Juno News - Smith tells Kenney to stay out of leadership race

In this week's edition of the Alberta roundup, we cover: UCP Leadership Candidate Danielle Smith has asked Premier Jason Kenney not to interfere in the ongoing leadership contest to replace him, a new blueprint for provincial policing would add hundreds of officers to rural municipalities, Education Minister Adriana Lagrange has won the nomination in Red Deer North after a challenge, a UCP MLA is blaming the coven 19 restrictions on Calgary MLAs who advocated for them, UCP leadership candidate Travis Taves says assisted dying should not be offered to those suffering from a mental illness, and of course, we have our update on the Ucp Leadership race and the Alberta Liberal Party who attracted no applicants to run in its deadline for a candidate last week.

00:00:00.000 hello everyone welcome back to the alberta roundup i'm your host rachel emmanuel today we're going

00:00:16.080 to be talking about ucp leadership candidate danielle smith who has asked premier jason

00:00:20.800 kenney not to wade into the ongoing leadership contest to replace him a new blueprint for

00:00:25.360 provincial policing would add hundreds of officers to rural municipalities alberta education minister

00:00:30.720 adriana lagrange has won the ucp nomination in red deer north after a challenge this week a ucp mla

00:00:37.600 is blaming the coven 19 restrictions on calgary mlas who advocated for them ucp leadership candidate

00:00:43.360 travis taves says assisted dying should not be offered to those suffering from a mental illness

00:00:48.320 and of course we'll have our update on the ucp leadership race and the alberta liberal party

00:00:52.880 who attracted no applicants to run in its deadline for party leader last week all that and more

00:00:58.560 happening now on the alberta roundup let's get into today's topics ucp leadership candidate danielle

00:01:04.080 smith has asked premier jason kenney not to interfere into the ongoing leadership contest to replace him

00:01:09.600 on his radio show last weekend premier kenney called smith's alberta sovereignty act nuts and said it

00:01:15.520 would make alberta a laughing stock you guys know what this is we've talked about it many times before

00:01:20.400 the alberta sovereignty act would essentially bar federal legislation deemed harmful to alberta

00:01:25.760 smith has pitched it as a means to get major projects built in alberta again without federal

00:01:30.320 interference it is a pinnacle piece of her platform promises in response to kenny's statement smith said

00:01:36.560 his comments are premature ill-informed and disrespectful to a large and growing number

00:01:41.440 of ucp members that support this important initiative alberta justice minister tyler shandro

00:01:47.200 has unveiled the government's blueprint for provincial policing which promises to add

00:01:51.120 hundreds of officers for rural municipalities the blueprint said a provincial police service would

00:01:56.160 add 275 police officers to the smallest 42 detachments the model also proposes a minimum of 10

00:02:03.520 frontline police officers per detachment currently there is no minimum for a number of officers and

00:02:09.040 some have as few as three minister shandro told me this week that provincial policing is a conversation

00:02:15.120 happening all over the country right now he said quote and we think that alberta is on the

00:02:20.080 precipice of being a leading voice in modernizing policing in the country alberta education minister

00:02:25.520 adriana the grange has won the ucp nomination in red deer north as i previously reported she was

00:02:30.880 being challenged by popular freedom fighter andrew clues the co-founder of hold the line hold the line

00:02:36.720 was a group that helped albertans during coven 19 restrictions including to help them resist vaccine

00:02:42.000 coercion that vote happened in red deer on thursday i was there for it the polls closed at 8 pm and the

00:02:48.080 results were announced about one hour later lagrange won the contest with 298 votes that's 78 more than

00:02:54.560 andrew clues received but pretty high turnout for a nomination contest after the victory lagrange told

00:03:00.160 me she was very grateful and thankful for the support and that her victory was democracy in action let's

00:03:06.800 talk about the controversy of the week ucp mla grant hunter has said that coven 19 restrictions came

00:03:12.560 about because calgary mlas on the committee overseeing pandemic policy outweighed the number of rural mlas

00:03:19.360 who did not want restrictions he made the comments on an unrelated facebook post in which constituents

00:03:25.280 began responding and asking him why he did not speak out against the restrictions and he was forced to

00:03:29.280 address their comments he said calgary and edmonton wanted the restrictions and so mlas living in those 0.94

00:03:35.360 jurisdictions advocated for them those mlas outweigh the number of rural mlas on the committee which

00:03:41.040 made decisions about pandemic rules he also said that the whole caucus was never given the opportunity

00:03:46.240 to vote on restrictions he wrote quote if we were able to vote i'm confident because the majority of

00:03:52.160 mlas come from rural alberta we would have had a regional approach hunter was alberta's associate

00:03:57.520 minister of red tape reduction from april 2019 until july 2021 he also said he was removed from cabinet

