Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta's legacy of political innovation： An interview with Derek Fildebrandt

00:00:00.240 Hello, my friends. Today, a special interview with Derek Fildebrandt. He's the publisher

00:00:04.380 of Western Standard. We're going to go deep on Alberta, not just because I'm sentimental

00:00:09.600 for the place I come from, but I think it's important in Canada. A lot of ideas are generated

00:00:14.800 there. It's like an idea laboratory. And they're innovators in politics. So what's going on?

00:00:20.720 Does Danielle Smith have a chance? Are the media going to slice and dice her? Can she 1.00

00:00:25.540 beat Rachel Notley? We'll get into all that with Derek. That's ahead. But first, let me

00:00:30.520 invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:35.820 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get my show every

00:00:40.320 weeknight, Sheila Gunn-Reed's show too, every week. And we get the $8, which doesn't sound

00:00:45.700 like a lot, but I tell you, it sure adds up. And we really rely on that to pay our bills

00:00:49.480 around here because we don't take any money from Trudeau. All right. Here's today's podcast.

00:00:55.540 Tonight, a heart-to-heart conversation with Derek Fildebrandt, the publisher of Western

00:01:13.920 Standard. What's going on in Alberta these days? This is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:18.360 You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you sensorious bug. 0.87

00:01:25.540 Sometimes we talk about international news, the war in Ukraine, what China is doing, 0.82

00:01:39.620 Joe Biden. These are interesting and exciting things because these are the big players and

00:01:44.480 also because the big media talks about it. So shouldn't we, as the littler media, be following

00:01:50.260 their example? And true, what Joe Biden does or what the war in a faraway land that touches

00:01:55.540 oil prices or agriculture prices, that does have an effect on us back here in Canada. But most

00:02:00.440 of the things in our lives are decided at a more provincial or local level. They may not quite

00:02:07.260 be as exciting as the lead up to a third world war, but they affect our everyday lives very much. And

00:02:13.460 a place in Canada that I think is a laboratory for political experiments in smaller government and

00:02:21.560 freedom and also a battleground between the authoritarian, centrally planned worldview of,

00:02:27.640 say, a Justin Trudeau and a more rugged individualist world, of course, is the province

00:02:31.720 of Alberta, a unique province both economically and politically. I think it really does live up to its motto,

00:02:38.420 also strong and free. I was born in Alberta and I still regard myself as an Albertan at heart,

00:02:43.800 even though I've been in exile in Toronto for more than a decade now. But I like to keep in touch

00:02:48.700 with what's going on in the province of my birth, not just for sentimental reasons, but also because

00:02:54.160 what happens in Alberta will have an effect on the rest of the country. And if Alberta is punished

00:03:00.140 economically, it will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the country. If Alberta succeeds and thrives,

00:03:06.420 it'll have a beneficial effect for the rest of the country. And how political leaders from Ontario

00:03:11.660 and Quebec deal with Alberta, I think, shows what kind of a person they are, if they're punitive and

00:03:18.060 looking to demonize the other, as sometimes Justin Trudeau does, or if they want to truly

00:03:23.140 build a harmonious confederation. And so I often look to my friends at the Western standard to let me

00:03:30.580 know what's really going on out West, because they are owned and operated out West and they are led

00:03:35.800 by our friend Derek Fildeprant, who will join us for the next half hour to talk about the sweep

00:03:41.440 of these things and Alberta's place in them. Derek, great to see you again. Welcome back.

00:03:46.880 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

00:03:48.380 Well, you know, it's great to see you. And I'm sort of jealous because you're out there

00:03:52.080 fighting the good fight, really on one of the important political battlegrounds,

00:03:55.980 which is Alberta. I really think you could go back not just to Preston Manning or to Ralph

00:04:01.820 Klein, but you can go back decades earlier to Bill Eberhardt, to Ernest Manning. I think Alberta

00:04:07.000 has always been a place where political innovations happen. Even the NDP had one of its formative

00:04:13.660 moments in Alberta. There's something in the air out there, isn't there?

00:04:19.200 Yeah. And you use the term, the two terms that have some historical resonance in exactly this.

00:04:27.340 You talked about Alberta being politically innovative or a laboratory. You know, I remember

00:04:35.540 when I was in university, I read Preston Manning's book, The New Canada. That was written right after

00:04:40.600 the Charlottetown Accord referendum, which, of course, the entire political establishment in

00:04:47.220 Canada lost to a hodgepodge group, including the Reform Party. And this book was very, it was

00:04:53.440 influential on me. He talked, you know, he said there's only two regions in Canada that are

00:04:59.420 political entrepreneurs or like to experiment beyond traditional party systems. And that's

00:05:05.840 Quebec and the West. Alberta, probably more so than the rest of the West. But I think the West very

00:05:10.220 broadly are political entrepreneurs or innovators. They're willing to break beyond the traditional

00:05:16.800 molds of things. You know, that's why in, you know, BC, you have a two party system.

00:05:25.880 The NDP and the BC Liberal, now maybe sort of BC United, whatever you call it, but also the Green

00:05:32.640 Party. I mean, not a cup of tea of myself or you, I'm sure. But, you know, it's the only place that

00:05:38.920 kind of consistently elects Greens. You know, in Alberta, you had the social credit, you had the

00:05:43.580 United Farmers Movement, come from here, you had social credit. The Canadian Commonwealth

00:05:49.880 Federation, which became the NDP, came from sort of a combination of Saskatchewan and Alberta together.

