EZRA LEVANT ｜ Premier Danielle Smith puts 'Alberta first' with carbon tax challenge
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, Ezra talks with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about her new lawsuit against Justin Trudeau, her relationship with Stephen Gabbard, and what it's like to deal with the media, including how she deals with Stephen Gilbo.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. I'm very excited. I had a heart-to-heart with Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta.
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She just announced she's suing Justin Trudeau. Well, that's music to my ears.
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So we have a good conversation about that today. I want you to see it, though, not just hear it.
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Because I asked Danielle Smith a few questions about other things, too.
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I asked her what it's like to deal with Stephen Gilboa. I asked her what her prospects are,
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because she's having a leadership review this weekend at her party's annual convention.
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To see all of it, not just hear it, go to rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe.
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It's eight bucks a month. You get the content, but you also get the satisfaction
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in knowing that you're keeping Rebel News strong, because we take no money from government,
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and it shows. That's rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.
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Tonight, a feature interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
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It's October 30th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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I'm really excited. Danielle Smith joined me for a 20-minute interview about her new lawsuit
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against Justin Trudeau. We'll have that for you in a minute.
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I'm excited about it, because anytime someone sues Justin Trudeau, I'm excited. We've even done it a
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few times over the years. You know, I think at one point we had seven lawsuits going against Trudeau
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or his ministers, many of them quite successful, others not so much, but you got to be in the arena
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and trying. I think that our interview with Danielle Smith is good on its own merits, and you'll see it.
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I mean, I'm not praising myself. I'm saying it was a substantive conversation, and we were talking
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about the news. But there's something else I like about it, and that is that Premier Smith thought
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nothing of sitting down with Rebel News for 20 minutes on the news of the day. As you might recall,
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just a few weeks ago, when we were in Calgary for the Rebel News Live day-long conference,
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she came in person, and we had a fireside chat for about half an hour, which I thought was great.
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And the reason I like those, again, the substance of that conversation was excellent,
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is that how politicians on the right react to Rebel News is sort of a litmus test. And I know it's not
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just about us, not everything is about me or about Rebel News, but it is a surrogate for other things.
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Mainly, are you subject to peer pressure, especially from the other media? I think most conservatives
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have some affection or affiliation to Rebel News and to Western Standard and to True North and to
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Counter-Signal and even the Epoch Times. And they know that, you know, you could disagree with this or
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disagree with that, but generally we are on the right side of the fence. And we might be a little
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spicy at times, but we're generally doing the right thing. So if a politician refuses to do an
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interview with Rebel News, it's not because we're truly evil. It's not because we are bad or odious
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in some way. It can't be. If they are, I mean, you know, we may be more conservative or less
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conservative than this guy or that guy, but it's not for that reason that a politician would decline.
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It's because they're worried about what other people would say. They'll be worried about what
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the mean girls at the CBC have to say. And we've seen this because whenever a conservative leader in
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the past has talked to Rebel News like Aaron O'Toole or Andrew Scheer, the CBC grills them. Why would you
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meet with this person? Why would you talk with this person? They do it for other people too. I remember that
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Maxime Bernier was grilled about why he would meet with, I think it was Jordan Peterson. Maybe it was
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the other way around. Yeah, that's right. Jordan Peterson was grilled for why he would meet with
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Maxime Bernier. It's not real journalism. It's cancel culture. And the politicians who are afraid to meet
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with Rebel News show that they're susceptible to cancel culture. And the reason that's important
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is not because my feelings get hurt when politicians refuse to talk to us, but rather that it's a predictor
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of how these politicians will fare on any and every other issue. If they actually value what the mean
