980 be difficult to get passed through. Marty, did this come up in your town hall at all in Calgary this
00:21:00.020 week? It's top three on the list all the time of things she gets asked on. I mean, it, it, the data
00:21:08.560 is overwhelmingly positive for Alberta. Like the data is just that positive. Like we should have an
00:21:14.560 Alberta pension plan. We'll do better than the Canada pension plan. It'll be everything about it is
00:21:19.860 better. So if, if anybody who says they're, they're, they're interested in researching things before
00:21:25.680 they make decisions, you wouldn't have to research this one very long. And, and she, and she acknowledged
00:21:31.040 that she kind of said that, uh, one third are in favor, one third are against it. And the other
00:21:35.580 third are still wanting more data. So her excuse or go-to right now is that she's still studying it.
00:21:41.900 And, and, um, so we'll see, but yeah, there's no, there's no, there's no ifs, ands, or buts. It's a
00:21:48.180 beneficial benefit to Alberta to have our own pension. Yeah. I think that's something that
00:21:52.720 conservatives largely agree on. Um, of course, when she says we're still setting it, that's really
00:21:57.040 a way for, you know, governments to continue kicking the ball down the line and to not be
00:22:01.280 accountable to people. Oh, you know, we're, we're still looking into it. Tariq, do you think this
00:22:04.820 is something that we are going to see the premier act on within her tenure? I don't think so. I mean,
00:22:10.220 I think the window for that has now closed. Uh, if she was going to pull the trigger on this,
00:22:15.020 this was the first 1900 days, uh, thing, because it is quite a contentious, um, issue with the
00:22:21.200 left-leaning voter in Calgary and Edmonton, but you don't, they're not going to vote for you
00:22:25.360 anyways. So start acting for the interests of Alberta. Um, the other thing I, as well, Rachel,
00:22:30.940 that really disappointed me was, um, Pierre Polyev came publicly against, uh, openly, uh, in the media
00:22:37.540 against the Alberta provincial, um, uh, pension plan rather. And, uh, and she said nothing back.
00:22:44.200 Um, and, and I think she acquiesced because again, um, here's a leader that wears our colors,
00:22:50.140 uh, but it doesn't show very well for him in the GTA. Um, and again, he's focused on winning the
00:22:56.740 GTA. Um, but I would have expected her to put her foot down and say, you know what,
00:23:00.560 we respect your opinion, but we're looking after provincial autonomy first.
00:23:04.740 Yeah. And, and, and very pragmatically, I think the, the, the Alberta pension was poorly rolled out
00:23:11.940 when it came out. I mean, you know, the, they didn't, they didn't think it out. They, they,
00:23:16.280 they neglected the fact that it had been studied. There were numbers that were contradictory.
00:23:19.840 I mean, there were numbers in there being thrown around that even for, I went, Ooh,
00:23:23.060 that sounds a little bit. So, so they kind of blew an opportunity. And, and when that happens,
00:23:28.280 you can't just sort of pivot and reissue it. I think she, it, this one's unfortunately might
00:23:32.460 have to sit on a shelf for a while and be tried again, like in a second mandate. But she did say
00:23:37.140 yesterday that, uh, if the information that we requested from the chief actuary of Canada, whoever
00:23:43.300 that guy is, or gal that, uh, she will do a campaign to promote it again and put it to a
00:23:49.060 referendum. That's, that's what she said, whether it's in this term or the next to be seen.
