Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Calgary's former mayor announces leadership bid for the Alberta NDP

00:00:00.000 Alberta continues its fight for tax fairness against the feds and the NDP here in Alberta

00:00:19.320 are in the throes of a leadership race so things are getting wild here on the prairies

00:00:25.100 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show

00:00:30.000 it's a very exciting time to be an Albertan you see we have a very staunch conservative

00:00:49.820 premier Danielle Smith and she seems to get more lovely and more youthful the more she fights with 0.99

00:00:56.200 Justin Trudeau and the NDP in Alberta after sort of stagnating and being you know just sort of

00:01:03.700 relegated to the fringes since the last Alberta election while they are in the process of a

00:01:11.180 leadership election and some interesting characters have thrown their hats into the field and I feel

00:01:20.460 like Albertans are going to be taken on a very wild roller coaster ride from now until the next

00:01:27.840 provincial election so from the time the NDP choose a leader to the next provincial election they are

00:01:35.100 going to be in full attack mode and in full rebrand mode will we forget the past as Albertans I don't

00:01:42.820 think so and if we try I'm going to do my best to remind everybody just how bad things were under the

00:01:48.480 NDP my guest tonight is Peter McCaffrey he's the president of the Alberta Institute and he's got a

00:01:53.840 lot to say on carbon taxes the Alberta budget and the NDP leadership race I'm going to button it up

00:02:03.760 because it's a long interview with him but it is a great interview with him take a listen

00:02:08.080 so joining me now is Peter McCaffrey he's the president of the Alberta Institute there's so

00:02:19.300 much to talk about in Alberta politics as our premier continues her fight with the feds on just

00:02:24.700 about everything and then there's the whole NDP leadership race which gets more interesting but

00:02:30.960 further left all the time I think if that is even possible Peter thanks for joining me it's been a while

00:02:37.300 since you've been on the show and that is to my great regret but why don't you tell us a little

00:02:41.340 bit about the Alberta Institute before we get into more of our topics sure great to be with you the

00:02:48.160 Alberta Institute is a public policy research and advocacy organization we work across Alberta on a

00:02:57.240 wide variety of issues everything from economic to social issues to municipal a little bit of

00:03:03.600 everything so we we try and research and develop and promote new ideas and advocate for those ideas

00:03:10.360 to be implemented try and improve freedom and choice and people's lives across Alberta now you are you say

00:03:17.820 you're a bit of a libertarian think tank or small government think tank one of the ways that the Alberta

00:03:24.900 premier has said that she will fight back against Justin Trudeau's carbon tax is to create a regulator of last resort

00:03:33.180 or at least energy retailer distributor of last resort so that we may be able to mimic what's happening in

00:03:40.980 Saskatchewan because Saskatchewan has a crown corporation which manages their home heating and electricity and so

00:03:47.520 they are not collecting the carbon tax and thus not remitting it to Justin Trudeau what is your take on you know I'm torn as a small government kind of person

00:03:58.180 um what is your take on the creation of a crown corporation which normally I'm against

00:04:04.600 uh to insulate Alberta taxpayers from a hike in the carbon tax yeah my understanding is it wouldn't be

00:04:13.020 like a regulator of last resort it would be like an operator of last resort right so um I think if what

00:04:18.840 they're talking about is literally you know if the only alternative is we have to turn the lights out and

00:04:23.920 we run out of electricity um and you know we literally cannot continue to have electricity

00:04:30.020 otherwise uh that that would be the last resort would be having the government come in and actually

00:04:35.480 operate natural gas power plants that the federal government says are illegal um and I think in that

00:04:40.780 very narrow last resort situation that might make sense um you know we're talking about a situation

00:04:47.380 where the private sector is unwilling to generate electricity because the federal government will

00:04:54.000 deem them criminals if they do so and in that situation having the government step in and saying

00:04:58.740 okay fine we will generate electricity so that people's lights don't go out I can understand where

00:05:04.000 they're coming from as long as we're talking about it only being an option in that absolute last resort

00:05:09.320 situation we don't want to get into a scenario of saying oh well there are pros and cons of having the

00:05:14.140 government running a market and running electricity system and you know one of the pros is this like

00:05:18.400 no we want a competitive free market and electricity like we've had in Alberta for a long time um and we

00:05:24.920 want to protect that and only if literally the only other option is we won't have any electricity anymore

00:05:30.300 should we be looking at an option like that one of the I think selling features that the

00:05:37.020 provincial government has said is this might be a pass-through for electricity because we cannot ask

00:05:45.120 our privatized distributors to break the law and not collect the carbon tax so this might be a pass-through

00:05:53.640 buffer to protect our privatized industry here um and also be able to mimic what's happening in

00:06:01.860 saskatchewan by not collecting the carbon tax yeah again I I see the benefits but deep down inside I'm

00:06:10.480 just fundamentally opposed to crown corporations yeah and and you see the challenge even in saskatchewan

00:06:17.020 which you know I think them taking the fight to Ottawa is great but the reality is as soon as you say

00:06:21.700 well we're not going to collect this portion of the carbon tax the federal government come back with

00:06:26.120 the threat and say okay well then you won't get any of the rebate at all even though people in

00:06:30.400 saskatchewan are still paying what 90 95 percent of the carbon tax on everything else um the federal

00:06:35.560 government is now threatening to take the entire rebate away from them so you know you can get into