00:05:56.920 You had, you know, federally, you had the Reform Party, you had the wild, provincially, you had the

00:06:03.620 Wild Rose Party. And, you know, it's a place where people are willing to step outside the traditional

00:06:10.660 bounds of the typical two or two party system, you know, liberal and Tory or two party plus liberal Tory

00:06:20.240 and NDP system that you see more traditionally in Ontario. Yeah, you know, I mean, what you're talking

00:06:25.840 about there is innovation, progressive ideas, newfangled ideas. I think that's the Alberta way. You can be a

00:06:34.820 right wing progressive as an innovator and experimenter. So often, though, these parties are looked down,

00:06:40.580 on and condemned by the center of power. They mock them. I remember being a young man involved with the

00:06:46.560 Reform Party of Canada, absolutely demonized by the central Canadian establishment, was never accepted.

00:06:53.720 Preston Manning was mocked ideologically, personally. They mocked his voice. They mocked his hair. They mocked his

00:06:59.980 glasses. I remember Sheila Copse called him David Duke of the North. Anything goes to smash down a political innovator

00:07:09.980 from Alberta. I think it hurts, by the way. I think it hurts the feelings of Albertans who want to be

00:07:14.760 good Canadians that they're so rebuffed. But let me give you a modern example. Look at Danielle Smith, 1.00

00:07:21.140 the current premier, a young woman premier. I'm not sure how many young women there are as premiers right 1.00

00:07:27.240 now. There's a few. But Danielle Smith is, I think, the most energetic and active. She's with a new party,

00:07:32.980 the United Conservative Party, fairly new. And, you know, she's a good talker. She's a lot of time

00:07:38.900 on talk radio. And she's a political innovator in terms of policy. Now, those things on paper

00:07:46.020 are what the CBC and the Toronto establishment claim they love to see. We need more women in 1.00

00:07:52.540 politics. We need more young people. I mean, she's, I don't think she's, maybe she just turned 50,

00:07:58.160 which in the realm of premiers is not old. She'd be on the younger side. She's certainly 0.83

00:08:03.880 open-minded in terms of politics. You would think she would be the star of Canada. And maybe if she

00:08:11.060 was on the left, she would be. But she's nothing but derided and demonized by the establishment media, 1.00

00:08:18.960 especially the CBC, which is so obvious they're doing their best to kill her.

00:08:23.260 Well, you kind of hinted into what I think the real issue is there. You know, the left or

00:08:30.500 progressives say they want more women in politics or minorities in politics, all these different 0.92

00:08:35.220 so-called equity-deserving groups. What they really mean is they want more of these people in

00:08:40.780 politics on the left. You know, you have to have the right politics to be in politics and deserve it

00:08:47.900 and have it being a part of any of these groups. You know, Danielle Smith has had a very rocky

00:08:55.240 history in Alberta politics. She's achieved what is probably the biggest comeback in Canadian political

00:09:01.440 history. Even I have to pinch myself sometimes wondering how she managed to come back from the

00:09:08.700 hole she had managed to dig herself in at one point. But, you know, it's also not just that she's

00:09:15.040 a conservative. She comes from the anti-establishment, politically innovative and

00:09:22.200 populist Wild Rose tradition. And, you know, in the Alberta UCP, there's a lot of different...

00:09:31.240 It's very tribal. It's very factional. And, you know, there were differences between the

00:09:38.120 Wild Roses and PCs. Generally, the Wild Rose was further to the right. It had more social

00:09:42.960 conservatives and more libertarians. But, you know, but there were sometimes, you know,

00:09:50.620 there'd be like the right wing of the PCs would ideologically match up relatively closely with

00:09:55.040 portions of the Wild Rose. But the differences between those parties were more cultural and

00:10:00.460 tribal. A lot of the cleavages that still plague that party today are very cultural and tribal.

00:10:07.740 And she comes from the tribe that has been deemed to be politically unacceptable by most of the

00:10:14.260 establishment, both media and business. You know, there are a lot of people, you know,

00:10:21.860 even within the UCP, who just don't think it's right that someone who came from the Wild Rose

00:10:30.040 side of the legacy parties should be there. And so that paints an even larger, another target on her

00:10:39.640 back beyond just not fitting the mold of what a progressive woman politician should be in the 1.00

00:10:48.060 image of the media.

00:10:49.700 You know, I think about some of the challenges that Danielle Smith faces, and one of them

00:10:54.160 is her own team. You talked about tribal and different factions, but I think Albertan politicians,

00:11:02.240 especially those on the right, and some on the left, are often populist, individualistic,

00:11:08.180 sort of lone ranger. There's a party out there called the Maverick Party. And I love that because

00:11:12.900 that, you know, what a maverick is, you know, it's a critter that won't go with the flock, really.

00:11:17.580 And there's nothing more different than the Trudeau caucus. Like, Justin Trudeau's liberals

00:11:24.640 are the most disciplined MPs in the country. They will never say anything against their boss,

00:11:32.100 and he will never say anything against them. And they have this pact, never explained, never

00:11:37.420 apologized, never dissent. And that makes it hard to pick one of them off. In Alberta, I think it's

00:11:45.480 sort of the opposite. I mean, you yourself got offside with your party on occasion, and I think

00:11:51.860 it's the individual spirit of the province. That makes it tough, though, to go into a campaign,

00:11:57.700 because I think Danielle Smith, from time to time, may be playing, you know, defense on her own team,

00:12:05.600 some of whom I don't think have fully accepted her as the new premier. Am I wrong on that? I'm a

00:12:11.040 little bit worried that the rebelliousness of the United Conservative Party and that Western streak,

00:12:16.660 that maverick streak, makes it hard to operate in the current kind of campaign environment.

