Juno News - True North’s coverage of the UCP Leadership Debate

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00:04:57.860 good evening and welcome ladies and gentlemen to the united conservative party debate coverage

00:05:11.260 that true north is launching as you know true north is really here to talk about the issues

00:05:16.700 that matter to canadians the issues that matter to people voting in leadership races for conservative

00:05:22.340 parties whether it's the conservative party of canada or the united conservative party of alberta

00:05:27.580 so we are very pleased thrilled in fact I can say to deliver live debate coverage for you this

00:05:33.980 evening we'll have some analysis commentary leading into the debate we'll have the debate

00:05:38.400 itself on this stream so you don't need to go anywhere else and then we'll pick back up on the

00:05:42.940 other end of it for the debate scrums and also for some post-debate analysis and of course we're

00:05:48.820 going to be taking your thoughts your comments throughout this as well if you have questions

00:05:52.480 leave them in the comment section if you have thoughts leave them there one of my colleagues

00:05:56.520 who you will know well from True North by now,

00:05:59.180 Elie Cantin-Nantel will be mining for the best comments you have to offer

00:06:03.180 and we'll be breaking them down here

00:06:04.960 and really talking about what the people are saying about this debate,

00:06:08.040 people that are voting in the UCP leadership race

00:06:11.160 and also people outside of that who might not be members of the UCP

00:06:15.100 but are nonetheless affected by whoever is going to be the ultimate winner of this race.

00:06:20.680 So we've got a number of candidates debating here,

00:06:23.420 Lila Ahir, Brian Jean, Todd Lowen, Rajan Sani, Rebecca Schultz, Danielle Smith, and Travis

00:06:30.460 Taves. These are the seven candidates in the UCP leadership race. And I just want to give a little

00:06:36.120 bit of the top line details here so you know the context of this. This debate is being moderated by

00:06:42.080 a former Calgary City Councillor, Jeff Davison, who is the CEO of the Prostate Cancer Centre. So

00:06:48.940 hopefully this debate will be more pleasant than a prostate exam in any event. It's being

00:06:53.400 hosted at the Halo Air Ambulance Hangar in Medicine Hat, which is itself a bit of an

00:06:58.000 interesting choice here. Two debates sanctioned by the UCP, this one in Medicine Hat and another

00:07:03.700 in Edmonton, none in Calgary, which is the province's biggest city, at least none officially.

00:07:09.740 The debate format hasn't been published, but as I understand from talking to a few sources,

00:07:14.840 it's going to be very focused on interaction. Candidates are going to have a fair bit of time

00:07:19.180 to do one-on-one which is often a format that necessitates jumping on the front runner and

00:07:25.440 as we've seen in some recent polls this week and we'll talk about very shortly

00:07:28.960 the front runner seems to be Danielle Smith and not far from behind her Brian Jean although

00:07:34.680 anything can happen it's still early days in this contest I want to bring in one of my colleagues

00:07:40.300 at True North you may not see in front of the camera all that much he keeps things running

00:07:44.540 behind the scenes but is nonetheless a critical part in the cog of true north and is himself an

00:07:49.740 Alberta politico he's been very active in conservative politics and Canadian politics

00:07:54.980 William Macbeth joins me now William first off thanks for being here I know that we just foisted

00:08:00.960 a camera in your face and said you're going to talk in this but it's good to have you nonetheless

00:08:04.380 well thank you I'm excited to be here tonight let's just first off talk about the makeup of

00:08:11.700 this? This is a new party. This is the second time the UCP has ever been through a leadership race.

00:08:17.240 And I think Jason Kenney, who came in several years ago as being this grand unifier, has gone

00:08:22.360 out in a rather unceremonious manner. But what would you say has really been the theme of this

00:08:27.800 race? I mean, I think the context of how Premier Kenney relinquished the leadership, not entirely

00:08:36.120 voluntarily, he received a passing score, but not a very high one in his leadership review.

00:08:42.080 I think you're now seeing, does the party want to walk in a very different direction? Does it

00:08:47.820 want to choose someone who is not associated with it from when Jason Kenney was premier? Or does it

00:08:54.500 want, you know, to retain more of what it was over the past few years with some tweaks and

00:08:59.740 modifications? For some people, maybe the issue was Premier Kenney himself rather than the United

00:09:05.000 conservative government. And for a lot of people, though, and possibly a majority based on how the

00:09:10.160 polling has gone so far, they want to see real change, absolute change in how the government

00:09:15.560 of Alberta operates, what its priorities are, how it handles major issues like COVID-19,

00:09:21.220 how it deals with Ottawa and federal-provincial relations. And for that, you've got two

00:09:26.520 candidates, I think, Brian Jean and Daniel Smith, who represent more of the big change side of this

00:09:32.860 leadership race. Jason Kenney's position has been, and he said this in interviews I've done with him

00:09:38.540 as well as elsewhere, that it was really COVID that was his unraveling. It was COVID and his

00:09:43.760 government's response to COVID that resulted in all of the things that happened that led to this 0.96

00:09:48.560 race. We look at the themes for tonight's debate. I'll share them again. Leadership and unity,

00:09:53.560 health care, the economy, and the environment. I mean, candidates can't just hide behind,

00:09:59.620 i wouldn't have done this i wouldn't have done this lockdown i wouldn't have done this vaccine

00:10:03.720 passport they have to have something else to offer here no i think you're absolutely right and i i

00:10:09.800 would say uh i think premier kenny may be a little bit uh looking at why he he suffered a defeat in

00:10:16.940 that leadership review or if not an actual defeat a world one a little bit differently if you look

00:10:21.980 next door to alberta we have the province of saskatchewan led by a conservative premier

00:10:26.540 Scott Moe. They followed quite a similar path to Alberta, but he's still premier. He hasn't

00:10:33.480 been ousted by his party and his caucus or by Saskatchewanians at large, whereas Jason

00:10:39.720 Kenney was. So to say it was all about COVID and the handling of COVID, I think might be

00:10:43.660 a little bit not the full story when it comes to Jason Kenney. In terms of the issues though

00:10:48.880 for Alberta, I think there is a lot of unhappiness in Alberta with the relationship with the

00:10:54.200 federal government. You've got Justin Trudeau, who is widely seen as hostile towards Alberta and

00:11:00.240 its economic interests, not approving pipelines, not being a champion of Alberta's oil and gas

00:11:06.340 sector, taking pot shots at legitimate businesses who are trying to grow the economy at the same

00:11:13.160 time, deal with stringent environmental standards. I think what Albertans are looking for is someone

00:11:18.100 who's going to be a louder voice in terms of federal and provincial relations, which is why

00:11:22.960 you're seeing some success I think from candidates like Daniel Smith who have been absolutely right

00:11:29.200 out there saying the situation is unacceptable and in fact we may not even enforce federal laws

00:11:33.820 in Alberta if they're to the detriment of the province. We know that being a front runner is

00:11:39.500 obviously great when you want to portray momentum and energy and scare other people out of the race

00:11:44.280 and fundraise but on a debate stage being a front runner is a fair bit of a liability. We've seen in

00:11:50.720 the last few weeks, the media really start to go after Danielle Smith, I'd say, fairly aggressively.

00:11:56.160 And whether it's fairly or unfairly, people can decide for themselves. Are you expecting to see

00:12:01.000 that in the debate tonight, that everyone is basically piling on her? Yes. To be honest, 0.96

00:12:07.560 I'm actually expecting it to be fairly much a Danielle Smith pile on. If you look at who's

00:12:12.720 running in this leadership race, there are seven candidates, but I would say there are two groups.

00:12:16.420 There are the quote-unquote frontrunners. Those would be Daniel Smith, Brian Jean, and former

00:12:22.360 Finance Minister Travis Tate. And then you've got a group of other candidates who don't have a lot

00:12:27.640 of name recognition or public profile, who I think are probably going to hope to use this debate to

00:12:33.360 get a little bit more profile, to get some energy for their campaigns. But certainly amongst Brian

00:12:38.920 Jean and Travis Tate, I think you will see fairly aggressive postures towards Daniel Smith to try

00:12:45.720 am blunt some of that perceived momentum and of course the membership sales cutoff is is not that

00:12:52.400 far away it's just about two weeks two weeks and a couple days from now and if that's the case uh

00:12:57.620 there isn't that much more time for uh regardless if you're a front runner or or one of the others

00:13:02.620 in this race you're going to have to start to make real progress selling memberships if you

00:13:07.200 have a hope of winning uh when the vote happens in october yeah very well said the debate is set

00:13:12.760 to begin in just over 15 minutes time i want to take this opportunity to give a bit of the lay

00:13:18.340 of the land for our coverage this evening we are going to have the debate carried live on this

00:13:22.600 stream on this feed starting in 15 minutes time and also we have our own alberta correspondent

00:13:29.840 who was on my show a couple of weeks ago is a new addition to the team but a tremendously

00:13:33.800 experienced and capable reporter that is rachel emmanuel and we'll have updates from her very

00:13:40.220 shortly and she's on the ground keeping us surprised of what's happening i also want to

00:13:44.460 bring in another colleague elie kenton nantel who's been monitoring the social media desk which

00:13:50.300 is a name i've just given for whatever desk he's working from now but it's more of a function than

00:13:54.940 a physical place elie what are people saying online first and foremost are they expressing

00:14:00.540 a preference in what you're seeing about which candidate or is it a bit of a mixed bag

00:14:04.700 well andrew it would depend really where you look so i looked at twitter for example and it's mostly

00:14:11.500 a bunch of left-wingers being like oh i can't wait to see what new conspiracy theory uh danielle

00:14:17.040 smith comes out with today they they're not a fan of danielle smith clearly there's people sharing

00:14:21.220 this old article where she apparently was talking about how smoking isn't as bad as they say so on

00:14:27.080 that end there's not a lot of useful information in our stream a couple of our viewers have shared

00:14:31.140 different views uh so donna slatter simply said that danielle smith will win uh versus some other

00:14:38.260 ones like edwin dotzel says that some of these candidates are ridiculous uh rebecca schultz 0.74

00:14:43.560 number one uh we have some others that are asking uh questions uh diane asks a pretty good question

00:14:51.020 in my opinion and it's uh she says i've yet to hear where any of the candidates positions are

00:14:55.460 on the current and future alberta school curriculums especially their views on sexual

00:15:00.000 education in the elementary schools and beyond, sorry. And, you know, this is a pretty

00:15:05.360 relevant issue. We're seeing it, especially in the United States. We saw it throughout the

00:15:09.660 months of June, really, that the parents are getting increasingly concerned as there's more

00:15:13.760 and more ideology, gender ideology, critical race theory being pushed in elementary schools.

00:15:19.380 We see it almost every day. There's this account called Libs of TikTok, and they basically just

00:15:24.580 go and they find TikToks that teachers make. And some of the stuff that these teachers do

00:15:29.620 do it is simply outrageous so definitely a good point there and you know unlike other provinces

00:15:34.320 like Ontario or in the east where you have a strong amount of liberals to push back

00:15:39.380 Alberta is fairly conservative so they they have the levy they have the room to put in place

00:15:43.900 school curriculums that are fairly conservative without getting widespread backlash the way

00:15:48.260 Ontario did somebody else brought bring up Shannon says that the imprisoners of pastors

00:15:53.860 was a huge mistake and I think this too when you look at this race and and the anger is we're

00:15:59.300 you and william were talking about earlier with jason kenny and kobe sure it wasn't the only

00:16:03.620 thing that left his downfall but it was a pretty major one uh i remember being in alberta just

00:16:08.580 after pastor james coates had been arrested and just in the little area i was living it was a

00:16:13.140 couple of townhouses there were people had signs in the window saying free pastor james like this

00:16:18.020 this really impacted christians i remember going to church and i went to different churches and

00:16:21.620 they were all praying like it really impacted alberta's religious community to see these

00:16:25.460 pastors rested and we didn't see that in other parts of the country so i think that too that too

00:16:30.900 is something that that is worth mentioning that that's really on my end for now more people

00:16:36.580 pouring in people saying they like pablo and people saying they want nothing to resign so

00:16:41.780 yeah i guess a mixed bag as you say people voicing their opinions and then the left

00:16:45.620 he's on twitter not liking danielle smith similar to how they dislike careful yeah

00:16:49.780 thank you ellie uh we'll check back in with you in just a few moments time appreciate your update

00:16:54.100 there let me go to you on that william because i think both of those things that ellie picked out

00:16:59.300 are really important battles in the conservative movement and i think both of them at their core

00:17:04.660 touch on social conservatism which i know is an issue that's always a balancing act in the federal

00:17:09.540 conservative party and in alberta i mean there's a fair bit of baggage on this for danielle smith

00:17:14.100 personally if you go back to the time that she was the wild rose leader previously and i think

00:17:18.580 a lot of critics said she she didn't do a good enough job at and she herself i think has said

00:17:23.060 she didn't do a good enough job at working around that so how if at all has that played into the

00:17:28.340 race this time around i mean i think it's a it's a very interesting question and i think probably

00:17:34.580 for uh some full disclosure i i worked for danielle smith when she was wild rose leader for

00:17:39.940 several years and uh so i remember when those issues happened i think in alberta what people

00:17:46.420 are looking for is an understanding of what the role of government is and that extends into things

00:17:51.860 like health care and education. And the role that parents play in education, I think, in Alberta is

00:17:59.220 particularly important. Alberta is quite different from other provinces in Canada. There has been a

00:18:04.580 lot of public and even government support for alternative education options to public schools.

00:18:11.380 And in fact, even when there was a lot of funding and continues to be a lot of funding for public

00:18:16.580 schools. Public schools compete against one another for students in order to secure funding

00:18:22.860 for their programs. The funding follows the student. And so in Alberta, you've got charter

00:18:27.920 schools, you've got private schools, you have a very healthy homeschool sector. And all of these

00:18:34.620 things, I think, are predicated on the idea that it's parents and not education bureaucrats or the

00:18:40.080 union who know what's best for students. So with that in mind, I think in this leadership race,

00:18:46.360 you will see a conversation about things like, you know, what kind of sex ed curriculum gets

00:18:53.220 taught? What is the role of a school? Is it for them to foist a particular worldview on students,

00:19:00.320 or is it about having them ask important questions and then having conversations with

00:19:04.620 their parents and their families about some of these things? And for Danielle, I do think it's

00:19:09.940 a story of, has a lesson been learned from how some of these issues were handled the first time

00:19:16.620 around? And if it put in the same position, how will she approach some of these very difficult

00:19:23.640 issues? I think that's the choice that some Albertans are going to be looking at when it 0.88

00:19:28.540 comes to Danielle Smith particularly, is are we going to see growth and change, or are we going

00:19:35.260 to see a repeat of some of the perceived missteps that happened when she was Walrose leader seven or

00:19:41.660 eight years ago. You mentioned earlier in the discussion the two groups that you saw, the

00:19:47.800 front runners and the other candidates, with all due respect to them, you have to look at the poll

00:19:51.780 numbers and take them at face value. There's another breakdown that I see here that's kind

00:19:56.720 of interesting, which is the insiders and the outsiders in a way, because you have, you know,

00:20:01.380 a bunch of people in this race that are former cabinet ministers under Jason Kenney, people like

00:20:06.020 Rebecca Schultz, people like Rajan Sani, people like Lila here. Now, again, there were some

00:20:13.000 criticisms that were put by Lila here, notably towards Jason Kenney's leadership. You had also

00:20:19.700 Travis Taves, who was former finance minister, stepped down. You had Todd Lowen, who was a member

00:20:24.860 the UCP caucus and then was very much on the outs with the core leadership with Jason Kenney and

00:20:32.260 Brian Jean and Danielle Smith, two people that really got back into politics specifically on

00:20:37.040 the platform of we are going to oppose Jason Kenney. So looking at the cabinet members or

00:20:44.360 former cabinet members here, do you think they will basically be just tied to Jason Kenney? Is

00:20:50.360 Is Jason Kenney unpopular enough to the members voting in this race that looking at Rebecca

00:20:55.020 Schultz or Travis Taves and being like, they're the Kenney candidates, is enough to keep their

00:20:59.020 numbers low?

00:21:00.700 I mean, I think that's a very interesting question.

00:21:03.700 And one of the things that I think has been very interesting is normally in a leadership

00:21:08.400 race, the front runners all tend to have held senior positions in the former government.

00:21:15.040 Cabinet ministers almost always are in the leading spots.

00:21:18.820 And if you look, I mean, just to jump in there, look at the 2017 federal conservative leadership race.

00:21:23.740 You had like 13 candidates and of them, I think 50 of them were were cabinet ministers in Der Harper.

00:21:29.820 Yeah, exactly. So I think the fact that that the two apparent leading candidates, Daniel Smith and Brian Jean,

00:21:35.900 neither of them were in in Jason Kenney's cabinet.

00:21:40.100 In fact, up until quite recently, neither one of them were even MLAs anymore.

00:21:45.260 Brian Jean recently won a by-election in Fort McMurray.

00:21:47.880 I think that does spell some trouble for those who were members of the Kenney government, in particular, because this was so much a government about Jason Kenney. He defined the united conservative government.

00:22:02.100 And people used to make this criticism of Stephen Harper, that it was hard to name someone other than Stephen Harper in the Stephen Harper government.

00:22:11.680 But I would say he actually did delegate a fair amount of responsibility to his individual ministers.

00:22:17.500 I'm not 100 percent sure that was true with Jason Kenney.

00:22:21.380 I think a lot of the files still ended up going across his desk and through his government.

00:22:25.760 And as a result, there isn't a lot of name recognition, even for people who were senior cabinet ministers.

00:22:31.220 You know, I had to anecdotally explain to my own friends who Travis Taves was, and I said, well, he's been our finance minister for the past three years, and they did not really know that. That was kind of news to them.

00:22:44.920 So I think for them to break free of the perception that they're simply offering, quote unquote, more of the same, they may have to articulate specific decisions or policies which they disagree with when it comes to the Kennedy government.

00:22:58.760 I think a lot of people would understand if they said, I had to go along with it because that's what governments do.

00:23:04.780 They support the will of cabinet.

00:23:07.000 When cabinet makes a decision, they go ahead.

00:23:08.960 But here are some things that I had concerns with.

00:23:11.300 And here's how I would have been different.

00:23:12.920 And here's how I will be different if I become premier of Alberta in two months' time.

00:23:18.360 And that's a really difficult needle to thread because you have to be critical of your own record in office.

00:23:25.900 And a lot of politicians are reluctant to do that.

00:23:28.040 I do think, though, that if they're going to be seen as anything more than just, you know, more of the same, they are going to have to be specific and not just say we need to do a better job listening or we need to do a better job communicating.

00:23:41.320 Well, no, I think that that wasn't enough in order to be seen as truly different.

00:23:47.040 Yeah, I think that's fair. And I will say it is interesting.

00:23:50.060 At the beginning, a lot of people were telling me that Travis Taves was the frontrunner just by virtue of his role.

00:23:56.660 You know, a finance minister in a majority government, this seems like an important thing.

00:24:00.140 And he did, you know, I think shore up a lot of the establishment support.

00:24:04.180 I don't even mean that in a derisive way, but he shored up a lot of those endorsements that you'd expect.

00:24:08.300 But really has not been the one that I'm seeing crossing my social media feed.

00:24:13.220 I know when Ali was on, he wasn't a name that he was seeing in the comments flooding by.

