Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Is the new trend of declaring climate emergencies only symbolic？

00:00:00.000 The city of Calgary, Alberta has a brand new mayor and she's got an emergency to fight already. 0.89

00:00:06.060 Yes friends, it's a climate emergency. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:00:30.000 You know, as I'm filming this right now, my kids are on a snow day. I'm filming this on the 16th of November 2021.

00:00:38.180 I wouldn't say it's a climate emergency, but it's a bit of a climate inconvenience for me.

00:00:43.380 And yet, brand new mayor in Calgary has decided that the most pressing issue facing her city is not the 30% vacancy rate in Calgary's downtown core or outward migration of oil field head offices

00:00:56.760 or the crippling crunch of public sector salaries and benefits.

00:01:02.300 No friends. For her, it's global warming, climate change.

00:01:06.880 She's barely been in office but a few weeks.

00:01:09.880 However, this focus should send a message to Calgarians about where their city government is going and they should be very worried about what this all means for their tax bill.

00:01:20.840 But don't take my word for it because my friend and colleague, Adam Sos, actually lives in Calgary.

00:01:27.740 He's going to have to deal with this and he's got a brand new petition at NoClimateEmergency.com where you can sign his petition calling on the city of Calgary to focus their energy somewhere less frivolous and more meaningful.

00:01:42.820 And at that website, you can actually send the mayor's office a message via email directly.

00:01:48.540 Now, here's Adam in an interview we recorded yesterday morning to discuss his new petition, but also the Conservative Party leadership chaos and whatever else two Albertans felt like talking about when they don't like, I guess, any government.

00:02:04.540 Here's Adam.

00:02:05.100 Joining me now from his home studio in Calgary is my friend and colleague, Adam Sos, and we are doing a bit of a wrap-up about all things in the conservative sphere, not just in Alberta, but I guess all across the country.

00:02:26.080 Adam, the first thing I wanted to talk to you about is an initiative that you've taken on yourself as a resident of Calgary.

00:02:34.180 You've suffered for, you know, many, many years under former mayor Naheed Nenshi and his bad ideas.

00:02:41.460 And you know what?

00:02:42.620 I think your new mayor is going to give him a run for his money.

00:02:45.440 What do you think?

00:02:46.960 Yeah, I think I certainly agree.

00:02:48.880 And the sort of sad thing is you always knew what to expect from Nenshi.

00:02:53.900 Since becoming a mayoral candidate, we've known what to expect from mayoral newcomer, Jyoti Gondek.

00:02:59.560 But there was a time where she was a loud and proud energy sector endorser.

00:03:05.600 There's pictures of her with the I Love Alberta and I Love Canada oil stuff.

00:03:08.720 She wore the sweaters.

00:03:09.600 She did the whole spiel. 0.97

00:03:10.580 We put out a video this week, and it's part of our NoClimateEmergency.com campaign.

00:03:17.020 And you can see the full clip of Jyoti endorsing all the environmental and economic perks of Canadian energy compared to other oil and energy providers around the world.

00:03:26.900 So she was once very much on side and very much an ally.

00:03:30.340 She and the rest of city council now, unfortunately, just last week, unanimously endorsed at least the notion of debating whether we should declare a climate emergency.

00:03:41.940 So not even one person in all of city council in Calgary, the conservative hub of oil country, not one person was like, this is silly.

00:03:49.340 All of them were like, yeah, we should probably have a chat about this.

00:03:52.900 One councillor, I believe, said, well, the emergency is a bit sort of dire, but let's talk about it anyways. 0.82

00:03:58.060 There was not one person who said, no, this is ridiculous. 0.74

00:04:00.940 They unanimously voted.

00:04:02.520 Again, they didn't unanimously vote to declare the emergency, but they voted that it should be given light of day in city council.

00:04:10.980 Even councillor Peter DeMond, and you'll see this in the video as well, acknowledged that this was merely a symbolic gesture to which I replied that there's no such thing as a symbolic emergency.

00:04:22.080 This is yet another in the never ending sort of political progressive opportunities to pat themselves on the back that does nothing to help people on a practical level, does nothing to alleviate the environment.

00:04:35.280 It's an opportunity for more friends to get contracts, more taxes, more pains and sufferings for the average Joes, but nothing actually being done for the actual environment to help the environment out. 0.98

00:04:47.240 So, yeah, no climate emergency, not in this province anyways, and certainly not in the city.

00:04:52.840 Now, what changed, I guess, what changed between being like, hey, we're poor oil sands.

00:04:58.940 I acknowledge the human rights abuses of the other oil producers of the world to, yeah, oil's bad in the, you know, oil capital of Canada.

00:05:10.040 What happened?

00:05:10.860 And that is the great question.

00:05:13.420 It's who knows, who knows what happened.

00:05:15.820 I mean, very likely she did become the favourite incumbent of Nahid Nenshi and was sort of pushed on this trajectory towards mayoralhood.

00:05:24.840 And one of the other things that's extremely troubling about this is she didn't hide this.

00:05:28.940 She talked about this when she was campaigning.