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girls of the media party think, you know that they're going to fall down and be crumpled on anything
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contentious. That's why a lot of people like Donald Trump so much, because he called out what he called
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the fake news media. And that's one of the reasons Pierre Polyev is doing so well. He flips the script on
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the media. He asks them prickly questions, and he's not afraid to take on the CEOs of the CBC and
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recently of CTV. There are some politicians out there who aren't necessarily scared of us. They're
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just not conservative. I would put Ontario Premier Doug Ford in that category. But I'm pleased to say
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we have a rapport with other conservatives across the country. The new leader of the opposition,
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Mr. Rustad in BC talks to Drea Humphrey all the time until he lost his recent election Premier Higgs
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in New Brunswick. In fact, he actually advertised with us. So I think the fact that Danielle Smith
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on a fairly regular basis sits down with Rebel News, not only do I find it interesting for
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substantive reasons, but I think it's a sign that she just doesn't care what the mean kids in the media
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party say. And that's what I like about it even more, don't you? I'll show you that interview in
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one minute, but I also want to give you a little bit of news about what Rebel News is doing on election
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night for the U.S. presidential election and the Congress and a third of their Senate and other
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ballot initiatives. Very exciting. That's Tuesday, November 5th. It's coming up pretty quick, less than a
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week from now. Let me tell you what Rebel News has going on. I'll be here in our world headquarters
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command bunker, but we've got rebels all over the place. I'm just looking at my notes here,
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so don't forget anything. David Menzies will be on location in Washington, D.C., outside the White
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House. I think that's going to be very exciting. There's always crowds that gather, pro and con.
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Alexa Lavoie will be in New York City, right outside Trump Tower. I think that's where Trump's going to
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be, actually, on election day. And as we saw with the Madison Square Gardens rally, there are a ton
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of New Yorkers who are proud to be Republicans for Trump, even though the city will most likely vote
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Democrat again. And our friend Avi Amini from Australia, who for the last month has been driving
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an RV across America. You'll remember he started in San Francisco. I went down there to welcome him to
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North America, and he's made his way across the country. He will be in Florida, in the Miami area.
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I'm not sure if he's going to be at Mar-a-Lago, not sure exactly where he's going to be. But we're going
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to be, we're going to have you covered, whether it's New York City, Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, or other
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places in Florida, Washington, D.C., out the White House. We're going to have a ton of experts and pundits
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we go to. I think we're going to start fairly early, and we're going to go fairly late. I know
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I won't want to quit until we know the results. Now, there's a chance that will be for days.
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But on some of our election nights, as you know, we stay up to 1, 2, 3 a.m. even.
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We're going to have you covered. So if you're looking for a fun and non-leftist way to watch the
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U.S. presidential election, tune in here to Rebel News. And in the past, we have had tens of thousands
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and even hundreds of thousands of people watch our coverage. And we're really pulling out the
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stops this time. So that's next Tuesday night. But for now, enjoy my one-on-one interview with
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about her latest lawsuit against Justin Trudeau. And I do ask her
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a final question about her leadership vote. As you know, the United Conservative Party is having their
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annual convention this weekend in Red Deer, Alberta. And some people, I can't even fathom it,
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want to throw Danielle Smith overboard, even though she just won a majority election. So I asked her
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to make the case for herself going into that vote. I'll be there in Red Deer for the conference too. So
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if you'll be there, I look forward to saying hi to you in person. Without further ado, here's Danielle Smith.
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From where we're sitting, it looks an awful lot like one more attempt to divide our country,
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to reward one region and punish another. And we're not going to sit back and let this unfair carve out
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disadvantage Albertans for another winter. And so I'm pleased to announce that this morning,
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Alberta filed an application for a judicial review of the exemption in the federal court.