00:24:18.280 So I don't actually think that he's resonated with people.

00:24:22.700 Now, again, I mean, a lot of it is how you can get out your vote and do all that.

00:24:26.360 But let's bring Ellie back on in a moment here or actually for a moment, because I'm

00:24:31.000 curious, Ellie, what are the issues people are bringing up beyond the candidates?

00:24:35.020 What are the issues?

00:24:35.700 You mentioned a couple, but are they are people talking about the issues that we know are

00:24:40.240 designated as the themes of the debate tonight?

00:24:43.660 Well, Andrew, first of all, I forgot to point this out earlier.

00:24:46.780 there is a bit of confusion i noticed from some of our viewers this is not a federal conservative

00:24:51.180 party of canada leadership debate this is for the alberta united conservative party so there's cpc

00:24:56.540 which is federal and ucb which is provincial i know it's confusing it's never no it's no it's

00:25:01.020 not it's never branding for the race when they can't even tell people that there is a race going

00:25:05.100 on which i think is actually a big problem we don't have usually two races at the same time so

00:25:10.860 for our viewers like please know this is not cpc but because i think if they don't know and they

00:25:15.820 to see these random people they're going to be like who the heck are these people right uh sorry

00:25:20.940 ellie we we used up your moment on that but we will come back to you but i know we're coming up

00:25:25.020 to uh the time for the debate here and i want to get to an update we have from our reporter in

00:25:30.060 alberta rachel emmanuel who is coming to us from medicine hat let's take a look at rachel's update

00:25:38.540 hey guys it's rachel emmanuel true north alberta correspondent i'm here live in medicine hat

00:25:43.020 where the first official UCP leadership race is set to begin at 5 p.m mountain time.

00:25:47.180 This is our first opportunity to see all seven approved candidates face off in an official party

00:25:51.340 debate. So I'm super excited to see what they have in store for us and see how the format will allow

00:25:55.180 for each candidate to have equal time. Obviously seven candidates is a lot to account for. Some of

00:25:59.660 the main issues to keep your eye out for this evening is health services. How do the candidates

00:26:04.220 plan to address AHS? There's been a lot of unhappiness with how they responded to the COVID-19

00:26:08.300 pandemic so you can be certain that we'll hear some issues on that as well as how candidates

00:26:12.860 plan to advocate for alberta and ottawa there's been a lot of tension in that relationship lately

00:26:17.100 so i'm looking really for some specific plans and policies that candidates are going to be

00:26:20.940 advocating for in terms of how they hope to get alberta a fair deal with ottawa all right looking

00:26:25.180 forward to it that was true north's alberta correspondent rachel emmanuel in front of the

00:26:33.580 helicopter that i think we now see standing by for the debate i actually don't know which

00:26:37.820 candidate the helicopter has endorsed but i think they're going to do that at the end of it and

00:26:42.140 looking at where those rotors are hopefully no one will hit the on switch during the debate because

00:26:45.500 i think that'll make for a very very awkward moment on the screen here but that's like an

00:26:50.940 erin o'toole move by the way doing the the sea king helicopter photo op so uh good they're doing

00:26:55.500 that here and again if you're wondering where that helicopter came from the debate is being held the

00:27:00.380 halo air ambulance hangar in medicine hat very important local business there in southern alberta

00:27:07.820 So this is going to be starting up in just a moment now.

00:27:11.280 So you can see on your screen, we'll carry it live.

00:27:13.480 Let me just ask you, William, who are you expecting to be the one to watch tonight?

00:27:18.040 You know these candidates, you know the players.

00:27:19.840 Who do you think is the one to watch for?

00:27:22.500 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:27:24.860 I think there's a couple of things that, you know, each candidate is going to have their own goals for tonight.

00:27:30.620 I think Travis Taves has to make a bit of a splash tonight.

00:27:33.880 I think he has to bring himself out of Jason Kenney's shadow and say, you know, here's my distinct vision for Alberta.

00:27:42.440 Here's why I'm the best choice.

00:27:44.180 And at the same time, here's why, say, Daniel Smith is the wrong choice.

00:27:49.620 Brian Jean, who, in my opinion, has had a pretty low-key campaign so far, which is surprising given that he was second to Jason Kenney in the last leadership race.

00:27:58.540 And also a very high-profile by-election victory for him not that long ago.

00:28:02.280 Nope, absolutely true. I think in some ways Daniel has eaten his lunch when it comes to this leadership race. I think a lot of the support that Mike have been seeing going to him, there's a perception it's maybe now going to Daniel instead.

00:28:16.580 He has to try and define this race in a sexual way that he becomes, you know, the dominant player.

00:28:23.860 If you are against the Jason Kenney status quo, you have to vote for Brian Jean and not Daniel Smith.

00:28:30.340 But that also means he'll be taking some tough runs at Daniel.

00:28:33.900 And for Daniel, I think she has to fend off accusations that her policies are either going to make her unelectable in a general election 0.69

00:28:43.440 or that voting for her would render the conservative choice,

00:28:49.040 the United Conservative choice, too unpalatable for Albertans.

00:28:51.980 So she'll be emphasizing that, you know, she's the voice you need,

00:28:56.560 the right choice, the smart choice when it comes to standing up

00:29:00.920 against Justin Trudeau in Ottawa.

00:29:02.720 I think you'll see her making that point.

00:29:04.860 Just in a moment here, William, for people,

00:29:06.640 because I've seen a few folks ask the question here,

00:29:08.860 how is the actual vote structured?

00:29:10.820 What's the format for winning the race?

00:29:13.440 So it's a mailing ballot and with an in-person voting option on election day, and you will end up voting, again, it's a 50% plus one.

00:29:23.440 So like the federal conservative race, no single candidate is declared the winner until they have a majority of votes.

00:29:29.520 So in the first vote, seven candidates could be very tough for any one person to get 50% plus one.

00:29:36.300 If they don't, then the candidate who received the fewest votes, they're dropped off from the ballot.

00:29:41.660 Their second choices are redistributed to the remaining candidates.

00:29:45.440 That process is repeated until one of the candidates achieves a 50% plus one.

00:29:50.240 The addition of in-person voting stations, of course, means, though, that there'll be actual vote counting on election day.

00:29:55.960 It can't all be done in the lead up to the race, which means it could be a bit uncertain when the actual result gets announced.

00:30:02.680 But, yeah, it's again, it's not like in an election first, a regular election of first past the post.

00:30:07.720 The candidate with the most votes wins.

00:30:09.040 This is someone who has to get second and third choice votes.

00:30:11.660 maybe that's good news for Travis Tanks.

00:30:14.120 Maybe he's counting on a lot of support from Rachel Sawney, Rebecca Schultz,

00:30:18.900 and the other cabin ministers to fall behind him.

00:30:21.380 I don't know.

00:30:22.480 And you're saying votes, not points, correct?

00:30:25.180 That is true.

00:30:26.020 It is a one-member, one-vote system, all ridings.

00:30:29.120 It doesn't matter if 1,000 people voting or riding or 10, that's how many votes.

00:30:33.480 It's 1,000 or 10.

00:30:34.540 There's no equalizing.

00:30:36.120 There's no redistributing.

00:30:37.840 None of those things that Albertans like, by the way,

00:30:39.620 either redistributing or equalizing we're against both of those things culturally are there any

00:30:44.260 are there any candidates in this race that really have a proven track record with aggressive

00:30:48.940 membership drives like in the federal race when patrick brown got in everyone knew okay patrick

00:30:53.360 brown's gonna hustle and sell memberships is that something that danielle smith and brian

00:30:57.680 gene who have led a party before were particularly known for uh you know the thing is is danielle

00:31:04.500 became Wild Rose leader when the party was still very small. We're talking about a few thousand

00:31:10.760 people choosing a leader, not tens of thousands or even more than a hundred thousand, depending on

00:31:16.320 how membership sales go here. I would say Brian Jean, probably out of all the candidates, has the

00:31:21.760 most experience selling memberships in a large pan-provincial leadership race. And of course,

00:31:28.140 he did it three years ago, three and a half years ago, when he was up against Jason Kenney, who had

00:31:33.860 quite a formidable sales machine. The next question is, does that Jason Kenney membership

00:31:39.320 sales machine still exist in some capacity? And if it does, are they moving over to support

00:31:45.740 Travis Taves? Are they going somewhere else? Are they sitting this race out? That's a big unknown

00:31:50.220 that we don't know right now. Yeah, Rebecca Schultz had a very high profile endorsement 0.95

00:31:55.120 from Ronna Ambrose. We know is very popular in the conservative movement, quite a good friend

00:31:59.880 of jason kenney's as well but i think a lot of the time we tend to overstate the role that

00:32:04.920 endorsements have in membership sales unless it's accompanied by someone who has a machine who has

00:32:09.640 a list and who's prepared to put that towards you we are running a couple of minutes behind here but

00:32:15.320 you can see on this on the screen we'll cut to the debate the second the debate starts up and

00:32:19.400 i see someone on the stage putting binders down so that seems to be a good start towards getting it

00:32:26.760 off to the races here. Let me just ask you, William, about preparation here, because obviously

00:32:33.540 it's a shorter race, but there's going to be another official debate. There's going to be

00:32:37.420 other opportunities for candidates to speak out, to do interviews. Do you want to hold back some

00:32:43.580 of your best material for later in this race, or do you want to come out swinging and really make

00:32:48.440 that splash now? You know, it's interesting. I think for many of the candidates who will be on

00:32:55.380 station tonight tonight is an important night to give themselves some profile and some differentiation

00:33:00.860 from everybody else in the race the i always joke the worst place to be in a leadership race is when

00:33:06.800 the media are describing it and they talk about a handful of the front running candidates and then

00:33:12.020 they say also in the race are yada yada yada and what you did in like the first three minutes of

00:33:17.320 this basically yeah absolutely and and it's a real problem because also in the race is are these

00:33:23.600 people is a really difficult position to be in when you're trying to raise money, when you're

00:33:28.720 trying to sell a bunch of memberships across the province. So tonight is one of the few times,

00:33:33.200 I think, when hopefully a lot of UCP members or potential members are going to be watching.

00:33:38.900 And in which case, yeah, you have to stand out. You have to make a bit of a splash.

00:33:43.680 The other factor, of course, is that there is about only, I think, 16 or so days until that

00:33:50.100 membership cutoff happens you are running out of what we would call in politics runway to get your

00:33:55.280 campaign into a competitive position and so if you aren't really coming out of the gate i think

00:34:01.960 in a good position tonight you're just going to have such a hard time trying to build a membership

00:34:07.020 sales machine and sell a lot of memberships in the next two and a bit weeks i think it was the 2012

00:34:12.320 presidential republican presidential primary where they had so many candidates running they

00:34:17.720 had two debates. They had like the upper tier candidate debate and the lower tier candidate

00:34:22.400 debate. And I'm like, how bad would it be if you were just relegated to, you know, debating Carly

00:34:26.500 Fiorina or whatever? Well, everyone else debates in the big one. So in this particular case, you

00:34:31.600 know, at least everyone's on one stage. But you're right. I mean, if you're going into this and

00:34:35.360 certain people in the audience are only paying attention to what Danielle Smith has to say and

00:34:39.980 what Brian Jean has to say, that's a bit of a problem. And interestingly enough, Rachel Emanuel,

00:34:45.620 who is our Alberta correspondent on the ground there has said that the UCP is not telling

00:34:50.960 reporters the format they've not published it anywhere I've gotten little bits of it from

00:34:55.880 contacts I have on the leadership campaigns but they're keeping the format a secret but what we

00:35:00.740 do know is that there's going to be a lot of interaction there's going to be a lot of one-on-one

00:35:05.240 one person said they heard there was going to be like a almost a cross-examination of sorts where

00:35:10.440 A candidate gets to put another candidate on the hot seat. And interestingly enough, I've moderated debates that have some element of that. And there's a strategy to who you pick, because on one hand, you want to be able to fire the silver bullet that goes towards the front runner that makes them look bad.

00:35:28.360 But on the other hand, if you ask someone a question, you're also giving them 60, 90 seconds, whatever it is of time to speak to the camera.

00:35:36.920 Whereas, you know, if you ask a nobody a question or a less well-known candidate, then you don't you're elevating them in a way.

00:35:44.820 So I think that's the big challenge here. It sounds like we have the debate just about to start here.

00:35:51.860 We'll throw to that as soon as we have it ready. But let me just say, William, do you have any predictions here?

00:35:57.520 Who do you think is going to come out on top?

00:35:59.920 You know, that's an interesting question.

00:36:02.080 Out of the candidates who have run before, Brian Jean and Daniel Smith have both done debates.

00:36:08.120 They've both done leaders debates.

00:36:10.960 Brian Jean, I will say from 2015, wasn't particularly favorably reviewed for his debate performance.

00:36:18.860 I'm sure that's in the minds of his campaign team, and they've been working very hard on that since.

00:36:23.940 Daniel Smith, very telegenic.

00:36:26.660 Sorry, we'll have to cut you off there.

00:36:29.940 The debate is beginning now, live from Medicine Hat.

00:36:32.400 medicine hat and cypress madison hat for the inspiration for this event we

00:36:56.640 we are very pleased to be partnering with them. Also of note is that the questions tonight were

00:37:08.900 developed from thousands of submissions received from our membership. This leadership election is

00:37:16.120 an extremely important decision for our party. We are electing a premier and the leader who will

00:37:23.100 take us into the next election. Best of luck to the candidates with their

00:37:28.680 efforts here tonight. I would be remiss if I didn't remind you of these important

00:37:34.780 deadlines. Anyone wanting to participate in this event has to have a UCP

00:37:41.380 membership by 11 59 p.m. on August 12th. Ballots will be mailed on September

00:37:48.620 2nd and must be received by october 3rd the new ucp leader will be presented to all albertans on

00:37:57.580 october 6th in calgary now on with the show i'd like to introduce you to our moderator for this

00:38:06.780 debate jeff davison jeff is a former calgary city councillor and presently the ceo of the

00:38:21.500 prostate cancer center take it away jeff thank you cynthia give cynthia a round of applause

00:38:30.380 Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the first United Conservative Party 2022

00:38:36.140 official leadership.

00:38:45.900 Candidates on stage to give us their positions on a series of questions submitted by you,

00:38:50.860 the UCP Party membership from across the province. Each candidate will be given an

00:38:55.820 equal opportunity to speak. The order by which we address the questions from our members has been

00:39:01.660 predetermined by

00:39:25.820 My only rule for these rebuttals is that candidates can't use them all at once.

00:39:46.460 So to keep things fair, if a candidate is named in the debate and they aren't an active

00:39:50.920 participant in it, I'll bring them in and allow them some time to respond.

00:39:54.640 Okay, and just a reminder to all the candidates. We've got a lot of things to get through tonight

00:39:58.800 So we're gonna be keeping a sharp eye on the clock. If you go over time

00:40:02.180 I will ask you to stop if you choose to keep talking

00:40:04.960 We'll just cut the microphone off and trust me. It's far more embarrassing for you than it will be for me

00:40:09.400 All right at the end of this all

00:40:11.280 I'm gonna ask each candidate in order of random draw to give a one-minute closing statement

00:40:15.960 Which would be their final pitch to you the UCP membership across Alberta and last request

00:40:21.800 all right this one's for members of the audience okay i ask one thing from you you refrain from

00:40:26.760 reacting to answers from the candidates please no clapping or cheering or booing or no signs

00:40:31.880 or placards those just interfere with all of our cameras let's be respectful and remind ourselves

00:40:36.440 that we're all one party here time is tight and we will not be stopping the clock so please don't

00:40:40.920 distract the candidates all right everybody ready here we go let's start things off with opening

00:40:46.680 statements mr lowen you have the floor one minute please hello everyone it's great to be here

00:40:51.720 today and it's great to be in medicine hat it's been a great campaign so far crisscrossing alberta

00:40:58.040 and it's great to be here in the southeast part of the province of course i'm from the northwest

00:41:01.480 part of the province in the peace country and there i'm a husband a father of five a grandfather

00:41:08.440 of eight and maybe more on the way and so but i'm running for the ucp leadership for one simple

00:41:15.880 reason to give our party back to its membership to bring back trust accountability transparency

00:41:26.120 now my campaign is this theme is your alberta your way this is a my focus is to offer the

00:41:34.600 party an opportunity to reconnect with the broader conservative movement and all albertans

00:41:40.360 I believe the best way to do this is with a fresh slate of ideas, firmly grounded in principles

00:41:46.840 and values that we all share. I look forward to sharing any of these ideas going forward. Thank

00:41:53.520 you. Thank you, Mr. Lohan. Ms. Smith, over to you. One minute. Thank you, Jeff. I'm Danielle Smith.

00:41:58.320 I'm a business owner. I've been a business advocate. I've been a print radio, TV, and podcast

00:42:04.360 journalist and I can say I've been in the public eye for about 25 years. I've discussed thousands

00:42:10.340 of issues. I've been right about a lot of things. I've been wrong about a few things, but that's

00:42:16.040 okay. I'm not perfect. I do always try to learn from others. I try to consult broadly and I try

00:42:21.520 to keep an open discussion and a fair mind as I'm listening to people who disagree with me.

00:42:26.900 And that I think is important to bring to politics. It's important to have that respectful debate and

00:42:31.920 the broad range of discussion on a whole variety of issues the reason i think we're here tonight

00:42:36.480 though is because we're trying to choose the best leader for this party we're trying to ask the

00:42:42.240 question who is going to be the best person to stand up to ottawa who is going to be the best

00:42:47.120 person to take on rachel notley and win in the next election and who is the best person to give

00:42:52.160 you back your freedoms and to protect them and i think that person's me i look forward to telling

00:42:56.320 you why. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Right on time. All right, Ms. Ani, one minute. Up to you. Thank you,

00:43:01.220 Jeff. Canada is going down a dangerous path and Alberta is being seriously impacted, negatively

00:43:08.140 impacted by decisions made in Ottawa. We all know that. Decisions made through an ideological lens

00:43:15.080 without empathy for the communities rely on those industries, the people who rely on those jobs,

00:43:21.220 the family incomes and the customers who benefit from our products and what are we to do about it

00:43:28.100 alberta must fight back absolutely but we can't be risky and we can't be hot-headed being premier

00:43:35.780 is a lot more than being a talk show host we need stable and serious government in alberta

00:43:42.100 now more than ever before i experienced this in 2007 and again in 2015 during the royalty review

00:43:50.340 when investment fled the province and that was due to provincial policy and that was tame compared

00:43:58.260 to the sovereignty act thank you all right thanks miss sonny okay reset the clock miss schultz one

00:44:04.260 minute i'm rebecca schultz and i'm running to be the leader of this amazing party and the next

00:44:09.060 premier of alberta because i love alberta we cannot take the future of our province for granted

00:44:17.140 Albertans I've met say they want a leader who can unite this party and that starts with our team to

00:44:22.980 take on Rachel Notley and the NDP in 2023. That takes someone who knows that unity starts with

00:44:30.000 our team and you, our party members. Someone who is disciplined, who won't let you down

00:44:36.080 with embarrassing comments, but instead...

00:44:47.140 .

00:45:17.140 Thank you.

00:45:47.140 for prosperity, opportunity, and growth.

00:45:56.460 Thank you, Mr. Taves.

00:45:57.920 Last but not least, Mr. Jean, over to you.

00:46:00.240 One minute.