00:12:23.640 Yeah, no, it absolutely does. And it's for better and worse sometimes. So right now,

00:12:30.300 the main cleavages in the party are between Smith and the Kenneyites. And that was largely reflected

00:12:37.280 in the leadership race. You know, Travis Tabes, the finance minister under Kenney and under Smith,

00:12:42.700 was widely perceived. And he didn't do much to disabuse anyone of the notion that he was the

00:12:49.140 anointed Kenney successor. And the battles that are taking place right now are, a lot of it is over

00:12:56.380 nominations. So before Kenney was ousted as leader, he ensured that the nominations of some of his key

00:13:05.280 allies were opened up. And, you know, for those who might not follow this stuff too closely,

00:13:10.860 the nomination is what essentially gets you your seat for the most part. There's only a handful of

00:13:15.380 seats in the middle that are actually competitive between the NDP and the UCP. The rest are safe NDP

00:13:23.440 or safe UCP. You get the party nomination, you were almost 100% guaranteed to be the MLA in that seat.

00:13:29.640 You're going to win the election. And Kenney opened up the nominations in some of these seats

00:13:35.380 and disqualified any challengers to his allies. And that was obviously very controversial. People,

00:13:42.380 it angers people. But at the end of the day, Alberta voters tend to just kind of hold their

00:13:46.560 nose, say, hey, I might not like the way it happens, but that's just, you know, politics is

00:13:50.420 dirty. And I guess they're all dirty. I'll hold my nose and vote for the party. 0.97

00:13:53.880 Okay. So Smith comes in, wins the leadership. I remember I asked her in an interview right after

00:14:00.740 that, if, you know, if she would be opening up some of these kind of crooked nominations where

00:14:06.200 there had been no democratic due process taken just to protect some of these Kenneites. And she 0.79

00:14:12.160 said, that'll be up to the local boards. And in one constituency, say, Ruby Rock Mountain House,

00:14:17.760 Sundry, that was the constituency of Jason Nixon, where, and he was kind of the right hand man in

00:14:23.360 government house leader and a senior minister for Kenney, where Kenney had essentially just

00:14:27.460 given him the nomination and they disqualified anyone who challenged him. The local board threw

00:14:31.960 out the MLA, Nixon's people, they elected a whole new constituency association board,

00:14:37.420 and they demanded that the nomination be reopened. The central party board, there was a big fight over

00:14:42.780 that at the party's first convention right after her leadership. Only half the board comes up for

00:14:46.580 election. Every single one of those spots were won by kind of an insurgency group in the party

00:14:51.380 called Take Back Alberta that was generally supportive of her and was opposed to, you know,

00:14:55.760 lockdown restrictions of the Kenney government and things like that. And that's created deadlock

00:15:00.300 in that party's board, where you have 50% who are essentially more aligned with Smith,

00:15:04.480 the anti-establishment, anti-Kenney stuff. And then 50% that came from, they were already elected

00:15:10.060 there before it came from there. And the party just quashed reopening any nominations. And the way that

00:15:15.900 happened is there was an organized revolt, even though it's not in Smith's hands, it's up to the

00:15:21.220 party. There was a revolt in the caucus of the Kenneyites who threatened to quit and create all

00:15:28.760 sorts of trouble if she didn't find a way of protecting their nominations and kind of strong 0.62

00:15:33.500 armed her to do it. And that's what's happened. So now you've got, you've got these, you're going to

00:15:39.040 have some candidates going to the next election who have no democratic legitimacy from the local

00:15:42.860 constituency association members in those ridings, uh, because they, they threatened, uh, to try and

00:15:48.800 overthrow Smith as the leader. If, uh, if the party reopened their nomination so that local people can

00:15:53.600 actually vote who their candidate is. And so this is, uh, just a long line in the continuing fight and

00:16:00.760 civil war in Alberta. Uh, it is worth noting that the last conservative premier or leader in Alberta

00:16:10.420 to retire of their own free will was Peter Lockheed around the time I was born. I should say something.

00:16:18.220 Uh, and the last conservative leader to actually complete a full term of an election in Alberta

00:16:24.900 was Ralph Klein in 2001. That was the last time there was an election in Alberta where the,

00:16:33.620 where the conservative premier finished their term because he won again in 2004. Uh, but then he was

00:16:38.780 pushed out, uh, before that term was over. Ed Stelmack comes in. Ed Stelmack wins, pushed out before his

00:16:43.660 term's over. Allison Redford comes in, pushed out before her term's over. Uh, Jim Prentice comes in,

00:16:49.620 defeated. Uh, Jason Kenney comes in saying Rachel Notley's going to be one and done. Well, he's pushed

00:16:55.540 out before even his term's over. Rachel Notley lasted longer than him. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, um,

00:17:01.720 even, even if people like, uh, Smith, the history is not on her side here. Uh, if she manages to win

00:17:08.540 the next election and make it to the next election, uh, that'd be the first time since 2001 that anyone's

00:17:13.360 done it. And if she happens to ever retire on her own terms, well, that's something no conservative 1.00

00:17:17.420 or no premier period of any party has pulled off in Alberta since around the time I was born in the

00:17:22.920 80s. Well, it's a volatile place in some ways. That's good. You don't want politicians to be too

00:17:30.280 permanent. Uh, you know, you look at the United States Senate, there, there are politicians who

00:17:34.780 were there 30, 40, almost 50 years. Look at Joe Biden himself. I think there's some healthiness

00:17:40.620 to, uh, you know, a turnover it, although it sounds like Danielle Smith has a bit of a mutiny on her 1.00

00:17:47.180 hands. Um, I think that it's hers to lose as in, I think that she's on an inertia that she'll win

00:17:57.780 unless there's an eruption in their party, unless there are people who want to stab her in their 0.95

00:18:01.960 back. And I'm worried that there are some people who resent her coming in as the premier, as an

00:18:06.820 outsider, as a, as too libertarian, as too, uh, too critical of Jason Kenney. And they might rather

00:18:15.680 lose the election and get rid of Danielle Smith than win under her. Is that too crazy?