00:06:40.020 some really tricky situations when you do this the the simple solution obviously is just to get rid of

00:06:45.720 the carbon tax wouldn't that be great um I want to ask you um your opinions on the latest Alberta budget

00:06:54.420 there's good stuff in there bad stuff in there I talked to Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers

00:06:59.020 Federation you know very happy with uh investing surplus into the heritage savings trust fund uh very

00:07:07.060 happy with you know taking some of the surplus and paying down the debt great but then there's you know

00:07:13.820 there's borrowing in there while we're still in surplus so help us make sense of this

00:07:19.300 the the reality is that spending is still increasing far too fast and the government is still spending

00:07:27.180 way way way way too much money um and and the current government's plan is to hold increases in

00:07:35.220 spending to below the rate of population increase and inflation and therefore over time the size of

00:07:43.320 government as a share of the economy will reduce the size of government uh you know the government debt

00:07:48.500 will reduce uh the dependency on oil and gas revenues will reduce so long as you grow the size of

00:07:53.920 government more slowly than the economy is growing more slowly than the population is growing but if

00:07:59.140 you if you come from the starting point that the government is already way too massive and there's

00:08:03.620 huge amounts of waste that we should be getting rid of uh then you know that's really not enough we

00:08:08.920 should be going in there and we should be getting rid of programs that we don't need we should get

00:08:12.200 getting rid of departments that we don't need um and making some significant cuts to a lot of the

00:08:18.620 waste that is in there right you remember um that uh you know jason kenney's government grew the size

00:08:26.140 of government rachel notley's government the government was too big before rachel notley even 0.85

00:08:30.660 came to power uh under allison redford ned stelmack so you know i think at a minimum we should look at

00:08:36.440 going back to levels of government spending uh that we used to have uh and you can adjust for

00:08:41.680 inflation population growth if you want um but actually i happen to think that you know the more

00:08:45.880 uh the more time government has shouldn't they be fixing problems shouldn't they be resolving the

00:08:50.640 things that government is designed to be working on and so shouldn't over time there be less need

00:08:54.880 for government as we resolve some of those problems if if government is continually growing and

00:08:59.200 continue or continually operating that's actually proof that government isn't working because it's

00:09:03.680 just continuing to grow and continue and to be uh you know dependent on the government um so you

00:09:11.540 know i i think there's significant areas that we could be cutting spending and that would be

00:09:15.640 my preferred option the other risk with uh you know reducing the rate of increase of government

00:09:21.400 spending is it takes a very long time to have a significant impact you know if you control the

00:09:28.600 growth in government to less than inflation population growth for 20 25 30 years at the end of that

00:09:35.400 decades long period of time there will have been a substantial change but what happens if in four

00:09:42.080 years or eight years time a different premier whether from the same government or a different

00:09:46.120 government comes in and increases spending again um so if your plan is well we're always going to be

00:09:52.880 in power and we're always going to control the growth of government at this level that's not a brilliant plan

00:09:59.120 because you can't control 10 15 20 25 years out from the now you can only control uh what's being done now

00:10:06.960 so you know god forbid if the ndp come in and massively hike spending again uh then your entire plan of

00:10:13.680 controlling the growth of government for the next 25 30 years is gone um so no we actually need to be

00:10:19.440 cutting some of the waste and cutting some of the useless spending that's been introduced by previous

00:10:24.080 governments and then controlling the growth of government from that lower starting point right i remember when the ndp

00:10:31.440 took power they went on hiring spree um because we had and uh you know i speculate but you know it's the ndp um but i at the

00:10:42.880 time i suspected it was to pad their unemployment numbers because we've had such massive layoffs in oil and gas in

00:10:49.680 the wake of the ndp and i think they hired about 50 000 government workers across the province and it sort of drove

00:10:57.440 drove artificially drove the unemployment rate down in the province but we're still dealing with the that

00:11:05.280 hiring spree that happened in 2015 now we're responsible for wages benefits pension liabilities

00:11:11.520 for all of those people how would you well if you had you know the peter mccaffrey machete um how would

00:11:20.480 you where would you start cutting well you you have to remember as well that the ndp and the lift in

00:11:26.240 general are coming from the ideological world view that the government is better at delivering

00:11:33.200 services than the private sector so they see a smaller private sector and a larger government sector as a benefit

00:11:40.240 they think that having more and more products more and more services delivered by the government will lead to

00:11:46.640 better and better outcomes of course all the evidence is the opposite uh when we when we socialize things when we have the

00:11:52.240 government take over things uh services and quality go down while cost goes up um but this is the other

00:12:00.160 problem of not coming in and fixing those issues and cutting programs is that if you maintain all of

00:12:06.560 those new programs and employees and systems that were brought in by previous governments not only do you

00:12:12.480 grow the size of government but then you're also going to take the blame for those things not working

00:12:17.520 so yeah the the the ndp government uh massively increased spending on a whole bunch of different

00:12:22.640 social programs those social programs are not working if anything those programs and those

00:12:28.560 deliveries are much worse now than they were when the ndp came to power and that's that's not because

00:12:34.880 oh there's a different government now and this different government is worse at managing a socialized

00:12:39.520 system it's because socialism doesn't work socialized government programs don't work but if you don't

00:12:44.880 come in and you don't correct that you don't get rid of those programs you don't return them to the