00:46:00.860 Thanks, Jeff.

00:46:01.440 Hello, everyone.

00:46:02.280 I'm Brian Jean, and I'm running to be the leader of the party,

00:46:05.620 this great party that so many of us did so much work to start.

00:46:10.640 I'm running for the leadership because I want to make Albertans the happiest,

00:46:13.560 the healthiest, the most free and most prosperous people in Canada,

00:46:16.460 and the world. I want to be your premier to help you have more control of your

00:46:21.960 life, more autonomy. As an Albertan I've strived to serve my community, my

00:46:27.700 neighbors, whether as a business owner, a lawyer, a community volunteer, a member

00:46:33.320 of Parliament, a party leader or an MLA. I believe that the United Conservative

00:46:38.260 Party has the best ideas and the best principles. If the UCP is led in a way

00:46:43.300 that connects with normal everyday Albertans we will have success and we will serve and lead

00:46:48.020 Albertans to prosperity for many years to come. This party has wonderful people in it. We only

00:46:53.940 have to renew the UCP and connect it to the wishes and the needs of Albertans and if we do that we

00:46:59.220 will win the next election against the NDP. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Jean. All right thank you to all

00:47:04.740 the candidates. All right we're now going to move into the question round. So the first question

00:47:09.940 is going to you mr lowen you'll have just a reminder you'll have two minutes to answer

00:47:13.780 at which point then i'll ask you the question who would you like to debate we'll go from there

00:47:17.780 all right first topic topic is affordability let's face it the cost of living in alberta and

00:47:24.500 around the globe is getting more expensive significant price increases for gas food

00:47:29.860 heating our homes and electricity coupled with skyrocketing inflation have all negatively

00:47:34.500 affected alberta families and in particular our seniors first nations and other vulnerable

00:47:39.380 communities if alberta's primary value proposition is an affordable high quality of life how would

00:47:46.660 you work to ensure this for everyone and what specifically would you do

00:48:09.380 Thank you.

00:48:40.260 Hi, let me just chime in here that the issues you are seeing are actually with the feed that

00:48:46.400 the United Conservative Party is putting out. We're taking our feed from them. And it's

00:48:51.860 unfortunate because they don't seem to be aware that these issues are going on. So there

00:48:55.980 are aspects that are being missed. I'm sorry about that. And if you look at other streams,

00:49:00.180 which I would encourage you not to do, you'll find that it is actually the same issue there.

00:49:04.180 We can jump back to the debate now in Medicine Hat.

00:49:09.380 and apparently that was another false start so uh this is an issue and again it's funny we

00:49:35.380 were trying to do a little live update with rachel emmanuel early you may know at the beginning we

00:49:40.020 played a video that she was pre-recorded and she couldn't connect because she was in rural alberta

00:49:46.820 in an airplane hangar and at the time we thought oh well that's unfortunate we wanted to have her

00:49:50.980 live and didn't realize that this would prevent the ucp itself from being able to put a live stream

00:49:56.660 of its debate forward so let's hope they're recording the video at least so afterwards

00:50:01.540 it will be available for people to watch uh we have i know it's just me on the screen right now

00:50:05.780 but we are waiting for their feed to start and literally the second their feed starts

00:50:10.340 we'll go back to the debate in progress which is right now

00:50:16.180 for everyone and what specifically would you do to build upon the alberta advantage

00:50:20.740 sure affordability is a big deal in alberta right now we're facing a time of inflation that

00:50:25.540 we haven't seen in decades and you know as minister of finance i was privileged to suspend

00:50:30.500 the fuel tax in this province saving every albertan 13 cents a liter every time they fuel up number one

00:50:36.500 i would make that program permanent in alberta we can do that all albertans can benefit from

00:50:41.780 an owned resource because our revenues are not jeopardized as our royalty income offsets any

00:50:47.540 tax that we might lose in that program the other thing i will do and that is i will scrap the gdl

00:50:54.260 for young alberta drivers right now half a million young alberta drivers still have their gdl

00:51:00.260 that means that program's not providing any safety to our roads what it does do it adds a

00:51:05.860 150 of cost to every young albertan and requires them to do another road test i would scrap that

00:51:12.420 immediately i will also bring forward a child tax credit that will work effectively like expanding

00:51:20.340 the personal exemption on your tax return that will provide every family with two thousand dollars

00:51:26.260 of additional deduction or tax credit for every child at a time when many families are really

00:51:32.580 pushed and stretched to make the end of the month that will provide real relief all right okay that

00:51:38.820 ends the first part of the question we're now going to go into four minutes of open debate

00:51:42.180 between mr taves mr lowen mr loan kick us off okay so mr taves i guess one thing that i think

00:51:48.660 is concerning to albertans is the the four million four billion dollars of covet spending that uh

00:51:53.380 that the auditor jenner wasn't able to figure out so i i think we need to have some answers on that

00:51:57.860 and when i look at uh this government's record again we we're sitting here in 112 billion dollars

00:52:02.660 of debt uh i don't see uh that there's been a plan to pay down that debt and uh start cutting back

00:52:08.020 in that those interest payments so i would like to hear some more uh information on that i would

00:52:13.140 i think that we we're in a situation now where we've we've watched this this uh train wreck

00:52:18.180 coming slowly and slowly and now we're in a situation where when you compare our debt compared

00:52:23.380 to the federal debt and on an individual basis we're just as high or higher and that's i think

00:52:28.020 alarming for albertans that are that are working hard and and doing their best to to support their

00:52:33.540 families and living within their means and we have a government that hasn't been living within this

00:52:37.780 means we complained about the ndp and how often how how their budget was so high and we complained

00:52:44.260 about their spending when we were in uh in opposition but here we are spending 10 more

00:52:48.660 than the ndp did i can see you're ready to jump in mr tables feel free to jump in anytime all

00:52:53.380 right this is open debate good all right well thank you here first thing on the auditor general

00:52:57.700 report number one there's no four billion dollars that are missing the auditor general gave the

00:53:03.140 government of alberta a clean audit report for all of you in the room that know what a clean audit

00:53:07.700 report is that means there are no funds missing, not one dollar. And yes, we have brought fiscal

00:53:14.580 discipline to the province. I, as the Minister of Finance, brought fiscal discipline to this

00:53:19.640 province. We had a $10 billion overspend, a spending addiction, inherited from the NDP and

00:53:26.240 previous PC governments, if I'm honest. We have narrowed, in fact, by this fiscal year, we will

00:53:31.740 have eliminated that $10 billion overspend. That was job number one in putting this province on

00:53:37.360 sustainable fiscal trajectory because friends we balanced the budget not on a hundred dollar oil

00:53:42.880 we balanced it on 70 69 and 66 dollar oil by bringing fiscal discipline to the province's

00:53:50.000 finances and positioning this province for investment attraction economic growth which

00:53:54.960 results in expanded fiscal capacity that combination has allowed allowed me as the

00:54:00.720 minister of finance to present a balanced budget through all three years of the fiscal plan

00:54:07.040 finally putting this province on a sustainable fiscal trajectory let's let mr lowen jump in

00:54:11.600 here what do you got to say okay yeah mr tables i appreciate your uh coming on side with the gdl

00:54:16.960 i think that's actually a really good idea when uh but i think what a lot of people are wondering

00:54:21.600 when we have a musing about a pst i think albertans are very concerned about that i i am against and

00:54:27.920 i never have been in favor and never even used about a pst like you have and i think that's

00:54:33.200 something that should be cleared up right away that uh that this government will not put forward

00:54:38.320 a pst on albertans i think that's very important that's something we've we've talked about a lot

00:54:42.960 and i think we we've defended that a lot but now we have a couple couple of candidates up here sure

00:54:48.720 that have talked about the pst and i think we need to set the record straight and i'll set it straight

00:54:53.360 all right so go ahead and i will set this the record straight there's only one leadership hopeful

00:54:57.680 that i'm aware of on this stage that is not only mused about a pst but actually advocated for a

00:55:04.720 pst and todd lowen that's the leadership hopeful standing right next to you i have never mused

00:55:10.000 about a pst look if you want to know what i would do as premier look at what i did as finance

00:55:15.760 minister i balanced the budget by actually reducing business taxes i balanced the budget

00:55:21.200 by bringing fiscal discipline to this problem let's get a quick rebuttal in here let's get

00:55:25.280 get let's get going but you did also muse on the the pst and uh as far as the four billion dollars

00:55:31.760 could you explain where it went i mean we the auditor general said that it was that there was

00:55:36.520 no records of where where did that go the auditor general gave the province a clean audit report it

00:55:42.100 was recorded that doesn't tell us where the money was ending full stop it's all recorded

00:55:45.500 and accounted all right all right all right okay so that ends the first round of open debate

00:55:50.640 that actually went a little smoother than i thought it would be there was no throwing that

00:55:54.580 That was perfect. Okay, so we've had a few folks put up their paddle. That means we've got 45 seconds to chime in. 0.90

00:56:00.260 I have Ms. Ahir, Ms. Schultz, Ms. Ani, and Ms. Smith. Is that the correct order? Anybody else?

00:56:06.000 All right. Okay, let's go ahead, Ms. Ahir. 45 seconds.

00:56:08.580 Thank you so much. First of all, there's many people on this stage that were part of government.

00:56:12.900 There is no I in team. We do these things together.

00:56:15.120 If we're going to build this team, let's start talking about how we did these things collectively.

00:56:19.460 Second of all, yes, re-index tax benefits.

00:56:21.820 We need to catch up for the past years, but you also need to notify the CRA to reduce the tax withholding on Albertans and the paychecks.

00:56:28.500 That actually leaves more money in your pockets.

00:56:31.140 Our government has not kept up with pace with inflation, and for that, we actually owe you an apology.

00:56:37.100 So, we need to re-index AISH, Alberta Seniors Benefits.

00:56:40.280 We have to catch up and move forward.

00:56:42.100 I would like to also present an opportunity for small business tax thresholds, index of inflation. 0.94

00:56:47.760 Women-run, Indigenous-run businesses, farmers manufacturing new Canadians

00:56:51.620 are growing at amazing rates, including probably faster than Albertans. 0.55

00:56:55.040 That's 45 seconds there. I know it's fast. Thanks, Ms. Zaheer.

00:56:57.620 Okay, Ms. Schultz, 45 seconds to you.

00:56:59.380 I was the first candidate to bring forward a platform on affordability

00:57:02.400 because it is the number one issue I hear from Albertans.

00:57:05.660 Invest in kids' activities, yes, I love that idea.

00:57:08.720 We committed to it first.

00:57:10.340 Getting rid of the small business tax, starting for two years

00:57:12.760 so that small businesses know that they're respected,

00:57:15.080 they're the backbone of our community.

00:57:16.840 I absolutely think we need to continue fuel tax relief and re-index personal income taxes.

00:57:22.940 I was also the first candidate to put forward a plan for what to do with a surplus,

00:57:26.940 35% into debt repayment, 35% in saving for our future, and 30% to address affordability needs.

00:57:34.120 Now, I would say the same.

00:57:35.160 One person does not balance a budget as a minister who worked hard to transform every area of her ministry

00:57:40.080 to do better by Albertans, not only in the types of programs we offer, but the amount of dollars we invest.

00:57:45.420 That's it. That's 45. I know it's fast. All right, Ms. Sani, 45 seconds.

00:57:48.980 Thank you. And yes, of course, affordability is on top of mind for most Albertans.

00:57:53.420 And these issues with inflation hit middle-class, hardworking families the most.

00:57:58.360 And I had announced earlier on, several weeks earlier, that I was planning to ensure that we index income tax brackets

00:58:06.820 and we index social support such as seniors' benefits and age recipients as well.

00:58:12.500 because, again, vulnerable communities are also hit very, very hard with the inflation rate that

00:58:18.880 we haven't seen these rates since the early 80s. I also want to make a comment about GDL. While it

00:58:25.380 is a good policy on paper, I would have to say that it sounds like there has been limited

00:58:29.340 consultation done because driving schools would be impacted very severely with this kind of policy.

00:58:35.620 All right. Ms. Smith, over to you, 45 seconds.

00:58:38.240 All right. As I said, as a columnist over 25 years, I've mused on a lot of issues. And I want to put into context my musing. It was when we were at $24 billion in a deficit. We only had $2 billion worth of resource revenue. I think when you have those circumstances, it's no surprise that the Premier and the Finance Minister and I were talking about how do we solve that problem.

00:58:58.660 Fortunately, resource revenues have bailed us out again, notwithstanding what the former finance minister said.

00:59:05.300 We have a $4 billion surplus. That's great.

00:59:08.280 We've got $16 billion with the resource revenue this year.

00:59:11.760 That means we have a $12 billion structural deficit that we still haven't solved.

00:59:15.720 I wrote a major paper for the School of Public Policy that had several elements about how we would restructure,

00:59:21.160 how we would create house spending accounts so that we could address this issue and grow our heritage savings trust.

00:59:26.080 That's time. There we go. Okay, first question out of the way. No takers on any other things?

00:59:30.840 All right, okay, we're going to move on. Question two, this question is for you, Ms. Smith.

00:59:35.580 It has to do with the environment. Conservative Albertans are often villainized as not caring

00:59:40.880 about the environment despite having a track record of clean and ethical energy production

00:59:45.200 that supports a healthy Canadian economy. The opposition targets conservatives with

00:59:50.200 negative rhetoric around ghg reduction decarbonization net zero policies and adaptation

00:59:56.440 of physical planning all under the umbrella of a climate emergency spending billions without any

01:00:01.720 defined outcomes alternatively most conservatives would say they care a great deal about the

01:00:06.920 environment today and what they will leave behind for generations to come albertans value our clean

01:00:12.360 air lakes outdoor spaces trails and mountains to name a few what would you do to change the

01:00:19.400 narrative around this negative environmental stereotype and what specific targets would you

01:00:24.920 strive to achieve in order to create a greener more sustainable alberta you have two minutes

01:00:29.480 thanks so much jeff i remember getting hit by graham thompson years ago in 2012 when i talked

01:00:35.160 about how the science wasn't settled on climate change and i can tell you uh what i've come around

01:00:40.600 full circle on that i am i am now probably the first and early adopter of thinking that we can

01:00:46.120 hit a net zero target and we can get there faster than anyone anywhere else and i'll tell you why i

01:00:51.960 believe that number one has been the incredible innovation that we have seen among our entrepreneurs

01:00:57.720 and in the business community and we as conservatives have always believed that

01:01:01.080 technology was going to be the answer and i can tell you it is the answer whether we capture the

01:01:06.520 co2 and bury it underground or whether we turn it into useful products like carbon nanofiber which

01:01:11.720 can be a replacement for steel cement so we can make a more durable construction material plastics

01:01:17.640 we can also turn it into industrial minerals that can be turned into soap my favorite one is you can

01:01:22.120 turn it into alcohol there is a a company called airco that takes a pure stream of co2 and makes

01:01:28.120 it into vodka you can just imagine the marketing opportunities on that one so when i look at the

01:01:33.080 at the challenge that we have that is the message that we have to get out there is that we have

01:01:37.000 immense poor space in Alberta that will allow us to capture CO2. Our conversion of our economy

01:01:43.000 to a hydrogen economy is already well underway with this government. We're building a hub

01:01:47.000 in the Edmonton area. If we start building hydrogen fueling stations all over this province,

01:01:52.600 we'll be able to change over our long-haul vehicles to be hydrogen-based. Then we will be

01:01:58.040 able to be a hub for the construction of hydrogen vehicles. Why not attract Toyota here so that they

01:02:04.200 They can build their Toyota Mirais.

01:02:06.060 Why do we have to wait for Ottawa to be the center of the auto industry?

01:02:11.460 We can be the center of auto manufacturing here.

01:02:14.200 But that's not the only issue.

01:02:15.320 Once we get the issue of CO2 out of the way and people see that we are serious about solving it and getting there faster than anywhere else,

01:02:21.940 we also have to tackle the issues of air quality, of water quality, of making sure that we're doing habitat protection,

01:02:28.440 which our farmers and ranchers do so well.

01:02:30.140 And I can't wait to sell that message.

01:02:32.160 All right. Thank you.

01:02:32.800 okay who would you like to debate on this topic i would like to uh debate uh raj ansani all right

01:02:38.400 miss sani again the question was what would you do to change the negative or the narrative around

01:02:42.960 this negative environmental stereotype and what specific targets would you strive to achieve in

01:02:47.600 order to create a greener more sustainable alberta you have a minute and a half thank you well there

01:02:52.960 are a number of areas that we need to look at but i'm going to talk about energy specifically the

01:02:58.160 The reality is, is that even Canadians across this country have a very negative perception

01:03:03.780 of Alberta.

01:03:04.780 They think of us as rich emitters.

01:03:06.780 And before we can tackle the issues with security of supply, we need to make sure that we have

01:03:12.880 more information out all across the nation to ensure that Canadians understand that Alberta

01:03:19.620 energy is the cleanest, most ethical source of energy absolutely in the world.

01:03:25.560 Now, the other thing that I wanted to talk about as it relates to energy, because we

01:03:28.840 talk quite a bit about transition in energy, and there are two aspects that we have to

01:03:34.340 keep in mind.

01:03:35.340 We've already talked about hydrogen, that has been mentioned.

01:03:37.980 We have ample natural gas resources here in Alberta, and that can translate into hydrogen

01:03:44.540 supply.

01:03:45.540 We are still working on the demand portion of that equation.

01:03:48.940 And that was some of the work that I was doing as Minister of Transportation.

01:03:52.740 Now, going to LNG, I thought that we had missed the boat on LNG, but that's actually not true.

01:03:58.540 Because of the geopolitical situation that we are seeing right now in Europe,

01:04:03.060 we know, again, security of supply is on top of mind for everyone.

01:04:07.140 And Alberta is, again, on the cusp, uniquely positioned to be the supplier of natural gas for LNG.

01:04:14.000 But what concerns me is when we start talking about things like the Sovereignty Act,

01:04:19.720 That is the number one thing that is going to drive investment away from our profits.

01:04:23.880 All right, I've got to cut you off there.

01:04:24.800 I'm sorry.

01:04:25.400 I know a minute and a half is tough.

01:04:26.620 It's all tough.

01:04:27.140 It's hard to get everything you want to say in a couple minutes.

01:04:29.900 All right, let's start four minutes of open debate.

01:04:32.140 Smith, I'm going to start with you.

01:04:33.600 And if I have to, I'll force back and forth 30 seconds so that we kind of make some points

01:04:36.800 and allow some time.

01:04:38.520 You got it.

01:04:39.000 I'd love to talk more about the Sovereignty Act because it's absolutely essential to getting

01:04:42.860 our...

01:04:43.400 Well, let's keep this one on the environment.

01:04:44.700 It will.

