Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Danielle Smith is Canada's most conservative premier

00:00:00.160 Hello, my Rebels. I think Danielle Smith is Canada's most conservative premier. Scott Moe is pretty good, but I think Danielle Smith is combative and dramatic and an innovator. I'm a fan of her, as you can tell. I'm an old friend of hers, I should disclose.

00:00:14.720 But it looks like some folks in Alberta, in the Conservative Party, think she's not right-wing enough. And they're talking about challenging her and questioning her leadership at the next party convention, which is just a couple weeks away.

00:00:27.400 I think that's nuts. Imagine throwing out Danielle Smith just a couple years into her first term. Well, that's what they're talking about doing. 0.90

00:00:35.600 We'll go over this and other things with our friend Lauren Gunter, the senior columnist at the Edmonton Sun.

00:00:41.500 But before we do, I want to make sure you're a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:47.820 And there's a couple of clips I want to show you of Danielle Smith in action. And you want to see the video, not just hear the audio.

00:00:54.100 So please go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's $8 a month. Not only do you get the good content, but you help keep Rebel News strong.

00:01:03.180 We get no money from big tech. YouTube demonetized us. We get no money from the government. Of course, we wouldn't take it.

00:01:10.100 So we really rely on you. $8 a month might not be a lot to you, but it sure adds up for us. That's at rebelnewsplus.com.

00:01:16.100 All right. Here's today's podcast.

00:01:23.100 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:28.980 Well, I'm from Alberta originally, and I like to think I carry Alberta with my heart, even though I've been in Toronto long enough that I have to admit I'm a local now.

00:01:45.520 But you know what? As a sign of patriotism, I still go back to Alberta a lot.

00:01:50.960 My folks are there, and it's close to my heart. Our chief reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, is an Albertan through and through, a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll, a little bit oil and gas, a little bit farm.

00:02:00.240 And we love Alberta for so many reasons. I love it because of its freedom.

00:02:05.040 In fact, right in its motto, the provincial motto is a phrase taken from our national anthem, Fortis et la Bère, strong and free.

00:02:13.440 And Alberta is the laboratory of so many good ideas. I mean, although Ontario is a much bigger economy, it was Ralph Klein that perfected the common sense conservative balance the budget ideology that Mike Harris later borrowed out east.

00:02:27.980 For example, the Reform Party was born in Alberta. Stephen Harper is from Alberta.

00:02:32.900 The Canadian Taxpayers Federation really had its heart in Alberta.

00:02:36.340 So that province is essential, and the fact that it is an energy-producing province, I think, shows the way in fighting radical environmentalism.

00:02:44.800 So many things about it, and I love it because it was my childhood home, and I went to university there.

00:02:50.560 One of the people I met in university was a young woman named Danielle Smith.

00:02:54.760 In fact, you may know that she was the president of the Young PC Club when I was the president of the Young Reformers.

00:03:01.520 But we didn't really butt heads back then because we were friends, and wouldn't you know it, she went on to become the leader of the Wild Rose Party, which was in opposition before they did a dirty deal with the Prentice Conservatives and merged.

00:03:15.400 Just weeks before the election, the province punished them for this anti-democratic act by voting in the NDP.

00:03:22.040 Well, years went by, and I think Danielle Smith paid her penance, and she became the leader of the Conservative, the United Conservative Party, after Jason Kenney incurred the wrath of party membership for his policies during the lockdown.

00:03:37.000 So Danielle Smith is the new premier of Alberta, but I am hearing, even out here in Toronto, rumors of an attempt to dethrone her at the coming annual general meeting of the United Conservative Party that will be in red year November 1 and 2.

00:03:56.640 I'll be there. I think Sheila Henry will be there too.

00:03:58.880 And I saw this headline a little while ago from our friend Lauren Gunter at the Edmonton Sun.

00:04:03.300 Let me read it to you. This should chill you to your very bones.

00:04:08.540 UCP dump Smith gang could end up handing government to NDP.

00:04:15.240 Are they really going to do it?

00:04:17.600 Are they really going to have a leadership review so soon after her important victory over Rachel Notley in the NDP?

00:04:25.780 I was just checking with our guest a moment ago before we turned on the camera.

00:04:30.660 And indeed, the last four Conservative leaders in Alberta have been thrown out one way or another without serving a second term.

00:04:39.860 I don't know if you remember the name Ed Stelmack, Alison Redford, Jim Prentice, and of course, our friend Jason Kenney.

00:04:46.100 Four Conservative leaders in a row have been defenestrated before they had a chance to serve a second term.

00:04:53.680 Are they really going to do this to Danielle Smith?

00:04:57.860 Joining us now is the fellow who confirmed that stat for me, our friend Lauren Gunter, senior columnist at the Edmonton Sun.

00:05:05.800 Lauren, after a while, people are going to get impatient.

00:05:08.940 If a party cannot govern itself, the thinking goes, how can it govern a province?

00:05:14.740 Don't you think?

00:05:15.920 Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:16.500 And, you know, it actually goes back to Ralph Klein, because Ralph left in 2006 after he went to a convention where the leadership review gave him only 55% support.

00:05:27.800 And he said, that's not enough.

00:05:28.920 I got to go.

00:05:29.500 I think Ralph was getting ready to go anyway.

00:05:31.600 I don't think that that was a huge shock.

00:05:35.600 But even Ralph Klein, who is, you know, he's a demigod in conservative circles all across the country, but particularly in Alberta, he got shoved out.

00:05:48.360 And so, you know, this is a party that has basically done in its last five leaders and yet still managed to keep power.