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We're asking the court to declare the exemption, both unconstitutional and unlawful. We hope that
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this will force Ottawa to recognize the burden the carbon tax places on Canadians and eliminate the
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tax altogether. Albertans know we've got their backs on this. Our government has been fighting
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the federal carbon tax since 2019. Well, that was Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announcing a
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constitutional challenge to Justin Trudeau's idea to give a special carbon tax break, but only to certain
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parts of Canada where they use home heating oil, as opposed to Western Canada and other places where they
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primarily use natural gas. Joining us now to talk about this is the Premier herself, Danielle Smith. What a pleasure
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to have you on the show, Premier. Thanks for taking the time. Nice to see you, Ezra. Well, it's a great thing
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to sue Ottawa. I think it should be the pastime of many Premiers, especially when you have an overreaching
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federal government that's mucking around in business that's not its own. Tell me the theory behind the
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Alberta lawsuit at the federal court that you just filed. Well, as you know, we have been fighting
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against the retail carbon tax since the UCP got elected. They launched, first of all, they eliminated
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it. And then, of course, Justin Trudeau came in and put it in any case. And then we ended up going to
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court and unfortunately we lost. And we lost, I believe, because what the court looked at is that
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they didn't really disagree with the need to do something about reducing emissions. And the attitude
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was, well, if Ottawa is going to do this and you're going to do nothing, then I'll side with Ottawa.
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And Ottawa was making arguments about how they needed to be able to set a floor price across
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the entire country. They made it sound like only the national government could do this to
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make sure that everyone was treated fairly. Well, then they just blew that argument completely
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out of the water by giving a car vote to essentially those in eastern Canada that use home heating
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oil, which is the most polluting, most emitting type of fuel. And so they've blown their argument
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up on a number of fronts. First of all, the fairness argument, that's gone. Second of all,
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trying to dissuade people from using the most polluting fuels, that one's gone. And thirdly,
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they wanted to make sure that they were giving some support because of the cost at the same time
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as they've been arguing that their carbon tax doesn't increase the cost of everything. So we feel
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that not only is it breaking their own law, they have a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Act,
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but we also think it's unconstitutional and we're prepared to fight it out.
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Well, there's one more thing is when the liberals announced they were going to give that tax break
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just to that region's primary choice of energy, their rationale was it was to lower taxes on people
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to save money, which I think gives away the game. They used to say, oh, no, no, you got to eat your
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spinach. You need this to save the world. This is about reducing greenhouse gases as if you can
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change the weather with a tax. But I think that they gave it away when they said, no,
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this is about tax relief. So that rationale you talked about earlier, the court saying,
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well, we got to do something. It's like the liberals have conceded. This is just a political
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bobble to bargain away for some regional votes. Well, you have to remember, it was post me if I
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wondered if that was the case. And you have to remember that years ago, Atlanta, Canada voted 100%
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for the liberals. And it's not looking that way for them now. And so I would I would hate to think
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that the federal liberals would make a decision of this magnitude for simple vote buying and for
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politics. But in the absence of a good argument, which I hope that they will be able to make in
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court, I think that this this exemption has to be struck down. They've got to treat everybody fairly.
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And what we're aiming for is to have the entire carbon retail carbon tax struck down. We've already
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seen it is not doing anything to reduce emissions. All it is is punitive. It's making the cost of
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transportation fuel, home heating, electricity go nothing but up. And those are the base fuels
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for every single thing we buy. So it's increased the cost of everything in the middle of an
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affordability crisis. They should be eliminating it. You know, I saw in your remarks today, you
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you didn't go to war against other provinces. You sort of said, well, you guys are lucky to have
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this tax cut. Can we get some of that too? Here's a clip of you earlier today.
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I've sent text to both Premier Eby as well as Premier Mo congratulating them on returning to
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office. I told Premier Eby I'm looking forward to working with him collaboratively on some of the
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energy files that we've been talking about together, building out the hydrogen economy, exporting ammonia,
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getting more export capacity for LNG. And I spoke with Premier Mo about potentially considering joining
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this case. So we'll we'll see what I mean, he's already demonstrated that he believes that the
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federal government is treating his province unfairly. He acted in a bit of a different way
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than we did. And I hope that he's able to join this this case as soon as he gets his cabinets worn in.
