Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ What Monday night's by-election results really mean for Alberta

00:00:00.000 what do monday night's alberta by-election results really mean for alberta and by extension

00:00:19.680 the rest of confederation it is june 25th 2025 i'm sheila gun reid but you're watching the

00:00:27.560 ezra levant show shame on you you censorious bug 0.56

00:00:34.860 so the by-election results are in and if you're watching the attempts to spin it you think

00:00:48.380 alberton's just voted to smother the baby of western separation in its crib they're gloating

00:00:55.160 pretending that this was some sort of rejection of alberta first values but let me set the record

00:01:01.100 straight what we saw in that by-election in old didsbury three hills was not a referendum on

00:01:08.940 independence it was a referendum on the vehicle not the destination albertans didn't vote against

00:01:16.160 separation they voted against vote splitting against the very real fear of accidentally handing a seat

00:01:22.440 the ndp that's it tactical voting not ideological surrender i mean let's look at the numbers

00:01:28.320 in edmonton strathcona ndp leader naheed nenshi took a whopping 82.3 percent of the vote but that

00:01:35.020 riding was never ever in play it's a fortress for the socialists in edmonton ellerslie the ndp's

00:01:42.740 gurdash singh brar held on but support dropped from nearly 62 percent in the general to almost 51

00:01:52.240 percent in the by-election the ucp made up some ground and in old didsbury three hills a rural

00:01:58.440 stronghold ucp candidate tara sawyer won with 61 percent while the separatist challenger from the

00:02:04.740 republican party drew nearly 18 percent it's not nothing but it's not a breakthrough either

00:02:10.880 so the electoral map didn't shift but the public mood it sure has according to a leger poll 70 percent

00:02:20.200 of albertans say they understand why someone would support separation and more than half of canadians

00:02:25.220 nationwide say they get it too that includes 63 percent of men 48 percent of women and a whopping

00:02:30.940 77 percent of conservative voters even 48 percent of liberal voters admit they understand the motivation

00:02:37.680 even if they don't agree with it now here's the real crazy number 47 percent of albertans say they

00:02:45.920 support separation outright that's not a sliver that's almost half of the province and when premier

00:02:53.480 daniel smith says separatists aren't fringe she's right we know she's just tabled legislation to make

00:03:00.180 citizen initiative referendums easier including ones on independence because she knows this issue isn't

00:03:06.120 going away it's growing what this by-election showed us is that people are serious about autonomy still

00:03:14.840 but they're being strategic about how to get it they don't want to throw away a vote on a protest party

00:03:22.180 if it means handing more power to nenshi or worse mark carney people want leverage not virtue signaling

00:03:28.660 they want a movement not a splinter party so no this isn't the end of the road by any means for

00:03:35.300 independence it's a fork in it and now the question isn't if alberta will push back harder against 0.89

00:03:41.520 confederation the only question is how will it be through a political party a constitutional

00:03:48.520 negotiation a full-on fight with the feds or a full-scale referendum that's still taking shape

00:03:54.980 but make no mistake the frustration the drive for respect and the fight for alberta's future

00:04:00.160 it's alive it's growing and it's about to get louder joining me up after the break is edmonton sun

00:04:07.820 columnist lauren gunter on the results of monday night's three alberta by-elections stay with us

00:04:15.380 joining me now is good friend of the show lauren gunter he's a columnist with the edmonton sun

00:04:32.640 i'm reading his article in the edmonton journal right now on the by-elections on tuesday night

00:04:39.460 here in alberta i wanted lauren's take on it because it would appear the status quo held i

00:04:46.340 don't think there were any surprises last night no i think that's fair uh the ndp won the two

00:04:52.080 ridings that they already had and the ucp held on to the one riding it at uh and and that is a little

00:04:57.780 unusual of course in in mid uh in mid-ten year uh by-elections because people often vote against

00:05:05.740 the government but since the two ridings in edmonton were already held by the opposition

00:05:11.540 it's easy to vote for the opposition and against the government i think the surprise would have been

00:05:18.120 if the separatist republican party had done better than it did uh in old didsbury three hills which is

00:05:28.480 right in the central part of the province and i think they probably thought they should have done

00:05:34.440 better than they did uh they got 17 of the vote they helped take 15 away from the ucp compared to

00:05:44.580 the 2023 general election but they finished third they finished behind the ndp so yeah i think you're

00:05:53.060 you're right when you say the status quo held yeah i mean i think a victory i i don't think anybody

00:06:00.440 who is really serious about what was happening in old didsbury three hills thought that the

