Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Progressive take over Alberta's big cities

00:00:00.000 Oh hey Rebels, it's me, Sheila Gunn-Reed, probably your favorite Rebel.

00:00:05.460 Anyways, you're listening to a free audio recording of my weekly Wednesday night show,

00:00:09.660 The Gunn Show, but you know what, I say it every week, this is the internet, and the

00:00:14.020 beauty of the internet is that you can listen or watch whenever is convenient for you.

00:00:18.640 Tonight my guest is William Macbeth from True North, and we are discussing the catastrophe

00:00:26.880 if you're a conservative, but the victory and good news if you're progressive that unfolded

00:00:35.000 across the province in the municipal elections that took place Monday night.

00:00:39.780 Now if you like listening to the show, then I promise you're going to love watching it,

00:00:43.560 but in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:47.920 That's what we call our long-form TV-style shows here on Rebel News.

00:00:52.120 Subscribers there get access to my show, which, you know, I don't want to toot my own horn,

00:00:56.520 but I think it's pretty good, but you also get access to Ezra's nightly Ezra Levant show,

00:01:02.100 David Menzies' fun Friday night show, Rebel Roundup, and Andrew Chapados's,

00:01:08.080 oh, his show's not new, I don't know why I keep saying his show's new,

00:01:11.500 it's been around for a while, and it's really great.

00:01:13.480 Andrew Chapados's show, Andrew says, it's only eight bucks a month to subscribe,

00:01:18.480 and just for my podcast listeners, well, and everybody else's podcast listeners too,

00:01:23.160 you can save an extra 10% on a new Rebel News Plus subscription by using the coupon code podcast

00:01:28.220 when you subscribe.

00:01:29.500 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com to become a member today,

00:01:33.840 and now please enjoy this free audio-only version of my show.

00:01:37.140 Edmonton and Calgary voted for more bike lanes, more expensive recycling programs,

00:01:57.460 and probably lower speed limits.

00:01:59.920 We are unpacking the municipal election results from Monday night here in Alberta.

00:02:06.700 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:02:09.780 Calgary has a new progressive mayor after 11 years of a progressive mayor named Naheed Nenshi.

00:02:34.720 The new mayor in Calgary is named Jodi Gondek, and just one day after she became the mayor-elect,

00:02:43.620 she says she's going to address the real problem in Calgary, the so-called climate emergency,

00:02:50.080 which sounds expensive for the taxpayer.

00:02:53.780 And Edmonton just voted for a failed former cabinet minister under Justin Trudeau named Amarjeet Sohi.

00:03:00.620 The new mayor was Justin Trudeau's minister of natural resources who oversaw the construction of

00:03:07.240 precisely, exactly, zero Canadian pipelines.

00:03:12.040 How did this all happen, and what does the conservative movement do next?

00:03:16.920 Well, I thought I'd call in an expert on municipal politics.

00:03:20.780 It's been a while, frankly too long since he's been on the show,

00:03:24.240 and I'm very excited to welcome him back.

00:03:27.140 However, I wish it were under much happier circumstances for the residents of Alberta's

00:03:33.660 two major municipalities, Edmonton, Calgary.

00:03:37.520 So, joining me now from True North is my friend William Macbeth

00:03:43.060 in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon.

00:03:57.140 So, joining me now is my friend William Macbeth from True North,

00:04:04.360 and it has been far too long since William was on the show.

00:04:08.940 William, thanks so much for joining me.

00:04:11.020 You are the perfect guy to digest what happened in Monday night's municipal elections in Alberta.

00:04:17.820 My first question to you is, why is everything so awful,

00:04:21.680 and what is going to happen to us going forward?

00:04:24.460 You know, as conservatives, we're often pretty good at finding the silver lining to things

00:04:31.380 because we don't tend to win elections as often as we would like.

00:04:35.720 But I have to say, in last night's municipal elections, there were very few pieces of good news.