00:05:57.440 I mean, the only reason the NDP won in 2015, the only reason they governed for four years until 2019 was there was the Wild Rose Party and there were the PCs.

00:06:06.680 And they split the vote and let the NDP come up the middle.

00:06:10.120 I've talked to all sorts of academics who say, no, no, no.

00:06:13.560 This was a sign that the progressive element in Alberta is expanding and that we're due for some very progressive governments.

00:06:21.020 You simply have to look at the very basic, simple mathematics.

00:06:25.200 If you put the Wild Rose and PC vote together in 2015, it would have outnumbered the NDP by almost 10%.

00:06:35.240 And when Jason Kenney put the parties back together again, they did outnumber the NDP by more than 10%.

00:06:43.480 So it's very, very simple math.

00:06:47.520 Alberta is reflexively a small C conservative province.

00:06:52.220 Now, you can look at how much money the provincial government spends.

00:06:55.340 It's very often the highest spending per capita provincial government in the country or number two.

00:07:02.560 It's very seldom below two.

00:07:05.580 So is it real conservative?

00:07:07.680 No, it's not real conservative, but it is probing.

00:07:11.100 Like we have the lowest business taxes in the country.

00:07:14.660 We have a minister who I think has actually done a pretty good job who's dedicated to getting rid of red tape that keeps businesses from forming.

00:07:24.180 There is when when Kenny came in, he went and re recruited the guy who'd been the deputy minister of energy under the previous conservatives who the NDP pushed out.

00:07:36.420 A guy named Grant Sprague, who really understands the industry and he understands what makes CEOs in oil and gas companies make decisions to invest money.

00:07:46.740 And so then they redid a lot of the policies under energy in a way most people probably wouldn't have noticed.

00:07:53.200 But all of a sudden, then there's more investment again that has largely been decapitated by federal policies on the environment.

00:08:03.400 But at least, you know, Alberta tries very hard as much as it can without being stomped on by the Trudeau liberals.

00:08:12.720 It works as hard as it can to get businesses going and attract money to the province.

00:08:18.180 And so, you know, this is a conservative province that has as much government as it can afford.

00:08:26.880 They have a lot of revenue so they can afford a lot of government.

00:08:30.140 And they do at the provincial level spend a lot of money on government.

00:08:34.440 But but it is largely conservative.

00:08:36.800 And so so long as there is no vote split, so long as the people who are now cranky about Smith don't hive off and form their own party, there's not going to be not likely going to be an NDP government unless, as you said, the voters are finally tired of all of this internecine bickering within conservative circles.

00:09:01.540 And nobody's good enough. Well, you know, Ed Stalmack wasn't good enough.

00:09:06.080 Alison Redford clearly wasn't good enough. 1.00

00:09:07.980 I think that was a good move on the part of the party to push her out. 0.99

00:09:12.140 Jim Prentice was a decent guy.

00:09:13.780 I'm not sure that his heart was fully in conservatism, but he was a smart guy.

00:09:19.160 Had he not withdrawn, he probably would have been punted out.

00:09:22.740 And then Jason was very conservative.

00:09:24.600 He did, as you say, got he didn't get caught up in covid restrictions.

00:09:31.600 But other than that, you know, there really is an effort by most of those premiers to keep the province on a pro business keel.

00:09:42.960 And, you know, I think one more leader done in by the never satisfied bedrock, hardrock right wingers is just good news for Ed Nenshi.

00:10:01.620 Yeah.

00:10:02.360 You know, you've used the phrase pro business and you've talked about the size of government.

00:10:07.200 And that is certainly an important part of being a conservative is smaller government to allow more freedom of action and more resources for individuals to let people keep the fruits of their own labor.

00:10:19.440 That's a very important part of being conservative.

00:10:21.980 But I think more and more as I grow older, I value the other parts of being conservative, too.

00:10:28.620 And I think that Danielle Smith is strong on those.

00:10:31.560 For example, she's, I think, had a very thoughtful balance on the trans issue.

00:10:36.640 She's not coming across as a hater.

00:10:39.020 She's not coming across as mean or vindictive.

00:10:41.500 But she's saying, look, no men in women's sports, no women, no men in women's private places. 0.97

00:10:48.280 And if you're going to do radical, unalterable surgery, got to wait till you're grown up.

00:10:55.280 You can't do that as a kid.

00:10:56.620 I think that's very gentle, at least the way she describes it.

00:11:01.820 That's part of being conservative.

00:11:03.100 She talks about a new bill of rights for the province.

00:11:06.640 It's not who knows how much teeth it will have.

00:11:08.660 But that's part of being conservative, too.

00:11:10.440 It's not just about money.

00:11:11.860 It's about identity and culture and helping parents protect their kids.

00:11:17.160 I think Danielle Smith, who's a bit of a libertarian, so I think she would. 0.94

00:11:21.280 Yeah.

00:11:21.460 But I think compare her to other premiers in Canada, she's good on those trans issues.

00:11:28.000 Much better than Doug Ford, I'll tell you that.

00:11:31.720 So I'm worried.

00:11:33.100 I read your essay in The Sun about how there's a movement to vote non-confidence of her.

00:11:43.060 And I think that's nuts.

00:11:45.340 She's only been premier for, what, a year and a bit? 0.84

00:11:47.780 I'd have to check the exact date.

00:11:49.940 To have a leadership review this soon before she's got her sea legs? 1.00

00:11:54.060 It makes no sense to me, Lauren.

00:11:56.120 Other than bickering for bickering's sake.

00:11:59.340 And, you know, she does have the odd, I don't know, wacky idea. 0.97

00:12:05.940 Like she wants to build railroad lines all across the province. 1.00

00:12:10.060 And we're going to have high-speed rail between Edmonton and Calgary.