00:06:06.100 republicans really stood a chance of taking that riding um but i think it would have been considered

00:06:13.340 a real achievement for them if they had bested the ndp and they didn't do that in a riding that

00:06:20.640 historically has elected a separatist mla it has so 1982 when it was just called old didsbury

00:06:29.060 gordon kessler from the western canada concept won that riding right after the national energy program

00:06:35.760 was imposed by the federal liberals i think that's what's missing this time is that there wasn't one

00:06:43.340 giant offense by the liberals like nobody out here expects the liberals to build a pipeline nobody out

00:06:52.140 here expects them to get rid of the net zero power grid or the ev mandate or any of the things that

00:06:58.780 are offensive but right now there isn't one thing that people rally around in 1982 the nep had just

00:07:08.120 happened there were all sorts of small oil field service companies that were going under already

00:07:13.560 because drilling had fallen off completely right and so there were a lot of people who were angry and

00:07:19.920 they surprisingly elected kessler now there was a general that that was early in 1982 there was a general

00:07:28.760 election in november of 82 and kessler lost he lost to the pc candidate at that point peter laughey came in

00:07:36.000 with all but i think uh three seats in the legislature and so things went back to normal in the general election but

00:07:45.580 but by elections as i was saying before tend to be protest votes and in this case first of all the

00:07:53.400 turnout in old didsbury three hills was crazy it was crazy it was huge it was good you know so last night

00:08:01.060 in the three by elections together there were 33 000 votes cast total in the three almost 16 000

00:08:09.440 just about half of them in old didsbury three hills so it it's not as though the ucp voters in that

00:08:17.160 riding sat home and thought ah we got this covered and that's another reason that kessler won in 82

00:08:21.960 is that the pcs thought they had it in the bag they stayed home the western canada concept people were

00:08:28.200 driven and they came out and they and they won in this case the ucp i think what benefits the ucp

00:08:34.580 at the moment is that smith has been very staunch against ottawa she's been strong against carney

00:08:43.160 she was even stronger against trudeau and so she gets an awful lot she gets a bit of a pass

00:08:48.560 she she is the uh person to whom a lot of the discontent with the liberals in ottawa that's that 0.99

00:08:57.400 goes to her she she has done a good job of handling that file and it goes to her until she gives people 0.94

00:09:03.360 a reason not to i think the republican party the separatist party is going to have a problem i think

00:09:09.060 there are a couple of other problems that the republicans encountered in this by-election on

00:09:13.960 monday night uh one is that their leader had been a ucp member until april 24th right uh so that's

00:09:21.360 only two months he's been in the republican party the other is i drove through that riding twice during

00:09:29.280 the by-election and i kept thinking why are all these liberal signs up here for these big red signs

00:09:35.760 with white lettering they're making exactly my thoughts too it was his there was cameron davies

00:09:40.220 the republican party leader those were his signs yeah looked like liberal signs and and we have just of

00:09:46.100 course finished a federal campaign back in april where those red signs were up there for the liberal

00:09:51.500 candidates uh and and so i think people were looking at things they went this cameron davies liberal guy

00:09:56.940 running for and the other i think the other problem that that party has is its name uh the republican

00:10:05.160 party of alberta wasn't really an offensive name until trump got sworn in again in january but

00:10:13.080 when you look at poll after poll after poll even conservatives in canada have soured on trump

00:10:20.980 and the republicans to some extent and so davies the leader of the of the republican party of alberta

00:10:28.640 the separatist candidate was running against his own short tenure in in the separatist movement he was

00:10:35.480 running with really bad signs and he he was running with a name that doesn't help it i mean it might

00:10:42.060 it might not hurt them big time but it doesn't do him any favors either so i i think those were the

00:10:47.720 three things and you know that writing should be prime for separatists it's it's rural it's fairly

00:10:56.800 affluent there are three or four major population centers in that writing where there's a lot of ag

00:11:02.440 business or oil business that does really well uh and and frankly people who are rural and let's say

00:11:11.360 affluent but certainly comfortable tend to be the ones who feel the grievances against ottawa

00:11:17.700 the most and if he can't get those people to come out in large numbers and vote for him then

00:11:24.240 they they have a problem 17 is what he ended up with last night that's nothing to sneeze at

00:11:30.360 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

00:11:38.740 period of time they went from there was an independent candidate independence candidate ran in that

00:11:44.740 riding in 2023 in the general election got five percent of the vote they went from five percent

00:11:50.620 independence to 17 percent independent don't sneeze at them don't say oh now we'd have to worry about

00:11:58.200 those separatists in alberta they couldn't no no that's 17 percent is still a fair number of people