00:18:21.620 No, no, it's, it's entirely true. In fact, I think Jason Kenney probably even fits in that mold.

00:18:26.120 Uh, Jason Kenney, uh, I've never seen before in any party, in any province, uh, the sitting head

00:18:33.460 of a government criticizing the front runner, uh, of the leadership race to replace them.

00:18:40.020 And then refusing to be part of a transition. Like he refused to be like that. I've never heard of,

00:18:45.460 like, it's one thing to be partisan in your party, but to say, I hate my successors so much,

00:18:51.100 I literally will not help them become premier. That's unheard of.

00:18:54.880 You'll, you'll, you'll remember, uh, you know, you see the Lubrano's poster from the old Western

00:18:58.440 center when you ran it there, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin hated each other's guts. They had a,

00:19:04.020 if they could have gotten away with it, they would have shot each other. But, um, you know,

00:19:08.560 when Paul Martin was running to succeed Jean Chrétien, Jean Chrétien stayed out of the leadership

00:19:12.340 race, at least publicly. I mean, everyone's got a private favorite and you might, you know, call

00:19:16.180 in some favors and pull some strings here and there, but you, you never got directly involved.

00:19:20.720 Jason Kenney was directly involved in that leadership on an almost daily basis, going almost

00:19:26.740 exclusively after Danielle Smith, uh, which he saw, I think as a threat to his legacy, which had been

00:19:31.740 pretty much defined by lockdowns and mandates and things like that. And, uh, you know, she,

00:19:37.720 he was, he was making government spending announcements literally the day of the leadership

00:19:42.920 rate, a vote. Uh, so, you know, by that evening, his successor will be selected. It was assumed to

00:19:50.640 likely be Danielle Smith that morning. He was making spending announcements in the same damn city 0.99

00:19:54.560 trying to take the spotlight. So, you know, you had the most chaotic transition I've ever seen in 0.99

00:19:59.400 government. There's generally two kinds of transitions in Canadian or Westminster, uh, governments.

00:20:04.640 You have, uh, the one most people are aware of is when one party defeats another in an election.

00:20:10.780 So, you know, UCP defeats NDP. Well, the NDP, uh, you know, uh, the government will take normally

00:20:16.760 three to five weeks for transition. The old government goes into caretaker mode. They're

00:20:21.980 not allowed to make decisions. They're just kind of there to make sure that the police still arrest

00:20:27.060 bad guys and the fires get put out. They don't do anything in the assisted transition and the new,

00:20:32.420 there's no expectations on the new government because they're not actually sworn in yet because

00:20:36.000 they're not technically the government till they're sworn in. And that's, you know, what a lot of

00:20:39.520 people see. And then there's internal transitions. You saw this really recently in BC where, uh, the

00:20:44.800 new NDP leader was elected to replace Adrian Dix and they took two months, a very long transition.

00:20:50.700 It was within the same party, but it was a new administration coming in. They took lots of time

00:20:54.520 and the new premier could hit the ground running here. Smith, I think felt the necessity of taking power

00:20:59.860 immediately because Jason Kenney was not acting as a caretaker, interim premier. He was acting as a

00:21:05.300 very hostile premier and going to govern in his own right until he was gone. So Daniel Smith, I think

00:21:10.060 won the leadership on a Thursday night, Monday morning, she was sworn in as premier and the rest

00:21:15.260 of her cabinet wasn't even sworn in for a month. She essentially just fired Jason Kenney from the 0.73

00:21:18.980 cabinet and took his job. Um, and that resulted in a very chaotic turnover. He had no premier's office.

00:21:24.920 You had a premier, but no, no real premier's office. You just had kind of her campaign staff

00:21:30.280 trying to pick up the pieces, but all of a sudden because she's premier, there's an expectation

00:21:34.360 from the media and the opposition that they're going to govern as the premier, but even without

00:21:38.080 any of the infrastructure. So it was, it was a very chaotic, uh, transition of government.

00:21:42.680 It's kind of a third kind that I've never even seen before. Even when you have two, you know,

00:21:47.860 a hostile new leader replacing a hostile old leader, like Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin,

00:21:52.080 uh, just, you just never see that kind of thing. And I think it resulted in a pretty rough start

00:21:56.520 for the government. Yeah. I didn't realize it was that bad. Um, there is one thing that

00:22:03.300 usually works in Alberta and it also works in Quebec, works in Newfoundland. I think it works

00:22:09.000 in BC and Saskatchewan. And that is you can unite your province against Ottawa because Ottawa plays

00:22:18.100 favorites. And, you know, Westerners like to think that Ottawa plays favorites benefiting Quebec,

00:22:23.660 but sometimes Quebecers feel misunderstood or, or threatened in some way. I think Alberta has a

00:22:29.320 legitimate claim and Newfoundland does too. I think the best moments of Danielle Smith

00:22:34.020 have been when she pushes back at Justin Trudeau, when she challenges his goofy concept of a

00:22:40.940 just transition off of oil and gas. And when they met a few weeks ago and she was very reluctant to

00:22:49.280 shake his hand, I know a lot of people on Twitter chirped about that and thought it looked childish.