00:12:13.240 And we're going to double the population with a whole bunch of immigrants.

00:12:16.740 She walked that back a bit, thankfully. 0.68

00:12:18.920 She did.

00:12:19.080 She did.

00:12:20.200 But her initial instinct was to say, let's go from $5 million to $10 million by 2050.

00:12:26.420 And how are you going to get that way?

00:12:28.000 Are you going to give people bonuses for every baby they have?

00:12:32.860 You know, you're going to give native-born Albertans a bonus for every baby they have?

00:12:37.160 No.

00:12:37.480 The only way you do that is if you start to accept an awful lot of immigrants. 1.00

00:12:41.960 Now, it could be in-migration from other provinces.

00:12:44.800 And we do have the largest in-migration from other provinces of natural-born Canadians of any province in the country.

00:12:54.820 Because we are freedom-loving, because we have low taxes, because there are plentiful jobs,

00:13:01.020 we have attracted an awful lot of people from other provinces to come.

00:13:05.640 But by far, it's foreign immigration.

00:13:07.200 I mean, we see.

00:13:08.560 That's the only way you get to the number $10 million.

00:13:11.220 The only way.

00:13:12.060 So, she did have to walk that path.

00:13:14.740 Thank God.

00:13:15.520 I think she got...

00:13:16.360 And you know what?

00:13:17.040 I read your essay, and it is true.

00:13:19.020 I've known Danielle since she was in college.

00:13:22.080 And she's an ideas person.

00:13:24.580 She likes innovation.

00:13:26.100 She likes learning about curiosities.

00:13:28.760 And I think she looks at innovators approvingly.

00:13:33.720 But I think that she needs a bit more of a filter. 1.00

00:13:37.080 Well, and let's take a look at one of the ideas she has. 0.58

00:13:41.500 And from a conservative versus a progressive angle, she would like to see a rail line from

00:13:49.200 the Calgary airport to Banff.

00:13:52.180 From an economic standpoint, that makes some sense to me.

00:13:56.120 It's a big tourist attraction.

00:13:57.760 It's well...

00:13:58.320 How many times have you been in a far-flung part of the globe, and you say to people,

00:14:03.220 you're from Alberta, and they say, oh, near Banff?

00:14:05.360 Yeah.

00:14:06.060 You know, so probably as a business idea, that's a pretty good one.

00:14:10.600 But if it's a good business idea, then let a business build it.

00:14:14.140 Yeah.

00:14:15.020 The conservative would just get the government out of the way.

00:14:18.160 They would say, look, here are some tax concessions, because it's a very expensive

00:14:22.000 project.

00:14:22.960 We're going to get the regulations out of the way.

00:14:24.740 We'll keep the bureaucrats out of your hair. 1.00

00:14:26.360 That's what a conservative, in a modern sense, does.

00:14:30.860 But not, here's $5 billion, go and build a rail line.

00:14:36.100 And by the way, right now, there are bus lines, there are cabs.

00:14:40.500 So you would be competing.

00:14:41.740 It makes no sense.

00:14:43.440 High-speed rail, look at California to see what that looks like.

00:14:45.940 There's a reason why this classic joke on The Simpsons was the monorail salesman.

00:14:51.100 Oh, you don't want this in Springfield.

00:14:53.280 Well, Shelbyville wants the monorail.

00:14:55.600 Like, it's the huckster meme.

00:14:58.740 I've forgotten that, but that's exactly what it is.

00:15:00.740 You know, everybody's afraid that they're not going to be as sophisticated as the next

00:15:04.480 people.

00:15:04.820 They're not going to be as worldly.

00:15:06.600 I don't care.

00:15:07.660 Yeah.

00:15:08.060 If it doesn't make sense, don't do it.

00:15:10.280 So she does have the odd idea like that that's a little wacky.

00:15:13.900 But for instance, she wants to change the Provincial Bill of Rights to be more forceful

00:15:20.500 on protection of property rights.

00:15:22.620 OK, so one of the reasons Ed Stelmack got booted out as premier was that he tried to

00:15:28.860 ram through power lines over all sorts of private property.

00:15:33.980 It was not a big issue in the cities, but it was an enormous issue in rural Alberta.

00:15:39.180 And that was where the party's base was, one of its two bases.

00:15:42.640 The other one's in Calgary, usually.

00:15:44.160 And so Ed got run off because of his unwillingness to protect private property.

00:15:51.940 She's talking about putting more private property more forcefully into the Bill of Rights. 0.76

00:15:56.060 She's talking about putting a gun control prohibition in the Alberta Bill of Rights.

00:16:03.100 Now, that's not entirely up to the province.

00:16:05.400 And a lot of tut-tutting, progressive constitutional experts have said, oh, she can't do that. 1.00

00:16:12.180 That's a that's a federal.

00:16:13.840 Yes.

00:16:14.340 But but she can say, as she has since she became the premier, that Alberta will not cooperate

00:16:20.260 with any federal attempt to control guns in the province.

00:16:25.480 One of the things that they said early on in their administration was they would not allow

00:16:30.980 the RCMP for whom they pay in Alberta, any any place where the RCMP is the local police

00:16:37.840 force that's paid for by the provincial government.

00:16:40.440 They said they would not allow a single dime of the money they give to the RCMP as a local

00:16:44.740 police force to go for gun confiscation.

00:16:48.020 OK, that's what she can do in the Bill of Rights. 1.00

00:16:50.720 And she she is trying to do as many of the things as she can to the extent that it's

00:16:56.480 possible for her to do.