01:04:45.360 it's absolutely essential to getting our products to market because what I would like to see is us

01:04:50.900 take the lead on developing economic corridors. We have been waiting since the 1930s for Ottawa

01:04:57.160 to develop economic corridors. It's been almost 100 years. They are not going to develop economic

01:05:02.260 corridors for us, but we've got such a huge opportunity to partner with our First Nations

01:05:06.500 community. We've got the treaty settlements that have happened in Alberta, Saskatchewan,

01:05:10.960 and Manitoba. There's a group of 14 First Nations that want to take the lead on developing

01:05:15.200 an economic corridor and it would be 10 kilometers wide and the nice part about it is by making it

01:05:19.940 wide enough you can take care of your caribou habitat you can make sure that you're doing

01:05:24.020 your landowner protection you can identify endangered species and habitat and wetlands

01:05:28.420 and you can take care of that as well but then you can also develop the rail line I just want

01:05:33.440 to say that yeah we don't need an unconstitutional impractical sovereignty act to develop economic

01:05:39.920 corridors in fact that work is already underway as the minister of transportation this was one

01:05:44.660 of my key priorities and I worked with MLS Shane Getson on this because what happened when we had

01:05:50.760 the BC storms and those highways and bridges were decimated, all the traffic came through highway

01:05:56.920 number three and that is why one of the first things that I did when I interacted with the

01:06:01.940 federal government was to tell them that we need to develop that economic corridor, that's an

01:06:07.020 agri-food corridor and I applied for money through the National Trade Corridor Fund. I'm going to go back here for a minute because the question is on the environment, right?

01:06:13.640 we're looking for tangible pieces to move forward in terms of how do you change that negative

01:06:18.360 stereotype right and what specific targets are you going to move forward with to achieve a more

01:06:23.480 sustainable greener alberta so well part of that that's a big membership question part of that

01:06:28.680 conversation is ensuring that we're maintaining investor confidence because if we are going to

01:06:33.480 invest in greener technology and we are going to encourage people from across the globe to

01:06:39.400 come to alberta for example if we want to invest in high-speed rail that could be powered by

01:06:44.440 hydrogen-powered locomotive that investor confidence needs to be maintained any work

01:06:50.200 that you want to do on environmental initiatives requires bringing investment in and it requires

01:06:55.800 being entrepreneurial and it requires supporting our local residents as well but if we have a

01:07:00.840 situation where we have a candidate who is inviting a situation of turmoil of chaos and inviting

01:07:07.720 investors to stay away from our province because we're too politically risky that is the problem

01:07:13.400 not just for the environment for energy and agriculture ottawa has created chaos ottawa has

01:07:18.920 cancelled our projects ottawa has caused energy east and tech frontier mine and tens of billions

01:07:24.200 of other projects to be cancelled the reason these are linked is because part of our strategy

01:07:30.040 in reducing greenhouse gas emit is exporting our clean lng to displace coal in india and china we

01:07:36.920 We cannot do that because Ottawa keeps standing in our way.

01:07:40.240 We need to build economic corridors.

01:07:42.060 We need to take the lead on that.

01:07:43.720 We need to work with our First Nations.

01:07:45.320 We need to take the lead on solving the environmental issues

01:07:47.800 so that we can get our product to Churchill,

01:07:50.080 to Thunder Bay, to Tuktoyaktuk, to Port-au-Prince Rupert.

01:07:53.160 And we have to exert our sovereignty to do that

01:07:55.440 because Ottawa is not going to do it for us.

01:07:57.800 We have a fight on our hands with Ottawa, absolutely.

01:07:59.100 And that fight is long, it's arduous.

01:08:01.280 There are no shortcuts, people.

01:08:03.320 There is no Magical Sovereignty Act

01:08:05.280 any other legislation that is going to let us bypass those very difficult steps the problem is

01:08:11.200 when we shoot ourselves in the foot with provincial policies provincial policies like

01:08:16.000 a sovereignty act that is creating a politically risky environment and that is going to impact

01:08:21.760 everything exactly what i said earlier environmental initiatives energy initiatives

01:08:26.320 agricultural initiatives this is tantalizing the act it's seductive it draws you in but it is an

01:08:33.440 illusion and my question is what are you going to do when you can't deliver what you're trying to

01:08:38.400 sell all right okay that ends our four minutes it's getting hot in here all right as far as

01:08:47.280 paddles go mr tabes you put up your paddle there i noticed you 45 seconds on the clock for you

01:08:51.520 all right good thanks jeff i have to agree with miss sonny on this one implementing the sovereignty

01:08:57.200 act simply we can't wish all of ottawa's obstructionism away by waving the magic wand

01:09:03.440 on the sovereignty act i agree a sovereignty act the way it is proposed would ultimately bring a

01:09:09.520 lack of predictability and uncertainty into this province that would drive investment outlook we've

01:09:14.320 made great progress in the last three years alberta will lead the nation in economic growth this year

01:09:19.040 and next we cannot unwind that we don't win when we operate from a position of weakness now what we

01:09:25.360 need to do we need to sell what we do already we have the most responsible energy and agriculture

01:09:31.280 industries in the world we need to sell their responsibility because the world needs more

01:09:36.000 alberta energy and alberta agriculture all right thank you right on time were there any other

01:09:40.160 panels that i missed nobody going once all right twice let's move on here question three is for

01:09:46.480 miss sani all right it's on health care reform the cobin 19 pandemic placed enormous pressure

01:09:52.880 on health systems across the country and around the world canada's premiers say it is intensified

01:09:59.200 pre-existing fractures in health systems all across the country and that we're now at a critical

01:10:04.480 point the premiers are asking the federal government to increase the canada health transfer

01:10:10.000 to help ensure we all have access to high quality and timely health services with specifics as leader

01:10:16.560 How would you ensure that Albertans get the tests, procedures, and health services they need when they need them?

01:10:24.000 Ms. Ani, you have two minutes.

01:10:25.620 Thank you, Jeff. Excellent question, because health care is another issue that's been on top of mind for Albertans.

01:10:31.300 When I launched my campaign, one of the first things I did was to indicate that I will launch a transparent, open inquiry into the pandemic response,

01:10:41.200 because we have done a number of things right in this response and we have done a number of things

01:10:46.400 wrong we all know that and there are a diversity of opinions on this matter and we need everyone

01:10:51.040 to come to the table to discuss that the outcome of that inquiry will show us where the gaps are

01:10:57.120 in the health care system that arose as a result of the pandemic so that is number one number two

01:11:03.280 my intention is to repair relationships with doctors physicians health care workers nurses

01:11:10.240 because we cannot move forward in any significant fashion on any kind of health care reform

01:11:16.000 if we don't have those who are central and intrinsic to the system at the table many of you

01:11:22.480 know that your physicians are community leaders as well and we have to stop this war with the

01:11:27.520 physicians number three i think everybody in this room will agree that there are issues with alberta

01:11:33.760 health services we know that i was in rural alberta not too long ago in a room full of elected

01:11:40.320 officials and there was a big screen on the tv with a representative from ahs he told everybody

01:11:46.640 in that room that there is nothing to see there here you have what you need and you have enough

01:11:52.480 doctors the data shows it there is a woman several people actually who are crying in that room she

01:11:58.720 said to me i will die in this community because first of all we won't get an ambulance and secondly

01:12:04.400 if an ambulance does come there will be no doctor at that hospital so alberta health services is an

01:12:11.040 inverted triangle it needs to be flipped it's too top heavy and one of the comments that came up

01:12:17.760 actually from physicians in edmonton was that maybe we need to move back to regional boards

01:12:22.720 there are many aspects of asia that need to be dismantled all right that's two minutes

01:12:27.760 who would you like to debate on the health care topic uh miss daniel smith all right miss smith

01:12:32.880 i'll repeat the question one more time for you all right let's settle down folks with specifics

01:12:38.800 as leader how would you ensure that albertans get the tests procedures and health services they need

01:12:44.240 when they need them you have a minute and one sure i just want to take a moment to clarify

01:12:48.640 a comment i made in a podcast last week about cancer that was misunderstood i know that cancer

01:12:55.360 can strike anyone at any time without any relation to lifestyle especially kids but not just kids

01:13:02.080 it happened to my mother-in-law too she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and only survived

01:13:07.280 three months after diagnosis and by the time they found out she was so malnourished that they weren't

01:13:12.800 able to continue her chemo treatments that's why i became such a proponent of early detection early

01:13:19.840 treatment nutrition and holistic medicine there are so many more options if you diagnose early

01:13:27.520 then you can treat early and that's what i was trying to say i'll be in very awkwardly but it's

01:13:32.720 in that vein that is why i proposed health spending accounts because we spend so much money

01:13:38.880 on the back end when people have a disease that manifests and we spend no money on the front end

01:13:44.080 on prevention to keep people well and so if we were to establish health spending accounts with

01:13:49.200 $300 in it. We'd all be able to deal with the trauma of the last two years. Mental health,

01:13:55.320 counseling, nutrition, dietician, naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, physiotherapists. If we

01:14:01.660 can start spending some money at the front end, I think it's going to be transformative in the

01:14:05.800 system. And we will save money as people are not going into the system. And when we get into fall

01:14:10.280 respiratory virus season, we're going to make sure that we have enough room to be able to handle that

01:14:14.680 surgeon patient load. That's the first step I take. All right. Thank you, Ms. Smith. All right,

01:14:18.920 let's start the clock for four minutes of debate. Ms. Soni, kick us off. Okay, thank you, Jeff. And 1.00

01:14:24.080 thank you, Ms. Smith, for your clarification of your comments. But I'm sorry, I'm not buying it

01:14:30.340 because you made a subsequent video where you actually doubled down on your perspective. And

01:14:34.960 the reality is, is that those comments are very hurtful to any Albertan, any Canadian who has

01:14:40.440 lost somebody from cancer, or anybody who is suffering from cancer right now. There is another

01:14:46.020 aspect to cancer that i want to talk about right now when i had launched i had talked about mental

01:14:51.060 health supports it's a reality that many cancer survivors experience debilitating depression

01:14:57.060 after their treatments so to the comments that were made basically diminishes the experience

01:15:02.980 of cancer survivors and their families and i want to know when are you going to apologize to alberta

01:15:08.420 for the comments that you made i did apologize because i was clearly misunderstood uh one of

01:15:13.460 the main points i wanted to make as well i've been talking with icor blood services they have

01:15:18.180 i mentioned this in the podcast as well they have a test of thirteen hundred dollars that

01:15:22.980 would allow us to look at biomarkers in the blood i think every one of us who've had a loved one die

01:15:27.940 of cancer have always said gosh if only we caught it earlier the reason we say that is because we

01:15:34.020 know that when you catch it earlier there are far more treatment options that was the intention

01:15:38.260 of what i i wanted to say i know that the that icor blood services has approached the government

01:15:43.060 to see if they would fund a pilot program into this 1300 test you know what if i was premier

01:15:48.820 you bet absolutely i would because i know that if somebody has a pre-existing condition if they have

01:15:54.180 some kind of genetic predisposition towards cancer if they're beginning to see early symptoms it will

01:15:58.820 be the very best way for us to diagnose and then we can get them the wraparound services that they

01:16:03.700 need the nutrition the exercise the additional support as well as traditional chemotherapy and

01:16:09.060 surgical uh intervention and radiation excellent i'm just going to jump in here because clearly

01:16:14.100 you've had time to think about this and think it through after the outcry from your original

01:16:18.740 remarks and if the apology was indeed delivered then that is great but i think it needs to be

01:16:23.940 clarified because i have doctors and physicians and former stakeholders from community and social

01:16:29.220 services telling me that this kind of rhetoric is harmful it's harmful to albertans and and

01:16:35.540 miss smith you have a platform you are an influencer you have people who listen to what

01:16:40.420 you say those kind of irresponsible comments actually speak to me that there is an issue with

01:16:46.180 impulsiveness here and there is an issue with somebody who is making rash statements holding

01:16:51.780 this public platform so let's move on to the healthcare spending account i was talking about

01:16:56.900 mental health anybody in this room who has ever been to a counseling session knows that 300 will

01:17:03.860 pay for a session and a half. I actually have grave, I guess I'm very skeptical about this

01:17:10.900 health care spending account. What do you do when somebody goes to the naturopath and they have one

01:17:15.500 and a half appointments? That is not enough. You're just getting your consultation and you're just

01:17:19.760 getting started on your next half of an appointment. What do you do when that health care spending

01:17:24.280 account is exhausted? Right now, our public service, our government has negotiated with our

01:17:29.480 public service, they get a $950 health spending account. You bet. I'd love for every Albertan

01:17:34.600 to have the same level of support on health spending accounts that we give to our public

01:17:38.620 service. And that's the reason why I'm advocating for it now. Maybe it starts with $300. Maybe it

01:17:44.700 only allows you to take your child in to get four treatments from a counselor or a psychologist,

01:17:50.820 but that's going to be a good start. And it's certainly better than nothing. When we look at

01:17:55.280 what happened over the last two years of COVID lockdowns, and I haven't heard any apology from

01:17:59.840 any of the cabinet ministers who imposed that on us for the last two years, I'd like to see an

01:18:03.740 apology there. When we look at what happened over the last two years. What did we talk about folks?

01:18:13.220 I get it. I get it. But let's not take away time from the candidates. This is about healthcare

01:18:17.520 reform, not what happened in the past. Okay. So remember, we're all on the same team here. Okay.

01:18:22.860 All right.

01:18:23.320 Carry on, Ms. Smith.

01:18:24.220 Sorry about that.

01:18:24.960 I'm just going to jump in.

01:18:26.080 It's easy to make kind of remarks when you've never been in government at that capacity

01:18:31.100 and you haven't had to make those tough decisions.

01:18:33.400 I stood up.

01:18:33.960 But nonetheless, I stood up on your talk show.

01:18:36.060 All right, folks, settle down or Jeff's going to stand up again.

01:18:38.240 Mental health should be funded much more than $300 a month.

01:18:42.020 All right.

01:18:42.300 That's it, folks.

01:18:43.080 All right.

01:18:43.460 Okay. 0.99

01:18:43.680 We've got a few people that want to jump in here. 1.00

01:18:45.480 Ms. Schultz, I saw your paddle first.

01:18:47.240 Then is it here?

01:18:48.180 Mr. Taves?

01:18:49.560 You know, I would agree, actually, with a lot of what Ms. Zani had said.

01:18:52.700 You know, we do have to focus on transforming AHS.

01:18:55.820 I was the first candidate to release my plan.

01:18:58.920 I don't believe that going back to regional boards is necessarily the answer,

01:19:02.740 but what is the answer is going back to local decision-making.

01:19:06.020 And instead of a government of panel review and committee,

01:19:08.660 we go back to listening to the front lines,

01:19:10.840 whether that was in Claire's home where I heard nurses give me ideas

01:19:13.620 about how we could do better staffing if those decisions weren't made

01:19:16.680 in Calgary and Edmonton.

01:19:17.660 physicians in Edmonton who could save us $20,000 a day by allowing them to be innovative instead

01:19:23.480 of squabbling about their salaries. We do have to be careful of the words that we use because I

01:19:28.220 would say this, bad judgment, flippant comments erode trust in our government and that is not

01:19:33.200 helpful in 2023. All right, thank you Ms. Schultz. Ms. is here. Thank you so much. I would like to

01:19:39.080 bring forward a different thought process. We have an opportunity to triage here. We have nurse

01:19:43.900 practitioners and we also have something called a physician assistant which has been around since

01:19:48.700 2013 if we fund these opportunities these folks could actually be a gateway into doctors and

01:19:54.860 absolutely being able to cover the gaps particularly in rural areas and i think it's really important

01:19:59.260 when candidates are speaking about rural health you speak to rural mlas and you speak to rural

01:20:04.780 folks when we're talking about women's care sars nurses domestic violence sexual assault

01:20:10.060 making sure that we have access to cultural sensitivity there hasn't been one comment up

01:20:14.540 here talking about the multicultural people in this province and the absolute barriers there

01:20:19.420 are to folks having health care thank you all right thank you mr tapes good thank you health

01:20:24.220 care is failing in rural alberta full stop that's my experience in the northwest and that's what i

01:20:30.060 hear from albertans right across the province now i don't pretend to have all the answers around

01:20:35.100 health care but i've made some observations in the last two years number one ahs needs complete

01:20:41.580 restructuring and we have to decentralize their decision-making structure that structure right

01:20:46.940 now is not only failing albertans it's failing our frontline health care professionals and that's

01:20:52.460 tragic i have to agree with a couple of the other speakers as well there were some very

01:20:57.500 irresponsible comments made this last week around cancer and around health care we have to be

01:21:02.860 accountable for our language our words matter that's the value of a leadership

01:21:06.640 race right now so conservative I'm gonna stop you there all right mr. gene go

01:21:10.900 ahead please 45 seconds the system's broken I always find it amusing when

01:21:15.320 people from Calgary and Edmonton tell me how our health system is going I'm from

01:21:19.000 Fort Brunner and I'll tell you we haven't had a health care system there

01:21:21.400 for years and years and years well I'm from the other forgotten corner that

01:21:25.360 will change if I'm premier we need to do things and we don't need to blow up HS

01:21:29.920 what we need to do is work with the great doctors and nurses that we have and the

01:21:33.680 technicians that we have and make things better the Auditor General in 2017

01:21:38.240 actually set out how we need to fix it specifically said it's not an issue of

01:21:42.460 cost it's not an issue of money you are not going to fix it by throwing money

01:21:45.940 at it I've lived it we need to focus on outcomes for patients and have the money

01:21:55.680 follow them but danielle all right that's very disappointing i'm sorry mr gene comments on

01:22:00.240 cancer all right okay you know what i'm going to come back to you for 30 seconds after mr lowen

01:22:05.440 floor is yours 45 seconds thank you very much yes i agree that with others that the system isn't is

01:22:10.480 broken we need an investigation into what happened with the coveted response i have colleagues here

01:22:15.520 that were in the coveted cabinet and uh now that it seems the public tide is changing that all of

01:22:19.920 a sudden they're trying to distance themselves from the decisions that they made there i agree

01:22:23.440 also that throwing money at it doesn't isn't going to solve the problem we have an ehs system

01:22:27.840 that needs a severe renovation they've had 15 years to get it right and they've been failing

01:22:31.760 all the time we have a shortage of healthcare workers we have emergency rooms being shut down

01:22:35.760 in rural alberta we have a post-secondary system in alberta that doesn't graduate the needs of our

01:22:40.800 society when it comes to healthcare workers and other other uh other educational opportunities

01:22:47.360 and we have a college of physicians that isn't helping either we need to get the test done and

01:22:52.160 the treatment done that we need all right that's zero mr loan thank you all right uh you got called

01:22:56.960 out there miss smith i'm going to give you 30 seconds to just rebut that and then we're going

01:22:59.840 to move on to the next question well you know i invite uh people to to listen to my full podcast

01:23:04.400 this is the reason why even though rajan doesn't think there's value in being a talk radio host i

01:23:09.120 can tell you there is i can tell you i shouldn't wouldn't be given a snow job by alberta health

01:23:13.040 services when they tell me i should jail pastors and shut down businesses and mass kids and tell

01:23:18.560 tell them they can't go to school and create the mental health crisis that they did and bring in

01:23:22.160 vaccine passports when they said they wouldn't wouldn't do that i would have consulted broadly

01:23:26.720 and made sure that we didn't make those kinds of mistakes because we will be dealing with the

01:23:30.160 consequence of that for decades all right okay thank you everybody let's get set for another

01:23:36.160 question all right stop clapping over here you're gonna make jeff have to stand up again nobody likes

01:23:40.320 that all right thank you rebecca schultz this question is for you and it is on the federal

01:23:46.560 government all right collaborative relationships with other orders of government are often the key

01:23:52.000 to funding large-scale capital programs providing sustainable sources of base funding for projects

01:23:56.800 such as transit initiatives and are generally beneficial to driving solutions that benefit all