00:04:42.060 I would say the outcome for conservatives was pretty catastrophic,

00:04:45.540 and I think we're actually in some real trouble now in both of our major cities

00:04:50.200 based on who we've elected to lead us for the next four years.

00:04:53.260 Okay, let's start with where you're at in Calgary.

00:04:58.540 Tell us a little bit about the new mayor and the outcome of the elections there.

00:05:04.520 So, all the way through the election, we had seen it being a pretty close race

00:05:09.040 between Councillor Jeremy Farkas and Councillor Jody Gondek.

00:05:13.920 Jeremy Farkas, as I think a lot of people know, was running as a pretty hardcore conservative.

00:05:19.460 He had a record on council, one of the few on Calgary's council with a record of voting for lower taxes,

00:05:26.180 spending cuts, fiscal responsibility, and of standing up against the bullies in the establishment

00:05:32.100 who, frankly, never wanted the gravy train to end.

00:05:35.320 They were having a pretty good time on the taxpayers' dime.

00:05:37.780 But when the votes were finally counted last night, the election itself wasn't even close.

00:05:43.340 Jody Gondek won with 45% of the vote to Jeremy Farkas' 30%,

00:05:48.320 a much, much wider gap than any of the polling had predicted.

00:05:52.000 And I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

00:05:54.400 We can talk about it.

00:05:55.180 But part of it is going to be that Jeremy was pulled down, I think,

00:05:59.380 by the current unpopularity of the Alberta United Conservative government.

00:06:04.640 Yeah, you know, the polling data that I saw had Jeremy ahead by one percentage point.

00:06:12.560 But when all was said and done and it was all over but the crying,

00:06:16.980 the polls were absolutely dead wrong.

00:06:18.960 And explain to me, why do you think this was a reflection of the unpopularity of the UCP?

00:06:25.240 I actually think it was more than just the mayor's race.

00:06:28.060 If you look at who was elected last night in Calgary,

00:06:31.580 people who were either endorsed by the public sector unions

00:06:34.840 or who are publicly affiliated with being leftists, or as they would say, progressives,

00:06:40.620 won 10 out of the 15 seats.

00:06:43.560 And that number may grow because, of course, Councillor Sean Chu,

00:06:47.260 you know, with all the votes counted, only ended up winning by 52 votes.

00:06:51.040 He's facing a lot of challenges right now based on some late-breaking news

00:06:55.220 that came out right before Election Day.

00:06:57.740 If he resigns or is recalled, I think the unions have a decent chance of picking up that seat, too,

00:07:03.060 which means we're down to only four even remotely Conservative votes on Council.

00:07:08.020 And I think it's just because anybody who had aligned themselves

00:07:12.320 in either the last provincial election with the United Conservative government

00:07:15.880 or who tried to not just lambaste the United Conservative government

00:07:21.620 over the last few months took a hit from the current unpopularity of that government

00:07:27.940 and the premier in particular.

00:07:29.200 You know, and I think the same thing unfolded in Edmonton with Mike Nichol.

00:07:34.100 Now, Mike Nichol has been out there for the better part of the last year campaigning

00:07:38.920 and campaigning as an unashamed Conservative.

00:07:42.760 And yet, Edmonton on Monday night, because it'll be Wednesday before this goes to air,

00:07:48.840 Edmonton elected a former Liberal cabinet minister named Amarjeet Sohi,

00:07:53.620 who lost his seat to Tim Uppel a couple of years ago.

00:07:59.580 And then as Liberals tend to do, they fail upwards and downwards.

00:08:03.480 And he decided that he was going to run for mayor and he won.

00:08:07.720 So Edmonton has elected a former Trudeau cabinet minister,

00:08:13.960 anti-oil, anti-pipeline, anti-small business guy,

00:08:19.560 who, you know, he does have some experience before federal politics on city council.

00:08:26.100 But, I mean, that's a Trudeau proxy mayor in Edmonton now.

00:08:32.800 To the outside, I think there's some confusion as to how a province which votes

00:08:38.240 so overwhelmingly conservative, particularly at the federal level,

00:08:43.160 could end up electing two, quote-unquote, progressive,

00:08:46.520 or as we would call them, left-wing mayor.