00:12:49.040 private sector that is better at delivering them well then you are going to take the blame for those

00:12:53.200 things not working so so the current government has this has this double problem where both government

00:12:58.640 is larger than it should be but also they're getting the blame for all that extra government spending

00:13:03.680 not working um so so yeah they really need to get their head around that and and deal with that the the

00:13:10.560 opposite of course the corollary is also true which is that when you return those services to the

00:13:16.080 private sector when you get rid of the government waste when you allow the private sector to innovate

00:13:20.880 and improve services then you see the benefits and you actually get better services and better delivery

00:13:26.960 at a lower cost and to the government's credit they are doing some of that around some of the areas

00:13:31.520 of health care we're seeing more private construction of surgical facilities more private

00:13:37.680 provision of surgeries and things like that and and suddenly when you allow the private sector

00:13:41.680 to do surgeries you get more surgeries and you get shorter waiting lists and you actually get

00:13:46.480 better quality services and then the government can reap the rewards and the credit for improving

00:13:51.920 those services so but the problem is they need to be doing that across the economy across government

00:13:58.320 and then they'll get credit for all of those improvements across all of those different areas

00:14:02.400 of government and all those different areas of services as well you know and i think there's

00:14:06.400 something to be said for moving fast to pulling out the weeds of the prior government because people

00:14:11.600 become i don't know what the right word is inculturated inculturated with the idea that government

00:14:18.240 should be doing these things because in your recent memory the government has always done those things

00:14:23.120 but that hasn't always been the way and i i think the government if it is to weed out um the you know 0.61

00:14:34.160 the the waste in government they should do it fast they should do it as early um from being re-elected as

00:14:42.320 possible so that people have time to mentally deal with the fact that despite what the media and the

00:14:47.440 ndp are telling you the sky is not falling and then the problems will not fall into disrepair

00:14:53.200 the the there's two issues the first is the speed at which you go allows you to get more done great

00:14:59.280 which allows you to see the benefits of those changes sooner which allows you to get credit for

00:15:03.920 those changes if you go slow the next government will end up getting the credit for the improvements

00:15:11.600 that you made in your policies and if the next government is of a different persuasion

00:15:16.880 then often unfortunately that makes it look like the next government's more left-wing more

00:15:22.640 socialist policies were responsible for the improvements in services that were made by a

00:15:27.120 previous government so that's one risk the other thing is that the left and the unions and all those

00:15:33.120 different groups are going to shout and complain as hard as they possibly can no matter what speed you

00:15:39.360 go right so you go slow and cautious and you only make little tweaks and little changes and you do

00:15:44.960 trials and you test things out and you just do make a few small you know tests of having private

00:15:50.480 surgeries or charter schools or things like that they're going to scream bloody murder no matter what 0.60

00:15:55.120 you do and you're going to get all of the negative political consequences but none of the benefits from

00:16:00.240 actually fixing the problem whereas if you go and you actually go in and you actually fix the problem

00:16:05.120 and you do the whole reform all at once they're only going to be able to complain the same amount as

00:16:11.600 they did when you did a small amount right so the consequences to the government politically will be

00:16:16.400 exactly the same but the improvements to the service delivery and the cost savings and ultimately

00:16:22.400 people's lives will be much greater because you actually went in and fixed the problem rather than

00:16:26.880 tinkering around the ridges so that that that's one issue um and and then the second issue is is

00:16:34.080 really around when you when you when you come in as a government and you're trying to fix things

00:16:40.880 and and you mentioned before okay you're dealing with consequences created by previous governments

00:16:45.760 um that the concern is uh like you said this kind of built-in assumptions about the way that things

00:16:54.240 have to be done right and and there's a it's a psychological thing that people have a bias

00:17:00.080 towards the way things are done now health care right if yeah yeah but but also if you came in and

00:17:05.600 you said well we're going to change how supermarkets work and we're going to make supermarkets work like

00:17:10.400 the school system so the government will build the supermarkets the government will hire all the

00:17:15.360 people who work in the supermarkets you will only be allowed to visit your local supermarket you don't

00:17:20.080 have any choice you don't get to go to a different one we're going to have a government-run

00:17:23.280 supermarket system um everybody would think that was insane but when you propose doing that or

00:17:29.680 when you do that for education people kind of think that's normal luckily in alberta we have a

00:17:34.480 decent amount of choice in our education system and people can choose to go to different schools and

00:17:39.120 they can choose to go to charter schools and independent schools um but but that kind of choice is normal

00:17:45.840 for supermarkets right and and a lot of the left-wing arguments are like oh but education is so

00:17:50.800 important we we can't trust that to the private sector we have to have the government running that

00:17:55.040 um and yet we do trust things like food to the private sector and the private sector does a good

00:18:00.560 job now we could argue about whether you know the prices of groceries are going up um and and of course

00:18:06.000 they are because of inflation and the cost of food and things like that but the price is going up

00:18:10.480 isn't because the government isn't running the supermarkets the prices are going up because of

00:18:14.240 other government interference right not because we we don't have a socialized grocery system and a

00:18:19.200 socialized grocery supermarket system would not solve the problem of prices of food going up it

00:18:25.360 would just make it worse right yes the the prices at the grocery store are still the problem of the

00:18:31.200 federal government or at least the doing of the federal government to some extent and it's funny you

00:18:35.600 mention that because well although although i will just say you know the the the naivety of some of