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How has your lawsuit being received by other provinces? Maybe it's too early to get feedback
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on it. For example, Saskatchewan just reelected Premier Scott Mo, who has also been very vocal
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against the carbon tax and this regional favoritism. Do you think there's a possibility that other
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premiers will get on board? And also, do you think some of those Atlantic premiers might say,
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you know, hey, Alberta, shut up. Don't don't mess up a good thing. Like, what are the other provinces
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saying with your lawsuit? Well, I'll be seeing them in a couple of months time because we're going for
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a Council of the Federation meeting. I can tell you that what I've found at the premier's table is
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is everybody wants to get treated fairly by the federal government. Everybody's upset with federal
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overreach. And even in the case of those provinces that are benefiting right now, it's only a three
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year reprieve. And so they're going to be facing exactly what everybody else is facing within a
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couple of years time. So I would hope that others would see that this is not the pathway to reduce
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emissions. We believe the pathway to reduce emissions is through technology, innovation,
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as well as as exporting our cleaner burning fuels internationally to reduce emissions elsewhere.
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That that should be the formula that Canada follows, as opposed to continually putting in punitive
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measures that is disadvantaging one region over another.
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Premier Scott Moe has been very vigorous on this, but Premier David Eby, who also just was reelected
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in a squeaker, he has been in the past a very vocal supporter of the carbon tax. Where is he now? And
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I'm sure you gave him a quick congratulatory call or something. Where, where does he stand on this
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issue? Has he sort of had second thoughts because the voters gave him a bit of an attitude adjustment?
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I think I've watched a little bit of his commentary since getting reelected and, and, and it was a
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squeaker. And he said, you know, we received a message from British Columbians and there were two
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major policy reversals that he had. One was on the issue of the carbon tax and the other was on the
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issue of compassionate care for those who are suffering in the throes of addiction. So I think
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those are two issues where he heard loud and clear he had to switch course on. You even saw it in
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Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan NDP leader who also gained ground in this last election was talking about
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eliminating the carbon tax or fighting against it. Uh, and so you're, you're beginning to see
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that even the NDP, which, which really has, has, has been such a champion of this type of approach
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have come to the conclusion that it is not working and it is, it is punitive and it's,
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is hurting people in the pocketbook. I have no idea why that hasn't had an impact at the federal
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level, but there's two avenues to solve problems. One is through politics. The other is through the
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courts. We had some success in the past at getting other provinces to join us in the, in this, in our
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previous action. And I hope that others will join us in this one too. I want to talk in a minute about
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some of those other court actions, but just before we move on, you say the, the NDP, uh, is,
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is moving over in Saskatchewan. There's a different kind of NDP in the prairies, I think,
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Jagmeet Singh is a very woke progressive. Uh, I think he's, he, he is probably worse in every
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way than Justin Trudeau on these things. Are there any signs other than the federal conservatives
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that any other party would perhaps consider reducing the carbon tax? I mean, maybe I'm wrong.
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Maybe Jagmeet Singh is, has expressed some skepticism about it. I, I presume the Bloc Québécois
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loves the carbon tax. Do you have any allies federally other than Pierre Polyev?