00:08:49.520 But the fact is, though, there's a few factors.

00:08:52.180 First of all, I think that Conservatives have really ignored municipal politics in Alberta.

00:08:59.280 We have virtually no infrastructure.

00:09:02.900 We don't have a pool of activists.

00:09:05.340 We don't have the same policy generation that the left does.

00:09:10.000 You know, too often, Conservatives on city council think their job is saying no.

00:09:14.060 And I think a lot of the time, by the way, their job is to say no.

00:09:17.380 Sure.

00:09:17.800 If they're saying no, then they have to be able to say what the alternative is.

00:09:22.720 So if you don't like what's being proposed by the progressives, by the leftists, by the unions,

00:09:28.420 well, what's your alternative?

00:09:29.780 So what's your alternative for downtown revitalization?

00:09:33.020 What's your, you know, here in Calgary, a major issue?

00:09:35.400 What's your alternative for growing the economy if it isn't big government?

00:09:38.980 And I don't know where those ideas are or where they're going to come from, but it was

00:09:44.460 a pretty, it was pretty clear during the campaign that Conservatives didn't have the same level

00:09:49.160 of policy as, as the left did.

00:09:51.300 And then there's money.

00:09:52.580 And I think money is going to become a big story coming out of this election.

00:09:57.000 As I'm sure you know, the rules governing funding for candidates changed between the last election

00:10:04.320 and this one in municipal politics.

00:10:06.280 Unions and corporations were no longer allowed to give money directly to candidates, but they

00:10:10.500 could give it to third party advertisers or as they're more commonly called PACs.

00:10:15.200 And in the case of the unions in Calgary, those PACs raised millions of dollars.

00:10:20.720 And while we won't know for a few months and how much they ended up spending, I wouldn't

00:10:25.060 be surprised if they spent in excess of $3 million electing leftist candidates.

00:10:31.400 You know, it is, it's, it's shocking.

00:10:34.620 And, you know, in particular with Calgary, one of the things that you have been banging

00:10:40.080 the drum on for so long is the pension catastrophe and public sector compensation problems in Calgary.

00:10:49.060 I think it's just going to get worse and I fear for everybody's tax bills in Calgary.

00:10:54.940 I wouldn't just say Calgary.

00:10:56.800 I think Edmonton is going to be in the same situation where we've elected a majority council

00:11:02.380 and it's not even close.

00:11:03.960 You know, as we said, in Calgary, it's 10 votes for the left and five on the right.

00:11:09.460 Maybe even 11 of four when it all shakes out.

00:11:12.440 But they're going to be voting for higher salaries.

00:11:15.880 They're going to be voting for better benefits.

00:11:17.660 They're going to be voting for more generous pensions.

00:11:20.420 They always think bigger government is better.

00:11:22.680 So they're going to add people to the ranks of the civil service, to the bureaucracy.

00:11:27.200 And that puts us on the hook for even more pensions and benefits and high salaries.

00:11:32.940 So I think both of these cities are headed in a very dangerous direction.

00:11:37.460 And we don't have elected officials who recognize that it's become unsustainable for the tax base

00:11:43.900 of either of those cities to keep going.

00:11:45.800 And so since they're not going to cut costs, that means they're going to have to hike taxes.

00:11:52.020 You know, as long as you've been coming on my show, you and I have said that conservatives

00:11:56.820 walked off the field basically of municipal politics a long time ago.

00:12:01.560 And really, it's the one, you know, system of government that affects you first and often

00:12:07.240 the most.

00:12:07.780 It's that one big tax bill that you actually have to physically write out and give it to

00:12:11.800 somebody when you're paying your municipal taxes.

00:12:15.120 And then for, you know, for cultural conservatives, even SOCONS, you know, for people who are worried

00:12:24.060 about fighting the culture war, they get involved in fighting the culture war after the battle

00:12:29.360 is lost.