00:22:54.160 I really liked it. I mean, it was a little bit passive aggressive, but I think it telegraphed to

00:22:58.900 Albertans. I don't like this guy. I'm like my opponent here. Just take a quick look at that

00:23:03.560 awkward half handshake. Take a look. People thought that looked small minded or petty. I thought,

00:23:19.860 no, no, that's an expression of Alberta's views towards Trudeau. Am I right on that? I think

00:23:25.300 almost any quarrel that the premier of Alberta has with Justin Trudeau is going to be a winner.

00:23:30.860 If you're talking about Trudeau as Alberta premier, you are winning. If you're talking about

00:23:36.940 health care or other more mundane matters, you may be losing, especially against an NDP.

00:23:42.580 But you're fighting Trudeau. You're winning every day. What do you think?

00:23:46.680 Well, actually, on the handshake, we discussed it a lot around the newsroom here. I actually had a

00:23:53.740 reporter ask, one of our reporters, Jonathan Bradley, I think, asked Premier Smith about that to the

00:24:00.620 press conference when she got back. What she had said, actually, is that they had met before the

00:24:08.460 cameras started clicking and all the press are in there. They had already met. They'd already been

00:24:11.600 introduced and already shaken hands. And then they walk up to the chairs and Trudeau puts his hand out

00:24:17.160 to shake her hand again. And so she said she was just kind of confused by it. They had already

00:24:22.780 said hello. They were already shaking hands and was just kind of confused by the stage.

00:24:28.980 So it wasn't as deliberate. It wasn't really a deliberate statement.

00:24:33.100 Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't think it was. I think that's a I think a fair I think was a fair

00:24:38.920 explanation. You know, others had posited that Trudeau had just like grabbed her hand and kind of

00:24:44.580 manhandled it. You know, like when he elbowed Ruth Ellen Brousseau, the MP, the chest. I actually don't

00:24:51.340 even think that either. I think it was just awkward because they'd already shaken hands and been

00:24:54.660 introduced. You know, it's like when, you know, you go for dinner with somebody and you say goodbye

00:25:00.380 at the door of the restaurant and you turn out to walk the same direction down the sidewalk and you

00:25:05.000 have an awkward second goodbye. I think it's probably an equivalent of that. So, yeah, I think

00:25:12.120 that's what it was. But to your to your larger point of is a good politics to fight Ottawa? Yeah,

00:25:16.860 it generally is in Alberta and in many provinces, you know, a little less so Ontario because it kind

00:25:24.260 of just sees itself as upper Canada. It's not really not as much a thing. But the the caution

00:25:30.840 is that it can't look like some contrived silly fight. It has to be it has to be genuine over an

00:25:37.640 issue. It can't be, you know, every once in a while, like Rachel Notley would try to work

00:25:42.560 herself up and do a tiff and say, Justin Trudeau is, you know, could do better. And people are

00:25:50.060 like, I'm not really buying it. But conversely, you know, if you know, if Danielle Smith, you

00:25:56.780 know, came had a grievance, but Albertans weren't bought into it, they thought it was just for

00:26:01.760 political show. And really, this was part of Jason Kenney's problem. He you know, he ran against

00:26:05.780 Ottawa in the last election, he ran against Ottawa and the UCP leadership when he got made leader.

00:26:10.580 Uh, and then he, you know, for his roughly three years as premier, he would talk a game

00:26:16.040 against Ottawa, but he never actually really did anything. And so talking against Ottawa

00:26:20.400 gets you can get you in office, but it, you know, if you can't show anything for it, that

00:26:25.480 you're actually willing to do something about it, it can be on the negative side. And that

00:26:29.280 was, you know, after, after his mandates and lockdowns and things like that, that was probably

00:26:36.020 the clear second biggest reason why Jason Kenney, uh, lost the leadership of his own party

00:26:42.140 was, uh, just, it was just a bad joke that he would write an angry letter and hold a press

00:26:47.540 conference about Ottawa, but never actually did anything.

00:26:50.100 My theory on that is, um, as follows. Jason Kenney is the consummate member of parliament

00:26:57.660 in Ottawa. He has traveled to every place in this country. He was Stephen Harper's ambassador

00:27:04.500 to new Canadian communities. So he knows every ethnic group across this country. He speaks

00:27:09.080 pretty good French for a Western MP. He was, uh, a great performer in parliament. He had foreign

00:27:17.700 affairs and military, and he had a lot, he had a lot of big things he did. And my theory, and

00:27:24.440 I don't think it's that outlandish a theory, was that he, he just was in Alberta as premier,

00:27:29.380 as a holding pattern, uh, until it was more opportune to run for prime minister federally.

00:27:37.820 And he didn't want to be the one to dash himself against the rock of Justin Trudeau in 2015,

00:27:43.240 2019, 2021, let someone else soften up Trudeau. Kenny would do a term or two as premier. Kenny's

00:27:49.340 still pretty young. He was early fifties. And then he would go back to his natural and destiny.

00:27:54.140 Um, and, and my point is, if you're going to run for prime minister and woo Ontario and woo Quebec,

00:28:02.780 you don't want a bunch of footprints behind you where you condemned Ottawa or Canada too hard.