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Well, I think, I mean, Pierre Polyev is the obvious one. And I think in fact, it's his
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leadership at the, at the federal level that I think has created an environment where others
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are asking the same questions that he's been asking, um, and have come to the same conclusion
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that, that this isn't the way to, to try to reduce emissions. This isn't the way to,
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if you're concerned about emissions, there's better ways to do it rather than punishing your
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own citizens with, uh, excessively high consumer taxes that they can't avoid. That's the thing that
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I think has been the most frustrating is that in whether it's for diesel or gasoline, that there
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just, there just isn't another alternative that works in our cold climate. Um, electric vehicles may
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work in some jurisdictions and certainly in, in Metro areas, but we've got a vast, vast country with
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large distances between our municipalities. Uh, we've got a lot of trucking industry where we
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have to get our products to market across vast, vast distances that once again require diesel fuel
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in, in Alberta, our home heating is almost a hundred percent natural gas. Our electricity grid
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is 90% natural gas. And the federal government has put on a carbon tax that is three times the
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base costs of natural gas. It's absurd. And I think people are beginning to see that there,
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there may have been more acceptance when it was a nuisance tax, when it was a, when you saw it on
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your bill, now it's a punitive tax and people are reacting to that. And it goes up every year,
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ironically on April fool's day, you know, I think it was an abacus poll that showed recently a major
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shift among young people for their top priority and climate change or global warming absolutely
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plummeting. And I think it's because, you know, that's sort of a luxury issue to care,
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to think that a tax will change the weather. And it's very abstract. Whereas paying that price in
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this inflationary high cost environment, I think young people are now panicking about,
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can I afford a house? Can I afford groceries? I think that the biggest movers on the carbon tax are
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young people. And it's sort of the boomers for whom that's still a luxury issue. Do you detect any
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movement amongst young people? I think 10 years ago, youth would have been absolutely in lockstep
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with Greta Thunberg and Stephen Gilbeau. But I think in 2024, they're, they're sober minded and
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think we've got to cut taxes. Do you get that read from young people? Yeah, completely. I mean,
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when you look at, first of all, food costs, 80% of every aspect of producing food requires fossil fuels,
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whether it's the fertilizer, whether it's the equipment to harvest the grain or do the seeding
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or dry the grain, whether it's taking the transportation to market, or even whether it's
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the grocery stores and how they're heated and powered, every aspect of that has a fossil fuel
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attached to it. And so you're just compounding the cost. That's part of the reason why we have
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a crisis right now in, in the increase year over year in food. And then as well, I mean,
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I think our young people, they started going out there, renting houses and, and renting apartments,
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and they're seeing the rents go up. So they're thinking, well, maybe I want to buy a house one day.
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And of course the interest rates have gone up dramatically because of the inflation crisis,
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again, created by, by Justin Trudeau with his loose money policy, but layered on top of that,
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the impact that these carbon taxes have. So I think that, that people pay attention
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to what's happening with their pocketbook. They, they aspirationally want to be able to
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own a home, have a good job, get married, have kids, be able to take their kids to soccer and
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hockey practice. And I think a lot of young people are saying, is that going to be out of reach for me?
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And that's something that the federal government has created. They own that. And so how do you begin
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to address it? Well, I think you start by getting rid of a tax that isn't serving its purpose
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and is causing this kind of harm. And, and then you can, you can start addressing
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the issues that really matter to people. I think earlier in your announcement,
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you mentioned that when Alberta got rid of its carbon tax, inflation went down.
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Here's a clip of that from today. Or consider the savings in a time
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when, when Canadians are coping with levels of inflation that we haven't seen in decades.
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The carbon tax is adding to inflation. In fact, according to the Bank of Canada,
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the federal carbon tax increases inflation by 0.15% per year, year over year. But we also know
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that the impact that taxes have on inflation, because when we paused the collection of our
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13 cent per liter of provincial fuel tax, we saw inflation slow in our province. We've seen the same
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thing in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Imagine the impact on inflation. If we removed three times that
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amount in 2030, the carbon tax on fuel will reach 39.6 cents per liter. According to the Canadian
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Energy Centre, the carbon tax will account for 24% of annual fuel costs. Imagine the savings to
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Canadians if their bill was a quarter the cost when they filled up. If the federal government is now
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saying that removing the carbon tax on home heating oil will lower costs, then this carbon tax exemption
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for eastern Canada blows a big hole in their justification for the carbon tax. Furthermore,
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applying it unequally is unconstitutional and it runs counter to Ottawa's own carbon tax legislation.
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Our end goal is the same as a growing number of Canadians from across the country to get rid of
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the retail carbon tax. If Ottawa won't axe this heartless tax altogether, they can at least play fair
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when imposing it on Canadians. And that's what we'll be heading back to court to achieve.
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Is Stephen Gilbeau reachable through any kind of dialogue or compromise or communication? Or is he
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like a zombie, a robot, like a terminator? I wonder if he is just an ideologue or is he a log-rolling,
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deal-making politician? What's he like on this stuff to deal with?
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An ideologue. There's no question about it. And I've talked to others who have dealt with them.
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And in fact, some of my colleagues, premier colleagues say, well, you know, you can go and try
00:23:51.280
to negotiate with this minister, but we haven't had much success. So lower your expectations. I've
00:23:56.800
talked to members in the auto manufacturing field as well. They thought that they were working in good
00:24:01.520
faith to see if they could come up with some way around the aggressive net zero electricity rules.
00:24:08.800
And they had no luck. You look at even the approach that we took on trying to get something
00:24:13.760
reasonable around the net zero power grid. We know that that's not possible in Alberta with 90% of
00:24:18.480
our grid being fueled by natural gas at the time that we had just phased out coal. There's no possible
00:24:24.640
way. We'd have billions of dollars in stranded assets. We'd have unreliability in our grid and we'd
00:24:30.720
have an affordability crisis. And we're not making much headway there either. And then we keep hearing
00:24:35.440
that they want to put on an emissions cap, which we know would actually be a production cap on our
00:24:39.680
energy. So it seems like for some reason that minister has been given carte blanche, whether
00:24:46.000
it's emissions caps or methane caps or net zero power grids or net zero vehicles or net zero buildings
00:24:53.120
and net zero homes. It seems to me that for some reason, he has been able to direct the policy of the
00:25:00.880
liberals. And I think that they're foolish if they think that that isn't a lot to do with the reason
00:25:08.400
While we're on Gilboa, before we move on, give me one minute about his mismanagement
00:25:12.640
of the Jasper wildfire. We don't want to make that a partisan issue, but it is a fact,
00:25:18.080
as parliamentary testimony has shown, that it was decisions made by Ottawa that just magnified
00:25:27.360
everything that happened. Give us a minute on that, Premier. Well, I can tell you, I mean,
00:25:31.280
the province, we fight literally hundreds of fires a year. I think we had over a thousand last year.
00:25:37.040
Parks Canada only fights dozens of fires and we were ready on standby to be called in to do unified
00:25:43.280
command. And unfortunately, there were some decisions made and we heard about it in the testimony
00:25:50.160
where it sounds like there were some fire, structural firefighters who were turned away. Prior to that,
00:25:56.880
though, there was also and we've been raising it. In fact, I talked to my former environment minister.
00:26:03.600
We were raising it with them since 2018, knowing that the pine beetle kill and the fuel growing up
00:26:09.200
around Jasper was getting to a point where it was dangerous. And we were pleading with them to do
00:26:15.200
something about it. So that goes back in our records to 2018. And we're not the only ones. Parks Canada
00:26:20.560
scientists have also raised the alarm, not just with Jasper. But remember, we had a big wreck
00:26:25.520
in Waterton Park as well. And they're also concerned about Banff. And so we've seen that
00:26:31.440
they just turned a blind eye to it. Look, when we have an old forest, when our forests get to be
00:26:36.480
about 80 to 100 years old, they die. And when you've got a lot of dead trees, there's only a few things
00:26:41.200
that will happen. Either take them out mechanically so that they don't end up igniting. You do prescribe
00:26:46.560
burns so you get rid of that fuel or nature takes its course. And so I don't think it's been a surprise
00:26:51.520
to a lot of people who've been warning of this, that that occurred. It's very disappointing. We're
00:26:55.840
now working with the federal government to make sure that we can rebuild in a timely way. And we'll
00:27:01.120
continue to do that. But we can't allow this to happen again. I know you got to run. Let me ask
00:27:05.920
one last question, because we're on the eve of your party convention in Red Deer. I'll be there,
00:27:10.880
along with Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter. I am astounded by the fact that your party constitution
00:27:16.560
allows for a leadership review right after a successful majority government. And I'm even
00:27:22.560
more astounded that there would be critics who would call for your defenestration.
00:27:31.280
And this is not me being a fanboy. This is me saying, oh my God, what are you doing? You beat
00:27:36.720
the NDP. You're running the most conservative pro-Alberta government imaginable. What's going on in
00:27:43.440
the UCP? And what's your message to Alberta delegates who will be meeting in Red Deer in
00:27:49.280
a few days? Give me a closing argument for you for that leadership review. I'm astonished by it.