00:18:41.920 the proposed policy solutions to the affordability crisis right like right uh the idea that oh well

00:18:46.960 if electricity prices are going up we're just going to pass a government regulation to cap the prices

00:18:51.360 right and and and suddenly electricity will be cheaper it's like no electricity won't be cheaper

00:18:56.480 it's just that you'll pay less on your bill and more in your taxes and you know we could do the

00:19:01.280 same with groceries if we had uh government-run grocery stores uh we could cap the price of groceries

00:19:08.160 so that people pay less at the grocery store but the government would just be subsidizing that and

00:19:12.560 you would just pay more in taxes so you didn't magically make groceries or electricity or insurance

00:19:17.840 or anything cheaper just because a government proposes a cap you know rent cap is the most recent

00:19:23.200 one i'm so glad you're bringing that up we we just won't allow people to raise the cost of housing

00:19:28.960 we'll just have a ban on raising the cost of housing that doesn't make housing cheaper it just means

00:19:33.920 it's illegal to charge the market price and that just messes up the market even more um so yeah

00:19:41.520 i'm so glad you brought that up because we'll come back to that in a second in uh the bad ndp

00:19:46.640 ideas portion of our conversation but it is true when you think about um you know even just how booze is

00:19:53.840 sold across this country alberta does it much differently than ontario and ontario makes these bizarre

00:20:01.600 um prohibitionist arguments like if we don't sell it in a government-run store and pay the people

00:20:08.880 government wages and benefits to sell you a case of beer then won't you think about the children and

00:20:15.120 you look at alberta and we're like we're doing we're doing okay we're doing okay but it's just because

00:20:19.680 it's the way things are always done they don't know it's like in alberta yep yes we have private sales

00:20:25.520 of alcohol but supermarkets aren't allowed to sell it right so you have to go in one door to get your food

00:20:30.080 and then come out and go in a different door to get your alcohol which is kind of ridiculous and 0.99

00:20:33.680 increase the cost of groceries because it means grocery stores have to comply with stupid rules 0.97

00:20:39.120 like that um and also of course we have aglc which is a compulsory purchaser of alcohol right so if you're 0.91

00:20:44.880 a liquor store or a bar or something like that you're only allowed to buy your alcohol from aglc

00:20:50.320 you're not allowed to buy it directly from the the producer of the alcohol itself and so that raises

00:20:56.000 prices as well so there's certainly things alberta could improve on in there as well there's

00:20:59.200 there's really no reason for the government to act as a middleman there in in the alcohol industry

00:21:03.680 either so that's another way area that we could improve and we could come some of the regulation

00:21:07.600 the red tape and bring costs down as well from your lips to god's ears now let's talk about the

00:21:12.880 ndp because the ndp are in the middle of a leadership race um and it pains me to say this but i feel as

00:21:19.520 though rachel notley of all people and i've written two books about the woman um was a bit of a moderating 1.00

00:21:26.160 force in the ndp and again i can't believe those words left my mouth but i believe they are true

00:21:34.160 given what we're seeing unfold in uh the ndp leadership race we've got sarah hoffman which

00:21:41.200 wants who wants to nationalize all the schools um we've got a proposal for rent control which will

00:21:50.000 eliminate i think rental housing supply it's going to compel large um developers to just build condos

00:21:58.240 and not rental properties and when they tried this in ireland it created slums because landlords

00:22:04.240 couldn't afford the upkeep and we've got former mayor of calgary naheed nenshi um entering the race

00:22:12.960 and i always kind of thought the guy was a federal liberal i never actually thought that he would ever

00:22:17.360 go away and i think i was right about that but you've got a lot to say about naheed nenshi

00:22:23.520 because i think you kept a careful encyclopedia of everything he did wrong in calgary so give us

00:22:28.880 the rundown on nikki nenshi please yeah so i mean the first thing is you know if i put my political

00:22:35.200 analyst hat on of of course during a leadership race the candidates are going to attack more towards

00:22:40.720 the membership to the left uh you know we know that the membership of the party is more left-wing than

00:22:45.440 the average voter and so yes they're going to trot out all of these crazy ideas to try and win votes

00:22:50.400 during the leadership race um the reality is when the ndp were government yet to take rent control as

00:22:56.480 an example uh there was pressure from the left to implement rent control when the ndp was government

00:23:01.600 and rachel notley and her cabinet studied the issue and realized no this is actually an insane idea this

00:23:07.040 would be terrible even almost 99 of left-wing economists agree that this is a dreadful idea never mind

00:23:14.160 conservative or right-wing economists and so they didn't actually do it so the reality is when

00:23:18.080 your government there's a there's a bit of a moderating force there in that you know you can't

00:23:22.160 actually be insane when you're government you can only get away with being insane when you're

00:23:26.640 opposition right right um so you know everything is relative uh and a lot of the ideas that are going

00:23:32.240 to get thrown out when you're in opposition are are not going to see the light of day if and when you

00:23:36.560 ever become government that's just the reality um so so that's one thing to consider um with with

00:23:43.040 regards to naheed nenshi um it's an interesting one because uh you know everyone's saying oh i've

00:23:48.640 never seen him as you know a partisan person or a or an orange ndp or something like that it it really

00:23:55.440 all depends right like if you look at the policies and the way that the calgary council was run under

00:24:02.400 his tenure if anything you could argue he was far more left-wing than the ndp because he was mayor while