00:12:03.940 who are angry enough that they were prepared to vote for a separatist party um it's not as good as

00:12:12.900 as the republican party and the separatists would have wanted but it is not something that can just be

00:12:18.580 sloughed off yeah in 60 days um i think what we saw last night and i think maybe this is and i'm merely

00:12:27.920 speculating i think it shows in the voter turnout in that riding is that uh the memory of a vote split

00:12:37.040 is still very scary for a lot of albertans and i think it was less a referendum on separation in that

00:12:44.260 riding than it was the vehicle to drive the independence movement because i think the as i've

00:12:53.320 been saying for the last two days the venn diagram between independence-minded people and ucp voters is

00:12:58.340 a circle um and i think a lot of people are scared about the votes what's they don't want to risk

00:13:04.640 parking their vote in a similarly conservative uh party and i think they are looking at it and thinking

00:13:15.160 well independence whatever that looks like whether it's within canada or as americans or a sovereign

00:13:21.860 republic whatever i think they think that a party the party system is the wrong vehicle to achieve

00:13:29.240 those means i i think you you've hit on something there too in that the republican party of alberta is

00:13:37.840 going to have a problem until it has one proposed solution right until it says we're going to be an

00:13:47.340 independent country of our own with we hope to have nice relations with canada and the united states

00:13:54.460 but we're going to be an independent republic of alberta but they haven't said that but if they could

00:13:59.720 say that or they could say we want sovereignty association we all remember with great pain what

00:14:05.440 that meant when quebec demanded sovereignty association because nobody knew what it meant right i don't think

00:14:12.340 they did no i'm pretty sure they did and then um or we're going to we're going to apply to become

00:14:19.500 the 51st state that's another thing that that that's another rug that got pulled out from under the

00:14:24.880 separatist on this is it you know i i have talked to people in the past seriously about would we ever

00:14:31.920 leave confederation would we then ask to become the 51st state what would be the advantages what

00:14:37.840 would be the disadvantages but after trump started taunting everybody with that in december and

00:14:43.360 january and since um i've lost my interest in in talking to them about 51st state because he's just

00:14:49.760 been a disrespectful jackass um so they had that problem too because they have talked about being 0.83

00:14:57.780 the 51st state before so there's a lot of stuff that worked against separatists that could be like i can 0.97

00:15:05.240 tell you there are two things that that the provincial government is really worried about

00:15:09.920 the federal government doing one is not approving a pipeline which i think is a very real possible i

00:15:18.060 actually think that's what they're aiming at they keep saying things like well you know maybe we would

00:15:23.680 do a pipeline but there are no private sector people pushing it now who would you know they're gonna yeah

00:15:29.720 they're gonna go they're gonna do what trudeau did about lng which is to say there's no business

00:15:35.820 case for a new pipeline we tried wasn't us getting in the way but of course every impediment that's in

00:15:44.460 the way of a private sector investor coming forward has been put there by the federal liberals over the

00:15:50.440 last 10 years and is still there so that's one of the things that provincial government's very worried about

00:15:56.020 the other one is that we're worried about a new tax on oil and gas the proceeds from which will be

00:16:03.160 used to support subsidies for manufacturing industries in ontario and quebec and they when

00:16:11.460 they they talk to you about this privately they say we don't know that's what they're getting ready

00:16:15.500 to do they haven't told us that's what they get ready to do but that makes sense right we don't

00:16:20.460 vote for them ontario and quebec vote for them so why not do what pierre trudeau did back in the 80s

00:16:27.300 and steal money from the west and give it to central canada so those either one of those would be

00:16:35.800 uh the trigger for a real separatist movement what we have now i think is 17 percent of people in

00:16:43.280 a riding that should be favorable to separatists expressing their frustration and anger with ottawa

00:16:49.540 um because the liberals snatched the feet from the conservative jaws and um uh you know that

00:16:58.120 are that's victory from the conservative jaws and so i i think that's mostly what you got there you

00:17:03.400 just you just got some frustration and anger there is no real separatist movement yet yeah i i just

00:17:10.740 i don't i think a lot of people were just apprehensive you know the ndp that's only six years ago

00:17:18.380 and and we saw them run up the middle and i i think based on the voter turnout there they just

00:17:24.200 didn't even want to risk it and it really motivated the ucp voters i think you're absolutely right and

00:17:28.420 and i even in my column today said the only way i can ever see the ndp winning the government again

00:17:36.260 is if there's vote splitting on the right which is what happened in 2015 wild rose and the pcs