00:16:57.980 And I think initially when she came in and she was all big on her Sovereignty Act, they

00:17:02.800 were talking about they were just going to invalidate federal laws.

00:17:06.660 Now, we can't do that.

00:17:07.760 It's just constitutionally.

00:17:08.960 They don't have the power to do that.

00:17:10.280 But they would say, look, in this area, this is a provincial jurisdiction.

00:17:14.440 And if they ask us to enforce their law, we're not going to do it.

00:17:18.140 Right. And I think that that is it's basically the Quebec model.

00:17:22.800 They have adopted this notion that, you know, if Quebec insists on some concessions, if Quebec

00:17:29.420 insists the feds keep their nose out of a particular jurisdiction, we can do the same sort of thing. 0.99

00:17:35.340 And I think that that's good.

00:17:36.780 I don't think on any of those that she has been too soft.

00:17:42.420 I think she's coming to a more realistic understanding of what limitations the provincial government

00:17:48.160 has. But she's pushing to those limits. 1.00

00:17:51.480 And I guarantee you they're given gigantic headaches and pains in other areas to the federal

00:17:58.180 government. So I think she's done well.

00:18:00.980 And and the thing I would ask people who are trying to get a non-confidence motion going

00:18:06.780 at the annual general meeting the UCP will have in Red Deer on November 1st and 2nd.

00:18:12.340 The thing I would ask them is, what's the alternative?

00:18:16.260 Yeah.

00:18:16.920 Who is your candidate?

00:18:18.260 It's OK. You don't want Ralph Klein.

00:18:20.140 Didn't want Ed Stelman.

00:18:21.200 Didn't want Allison Redford.

00:18:22.480 Didn't want Jim Predis.

00:18:23.400 Didn't want Jason Kenney.

00:18:24.740 Maybe you don't want Danielle Smith.

00:18:27.620 OK, so who is the perfect candidate?

00:18:29.780 I think for a lot of those people, if Christ himself became the leader of the UCP, he wouldn't

00:18:34.320 be perfect enough.

00:18:35.760 So their standards are unreasonable because they don't ask the question, what's the alternative?

00:18:42.640 And I think in this case, as you said, you're going to upset voters.

00:18:46.860 You're going to give voters the impression that this is not a stable party, that it can't

00:18:50.760 be trusted with government.

00:18:52.080 And in Calgary, which is the only place that's really going to be a big battle in the next

00:18:56.420 election. In Calgary, that could tip people over to the NDP.

00:19:01.740 Now, I'm hopeful that Calgarians will remember how much they hated Ed Nenshi when he left

00:19:06.880 office as mayor in 2021, and they're not going to vote for him in big numbers.

00:19:10.560 He's going to have to start talking soon about what he believes, what he wants to see done.

00:19:15.240 He's been very quiet since he was elected as NDP leader.

00:19:19.040 Maybe they'll be reminded before the 2027 election about why they disliked him.

00:19:24.520 But otherwise, they're going to look like, for instance, Blaine Higgs and the Conservatives

00:19:32.180 lost in New Brunswick earlier this week to a liberal majority.

00:19:37.460 It's the only liberal government left in the country other than Newfoundland.

00:19:40.920 And you watch the mainstream media will say that they lost because Higgs was very tough

00:19:51.040 on transgender issues like Smith has been.

00:19:55.460 That's not it at all.

00:19:57.220 That was a very popular stance he took.

00:19:59.420 What happened was he had part of his caucus then decided they were going to poke at him

00:20:04.300 for the last year to show that they're progressive and he's not, and they don't want to lose their

00:20:09.300 seats in Fredericton and St. John and Moncton to liberals because of the transgender policy.

00:20:17.880 And so what put voters off was not the transgender policy.

00:20:21.180 Poll after poll after poll showed that that was about 70 percent popular.

00:20:25.080 What put them off was all this bickering inside the Conservative Party between members of his

00:20:30.860 caucus and Higgs.

00:20:32.160 And if you start that in Alberta, voters could say, I'm tired of these guys fighting each other

00:20:38.400 all the time and kicking out their leaders every other year.

00:20:41.620 I'm going to vote NDP.

00:20:43.540 You know, I remember when I was a young man and I was in Ottawa, I worked briefly for Preston

00:20:49.920 Manning as his assistant.

00:20:50.980 And then much more briefly, I went back to Ottawa to work for Stockwell Day when he led

00:20:55.700 the Merged Canadian Alliance.

00:20:57.840 And Stock Day was fairly strong in the polls.

00:21:00.480 He increased the number of votes the party got.

00:21:03.380 But when he didn't win the election, a lot of Manning loyalists had a bit of an insurrection

00:21:11.320 from the inside.

00:21:12.460 And one at a time, they would announce, I have no faith in the leader, Deborah Gray,

00:21:16.260 Chuck Strahl, Monty Solberg.

00:21:17.720 And it was sort of a drip, drip, drip of people removing their confidence in Stockwell Day.

00:21:25.400 And eventually, he bowed out.

00:21:28.120 The party fell in the polls, but only after it had this open rebellion, because people

00:21:34.960 said, we're not interested in those shenanigans.

00:21:37.040 And it makes me think of another more recent example of the United Kingdom.

00:21:40.880 Now, Margaret Thatcher was thrown out by internal intrigues also, not by the people.

00:21:44.820 And look at the last few years in the UK, Rishi Sunak, Liz Trust, Boris Johnson, all of them

00:21:53.060 installed or removed by some internal intrigues.

00:21:57.300 And I just think, I mean, I know one of the activists who's challenging Daniel Smith.

00:22:04.500 His name is David Parker.