00:04:04.720 for fighting against covet restrictions what we're watching this week ucp leadership candidate travis

00:04:10.320 tape said assisted dying should not be offered to those suffering from a mental illness of course

00:04:15.280 medical assistance in dying commonly referred to as made was legalized in 2016 but the trudeau liberals

00:04:21.040 recently expanded the eligibility for it they expanded it to include the disabled despite every

00:04:26.400 canadian national disability organization saying they did not want that expansion because it makes

00:04:31.040 disabled feel as though they are a burden to society and valueless yet the trudeau liberals took it one 0.96

00:04:36.640 step further and they expanded the eligibility to those suffering from a mental illness beginning march

00:04:41.200 2023 so beginning in march 2023 you would be eligible for assisted dying if you have depression anxiety

00:04:49.280 i don't even want to say this out loud because it's so disgusting that this would be considered a

00:04:52.720 treatment option for those people we should be telling them that there is hope available and that

00:04:57.600 there is a way to recover from these illnesses and to go on to live a happy and normal life

00:05:02.080 legalizing and expanding doctor assisted suicide creates a slippery slope as evidenced by the

00:05:06.800 shifting conversation to protect those with mental illness travis taves told me this week of course

00:05:12.800 we're having this conversation now because global news reported earlier this week that a canadian

00:05:17.680 forces veteran seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury was

00:05:22.960 unexpected and casually offered assisted dying by veterans affairs canada employee this is just the

00:05:29.920 latest example of the federal government's assisted dying regime gone wrong and there is certainly

00:05:34.880 no shortage of examples here the associated press recently reported on a recorded audio from a

00:05:41.040 london ontario hospital that appeared to show the director of ethics raising the subject of euthanasia with

00:05:46.720 the disabled patient and saying that patient was costing the system quote north of 1500 a day travis

00:05:54.000 tave said this is immoral and it should be illegal to even mention the cost of services in a conversation

00:06:00.000 about assisted dying i'm curious to hear what the rest of the ucp leadership candidates have to say about

00:06:05.280 this of course assisted dying falls under the criminal code and as such as federal jurisdiction

00:06:10.320 but health care is administered by the province so what solutions if any do the other ucp leadership

00:06:15.440 candidates have to offer to the federal government's massively radical assisted dying regime let's

00:06:21.520 move on to our ucp leadership race update danielle smith who is emerging as a front runner with recent

00:06:26.160 polls placing her far ahead of the remaining six candidates won't seek to represent the riding of

00:06:31.200 calgary elbow should there be a by-election this fall smith is currently the only candidate in the

00:06:36.240 running who does not already have a seat in the legislature and it looked like one might be opening

00:06:40.880 up for her this fall with emily doug schweitzer who currently represents calgary elbow saying he's

00:06:45.680 going to step down later this month or on another date established close to the time he's already

00:06:51.200 resigned his cabinet position as a minister of jobs economy and innovation but smith isn't going to run

00:06:57.040 in this riding which is not a conservative safe seat she wants to run in living sin mcleod which is her

00:07:01.840 home since 2011 and also a conservative safe seat she says she's traditional she thinks people should run

00:07:07.440 in the riding where they live however this seat is currently held by ucp mla roger reed and even if

00:07:13.680 smith does win the nomination reed would stay in the seat until the next provincial election which

00:07:18.480 is scheduled for spring 2023 this means that smith wouldn't have a seat in the legislature for the

00:07:23.760 first six months of her leadership if she wins the premiership on october 6. let's move on to our funniest

00:07:29.520 moment in alberta politics this week looks like no one is interested to be the leader of the alberta

00:07:34.240 liberal party not a single person submitted a nomination to run in the alberta party leadership

00:07:39.040 contest that deadline was last friday at 5 p.m the party has since removed the leadership section from

00:07:44.400 their website and they did not respond to my request for comment but i spoke to former alberta

00:07:48.480 liberal party leader raj sherman who said nobody's interested in running to be leader of the party

00:07:52.880 because it struggled to elect any mlas in the previous two provincial election he's right of course in 1.00

00:07:58.400 the 2015 election the liberals elected just one mla and in the most recent 2019 election they did not

00:08:04.800 elect a single mla to the legislature so if you're looking to get your start in provincial politics 0.99

00:08:10.400 you could be easily acclaimed as a leader of the rebel parties something you're very interested in

00:08:15.040 i'm certain okay guys that's all for today that's everything i have for you if you like what we do here

00:08:19.520 at true north please go to donate.tnc.news and support our work you can reach me on facebook and twitter as

00:08:26.720 always i look forward to hearing from you and we'll talk next week

Juno News - August 20, 2022

Smith tells Kenney to stay out of leadership race

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