00:28:09.800 You don't want to be able to be pigeonholed as a small time provincial guy who only cares about

00:28:17.540 Alberta. And I think that one of the reasons Kenny was so ineffective is that he was always thinking,

00:28:23.580 how's this going to look when I run for prime minister? And I think he never actually accepted

00:28:31.400 being premier as his main and ultimate job. He was always thinking it's like when you're at a party

00:28:36.540 and someone is obviously looking around for someone more interesting to talk to than you.

00:28:40.920 I think that was Jason Kenny. He was looking around for someone more interesting to be the

00:28:45.960 premier of than just Alberta. What do you think of that theory?

00:28:48.220 Yeah. Uh, I think it's, I mean, a law, a lot of people have speculated that I, I think it's,

00:28:55.400 I think it's true. Um, I mean, he was a creature of, of Ottawa representing Alberta, but, um, you know,

00:29:02.400 he, he was rarely in Alberta, uh, you know, and people didn't hold that against them. I mean,

00:29:09.200 you know, he was out doing, uh, he was generally considered a very successful MP and minister,

00:29:14.000 uh, you know, had my support for, for a good time. Um, but you know, it's not like the United States

00:29:21.400 where there's a very long list of people who have been success, have successfully been governors of

00:29:29.220 a state, uh, built executive experience and then gone on to become a president. There,

00:29:34.280 there's quite a few of them. There is not a similar record in Canada. Um, I, so while you were talking

00:29:41.320 there, I just verified, I, I thought there had been only one premier in Canadian history who had

00:29:46.980 become prime minister and that it was an insignificant one. And boy, was I right. The

00:29:51.300 only premier in Canadian history who has gone on to become prime minister was John Thompson.

00:29:57.540 Can anyone tell me who John Thompson was? I think this is one of those guys. Uh, yeah, I, I, I'm, uh,

00:30:04.520 99% sure this was one of the, I think roughly four prime ministers who came immediately after

00:30:09.120 Sir John and McDonald, some of them lasted just a couple of weeks and died. And I think several of

00:30:13.660 them all died in office. Like it was just like a bunch of old drunks who were just like had gout

00:30:18.480 or something replacing a McDonald and they just dropped, were dropping like flies. So John Thompson,

00:30:23.760 I think was prime minister maybe for a couple of months or something. Um, so as far as I know,

00:30:29.440 there hasn't been a single premier in Canada who's gone on to at least win an election

00:30:33.460 as prime minister. We just had this one little anomaly. He's not even a footnote. Uh, you know,

00:30:40.240 he's got a painting on a wall somewhere in the house of commons and that's, that's the extent of

00:30:44.140 his contribution. So, um, and it's because, uh, because I think it's largely because of the extreme,

00:30:51.480 uh, regional nature of Canada. Canada is not, um, a nation in the traditional sense of the word.

00:30:58.500 It's, it's a, it's a polity. It's a state. Uh, you know, Quebec is a nation, but, uh, the Canadian

00:31:04.660 nation, you know, Trudeau has said post-national doesn't have a strong sense of itself. We have a

00:31:09.600 stronger provincial identities in Canada than we do as a single overriding national identity. And

00:31:15.580 especially if you want to come from, you know, you can't be Alberta premier and stand up for Alberta

00:31:24.320 in a real way and then speak nationally. You just can't do it. Uh, particularly so with Quebec. I

00:31:30.980 mean, I can't imagine people electing someone who's been the premier of Quebec. It didn't work.

00:31:34.860 Jean Charest tried, uh, you know, many people have tried to go from premier to prime minister.

00:31:41.480 In Kenny's case, he never got to actually put it to the test because he, you know, failed his job

00:31:45.800 as premier and got ousted by his own party. Um, that isn't to say he won't even try again someday if,

00:31:51.940 if the opportunity presents itself. But I guess I think the extreme, the extreme regional nature

00:31:56.340 of Canada makes it too difficult for premiers to make the change successfully.

00:32:00.260 Now, what's Kenny doing? I saw, I saw a news release that he's joined a law firm

00:32:04.640 as a senior advisor. Now he's not a lawyer by training. In fact, I'm not sure if he,

00:32:09.220 if he in fact finished his undergraduate degree, he's obviously a smart cookie with a ton of connections.

00:32:14.400 I was slightly surprised that he's sticking around Alberta. I think he had such a ignominious

00:32:20.380 ending. I'm surprised he didn't decamp for, I don't know, England or America. Have you,

00:32:25.580 have you heard from him or of him? What is he doing? Is he upbeat and moving on with his life?

00:32:32.760 Is he grumbling? Um, what, what's Jason Kenney up to now?

00:32:37.960 Well, uh, I haven't got a Christmas card from Jason Kenney in some time, so I, I, I can't, I,

00:32:43.380 I can't give you an honest insight into where his headspace is at. Uh, I know he's,

00:32:47.820 he's grown, uh, kind of the playoff beard. Uh, many of us do that when things get, uh,

00:32:53.060 rougher in politics, but, um, you know, the revolt against Kenny was from kind of the populist right

00:33:01.180 in Alberta, generally, you know, blue collar people, uh, middle-class people, uh, small oil patch,

00:33:09.360 you know, guys who own like three, four rigs kind of thing. The, the big business establishment

00:33:15.600 for the most part still continued to back him. And so, you know, I, I, yeah, it's not that

00:33:21.760 everyone was against them. Um, the wild rose style populist right was against him and it was very hard

00:33:30.800 against them and made it impossible for him to continue with the premier. But, you know, he still

00:33:35.200 kind of had that old PC business elite behind him. So, you know, I, I, you know, it's not like he

00:33:42.360 was run out of town. Alison Redford had to go to Afghanistan after her time as premier. She had, 0.85

00:33:47.600 she, she had worn out all welcome, uh, I think, but, uh, you know, like Jim, you know, Jim Prentice

00:33:53.740 found a soft landing in business. He never lost the support of kind of the PC business establishment.