00:22:05.760 He's with Take Back Alberta.

00:22:06.960 And there's many things I like about them.

00:22:08.420 I like that they're tub thumping to be right wing.

00:22:11.140 I like that they're being watchdogs on the right.

00:22:13.820 But Lord, Thunder, and Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, if you're not voting for Daniel Smith,

00:22:18.360 that you said earlier, if not her, then who?

00:22:21.420 You can't replace someone with no one.

00:22:23.160 And we just had a leadership race in the Alberta UCP.

00:22:27.080 I call it Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

00:22:29.180 I mean, look at all these other candidates that got smoked by her. 1.00

00:22:33.820 Show me one of them who would be...

00:22:35.960 Danielle Smith has just introduced herself to voters, has sort of stopped being wobbly, 0.83

00:22:42.080 is getting some momentum.

00:22:44.000 And I just...

00:22:45.380 If the UCP Conservative Party of Alberta actually dispatches...

00:22:51.400 I don't think they'll get a majority who are...

00:22:53.220 No, I don't think they will.

00:22:53.900 If they manage to lower her confidence vote to, let's say, 70%, and if she...

00:23:00.260 And even that would be damaging.

00:23:01.720 And if she were to leave, they deserve the annihilation that will come their way in the 0.98

00:23:06.880 next election.

00:23:07.600 And maybe you're right. 0.95

00:23:08.460 Maybe all the heat and energy needs to do is shut up and let the conservatives destroy 1.00

00:23:12.580 themselves from within.

00:23:13.720 That is a problem of prickly parties on the right.

00:23:16.500 It is.

00:23:16.820 And the other thing that makes this all unusual is Ralph Klein had won a majority before he

00:23:24.380 got pushed out.

00:23:26.840 Ed Stelmeck had won a surprising majority before he got pushed out.

00:23:31.440 Alison Redford won a comeback majority against the Wild Rose, who were very popular in the 0.96

00:23:36.300 early parts of that campaign.

00:23:38.580 And she got pushed out.

00:23:40.740 Jim Prentice is the only one who lost and then left.

00:23:45.240 But Jason Kenney won a resounding majority and got pushed out.

00:23:50.760 This is a party that punishes success.

00:23:53.840 Like, it's the puritanical notion that you have to be 100% on our side or we're going

00:24:01.880 to get rid of you and find somebody who will be.

00:24:03.840 Well, there's a good reason that those views don't win you election.

00:24:09.640 So you, you, you always in a politics, you, you, do you want to have somebody who will

00:24:16.740 compromise every value and position you have just so they win?

00:24:20.240 No, I hate that about politics.

00:24:22.600 But if you've got somebody who is considerably better than the alternative, you know, are 0.99

00:24:30.960 you, are you, are you just being dumb trying to get rid of them? 0.99

00:24:34.080 Yeah. 0.99

00:24:34.200 You know, I used to be very close with Jason Kenney, and I know you were too, maybe you

00:24:39.720 still are.

00:24:40.780 And it felt to me, I mean, I disagree with him very strongly on his pandemic lockdowns.

00:24:47.020 And he was very good at first, and then he collapsed and became, in my opinion, rather

00:24:50.920 punitive.

00:24:52.240 Or he allowed the province's enforcement to be very punitive.

00:24:56.420 I think Alberta had certain arrests and prosecutions that even Ontario didn't have, especially

00:25:01.560 when it came to churches.

00:25:02.560 But let's put that aside.

00:25:05.500 I think that Jason Kenney, it looked to me like he was keeping an eye on a bigger prize,

00:25:11.320 that he wanted to be premier of Alberta for a couple of terms.

00:25:13.640 And it always felt like he was keeping his federal options open.

00:25:17.500 He never really went to war against Ottawa in a full-throated way.

00:25:21.820 And it seemed to me, because he didn't want, he was thinking, well, in eight years when I

00:25:26.060 run for prime minister, will something I say be seen as anti-Quebec or anti-Ontario?

00:25:31.620 Well, am I not suitably federalist enough?

00:25:34.760 And to be a successful Alberta premier, you have to have a heavy dose of anti-Onttawa spirit

00:25:40.260 in you.

00:25:40.720 And I think it was sort of evident that Jason Kenney didn't.

00:25:43.020 And that's my explanation for why.

00:25:44.560 Let me show you a video of Danielle Smith just very recently, which shows she's clearly focusing

00:25:51.220 on Alberta first, which Albertans love.

00:25:53.420 Here she is protesting against Stephen Gilboa and Justin Trudeau and their outrageous attempt

00:26:00.020 to cap emissions from Alberta, which is code for cap oil and gas production.

00:26:07.120 Just take a look at this.

00:26:08.100 And this, and I ask you, who else is doing this?

00:26:11.220 Scott Moen, Saskatchewan, good egg.

00:26:13.240 But Alberta is the important energy province, the more important one.

00:26:17.160 And take a look at this and tell me if this isn't a strong conservative leader.

00:26:21.080 Take a look at this just the other day.

00:26:22.320 Once again, Ottawa is attempting to set policies that are short-sighted and reckless.

00:26:28.080 This fall, the federal government plans to table regulations that would set mandatory

00:26:31.920 targets with irresponsible timeframes for upstream oil and gas and liquefied natural gas facilities.

00:26:39.620 Ottawa says they're working to cut emissions, but we all know that's what they're really doing

00:26:45.020 is cutting production of oil and gas.

00:26:47.840 And this, by extension, will cut jobs and revenues across the country.

00:26:53.940 And that should concern every Canadian.

00:26:56.680 Alberta's oil and gas industry is a huge part of Canada's economy.