00:17:43.140 split the vote almost evenly and allowed an awful lot of new democrats to win in calgary and even in

00:17:50.840 five or six what we would call rural ridings not really rural i mean they're not small town

00:17:56.800 right egg-centered ridings they're they're mostly ex-urban ridings they're just outside edmonton and

00:18:03.040 calgary but they won enough seats with the vote splitting to become the government and when jason kenney

00:18:11.940 came back and brought the two conservative parties together it went right back to what it had been

00:18:18.920 before the the 2015 election which was about 50 to 53 percent conservative vote and the ndp at around

00:18:28.040 36 or 37 percent and that will happen again it'll happen again and again and again in alberta

00:18:33.700 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

00:18:40.180 the ucp are most worried about with the separatist movement is that that you know that people say oh

00:18:45.840 smith is given license to the separatists to get a referendum oh smith is being coy with but

00:18:52.620 separatism she has got to play that exactly right or she risks the republican party or some other 0.99

00:19:00.220 separatist party coming in and scooping up just enough votes right to elect the ndp yeah you peel off

00:19:08.020 10 or 15 percent in some of those urban ridings and that's an ndp mla and i think that's what the

00:19:14.460 alberta next panel is all about i'm happy to see it the premieres as we're recording this on uh what's

00:19:22.240 today tuesday um she's announcing her alberta next panel to for uh to engage albertans and what we want

00:19:33.100 her to bring to the table with the federal government and i think it's a very smart move

00:19:38.280 uh because she's got to keep that 10 or 15 percent within the ucp to hang on to the calgary really 1.00

00:19:48.960 exactly right and you know i i think she's also learned the order yeah the timing for doing this

00:19:56.640 sort of stuff from the her pension plan idea there was nothing wrong with alberta having its own

00:20:03.260 pension from an investment standpoint and a political standpoint you could make a really

00:20:08.740 strong case that we should take our money away from ottawa which dithers it around all over

00:20:13.960 everywhere and concentrated in alberta like maybe if we had our own pensions plan we could build a

00:20:20.100 pipeline to the east coast the the feds couldn't come out and say oh there's no one proposing a pipe

00:20:25.140 well maybe if we had our own pension plan that pension plan would have put the billions aside

00:20:30.800 to help build that pipeline um so there was there were good reasons to have a provincial pension plan

00:20:38.080 one of the other ones is that we have such a young population and such an affluent population that we end

00:20:43.700 up of course subsidizing pensions for everyone else in the country and we don't see a lot of benefit

00:20:49.500 from that you don't see doug ford in ontario saying gee i'd really like to thank the people of

00:20:54.900 alberta for helping my students with their pension so you you don't get any we don't get any gratitude

00:21:02.600 we don't get any political sway out of it we so i could see a real good strong reason why there should

00:21:08.340 have been an alberta pension plan but you don't go into that without having softened the ground a lot

00:21:16.200 and people particularly people who are getting to be close to retirement age were worried that they

00:21:22.760 weren't going to have the money that had been promised cpp is a terrible investment right if

00:21:27.680 you were if you were putting money aside for your own retirement you would not give it to the cpp

00:21:32.440 right because your returns about eight or nine percent you could get that anywhere guy down by the stop

00:21:39.060 sign on my street corner who has some idea from reading financial posts what's going on

00:21:44.300 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

00:21:50.480 and that was the problem with her pension plan ideas that she came up with this idea oh isn't this great

00:21:56.320 we're going to do this and people were saying whoa wait a minute i don't want to risk my my retirement

00:22:02.240 for that so i think with this alberta next panel she's going about it the right way she hasn't put out

00:22:10.600 a proposal she hasn't said here's what we want to do she said i'm going to appoint these people who

00:22:16.060 love the province and are very knowledgeable people they're going to go around they're going to listen

00:22:19.260 to you they're going to help you know have you tell them what's going on and then we'll come up

00:22:24.400 with a strategy and i think that's a much better way of doing it than than they did with the pension

00:22:29.620 plan so yeah i hope she's she's learned the lesson yeah and i think it uh alleviates some of that

00:22:36.620 response back from the feds like oh we don't even know what alberta's complaining about well here's

00:22:41.280 our list of grievances we had experts put it together for you um i wanted to ask you before

00:22:47.720 i let you go nenshi is now in the legislature uh are they finally going to get the nenshi bounce

00:22:56.520 now that he's there no i don't think so i i know neither do i i think he's insufferable a lot

00:23:03.400 of faith in before he got elected as the ndp leader i mean i remember him as mayor of calgary 0.81