00:33:59.300 And, uh, similarly, I think, uh, Jason Kenney has still got some friends, uh, in that area. So I,

00:34:06.140 you know, if he wants to remain around, uh, I, I can see that happening. Yeah. Well,

00:34:10.160 let me ask you about the two elections that are on the horizon. The first one, and it's a scheduled

00:34:15.460 one is the Alberta provincial election. And I follow some of the left wing bloggers in Alberta and

00:34:21.340 they're worried that Danielle Smith is picking up a bit in the polls, has find her, found her feet a 0.62

00:34:27.280 little bit and is taking on Trudeau and this just transition business. So I like the fact that the

00:34:32.280 NDP bloggers in Alberta are a little bit nervous, but I'm still nervous that Danielle Smith is going 0.57

00:34:38.060 to have a, a rocky go of it, especially when the media engages the, I, I believe that the Alberta

00:34:44.840 media is atrociously opposed to her and are out to kill her. Um, give me your prospects. Uh, what do 0.57

00:34:51.540 you think is going to happen in the Alberta election? That's just a few months away.

00:34:54.600 Well, you know, I, I'll, I'll be not quite as cowardly as everyone who gets asked this question

00:35:02.760 on camera. Um, I, I, I would give Smith and the UCP, uh, I make them the odds on favorite Alberta. So

00:35:11.980 it's kind of like, I, I, it's just like, I would give, you know, if you have two evenly matched teams,

00:35:17.220 I, I give the odds to the home team, whoever's playing on home ice and it's Alberta conservatives are on

00:35:23.300 home ice. So I give them the odds. They're roughly evenly matched. Uh, Rachel Notley is a capable

00:35:31.040 political operator. Uh, it's the first time in Alberta history and it's very rare in Canadian

00:35:36.740 history period where you have, um, the ex premier or prime minister of a government trying to get the

00:35:43.660 job back. Uh, Sir Johnny McDonald did it successfully. Um, uh, McKenzie King did it

00:35:50.500 successfully, but only technically he never really lost. I guess Pierre Trudeau did also after

00:35:55.640 the aberration. And Pierre Trudeau did. Yeah. And that's about it really. Yeah. Yeah. And it may

00:36:01.780 have happened in other provinces. It's definitely never happened in Alberta. In fact, normally when a

00:36:05.780 party loses government in Alberta, they completely disappear from history. Um, United Farmers lost an

00:36:11.780 election. They disappeared. Social credit lost. The liberals lost an election, gone. United Farmers

00:36:16.820 lost an election, gone. Social credit, gone. PCs, one election, sort of gone. They kind of came back

00:36:25.140 and controlled the UCP. Now it's kind of a more of a equilibrium between the Wild Rose and PCs,

00:36:30.040 but the PC party itself disappeared and would not have come back without the merger into the UCP.

00:36:35.920 Uh, the, the NDP did endure and, uh, Rachel Notley is a skilled political operator. Uh,

00:36:40.980 they've been massively out fundraising UCP for a long time under Jason Kenney as, as core UCP donors

00:36:46.440 walked away. That's changed. Uh, the UCP has now got a slight, uh, at least in, in, in the final quarter

00:36:52.960 of the year, the UCP took the lead. They more or less tied overall for the year because the numbers were

00:36:57.920 so low for the UCP for the first half of it. Um, yeah, I mean, uh, there could be bozo eruptions 1.00

00:37:05.280 to sink the UCP. Uh, the media put a lot of scrutiny on the UCP. Some of it's warranted. Some

00:37:10.960 of it's kind of gotcha. Hey, someone said something controversial once they were for, they must be a

00:37:14.900 Nazi. A lot of it's that. Uh, but you don't see any kind of similar, uh, lens put onto the NDP,

00:37:22.040 which is, you know, one reason I, I, uh, you know, I, I've always operated the Western standard.

00:37:29.060 Uh, one of my principles has always been, we were here to fill vacuums. If, if part of the

00:37:34.200 media is doing something well, well then we don't need to do a bunch of it. Uh, we should do something

00:37:40.080 that needs to be done and there's a market to be done, but isn't being done. And I don't see a lot

00:37:43.980 of scrutiny on, on the NDP, which is why we're, we're, we're trying to at least shine light on their,

00:37:48.880 their candidates and their policies. What do they stand for? What's their

00:37:51.940 record? How is that applicable? Uh, potentially in the next four years, if they were to win.

00:37:56.760 Uh, so the NDP is more or less going to get a pass, I think from, uh, from the media, they,

00:38:02.300 they consider it very unthreatening. Um, but yeah, if I'm going to, if I'm going to handicap it, 0.98

00:38:07.560 I'd say advantage UCP as home ice advantage, but a home ice advantage obviously doesn't win you every

00:38:13.420 time. Last question about the federal election, Justin Trudeau, I think he likes to demonize people.

