Juno News - February 17, 2024


Smith mocks Guilbeault’s bid to ban roads


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

168.54117

Word Count

2,053

Sentence Count

114

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 It's a new week and therefore the federal government has devised new ways to make your
00:00:04.720 life more difficult. We have long wait times for houses, hospitals, doctors, and if Justin Trudeau
00:00:11.080 has it his way, soon you'll be waiting years for a gas-powered vehicle that won't even be able to
00:00:17.180 drive to your house. Why? Because the federal government is importing people into this country
00:00:22.840 at the rate of millions, and yet they don't see why new roads might be necessary to deal with all
00:00:28.740 these people. At least we can hope things might be different in Alberta, where Environment Minister
00:00:34.880 Stephen Guibault's latest bid to stop road construction has once again put him in
00:00:39.800 Danielle Smith's crosshairs. I'm Rachel Emanuel, and this is the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:43.980 Taking a look at our first story here, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is warning Federal
00:00:59.260 Environment Minister Stephen Guibault that he already lost, after Guibault says he doesn't
00:01:04.560 want municipalities building new roads. On Monday, Guibault announced that the federal government
00:01:09.860 would no longer be providing municipalities funding to build new roads, because it encourages
00:01:15.800 people to use cars. He said that municipalities should instead be focused on fighting climate
00:01:21.740 change, adding quote, of course, we will continue to be there for cities, provinces, and territories
00:01:27.780 to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government
00:01:33.500 to enlarge the road network. Premier Smith responded by saying that Stephen Guibault is losing credibility,
00:01:39.860 every single day. Take a listen. Stephen Guibault needs to understand that he lost. He put
00:01:45.300 together a bill that was found to be unconstitutional. It's illegal. And the court told them they had to
00:01:50.800 rewrite it. And part of the reason it was unconstitutional and illegal is because they did silly things like
00:01:56.280 come into our jurisdiction and tell us what projects we could and could not build, including,
00:02:03.560 there was a line in there that any road that was longer than 75 kilometers needed federal approval.
00:02:08.960 Well, the Supreme Court has found that to be unconstitutional and illegal. So I don't take
00:02:13.400 much stock in Guibault trying to assert that he has authority in areas that he does not.
00:02:18.860 The controversy also caused Ontario Premier Doug Ford to weigh in, saying that he was, quote,
00:02:24.000 gobsmacked by the announcement. In a statement on X, Ford wrote, quote,
00:02:28.340 a federal minister said they won't invest in new roads or highways. He doesn't care that you're stuck
00:02:34.280 in a bumper to bumper traffic. I do. We're building roads and highways with or without a
00:02:39.920 scent from the feds. And in a new promise that I know you guys will all be very excited to hear about,
00:02:45.620 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has also promised to stop using electronic tabulators in provincial votes.
00:02:52.200 I exclusively covered the story for True North earlier this week, and I also have the video.
00:02:57.260 I haven't shared it with anyone yet. I thought I would share it with you guys first.
00:03:00.920 Here is the Premier at a UCP fundraiser in Bonneville last month.
00:03:05.420 And he used strictly paper ballots. There's a lot of people that don't trust tabulators and don't
00:03:11.200 trust voting machines at all. Are you going to end the use of voting tabulators across the province?
00:03:16.080 Yes. The Premier's base has long called for more election transparency and decried the use of
00:03:25.880 electronics in the ballot counting process, believing that electronics increase the potential
00:03:31.420 for vote tampering. As part of Elections Vote Anywhere service, electors could show up at any
00:03:37.820 riding across the province and receive a ballot for their home riding. Electors would fill out their
00:03:43.360 ballot, insert it into a tabulator, which would then count their vote and spit out a printed form
00:03:48.880 with the results for each riding on election day. And as you guys likely remember, votes were delayed