00:12:29.980 When they get that critical race theory piece of paper home from the school and you're like,

00:12:34.040 what the heck are they teaching my kids at school?

00:12:36.480 Well, you should have been involved at the school board trustee level.

00:12:40.940 But we just don't do it.

00:12:43.220 And this is a criticism of big conservatism, too, is that they are not helping to organize.

00:12:52.580 We focus on provincial politics.

00:12:54.240 We focus on federal politics.

00:12:56.020 But there's no real organization infrastructure and money going to develop those conservative

00:13:04.240 leaders of tomorrow.

00:13:06.080 No, you're absolutely right, Sheila.

00:13:08.180 And the fact that this isn't a bigger news story for conservatives is really appalling.

00:13:14.920 And, you know, when I went to vote, I always vote.

00:13:18.260 I think you're not allowed.

00:13:19.100 You know, that's the old joke.

00:13:19.980 You're not allowed to complain if you don't vote.

00:13:22.320 I walked into my ballot booth and having done my research, there wasn't a candidate I could

00:13:27.560 vote for for school board where I live because out of the five people running, none of them

00:13:33.400 represented the policies and values that I had when it came to public education.

00:13:37.460 It was a very depressing moment when I was like, there isn't someone I can support.

00:13:42.280 Surely in a city of 1.5 million, we could have found a person to put their name on the

00:13:47.880 ballot to stand up for getting rid of, you know, discovery learning for supporting the

00:13:54.380 great new curriculum that the government has put together, really focusing on educating

00:13:59.620 children as opposed to the woke trends that seem to be affecting education.

00:14:06.220 And there's going to be real consequences for businesses and for others.

00:14:09.900 Jody Gondek, our mayor-elect, she's been mayor-elect for 16 hours, something like that at this

00:14:16.140 moment.

00:14:16.660 And she just did an interview where we asked, what is your first priority as mayor?

00:14:20.880 And she said, it's going to be to declare a climate emergency for Calgary.

00:14:25.700 Her very first priority is mayor. 0.97

00:14:28.780 Not staggering unemployment in this city.

00:14:31.760 Not the fact that too many people can't find affordable housing.

00:14:35.540 The vacant downtown.

00:14:37.280 Third of our downtown office towers are remaining vacant.

00:14:40.880 The first priority for her as mayor is to declare a climate emergency.

00:14:45.480 This is a nightmare.

00:14:48.680 I mean, it is a nightmare.

00:14:49.920 You know what that means to me?

00:14:51.520 Bike lanes and expensive recycling programs that don't actually work.

00:14:56.620 That's what that means to me at the municipal level.

00:14:59.020 Yeah, bike lanes, maybe further speed limit reductions.

00:15:03.060 Calgary already dropped their speed limits from 50 to 40.

00:15:05.920 But climate people have urged for 30, getting rid of more parking through downtown, limiting

00:15:13.640 how many single family houses can be built in favor of high rises because they're less

00:15:18.760 carbon intensive.

00:15:20.240 There are so many policies that just get passed in the name of things like, say, climate change,

00:15:26.300 which will truly affect the quality of life for everyday Calgarians.

00:15:30.800 But they didn't get talked about because there were so few people on the right, the conservative

00:15:36.280 side, making the argument about how this election was going to have an impact on how you led your

00:15:41.360 day-to-day life.

00:15:42.720 And, you know, even the few people we had making that case were outgunned at every opportunity

00:15:49.380 by the unions and by the progressives who spent an astronomical amount of money and poured

00:15:55.360 an unbelievable amount of labor into this election.

00:15:59.080 You know, when I hear the Calgary mayor-elect say something like that, and I know it's just

00:16:06.140 a matter of time before Emergeet, so he says the same thing, it tells me the real winners

00:16:12.200 in all of this are the Parkland Institute and the Pembina Institute and all those places

00:16:19.640 that take municipal grants to tell us just how low flow your showerhead needs to be. 0.94

00:16:26.140 Those people are going to get right back on the gravy train with biscuit wheels and leave

00:16:31.060 the station.