00:05:31.000 So, practically speaking, while she didn't certainly get a majority of the vote or an overwhelming win by any metric, the challenger who probably would have been more reasonable and opposed to this stuff, Jeremy Farkas, she beat him quite sort of decidedly.

00:05:45.340 So, she, as much as any mayor, has had a clear mandate to sort of endorse this.

00:05:50.600 So, you can't even just necessarily point the finger at her.

00:05:53.800 Problematically, people have also married into this ideology.

00:05:57.340 And when you have all the media, all these international sort of lobby groups, everyone just heralding that this is the point we have to push.

00:06:04.820 If you want to be popular and progressive, you have to marry this ideology, even if it's something that doesn't make sense, even if it's something that councillors are saying is simply symbolic.

00:06:16.020 The person who actually put this motion forward was Councillor Raj Dhaliwal.

00:06:20.940 It wasn't Jyoti Gandhi.

00:06:22.660 She said she was going to.

00:06:23.760 So, obviously, there's some conversations that have been had, and they did this.

00:06:27.120 Because when interviewed, he said that some of his constituents, this is reported, some of his constituents were very upset about, like, hail damage in a recent storm.

00:06:35.880 That's why he's passionate about climate change.

00:06:39.560 You can't make this stuff up.

00:06:41.460 It is just absolute.

00:06:42.580 Because, heaven forbid, there was ever another climate, non-climate change related hail storm.

00:06:48.080 Like, hail comes from climate change.

00:06:49.580 So, it is laughable.

00:06:51.200 It's a mixed bag of ideological nonsense and bogus excuses, acknowledgements that it's simply symbolic.

00:06:59.500 Listen, have a practical solution for, like, let's not pollute in our rivers.

00:07:04.960 Let's not do this.

00:07:05.740 Let's not do that.

00:07:06.840 I think everyone, particularly if it's hunters or outdoor activists, or active people, not activists, rather, but people who spend time outdoors are for protecting nature in practical terms.

00:07:18.620 That doesn't mean me sending tax dollars to the European Union or the Clinton Foundation or Tides Foundation.

00:07:24.840 It should be practical, either restrictions or sort of tax breaks for companies that are doing the right thing.

00:07:32.620 Not necessarily eco credits for people buying $140,000 Teslas or taxes that go into think tanks that don't actually produce anything or reduce pollution.

00:07:43.200 So, yeah, big mess, yet another in the never-ending of eco schemes that are out there.

00:07:49.620 Ultimately, I'm hoping that it is mere virtue signaling and it doesn't amount to anything.

00:07:54.660 Or maybe it could be attempting to fill the core.

00:07:57.680 They're going to have grants to lure. 0.99

00:07:59.600 And this is hopeful.

00:08:00.540 I'm hoping GOT is listening.

00:08:01.740 Hopeful and wishful thinking.

00:08:02.820 Hopefully, they lure new business in and innovations by giving credits to eco, whatever.

00:08:09.640 I don't care.

00:08:10.200 But something good that helps the city.

00:08:12.400 Because if it's just less, like taking our garbage even less and more pain in the butt stuff and limitations on vehicles that are further going to hinder a city that's already struggling and is already at a third capacity, I'm not interested in any of it.

00:08:25.140 Well, and that's the thing.

00:08:26.920 They say these declarations are purely symbolic.

00:08:29.740 However, there are very tangible things that flow from these declarations in the same way that, oh, you know, like the Paris Agreement targets, those are purely aspirational.

00:08:42.100 And so the Conservatives at the time under Andrew Scheer whipped the vote to support the Paris Accord targets.

00:08:46.700 And then, well, then we get all these, like the gender-based analysis on energy projects.

00:08:54.400 They all sort of get spawned from that.

00:08:56.460 You end up seeing the carbon tax tick up and up and up because, oh, well, even the Conservatives agreed with this sort of stuff.

00:09:03.080 And so I think at the municipal level, yep, this means fewer garbage pickup days, more expensive recycling, more bike lanes that nobody uses for sure.

00:09:13.660 And I didn't realize that this was the case.

00:09:17.840 I thought it was a safety issue.

00:09:19.820 But William Macbeth from True North, who is a municipal watcher in Calgary, he explained it to me that the reason they want to reduce the speed limit in residential areas is not really for safety issues.

00:09:35.100 It's to combat climate change.

00:09:37.080 They think slow your car down, get there slower, fewer emissions in your residential cul-de-sac.

00:09:43.720 I mean, it's just crazy.

00:09:44.840 Like, do these people have chauffeurs?

00:09:46.540 When you're driving a really long distance on the highway at high speeds, you cover more distance and use less gas.

00:09:53.840 Like, and it also, they're so, it's so funny, and we were just talking about this, but they're so anti-scientific.

00:09:58.340 Like, that varies so dramatically.

00:10:01.080 For example, like, a light car with a four-cylinder engine will be more efficient at, like, inner-city stop-and-go traffic.

00:10:08.320 A big engine's more efficient on the highway.

00:10:10.100 So it's like this nonsense blanket sentiment in the name of the environment, but it isn't actually based in any sort of tangible evidence.

00:10:16.820 It's like a kooky idea that someone had, and now somehow, without any vetting or common-sense procedures, it's become a law that we're all, or a bylaw at the very least, that we're all forced to live by.