01:24:01.760 albertans however the majority of albertans feel the federal government is determined to make life

01:24:08.640 difficult for our economic prosperity and are intentionally causing division between albertans

01:24:14.400 and other canadians how would you as leader address topics such as bill c2169 and equalization

01:24:23.440 payments with the federal government in order to affect a better outcome for albertans and i want

01:24:28.880 to hear specifics here tangible actionable items all right you've got two minutes floor is yours

01:24:34.000 thank you very much this is something i hear every day in every corner of this province that

01:24:38.080 albertans absolutely want a leader and a government who will defend our constitutional rights we are

01:24:44.320 not asking for anything special we are just asking for fairness in the constitution now i am

01:24:49.840 in fact the only candidate on this stage that has successfully negotiated with the federal

01:24:54.240 government and justin trudeau was that easy absolutely not it took a lot of hard work behind

01:24:59.120 the scenes i was not about to leave four billion in albertans hard-earned tax money sitting in

01:25:04.960 ottawa to invest in parents and families right across this country and not invest in parents

01:25:11.680 here i don't believe that albertans would have been okay with that and that's why we went toe

01:25:16.240 to toe with justin trudeau to make that happen in a way that respected small business and

01:25:21.920 incorporated parent choice i am the only i am the only person standing on stage who is able to do

01:25:28.160 that and i do believe in collaborative working relationships in fact when i look at my campaign

01:25:32.480 launch i not only had my local city councillor but my local mp standing there in the room because i

01:25:38.000 do believe teaming up and working together on issues will get us a lot further than going at

01:25:43.280 it alone and that would be my approach jeff when you're asking specifically on those bills c21 c69

01:25:49.200 and overcoming equalization changes that we are not the only province that wants to see changes

01:25:54.720 to however our approach has been to write letters angry tweets light our hair on fire run around

01:26:01.200 creating chaos making headlines and not getting results for albertans that's what albertans are

01:26:06.880 tired of it is and i would rather go at it with an army of other provinces than going at it alone

01:26:13.280 as what others may see as alberta being angry and you know what for you albertans who are angry

01:26:19.040 i hope you know that i'm angry too and i hear you i see it in every area where the federal

01:26:24.960 trudeau liberals are trying to push and infringe on areas of provincial jurisdiction we can't let

01:26:30.080 them do that when it comes to the emissions cap let's be clear production all right absolutely

01:26:35.360 provincial. We've got to fight. We've got to stop you there. Okay. Who would you like to debate on

01:26:39.000 this topic? Danielle Smith, please. All right. Ms. Smith, you're back up. You're going to have

01:26:45.320 a minute and a half to address the question. How would you, as leader, address topics such as Bill

01:26:50.360 C-21, 69, and equalization payments with the federal government in order to affect a better

01:26:56.360 outcome for Albertans? And again, we're looking for some specifics here. I know we've been passive

01:27:00.880 for so long that we tend to forget that the constitution actually gives us sovereignty

01:27:07.600 in the matters that are enumerated to us go on to wikipedia and they talk about our parliamentary

01:27:12.400 system that's what they say about canada is that legislatures in canada are sovereign in matters

01:27:18.800 that are enumerated to them if you look up section 92 92a 93 94 and 95 and i read them frequently

01:27:26.640 you will see that we have allowed the federal government to walk all over us in every single

01:27:30.480 area of our jurisdiction and with due respect to uh to rebecca i know she did a she did a good

01:27:36.720 negotiation but we still lost we always lose when we go up against ottawa they take all of our money

01:27:42.560 and they dribble it back with conditions they steal the rest and they use it to win votes in

01:27:46.880 quebec and atlanta canada and on the child care proposal you probably saw the cbc story a couple

01:27:52.000 of days ago from our private child care operators they're now forbidden from expanding their

01:27:56.480 operations when they have a profit it's called an overage and they have to go to the bureaucrats to

01:28:01.600 get permission on how to spend it they're not allowed to use any of the money for their capital

01:28:05.920 projects so many of them have invested in buildings and now they're not able to use any of the money

01:28:10.320 for that i don't look at that as a win implementing justin trudeau's socialist daycare system and

01:28:16.160 squeezing out the private daycare operators that vote for us looks to me like a step backwards and

01:28:22.160 And it's exactly the reason why we have to draw a hard line, say our jurisdiction is our jurisdiction under the Constitution, and stay out of our lane.

01:28:30.740 That's what the Sovereignty Act would do.

01:28:32.240 We'll get to bring up the rest here.

01:28:33.980 All right, audience, let's not start again.

01:28:36.580 Let's not start, folks.

01:28:38.160 Come on.

01:28:39.120 We've got a lot to get through tonight.

01:28:40.760 Every time we do this, I've got to stop and turn around.

01:28:43.040 So let's just dial it back for a minute, all right?

01:28:46.160 Okay, four minutes, open debate. 0.98

01:28:48.180 Ms. Schultz, we'll start with you.

01:28:49.440 I mean, I would say this.

01:28:50.420 When it comes to child care, we have private operators every single day that are grateful that we kept their businesses open and included in this plan.

01:28:58.040 We also, an article in the Financial Post, if we want to quote the media, highlighting private operators from other provinces right across this country saying that they wish we had a fair deal.

01:29:07.940 What would you have done, Ms. Smith?

01:29:09.700 Leave out Alberta parents and families. 0.98

01:29:11.880 What you're doing right now is writing checks you can't cash and making promises you can't keep.

01:29:16.340 That Sovereignty Act that you are running on, Ms. Smith, is a great fear for our energy industry.

01:29:22.020 They think that creating chaos is going to create additional investment uncertainty.

01:29:26.680 It's going to drive Albertans' investment jobs out of this province.

01:29:31.140 That's what they're afraid of.

01:29:32.600 They're afraid of additional economic uncertainty and additional economic crisis and constitutional crisis

01:29:38.020 six months before an election, which will, in fact, deliver us an NDP government.

01:29:43.660 That is what has our industry worried.

01:29:45.420 They want us to sit down and have smart negotiations.

01:29:48.840 You said it yourself.

01:29:49.540 They are leaders in environmental emissions.

01:29:52.720 Ottawa's created the chaos.

01:29:55.720 I sent out a fact, NFAQ, I encourage Rebecca to read it,

01:29:58.800 about what the Sovereignty Act would say.

01:30:00.620 It would say, given that the Constitution recognizes 92, 92A, 93, 94, 95

01:30:06.100 are our areas of jurisdiction, and given that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

01:30:09.520 obligates us to protect the rights and freedoms of our citizens,

01:30:12.920 therefore we will not enforce any federal policy that violates Alberta's constitutional rights or

01:30:19.420 the rights of our citizens. It's very, it actually imposes lawfulness on a lawless Ottawa. Ottawa is

01:30:27.780 the one who started the constitutional war with us when they told us in November of 2015 that we

01:30:32.440 would not be allowed to sell our products in the open market with Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 and we've

01:30:39.300 been trying to play footsie, we've been trying to get social license, we've been writing certain

01:30:42.680 letters we've been going to the court. That's actually not true at all. When it comes to Bill

01:30:46.360 C-69, there are nine other provinces in this country that are standing up and supporting

01:30:50.840 Alberta in that fight. And that's why I am confident in that system. We absolutely have

01:30:56.460 to stand up and defend Alberta's rights. And I will say there are aspects of the Sovereignty Act

01:31:00.840 that do make sense. Aspects. Aspects of an overall bill in which other pieces of that bill

01:31:07.220 encourage breaking the rule of law, which is something else that many Albertans, especially

01:31:11.640 newcomers to this country are fearful of that is not something that albertans want to see we want

01:31:17.800 to see that rule of law upheld we are going to fight that doesn't mean sitting back and taking

01:31:22.040 a back seat to justin trudeau we absolutely need to continue to take steps and i would argue

01:31:26.760 albertans yes i understand they want us to see that action happen faster and we should do that

01:31:32.760 faster looking into tax points and credits and uh also i would say pushing forward on an alberta

01:31:38.200 a pension plan. But we also have to put that to Albertans to make the case. And it is a good one

01:31:43.480 where we have high average incomes, a young population, we have low unemployment rates.

01:31:48.360 That absolutely makes sense. Let's move. Let's move fast. Section 95 of the Constitution gives

01:31:54.820 us the first right to make rules regarding agriculture and the federal government from

01:31:59.480 time to time. So I just wonder with Rebecca, if the federal government comes through with a 30%

01:32:05.600 mandate to reduce fertilizer use among our farmers are we just going to say oh golly gee i wish you

01:32:10.000 wouldn't do that i'll tell you what i'd say and say no it violates section 95 of our constitution

01:32:15.360 which is our right and we will not enforce that we will make sure that our farmers have a steady

01:32:20.720 supply of fertilizer so that we can feed the world because food security is another issue that we're

01:32:25.840 dealing with right now and i'm going to sit and wait for ottawa to create economic corridors for

01:32:30.240 us all right we're going to start building those so that we can get our product and that is something

01:32:33.360 that you know i would actually absolutely agree with danielle smith on and we see other provinces

01:32:38.480 already fighting that fertilizer cap that's an area where absolutely that makes sense

01:32:42.640 that is an area of provincial jurisdiction that's a fight we can have but we should be careful before

01:32:47.120 making promises in other areas that we can't keep all right thank you very much for the open debate

01:32:52.480 all right okay mr lo will come to you miss it here you have 45 seconds you first then mr taves then

01:32:57.920 then I'll come to you, Mr. Long. Thank you so much. Albertans are leaders, and I'm Alberta's

01:33:03.780 number one fan. And if we want a legacy of rallying people up, we can certainly do that,

01:33:07.680 or we can work collaboratively. And I just wanted to say to Ms. Smith, you've mentioned several

01:33:12.380 sections out of the Constitution that you think that we can forward our agenda on, which I

01:33:16.520 completely agree with, but then that would render your Sovereignty Act completely redundant. So I

01:33:20.900 think we need to remove this action from all of the work that we're doing and actually work within

01:33:24.520 the constitution what we have available to us there's absolute ability to connect negotiate

01:33:29.480 learn and find wins massive wins rebecca has found one we've also worked on one with water with

01:33:36.200 respect to water infrastructure in alberta an 831 million dollar infrastructure build in alberta

01:33:42.600 that we did in collaboration with the federal government all right thank you mr tapes 45

01:33:46.600 seconds over to you all right you know here's here's the reality it would be great to just

01:33:51.800 wish away all our problems with this thing called the sovereignty act we're delusional if we think

01:33:56.520 that's going to happen it simply will not you know and and this is my observation over the last few

01:34:02.120 years i tend to like to work collaboratively but i've concluded with this federal government we

01:34:06.360 can't negotiate with them we won't win if we just simply negotiate but we'll win if we're strategic

01:34:12.520 my approach with ottawa is to be assertive and strategic because strategic we win and i want to

01:34:18.360 win for albertans you know the tired old approach a lot of political rhetoric over promising and

01:34:24.680 under delivering which is what the sovereignty act will do will not get a win in alberta's column

01:34:30.040 we need a strategic thoughtful approach that's how we win all right mr lowen 45 seconds on the

01:34:36.280 federal government yes thank you confederation is broken we can't have any more strongly worded

01:34:41.480 letters. We need to act. Asking hasn't worked. When we call, nobody answers. We need to start

01:34:49.180 saying no to Ottawa. We have things like a pension plan and Alberta constitution that we could do

01:34:54.700 right now. Myself, I drove to Ottawa to fight those rules that Ottawa came down on that were

01:35:00.380 hurting Albertans. I drove there to put my money where my mouth is and stand for Albertans and

01:35:04.860 stand for people across this country. The federal government isn't going to stop, but neither am I.

01:35:09.800 I won't stop fighting for alberts all right well thank you sir don't make me remind you there's no

01:35:16.120 applause you all know the rules all right we've got uh miss sonny 45 seconds to you and then mr

01:35:22.260 jean i'll come to you thank you jess so there is nothing about the sovereignty act that makes

01:35:26.400 sense i've consulted with constitutional experts and lawyers and it is going to be defeated in the

01:35:31.520 courts but while that is happening investors who are thinking of coming to alberta and putting some

01:35:36.980 of their hard-earned capital into this province are going to be swayed. They are not going to come

01:35:42.000 here. They're going to other jurisdictions. So I just want to be very clear about that. Alberta

01:35:46.700 must fight back. Absolutely. But we must not be risky and hot-headed. Now, Justin Trudeau relies

01:35:53.940 on confrontation, polarization, wedging, and division. And at least one of my opponents here

01:35:59.180 today thinks we should respond just like Trudeau. I don't think that way. I'm actually focused on

01:36:05.540 solving real world problems and when we respond with anger it feels good in the moment but it's

01:36:10.820 i gotta cut you off there all right i know it's all hard to not finish the sentence all right

01:36:14.820 mr gene over to you and then miss smith i'll come to you again thank you 10 years as a member of

01:36:19.540 parliament 10 years as a lawyer sovereignty act can't work folks it's fiscal fairytale it is not

01:36:25.780 going to work i agree with my friends here that we have to do something different and the equalization

01:36:30.420 referendum that started as a result of my wild rose leadership we brought that in and i will tell

01:36:34.660 you that step one is acting on the amazing mandate that albertans gave us in the referendum 62

01:36:39.700 we can force candidates to the constitutional negotiation table all these sections of the

01:36:44.180 constitution well try section 46 that's where you give legal notice to the rest of the country

01:36:49.140 that you are not happy with the situation because you have received a mandate from the people

01:36:52.580 without a mandate from the people it cannot happen there is a process involved and we are on that

01:36:57.620 process we need a leader that believes in it that's why i brought it out years ago because

01:37:01.620 i believe in that focus we need all right that's 45 seconds mr gene thank you miss smith i saw your

01:37:06.180 paddle up you wanted to weigh in here at the end 45 seconds over to you one of the last interviews

01:37:10.260 i did on the air was with a scholar by the name of jermaine belzile from the montreal economic

01:37:14.260 institute and i asked him the question why does quebec hate us so much and he said quebec doesn't

01:37:19.140 hate you they just don't think about you at all they're too busy thinking about themselves i think

01:37:24.980 you should think about yourselves for a change and i've been thinking about that a lot and it's

01:37:28.420 the reason why i've adopted the alberta sovereignty act because it puts ottawa on notice

01:37:34.340 that yes it just restates what's in the constitution and the charter but it says we

01:37:37.860 are drawing a hard line and you know when the last time this action was taken when the emergencies

01:37:42.260 act came through in quebec look what quebec did they convened their national assembly which as

01:37:46.180 they called it and they said we will not enforce that that is the kind of thing that quebec has

01:37:51.140 already done that is the kind of thing we absolutely can do and the thing that we must

01:37:55.460 All right, that's 45 seconds.

01:37:57.360 All right, hot topic, I suppose.

01:37:59.200 You all have waters below you, by the way, if you need to fill up.

01:38:01.600 Now is a good time while I get into question five.

01:38:03.840 Is it here?

01:38:04.640 Question five is for you.

01:38:06.480 The question is on energy and diversifying our economy.

01:38:10.520 Alberta's future depends on being driven by economics and job creation.

01:38:14.540 The word opportunity is synonymous with Alberta,

01:38:17.580 as our environment is ideal for growth and prosperity.

01:38:20.980 Diversification across the province is happening,

01:38:23.180 but must continue at an accelerated pace while energy is certainly the backbone of our economy

01:38:28.860 it should not hold us back from leading in new opportunities for growth in other sectors

01:38:33.740 how would you as leader continue to attract and diversify industry across our province

01:38:39.580 and address the significant talent shortage that many sectors are facing today and i want

01:38:44.460 specifics please thank you so much and thank you for this amazing opportunity to speak about

01:38:49.580 a sector that is so meaningful to so many of us the energy sector and diversification

01:38:55.180 is part of our family it's part of who we are when you think about those who are drilling

01:39:00.780 those who are doing the work the manufacturing the pipeline builds all of the work that goes

01:39:05.580 on in this province whether that's diversification in plastics there and there's so many things i'm

01:39:10.220 going to talk anecdotally a little bit about that in just a moment but families live right across

01:39:15.020 the streets from where they are drilling they care about their earth air and water and this is an

01:39:20.460 alignment between the environment and between energy and the incredible resource stewardship

01:39:25.420 that we have in this province and our ability to actually market that we have a global responsibility

01:39:31.580 to get our energy not only to canada but to the rest of the world we have burgeoning economic

01:39:37.100 populations all over the world that are seeking cheap energy like we have we have access to being

01:39:43.420 able to just flip on a switch to be able to go and turn on a light to heat our homes imagine what

01:39:48.860 is possible if we're able to work collectively with governments across this can across canada

01:39:53.660 to get our energy to these burgeoning economies where middle classes are coming out of the woodwork

01:39:58.860 and then be able to attract people to our province our province has attracted hundreds of thousands

01:40:05.340 of people because of the energy that we bring forward when we look at the powers of indigenous

01:40:11.260 growth in this sector the way that indigenous peoples are contributing to pipeline structures

01:40:17.420 to innovation in the energy sector leading towards emissions and fueling the economy and

01:40:23.020 exponential growth in clean energy we have such talent and innovation in carbon capture strategies

01:40:29.900 and new resources geothermal mine tailing saline from depleted resources the opportunities are

01:40:35.500 endless but also to be able to encourage those new skills that align with the environment and

01:40:42.220 with our energy to be able to look at that exposing that talent and all right that's two

01:40:46.940 minutes i'm going to cut you off there thank you all right thank you miss ahir who would you like

01:40:51.100 to debate on the topic i would like to debate rajin sani please all right miss sani i will read

01:40:57.180 the question again you'll have a minute and a half how would you as leader continue to attract and

01:41:01.340 diversify industry across our province and address the significant talent shortage that many sectors

01:41:06.780 are facing today and specifics please absolutely well i think everybody knows that i love talking

01:41:12.140 about energy but now i'm going to talk about agriculture we know that there is a food insecurity

01:41:18.220 issue look what's happening in ukraine their level of wheat production has drastically declined and

01:41:23.740 the situation is very serious but here in alberta we have everything that we need to create agri-food

01:41:30.700 corridors i talked about natural trade corridor funds and trying to get some of that funding

01:41:35.660 to develop highways can you imagine if we had a highway from fort mcmurray to peace river

01:41:41.260 how much investment that would open up that's critical infrastructure i was also at a pea

01:41:46.780 processing plant at the opening of it not too long ago and that is another idea we can actually do

01:41:53.180 value add here in our province to supply nutritious foods all across the globe

01:41:58.620 now i'm just looking at the time so we talked about labor shortages labor shortages are a

01:42:03.180 significant issue in every sector of our economy whether you're a trucker or you own a small

01:42:08.940 business or you're a restaurant operator it's very very difficult to get qualified and skilled staff

01:42:15.180 so quebec has more autonomy over their immigration when we talk about autonomy and independence

01:42:22.460 these are the kind of ideas that we need to pursue how can we get more qualified skilled labor

01:42:27.980 through the immigration system into alberta so we can actually grow our economy we cannot grow

01:42:34.620 unless we have talent and skilled talent so there are a number of ideas around this particular file

01:42:39.660 that i'd love to share with you all right i'm going to cut you off there four minutes of open

01:42:43.020 debate kick us off missa here thank you so much well skilled labor this is a perfect example of

01:42:48.700 exactly what needs to happen in alberta we are actually probably the biggest barrier to that

01:42:53.020 skilled labor being able to come into our province because of the red tape and not allowing people

01:42:57.580 with professional designations to actually pursue the jobs that they were intended to do my father's

01:43:02.380 perfect example in 1962 he came in here as an engineer and not only did he have to redo all

01:43:07.900 of his education but applied because the university that he came from was not accepted here in alberta

01:43:13.580 and in canada so if you look at all of those opportunities to be able to make sure that we

01:43:18.620 remove barriers for new talent to be able to come in we want to attract all of the talent from all

01:43:24.540 over the world and steal that talent into our province we're a teeny tiny province 4.3 million

01:43:29.420 people we need to grow by 2030 we could be as many as six million or seven million people

01:43:34.860 we need to make sure that we have our systems in place not only to attract that talent but also

01:43:40.940 um rajan was talking about agriculture food security is one piece of it but think about

01:43:46.780 agriculture from the aspect of energy and what they're producing with respect to all right jump

01:43:51.340 Jump in here, Ms. Sani.