00:16:31.620 We saw just how much money the Pembina Institute was getting from the city of Calgary through

00:16:37.660 access to information.

00:16:39.660 You're completely right.

00:16:41.820 And, you know, for the people on that side of the spectrum, when they get success at the

00:16:47.440 municipal level, they use it as a platform to then jump to other levels of government where

00:16:53.740 provincial New Democrats and federal New Democrats and liberals recruit candidates from to then

00:17:00.160 try and get them elected at higher levels.

00:17:03.120 And, you know, the next question is, based on the results we've had in our two major cities,

00:17:08.220 what does this mean for our next provincial election, particularly if there continues to

00:17:12.420 be issues surrounding the United Conservative Party, if Premier Kenney is unable to figure out

00:17:19.160 how to rebuild support, or if there continues to be underlying unpopularity as a result of COVID

00:17:25.880 and other things.

00:17:26.620 I don't know what it means, but the last poll I saw had Rachel Notley in the lead by a considerable

00:17:33.100 margin.

00:17:34.180 I can only imagine what that means for Alberta businesses, for Alberta families, if we have

00:17:38.560 a new Democrat provincial government and two big cities led by hardcore lefties as well.

00:17:44.540 Yeah.

00:17:44.720 And it just begins that same rural-urban divide that we lived through with the wild rose and

00:17:51.540 the PCs of old, where, you know, you had a lot of people with the same values, but in

00:17:56.920 two different parties because there was this rural-urban divide and a lot was done to mend

00:18:02.860 that.

00:18:03.380 And I think going forward, people are going to go back to their respective corners.

00:18:07.880 And a lot of that has to do with just the dislike of Jason Kenney that's sort of bleeding

00:18:14.600 down into UCP support.

00:18:16.440 It's definitely a tricky situation.

00:18:19.460 I don't know what, you know, his plan is or what his approach will be to try and address

00:18:25.080 this.

00:18:25.420 I think the worst possible outcome for Alberta would be another vote split that leads to a 0.94

00:18:32.240 new Democrat majority government.

00:18:34.720 I really hope that we can find a way around that.

00:18:38.920 But more broadly, I also think this election has to be a wake-up call for conservatives,

00:18:44.960 particularly in Edmonton and Calgary at the municipal level, that they have to take this

00:18:48.920 seriously.

00:18:49.780 That businesses who, for 44 years, had a really easy ride of it compared to other jurisdictions

00:18:56.860 because they had a small C conservative government in power in Alberta, all they had to do was

00:19:02.820 work with that government and things were fine.

00:19:06.200 It's a very different world now.

00:19:07.500 So they're going to have to get used to the idea that they're going to have to write checks.

00:19:12.260 They're going to have to, you know, send their people to go out and knock on doors and distribute

00:19:18.200 brochures and hold events.

00:19:20.380 The business community cannot take for granted that they're going to have governments on their

00:19:25.820 side because it's entirely possible that they won't if they don't.

00:19:30.580 And the unions, because they could force their own members through union dues to fund their

00:19:35.800 operations and their political activities at an incredibly high level, businesses are going

00:19:40.840 to have to step up and meet that same commitment.

00:19:44.160 Or I really fear for the economic future of our major cities.

00:19:48.280 Well, I think you're exactly right, in particular with the, you know, revolving merry-go-round of

00:19:57.260 lockdowns that businesses have experienced.

00:20:00.800 Edmonton has just gone with the full lockdown mayor and likewise with Calgary.

00:20:06.220 And as a conservative resident in Alberta, this is why municipal politics is so important.

00:20:14.880 The lockdowns, those infringements on our civil liberties, they came from the municipalities

00:20:20.360 first.

00:20:21.280 And that's why it's so important to have somebody who cares about civil liberties and small business

00:20:25.380 at the local level.

00:20:27.280 It was the mayors who were asking Jason Kenney for the vaccine passport, not the other way

00:20:33.300 around.

00:20:35.040 Absolutely.