00:10:30.820 Beyond that, there is always the hope, as we said, that, like, oh, they're already working on a green transit line.

00:10:37.520 They'll include this.

00:10:38.440 Like, it could just be, not that this is necessary, but they're just patting themselves on the back, and they're going to start saying,

00:10:43.320 all these things we're doing are part of our effort to be green, and maybe that attracts investors from tech companies, whatever.

00:10:51.220 That's the best-case, most hopeful scenario.

00:10:53.340 But the other negative outlook to this is, like, oil companies who view Calgary and have been moving to Calgary,

00:11:00.400 they may get the impression, depending on how it's handled and how it's declared, that the mayor of the city, who's, like I said, the core is one-third vacant,

00:11:08.320 there's businesses, and these landowners would clearly, like, renters or leasers in those buildings.

00:11:14.620 You think, as the mayor of a city, you'd be like, we want big tech, we want eco-tech, we want oil and gas.

00:11:21.400 Come on, this is the place to do business.

00:11:23.920 You can have it all.

00:11:25.320 You don't need to bash your old friend because you have a new group of friends.

00:11:28.760 This isn't high school.

00:11:29.740 You can encourage the most ethical oil on Earth and encourage new green investments, and then you can win in both worlds.

00:11:36.160 You can keep your eco-buddies happy, and you can actually contribute to economic well-being.

00:11:40.860 The other thing that really gets me going about this is the declaration of an emergency, a climate emergency.

00:11:47.540 And I say this in our video, so for those who've seen it, I do apologize because it will have been out already,

00:11:51.680 but the sort of psychological impact, jumping from crises to crises, the environment, everyone was going to die,

00:11:58.540 then it's COVID, everybody's going to die, now we're back to a climate emergency.

00:12:02.720 These environmental activists are so keen on producing a safe future in a world for tomorrow

00:12:08.800 that they've created an environment that's so inhospitable to healthy growth.

00:12:13.720 Kids are afraid to live their day-to-day lives.

00:12:17.020 They're in a perpetual state of anxiety over all this.

00:12:19.520 We need some normalcy, and saying that we're going to lure in new business and we're going to move towards the future,

00:12:25.660 that can help people, but declaring a climate emergency, kids are panicking.

00:12:30.220 You're the mayor.

00:12:31.280 You're the city councillors.

00:12:32.620 They're looking to you for leadership.

00:12:35.000 Symbolically declaring an emergency, it's like calling 911 when you're not supposed to.

00:12:40.240 Emergency is a very important term that youth learn, that kids learn at a very young age,

00:12:45.000 and it means that something needs to be done.

00:12:46.720 There's a panic right now.

00:12:48.340 We need to act.

00:12:48.940 Kids shouldn't be looking up at the sky like Chicken Little, panicking that the sky's falling,

00:12:53.780 because every mayoral candidate and their partner and their dog and everyone under the sun,

00:12:59.320 Trudeau down, is so obsessed with generating fear over this.

00:13:03.540 It's absolutely despicable.

00:13:06.440 It isn't just the energy thing.

00:13:08.700 It isn't just the economic thing, but it's also the impact that it's having on the psyche of people

00:13:13.360 across the province and around the world.

00:13:15.420 Greta Thunberg being the poster child of all of this, really.

00:13:19.400 Yeah, it's true.

00:13:20.320 I mean, we just think what we've done to children.

00:13:22.820 And I mean, we as society and the people in charge of it, not you and I, who want our kids to be normal.

00:13:29.000 What's happened in the last 20 months with kids being constantly injected with fear from the TV, from school,

00:13:37.680 from all the rules that say you can't hug your little friends and you can't smile, you have to wear a mask and you have to stay apart.

00:13:44.020 And then you overlay climate hysteria on top of that and you've got a recipe for an anxiety riddled adult created in this time from what should be perfectly healthy little kids.

00:13:57.520 And moreover, to your point about the migration of head offices outside of Calgary, that's a very real thing.

00:14:04.340 For example, Chief Billy Morin from Enoch First Nation, just outside of Edmonton, one of his main economic goals is to attract oil and gas head offices there.

00:14:16.460 In fact, I think Mikasoo has an office there.

00:14:22.720 So the supply side of the Mikasoo First Nation, they have one of their head offices there, even though Mikasoo is in Fort McMurray.

00:14:31.520 And speaking of Fort McMurray, they have a brand new mayor who's pro oil and gas and pro small business, Sandy Bowman.

00:14:38.320 And he wants to make Fort McMurray, which makes a lot of sense, actually, the oil field head office hub.

00:14:44.500 And he's willing to create economic incentives for companies to do that.

00:14:49.340 So, I mean, Calgary's loss could be these other places gain.

00:14:53.160 And she's really sending a message to those companies with this climate emergency baloney.

00:14:58.160 And the impact in the community, like we talked about the mental health on this, but like parents losing their jobs and the economic instability within a community is also devastating.

00:15:07.320 For years and years, McLean's magazine would often have Calgary as one of the cultural hubs of Canada, sometimes putting it above Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver.