00:23:54.680 Yeah. There's certainly still organizers working on it and trying to grow support for an Alberta
00:23:59.780 pension plan. But I do agree with you that this is something that the longer they wait, the more
00:24:03.720 difficult it gets to rolls out. Cause this is not the type of thing that you really want to be
00:24:06.640 rolling out ahead of a general election. And, you know, as the time keeps ticking on,
00:24:10.340 we're getting closer and closer to that next election date against now and ahead,
00:24:14.060 and then she's NDP. Sure. But time is also on our side in the sense that, uh, I look at what's
00:24:18.900 happening at the bank of Canada and the Canada pension plan, and they're both being mismanaged
00:24:23.340 right now and having hard time. So, you know, maybe three years from now when the Canada pension
00:24:27.340 plan has to disclose that they lost whatever 20%, then we go, huh, see, you know, should have done
00:24:32.700 it earlier. So time could be beneficial in that sense. Yeah. Um, I know we were talking a little
00:24:39.120 bit about the financial aspects of things, but just because we, you know, are having this
00:24:42.540 conversation, I think it would be remiss to not mention some of the things that I hear
00:24:46.460 most complaints about is the fact that we still have the provincial fuel tax and the fact that
00:24:51.380 there was a promise to cut, um, income taxes. And that promise is now being kicked down the line
00:24:57.180 as well. Initially it was supposed to come into place 2024 of those cuts, which would have savings
00:25:01.500 for a couple hundred dollars for a family. Then it was moved to 2025. Now talk of 2026, uh,
00:25:06.580 Marty, just because you were at the town hall, are these things that the premier still being
00:25:09.660 asked about, or are people kind of, you know, forgotten about these promises?
00:25:13.000 No, no, no. They asked about that. She almost got booed when, uh, when she, you know, she,
00:25:18.080 she, she's really trying to, she's focused on the fact that she's paying down debt. So not
00:25:24.940 a big budget for her. She's paying down debt and she's refunding the heritage fund. But,
00:25:30.940 and so that's her excuse for not the giving a tax break. And, and she, she, she got pushed
00:25:36.400 backed on that almost booed. It's a, it's a very, it's a question on the tip of everybody's,
00:25:40.980 you know, yeah.
00:25:42.180 I can't believe that, you know, between Marty and I, we are either expressing dissatisfaction
00:25:48.140 or organizing or, uh, going out to perhaps tell our libertarian conservative premier to
00:25:55.540 let us keep a little bit more of our own money. Um, I can't believe it. Like I can't,
00:25:59.680 and two years in now, almost like in October, she'll be two years in, uh, as the premier of
00:26:04.480 Alberta. Um, uh, and between the high spend and now certain crises, like the water crisis in,
00:26:11.620 in Calgary and then Jasper, the Jasper fires and so on. I think that's going to blow whatever
00:26:16.460 budget room in the budget she's seen. I'm a little bit now pessimistic in the sense that we'll
00:26:21.440 ever see a tax cut from, uh, the premier this year. And more so if we do see it, it's going to
00:26:26.620 be very symbolic rather than an aggressive, truly a libertarian tax cuts. The government should be in
00:26:32.420 the business of nothing. Um, that's the way I look at it. And, and, uh, um, for her to continue to grow
00:26:38.540 spend, to continue to grow. And I don't think she'll catch up even just on immigration, like
00:26:43.440 immigration is going to eat up whatever left is left of her budget in terms of healthcare and
00:26:48.020 education and infrastructure supports. So it's, it's, it's, it's, I don't see that tax cut coming.
00:26:54.200 And if it does come, uh, Rachel, I don't see it being one that's significant. It's like,
00:26:59.140 here's a few scraps to keep you guys quiet rather than truly a Klein-esque, uh, you know,
00:27:04.580 aggressive reduction in the size of government debt and taxes.
00:27:09.180 Well, we talk about dissatisfaction growing with Alberta premier Daniel Smith. The one thing that I
00:27:13.400 have to say is I hear most often about people in Alberta who are struggling to meet payments.
00:27:17.440 And I think that moving forward with those income tax cuts, offering some relief at the pump,
00:27:22.220 and then maybe even a one-time payment to people. I mean, I'm not against that because ultimately it's
00:27:26.440 our money in the first place. I think that would go a long way with some of the support that she's
00:27:30.460 losing. I think that that could honestly be enough to turn things around for people just because they
00:27:34.260 are really feeling it in the wall. Tariq, what's your take on that? Absolutely. I just like
00:27:38.340 premier Smith to deliver what she ran on. Like we're not asking for the moon here. She ran on the,
00:27:42.780 on reducing taxes, on reducing the size of government, on the pension plan, on the police
00:27:48.000 force, et cetera. We've held our end of the bargain. We've empowered her with our votes.
00:27:52.460 Um, and I'd like for her to hold her end of the bargain up. Um, I'd like to see her start to deliver
00:27:58.860 on this and deliver aggressively, not talk about it. She's very good at talking about it. Um, but I want
00:28:04.560 to see a plan in the next 90 days until the AGM, um, and a very concrete plan, no dilly-dallying,
00:28:10.120 no wishy-washy. Uh, I, I want an actual plan on the things she's going to deliver on. If she doesn't,
00:28:15.600 I've lost confidence, truly Rachel in, in the premier. Uh, the tax one is, the tax one is confusing.
00:28:21.220 I mean, she had one, she had one handed to her on a silver platter in April. Like, you know, she had,
00:28:26.080 the previous government had lowered the, the, um, the fuel tax and she brought it back up. It's like,
00:28:31.600 why would you do that? Like if, if, if instead of bringing it back up, all she had to say is,
00:28:35.660 Hey, you know what? We're leaving it off permanently. It's seven cents a liter,
00:28:38.460 whatever the heck it is. Everybody would have gone perfect done. And you know, we don't,
00:28:42.480 we're not asking for complex tax reform, like going back. I'd love to go back to a flat tax,
00:28:46.640 like we used to have under Klein, but you know, yeah, drop the top rate or drop the middle rate
00:28:51.280 from whatever, 13% to 12 and a half, something, anything. She, she's funny that way. She,
00:28:56.660 she digs her heels. I'm sure you've interviewed her. You, I know you've interviewed her
00:29:01.260 personally. I mean, she digs her heel. You know, let me just tell you the other one. She,
00:29:05.040 she got sort of booed on yesterday, apart from taxes is, um, the, the whole evening started out
00:29:11.240 the first line of questions towards her is why are you not, uh, why are you not, um, uh, taking the
00:29:17.920 MRNA vaccine off the approved list of, of vaccines, you know, despite overwhelming evidence that it's
00:29:23.940 harmful and boy, she dug her heels in there and she was on, she was getting booed. And the, the,
00:29:29.260 the interviewer on stage literally said to her, he's like, Danielle, I'm trying to help you here.
00:29:34.320 Look at this crowd. Like they're mad. And, and, and she wouldn't have any of it. So it's,
00:29:40.160 she's got an interesting personality. If it's her pet project full speed ahead, but in, you know,
00:29:46.600 you're the leader of the province. You can't, it can't be all about your pet projects.
00:29:51.000 Yeah. The backs go ahead, Terry. Go ahead.
00:29:52.860 On the fuel tax. Um, this was a 100% own goal on Danielle Smith's part. She reintroduces it on the
00:30:00.840 same day, April 1st, that the carbon tax, the federal carbon tax goes up. I'm like, could you
00:30:05.480 have had any worse optics, uh, as a libertarian, uh, to, to introduce it on the same day that the
00:30:12.860 carbon tax goes up? So, sorry, but I just wanted to add that, but.
00:30:15.500 No. And I think even also like when we look at the NDP government in Manitoba, they've even
00:30:20.700 reduced their fuel tax. So it's shocking that we still have it in Alberta. Um, when it, and it's
00:30:26.620 the fact that she brought it back as well with the mRNA vaccines. I mean, the crazy part about that is
00:30:31.220 it's something that even the United Conservative Party is pushing the government to change. And I
00:30:35.940 guess, Marty, I'm just curious what she actually said yesterday, because when I interviewed her a
00:30:39.360 couple months ago, she actually said that there was a misunderstanding and that the, the COVID-19 vaccine
00:30:45.260 was only being recommended for babies beginning at six months when they had, um, already a
00:30:49.800 preexisting illness, which is not the case. It is being recommended for all children, as I'm sure
00:30:53.200 you know. So I'm just wondering what her response to that was yet on, uh, on Wednesday.
00:30:56.740 She did some weird mental gymnastics on that one. You know, basically the question was that, um,
00:31:03.020 that, that, that group yesterday, that constituency association is the one that had the injection
00:31:09.160 of truth, uh, uh, you know, two months ago. And so that group is, has talked to a lot of doctors.
00:31:15.860 And so that group, so they, they, they basically, the way they phrased the question is there is a lot
00:31:20.580 of evidence that the vaccine is harmful to kids and, and why won't you remove it? And her answer to that
00:31:27.740 was, um, I want to keep giving parents choices. So, okay, that's, that's, that's valid, but you're going to
00:31:34.960 allow parents to still choose something that's dangerous. That's interesting. You know, if, if,
00:31:39.340 if a car's anyways, and, and, and then she justified it by saying, yeah, besides very few
00:31:46.740 people get the vaccine. So that's how she justified it. She said among children, only about 6% of parents
00:31:51.700 get their kids injected, but then the, the interviewer caught her in a loop because then
00:31:58.140 he started talking about ivermectin and how come we can't get ivermectin. And, and she,
00:32:04.600 she had to do these mental gymnastics to justify not being able to get ivermectin. And he said,
00:32:09.420 well, shouldn't we have a choice? So she got caught really bad on that one. Really,
00:32:14.620 really bad on that one. And, and it's a, it's a weird one because other, the really weird thing
00:32:19.780 about this is Alberta used to collect really good information when it comes to COVID and cross
00:32:25.980 referencing it to vaccines and stuff like that. And other jurisdictions like Florida literally used
00:32:31.800 our information, our data to help make the decision to ban the mRNA vaccine. So other jurisdictions are
00:32:39.480 using our data, but when we interpret our own data, we come to a different conclusion. It's,
00:32:44.080 it was fascinating to, on, on that point. I, again, I, I, I, I don't know if she's compromised
00:32:50.420 in that sense, or if it's stubborn, that one, uh, well, actually I haven't, I have a theory on that
00:32:55.720 one. I think big pharma is very, very, very, very, very, um, more powerful than we give it
00:33:02.860 credit for, I think. Okay. I just wanted to quickly clarify because I said, so the town hall with
00:33:08.020 Danielle was on Tuesday, we're recording the show on Wednesday and it's going live on Saturday. So for
00:33:11.720 my audience, you're trying to do mental gymnastics, figuring out what days we're talking about,
00:33:15.200 you have the timeline there. So just remember that as we flip back and forth between dates.
00:33:19.160 Okay. I just want to talk to you guys about one other thing, maybe two more topics before we talk
00:33:23.580 about the AGM that's coming up this fall, because that is a big part of why this conversation matters.
00:33:28.440 But first and foremost, something that I've personally been surprised by is Danielle's seeming
00:33:33.900 shift in her supports for the Coots boys, specifically if we're talking about the Coots three. So we've got,
00:33:39.240 uh, Marco Van Huygenbos, Alex Van Heer, George Vanson. I've interviewed most of them a couple of times now.
00:33:44.840 They are waiting for their sentencing. I believe that it got, it was supposed to be in July. I believe
00:33:48.700 it's been pushed back, but they're ultimately facing jail time. I believe it's up to five years
00:33:52.940 for mischief over 5,000 for their involvement with the Coots border blockade. And I asked Danielle this
00:33:58.260 question and, you know, she basically just said like the law is the law, um, didn't seem to have,
00:34:03.400 you know, much information on it. I know that she has been found, you know, guilty for putting,
00:34:09.120 for putting pressure on her justice minister and her attorney general to, you know, regarding the
00:34:13.460 prosecution of this case, but would it have been so bad for her to just simply, you know,
00:34:17.900 voice a word of support or encouragement to these men? Because to me, that isn't the same as maybe
00:34:22.980 going and speaking with your justice minister, seeing if there's something you can do about
00:34:26.040 the actual case itself. Dharik, let's start with you. What's your take?
00:34:29.300 I agree. Like one, I think she, it's not just a voice of support and fine. She's, she's saying,
00:34:35.440 I can't get involved in the legal process. That's supposed to be independent from the executive
00:34:39.020 process. That's fine. But here's how we prevent this from happening again. Or here, here's how
00:34:45.040 we make sure that we don't have a court system that is used as a political tool of the federal
00:34:50.680 government. I would have liked her to start saying, okay, I can't do something here, but this is what
00:34:56.960 I could do to prevent it from ever happening again. She hasn't even done that. Um, and, and she hasn't
00:35:01.520 even said, okay, this is how we're going to reform the judicial or legislative process so that this
00:35:06.480 doesn't happen again. So, I mean, I, I know Marco personally and, and, and talk to him quite a few
00:35:12.040 times. Um, it's unfortunate that this has happened. It is unfortunate in the first place that Albertans
00:35:17.240 got to the point where we had to, um, protest and, and the blockade and so on to regain our rights.
00:35:24.200 Like it wasn't to get additional rights. It was just to regain, uh, our rights and our freedoms at the
00:35:29.100 time. Um, and, but, but to answer your question, I think she should have, could have done a little bit
00:35:35.300 more, or at least shown stronger colors, uh, rather than, than ride the fence.
00:35:40.940 And I, I think this just goes back to something like conservatives in Alberta, like largely her
00:35:45.280 base are particularly supported these men. Right. So it's so out of, I got to touch with her base.
00:35:50.360 Marty, what's your take?
00:35:51.740 Yeah. Um, you know, she, she, she describes herself as a constitutional person. Like she,
00:35:59.100 she, she likes to talk about the Canadian constitution and law. And, um, and so I think
00:36:07.060 that, that, that does, uh, fog her, her opinions on a few things, but, but fundamentally I disagree
00:36:13.560 when she says she can't interfere. Like I, we're not asking her to interfere. We're asking her to do
00:36:18.280 her role as a premier, which is inquire and inform yourself and ask questions. She, we're not asking her
00:36:24.880 to call the judge and say, Hey, you know, um, whatever, shorten the sentence. We're asking you
00:36:30.260 to call the judge and say, why is it taking so long? Or if not the judge call the attorney general
00:36:35.000 and have the attorney general have discussions with the judges and things like that. So, um,
00:36:40.020 and again, I don't know why she's, she, she'll even yesterday, she was asked this question again,
00:36:45.540 and she referred back to, she, she said, I can't do this. It's in the constitution. She got laughed
00:36:51.880 at when she said that because the audience literally said, wow, you're the first person
00:36:56.260 suddenly who's going to follow the constitution and, and, and, and let others abuse the constitution.
00:37:01.520 We're asking. So, yeah, I, I don't buy this one. I don't buy this one from Danielle. Danielle
00:37:06.060 as an elected premier of a province is the primary lawmaker. So in order to make laws, you should
00:37:13.880 be able, once you've made laws, you're allowed to go visit with the, the lawyers and the judges
00:37:19.740 in the courts to see how your laws are working, get feedback in case you need to adjust the laws.
00:37:25.000 I, I, I, maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but she should have, and specifically in the case of
00:37:30.320 coots and whatnot, as far as I'm concerned, that's a gross, uh, miscarriage of justice. I mean, for,
00:37:35.480 for something to take this long, somebody should have stepped in. Okay. So let's now talk about
00:37:40.680 this in the context of why this conversation matters so much right now, because we're looking at
00:37:45.420 the United conservative party annual general meeting is coming up. It'll be held in red deer the first
00:37:49.160 weekend of November, and there will be a vote on whether to have a review of Danielle's leadership
00:37:54.040 at that convention. I know a couple of weeks ago, I did a story on this and I heard from sources that
00:37:58.580 the premier's office was feeling very confident that they were hoping to get, uh, more than 80%
00:38:03.400 support from the party membership. I have a feeling that in the last few weeks, things have shifted.