01:43:52.120 I would absolutely agree that credentialing is critically important.

01:43:55.740 We all have stories.

01:43:57.080 I have stories of relatives who were very, very qualified

01:44:00.180 and could not find their place in the labor market here in Alberta

01:44:03.380 so that they could actualize their potential.

01:44:06.080 There is tremendous potential.

01:44:07.540 So one of the things that I plan to do as Premier

01:44:09.800 is to speed up the credentialing process.

01:44:12.860 We have a health care workers shortage in this province.

01:44:15.960 We've got a shiny new hospital in Grand Prairie

01:44:18.920 that doesn't have doctors and it's short of nurses it's a travesty so credentialing is something that

01:44:25.460 we do need to speed up and of course as we talk about labor shortages there are other sectors that

01:44:30.580 we need to support as well but i want to go back to the question all right let's let's see what

01:44:34.300 well i just wanted to add to what rajan was saying um and i want to give a shout out to

01:44:38.520 medicine hat actually right now because right here in this awesome city you guys started a

01:44:44.840 uh hydrogen task force in i believe it was in 2021 that hydrogen task force has taken light and and

01:44:54.440 has grown with the government and the opportunities to see what zero emissions would look like every

01:44:59.880 single large company corporation energy company is looking at zero emissions right now it is an

01:45:06.920 environment and energy collective that we do together to show our responsible development

01:45:13.160 we have to make sure it's not just about alberta folks we have to make sure that places like the uk

01:45:19.400 are not calling us dirty oil that places like other other countries in the world are not looking

01:45:24.600 at us as not even opportunity to be able to get our products to them we have to make sure

01:45:30.120 okay i just and i appreciate all these comments uh wonderful comments but i just want to get back

01:45:37.000 to the question on diversification um i was talking about agriculture and some of the key

01:45:42.200 messages that i'm hearing from farmers by the way we have the most sophisticated and smartest

01:45:47.080 farmers here in alberta in the world i'm not from a farming background but i hear that all the time

01:45:52.600 some of the key issues that they're having are around water water is an issue for economic

01:45:58.360 growth and it's certainly an issue for farmers they have issues around electricity and they also

01:46:04.200 have issues as i've mentioned before around agri-food corridors we need to invest in our

01:46:09.320 highways and we need to invest in our road system so some of that product can actually be delivered

01:46:15.640 i'd like to speak about water a little bit one of the biggest issues that we've had is the

01:46:19.560 government not investing enough into water and pivots into areas in order to create arable

01:46:26.840 fields in alberta in order to have irrigation available pivots are very very difficult thing

01:46:32.680 to come by right now because of the way that the world is working in the markets are going however

01:46:38.120 if we're actually talking about water consumption when we use pivots in in agricultural areas we

01:46:43.560 actually reduce water consumption by almost 80 all right that ends our four minutes of open debate

01:46:48.760 time okay miss smith i'm going to come to you for 45 seconds you're going to hold off all right

01:46:53.240 anybody else i just want to say mr caves and miss it here you only have one remaining rebuttal left

01:46:58.200 so just to remind you miss schultz you want to go 45 seconds yeah absolutely i'd like to just touch

01:47:03.080 on a couple of things as well you know when we're talking about obviously energy of today yes

01:47:07.960 we need to attract and retain in the highly skilled workers we have and i do want to thank

01:47:12.600 all of the energy workers across our province that obviously give us access to safe reliable

01:47:17.800 energy we also have to start talking about energy of the future co2 hydrogen we've got

01:47:22.600 to keep talking about lng this is the energy of the future this is what will help keep

01:47:26.840 some of our best and brightest minds right here in Alberta. Yes, we have to speed up credentialing.

01:47:41.000 Yes, we have to take more ownership over our immigration. But the other thing we have to do

01:47:45.020 is cut through some of the bureaucracy, whether it's talking about nuclear or ag. When I ask

01:47:50.240 people who's leading, oftentimes they say it's not us because our bureaucrats are still working

01:47:54.640 on the org charts and the other provinces are hustling investment all right thank you all right

01:47:59.040 that ends question five question six we're going to move on here quickly to mr taves it's for you

01:48:03.920 question is on unity and leadership at regional levels around the globe conservative movements

01:48:09.360 have faced internal struggles to main a thoughtful maintain a thoughtful big tent approach there's no

01:48:14.880 secret that many here on this stage have been early adopters of unity yet have struggled to

01:48:19.040 bring people together in an effective way the topic of unity is one of great importance to

01:48:24.000 the membership as many feel the infighting must stop

01:48:36.160 or it will lead to another harmful ndp government in a world of division

01:48:40.720 intolerance and lack of understanding how will you as leader unite the party

01:48:45.920 and move our province forward for the benefit of all albertans you have two

01:48:49.440 minutes yeah thanks for that question jeff i think

01:48:52.160 this is the most important question of the evening because consistent with my opening comments unity

01:48:57.520 is mission critical for this movement because if we're not united we will not beat rachel notley

01:49:12.000 in 2023 and friends leadership matters when it comes to unity it's absolutely critical

01:49:18.320 You know, I've been in the private sector right until 2019.

01:49:21.760 But even when I was Minister of Finance, I drew on some of my experience that I'd gained in the private sector in past leadership roles.

01:49:28.980 You know, whether it was leading our business teams or whether it was during the time that I served as president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association,

01:49:45.580 a time post-BSE, when there was significant loss, emotion, and division.

01:49:52.620 I had to hold disparate provincial members together, all wanting to go their own way,

01:49:58.180 all wanting to do their own thing.

01:49:59.820 And had we lost those provincial members, we would have lost the war.

01:50:04.060 You know, right now we're in not a dissimilar time in this conservative movement.

01:50:09.620 And that has informed, my previous experience has informed my approach.

01:50:13.280 As a leader, I take a collaborative approach.

01:50:16.420 Every voice around the table matters.

01:50:20.900 You know, when every voice has an opportunity to speak, we make better decisions.

01:50:25.200 That's absolutely essential.

01:50:35.900 And friends, every MLA needs a full opportunity to bring the views of their constituents

01:50:43.060 to the table that's absolutely critical that's how Albertans are heard very often through their

01:50:58.480 MLA and when MLAs don't have that opportunity aberrant behavior occurs unity is critical but

01:51:05.400 to get there we need strong principled and friends proven leadership the type of leadership that I

01:51:12.000 provided in the finance ministry as I delivered on the objectives of

01:51:26.240 fiscal responsibility bringing the province to a balanced budget and positioning this economy

01:51:32.480 to lead the nation in economic growth this year and next. All right thank you Mr. Chaves. Who

01:51:37.360 would you like to debate on the topic of unity? Let's go with Brian Jean. All right Mr.

01:51:41.920 jane you have a minute 30 seconds over to you finally the debate moves to the right

01:51:47.680 usually you shouldn't need to talk about a potential premier's leadership and promote

01:52:00.800 that shouldn't be necessary that a premier should know how to manage caucus and their staff should

01:52:14.400 be a necessary item for success but we have not been good at this as conservatives we haven't

01:52:19.680 you promote unity by how you treat people by doing the right things in the right way

01:52:24.560 a leader must treat albertans the grassroots the caucus and the cabinet with respect that means

01:52:29.600 listening to them and i'm a good listener i have a track record of leading organizations and

01:52:42.720 businesses i have almost 15 years of elected experience

01:52:46.320 and over a decade practicing law i've led a caucus organized a unity effort

01:52:59.600 hey i am just letting you know here that this is with the ucp stream now this is an ongoing

01:53:14.720 problem they are supposedly trying to work through it here i know there are people in

01:53:19.120 the comments that are saying you know why are you not putting the stream out the way it should be and

01:53:24.400 And I would say that we're putting it out exactly as we're getting it.

01:53:28.000 We're trying to see if they are going to rectify this problem.

01:53:31.460 Early on, apparently, we heard from one source connected to the party.

01:53:35.220 They had to reset their router.

01:53:36.540 So this is a debate happening in rural Alberta in Medicine Hat.

01:53:40.940 I think it is unfrozen now.

01:53:42.600 Let's go back to the debate in progress.

01:53:52.340 15 years of elected experience.

01:53:54.400 and over a decade practicing law.

01:53:56.740 I have led a caucus, organized a unity effort.

01:54:24.400 Hey, so apparently there is now a stream unavailable. So the entire stream has died now. This is what

01:54:36.000 happens when you try to do a live event. Let's just get a little bit of our analysis going as

01:54:43.020 the debate continues. Now, we don't even know if the debate has actually continued or if they've

01:54:47.240 stopped it there. We'll try to get an update from our correspondent, Rachel Emanuel, in just a

01:54:52.120 moment. But right now, there is no debate to go to right now. The UCP feed has completely died.

01:54:58.680 So let's chime in with some early. We don't often get to do a halftime show on this. We're a little

01:55:03.980 over halftime. My colleague from True North, William McBeth, is with us. William, let's just

01:55:10.680 start early with what we were seeing here, which is that, as you and I discussed, this was really

01:55:14.880 the Danielle Smith show in a lot of ways. All of the candidates were, it seemed like, choosing to

01:55:21.020 go after Danielle Smith, choosing to put their questions to her, their accusations to her and all

01:55:27.100 of that. But the result, if I think of what happened, is just that, wow, I've just heard a

01:55:32.240 lot of Danielle Smith today. It didn't even seem like anyone really landed a knockout blow on her 1.00

01:55:36.780 for all of this. No, I think you're right. And at the beginning of this debate, if I thought it

01:55:45.900 would be Raiden Sonny and Danielle Smith back and forth, no, I wouldn't have thought that.

01:55:52.380 But, you know, certainly in the beginning that it would be an opportunity for the other

01:55:59.020 candidates to take an attack against the front row.

01:56:02.200 I don't know if that's a good strategy.

01:56:03.820 I don't know. 0.88

01:56:04.400 One thing I think people have seen from Danielle tonight is she's been in many debates in her

01:56:12.060 time.

01:56:12.560 She debated in a provincial leaders debate.

01:56:15.280 brian mason way back in the day and you saw that and not to make mention by the way hosting a radio

01:56:21.720 for many many years all of those skills on on display tonight and i don't know if the decision

01:56:28.180 that's to give her so much air time was an actually good idea yeah well that's a good

01:56:37.400 point william we'll check back in with you in a couple of moments i think we're having some

01:56:40.540 internet issues on your end too. So maybe you and the UCP might share an internet service provider,

01:56:45.600 but thanks for chiming in with that. We will pop back in with you very shortly. Let's go to my

01:56:51.260 colleague Ellie Kenton-Nantel on this. I know you have been monitoring Ellie the, well I should say,

01:56:57.900 I mean Ellie has been monitoring the social media reaction to this and I'm going to ask him when he

01:57:02.640 joins us to filter out the people complaining about the UCP live stream and focus on the substance

01:57:08.840 and content here but what is it that people have really been focusing in on from what you've

01:57:14.080 analyzed here uh sure so so first of all we were kind of cut out at first and i would say

01:57:20.340 really before this debate started the biggest issue seemed to be covid and people were you know

01:57:26.580 as we said earlier the pastors the lockdowns that that seems to be an issue uh really what

01:57:32.320 has taken center stage of this debate and i've seen chatter online is the alberta sovereignty act

01:57:36.920 So I actually went and I asked my Twitter followers, what do you think of the Alberta Sovereignty Act? And a lot of them seem to have a pretty positive response about it. There was one tweet that I thought was pretty interesting. It was from Aidan. He said, I've heard more about how terrible the Sovereignty Act is compared to from these candidates versus Daniel Smith talking about it.

01:58:00.800 that are a lot of them are talking about this sovereignty act uh a lot of people say you know

01:58:06.320 what else can we do because ottawa is mistreating alberta so badly uh one cure from twitter user

01:58:12.740 mountain man i just want to live my birthday life without ottawa so it's clear that albertans are

01:58:18.120 are clearly very frustrated with the way that they've been treated by the trudeau government

01:58:23.480 and other governments in the past i remember when i was in alberta working there uh the trudeau

01:58:29.000 senior trudeau's junior there's this legacy with the trudeaus and how they were being mistreated

01:58:33.960 so i think an idea like the sovereignty act even if if if there's legalities and questions around

01:58:39.720 it i think it's very popular with the base the grassroots that they're just fed up and they want

01:58:44.200 something different they want something new especially i gotta cut you off there ellie it

01:58:49.000 sounds like the debate stream is back so we're gonna cut immediately back to medicine hat for

01:58:54.360 the UCP leadership debate.

01:59:08.680 My colleagues, including our local MLA, MLA Fry, you know my friends this comes

01:59:13.320 down to a few things. Discipline, teamwork, loyalty, these things

01:59:17.800 mattered. They mattered in 2012, they mattered in 2015,

01:59:22.520 and they will matter in 2023 we absolutely have to pull together it starts with our team it starts

01:59:28.760 with making sure that our caucus who represent the diverse voices of albertans are the main

01:59:34.840 decision makers in government we can't do things the same way we've done them not in the last three

01:59:40.280 years where some voices are heard louder than others and there's different sets of rules for

01:59:44.040 different people i made that commitment to my caucus colleagues of how we're going to do things

01:59:48.600 different and what they can expect in me as part of this amazing team all right thank you mr lowland

01:59:55.080 thank you there's no question that unity is vital for success but we need to rebuild the trust of

02:00:00.040 albertans and the members of the party now i said what was true when there was a price for saying it

02:00:06.600 and those in cabinet said nothing mr tabes you said you unequivocally supported the premier and

02:00:13.240 i never once heard you in caucus speaking against the premier any of the actions that were happening

02:00:17.480 in government jason kenney's record is your record i stood up i did what everybody seems to call the

02:00:26.280 tough thing so i am that leader because my loyalty is to the constituents that i represent and to

02:00:32.760 albertans all right well thank you oh great uh mr james you have one more so this is your last one

02:00:40.440 no no i was called out on that one all right okay i'll give you 30 seconds

02:00:44.600 all right um i i just simply need to respond to uh to todd's assertion there because here was

02:00:52.520 here was where i spoke out i was around that cabinet table and that's where i spoke out i

02:00:58.360 represented the views of my constituents rural alberta and i represented the views of todd's

02:01:03.800 constituents while i was there around the table making a difference instead of standing on the

02:01:09.240 the outside sniping again real leadership is not cutting and running real leadership is serving

02:01:15.940 under the burden of leadership at a time when there's much pressure and bringing the views of

02:01:20.700 constituents forward to ensure they were heard that's what i did and i'm proud of delivering

02:01:27.300 that kind of a voice to my constituents all right thank you okay we're going to move on to our last

02:01:33.220 question of the night and so as far as 45 second paddles go mr taves you have one miss smith you

02:01:39.120 have one miss sonny you have one and mr gene you have one all right the rest of you have used up

02:01:42.880 all your time so hopefully you get called out all right the question for you mr gene is on

02:01:47.600 provincial surplus many albertans are tired of expensive bureaucratic roadblocks that prevent

02:01:53.200 things from getting done efficiently value for money means creating returns we can all benefit

02:01:58.960 from with record surpluses on the horizon driven by high commodity prices and a growing economy

02:02:06.160 coupled with an increased cost of living many feel a reduction in taxes is appropriate at this time

02:02:13.200 others believe that a significant reinvestment into the heritage savings fund or a rainy day fund

02:02:18.400 is more appropriate specifically how do you as leader plan to balance savings versus investing

02:02:25.520 in order to maintain long-term value and sustainability for albertans while meeting

02:02:29.920 the demands of a growing population you have two minutes sir thank you this isn't complicated

02:02:36.160 In an age of increasing interest rates, you have to use the surpluses to pay down debt as it becomes due.

02:02:42.520 The last thing we should do is roll over any old debt to new higher interest rates because we've seen what's going on.

02:02:47.940 And we know ultimately if we've lived through the 80s as I did, what can happen if you have high interest rates?

02:02:52.360 You have a lot of people that are very uncomfortable and many people going bankrupt.

02:02:56.580 The good news is that our debt will be coming due slowly just over the next decade.

02:03:00.560 And our financial circumstances have changed because so many royalty-paying oil projects are actually at full payout.

02:03:08.640 About 80% of all oil sands projects are now paying full royalties.

02:03:12.800 That's great news.

02:03:14.040 That means we have the largest surpluses we will probably ever see.

02:03:18.060 We should save those surpluses, pay down debt as it becomes due.

02:03:21.120 In the meantime, we should use the income from those surpluses to actually reduce the cost of transmission and distribution charges to families in Alberta.

02:03:28.400 I'm telling you this.

02:03:29.320 I'm not going to reduce taxes on businesses, that's for sure.

02:03:31.560 In the long run, as we retire more and more debt,

02:03:35.100 we should look at using the surpluses to pay for other things.

02:03:37.800 That will reduce Albertan's costs, the day-to-day costs for consumers,

02:03:41.720 the day-to-day costs for you, because that's what we need to do right now.

02:03:46.740 We don't need new government projects.

02:03:48.640 We need to run and manage government better.

02:03:50.880 We need to be a boring government that you forget is there,

02:03:53.500 because they're not in your way.

02:03:55.020 They get out of your way and remove the obstacles from your way.

02:03:57.540 We have to avoid the old trap of making our government so expensive in good times that we can't afford it in bad times.

02:04:02.980 I've seen it in Fort McMurtain.

02:04:04.940 And folks, we're very poor in infrastructure right across the province and especially there.

02:04:09.840 We need to do whatever we can do in order to make sure that we take those surpluses, pay off debt,

02:04:14.740 and support people that can't afford to live right now because of inflation.

02:04:18.540 Private sector economists actually suggested that our surpluses could be $15 billion a year for the next three, four, five years.

02:04:27.120 According to the government website, we have almost $5 billion in bonds coming due this year, about $3 billion next year.

02:04:32.040 And the year after that, more than $50 billion of our bonds are not due until 2030.

02:04:36.480 So we can use that to support Alberta's.

02:04:38.680 All right, Mr. Jean, I've got to get you off there.

02:04:40.460 But I will ask you who you'd like to debate on this topic.

02:04:43.240 Mr. Taves.

02:04:43.960 All right, Mr. Taves, minute and a half.

02:04:45.420 Over to you.

02:04:46.120 All right, good.

02:04:46.980 Thanks, Jeff.

02:04:48.520 Certainly my thoughts around the surplus, I'm going to start my, predicate my comments with this.