00:15:15.980 Sorry to break it to the progressive left who love all the arts and culture.

00:15:19.340 But the ballet, the museums, all that lovely stuff, the private art shows, the galleries, it was all oil money, funding, all of it.

00:15:26.800 So all your pretty museum openings and all those ballet things, which I happen to like, too.

00:15:30.680 I'm being a little tongue in cheek here.

00:15:32.600 But that goes away when you kick away the oil companies who are paying for all of it.

00:15:37.560 So they're going to notice that, oh, these eco investors who are relying on government grants and aren't making billions of dollars for the economy, they don't quite have the assets.

00:15:46.820 They aren't all Elon Musk to fund a massive cultural scene in a community.

00:15:51.020 So you're not only kicking them out, but you're kicking so much of the culture out with it.

00:15:55.480 Not to mention that the oil industry in itself is a culture, a rich and unique culture.

00:15:59.880 You can go to Heritage Park or some of these other places if they would let you in if you were unvaccinated.

00:16:04.560 They won't, so I'm not going to endorse them.

00:16:06.220 But they do have, whenever they get back to normal and sensibility, rich cultural displays of the oil heritage, like what went on, how hard people worked to make this place the great place it is.

00:16:18.320 And frankly, the only reason that Mayor Nenshi and Gondek are the mayors of world-class cities is because of the oil industries that built Calgary.

00:16:28.660 You know, it's a really great point.

00:16:30.000 Now, moving on from how awful the so-called climate emergency is, although I could talk about that for hours and hours and hours.

00:16:37.520 And I do think it's funny because you're like, I like going to the ballet.

00:16:40.060 And you and I are from a little bit two different worlds because I'm like, you know, my brother used to say he was going to the ballet, but he was going to watch the ladies dance at the airwaves.

00:16:49.860 To be fair, my wife took me, but it was good.

00:16:53.620 It was fun.

00:16:54.060 Now, I wanted to talk to you about somebody stepping his foot back into Alberta politics.

00:17:02.000 Brian Jean, former Wildrose leader, finished as first runner up, which unfortunately is also first loser to Jason Kenney and the leadership of the United Conservative Party after the two parties joined.

00:17:17.640 But he's ready to come back.

00:17:20.340 I do think the party needs a change in leadership.

00:17:23.280 This is not an endorsement of Brian Jean, but Jason Kenney is out of runway to fix his popularity problems.

00:17:30.800 And Brian Jean is saying all the right things.

00:17:33.380 I've seen some polling the other day that said up to 41 percent of people across the political spectrum say these vaccine mandates are a bridge too far.

00:17:42.580 And that's like that's not a conservative thing.

00:17:44.600 That's like an everybody thing.

00:17:46.220 And he is saying he opposes these vaccine mandates.

00:17:50.140 He's not anti-vaccine.

00:17:51.460 He thinks vaccines work, but he doesn't think you should lose your job if you've made the decision not to get one and you shouldn't be carved out of society.

00:17:58.940 And yet we're seeing Kenny proxies out there in the media saying Jason Kenney is appealing to the rural anti-vaxxer crowd.

00:18:07.880 Well, that's a bold strategy crapping on rural issues.

00:18:10.960 Let's see if that pays off for you.

00:18:12.400 But what do you think?

00:18:13.720 You know, it's really interesting because and this is just I had something else pretty much in mind to say, but this is just daunting on me now.

00:18:19.100 Now, Jason Kenney has gone out of his way to appeal to everybody and has, in fact, appealed to nobody by attempting to like the restriction exemption program is the pinnacle of tiptoeing on the fence, where in practice you're implementing the worst type of segregation and exclusion in Canadian history next to potentially Japanese internment.

00:18:39.580 That is functionally what you're doing, but you're pretending that it's kind of open and airy fairy.

00:18:43.940 So there's like maybe a hint of a suggestion that you respect freedom, but ultimately you're you're not doing anything at all.

00:18:51.340 Everything he's done has been middle of the fence, utterly void of principle.

00:18:55.040 Just trying to say trying he's got his think tank people trying to massage the situation and fit something into a mold that doesn't fit.

00:19:04.540 That's inherently divided.

00:19:06.560 It's interesting.

00:19:07.500 One of my concerns with Brian Jean, honestly, was one that we just keep having the same political voices coming back.

00:19:13.480 And Brian Jean was very beloved, but he didn't win.

00:19:16.100 And there was some questionable stuff, stepped away from politics, came back.

00:19:19.900 Obviously, he had some stuff in his personal life, and we don't need to go through all that.

00:19:23.580 But I completely understand why he took a step away from politics.

00:19:26.600 But what's next?

00:19:27.260 Like, Danielle Smith coming back.

00:19:28.720 It's the same voices over and over.

00:19:30.460 So my big concern with Brian Jean was like he was looking at involvement in an alternative centrist party.

00:19:36.620 And like, do we really need someone more centrist than Jason Kenney?

00:19:39.860 He's utterly void of.

00:19:41.580 So I was like, oh, what's Brian Jean really going to bring?

00:19:44.200 Even back then, Brian Jean was sort of the more centrist voice.

00:19:48.220 He didn't do a lot for me.

00:19:49.720 He was fine.

00:19:50.400 I liked him as a guy.

00:19:51.420 What's interesting now, though, and this is what just sort of dawned on me, is Brian Jean, if he has an ounce of principle in him, for example, as he said, saying that fundamentally undermining people's medical privacy or right to freedom with vaccine passports is wrong.

00:20:07.080 By having that principled stance that Jason Kenney seems to have completely lost track of, he is actually going to win over the reasonable people.

00:20:16.960 By instead of acting like quicksand and trying to fill in every gap and then sinking into nothingness, becoming a shadow of the man we once knew as Jason Kenney, if Brian Jean has some points that he can fix onto and lock onto and say, you know what?

00:20:31.380 We as a society, we as a society do not exclude people based on their vaccine status.

00:20:35.780 If he comes out and says that plain and simple, well, the conservatives who are sick of Jason Kenney but are still going to vote conservative, they're going to vote for him.

00:20:42.940 But I think he'll actually succeed in what Jason Kenney's been trying to do.

00:20:46.940 Jason Kenney and Aaron O'Toole, and we'll get to that, I'm sure, have been trying to win over some of the left, assuming they can treat the right like dirt and get away with it.

00:20:54.080 Brian Jean is going to win over those people on the left who are principal, and we've seen people who aren't traditional conservatives, some of our lawyers, some of the business owners we've talked to, who are coming on side with Rebel News and the alleged conservatives, saying, you know what?

00:21:09.260 This has nothing to do with right or left anymore.

00:21:11.540 This has to do with respecting human beings.

00:21:13.400 And I think Brian Jean is going to do pretty damn well for himself if he can say, no, enough is enough.

00:21:19.780 I don't care what Justin Trudeau says.

00:21:21.460 I don't care what Rachel Notley says.

00:21:22.880 I don't care about what Dr. Joe Vipon says.

00:21:25.380 We do not discriminate against people because we're Canadian, and Canadians simply don't do that.

00:21:30.620 He will win people over, and he's probably going to be the next premier of this province if he manages to stick to that line and has some good, reasonable, sensible economic policies.

00:21:39.380 But I think we are at a value test crux for Alberta.

00:21:42.840 And if someone doesn't come forward and have that strong position and win over Alberta, at least enough to form a government, we're in trouble.

00:21:52.520 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:53.480 And Brian Jean is the only one saying the right things, particularly in that riding.

00:21:59.240 There are some, you know, UCP backbenchers at this point who are saying, you know, I'm against the vaccine mandate.

00:22:07.140 Okay, well, what are you doing about it, though?

00:22:10.140 Well, why am I just hearing from you now, after it's implemented?

00:22:14.700 Even with those people, they're still clearly, like, I have no doubt they said, I'm doing this, I'm letting you know.

00:22:21.640 And Jason said, well, as long as you don't talk to Rebel about this, don't go on.

00:22:25.140 None of these people are doing interviews or talking.

00:22:27.580 They're putting out a letter that expresses their opinion that's probably been okayed by the party to some extent.

00:22:33.300 And then they're not talking about it after the fact.

00:22:36.540 So it's almost a washing of the hands.

00:22:38.460 I support Matt Jones and some of these other people for these strong letters that they have put out.

00:22:44.520 But these people should be stepping up and being the next leaders, not just someone who issues one letter and then goes back into the back benches.

00:22:52.540 Yeah, they fall in line really, really quick.

00:22:55.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:55.840 So I feel like they've allowed a bit of purging by allowing these letters out.

00:22:58.720 But when fundamental human rights violations and freedom violations are taking place, one letter doesn't cut it.

00:23:05.660 So hopefully Brian Jean, Drew Barnes, some of these other folks who are out there, politicians, will continue to fight for freedom for Albertans.

00:23:12.920 Well, and the other person running in Jean's writing, Joshua Gogo, he is, I think it sounds like he's a Kenny loyalist.

00:23:23.360 He refuses to give his opinion on vaccine mandates, which is refusing to give your opinion on fundamental human rights at the end of the day.

00:23:30.860 And Jason Kenney seems to be writing all this off.

00:23:34.260 And I don't think that's a good idea.

00:23:36.600 He's, according to this Edmonton Journal article, he's characterized Brian Jean as a nuisance.

00:23:41.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:44.080 It's not great.

00:23:45.960 No.

00:23:46.420 And I mean, the fact that he did a press conference and he said, and frankly, he said some of the points that I've raised as points of concern.

00:23:52.620 And they were valid and fair.

00:23:54.320 But they asked him a question.

00:23:57.040 And unlike the stumbling, unsure of himself, Jason Kenney, we've seen, he clearly had a scripted response.

00:24:02.060 And you don't have scripted responses for people that are just a nuisance that you don't care about.

00:24:06.360 He's clearly threatened by him.

00:24:07.940 And that is further evidence, not only in his basically borderline personal attacks on Brian Jean, not altogether out of off base, but they're clearly personal attacks.

00:24:18.020 But other UCP loyalists, think tank people, advisors, all that, they've taken every opportunity to jump on Brian Jean in the last few weeks.

00:24:26.100 I, for one, think that if Jason Kenney spent less time, him and his group of little advisors spent less time on attacking Brian Jean, they could spend a little more time on bringing in some much needed things like, let's say, natural immunity testing for Albertans.

00:24:40.460 But he's too busy for that because he's already campaigning for the leadership.

00:24:44.000 I don't think, I don't know if it's, he has his own little bubble and he's isolated from the world, but he's lost everyone who loved Jason Kenney does not anymore.

00:24:53.160 He's lost it.

00:24:54.120 He's lost the plot completely.

00:24:56.260 And he needs to really turn things around, but it's probably too late.

00:24:59.960 And I think there is a massive opening for Brian Jean to jump into.

00:25:03.920 But again, he has to resist that sort of centrist, try and keep everyone happy thing that Aaron O'Toole has fallen victim to as well.

00:25:11.720 He has to have a couple stakes in the ground that are not shifting because Albertans need a politician.

00:25:18.320 Canadians need a politician.

00:25:19.740 Aaron O'Toole would have won if he was anybody else with any fixed principles who they know what they're getting.

00:25:24.760 Well, and that's the thing.

00:25:27.220 I think Jason Kenney doesn't realize that the same buyer's remorse that he benefited from, people who voted for the NDP who were like, yikes, Brian Jean's about to benefit from that too.

00:25:41.760 And I think Jason Kenney would do well to take that seriously instead of writing it off as a nuisance.

00:25:49.400 His popularity or lack thereof, that's not a nuisance.

00:25:55.240 That's a catastrophe waiting to happen.

00:25:58.040 And Jason Kenney might have to decide that he cares more about Alberta than he does about being in charge of the party he helped unite.

00:26:07.420 Because if he stays on and he doesn't permit a leadership review, because I think he's the guy with the final say, it spells an NDP government going forward.

00:26:19.400 And we will 100%, for those folks who don't know, we will be at the UCPAGM this weekend.

00:26:25.880 We're going to be talking to people, getting a vibe, hopefully putting out videos as the day goes along, getting a vibe for what the sentiment is.

00:26:33.140 We know people aren't happy.

00:26:35.340 There are the little lackeys and tagalongs and inner circle who are Team Kenney first and foremost.

00:26:40.500 There are some politicians who probably would not have won their nomination and were put in by Kenney.

00:26:45.760 Those people are likely to remain loyal to Kenney, regardless of what he does.

00:26:49.900 And they'll probably work with him wherever he goes afterwards.

00:26:52.800 But yeah, for the rest of us, there's a stark reality dawning for Jason Kenney.

00:26:59.420 And hopefully the rest of the party, I know lots of people, but hopefully we hear from a lot of people who are willing to voice their concern,

00:27:06.940 if not on camera, at least off camera.

00:27:10.380 Now, speaking of Conservatives not as advertised, I know I've kept you a little late, so we'll just tear through this kind of briefly.

00:27:17.920 We're recording this on Monday because of how schedules permit, but our viewers will be watching it on Wednesday.

00:27:23.440 And about an hour ago, a Conservative senator launches petition to oust Erin O'Toole as leader.

00:27:31.180 And this shocks me because she's not much of a wave maker.

00:27:36.120 I like her.

00:27:37.360 I like her.

00:27:38.120 I like Denise Batters.

00:27:40.460 Every time I see her, she reminds me of there being some benefit to the Senate, because usually I'm like, just abolish it.

00:27:48.080 It's awful, just abolish it.

00:27:49.800 But I see her, and she's very good on Conservative issues, and she was an Andrew Scheer absolute loyalist.

00:27:58.380 Absolute loyalist.

00:27:59.620 And for the longest time, she was an Erin O'Toole loyalist too.

00:28:03.280 But right now, she's launched a petition to oust Erin O'Toole as party leader, and she's the highest profile one to be saying this yet.

00:28:13.100 There was Burt Chen, I mean, but he's been purged from the party altogether.

00:28:16.680 She said that O'Toole's, on O'Toole's watch, the party flip-flopped on major issues, such as carbon pricing, firearms, and conscience rights, and has once again lost Conservative seats in urban and suburban ridings in Alberta, BC, and the greater Toronto area.

00:28:35.060 And she said, while he campaigned as a true blue Conservative in the leadership race, he ran a federal election campaign that was nearly indistinguishable from Trudeau's Liberals.

00:28:45.260 Thank you, Denise.

00:28:46.300 Thank you.

00:28:46.900 It is, again, I told you so, but it is nice to see that the Conservatives are actually saying this now.

00:28:52.940 And because she's a high-profile senator from the West, the Conservative hotbed, this is going to get taken seriously.

00:29:00.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:29:01.120 And, you know, the wild thing with all this, one, I'm going to thank her for not only saying what we're all thinking, but saying what Erin O'Toole is doing.

00:29:07.640 At least Andrew Scheer, despite sort of being floppy on this stuff as well, he has, like, a personality and he was kind of funny.

00:29:16.860 Erin O'Toole, if you had a shot every time that guy just said, our plan, our plan, our plan, instead of saying anything like he believed it, you'd be in trouble.

00:29:25.880 You'd be in rehab.

00:29:26.920 It's an absolute bore fest.

00:29:30.640 And it's not only that.

00:29:31.660 It isn't a bore fest, but, like, the principles are in line and they have everything right.

00:29:36.340 Harper.

00:29:36.600 Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:29:38.660 Harper was so boring, but, like, nothing was a disaster.

00:29:41.160 I mean, don't get me wrong, some social issues.

00:29:43.040 I'm not going to get into that now.

00:29:44.180 But Harper, boring, but everything was sort of, like, we had a decent plan and the economy was online.

00:29:49.660 This is absolutely boring and yet still a categorical disaster and still wish-washing on everything.

00:29:57.000 I think one of the problems with Erin O'Toole as well, I mean, they have to get rid of everyone in the war room. 1.00

00:30:02.080 It's absolutely embarrassing how they write that campaign.

00:30:04.180 And if they don't get over themselves and fire everyone involved, frankly, including the leader, he has no business leading anything beyond the, I don't know, what's something really boring, leaving the most boring thing possible.

00:30:17.780 Yeah, yeah.

00:30:20.040 You could be a CBC host.

00:30:21.320 Sorry.

00:30:21.820 Yeah, perfect.

00:30:22.380 But it's so, like, milquetoast and vapid and empty and there's no adherence to principles.

00:30:30.880 It's the same thing we talked about with Kenny, where it's a windsock, but it's not a windsock among the conservative movement or a windsock about where the tides are going.

00:30:40.340 It's like, what is Justin Trudeau saying and how do we not get in trouble with his base because we want to win people over?

00:30:48.360 That's the entirety of the campaign strategy.

00:30:51.140 How do we, like, submit to not allow him to create?

00:30:55.280 Try to win.

00:30:56.640 Like, the best defense is good offense.

00:30:59.020 Stop trying to, like, they're like, we want to not lose.

00:31:03.120 There's a word for that.

00:31:04.160 It's called winning.

00:31:05.320 And the conservative movement has been trying to not lose.

00:31:07.880 The assumption that Justin Trudeau is so bad, which is true, that Canadians won't vote for him.

00:31:13.760 Well, Canadians aren't necessarily good voters. 0.97

00:31:15.760 They don't have a good track record of it.

00:31:17.240 And don't get me wrong, the majority of more Canadians voted for conservatives than Justin Trudeau.

00:31:21.180 But to lose to that guy, the reason they lost isn't necessarily where they stood on anything.

00:31:26.740 It's because they didn't stand for anything.

00:31:28.780 They lost votes to the PBC because you knew where the PBC stood.

00:31:31.920 And as much as you can dislike Justin Trudeau, barring a few things, you know he's a radical activist who's going to do, you know what you're getting with him.

00:31:41.700 With Aaron O'Toole, you literally never know what you're going to get.

00:31:44.060 And more often than not, and to the credit of the senator, you got whatever Trudeau was saying.

00:31:48.820 And you would swap from week to week on this.

00:31:51.260 I think one of the biggest issues with people within the party being loyalists to Aaron O'Toole is I think lots of their policy writing was sort of suave and tongue-in-cheek.

00:32:04.560 And so there'd be like a little like, it sounded like it was all super pro-eco.

00:32:10.800 And then there'd be like a little paragraph at the end that would say like, and we support our oil industries, blah, blah, blah.

00:32:16.180 So anyone you'd rate, and I talked to good principled conservatives, who when you'd raise oppositions, they'd say, well, actually, in the policy platform, it does say this.

00:32:25.540 I'm like, yeah, but there's several paragraphs about all this eco-nonsense.

00:32:29.620 And then there's one little line about this.

00:32:31.860 It clearly reflects the sentiments.

00:32:34.140 Aaron O'Toole was unwilling to answer questions and wouldn't talk in favor of Alberta oil in the Quebec debates.

00:32:39.360 Furthermore, I mean, if you're going to profess to be a party that tends to represent Western values, that entire debate process where people were excluded, the PPC was excluded, the debates effectively all took place in Quebec.

00:32:53.200 Two out of three were French language.

00:32:55.660 Aaron O'Toole, the first thing he should have done is you're excluding journalists and you've completely alienated the English-speaking West.

00:33:02.420 I'm not taking part in your joke debates.

00:33:04.640 Maxine Bernier and I are going to have a real debate in somewhere in the middle, let's say, Calgary.

00:33:10.780 And anyone who wants to come, anyone who's the leader of a party, have some thresholds.

00:33:15.120 You don't have everyone showing up.

00:33:16.860 But that would have been the move, and he would have been the prime minister of this country right now.

00:33:21.140 If he would have done anything to indicate he had an ounce of principle, that's what people are looking for.

00:33:26.220 One of the problems with Justin Trudeau, successes rather, is that he believes some of the stuff he says, as much as he stumbles through it, and he says it with conviction.

00:33:37.420 So people are like, well, you know, at least that guy seems to care.

00:33:40.320 I mean, he may be wrong about everything, but he really seems passionate.

00:33:42.980 It's the same thing with the appeal with Jagmeet Singh. 0.77

00:33:45.440 Like, everything he says is ridiculous, but he says it like he really means it.