00:38:20.620 Um, he, he likes demonizing people as racist and sexist and transphobes and Islamophobes. And 0.50

00:38:27.580 that's what he did to the truckers. Um, I think he tries to be a little bit more careful in his

00:38:33.120 language about Alberta, but at the end of the day, you know, he, you don't have to say,

00:38:38.660 I hate Alberta. You can use code language. Like we have to transition off the oil sands. 1.00

00:38:43.700 We have to transition off nitrogen fertilizer. You know, you don't have to say, I hate Alberta 1.00

00:38:49.220 farmers. You can just say we're banning farming. We're transitioning off oil. Do you think Justin

00:38:58.400 Trudeau is going to run? If there's an election this year, do you think he's going to run against

00:39:03.300 the West and make carbon a campaign theme? What do you think? Well, he has for the last few

00:39:10.340 elections. So I wouldn't be surprised if he did it again. Um, also I think Danielle Smith presents,

00:39:16.360 um, you know, it, it, it, it depends also a lot of it'll depend on how Polyev responds to it. Uh,

00:39:22.860 Polyev was born and raised Albertan. Uh, you know, he spent his, his entire career in Ottawa, but,

00:39:28.060 um, he, he was born and raised Albertan, went to university of Calgary. I think he even went to

00:39:32.420 school at the university of Calgary with Danielle Smith and, and several others of, of the generation.

00:39:37.460 Um, uh, I think liberals generally run against Alberta. The question is how hard do they lean

00:39:45.480 into it? Uh, I think the hardest anyone's ever leaned into it was the 1980 federal election that

00:39:50.220 gave us the national energy program with, uh, Trudeau, the seniors, uh, uh, national energy

00:39:56.260 program there. Um, but, uh, you know, Trudeau's run against Alberta to one degree or another in

00:40:02.280 every election. And, and, and, and I have to be fair. Some, it is fair to run against the leader

00:40:07.700 or the politics of a province without necessarily running against the province. Um, you know,

00:40:13.740 they tried to make an issue out of Jason Kenney in the last federal election. I don't think that's

00:40:18.720 necessarily running against Alberta. Uh, they can be carefully conflated. Um, you know, it's,

00:40:26.920 I don't have a problem with Quebec, but I generally have a Quebec problem with every Quebec government.

00:40:30.980 Um, and you know, but that can, and that can be easily conflated. So, you know, Trudeau ran against

00:40:35.880 Kenny last time. Uh, you know, his, his COVID plan had been a disaster. Not that Trudeau's was any

00:40:41.960 better, but, um, uh, but Danielle Smith, you know, her talk, you know, she won the leadership of the 1.00

00:40:47.960 UCP largely on the back of the sovereignty act, just scary word for some people. And, uh, you know,

00:40:55.480 it, and there's just no votes to lose for him here. Uh, the liberals, I think have one seat right

00:41:01.700 now. Uh, the porch pirate guy, uh, Georgia hall in Northeast Calgary, there's virtually no seats or

00:41:08.200 votes for them to lose here. I don't think they have earned or any illusions. They're going to win

00:41:11.820 a bunch of seats here. And so in politics, you know, you always need, everybody demonizes,

00:41:17.760 everyone has enemies. No one's completely sunny ways. And if you're going to, you know, just the

00:41:22.720 pure politics of it are, if you're going to pick an enemy, make sure you, you pick an enemy where

00:41:26.320 you have nothing to lose. And, you know, uh, the liberals can pick Alberta because they can make

00:41:33.680 a boogeyman out of it to win seats in the swing areas around the GTA, suburban Vancouver, things like

00:41:39.840 that. And, and virtually lose no substantial votes in Alberta because those votes aren't going to

00:41:44.420 translate the seats in this system. So yeah, buckle up. You're going to see another anti-Alberta election

00:41:48.640 run by Trudeau. Uh, question is, is it going to be more or less than every other

00:41:52.640 election he's run? Well, interesting days ahead. Derek, it's great to catch up with you. Give us

00:41:58.660 30 seconds on Western Standard. What, what are you guys working on these days and what's the best way

00:42:03.420 for people to support you? Well, uh, you know, uh, one of the big things we're working on is preparing

00:42:10.060 for the Alberta election here. As I said, uh, most of the media here, give it a pass. All four major

00:42:15.300 daily papers in Alberta are operated out of Toronto and owned out of New Jersey. And, uh, we're, uh,

00:42:21.540 we're actually the only kind of print style newsroom left in Western Canada that I'm aware of between

00:42:26.500 Mississauga and Vancouver. Um, so, you know, what we're trying to do is, uh, provide a lot of context

00:42:32.720 and coverage, not just during the Alberta election, but in the long lead up to it. That's, that's one of

00:42:37.160 the big exciting things we're working on. And, you know, like, uh, like the rebel, we are one of the

00:42:42.400 only media outlets in the entire country that refuses to accept the federal government's media

00:42:46.120 bill out. So, you know, we rely on memberships or subscriptions from, uh, people who want to

00:42:52.740 voluntarily make a business exchange. We give you a valuable product in exchange for $10 a month or

00:42:58.700 a hundred dollars a year. And, uh, and that's how we do what we do. You can go to Westernstandard.news,

00:43:03.440 click on membership, join us, and, uh, of course, continue to support the rebel at the same time.

00:43:08.780 Right on Westernstandard.news. Great to see you. Keep up the fight out there. Look forward to

00:43:13.160 catching up with you again soon. Anytime. Take care of it. Right on there. You have a Derek

00:43:17.780 Fildebrandt, the boss of Western Standard, and you can visit them at westernstandard.news.

00:43:24.480 That's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:43:29.120 Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:43:43.160 We'll see you next time.

00:43:47.780 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - March 07, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta's legacy of political innovation： An interview with Derek Fildebrandt

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