00:27:56.480
But maybe it's just a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Give me 60 seconds on that
00:28:01.840
before you go. Well, look, we put forward a bill of rights so that people have the ability to make
00:28:06.400
their own medical choices, including the choice to refuse a vaccine. We're bringing forward policies
00:28:11.440
that will make sure that kids who are suffering with gender dysphoria don't prematurely make
00:28:17.120
decisions that are going to prevent them from being able to have kids of their own one day.
00:28:20.480
We support parental rights and parents need to be included in all of those decisions.
00:28:24.880
We've run balanced budgets for the last three years. We put money into savings and we're continuing
00:28:30.640
to have the best economic performance in the entire country. 100,000 new jobs that were created,
00:28:35.600
mostly in the private sector. So I'm feeling like we're doing very well. We are leading the nation.
00:28:41.360
What I worry about with conservatives is they sometimes make the perfect the enemy of the good.
00:28:46.240
There will always be little things that members think that we could move faster on or we could
00:28:51.360
have done in a bit of a different way. But I think that we've seen in other jurisdictions what happens
00:28:55.600
when the conservative movement splits. We just saw a result in Saskatchewan where the NDP
00:29:01.360
sure got a lot closer than anybody's comfort. We saw as well in New Brunswick where unfortunately
00:29:06.320
Premier Higgs ended up losing as a result, I think, of losing of that vote split as well.
00:29:12.560
So I want our movement in Alberta to stay united. I've been responsible in the past for seeing it
00:29:18.240
divided and I sure like it when our conservative family is together under one roof. I think that that
00:29:22.880
is the pathway to success. Yeah, I hope that the party is sober-minded and we'll be there to report
00:29:29.440
on it. Premier Smith, thanks very much for spending some time with us. Congratulations on this lawsuit.
00:29:34.480
I believe that everyone should sue Justin Trudeau from time to time. I've done it once or twice
00:29:39.040
myself. Good luck this weekend. We'll see you there in Red Deer.
00:29:42.480
You bet. Thanks, Ezra. You're welcome. There you have it.
00:29:45.200
Premier Danielle Smith of Alberta giving us the scoop on the new lawsuit. Stay with us. More ahead.
00:30:00.240
We've got some letters about Danielle Smith's decision to sue the feds. She made that
00:30:05.920
announcement yesterday, so that's why these letters are here today. Patrick Rusk 8168 says,
00:30:11.200
just refuse to collect the tax, the carbon tax. By the time it goes to court,
00:30:16.080
true dope will be out of power and the tax will be gone if Polyev keeps true to his word of action
00:30:21.760
and tax. That's exactly right. I was going to ask her that question, but I sort of ran out of time
00:30:26.240
with her. You just have to rag the puck for a year or so, because when Polyev takes over,
00:30:32.080
I am quite certain he'll keep his promise to axe the carbon tax. And so not only Alberta,
00:30:37.520
but all other provinces will be free of the tax. Alberta Patriot says,
00:30:42.000
if Alberta was a republic, all of this would go away. Well, I know that there's been a lot of
00:30:48.400
dreams in Alberta for it to become a republic, for it to be part of a United West or an independent
00:30:53.600
West. There used to be a party called the WC, Western Canada Concept. I've seen it with three
00:30:58.880
provinces and the prairies. I've seen it with BC added to it. And of course, there are those who say,
00:31:03.920
join the United States of America. They would certainly love to have Alberta with its enormous
00:31:09.200
oil reserves, many times larger than America's. And then you wouldn't need any approvals for
00:31:14.640
pipelines, would you? Because even under Joe Biden, American pipelines get built. The business
00:31:19.440
of America is business. Thanks for your letters. That's our show for today. Until tomorrow,
00:31:24.400
on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night,
00:31:28.080
good night, good night, good night, good night, good night. And keep fighting for freedom.