00:23:08.540 he in his own mind was always the smartest person in every room he was ever in yeah he's arrogant

00:23:16.000 he's urban uh he's lefty yeah where i mean i guess they they're going to keep edmonton i think

00:23:23.360 they'll probably win most of the 20 seats here uh there was a there was some chance in edmonton

00:23:29.400 ellersley last night a lot of the the tightened up and trail readers were saying well maybe the

00:23:34.580 the ucp will win this one because the ucp candidate had been the mla from there until 2015 right um

00:23:42.860 but no in in the end the ndp candidate won handily not they didn't trounce the ucp but they won

00:23:52.300 a very strong mandate um so i think the ndp will win all 20 edmonton seats again or however many they

00:24:00.140 are by that time with redistribution but um but no the battleground will be calgary yeah and

00:24:08.400 it surprises me that the ndp up here think that nenshi can win down there because he used to be the

00:24:16.300 mayor of calgary because it was very unpopular when he left as mayor of calgary and maybe people's

00:24:22.760 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

00:24:29.160 prickly individual he will get up in there and he's going to get needled back by smith who's actually

00:24:36.120 very good on her feet in the legislature and uh and he's not gonna like it so no i don't think

00:24:42.220 they're gonna get a big nenshi bounce they might come up in the polls a little bit because it's

00:24:46.480 better to have them inside the house than out in the outhouse i'm not sure about that but you know

00:24:52.540 eventually i think he's gonna wear people he's gonna wear people's uh sin you know yeah i think

00:24:58.200 he's gonna remind everybody why he left office in calgary as the mayor as unpopular as he was

00:25:04.380 really quickly um i think he is just a deeply irritating person the more you watch him yes

00:25:13.500 that too uh lauren thanks so much for your time uh refresh us how people can find your work

00:25:18.820 uh you can go to edmontonjournal.com or edmontonsun.com i'm now in both of the papers

00:25:25.380 and you just google lauren gunter and it almost always gets to where it's supposed to but you get

00:25:31.680 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

00:25:41.940 for coming on the show we'll have you back on again very soon you bet thanks stay with us

00:25:46.500 more up next after the break

00:25:48.200 as you know ezra turns over the last portion of the show to you at home because without you

00:26:04.620 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

00:26:18.980 took two separate enormous suvs to go to the exact same place it's a video i did after i got home from

00:26:27.500 cananaskis and re-examined the tape as though i was watching the kennedy assassination to make sure i

00:26:33.180 was right about what i saw uh i got a lot of feedback and that was a very popular video by the

00:26:39.160 way online all required rights one destination two suvs zero sense of others there i fixed it for you

00:26:47.540 yeah i my video was zero self-awareness jet rod writes why aren't they electric suvs

00:26:56.740 oh the unreliable stuff that's for us of course paulette 2359 says they didn't walk down the

00:27:07.800 plane steps together he walked in front of her to greet the members didn't acknowledge her or give

00:27:14.100 her a hug or a kiss just walked away to separate gas guzzling vehicles not like pierre and anna always

00:27:20.980 holding hands and he shows anna so much respect just like he would do if he was our prime

00:27:26.660 minister that was one thing that i noticed when uh carney not just came down the steps from

00:27:33.740 the challenger onto the tarmac in calgary when he was going to cananaskis to the g7 he and his wife

00:27:40.340 couldn't be further apart from each other you could drive in an electric vehicle between the two of them

00:27:46.340 uh they don't exactly give off warm vibes between the two of them but he it's just bad male manner

00:27:56.640 maybe i am somebody who believes that chivalry isn't quite dead although i believe modern feminist

00:28:02.620 is doing its best to axe murder it um but a husband or a boyfriend or you know even a son

00:28:10.060 you're supposed to sort of walk beside the woman and especially husband he just sort of left her in the

00:28:19.460 dust it's just very weird and yes in stark contrast to pierre polyev and his wife anna those two seem

00:28:29.280 like the loving most closest couple and of course we don't know the inner workings of their family but

00:28:33.940 good lord uh they at least put on a a good show that they are a couple that actually loves each other

00:28:46.300 you know when mark carney got to cananaskis he ran up to greet the leaders and do that weird like

00:28:52.600 posing bow thing and his wife was probably 10 feet behind him she could have wiped right out 1.00

00:28:59.220 and he wouldn't have even heard her fall because he's so far ahead of her it's just the

00:29:04.920 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

00:29:45.980 keep fighting for freedom

00:29:47.540 you

Rebel News Podcast - June 26, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ What Monday night's by-election results really mean for Alberta

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