02:04:53.640 When I presented Budget 2022, I was clear with Albertans.

02:04:58.300 Any surplus up to the earnings level in the Heritage Savings Trust Fund,

02:05:02.300 I would categorically reinvest in that Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

02:05:05.760 The first thing we'll do is stop robbing that trust fund from future generations.

02:05:11.200 But, you know, as we take a look beyond there,

02:05:13.780 I do agree that we need to pay attention to our debt.

02:05:16.720 We have $93 billion in taxpayer-supported debt in this province,

02:05:20.880 And it will be coming due over the next number of years.

02:05:25.040 Here's what we need to do with surpluses.

02:05:27.500 Ensure we're setting cash aside to pay that debt off as it matures.

02:05:32.660 Because if we don't, we could well have to go into capital markets

02:05:36.560 with a cost of capital perhaps double than what the cost is for the debt that's been currently placed.

02:05:43.360 That would double our debt service costs.

02:05:45.340 We are projecting about $2.6 billion in debt service costs right now in this budget.

02:05:51.320 If we double those, that's $5 billion.

02:05:53.740 That comes right out of program spending or would require a tax increase.

02:05:58.480 Friends, fiscal discipline will remain important.

02:06:01.460 We can't make irresponsible decisions during the good years that will put us in trouble during the poor years.

02:06:07.880 Again, reinvest any surplus up to the earnings of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

02:06:12.380 in that trust fund set cash aside to pay down debt as it matures all right well thank you

02:06:18.720 okay that opens four minutes of debate mr gene kick us off well i want to point out and highlight

02:06:25.060 mr taves and our policy it's very similar that's why i believe that mr taves would be a great

02:06:29.720 finance minister in a brian gene led government i do folks he's had three years of experience

02:06:35.020 he's been a good finance minister and i think we can make him great if we work together as a team

02:06:39.220 But, Tavis, I really want to know, isn't it true that government spending increased a lot since 2019?

02:06:44.500 We've seen that. We know that's happened.

02:06:45.840 But I'd like you to explain to Albertans exactly what took place.

02:06:48.280 And that the wage settlements that you gave to our public sector unions, of course, after you started negotiating,

02:06:54.780 some time after you started negotiating, were actually larger than the ones the NDP gave them from 2015 to 2018.

02:07:00.780 And that does bother me.

02:07:02.140 And I think that we have to look at that because, folks, with inflation now, we're going to be able to catch up.

02:07:07.120 but the truth is we have to make the decisions at the time based on the history and where we are at

02:07:12.160 that time and and frankly i don't think we can look at catering to the unions every time they

02:07:16.720 come to the door and start knocking and in fact they're going to start knocking a lot i would

02:07:20.480 like to i'd like to respond to that please because uh further to the question what did we do in terms

02:07:25.680 of spending now one one direction that i gave my department when we started dealing with all the

02:07:31.120 additional pressures um of covid the last two years knowing that our health care costs were

02:07:35.920 going to go up specifically because of a lot of personal protective equipment and other health

02:07:40.720 care policies i asked my department to break out those expenditures in other words don't include

02:07:46.320 them in our regular operating expenditures for two reasons number one we can't know the progress

02:07:51.040 we're making or not number two i was concerned that department heads would want to build that

02:07:55.600 extra spending into baseline budgets so our basic operating expenditures the cost to deliver

02:08:02.000 government services we actually kept flat for the first three years and that was no small feat

02:08:07.920 because we inherited an upward trajectory of four percent per year friends if we would have

02:08:13.520 continued with the spending trajectory we inherited from the ndp and the previous pc government we

02:08:19.600 wouldn't have been projecting a 500 million dollar surplus in this fiscal year it would be a six

02:08:24.560 billion dollar deficit isn't that a great way to see a team working together folks this is a team

02:08:30.320 up here we're all friends or want to be friends and we soon will be because most of us will be

02:08:35.200 working together and hopefully we'll get somebody elected and then we'll be able to go back and take

02:08:39.920 over the province because this can't happen unless we work together can't happen unless we

02:08:44.560 have great ideas and that's why all these people are up here today to give great ideas but they do

02:08:48.240 need a leader folks and they need a leader that has experience dealing with ottawa a leader that

02:08:52.880 has experience dealing with the constitution and courts a leader that has been a leader before and

02:08:57.280 and that is me. I would like to just make a couple of comments on the public sector because those

02:09:03.440 were, you know, we need to talk about the public sector. Shortly after I was tapped to be Minister

02:09:09.700 of Finance, and it's certainly been a privilege to serve Albertans as their Minister of Finance

02:09:13.940 over the last three years, you know, I found out what I believe to be true, and that was we had a

02:09:19.880 bloated public sector. We had a bloated public service, and so I worked with other ministers,

02:09:24.600 other ministries at the time and we thoughtfully carefully and I would

02:09:29.060 suggest compassionately reduced the size of the public service friends by 8% in

02:09:34.560 the last two years we've gone a long ways to right-sizing government right

02:09:40.280 sizing the public service and yes we did get a collective bargaining agreement

02:09:45.600 with virtually all of our public sector partners and here's here's here were the

02:09:51.540 objectives that i had number one we had fiscal objectives to ensure that alberta was not an

02:09:56.640 outlier in remuneration relative to other provinces i actually want to hear that but i just want to say

02:10:01.560 that running out of time folks and i do want to hear that we'll have a conversation afterwards

02:10:05.180 because i do want to hear that that's innovative but the truth is what we need to do is we need to

02:10:09.000 open up the constitution folks we do and i know you see that as a site out there that can't be

02:10:13.400 attained it can be the constitution the supreme court of canada has laid it out and without that

02:10:17.500 we're not going to be able to deal with our issues of money and fiscal balance or health

02:10:21.040 I have to say, our collective bargaining agreements met our fiscal objectives.

02:10:26.260 Okay, we're done, folks.

02:10:27.820 Just a quick side.

02:10:28.980 So that was a great debate.

02:10:31.420 Unfortunately, the screen dropped on us twice on the digital feed.

02:10:34.600 However, I have been told we have a clean copy of this recording,

02:10:37.920 and that will be posted to the website.

02:10:39.480 So everybody else across the province, if you missed it, we apologize.

02:10:43.280 I'm not in charge of the technology.

02:10:44.600 I'm sorry.

02:10:45.640 But we will have a clean recording, so you will be able to get that.

02:10:48.160 In terms of 45-second rebuttals, I have Ms. Sani, Ms. Smith, anybody else?

02:10:53.880 Mr. Lowen?

02:10:54.800 Okay, Ms. Smith, Mr. Lowen.

02:10:57.640 All right.

02:10:58.460 And Mr. Taves, you still have one rebuttal you can use in this somewhere.

02:11:02.700 And Mr. Jean, you actually have two, but you can't use them back-to-back.

02:11:05.960 That's okay.

02:11:06.460 All right.

02:11:06.780 Thank you.

02:11:07.240 Okay.

02:11:08.720 Ms. Sani.

02:11:10.180 Thank you, Jeff.

02:11:11.080 And folks, I fear for where our country is headed, which is why we need serious and stable leadership,

02:11:17.400 not risky and hot-headed ideas. And that's why when it comes to the provincial surplus,

02:11:22.860 I'm an economist. I know how to do forward planning. We must absolutely pay down debt.

02:11:28.080 We must absolutely put some funds into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. We must strategically

02:11:33.960 invest and target investment in infrastructure. I had talked about infrastructure earlier,

02:11:39.480 health and education. But I had also mentioned that when governments can help, they should.

02:11:44.760 there are many people in this province who are hurting who cannot make their grocery bills

02:11:49.400 and that is why i had talked about indexing seniors benefits age benefits and income tax

02:11:54.920 brackets all right miss smith you have 45 seconds um some of my friends on the stage

02:12:01.240 here have been digging up old columns i wish they dug up the column from 2001 when i wrote about how

02:12:06.680 we could grow our sovereign wealth fund to a significant level when i look at why i'm a

02:12:12.040 conservative. I look back on the history with Peter Lougheed, setting aside 30% of our resource

02:12:16.960 revenues. And then when Klein took over, how he made us debt-free. That's part of my conservative

02:12:21.920 identity. And then, of course, with Premier Stelmack, when he came in and did a major investment

02:12:26.540 in infrastructure. Those are the three things that I think are the most important for us to do right

02:12:30.760 now. I would like to see us set aside a dedicated portion every single year so we can grow that

02:12:36.800 Alberta Sovereign Wealth Fund to a significant level where we can start reducing taxes. We just

02:12:41.160 have to get started now and i think that that is a policy that we i look forward to discussing

02:12:45.640 let's move on to mr long mr long you have 45 seconds yes thank you government is very bad

02:12:49.880 at predicting uh cyclical cycles when it comes to booms and busts as a result we see overspending

02:12:56.040 when times are good and we see debt when times are bad and i believe the government needs to

02:13:01.720 develop a legislative plan for how to handle surfaces and i believe that should be paying down

02:13:06.200 debt we have an enormous debt in alberta we have a huge interest rates a interest that is costing

02:13:12.360 taxpayers billions of dollars each year and that needs to be spent on the services for albertans

02:13:17.960 instead of banks and bondholders so obviously we have we could be doing more by reducing income

02:13:25.880 tax for average albertans and raise the uh the basic personal exemption so that'll affect all

02:13:31.720 All right. Thank you, Mr. Loewen. Okay, Mr. Gene, 45 seconds, then I'll come to you, Mr. Taves.

02:13:37.860 There's two people on the stage that still haven't talked about PST and why they thought about putting

02:13:43.440 it in and why they talked about putting it in. And more than that, I'm interested about why they

02:13:47.980 changed their mind because tax does have a lot to do with people's ability to pay things.

02:13:52.280 And having a consumer tax means that a lot of people are going to have their costs increased.

02:13:57.440 And that's why I think it's so important to talk about what people do want. They don't want

02:14:01.060 tax credits that you might get back after you spent the money a year later, they don't want

02:14:05.440 tax credits and you know are a thousand dollars and may give you a 300. They don't want that. What

02:14:10.660 they want is they want their costs lowered on a daily basis. They want to see their gas less

02:14:15.140 expensive. That's why I've suggested a permanent reduction of 30 cents a liter at the gas prices

02:14:20.980 today. That's why I've suggested a third off their transmission distribution charges. All right. Those

02:14:24.800 things help people on a day-to-day basis. All right there's only one person again on this stage

02:14:30.180 that I'm aware of that has talked about implementing a PST and raising taxes on Albertans

02:14:36.160 by $5 billion as recently as about 20 months ago.

02:14:40.960 And that's my leadership colleague, hopeful colleague here, Ms. Danielle Smith.

02:14:45.920 I have never suggested a PST.

02:14:48.100 In fact, again, if you want to see what I would do fiscally and economically as Premier,

02:14:53.420 look at what I've done as the Minister of Finance.

02:14:55.800 I lowered taxes, that which resulted in expanded fiscal capacity and expanded government revenues.

02:15:03.380 We brought fiscal discipline to government spending.

02:15:06.420 That combination gave me the privilege of presenting the first balanced budget in over a decade.

02:15:11.860 Gone are the days when we robbed from our children.

02:15:14.240 All right. Ms. Smith, you were called out there. I'm going to give you 45 seconds.

02:15:17.420 You know, I thought I answered this because the context that I wrote the column,

02:15:20.920 and that's kind of what you do when you're in the media,

02:15:22.740 is that you write columns on topical issues and try to find solutions.

02:15:26.180 It was when we had a $24 billion deficit.

02:15:29.560 I guess there's only two options.

02:15:31.380 Either the stories are untrue, where it was saying that Travis Davis was floating the idea of a provincial sales tax,

02:15:38.140 or he was just going to wait, I guess, until oil and gas revenues bailed us out.

02:15:42.800 And that's kind of what's happened.

02:15:44.100 We now have $16 billion worth of resource revenue, spending almost all of it.

02:15:47.700 We've got to do a better job stewarding that for the future.

02:15:50.840 All right.

02:15:51.160 Okay, Mr. Jean, you have one last paddle.

02:15:53.160 One last paddle.

02:15:55.160 Well, I'm very interested in what takes 42% of our tax dollars and 42% of everyone's tax dollars, and that's healthcare.

02:16:02.160 We need to spend a little bit better on that and get better investments.

02:16:05.160 It's not about the money, it's about the outcomes.

02:16:06.160 It's about making sure that people receive not just less expensive goods as they travel,

02:16:11.160 and that's why I reduce gas, because that reduces groceries, it reduces appliances,

02:16:14.160 it reduces everything that we get pretty much in Alberta.

02:16:17.160 We need leadership to drive change.

02:16:20.160 we need better management better executive decisions better decisions

02:16:24.660 leadership is not about great talkers it's about making good decisions and

02:16:28.140 having to track record of good decisions or having bad decisions as a tracker I

02:16:32.820 need to hear from Daniel Smith to commit today that you won't give bad medical

02:16:37.160 advice or cancer advice again because you heard a lot of people with what you

02:16:40.100 said you said it was a misunderstanding you haven't taken a lot of this

02:16:43.160 understanding is over 45 seconds is over and we've been over this topic all

02:16:48.120 All right. We're going to end a little bit late anyway, so we're not going to get back into it.

02:16:52.080 And maybe that's something for a closing statement.

02:16:53.900 Ms. Smith, I don't want to get back into it because Ms. Caves has called out.

02:16:56.740 No, I don't want to get back into it. I just want to tell Brian.

02:17:00.040 Let's move on. You can deal with it in your closing statements.

02:17:01.420 No, I just want to tell Brian I'm sorry for the loss of his son.

02:17:04.580 All right, Ms. Smith, I'm going to stop you.

02:17:05.900 I've heard the story and it's heart-wrenching and I know exactly how he feels.

02:17:09.380 I think we all understand and you can address that in your closing statements,

02:17:12.760 which I'm now going to give everybody two minutes to do because we do have a little bit of extra time.

02:17:17.220 All right. This has been drawn at random, and that's how we're going to close tonight.

02:17:22.340 And Ms. Schultz, you will kick us off with two minutes. Please go ahead with your closing.

02:17:26.980 Thank you. Nine months from right now, the question Albertans will be asking themselves is who do we trust?

02:17:34.920 Who do we trust to drive our economic growth? Who do we trust to transform health care and education?

02:17:41.860 Who do we trust, based on their record, to take on Justin Trudeau?

02:17:46.480 So as a party, who do we trust to ensure the NDP never sees government again?

02:17:54.480 Trust is built over time.

02:17:56.100 A few candidates on this stage, they have records of their own.

02:17:59.740 We absolutely cannot go backwards or stick to the status quo.

02:18:04.940 We need a leader not just for the next year to get us through the next election.

02:18:09.300 We need a leader who can take us into the next generation of our conservative movement

02:18:13.580 by bringing Albertans along with a vision of the future,

02:18:19.020 a vision for jobs and economy, yes,

02:18:21.440 not leaving our children, my children, yours, with debt

02:18:26.460 so that they can't meet the demands of their time

02:18:29.420 because they're paying off the choices made in ours.

02:18:32.520 We know that, but we also need a vision of hope and optimism

02:18:38.080 and opportunity and a plan for our future.

02:18:41.080 I will lead a party that you, Albertans, party members, can be proud to vote for.

02:18:49.620 So I ask again, in May 2023, who do you want to see running against Rachel Notley and the NDP?

02:18:58.440 I am asking you for your vote as I run to be the leader of the United Conservative Party,

02:19:04.340 a party and a team that I am proud of and proud to run alongside.

02:19:08.780 and as I ask for your support to be the next Premier of this amazing province of Alberta.

02:19:15.420 Thank you, Ms. Schultz. All right, Ms. Ahir, sorry, you have two minutes.

02:19:21.180 You're right, we do need to build trust. That is the work that is being done right now,

02:19:26.080 to get in front of you, to engage with you, to give you something that you deserve,

02:19:30.420 a government that is accountable and honourable, not something that you should ask for.

02:19:34.100 It is a positive and empowering campaign that is going to build a government that you can be so proud of.

02:19:41.740 And I'm very proud to stand with my colleagues here on the stage.

02:19:45.100 But I want you to understand that this is not about me.

02:19:48.840 This is truly about Albertans.

02:19:50.860 And we cannot use ideology or personal agenda to get there.

02:19:54.960 Those who just arrived yesterday to homesteaders, First Nations, no matter who you love or who you pray to.

02:20:00.040 this province is welcoming and amazing and we have to grow our population we are looking for

02:20:06.180 governments that will have a strong team empathy and insistence on customer service education and

02:20:11.840 health care and working constructively on all levels of government to show a capacity to learn

02:20:16.800 and to grow and we will listen and we will collaborate and we will lead with humanity

02:20:21.840 and we will look at a shift in the culture that will actually bring us forward so it's not just

02:20:27.440 about winning in 2023 you win in 2023 we lead together leadership is not about being at the top

02:20:36.160 it is this collective wave of energy and strength and all of the people that build this amazing

02:20:43.600 province this tapestry of culture it's not about division it's about building if we benchmark our

02:20:50.960 budgets against population growth growth and inflation in the last balanced budget

02:20:55.360 and each year use that guidance to inform our spending we get off that tax and spend roller

02:21:00.720 coaster we have stable budgeting long-term planning and it enables savings of our resource

02:21:06.240 of our resources and we grow the heritage fund and we protect our services and we reduce inflation

02:21:12.720 and we maintain low taxation and pay down the debt prudently this is the plan that will bring

02:21:18.560 us forward and i would be honored to be your leader thank you so much thank you miss ahir

02:21:23.120 all right miss sonny over to you two minutes for closing thank you i have a question for all of you

02:21:29.200 why do we do the things that we do why do we get up in the morning and go to work or make decisions

02:21:35.440 about how to spend our days we do it for our children our families and our communities and

02:21:41.360 that is why i got into politics in the first place for my children and family and for your children

02:21:48.080 and families and folks i have already mentioned several times today that canada is going down

02:21:53.520 a dangerous path led by destructive policies from the trudeau liberals we can respond impulsively

02:22:01.200 with anger that would feel good but it is risky i have experienced the economic turmoil caused by

02:22:08.640 unstable and unpredictable government i talked about that today as well the answer the answer

02:22:14.960 isn't to threaten sovereignty or separation and i'm going to say something right now and i want

02:22:21.200 everyone to listen closely a danielle smith victory today means a rachel notley victory tomorrow

02:22:28.480 there is a better way our ucpt all right let's keep it down audience this is closing in alberta

02:22:34.800 i've lived and worked in alberta all my life and i know the energy industry and

02:22:39.440 i know how to lead a team we do have a choice one choice is to roll the dice on risky and

02:22:46.560 hot-headed ideas but if we lose that gamble the losers are albertans it's all of us

02:22:54.240 so in closing what i would say to all albertans who are listening right now on the live feed

02:23:00.560 is please do make sure that you go out and purchase a membership this election is

02:23:05.920 consequential it will determine the course that our province goes in for at least a decade don't

02:23:12.400 be complacent don't be forgetful please do pick up your membership and i would say please do visit my

02:23:19.840 website voterajan.ca to learn more about me and don't hesitate to reach out i would love to talk

02:23:25.760 to you all right thank you mr jean over to you two minutes to close thank you for listening tonight

02:23:32.240 i agree with rajan i do have a three and a half year old and a 38 year old and i'm doing this for

02:23:36.240 my kids just like i'm doing it for your kids and all of us are here there are many good people on

02:23:40.480 the stage in fact i would say great people and there's many good people who want to leave our

02:23:44.720 party and be part of our party we should be pleased with that but i'm the only person right

02:23:48.880 now that is talking about renewing the party and returning it to what it was meant to be

02:23:54.000 a party that represents the vast majority of albertans you who want a conservative government

02:24:00.080 that respects their autonomy in a realistic way.