00:24:09.280 the ndp were in government and it was often naheed nenshi pushing the ndp uh to change the rules to

00:24:15.920 allow him to do more uh left-wing ideas at city council you know he wanted to be able to run

00:24:20.880 deficits he wanted to be able to introduce more city specific taxes and he really pushed the

00:24:26.320 provincial government to introduce uh changes to the municipal government act and city charters

00:24:31.520 that would give him and the city council more powers to implement more of those ideas and in some of

00:24:37.200 those areas he was successful in convincing them uh to do so and and in some he wasn't you know

00:24:43.200 another example would be the calgary olympics 2026 he was all gung-ho on spending five six seven

00:24:51.360 whatever billion dollars the end in cost would have been and in the end it was rachel notley who stepped

00:24:56.400 in and was like no you guys are crazy this is an insane amount of money uh and we won't give you

00:25:01.680 provincial money uh towards this olympics campaign unless you hold a referendum and you know show

00:25:07.920 that calgarians actually want this uh and guess what we had a referendum and then she lost that 1.00

00:25:13.200 vote and he didn't get his way uh and the olympics idea got killed because people like we can't afford 0.91

00:25:18.160 this right um so again you know i don't want to uh sound completely crazy here but actually it was

00:25:24.240 rachel notley that stepped in and saved a calgary taxpayers five six seven billion dollars by 0.96

00:25:29.680 uh requiring that referendum so you know nancy has always claimed to be purple he's always claimed

00:25:35.680 that you know that's some kind of centrist moderation of blue and red and and that he's

00:25:40.000 you know really a non-partisan person but if you judge on policies he's does he i don't see him having

00:25:46.240 any issue fitting in with the ndp and a lot of people saying oh you know it's it's kind of an ndp

00:25:50.880 takeover um his his moderate centrist people are going to come in and take over the ndp

00:25:55.600 um but in reality you know we just have this quirk where you know there hasn't been a liberal

00:26:01.440 party in alberta for a long time um the alberta party was never really a thing i'm sure he would

00:26:08.800 prefer from a branding perspective if the alberta party or the liberal party was more of a force in

00:26:15.200 alberta and he could lead the alberta or the liberal party and continue claiming to be a centrist moderate

00:26:22.160 um you know that fits with his branding style uh but the reality is that the ucp and the ndp are

00:26:28.640 now the only two games in town and uh you know i don't see any issue with him fitting into an ndp party

00:26:35.360 promoting tax increases and spending increases and uh all sorts of you know more uh attacks on the

00:26:43.600 the private sector yeah 60 tax increase in calgary while he was in charge that's uh that's an ndp

00:26:50.560 policy if there ever was one um go ahead well yeah 60 plus for for individuals for homeowners

00:26:58.240 over the time that he was uh in power um and uh you know but if you were a business owner some

00:27:04.640 of the businesses were looking at way way more than that you know there's examples that you can

00:27:09.760 find of businesses paying five six seven hundred percent more you know just absolutely massive increases

00:27:17.120 um and this is really interesting because i think this will be the one challenge that it'll have

00:27:22.080 which is that um there's a quirk of how municipal governments work in in alberta and in other places

00:27:28.640 which is that they're not allowed to run deficits right um so side note i've seen some of nenshi's

00:27:34.560 supporters claiming that he's a fiscal conservative because he never ran a deficit no he never ran a

00:27:39.360 deficit because he legally was not allowed to run a deficit he absolutely would have run deficits had

00:27:44.320 even been allowed to um but because municipalities legally aren't allowed to run deficits the way

00:27:49.280 that they work is that they first calculate how much they want to spend and then they change their

00:27:55.200 tax rate to make sure that they generate enough money to cover how much they want to spend and so you

00:28:02.000 know that that's why in provincial government we have tax rates and depending on how strong the economy

00:28:08.640 is that determines how much money the government generates and it's a big deal in provincial

00:28:13.600 politics if you want to go in and you want to raise taxes right the ndp proposed a two percent

00:28:19.600 increase in the corporate tax rate and basically no personal income tax increases and that really hurt

00:28:26.080 them in the election campaign because people really didn't want even just a small tax increase at the

00:28:31.040 provincial level yet nenshi is used to be able to do six eight ten massive ten percent tax increases

00:28:40.320 year over year over year over year because he's used to picking how much he wants to spend first

00:28:46.640 and then figuring out what the tax rate should be to collect that amount of money later guess what you

00:28:50.720 can't do that at the provincial level uh he's not going to be able to lead an ndp that come in and

00:28:54.960 said comes in and says well we want to spend x amount and we're just going to raise taxes to

00:28:59.840 whatever they need to be to be able to collect enough money to spend that because it just doesn't

00:29:03.680 work that way provincially so that's the first challenge he's going to have if he becomes ndp

00:29:07.840 leader is like actually running a budget uh you're going to have to actually prioritize spending

00:29:14.880 whereas at council he was used to just throwing money at every single problem and then just

00:29:19.840 collecting extra tax to pay for it and and that's how he was balancing the budget at city hall so that

00:29:25.600 that's i think going to be the first challenge he has to face now i'm going to ask you to speculate

00:29:31.680 what are his chances of winning because i think if he does win it's a game changer um i think in calgary

00:29:39.680 i think also in edmonton um and i hate to even think of it but what are what do you think his chances are