00:27:00.180 It provides a stable energy supply for Canadians and also for people who live in countries and

00:27:05.340 import our oil and gas products.

00:27:07.520 It provides Canadian families with tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, as well

00:27:11.800 as billions of dollars in federal revenues that pay for important programs, services, and

00:27:17.020 infrastructure that Canadians rely on.

00:27:19.340 All of this will be jeopardized and lost if this ideological, irresponsible, and frankly,

00:27:26.180 terrible policy moves forward.

00:27:29.760 I mean, you got to love that if you're a right winger, if you're an Alberta firster, if you're

00:27:35.260 skeptical of Trudeau.

00:27:36.220 And I don't think Jason Kenney would have been as bold because he would be thinking, how does

00:27:41.060 this look when I run through Fed?

00:27:42.500 You know what, and I don't know for a fact that he had federal ambitions beyond the Alberta

00:27:49.040 premiership, but he didn't go after them hard enough in Ottawa.

00:27:54.020 And I wrote several times during the run up to the plebiscite on whether he should be kicked

00:28:00.480 out or not, that had he simply been harder on the feds, he would have been forgiven for

00:28:06.500 some of the pandemic stuff.

00:28:07.680 Maybe not the churches, maybe not some of the charges and arrests, but certainly for

00:28:13.480 any of the restrictions that most ordinary people felt, he probably would have gotten

00:28:18.200 away with that.

00:28:19.900 He would have gotten away with the Sky Palace dinner, you know, some of the things that

00:28:24.920 really did him in.

00:28:26.480 If he had simply gone after Ottawa enough, and she goes after Ottawa all the time, about

00:28:31.800 10 days before that announcement, she sent Trudeau a letter saying, you got four weeks

00:28:37.260 to make amendments to the Impact Assessment Act, which we know is the No More Pipelines Act.

00:28:44.420 You have four weeks to make amendments, or we're taking you to court because we know this is

00:28:48.340 unconstitutional and we're not putting up with it.

00:28:51.100 So, you know, do you think there's another, is Nenshi going to do that?

00:28:55.120 Yeah.

00:28:55.880 No.

00:28:56.820 Nenshi had, like people used to talk about how close Rachel Notley was with Justin Trudeau.

00:29:05.400 Nenshi is way closer to Justin Trudeau on a personal level.

00:29:10.560 And Nenshi may have made the odd announcement about his support for oil and gas.

00:29:15.980 And, you know, he wants to help settle, you know, reduce some of the caps for net zero power

00:29:22.040 transmission.

00:29:23.100 Yeah, whatever.

00:29:24.060 I don't, I don't buy that.

00:29:27.060 I do buy it from Smith.

00:29:29.200 You know, she started with that Sovereignty Act, which unfortunately for her and moderate

00:29:35.380 Calgary voters in particular has soured them a bit because it looked flaky.

00:29:41.360 It looked, because it wasn't, the province couldn't just nullify federal legislation that

00:29:47.340 didn't like.

00:29:48.700 She ended up coming off like a little bit of a crank. 1.00

00:29:51.320 So that when she says things like she just said there, they keep thinking, oh, you know,

00:29:55.960 it's just the same woman who two years ago thought that they should just be able to say,

00:30:00.160 we're walking away from federal legislation.

00:30:01.820 You can't impose it on.

00:30:03.200 No, she's got a much more practical view of things now.

00:30:07.400 And they have said, we are going to resist to the maximum amount allowed under the Constitution,

00:30:14.000 any intrusion by Ottawa into provincial jurisdiction.

00:30:18.500 And she is a leader in the country on provincial rights.

00:30:23.260 Other provinces would like to be as forceful as she is, but they're not.

00:30:29.120 I think that the clip you had there is very, very good.

00:30:32.380 I think the one 10 days before that where she threatened to take the feds to court over

00:30:36.860 the Impact Assessment Act was very good.

00:30:39.280 She's done probably four or five of those this year.

00:30:43.440 And I can tell you from people I know in Ottawa in the liberal government that they don't like her

00:30:50.520 because she creates headaches for them because she has legitimate points of view 1.00

00:30:55.660 that stops their unconstitutional behavior.

00:31:03.340 There's a Mark Holland who is what is Mark Holland now?

00:31:06.480 I think he's the federal health minister.

00:31:07.760 He said the other day in advance of the liberal caucus meeting to see whether or not they get

00:31:13.900 rid of Trudeau.

00:31:14.740 He said, Trudeau is the kind of guy who says ideology should come first.

00:31:19.840 And we don't care whether it's municipal responsibility or provincial or federal.

00:31:23.900 We're just going to do the right thing.

00:31:26.360 That's very dangerous when you start doing that sort of stuff.

00:31:29.560 There's a reason the Constitution has that division of powers between the feds and the provinces.

00:31:35.120 And Smith is probably the strongest defender of that division in the country and probably

00:31:41.160 the best, the most knowledgeable premier in the country about that division of power.

00:31:47.180 Right.

00:31:47.900 You know, you made me think of something a moment ago about, I mean, I understand that

00:31:53.120 the business of Alberta is business, as they say.

00:31:56.980 It's also other things.

00:31:58.460 And I remember when both the Japanese leaders and the German leaders asked Canada.

00:32:07.040 What's the time?

00:32:07.660 What's the time frame we're talking about?

00:32:09.640 Oh, that's right.

00:32:10.500 It sounds like I'm talking about the Axis powers in World War II.

00:32:13.340 I'm talking about two and a half years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine.

00:32:16.700 Sorry about that.

00:32:17.340 I was I was assuming.