00:20:35.900 And, you know, if you think about it, looking at who's on council now, one of the reasons

00:20:41.380 we were able to get rid of some of the more, some of the more offensive measures or, or at

00:20:49.720 least annoying measures that came from the lockdown was because city councils were pressured.

00:20:54.260 They said, we've heard from our voters, we don't want to have the mask anymore, we're going to

00:20:58.900 repeal it.

00:20:59.700 But this council, based on its composition, would never make that ask.

00:21:03.160 They would only be urging for more and more restrictions.

00:21:07.520 And Jody Gondek is arguably the fiercest opponent of Jason Kenney in this province, more so,

00:21:13.900 I would argue, than Rachel Notley is.

00:21:16.400 And so if Premier Kenney thought he had it bad before with Nehen Nengshi and Don Iveson,

00:21:23.140 I can only imagine what it's going to be like now when he's got someone who explicitly ran for

00:21:28.980 mayor of Calgary opposing Jason Kenney.

00:21:32.360 Yeah.

00:21:32.720 And in Edmonton, someone from Justin Trudeau's cabinet.

00:21:36.500 I mean, we're in for a real wild ride.

00:21:39.840 I think they're just going to do some things just because they oppose Jason Kenney, not

00:21:44.160 because they're the best things that they think need to be done for those cities.

00:21:48.860 Now, other things happened other than just bad, bad stuff.

00:21:54.140 Let's talk about the referendum questions that were on the ballot at the very same time.

00:21:59.680 Sounds like the equalization question one passed.

00:22:04.260 We're not going to know for sure, though, I guess, until about another week.

00:22:08.520 Yeah, it was a little bit confusing.

00:22:10.500 I think a lot of people expected that we would get the results of everything they voted on

00:22:15.100 last night. But as it turns out, because the province is more or less relying on municipal

00:22:21.840 authorities to conduct these elections and ballot counts, that they're not officially

00:22:25.920 releasing the results until October 26th.

00:22:28.460 But some areas did release their unofficial numbers early last night, including Calgary,

00:22:33.920 where I think the final tally ended up being 58 percent saying yes to the equalization

00:22:40.080 referendum, 42 percent saying no.

00:22:43.140 That's a pretty solid win.

00:22:45.580 I don't think it's likely to be overturned when the rest of the votes are counted.

00:22:50.500 I did see down south in both Medicine Hat and Lethbridge, there were majorities in favor

00:22:55.860 of the equalization referendum as well.

00:22:58.260 It's probably the one spot of good news that came out of the vote that Albertans did express

00:23:04.700 clearly that they're unhappy with the status quo of sending billions of dollars every year

00:23:10.880 to the rest of the country, particularly to parts of the country which are hostile to our

00:23:14.660 energy sector. What Premier Kenney is able to do with that or chooses to do with that remains

00:23:20.580 to be seen. But at least it was an expression of voters that the status quo to them is unacceptable.

00:23:26.880 You know, I was talking to your colleagues, Andrew and Candace, on Monday night and, you

00:23:33.140 know, we were sort of looking at those numbers and I noticed that the UCP didn't do any sort

00:23:42.620 of advocacy by and large on the referendum question and they sort of pointed out, well,

00:23:48.600 maybe that would have been bad for the referendum question considering so widely unliked Justin

00:23:54.900 Trudeau, or Justin Trudeau, oh my goodness, Jason Kenney is, whoa, what a slip, oopsie doodle.

00:24:01.260 But what do you think about that?