00:38:09.340 I'm hearing a lot more resentment among conservatives. And I know that people are quietly starting to
00:38:14.020 organize, um, to see about maybe having a recall of Danielle, or at least to significantly, you know,
00:38:20.560 dampen her numbers so that perhaps she takes her base a little more seriously. Are you guys thinking
00:38:25.180 that this is a likelihood that she could actually be in a tough battle to hold on to her, her leadership
00:38:30.500 and ultimately the premiership in November? Let me seek one clarification. And I think maybe
00:38:35.060 Tariq knows this, but I don't think she has a choice. It's not like there's a, it's not like there's a
00:38:39.760 first vote where we say, should we have a leadership review? And then we have a leadership review. I
00:38:43.940 think the, the UCP constitution says there's a leadership review every, uh, three out of every
00:38:51.960 four AGMs. You don't have one. So sorry, they'll be asking the question as to whether. There's no ifs,
00:38:56.060 ands, or buts. There's a very simple question on the ballot. Everybody in attendance, is she doing a
00:39:00.200 good job? Yes or no? That's it. And, um, and, and the rules are pretty straightforward. It's, it's a,
00:39:06.300 it's a classic majority, 50% of the votes plus one person. So, um, I don't think it's a slam dunk
00:39:12.340 for her. Not at this point. Well, and I would also add that it's not even a 50% plus one because
00:39:17.340 no leader will stay as leader of the party if they don't have support from 70 to 80% of the
00:39:22.500 membership. So she actually needs to get support from much higher than 50%. Otherwise at that point,
00:39:26.660 the calls will be too loud for her to step down and she won't have a choice. But Tariq, do you see
00:39:30.260 this as something that is going to be an issue for her? You know, it's, it's all, it's all going to
00:39:34.780 depend on her really in the next 90 days. It's in her court to see, is she going to deliver or is
00:39:40.640 she not? Um, I know where I'm going to stand as one individual. Uh, you know, I've got four things
00:39:46.100 that she ran out. Low taxes, small government, pension, police force, among others. And I think
00:39:50.580 that the fifth one that I'd like to see her actually address head on is immigration. Uh, I know
00:39:56.100 where I stand on November one in the evening, if she doesn't have a plan for all five of them,
00:39:59.760 um, I'm not voting in confidence for premier Smith. Um, if she does have a plan and again,
00:40:05.500 it's not like she has to execute on all five. She has to just have a plan on how to execute on all
00:40:10.360 five, but, but concrete plans with timelines and dates and numbers and so on. She doesn't have that.
00:40:14.960 I'm not going for it. Now I do know that there are groups that are organizing for, um, Rachel,
00:40:19.740 ultimately politics. This is the unfortunate part is sometimes it's about performance. Sometimes it's
00:40:25.180 exclusively about organization. So it's, who's going to show up at the AGM, um, and who's,
00:40:31.380 who's a better organizer, um, who's going to bring the people in that are truly, um, going to say,
00:40:38.360 uh, this is what we stand for. This is the base engaged to the membership and make sure they show
00:40:43.180 up. I mean, the rules are, you've got to buy a ticket. That's $170. You've got to be a member,
00:40:47.460 um, by October 11th, that's for 10 bucks. And you've got to be present in red deer on November
00:40:52.340 2nd to make the vote. So if these people are dissatisfied or satisfied with Danielle,
00:40:56.600 either side, but they're not there, or they don't have a ticket or they don't have a membership,
00:41:00.640 they're not expressing it. So what I'll say is get involved. If you support premier Smith,
00:41:05.180 get involved. If you don't support her, get involved, but you have to show up in red deer
00:41:08.820 on November 2nd, because otherwise, you know, the old forever hold your peace, um, thing that,
00:41:13.400 and as if she survives this one, I don't think even non Danielle supporters are going to be making
00:41:20.100 big moves in future AGMs because it gets closer and closer to a general election date. Um, so,
00:41:25.860 so it's, it's now or never in my mind. And yeah, I mean, I want her to succeed. Like when, when I look
00:41:32.340 at the, the, the people that we've had in the last, you know, 20 years, and when I look at the pool of
00:41:37.540 talent around us, she's got the right talent. She's, she, she, I want her to succeed. I think we have a good
00:41:44.660 chance with her and I agree it it's for me, it's the next two, three months and it's, it's hers to
00:41:51.460 lose, but in the next two, three months and, and, uh, in the next two, three months, if she doesn't
00:41:55.780 start delivering, she's going to have to do, um, deliver a pretty, uh, compelling speech to get me
00:42:03.620 to support her in the next, you know, at, at the AGM now, and that said, um, you know, I just said,
00:42:10.980 the talent pool is, is, is thin that, that weighs on my mind. I mean, I, you know, we could, it could
00:42:17.460 be chaos to just look at what happened in the U S right now, you know? So yeah, I, yeah, I agree.