00:29:47.680 uh given that he's coming from the outside sarah hoffman as much as i disagree with her on

00:29:53.840 literally everything has been grinding it out for her spot to take over from rachel notley 0.98

00:29:59.360 since she was elected back in 2015 um you know what what are his chances of being accepted by the

00:30:07.200 party membership well well there's two parts to this this first can he win the leadership race and then

00:30:12.720 can he win an election so let's talk about the leadership race first um honestly i think the leadership

00:30:18.160 race is over um i think the the name recognition and the campaign organization of all the other

00:30:26.400 candidates running is nothing compared to what nahid nichey is um you know putting aside the policy 0.99

00:30:34.160 um of what he pursued at city hall he's a very smart guy very competent has a really good campaign you

00:30:41.280 know professional campaign team behind him that have won multiple elections both for him and for

00:30:47.200 the ndp this is another reason why i think he's a perfectly fine fit for the ndp by the way pretty

00:30:51.760 much all of his campaign team from his mayoral runs were the campaign team for the ndp it's this it's the

00:30:58.080 same people it's the same consultants it's the same uh businesses and and and and contractors um so the

00:31:04.960 idea that he's some kind of outsider to the ndp no we we know for example well we don't know but we

00:31:10.160 pretty much know for example that a lot of ninji's people were heavily involved in the process for

00:31:15.200 writing the leadership rules for the ndp because they're high level senior ndp people who were

00:31:22.480 involved in that process um and that's a big part of why the rules are written in a way that is quite

00:31:27.600 open to outsiders you know the ndp uh that the ndp have a clause in the constitution that allows the

00:31:33.520 unions to have up to 25 of the delegate votes in a leadership race and yet for this leadership

00:31:39.840 race the unions get zero um and and you know the ndp could have written much stricter rules on

00:31:47.360 the ability to sign up members um which would make it easier for insiders to run and more difficult

00:31:53.440 for outsiders like nenshi to run and yet they didn't they wrote the rules in a way that actually

00:31:57.280 it's quite easy for an outsider to sign up a lot of members so we know that nenshi has been

00:32:02.080 considering this for a while we know that a lot of his senior you know supporters and campaign team

00:32:06.800 were involved in the process for writing the rules and and made sure that they get a got a rule set

00:32:11.280 that would work for nenshi coming in from the outside um and uh you know the the other thing is

00:32:20.000 from his time as mayor and from his time involved in politics he doesn't just have a lot of name

00:32:25.200 recognition he also has a massive database of supporters one of the benefits of being a mayor is

00:32:31.040 that you're an independent and you control all of your own data all of his email list all of his

00:32:36.240 supporters all of his volunteers they're all his they're not party data so the other candidates

00:32:42.880 are trying to appeal to existing volunteers and donors and supporters of the ndp they don't have

00:32:47.920 access now he has his own massive list of supporters that he's been building for years and years and years

00:32:53.440 so i think he's going to come in i think he's going to sign up a ton of people as members of the ndp

00:32:58.480 from the outside i also think he's probably going to do quite well with the existing membership of

00:33:02.960 the ndp um i think if i think if the ndp had set rules that had much more restrictive uh regulations

00:33:10.080 for signing up new members it would have been more difficult for him but i would not be surprised if he

00:33:14.320 ends up getting a majority of the existing ndp support as well um so so that's the first thing

00:33:19.520 that's the that's the leadership race i think it's over um just look at twitter um you know his

00:33:25.280 first campaign event hundreds of volunteers showed up to help out pretty much through at the moment

00:33:30.000 because you know they're excited by his campaign uh i don't know how the other campaigns teams

00:33:35.520 volunteers events are going and things like that but i haven't seen a lot of photos of a lot of events

00:33:40.480 on social media which suggests to me that it's not going too well because if they were going really

00:33:44.400 well and they were having huge audiences they'd be posting those photos so yeah i think the leadership

00:33:50.160 race is over okay now can he win a provincial election so this is a much more complicated

00:34:00.320 question and and the shorter answer is yes he can but that doesn't mean he will um and and the the

00:34:07.280 thing to consider here is that there's there's two main kind of inputs into election results uh you know

00:34:17.520 very simplified and that's the the public's image and the public's perspective on the party brands

00:34:25.040 and the public's image and the public's perspective on the leaders and and sometimes

00:34:30.160 the leaders are more popular than the parties and sometimes the parties are more popular than the

00:34:35.040 leaders and you know you see this all the time when the party isn't polling very well when the party

00:34:40.400 isn't particularly popular there'll be much more of an emphasis on the leader the leaders in all

00:34:46.000 all the photos the leaders on all the billboards uh when the leader is not so popular and the party

00:34:52.400 is more popular than the leader then all the colored billboards come out without the photos

00:34:56.860 you know you see that with uh you know justin trudeau for example right first couple of elections

00:35:02.160 he's on all the billboards last election he's on basically none of them and it's the local

00:35:07.760 candidate or it's just the liberal brand and things like that and you know that happens across

00:35:11.380 all parties all parties do that you you you play to your strengths and you promote the thing that's

00:35:15.860 popular and and and you know that's perfectly natural the ndp is massively less popular than

00:35:23.520 rachel notley and that's why rachel notley was the front figure at the last election now having said

00:35:28.920 that that's not to say that rachel notley was massively popular there was this big misconception

00:35:33.820 at the last election that somehow rachel notley had much higher approval ratings than danielle smith 1.00

00:35:39.000 um well rachel notley had slightly higher approval ratings than danielle smith when danielle smith

00:35:43.460 first became premier um but over the course of the year or so uh after danielle smith was leading

00:35:52.720 the leadership race and became premier and then we got into the election uh rachel notley's approval

00:35:57.160 ratings came down a lot and danielle smith's approval ratings actually improved in the run-up to the 0.99

00:36:02.440 election to the point where by election time the approval ratings for the two were about the same

00:36:07.100 um but even though rachel notley's approval ratings had come down they were still higher than it was

00:36:12.500 for the ndp party so the the way that um the way that the ndp can win an election under nahid nenshi

00:36:23.480 is i think either a general improvement on people's perceptions of the ndp

00:36:30.300 and or a decrease on people's approval and perceptions of the ucp um rather than necessarily

00:36:38.300 nahid nenshi being highly popular and again nahid nenshi is making a big fuss about how popular he

00:36:46.340 was in calgary and you know he claimed on ryan jesperson's show yesterday that that even after

00:36:52.480 11 years as mayor when he left he was more popular than danielle smith had ever been

00:36:56.120 it's factually untrue nahid nenshi was reasonably popular when he became mayor but let's not forget

00:37:03.580 he only became mayor thanks to a vote split in the first election and then after the floods in calgary

00:37:09.240 he became incredibly popular and that led him to a runaway victory in his second election

00:37:15.400 but by his third election his popularity was still decent it was about 60 percent but he only won 51

00:37:22.560 percent of the vote um which interestingly the ndp won 49 of the vote in the 2023 election so the ndp

00:37:32.160 in 2023 won pretty much the same share of the vote as nahid nenshi did in 2017 but nahid nenshi has not

00:37:41.160 run for anything in seven years since that 2017 election when he had a 61 popularity and got 51

00:37:50.680 of the vote by the time he left and decided not to run again his popularity was down to 35 percent

00:37:58.400 and and maybe since he left office there's been you know some some fading of memories and and uh you

00:38:06.820 know some nostalgia kicks in a little bit um but no the reality is by the time of the 2021 election

00:38:13.080 nahid nenshi's popularity rating was down to 35 percent 32 percent actually i think which is

00:38:19.640 significantly lower than rachel notley's popularity was in calgary um and you know the simple fact is

00:38:26.640 he would not have won that election had he run again so he is banking on either people forgetting

00:38:31.880 uh you know about his his time in office in calgary or on the ndp brand actually being improved or

00:38:41.240 different and and you know there could be some discussions around changing the ndp brand there as

00:38:46.480 well um but no this idea that nahid nenshi is is massively popular in calgary and that he will

00:38:52.020 therefore carry the ndp to victory almost automatically by picking up calgary seats i don't think is there

00:38:58.080 and the final point on that as well would be that it's not just calgary overall either you have to look

00:39:04.680 at the different parts of calgary so nahid nenshi lost south calgary even in 2017 when he was still

00:39:13.980 quite popular and a lot of the seats that the ndp need to pick up in order to get a majority are in

00:39:19.960 south calgary which he lost in his last in his 2017 election so even if he just did as well as he did in

00:39:27.360 2017 the election result would be very very tight um maybe a one or two seat ndp uh majority um if if

00:39:36.200 nahid nenshi were able to lead the ndp to the same result he got in 2017 but but that was seven years ago

00:39:42.640 and he's got quite a history over the last little bit of not uh saying kind things about conservatives

00:39:50.940 i think that'll come back to bite him the man i think is probably a walking attack ad of himself

00:39:56.280 sometimes uh peter i i want to thank you so much for your uh opinions and your take on the ndp

00:40:03.940 leadership race uh gives me some food for thought i wasn't quite sure what to think

00:40:08.080 um but at least i have some things to digest and i think my viewers do too how do people support

00:40:14.120 the alberta institute and find out what you guys are up to what you're talking about each day

00:40:19.280 this way would just be to go to the website alberta institute.ca and sign up to get our emails

00:40:25.440 uh we send a weekly newsletter uh talking about everything going on uh in alberta politics which

00:40:31.800 uh i think a lot of people find very useful just to get a very short summary of what's going on and

00:40:37.940 keep on top of things i know people are very busy and they don't necessarily have the ability to track

00:40:42.100 every story all the time um and uh yeah we'll keep people up to date uh through emails as well about

00:40:48.940 uh you know different events that we're hosting or different campaigns that we're running and and

00:40:53.160 everything that's going on in alberta politics whether that be economic issues or

00:40:56.780 municipal issues or leadership races and and and more well peter i appreciate that so much um and

00:41:04.060 i'm i'm so sorry it's been so long since you've been on the show and we'll have you back on again

00:41:08.460 i'm sure anytime

00:41:09.420 well friends we've come to the portion of the show wherein we invite your viewer feedback

00:41:20.720 unlike the mainstream media and i know friends i say this every single week but i actually do care

00:41:24.820 about what you think about the work that we do here at rebel news it's the reason why i give you

00:41:28.160 my email address which comes right to me on this computer it's sheila at rebelnews.com put guns show

00:41:35.980 letters in the subject line so i know why you're emailing me and who knows you might just have your

00:41:40.960 question comment story idea read on air and responded to by me your favorite host here at rebel news but