00:24:03.560 No, I think that's a well-made point. Looking at the results of who was elected to our city

00:24:09.240 councils, I don't think the UCP wrapping itself in this referendum would have particularly improved

00:24:16.160 the outcome they were hoping for. I do think it was actually not quite what everybody was

00:24:22.400 expecting when this referendum was first announced. I think a lot of people thought it was going to be

00:24:26.680 a galvanizing issue that was going to drive up voter turnout, particularly from conservatives who

00:24:32.920 were angry about how they're being treated by the rest of Canada. As it was, I saw barely any campaign

00:24:39.900 either for or against. Certainly here in Calgary, very few signs, very few advertisements or anything

00:24:47.420 like that. But, you know, thankfully, I think the right side of that referendum won, which is really

00:24:57.400 good news. But it wasn't a blow up. It certainly wasn't an overwhelming vote that I think a lot of

00:25:04.620 Albertans originally had hoped for. But hopefully it's enough to be able to give Premier Kenney some

00:25:10.540 leverage when he does start to talk to Ottawa about maybe making changes to how equalization is

00:25:16.200 calculated. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was weird that not even like a third party group got involved

00:25:22.480 really to advocate for the yes side. I thought it was really strange. But thankfully, as you rightly

00:25:30.920 point out, the right side of that debate won. What about the daylight savings question? That's a question

00:25:36.880 that even fewer people were energized about. I don't think anybody really cares. I mean, we complain

00:25:41.960 about it when it happens, but nobody cares. Like nobody really cares in real life. I think there's

00:25:47.940 like a small group of people for whom this is hugely, hugely important. I mean, to me, I don't mind

00:25:55.940 daylight savings time that much. I don't particularly love losing that hour in the spring. My solution has

00:26:02.640 always been don't have it happen early in the morning on a Sunday when you're losing an hour

00:26:07.180 of sleep. You move it to 330 on a Friday afternoon so that everybody gets out of work an hour earlier.

00:26:13.600 I bet you'd have universal support for it. But my answer wasn't on the ballot. But it turned out to

00:26:19.540 be quite contentious, at least in the Calgary vote. When I last checked, it's only a couple percent

00:26:24.760 separating knowing yes, something like 52-48 or 51-49. And so we're really going to have to wait

00:26:31.680 until October 26th to find out what happens with that. It's also unclear if even if it goes one way

00:26:39.240 or another, particularly if it goes with the yes, that anything will actually happen. Other jurisdictions

00:26:43.680 have voted to get rid of daylight savings time through referenda, but they haven't followed

00:26:50.140 through with it yet. So I guess we'll have to see how that happens. That's one vote that I could not

00:26:56.020 possibly care less about. Like, I just don't care. It is, like I said, sort of annoying when it happens,

00:27:03.260 but then you're over it two days later. And I just, I don't know if it's worth, like, resetting the

00:27:07.600 system for. William, thanks so much for taking the time to come on the show today. Again, I want to

00:27:13.620 apologize because it's been far too long. Where can people support the work that you are doing with

00:27:19.260 True North? Well, and I would say this is a great chance for any independent media organization to

00:27:25.340 talk about why we're so important, because I don't know if you followed municipal election coverage

00:27:30.420 in your local media. I did a bit, and it was the worst. It was really quite dismal. But thank goodness

00:27:36.840 there's groups like yours and groups like True North, who I work for, to talk about real issues that

00:27:42.420 everyday people care about, not just the fads and the wokeness that seem to be the obsession of

00:27:48.980 other people. True North, you can check us out, tnc.news, our website. Check out our social media.

00:27:55.100 And I would encourage Canadians and Albertans to consume as much independent media as they can

00:28:00.000 from all sources. Great. Thanks so much. And we'll have you back on the show very, very soon.

00:28:05.620 Well, thanks, Sheila. It's nice chatting with you again. Thanks.

00:28:12.420 Well, the conservative movement in Alberta should be pretty darn worried because, as you know,

00:28:23.620 we're approaching a provincial election in about a year and a half, and conservative Premier Jason

00:28:29.740 Kennedy could not be more unpopular with the right and the left. The results at the municipal ballot box

00:28:36.280 should send the United Conservatives a message. I'm just not so sure they're going to listen to it.

00:28:42.860 Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see everybody

00:28:47.260 back here in the same time, in the same place next weekend. Remember, don't let the government

00:28:53.240 tell you that you've had too much to think.

Rebel News Podcast - October 21, 2021

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Progressive take over Alberta's big cities

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript