EZRA LEVANT ｜ What Monday night's by-election results really mean for Alberta
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Summary
Breaking down the results of Monday s three Alberta by-elections and what they mean for the future of the province and the rest of confederation, Sheila Gunter, Sheila Gunter and Lanyana Gunter discuss.
Transcript
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what do monday night's alberta by-election results really mean for alberta and by extension
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the rest of confederation it is june 25th 2025 i'm sheila gun reid but you're watching the
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ezra levant show shame on you you censorious bug
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so the by-election results are in and if you're watching the attempts to spin it you think
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alberton's just voted to smother the baby of western separation in its crib they're gloating
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pretending that this was some sort of rejection of alberta first values but let me set the record
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straight what we saw in that by-election in old didsbury three hills was not a referendum on
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independence it was a referendum on the vehicle not the destination albertans didn't vote against
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separation they voted against vote splitting against the very real fear of accidentally handing a seat
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the ndp that's it tactical voting not ideological surrender i mean let's look at the numbers
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in edmonton strathcona ndp leader naheed nenshi took a whopping 82.3 percent of the vote but that
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riding was never ever in play it's a fortress for the socialists in edmonton ellerslie the ndp's
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gurdash singh brar held on but support dropped from nearly 62 percent in the general to almost 51
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percent in the by-election the ucp made up some ground and in old didsbury three hills a rural
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stronghold ucp candidate tara sawyer won with 61 percent while the separatist challenger from the
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republican party drew nearly 18 percent it's not nothing but it's not a breakthrough either
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so the electoral map didn't shift but the public mood it sure has according to a leger poll 70 percent
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of albertans say they understand why someone would support separation and more than half of canadians
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nationwide say they get it too that includes 63 percent of men 48 percent of women and a whopping
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77 percent of conservative voters even 48 percent of liberal voters admit they understand the motivation
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even if they don't agree with it now here's the real crazy number 47 percent of albertans say they
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support separation outright that's not a sliver that's almost half of the province and when premier
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daniel smith says separatists aren't fringe she's right we know she's just tabled legislation to make
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citizen initiative referendums easier including ones on independence because she knows this issue isn't
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going away it's growing what this by-election showed us is that people are serious about autonomy still
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but they're being strategic about how to get it they don't want to throw away a vote on a protest party
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if it means handing more power to nenshi or worse mark carney people want leverage not virtue signaling
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they want a movement not a splinter party so no this isn't the end of the road by any means for
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independence it's a fork in it and now the question isn't if alberta will push back harder against
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confederation the only question is how will it be through a political party a constitutional
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negotiation a full-on fight with the feds or a full-scale referendum that's still taking shape
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but make no mistake the frustration the drive for respect and the fight for alberta's future
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it's alive it's growing and it's about to get louder joining me up after the break is edmonton sun
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columnist lauren gunter on the results of monday night's three alberta by-elections stay with us
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joining me now is good friend of the show lauren gunter he's a columnist with the edmonton sun
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i'm reading his article in the edmonton journal right now on the by-elections on tuesday night
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here in alberta i wanted lauren's take on it because it would appear the status quo held i
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don't think there were any surprises last night no i think that's fair uh the ndp won the two
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ridings that they already had and the ucp held on to the one riding it at uh and and that is a little
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unusual of course in in mid uh in mid-ten year uh by-elections because people often vote against
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the government but since the two ridings in edmonton were already held by the opposition
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it's easy to vote for the opposition and against the government i think the surprise would have been
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if the separatist republican party had done better than it did uh in old didsbury three hills which is
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right in the central part of the province and i think they probably thought they should have done
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better than they did uh they got 17 of the vote they helped take 15 away from the ucp compared to
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the 2023 general election but they finished third they finished behind the ndp so yeah i think you're
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you're right when you say the status quo held yeah i mean i think a victory i i don't think anybody
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who is really serious about what was happening in old didsbury three hills thought that the
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republicans really stood a chance of taking that riding um but i think it would have been considered
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a real achievement for them if they had bested the ndp and they didn't do that in a riding that
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historically has elected a separatist mla it has so 1982 when it was just called old didsbury
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gordon kessler from the western canada concept won that riding right after the national energy program
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was imposed by the federal liberals i think that's what's missing this time is that there wasn't one
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giant offense by the liberals like nobody out here expects the liberals to build a pipeline nobody out
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here expects them to get rid of the net zero power grid or the ev mandate or any of the things that
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are offensive but right now there isn't one thing that people rally around in 1982 the nep had just
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happened there were all sorts of small oil field service companies that were going under already
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because drilling had fallen off completely right and so there were a lot of people who were angry and
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they surprisingly elected kessler now there was a general that that was early in 1982 there was a general
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election in november of 82 and kessler lost he lost to the pc candidate at that point peter laughey came in
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with all but i think uh three seats in the legislature and so things went back to normal in the general election but
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but by elections as i was saying before tend to be protest votes and in this case first of all the
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turnout in old didsbury three hills was crazy it was crazy it was huge it was good you know so last night
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in the three by elections together there were 33 000 votes cast total in the three almost 16 000
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just about half of them in old didsbury three hills so it it's not as though the ucp voters in that
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riding sat home and thought ah we got this covered and that's another reason that kessler won in 82
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is that the pcs thought they had it in the bag they stayed home the western canada concept people were
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driven and they came out and they and they won in this case the ucp i think what benefits the ucp
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at the moment is that smith has been very staunch against ottawa she's been strong against carney
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she was even stronger against trudeau and so she gets an awful lot she gets a bit of a pass
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she she is the uh person to whom a lot of the discontent with the liberals in ottawa that's that
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goes to her she she has done a good job of handling that file and it goes to her until she gives people
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a reason not to i think the republican party the separatist party is going to have a problem i think
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there are a couple of other problems that the republicans encountered in this by-election on
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monday night uh one is that their leader had been a ucp member until april 24th right uh so that's
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only two months he's been in the republican party the other is i drove through that riding twice during
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the by-election and i kept thinking why are all these liberal signs up here for these big red signs
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with white lettering they're making exactly my thoughts too it was his there was cameron davies
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the republican party leader those were his signs yeah looked like liberal signs and and we have just of
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course finished a federal campaign back in april where those red signs were up there for the liberal
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candidates uh and and so i think people were looking at things they went this cameron davies liberal guy
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running for and the other i think the other problem that that party has is its name uh the republican
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party of alberta wasn't really an offensive name until trump got sworn in again in january but
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when you look at poll after poll after poll even conservatives in canada have soured on trump
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and the republicans to some extent and so davies the leader of the of the republican party of alberta
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the separatist candidate was running against his own short tenure in in the separatist movement he was
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running with really bad signs and he he was running with a name that doesn't help it i mean it might
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it might not hurt them big time but it doesn't do him any favors either so i i think those were the
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three things and you know that writing should be prime for separatists it's it's rural it's fairly
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affluent there are three or four major population centers in that writing where there's a lot of ag
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business or oil business that does really well uh and and frankly people who are rural and let's say
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affluent but certainly comfortable tend to be the ones who feel the grievances against ottawa
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the most and if he can't get those people to come out in large numbers and vote for him then
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they they have a problem 17 is what he ended up with last night that's nothing to sneeze at
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no you can't say excuse me you can't say they didn't do well um you know in in in a very short
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period of time they went from there was an independent candidate independence candidate ran in that
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riding in 2023 in the general election got five percent of the vote they went from five percent
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independence to 17 percent independent don't sneeze at them don't say oh now we'd have to worry about
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those separatists in alberta they couldn't no no that's 17 percent is still a fair number of people
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who are angry enough that they were prepared to vote for a separatist party um it's not as good as
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as the republican party and the separatists would have wanted but it is not something that can just be
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sloughed off yeah in 60 days um i think what we saw last night and i think maybe this is and i'm merely
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speculating i think it shows in the voter turnout in that riding is that uh the memory of a vote split
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is still very scary for a lot of albertans and i think it was less a referendum on separation in that
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riding than it was the vehicle to drive the independence movement because i think the as i've
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been saying for the last two days the venn diagram between independence-minded people and ucp voters is
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a circle um and i think a lot of people are scared about the votes what's they don't want to risk
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parking their vote in a similarly conservative uh party and i think they are looking at it and thinking
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well independence whatever that looks like whether it's within canada or as americans or a sovereign
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republic whatever i think they think that a party the party system is the wrong vehicle to achieve
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those means i i think you you've hit on something there too in that the republican party of alberta is
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going to have a problem until it has one proposed solution right until it says we're going to be an
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independent country of our own with we hope to have nice relations with canada and the united states
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but we're going to be an independent republic of alberta but they haven't said that but if they could
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say that or they could say we want sovereignty association we all remember with great pain what
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that meant when quebec demanded sovereignty association because nobody knew what it meant right i don't think
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they did no i'm pretty sure they did and then um or we're going to we're going to apply to become
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the 51st state that's another thing that that that's another rug that got pulled out from under the
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separatist on this is it you know i i have talked to people in the past seriously about would we ever
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leave confederation would we then ask to become the 51st state what would be the advantages what
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would be the disadvantages but after trump started taunting everybody with that in december and
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january and since um i've lost my interest in in talking to them about 51st state because he's just
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been a disrespectful jackass um so they had that problem too because they have talked about being
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the 51st state before so there's a lot of stuff that worked against separatists that could be like i can
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tell you there are two things that that the provincial government is really worried about
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the federal government doing one is not approving a pipeline which i think is a very real possible i
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actually think that's what they're aiming at they keep saying things like well you know maybe we would
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do a pipeline but there are no private sector people pushing it now who would you know they're gonna yeah
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they're gonna go they're gonna do what trudeau did about lng which is to say there's no business
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case for a new pipeline we tried wasn't us getting in the way but of course every impediment that's in
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the way of a private sector investor coming forward has been put there by the federal liberals over the
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last 10 years and is still there so that's one of the things that provincial government's very worried about
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the other one is that we're worried about a new tax on oil and gas the proceeds from which will be
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used to support subsidies for manufacturing industries in ontario and quebec and they when
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they they talk to you about this privately they say we don't know that's what they're getting ready
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to do they haven't told us that's what they get ready to do but that makes sense right we don't
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vote for them ontario and quebec vote for them so why not do what pierre trudeau did back in the 80s
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and steal money from the west and give it to central canada so those either one of those would be
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uh the trigger for a real separatist movement what we have now i think is 17 percent of people in
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a riding that should be favorable to separatists expressing their frustration and anger with ottawa
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um because the liberals snatched the feet from the conservative jaws and um uh you know that
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are that's victory from the conservative jaws and so i i think that's mostly what you got there you
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just you just got some frustration and anger there is no real separatist movement yet yeah i i just
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i don't i think a lot of people were just apprehensive you know the ndp that's only six years ago
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and and we saw them run up the middle and i i think based on the voter turnout there they just
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didn't even want to risk it and it really motivated the ucp voters i think you're absolutely right and
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and i even in my column today said the only way i can ever see the ndp winning the government again
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is if there's vote splitting on the right which is what happened in 2015 wild rose and the pcs
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split the vote almost evenly and allowed an awful lot of new democrats to win in calgary and even in
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five or six what we would call rural ridings not really rural i mean they're not small town
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right egg-centered ridings they're they're mostly ex-urban ridings they're just outside edmonton and
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calgary but they won enough seats with the vote splitting to become the government and when jason kenney
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came back and brought the two conservative parties together it went right back to what it had been
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before the the 2015 election which was about 50 to 53 percent conservative vote and the ndp at around
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36 or 37 percent and that will happen again it'll happen again and again and again in alberta
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so long as the right doesn't split the vote and i know for a fact as you do too that that's the thing
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the ucp are most worried about with the separatist movement is that that you know that people say oh
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smith is given license to the separatists to get a referendum oh smith is being coy with but
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separatism she has got to play that exactly right or she risks the republican party or some other
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separatist party coming in and scooping up just enough votes right to elect the ndp yeah you peel off
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10 or 15 percent in some of those urban ridings and that's an ndp mla and i think that's what the
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alberta next panel is all about i'm happy to see it the premieres as we're recording this on uh what's
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today tuesday um she's announcing her alberta next panel to for uh to engage albertans and what we want
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her to bring to the table with the federal government and i think it's a very smart move
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uh because she's got to keep that 10 or 15 percent within the ucp to hang on to the calgary really
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exactly right and you know i i think she's also learned the order yeah the timing for doing this
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sort of stuff from the her pension plan idea there was nothing wrong with alberta having its own
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pension from an investment standpoint and a political standpoint you could make a really
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strong case that we should take our money away from ottawa which dithers it around all over
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everywhere and concentrated in alberta like maybe if we had our own pensions plan we could build a
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pipeline to the east coast the the feds couldn't come out and say oh there's no one proposing a pipe
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well maybe if we had our own pension plan that pension plan would have put the billions aside
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to help build that pipeline um so there was there were good reasons to have a provincial pension plan
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one of the other ones is that we have such a young population and such an affluent population that we end
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up of course subsidizing pensions for everyone else in the country and we don't see a lot of benefit
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from that you don't see doug ford in ontario saying gee i'd really like to thank the people of
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alberta for helping my students with their pension so you you don't get any we don't get any gratitude
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we don't get any political sway out of it we so i could see a real good strong reason why there should
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have been an alberta pension plan but you don't go into that without having softened the ground a lot
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and people particularly people who are getting to be close to retirement age were worried that they
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weren't going to have the money that had been promised cpp is a terrible investment right if
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you were if you were putting money aside for your own retirement you would not give it to the cpp
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right because your returns about eight or nine percent you could get that anywhere guy down by the stop
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sign on my street corner who has some idea from reading financial posts what's going on
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so it's not it's not a good investment but it's solid it's there you know it's going to be there
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and that was the problem with her pension plan ideas that she came up with this idea oh isn't this great
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we're going to do this and people were saying whoa wait a minute i don't want to risk my my retirement
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for that so i think with this alberta next panel she's going about it the right way she hasn't put out
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a proposal she hasn't said here's what we want to do she said i'm going to appoint these people who
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love the province and are very knowledgeable people they're going to go around they're going to listen
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to you they're going to help you know have you tell them what's going on and then we'll come up
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with a strategy and i think that's a much better way of doing it than than they did with the pension
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plan so yeah i hope she's she's learned the lesson yeah and i think it uh alleviates some of that
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response back from the feds like oh we don't even know what alberta's complaining about well here's
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our list of grievances we had experts put it together for you um i wanted to ask you before
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i let you go nenshi is now in the legislature uh are they finally going to get the nenshi bounce
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now that he's there no i don't think so i i know neither do i i think he's insufferable a lot
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of faith in before he got elected as the ndp leader i mean i remember him as mayor of calgary
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he in his own mind was always the smartest person in every room he was ever in yeah he's arrogant
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he's urban uh he's lefty yeah where i mean i guess they they're going to keep edmonton i think