00:32:19.220 Yeah.

00:32:19.900 Japan and Germany.

00:32:21.560 It's funny how the last time they got together, it didn't turn out.

00:32:24.880 That's right.

00:32:25.320 So 80 years ago, they were our enemies, but now they're democracies who are buying conflict

00:32:30.700 oil and conflict gas.

00:32:32.820 And one of the things that I've been conscious of since I wrote some of my books, including

00:32:38.000 Groundswell, The Case for Fracking, was that if you're not buying oil and gas from Alberta,

00:32:42.340 where are you buying it from?

00:32:43.520 OPEC or Russia?

00:32:44.740 And to this day, Germany gets an enormous amount of its natural gas from Gazprom, which

00:32:50.880 is a basically a state oil producer in Russia.

00:32:55.360 It's not just OPEC.

00:32:57.060 And and there was the German chancellor, I think it was Chancellor Schultz and the Japanese

00:33:01.440 leader saying to Trudeau, please give us your ethical energy.

00:33:06.120 Please help us get off this conflict energy.

00:33:09.100 And Trudeau, remember what he said?

00:33:10.800 He said there's no business case for it.

00:33:12.480 He slammed it and he offered them, I'll help you with hydrogen energy.

00:33:16.620 Thanks very much for your fantasy fuel of the future that's perfect in every way other

00:33:20.960 than it doesn't exist.

00:33:22.040 And both of those countries wound up getting contracts with conflict energy, including

00:33:28.140 from Qatar, which just happens to be a terrorist sponsor.

00:33:31.560 And so it's not just in Alberta's interest that Trudeau and the feds be trimmed down.

00:33:39.400 It's in Canada's interest and the world's interest.

00:33:43.520 Can I show you, indulge me, forgive me.

00:33:45.420 I'm just thinking as I go here, when I was in Davos last time in the World Economic Forum,

00:33:50.160 I actually bumped in to a Ukrainian minister whose portfolio involved energy supply.

00:33:56.760 And I asked him about ethical energy.

00:34:00.560 Let me just play the clip, Lauren.

00:34:01.780 It looks like you've got to get on stage.

00:34:04.280 Give me 30 seconds.

00:34:06.020 I come from Canada.

00:34:07.060 We have lots of natural gas.

00:34:09.340 Some Canadians would like to sell that natural gas to Europe to displace Russian conflict energy.

00:34:14.740 Do you have an opinion on that?

00:34:16.160 I think a worldwide natural gas market's a great thing because we should not be buying

00:34:20.380 gas from Russia.

00:34:21.060 I would call that conflict energy versus Western ethical energy.

00:34:25.480 What do you think of that terminology?

00:34:27.000 That's actually quite good terminology.

00:34:28.500 You're the first person I've heard to use it.

00:34:30.180 I congratulate you.

00:34:31.200 I don't know.

00:34:31.900 I know that's a little bit off topic about Daniel Smith and the UCP convention this week,

00:34:38.680 but in a way it's not.

00:34:40.100 Because Canada is, I think, the third largest oil reserve country in the world, 99% of which

00:34:48.360 is in Alberta, and any other country in the world would lean into it, would get wealthy

00:34:53.800 off it, would be a world force, would use that as soft power, but instead we're being

00:34:58.600 attacked ideologically by Ottawa.

00:35:01.080 Danielle Smith isn't just fighting for Albertans and conservatives. 0.99

00:35:04.080 She's fighting for Canada and not to be too grandiose about the world.

00:35:08.280 I think that's all very true.

00:35:09.320 You remember Stephen Harper said Canada should become an energy superpower.

00:35:14.140 Yeah.

00:35:14.700 And they laughed at him.

00:35:15.820 But okay, how do you like Russia as your energy superpower?

00:35:19.300 Exactly.

00:35:20.160 Exactly.

00:35:21.120 So what we found just this week, because it's the six-month anniversary of turning on the

00:35:29.100 Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.

00:35:32.120 Right.

00:35:33.180 Is that now that one pipeline has added about 600,000 barrels a day to Canada's exports.

00:35:41.620 And it's now responsible itself for 17% of all the oil exports from Canada to the rest of

00:35:50.480 the world.

00:35:51.260 And the first shipments of Canadian oil to Asian markets have come as a result of Trans

00:35:58.680 Mountain being turned on.

00:36:00.340 Imagine what it would be like if we had Keystone XL and Energy East or Northern Gateway or any of

00:36:08.680 the other pipelines that the Liberals kiboshed, you wouldn't have the problem that you have

00:36:16.140 with unemployment.

00:36:17.540 You wouldn't have the problems that we have with rising taxes, lowering productivity.

00:36:23.300 And there was a Fraser Institute study that came out recently that Canada is losing its tax

00:36:30.600 competitive advantage with the United States.

00:36:33.020 So now, not only is their economy stronger, is their production level higher, is their

00:36:37.560 GDP per capita bigger than ours, they also now have a lower tax rate.

00:36:44.620 How are we going to compete with that?

00:36:46.700 We're going to say, oh, well, we can compete with that because the world will look and say,

00:36:50.840 oh, Canada is going to go to all EVs by 2035.

00:36:55.320 Listen, they care so much about the environment.

00:36:57.940 They're going to have net zero energy.

00:37:02.020 How?

00:37:02.720 How are you going to do that?

00:37:05.860 They're going to go to heat pumps instead of gas furnaces. 0.83

00:37:10.820 So what if 15%, 30% of the population freezes in the wintertime?

00:37:16.660 Greta will be happy.

00:37:18.400 She'll be so pleased with Canada, what it's doing to save the planet.

00:37:21.920 You know, it's this ideology and wokeness over common sense.

00:37:28.340 You can say, look, we need to really reduce our emissions.

00:37:31.340 I am not a big worrier about climate change, global warming, emissions.

00:37:37.680 But you can say, OK, look, we need to reduce our emissions.

00:37:42.160 But we also need to keep producing.

00:37:44.120 So how do you do both of those things?

00:37:46.640 Not with the liberals.

00:37:47.540 The liberals is that you either have emissions and production or you have no production to reduce emissions.

00:37:55.540 That's what Smith was saying, essentially, in that news clip you played a few minutes ago, is that, look, this is they say it's an emissions cap.

00:38:03.540 It's really a production cap because the only way they think you're going to reduce emissions is by reducing production.

00:38:10.620 And so that's what they're after.

00:38:11.840 And they can call it whatever they want.

00:38:14.440 They can use whatever, you know, fancy, passive, aggressive term they want to use.

00:38:19.000 They're going after Alberta.

00:38:20.840 They're going after Saskatchewan's oil production, too.

00:38:23.900 They're going after the bit of oil production that's in that's in northeastern B.C.

00:38:29.000 because they don't get a lot of votes from there anyway.

00:38:31.720 Doesn't hurt them at all.

00:38:33.080 The people who are going to be hurt by it the most are in ridings that don't vote liberal.

00:38:37.640 And, yes, everyone else is going to be hurt in the country, but they're not going to know why they're being hurt.

00:38:43.660 We all know why.

00:38:45.380 And the last poll I saw said the liberals were at 7% support federally in Alberta.

00:38:51.780 I hope they get half that percentage of the vote next time around.

00:38:55.860 Yeah.

00:38:56.820 Well, it looks like Stiff Andeyon and his green shift actually won in the end.

00:39:02.220 I'm going to follow up on that Trans Mountain Pipeline story.

00:39:04.860 I used to focus on that very closely, but I owe it to myself and to our viewers to go and do a proper report on –

00:39:11.900 I didn't think that pipeline would ever come to fruition.

00:39:14.020 I thought that Trudeau was actually buying it to kill it.

00:39:17.460 But I accept the fact that my prediction was wrong.

00:39:19.580 I'm delighted that it was wrong, although it was triple the cost that the private sector would have.

00:39:23.760 Well, it was more than triple.

00:39:25.000 You and I and every other taxpayer – like they bought it for $4.5 billion.

00:39:29.820 At the time they bought it, Kinder Morgan thought it was going to cost maybe as much as $9 billion to get it finished.

00:39:37.600 And the feds ended up spending $34 billion to build that pipeline.

00:39:41.660 Like it's insane.

00:39:42.540 Nobody would have done that.

00:39:43.960 Like it's not as though there would be a $34 billion Trans Mountain or no Trans Mountain.

00:39:49.280 No, if the private sector had done it, they had taken it up to $17, $18 billion.

00:39:53.320 Well, the reason they bought it is because they were worried about a bad faith trade lawsuit from the American owners of the pipeline.

00:40:02.280 So they basically paid them off.

00:40:04.080 An astonishing waste of money.

00:40:06.140 I just – oh my God.

00:40:07.500 But I'm happy to hear that the oil is flowing.

00:40:10.480 Lauren, it's great to catch up with you.

00:40:11.680 I'll see you in Red Deer at the potential conference there.

00:40:15.060 I should close the way I opened.

00:40:18.200 I mentioned that when I was growing up, I was at university with Danielle Smith and we were sort of counterparts.

00:40:24.660 I should also say that my debating partner at University of Calgary for two years I was in the debate circuit was no one other than Nancy himself.

00:40:34.540 A left-wing Muslim and a right-wing Jew were debate partners and we won.

00:40:41.320 We won two years ago.

00:40:42.400 And let's add a third story to that is that when you were articling for your – for admission to the bar in Alberta, you lived at my house.

00:40:52.460 That's right.

00:40:54.120 I really have – my roots are in Alberta and sometimes I'm sad that I left that wonderful place.

00:41:00.460 But I can't deny it.

00:41:01.960 I've been in Toronto long enough that I have to call myself a Torontonian.

00:41:05.440 Lauren, great to see you.

00:41:06.420 I do remember when I was staying at your house to take the bar exam and thank you for that belatedly.

00:41:12.820 Take care, my friend.

00:41:13.700 Keep up the fight.

00:41:14.860 Yeah, you bet.

00:41:15.500 All right.

00:41:15.900 There you have it.

00:41:16.460 Lauren Gunter.

00:41:17.280 And there's a little bit of my past.

00:41:19.900 Danielle Smith, Naheed, N.G.

00:41:21.700 Lauren Gunter.

00:41:23.200 That's our show for today.

00:41:25.100 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:41:29.560 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:41:30.740 Thank you.

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00:41:30.880 Thank you.

00:41:30.940 Thank you.

00:41:30.960 Thank you.

00:41:31.020 Thank you.

00:41:31.460 Thank you.

00:41:31.940 Thank you.

00:41:32.940 Thank you.

00:41:33.000 Thank you.

00:41:33.940 Thank you.

00:41:34.940 Thank you.

00:41:35.000 Thank you.

00:41:35.940 Thank you.

00:41:36.940 Thank you.

00:41:37.000 Thank you.

00:41:37.940 Thank you.

00:41:38.940 Thank you.

00:41:39.940 Thank you.

00:41:40.940 Thank you.

00:41:41.940 Thank you.

00:41:47.060 Thank you.

00:42:03.480 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - October 24, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Danielle Smith is Canada's most conservative premier

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