00:41:48.620 if you are watching the free version of the show be it on youtube or on rumble thank you so much for

00:41:54.120 sitting through those ads um every little bit helps us here at rebel news but leave a comment

00:42:00.460 there too i go looking for the gun show letters over there too sometimes so you know i like to mix

00:42:07.860 it up and i think you guys appreciate that too now today's letter comes to me from the email inbox and

00:42:15.400 it is from michael who wrote to me last week so i i don't know if it's last week the show that prompted

00:42:24.620 this or what because he doesn't really you know sort of give any sort of context but i appreciated the

00:42:32.580 letter and i'm going to respond to it so it says firstly thank you for all that you do you continue to be

00:42:38.220 one of the few people keeping us from national socialism a la hitler uh i don't know if i'm

00:42:46.080 doing that but i think there are a lot of people who um are you know advocating for smaller government

00:42:51.360 personal accountability personal responsibility and uh minding our own business which i think is uh

00:42:58.280 the best way to live your life that parents are the best first educators of their children and that

00:43:04.800 they should have the final say on everything that happens to their children and the decisions about

00:43:09.240 the money your family earns are best made by your family and i also don't think taxes change the

00:43:14.440 weather because i think that is superstitious uh cult-like nonsense that's a religion if you pay

00:43:21.120 a tithe to a climate god and then he doesn't smite you with bad weather they used to throw virgins

00:43:27.180 into volcanoes because of that stuff that i think the aztecs were sacrificing people um by the thousands

00:43:33.520 for the same sort of superstition anyway uh let's keep going secondly the mainstream media has

00:43:39.560 convinced my alberta brother that daniel smith is a dictator

00:43:45.040 gotta get your brother off a steady diet of the mainstream media but it isn't good for him it just 0.93

00:43:53.420 isn't because uh they are hyperbolic crazy people sometimes i was in a press conference today

00:44:02.060 and i asked two questions to the premier and listening to the other journalists by and large

00:44:07.900 there are a few good ones there for example the folks at the western standard rick bell with the

00:44:13.260 calgary sun who ask normal questions but most of these questions are asked by people who are so bizarre

00:44:22.220 that it makes you wonder if they've ever talked to a normal person in their life like they are asking

00:44:27.160 their weird little hobby horse questions instead of questions the people one answers to it's so strange

00:44:35.880 you know just odd michael asks me is it possible to do a healthy segment to objectively explain what

00:44:44.840 a dictator would look like i think we've got some historical examples and daniel smith ain't it and

00:44:50.760 all of the ways that prove she is not one i suppose i could i suppose i could i just you know if if a

00:45:01.400 dictator wants to you know give your family more autonomy over itself to give you the final say in the 0.99

00:45:11.860 things that happen to your children to protect your religious freedom to shrink the size and scope of

00:45:18.860 government are they dictators you know or do you want like a benevolent dictator benevolent dictator who

00:45:29.660 gives you everything but you don't get any choice in what you get at the end of the day 0.95

00:45:35.660 is that freedom i prefer messy messy freedom i'd rather be one of those ugly seagulls just eat 1.00

00:45:41.740 whatever i find and live in free than a pretty bird in a gilded cage let's keep going uh michael

00:45:50.140 suggests maybe the top 10 reasons that daniel smith is not a dictator you know this is a fun video for

00:45:55.340 when i have time you know when the news stops and slows down i might do this one if you do read this and

00:46:01.980 if you decide to walk non-rebels through this could you please do it without the lingo what lingo is that 1.00

00:46:10.060 i don't know i think i'm a pretty plain spoken person i don't use the mainstream media catchphrases

00:46:17.660 like carbon pollution i say carbon dioxide you know what i mean anyway please keep it simply positive

00:46:28.860 and if possible leave out the attacks and political speech terminology i try not to use political speech

00:46:35.260 and terminology because no normal people talk like that the politicians and the left try to obscure

00:46:41.420 what they're really talking about by using their little catchphrases like gender affirming care for

00:46:49.180 minors what they really mean is surgically and chemically sterilizing perfectly healthy children

00:46:57.180 i avoid the use of the preferred language and pronouns of the left so don't you worry about me

00:47:04.940 there thanks michael kindest regards well michael you know that is a video i'd love to come back to

00:47:11.660 no promises but i do appreciate the fact that so many people are still in the throes of the mind control

00:47:20.060 of the mainstream media these days and words that they used to know the meaning of like dictator

00:47:25.420 they have no idea what it means anymore like they'll call donald trump a dictator and um you know

00:47:31.260 somebody who appoints freedom-minded judges to the supreme court is hardly a dictator but you are right

00:47:39.340 people might need a reminder and if even if they don't accept my reminder it'll at least

00:47:45.180 prickle the feathers of the left by uh fact checking them on their nonsense so no again no promises i might

00:47:53.340 do it if i have time but uh i don't always have a lot of time i'm filming this very late in the day

00:48:00.220 that it needs to be published if that's any indication about the small amount of time that i have to spare

00:48:06.780 well everybody that's the show for tonight thank you so much for tuning in i'll see everybody back

00:48:12.060 here or somewhere in the same time in the same place next week and as always remember don't

00:48:17.740 let the government tell you that you've had too much to think

Rebel News Podcast - March 14, 2024

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Calgary's former mayor announces leadership bid for the Alberta NDP

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