00:33:49.460 Aaron O'Toole, I don't know if he said anything that he really meant the entire campaign. 0.98

00:33:52.920 It was so just absolutely soulless.

00:33:56.520 So people are looking for someone that they can gravitate towards.

00:33:59.520 They thought it was Jason Kenney in Alberta.

00:34:01.240 It's not.

00:34:01.540 Now they're looking.

00:34:02.520 Hopefully, Brian Jean, in that case, is the person who does it.

00:34:05.140 They're looking within the Conservative Party for someone who they're like, I know what I'm getting, and this person believes this.

00:34:12.580 Yeah, they want someone who wants to win, not someone who's just trying to not lose.

00:34:17.200 So last question, fantasy football, who's your leader?

00:34:22.920 Of the federal Conservatives.

00:34:25.700 Yeah, it's, and unfortunately, lots of the people that you want have said that they're not running.

00:34:31.240 I think everyone wants Pierre Polyevre.

00:34:33.040 Yeah.

00:34:33.560 Yeah, everyone wants Pierre Polyevre.

00:34:35.340 I would take Dr. Leslie Lewis.

00:34:37.020 I voted for her as my priority pick.

00:34:39.580 There's a lot of people who are exceptionally strong.

00:34:42.960 Dr. Leslie Lewis would be incredible because all of the sort of race-baiting, gender-politics stuff that Justin Trudeau somehow manages to pull off.

00:34:51.040 As a privileged, rich white male would be completely shot in the face. 0.75

00:34:54.580 Who wore blackface. 0.98

00:34:55.780 Yeah, who wore blackface. 0.96

00:34:57.180 We could hopefully actually just talk about ideas.

00:34:59.240 But on a principled, ideal-level basis, I would have said Garnet, Janice, not that long ago.

00:35:05.980 I can't anymore.

00:35:06.820 That climate video just did me in.

00:35:08.320 I know he's still a good guy, but the whole Paris thing, I know he didn't believe that.

00:35:12.240 I know Tom doesn't want to, but Tom Kimmich is a good guy who believes in principles.

00:35:17.380 So there are people out there.

00:35:19.600 There's no lack of decent principled politicians.

00:35:22.780 But the thing is, often it's the same boat.

00:35:25.680 Pierre's been more outspoken, but they put out one letter or they'll say one good thing, and then they move back to the back lines.

00:35:32.440 So, yeah, fantasy draft.

00:35:34.140 Pierre's the person who's come out time and time again and actually said things.

00:35:37.900 And I don't doubt.

00:35:39.060 He's incredibly popular, and he's probably gotten in trouble with the party for putting out some of these videos that are sharing popular ideas.

00:35:45.840 And, frankly, we did the do-you-know-who-this-is, Aaron O'Toole thing.

00:35:49.300 No one recognized the dude.

00:35:50.660 We went to downtown Calgary, showed people a picture of Aaron O'Toole.

00:35:54.120 People didn't know who he was.

00:35:56.280 Pierre Pauly-Ever's team could have done a better job with the campaign than the entire Conservative war room did.

00:36:02.220 Sure.

00:36:02.660 And, honestly, they should have deployed him to some of the more at-risk ridings.

00:36:06.860 But I think there's a problem in the Aaron O'Toole party in that the sun can only shine on one.

00:36:14.280 And that's sort of why Pauly-Ever was initially shuffled out of finance, because he was actually probably too effective there.

00:36:21.700 But I think my picks are the same as yours.

00:36:23.740 Pierre Pauly-Ever, Leslyn Lewis.

00:36:25.200 And some of that, for me, is for spite, because O'Toole didn't give her a critic position, which is basically just relegating her to an inconsequential backbencher within the critic's role instead of a potential party unifier with new ideas.

00:36:44.280 And, of course, perennial favourite, Candice Bergen.

00:36:48.180 She's so strong on oil and gas and so strong on firearms rights and, you know, always consistent.

00:36:56.020 And so I don't think she should be overlooked.

00:36:58.500 No.

00:36:58.940 Yeah.

00:36:59.060 Well, you know what, I kept you 15 minutes later than I said I would, and you and I have very busy days, very busy weeks covering all the news.

00:37:09.700 Adam, thanks so much for coming on the show.

00:37:12.040 You always do such great work for us and such a great advocate for your community, but also for the people, just the normals of Calgary, the non-victims of climate change in Calgary.

00:37:24.140 So, you know, keep up the great work out there.

00:37:26.620 Thanks very much.

00:37:27.200 Really appreciate it.

00:37:27.780 You too, Sheila.

00:37:28.720 Thanks.

00:37:36.560 Again, friends, if you'd like to sign Adam's petition to the City of Calgary and the mayor, it's at noclimateemergency.com.

00:37:45.040 And at that special website, he's got a special link there where you can click on it and send a message directly to the mayor's office telling her that Calgary has more pressing issues than the weather unless she wants to do something about snow removal.

00:38:04.080 Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.

00:38:06.340 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:38:08.000 I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.

00:38:11.140 And remember, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:38:15.440 Thank you.

Rebel News Podcast - November 18, 2021

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Is the new trend of declaring climate emergencies only symbolic？

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