02:24:04.640 I want this party to make Albertans happier.

02:24:07.180 That involves changing the way we treat each other and other Albertans.

02:24:11.100 It means civility.

02:24:13.080 It also means that we have to be honest when we make mistakes and apologize.

02:24:17.520 I want this party to make Albertans healthier.

02:24:19.680 That means working with our wonderful doctors and nurses and technologists

02:24:22.760 to reform our health care system and make it the best in the world.

02:24:26.200 I want to make Albertans freer.

02:24:27.900 That means correcting the mistakes of the last two years and making sure that our rights are

02:24:34.080 actually protected. And I want to make Albertans prosperous. That means fighting the Trudeau

02:24:39.800 liberals, fixing the constitution, which we can do. It is reality. Growing and diversifying our

02:24:46.800 economy and taking advantage of the can-do spirit of Albertans. If we do these things, we can and

02:24:53.400 will renew our party and win the next election. If you believe in these things, if you want

02:24:59.560 a better hope for the future for your children, for your grandchildren, then please consider

02:25:04.140 voting for Brian Jean. I will prepare. I will have an excellent team around me and surrounding

02:25:10.820 me. I will listen. I will make sure that I always do what's best for Albertans, what's

02:25:15.540 best for our future. I will make us the happiest, the healthiest, the most free and most prosperous

02:25:21.120 people on the planet. Please go to brianjean.ca, buy a membership, support any one of these

02:25:27.680 candidates, but get involved. Please, thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Jean. Ms. Smith,

02:25:33.300 over to you. You have two minutes for your closing. I just want to say that even though I think I

02:25:37.920 should be leader, I must say I agree with Brian that every person on this stage has had an amazing

02:25:44.980 input on cabinet decisions, and I think that every one of them is cabinet material. Todd, of course,

02:25:50.900 has done amazing work standing up for the rights of individual MLAs. Rajan has done terrific work

02:25:56.660 on transportation corridors. Rebecca has always got the interests of families at front and center

02:26:02.580 with her activity tax credit. I think that's a great idea. We've got Lila, who I think has got

02:26:07.400 some wonderful ideas she put on the table tonight about immigration. Travis has done terrific work

02:26:12.180 on insurance. I mean, our energy industry now has the ability to self-insure, which is going to be

02:26:17.200 hugely important in this world of disinvestment and Brian Jean I think I'm surprised he didn't

02:26:22.180 talk about his gasoline and diesel uh proposal tonight to remove the royalties because I think

02:26:26.380 it's a pretty darn good idea as well but I think we have to also be honest about why it is we're

02:26:30.840 here this evening we're here this evening because conservatives win elections when they talk and act

02:26:36.320 like conservatives rather than a bunch of watered down liberals did you start to think about why it

02:26:41.460 is we're even here tonight why we're having this debate why we had a leadership opening

02:26:46.740 it's because the premier and his team lost the confidence of members and of most MLAs

02:26:53.700 is because our members saw a government that wasn't effective in dealing with Trudeau's

02:26:58.980 attacks on our province complaining sending letters with no results that to me is the

02:27:06.060 issue of this campaign is who is going to stand up to Ottawa. I found it really interesting in

02:27:13.380 a caucus communications that came out July 18th. This is UCP caucus. It says Alberta's government

02:27:18.560 will not accept any plan from the federal government that seeks to interfere in our

02:27:22.340 constitutionally protected ability to develop our resources. That's what MLAs are told to say.

02:27:27.540 That kind of sounds like the sovereignty act. So I think what you're seeing here is just a little

02:27:31.360 bit of posturing tonight because I know that I'm going to fight for you. We're going to stand up

02:27:35.320 ottawa go to danielsmith.ca thank you to put alberta first thank you mr tapes two minutes

02:27:42.120 over to you for closing all right it's uh it's really been a pleasure to join all of uh my my

02:27:47.160 leadership colleagues here on the stage tonight uh look you know prior to 2019 i was in the private

02:27:53.480 sector uh my whole life and i have to say that during those years i was a typical conservative

02:27:59.400 minded alberton my best day was the day i didn't notice government i didn't notice government in

02:28:04.440 my businesses and certainly didn't notice government between me and my family but it was

02:28:09.560 when our province took a sharp left turn in 2015 and we elected in alberta an ndp government that's

02:28:17.240 when i sat up and took note because i was afraid i was concerned that the opportunities and

02:28:22.520 prosperity the freedoms that we'd enjoyed may not be there for our children and grandchildren

02:28:27.960 and friends again i want to draw us to really the question the pertinent question in this

02:28:34.280 in this leadership race and who is that leader that can bring us to victory in 2023 because

02:28:40.880 friends that's why i got into politics in 2019 and it's because of that question i joined this

02:28:47.800 leadership race only a few weeks ago it's also about having real solutions to the challenges we

02:28:55.000 face we face real challenges around inflation and affordability it's about having real solutions

02:29:02.120 when we deal with a government in ottawa who consistently attacks alberta's vital economic

02:29:09.240 interests and friends i am not about political bluster and rhetoric over promising and under

02:29:15.160 delivering i'm about winning and we win when we're strategic but it's also about continuing

02:29:22.280 to position this province for economic growth diversification and friends we're seeing that

02:29:27.800 growth and diversification right now at record rates across sectors we cannot see the gains we've

02:29:34.520 made eroded right now we need strong principle proven leadership i would ask for your support

02:29:40.680 so we can win in 2023 thank you mr taves all right mr lowen you have the final two minutes

02:29:46.280 for closing please go ahead thank you very much it's been a great debate i've enjoyed learning

02:29:51.240 all sorts of ideas that they've been expressed so far and I want to thanks

02:29:54.880 give thanks of course to the organizers this event we know it takes a lot to put

02:29:58.320 on a big event like this and but what I want to do is I want to just look back

02:30:03.060 at some of the comments made here we I think every single person at this table

02:30:08.400 talked about restoring trust and unity but no one seemed to talk about how it

02:30:14.580 was lost and I think that's important to think about losing trust doesn't just

02:30:19.260 happen it comes from broken promises now some think that unity is kicking people

02:30:25.440 out and then calling them representing their constituents sniping but that's

02:30:30.360 not true we're here today because members spoke members wanted to change

02:30:35.400 and that's why we're here today my campaign is focused on trust transparency

02:30:41.580 and accountability and I believe leading is serving so this is your Alberta and

02:30:48.000 and I'm committed to doing it your way.

02:30:50.680 Thank you.

02:30:51.600 Thank you, Mr. Lohan.

02:30:52.620 All right, the candidate's closing remarks

02:30:54.120 ends the official debate.

02:30:55.180 It has been my privilege to be your moderator

02:30:57.340 for this evening.

02:30:58.180 Ladies and gentlemen,

02:30:59.020 please give the candidates a round of applause.

02:31:06.360 All right.

02:31:07.600 All right, on behalf of all UCP party members,

02:31:11.980 I wanna thank all the candidates for being here tonight.

02:31:13.820 I do know this is, it's a lot of stress getting here

02:31:16.000 and I wanna thank all of you.

02:31:17.200 I also want to thank the party, specifically our party president, Cynthia Moore,

02:31:20.220 and the entire UCP party team who helped put tonight on and make it possible.

02:31:24.240 And a huge thanks to the people of Medicine Hat for hosting us here tonight.

02:31:27.440 If you don't yet have your party membership to vote on October 6th,

02:31:30.900 visit www.unitedconservatives.ca for more information.

02:31:34.860 And as mentioned in my introductory remarks,

02:31:37.320 the Medicine Hat debate is the first of two official debates.

02:31:40.140 Please tune in to the next one in Edmonton on August 30th at the Citadel Theatre.

02:31:44.620 Thank you, and good night, Alberta.

02:31:46.060 Thank you.

02:32:16.060 oh my goodness I was nodding off a little there I think it might have been the question about

02:32:26.480 well I think all of them actually for the first half of the debate we are coming to you live this

02:32:33.600 is true north's coverage of what was a glitch filled united conservative party debate as people

02:32:40.560 square off in medicine head Alberta for who gets to be the next leader of the UCP

02:32:45.420 replacing Jason Kenney, but also who gets to be the next Premier of Alberta. And I was talking

02:32:54.240 about this on my show the other day. It's very interesting when the stakes are a lot higher than

02:32:58.500 they are, say, in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race underway right now,

02:33:03.260 that once you win this leadership race, you are the Premier of Alberta. So you are seeking

02:33:09.340 re-election in the election coming up in nine months time rather than just trying to seek

02:33:15.640 election for the first time. And I think that actually is important because whoever comes in

02:33:20.040 is going to have an existing caucus. They'll have to manage heading into an election,

02:33:25.680 which means they'll have to set a tone very quickly. They'll have to assemble a cabinet

02:33:30.120 very quickly. And they're going to have to do this in a way that gives them enough momentum

02:33:35.060 and puts them on solid enough footing that they are able to win an election in nine months time

02:33:39.680 against Rachel Notley, who's running again for the NDP. I want to explain here a few different

02:33:46.380 things that have happened here. So the rules of the debate were a little bit chaotic, but basically,

02:33:53.260 as mentioned, it prioritized having people debate each other, that one-on-one debate.

02:33:58.320 But the result of this is that it gave Danielle Smith a lot more time. It was the frontrunner 0.91

02:34:02.740 pile on. All of the candidates virtually tried to devote their time asking questions to her with 0.97

02:34:08.440 the exception of maybe Brian Jean, which means they were trying to sink her. And whether they

02:34:13.560 did sink her, it is tough to say. My colleague William Macbeth is standing by. We'll get to him

02:34:18.420 in just a moment. But first, I want to check in on the social media desk with Elie Kendenantel.

02:34:24.240 Obviously, we spoke at the beginning, Elie, about what people were thinking about who was going to

02:34:28.960 win. Looking back on it, did people articulate a clear winner or at least who they think the winner

02:34:34.160 was? Yes, there's actually quite a consensus in the chat. People say it's Danielle Smith is number

02:34:43.620 one. Despite her being attacked constantly tonight, we heard a lot about Danielle Smith

02:34:48.540 and the Sovereignty Act. People think she did a good job at fighting back. And Todd Lowen also is 0.57

02:34:53.940 a popular one. And honestly, I'm not surprised. Well, he might not be known outside of Alberta

02:34:58.600 very much people have a lot of respect because he stood up to jason kenny as he was locking down

02:35:03.080 the province i remember that letter that very strongly worded letter telling kenny he should

02:35:08.120 resign um some people said brian gene but there's mixed comments on brian gene somebody uh wrote

02:35:14.920 gene is annoying me no longer my second choice it's low and uh i was a little i i found gene

02:35:21.160 kind of underperformed especially at the beginning of the debate i was wondering where is brian gene

02:35:24.680 how come we're not hearing from him i mean this is somebody who like kind of started the whole

02:35:30.040 revolution against this the revolt against kenny and the lake uh lake uh fort mcmurray lake lavish

02:35:35.800 uh by election and he seemed a little bit quiet for somebody who you know clearly wants to be

02:35:40.280 premier he's this is his third time trying to basically be premier uh as yeah just to jump in

02:35:46.200 on brian gene there ellie the thing that was interesting so by the end of it i mean let's

02:35:50.120 let's just look at the numbers. He had two of his little rebuttal paddly things left, which means

02:35:54.700 that he was a lot more judicious and a lot more restrained about jumping in and getting into the

02:35:59.600 debates at the beginning. And yeah, I would agree for the first half, I kind of forgot he was in

02:36:03.900 there. And he was affected by the dropout of the stream as well. So it was when he was speaking

02:36:10.140 that one of the longer dropouts took place, which is when I jumped back in. He did speak a little

02:36:15.720 bit more near the end uh but one thing i would point out about brian gene's performance i mean

02:36:20.860 he had i'd say the strongest or one of the strongest in terms of delivery like when he

02:36:26.420 spoke it sounded very natural it sounded very authoritative but it also if you looked past

02:36:31.780 the style i i don't know how much he was saying so what were what were people specifically raising

02:36:37.440 with brian gene that they weren't fans of well it appears that people were kind of i guess a bit

02:36:43.860 unimpressed uh in total i will say personally on my personal observation he came off again as you

02:36:50.400 said he was very he can't he seemed to know what he wanted to do you know when he said like about

02:36:54.860 the sovereignty act he said look this is not you know he came off as somebody who kind of knew his

02:36:58.680 stuff a bit you know uh but as i said doors i asked my supporters my my followers what they

02:37:05.020 think of the sovereignty act they all support it and unfortunately in politics often it's not

02:37:09.860 about the quality or the substance of an idea, but more about the cover of the book and what

02:37:16.460 something sounds like on the outside. And that's what people like. And again, the Alberta Sovereignty

02:37:20.700 Act, given how Ottawa has been treated, is very popular. Yeah. And one thing I would say,

02:37:27.920 just looking back on the context, I know a lot of people were jumping up about the Sovereignty Act.

02:37:35.780 The challenge that I would raise just as far as strategy goes is that whenever Travis Taves and Rajan Sani were criticizing it, they were saying it, they were repeating it, they were saying sovereignty act, sovereignty act, sovereignty act. And anytime you hear that, it's like, well, that actually sounds like a good thing. And it actually gives more name recognition for what is really Danielle Smith's flagship policy.

02:37:58.460 Now, again, if the policy is unpopular, then maybe it's a good idea to keep tying it to her. But I think that people actually are going, I think it's going to backfire on them. Let's bring in William Macbeth on this. Because William, I know you've covered as an Albertan, the Alberta independence discussion, and no one was coming out and saying we need separatism.

02:38:17.700 But certainly, Danielle Smith's Sovereignty Act is really directed at that growing movement of people that are dissatisfied with Ottawa, that want a more autonomous and a more sovereign Alberta.

02:38:29.980 Do you think the blows on the Sovereignty Act landed?

02:38:32.600 uh to be honest no i i think what's interesting about the sovereignty act context of what the

02:38:43.000 kenny government had done previously on discontent and they had a series of provincial uh town halls

02:38:53.880 this process but i think a lot of people felt it didn't really result in anything it didn't result

02:39:00.280 concrete measures being taken. There was no Alberta Provincial Pension Plan. There was no

02:39:07.160 of course. There was a referendum on equalization but the moment the

02:39:12.720 referendum was heard about it again. So I think there's a pent-up concern that

02:39:18.760 not enough with the Act is a very politically visible response to what

02:39:28.840 people are asking about. Yeah, thank you very much, William. And I'll also say thank you as

02:39:33.780 well for your contributions this evening. It's been very welcome. So we appreciate that very

02:39:37.960 much. And of course, when we touch back on these issues at the next debate, we'll be sure to have

02:39:42.060 you back on. So thanks again to my colleague, William McBeth here. I will say as well, I mean,

02:39:47.980 we did a live show the night of the referendum. We did a live show because it was on the Calgary

02:39:53.400 and Edmonton and other municipal elections as well. And the results, I don't think were all

02:39:57.740 that surprising. We knew that, you know, 62%, roughly, of Albertans were probably going to

02:40:02.560 support it. It was going to be around there. But I think William's point is right, that

02:40:06.780 it is a big question mark of how you leverage that into something. And I'm curious if Western

02:40:14.620 independence, Western separatism were things that you were seeing in the social media chatter, Ali?

02:40:20.740 I was seeing a bit of it. I was seeing a lot of Western alienation. Some people are telling me,

02:40:26.000 Oh, Alberta's been left behind.

02:40:28.260 Some people showing pessimism, being like, oh, it doesn't matter who wins.

02:40:33.000 We will continue to be betrayed.

02:40:34.740 And so there is a pessimism.

02:40:36.820 And I saw this pessimism when I was in Alberta, too.

02:40:39.760 It's really because they've been through a lot of hard time and lots of governments that don't listen.

02:40:44.320 So that's kind of what I've noticed there.

02:40:46.260 I would say, too, I think the crowd that maybe watches the UCP leadership debate are maybe not your Alberta separatists.

02:40:51.740 They're more your Alberta, your more classical Alberta conservatives.

02:40:54.580 So I think we're bound to not see as much discussions on separatism there.

02:40:58.660 But there's definitely a lot of talk about sovereignty and independence and freedom.

02:41:02.840 You know, freedom is a popular, has been a very popular thing in Canada in the last few months.

02:41:07.020 He wrote a book about the Freedom Convoy, Andrew, which, by the way, you can get online.

02:41:12.720 Just Indigo won't sell it.

02:41:13.980 That's a shame.

02:41:14.720 But all right, you're getting invited back next time.

02:41:18.460 Good job.

02:41:19.660 You know, it's true.

02:41:21.320 Like sovereignty, freedom, these things are intertwined.

02:41:23.260 And I think, again, that is why the Alberta sovereignty is so popular, because it's a form of independence, a form of freedom without going full independence, which, you know, would be challenging, given Alberta doesn't have any ocean or doesn't have any ports to export his oil.

02:41:37.460 yeah one one interesting thing and this just sort of goes to the danielle smith question more

02:41:42.800 broadly is that she is not well liked it sounds like certainly not widely supported by a lot of

02:41:49.020 the people in the ucp caucus and i mentioned a few moments ago that whoever wins this leadership

02:41:54.440 race is going to become the leader of caucus have to lead that caucus through the next i mean it

02:41:59.760 won't be the next nine months but the next several months and then lead that caucus into an election

02:42:04.000 And, you know, the the big question mark will be for all they talk about unity, how much will the party and specifically the MLAs unify behind the next leader?

02:42:15.420 Are they going to unify behind Danielle Smith? Are you going to have candidates that say, I don't want to run for the party anymore if Danielle Smith's the leader?

02:42:22.120 So I think that's the big question. And again, I'm not talking about this as though it's a fait accompli, because there is a lot that still is going to happen.

02:42:28.740 And this is the first debate, but I bring it up just as we talk about the themes here

02:42:32.960 that are coming up.

02:42:34.360 So that's going to do it for us.

02:42:35.840 I want to thank you, Lee Quentin Nantel, for all your work this evening and with True

02:42:40.260 North more broadly.

02:42:41.460 It's been an absolute pleasure.

02:42:42.900 So you have a good evening, sir, and we'll get you back on for the next one.

02:42:45.900 And I want to thank you, the audience, for tuning into this live show.

02:42:49.780 I know there were, I mean, on one hand, it's always good when the technical glitches are

02:42:53.260 not our fault, but I know to the audience, it's a moot point.

02:42:55.920 So we thank you very much for your patience.

02:42:58.240 We were just as frustrated as you were by it, but we're going to get things together

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02:43:03.960 Hopefully the UCP will buy a new modem by then.

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02:43:15.920 She's in the ground.

02:43:16.580 That's a whole other story, but she's on the ground in Medicine Hat.

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02:43:56.200 That does it for us for today, everyone.

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02:45:53.120 Transcription by CastingWords

Juno News - July 28, 2022

True North’s coverage of the UCP Leadership Debate

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