00:03:54.300 hours on election night. Election Alberta later told me that the tabulators didn't malfunction,
00:04:00.500 but rather those forms they printed with the result for each riding had to be manually entered into a
00:04:06.500 computer and that process took hours. Moving into our next story here, I know that you are all
00:04:11.380 deeply invested in the outcome of the Alberta NDP leadership race. And this week, Janice Irwin
00:04:16.880 announced that she would not seek the nomination. In a lengthy post to X, Irwin said that she had
00:04:22.760 given the decision a lot of thought, adding, quote, what I hate most is that I feel like I'm letting
00:04:27.680 some of you down. I hope you'll understand that now is not the time for me. My focus will continue
00:04:33.780 to be on being the best darn MLA I can be for the people of Edmonton Highlands Norwood.
00:04:38.440 Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was asked to comment on some of the NDP candidates
00:04:43.420 saying that if elected, they would scrap the carbon tax. Here's what she had to say about it.
00:04:48.140 Well, they're sounding a lot like UCP supporters. So, you know, we welcome anyone who wants to
00:04:53.980 join us in trying to eliminate the consumer carbon tax. We asked the NDP to join us in that in the last
00:05:03.260 session and they refused to. So I'm glad to see that they've now realized that it's a losing
00:05:10.420 proposition. I should point out it was the NDP who brought in a carbon tax in the province without
00:05:16.900 running on it. And to sort of see the flip flop there, I find it amusing.
00:05:22.860 Taking a look at our controversy of the week, Calgarians hoping to kick out Calgary Mayor Jody
00:05:28.620 Gondek with recall legislation say it's so poorly worded that it makes their quest nearly impossible.
00:05:35.100 Amendments made in 2022 to the Municipal Government Act allow for the recall of municipal officials.
00:05:41.440 But the city says over 514,000 signatures are needed to recall Gondek. That's 40% of the city's
00:05:49.400 population. Christy Kohler, executive director of the citizens advocacy group Common Sense Calgary,
00:05:55.320 said that while half a million signatures are needed to recall Gondek, only 390,000 votes were
00:06:02.520 cast for all mayoral candidates in the 2021 municipal election. She added, quote,
00:06:08.600 the requirement to collect signatures from a minimum 40% of the population is insurmountable.
00:06:14.520 Add in the requirements for paper signatures, witnesses, and the short time limit of 60 days,
00:06:20.140 and the odds are stacked against the petitioner.
00:06:22.740 I spoke to petitioner Landon Johnston earlier this week, and he agrees the criteria is ridiculous.
00:06:29.260 He also said that the 40% of the population includes children, and yet you have to be over 18
00:06:35.120 to sign the petition. But that's not going to stop Johnston. Here's a little clip of our interview
00:06:40.560 earlier this week.
00:06:41.460 I'm a very spiteful person, and I'm bad at math, and I'm very passionate. So I think those three
00:06:50.740 things just tell you that I'm going to do it anyways, and I'm going to do everything I can.
00:06:57.900 Because like I said, I'm starting to have fun.
00:07:00.260 Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Rick McIver said the province is reviewing recall legislation
00:07:05.480 after hearing back from stakeholders and online surveys. He also said the bar to remove an
00:07:11.680 elected official is high, as it should be. And here's Mayor Gondek's response to the recall effort.
00:07:17.180 It came as a surprise, and you know, I wouldn't be human if I didn't say, you know, it stings a
00:07:22.240 little bit. Later in that same press conference, Gondek utilized an interesting tactic. When she
00:07:27.080 appears to try to scare those hoping to sign the petition by saying their information won't be
00:07:32.200 kept private. Take a listen. Now you've got a recall opportunity where people will be disclosing
00:07:38.300 their personal information to an individual. And I'm not really sure how confidentially that
00:07:45.740 will be kept or what will happen with that information. And finally, taking a look at what
00:07:49.580 we're watching in the weeks to come, an Alberta law firm is putting the Alberta government on notice
00:07:54.860 with hopes to file a class action lawsuit representing the businesses that were affected by COVID-19