00:42:24.180 It's good to hold politicians accountable, but I also have to be pragmatic about
00:42:29.540 the shit we're dealing with in the world we live in. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think those are the
00:42:33.380 tensions that most people will be going into the AGM with. I think there's still a ton of support for
00:42:38.100 Danielle among the United conservative party. I, but I have been hearing increased numbers of
00:42:42.340 complaints. Um, so I think, you know, what you said Tariq about seeing a plan, but also I think
00:42:47.860 people are going to be looking for specific actions over the next couple of weeks. And like I said,
00:42:50.980 I feel like there's some super obvious things she could do right off the hop, sort of do a better
00:42:55.140 job of solidifying that, that support in November. And I just don't understand why some of those simple
00:42:59.860 things are not being done, like lowering taxes or one-time payments. Um, I know that the premier is now
00:43:05.780 working on a bill of rights. I know that that was largely done to sort of reassure some supporters
00:43:10.580 who may be adrift. This is something that a lot of people in her very conservative base wanted.
00:43:15.380 Do you think that that will do a good job of bringing back some supporters who otherwise would
00:43:19.300 have maybe been a bit disillusioned with the Danielle premier? I think again, any, any move she does that
00:43:24.580 delivers for the benefits of Alberta, um, and the conservative moon are good for her, you know,
00:43:29.220 ultimately that that's, that's good. So now, is it enough? It'll all depend, you know,
00:43:34.020 in 90 days, a lot can happen. And, and I think it's up to her to win it or lose it. Now, in terms
00:43:40.660 of the talent pool and, and who comes next, and they're like, well, I don't buy, I personally don't
00:43:45.780 buy into the fear of, oh, if we don't, if we don't get Danielle, we'll get Nahet Manchi. Um, that's
00:43:50.660 shooting for the lowest common denominator. That's shooting for the lowest bar. Um, I want excellence.
00:43:55.460 I want a Ralph Klein. I, I want absolute excellence. People are like, well, if not premier Smith,
00:44:00.580 then who to me, it doesn't matter who it matters, what, what they do. Um, I, I don't care who that
00:44:06.100 individual is. Um, liking or disliking the head of government is not what I'm in the business of.
00:44:11.860 Um, I want them to deliver results. Um, and, and maybe I dislike them, but they get the right results.
00:44:17.380 That's okay too. Um, but at this point, you know, premier Smith does have support. She is well liked.
00:44:22.900 Um, but she has delivered in my mind, limited results at best. Um, that's, that's not good
00:44:29.460 enough for me. Um, again, this is a performance review, uh, not a leadership review. And, and
00:44:34.020 in terms of a performance review, I don't know if I give her a C minus right now.
00:44:37.940 And this will be a good test. Like a really good leader takes criticism and will, um, you know,
00:44:44.260 adjust the course and make the necessary adjustments. You know, having to change course on something is not,
00:44:51.140 it doesn't mean you're admitting failure. It, it, it does technically mean you made a mistake
00:44:55.700 and you're changing, but, but mistakes are fine. I mean, we're human. And so she, so yeah, change,
00:45:01.540 changing a few things in the next three months, that's not a failure. It's, it's an adjustment.
00:45:05.860 And if, but if she's unable to make adjustments, then yeah, then, then she's not the right leader,
00:45:10.900 by the way, just so I don't, I, I, I lived under Ralph Klein. I mean, I, Ralph Klein was my premier.
00:45:17.060 I played poker against Ralph Klein at the Yellowhead Casino in Edmonton.
00:45:20.820 We will never see another Ralph Klein. We will never see another Ralph Klein.
00:45:24.260 Ralph was unique. God bless him. He was unique. Yeah.
00:45:29.700 Well, gentlemen, I think we'll leave it there for today. I really appreciate your insight. I
00:45:33.620 hope that our listeners enjoy the show and I think we'll have to sit down and do it again,
00:45:38.100 a little closer to the AGM to see where we've landed just ahead of November. Thank you so much
00:45:42.180 for tuning in today. Well, you can have us as correspondents for the AGM that gets us in for
00:45:45.860 free instead of, no, you can come do the camera work for me. That's fine.
00:45:49.540 Sure. There you go. There you go. Awesome. All right, everyone have a great weekend.
00:45:54.660 I'll see you guys next week and God bless.
00:46:04.340 Thank you.
00:46:14.020 Thank you.
00:46:16.020 Thank you.