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they'll probably win most of the 20 seats here uh there was a there was some chance in edmonton
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ellersley last night a lot of the the tightened up and trail readers were saying well maybe the
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the ucp will win this one because the ucp candidate had been the mla from there until 2015 right um
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but no in in the end the ndp candidate won handily not they didn't trounce the ucp but they won
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a very strong mandate um so i think the ndp will win all 20 edmonton seats again or however many they
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are by that time with redistribution but um but no the battleground will be calgary yeah and
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it surprises me that the ndp up here think that nenshi can win down there because he used to be the
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mayor of calgary because it was very unpopular when he left as mayor of calgary and maybe people's
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memories are short i don't know but i no way i and i think nenshi has he has very thin skin he's a very
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prickly individual he will get up in there and he's going to get needled back by smith who's actually
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very good on her feet in the legislature and uh and he's not gonna like it so no i don't think
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they're gonna get a big nenshi bounce they might come up in the polls a little bit because it's
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better to have them inside the house than out in the outhouse i'm not sure about that but you know
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eventually i think he's gonna wear people he's gonna wear people's uh sin you know yeah i think
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he's gonna remind everybody why he left office in calgary as the mayor as unpopular as he was
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really quickly um i think he is just a deeply irritating person the more you watch him yes
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that too uh lauren thanks so much for your time uh refresh us how people can find your work
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uh you can go to edmontonjournal.com or edmontonsun.com i'm now in both of the papers
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and you just google lauren gunter and it almost always gets to where it's supposed to but you get
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some people from the other side of the spectrum who have their own comments complaining about you
00:25:36.320
yeah exactly but even those are fun to read sometimes absolutely lauren thanks so much
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for coming on the show we'll have you back on again very soon you bet thanks stay with us
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as you know ezra turns over the last portion of the show to you at home because without you
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there's no rebel news we better care what you have to say about the work that we do here
00:26:08.840
so let's get into it on mark carney's trip to the g7 in cananaskis where he and his wife
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took two separate enormous suvs to go to the exact same place it's a video i did after i got home from
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cananaskis and re-examined the tape as though i was watching the kennedy assassination to make sure i
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was right about what i saw uh i got a lot of feedback and that was a very popular video by the
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way online all required rights one destination two suvs zero sense of others there i fixed it for you
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yeah i my video was zero self-awareness jet rod writes why aren't they electric suvs
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oh the unreliable stuff that's for us of course paulette 2359 says they didn't walk down the
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plane steps together he walked in front of her to greet the members didn't acknowledge her or give
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her a hug or a kiss just walked away to separate gas guzzling vehicles not like pierre and anna always
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holding hands and he shows anna so much respect just like he would do if he was our prime
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minister that was one thing that i noticed when uh carney not just came down the steps from
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the challenger onto the tarmac in calgary when he was going to cananaskis to the g7 he and his wife
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couldn't be further apart from each other you could drive in an electric vehicle between the two of them
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uh they don't exactly give off warm vibes between the two of them but he it's just bad male manner
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maybe i am somebody who believes that chivalry isn't quite dead although i believe modern feminist
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is doing its best to axe murder it um but a husband or a boyfriend or you know even a son
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you're supposed to sort of walk beside the woman and especially husband he just sort of left her in the
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dust it's just very weird and yes in stark contrast to pierre polyev and his wife anna those two seem
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like the loving most closest couple and of course we don't know the inner workings of their family but
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good lord uh they at least put on a a good show that they are a couple that actually loves each other
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you know when mark carney got to cananaskis he ran up to greet the leaders and do that weird like
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posing bow thing and his wife was probably 10 feet behind him she could have wiped right out
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and he wouldn't have even heard her fall because he's so far ahead of her it's just the
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weirdest craziest things and yeah climate zealots uh you and i have to get taxed on our suvs because
00:29:13.320
our suvs are damaging the climate don't you know and these two can jump into separate suvs to go to
00:29:19.460
the exact same function and don't send me letters she is not important to the continuity of government
00:29:26.060
she's not like the vice president uh they can travel in the same vehicle together for security reasons for
00:29:32.220
sure of course all right well everybody that's the show for today thank you so much for tuning in
00:29:39.380
i believe ezra's got the show tomorrow uh thanks for bearing with me and as the boss always says