00:08:00.760 closures. The proposed suit filed by Rath and company follows the recent Ingram decision where
00:08:05.900 the Calgary Corps of King's bench declared several of Alberta's public health orders to be unlawfully
00:08:11.180 enacted. That decision laid the groundwork for potential financial redress for impacted businesses.
00:08:17.060 The proposed class action lawsuit targets financial losses for businesses in Alberta that were either
00:08:22.200 fully or partially restricted due to the public health orders during the pandemic. Lead counsel
00:08:28.060 Jeffrey Rath talked about the suit on Bridge City News. Take a listen. Yeah, that's right. The way
00:08:32.600 class action law works in Alberta is everybody who would be entitled to join the class or be part of
00:08:39.900 the class is deemed to be in the lawsuit unless they directly contact our office and declare that they
00:08:46.700 want to be out of the lawsuit. So as of now, we have the honor of representing every Albertan and Alberta
00:08:52.280 business that lost money as a result of being shut down by the Dina Hinshaw COVID orders, which we all
00:08:59.040 know now are completely illegal. For a class action lawsuit to move forward, a court certification is
00:09:04.540 required and that process can take a few years. A judge must determine that it is the appropriate
00:09:10.360 legal avenue for a case and determine that the plaintiffs are generally representative of a broader
00:09:16.140 group. And finally, moving into our weekly comment roundup and taking a look at some of the comments
00:09:21.340 underneath last week's Saturday's episode. You guys will definitely want to go take a listen to
00:09:25.700 that one if you haven't yet. Taking a look at our first comment here, I'm just going to round on some
00:09:29.260 of the numbers. Correction, Mayor Gondek only received 174,000 votes in the election. The total votes cast
00:09:35.420 for the mayor were over 386,000. So I cannot see how a recall vote would require 32% more votes than the
00:09:42.300 total that were cast for all the mayoral candidates in Calgary. This recall legislation is a joke.
00:09:47.160 There's a lot of confusion around this recall legislation because no one understands
00:09:50.800 why more votes are needed to rescind Mayor Gondek's mayoralship than were even cast
00:09:56.300 for mayoral candidates in the first place. So I can understand your confusion here. Everyone I've
00:10:00.800 talked to thinks this recall legislation needs to be amended because it's very unfair and almost
00:10:05.780 impossible to complete as it currently stands. User comment creator said, just to be clear,
00:10:11.400 Smith took all the risk here. And when it panned out, Pierre Polyev decided to latch on. Danielle is a
00:10:17.160 real one. That comment was in response to last week's episode where I covered Pierre Polyev's
00:10:22.060 defense of Premier Danielle Smith and her policies on transgenderism and parental rights. I do agree
00:10:28.640 that Pierre Polyev is sort of jumping on the bandwagon here. I think he's done that a couple
00:10:32.600 times to great success and effect. He sort of did that with the Freedom Convoy. He didn't come out
00:10:37.740 initially, but he came out in defense of it later. And people often forget that he wasn't quick to jump
00:10:42.700 on the Freedom Convoy bandwagon until it became safe to do so. That being said, I just have such
00:10:48.260 low expectations for politicians. I don't really expect them to do the right thing anymore. I think
00:10:54.380 the actual proper response is for all of us to be so loud and so demanding with societal change that
00:11:00.440 it becomes not only advantageous, but it becomes so that politicians actually have to do what we want
00:11:06.940 them to do and have to make the changes that we ask them to make or they know they won't be able to
00:11:10.880 stay in office. So it's true. It'd be nice to have more politicians like Danielle Smith who take
00:11:15.700 strong stances on such controversial topics like transgenderism, but I think it's our job to make it
00:11:21.740 impossible for them to do anything but that. Okay, everyone, that's all I have time for today.
00:11:26.500 Please like this video and please subscribe to True North. As always, if you're able, you can support
00:11:31.000 our work over at donate.tnc.news. I hope that you guys have a great weekend. I'll see you guys later
00:11:36.520 next week and God bless.
00:11:40.880 Thank you.