Danielle Smith triggers Rachel Notley on Day 1
Episode Stats
Words per minute
201.50743
Harmful content
Misogyny
4
sentences flagged
Hate speech
2
sentences flagged
Summary
New Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was sworn in earlier this week, and she's already making waves. In fact, so much so that the Alberta NDP are in a constant state of being triggered by her comments, they are already calling on her to apologize. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergencies Act has begun in Ottawa, and Alberta is participating, saying it was unnecessary. We re going to be talking about all that and more happening now on The Alberta Roundup.
Transcript
00:00:00.680
It's the family and friends event at Shopper's Drug Mart.
00:00:03.880
Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise.
00:00:08.180
Tuesday, February 24th and Wednesday, February 25th.
00:00:26.420
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:29.640
It has been a very interesting week in Alberta politics, and we have a great show planned
00:00:34.000
So, let's take a look at what we're going to be talking about.
00:00:36.880
Alberta has a new Premier, Danielle Smith was sworn in earlier this week, and she's already
0.83
00:00:42.540
In fact, so much so that it seems like the Alberta NDP are going to live in a constant state
00:00:48.900
In fact, they're already calling on Premier Smith to apologize for comments she made earlier
00:00:54.560
Meanwhile, the Federal Emergencies Act Inquisition has begun in Ottawa, and Alberta is participating,
00:01:00.900
We're going to be talking about all that and more happening now on the Alberta Roundup.
00:01:04.680
Okay guys, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was sworn in this week on Tuesday at a ceremony
00:01:08.540
at the Government House at Edmonton following the Thanksgiving weekend.
00:01:11.920
In her remarks following the ceremony, Danielle Smith said,
00:01:14.460
Albertans' freedoms and rights have been tested over the last two years, and she's looking
00:01:20.320
Like most Albertans, Smith said she believes freedom is foundational.
00:01:24.240
The Premier also said she's going to protect Alberta's jurisdictional rights from Ottawa,
00:01:30.240
And she spoke about the need to protect Alberta's most vulnerable, especially during the cost of
00:01:38.020
Together, we will stand up to defend Albertans' charter rights, as well as defend Alberta's
00:01:42.840
exclusive rights over our areas of provincial jurisdiction, which are enumerated clearly in
00:01:50.960
But we will also demonstrate the compassion Albertans expect of us by ensuring the vulnerable
00:01:56.460
and our seniors can afford the necessities of life during this time of inflation.
00:02:00.740
We must ensure our children have the support they need to succeed.
00:02:05.860
We must address the mental health crisis that is stealing our young people from us.
1.00
00:02:10.320
We must give real help to those on our streets who don't know where to turn.
00:02:14.520
In her first press conference, just hours after being sworn in as Premier on Tuesday,
00:02:21.240
Premier Smith said she will no longer be relying on public health advice from Dr. Dina Henshaw.
00:02:27.320
A lot of outlets were reporting that Henshaw had been fired or was going to be fired.
00:02:31.680
Now, that might be the case, but that's not what Premier Smith said on Tuesday.
00:02:34.600
She simply said she won't be taking health advice from Henshaw anymore.
00:02:38.260
I asked the Premier's office, does this mean Henshaw has been fired or will be?
00:02:41.280
And they said no decisions have been finalized currently.
00:02:44.380
Something else noteworthy from the press conference is Premier Smith said she has not been able to
00:02:48.300
get a hold of former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
00:02:51.320
Smith said she sent an invitation to Kenney to have a meeting and discuss an orderly transition,
00:02:57.320
Still, Smith was more than forgiving of the former Premier, who she said she still admires greatly.
00:03:04.000
Smith said the leadership race did not go the way Kenney would have liked and that he had a
00:03:07.220
preferred candidate, former Finance Minister Travis Taves, and she said he might need a little more
00:03:15.780
I'm sure you heard these comments by now, but we're going to go over them anyways.
00:03:19.120
Premier Smith made some more comments in her press conference, this time talking about the
00:03:24.100
She said she doesn't know of another group that faced more discrimination in her lifetime
00:03:30.400
Of course, Alberta, like all other Canadian provinces, implemented a vaccine passport,
0.52
00:03:35.480
barring the unvaccinated from places of work at times, as well as movie theatres and things
00:03:40.960
They were treated like second-class citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic while the vaccine
00:03:46.800
And Smith acknowledged this discrimination in her first press conference as Premier on Tuesday.
00:03:50.500
The community that faced the most restrictions on their freedoms in the last year were those
00:03:59.080
I don't think I've ever experienced a situation in my lifetime where a person was fired from
00:04:05.580
their job or not allowed to watch their kids play hockey or not allowed to go visit a loved
00:04:11.500
one in long-term care or hospital or not allowed to go get on a plane to either go across the
00:04:17.500
country to see family or even travel across the border.
00:04:20.720
So they have been the most discriminated against group that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.
00:04:25.860
That's a pretty extreme level of discrimination that we have seen.
00:04:29.520
I don't take away any of the discrimination that I've seen in those other groups that you
00:04:34.500
But this has been an extraordinary time in the last year in particular.
00:04:39.900
And I want people to know that I find that unacceptable, that we are not going to create
00:04:44.460
a segregated society on the basis of a medical choice.
00:04:48.920
Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.
00:04:53.680
Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.
00:05:03.180
Now, today's victimhood culture was out in full swing following a press conference with
00:05:08.180
everyone and their mother taking to Twitter to say no, they in fact have been the most
00:05:13.260
But the loudest of these voices was, of course, you guessed it, the Alberta NDP, who are demanding
00:05:19.880
In fact, NDP leader Rachel Notley hosted an entire press conference for the sole purpose
00:05:24.500
of asking the Premier to apologize for her comments.
00:05:29.740
Given the amount of hurt and pain that has genuinely been expressed to us over the last
00:05:35.320
two days, I call on Premier Daniel Smith to reconsider her decision to not apologize and
00:05:42.960
in fact to offer up an immediate and authentic apology to the hundreds of thousands of Albertans
00:05:54.180
whose experiences she has negated and and who she's her remarks have hurt.
00:05:59.840
The following day, Smith released a clarification statement, but did not apologize.
00:06:04.400
She said she did not mean to trivialize the discrimination that marginalized groups in
00:06:11.540
It's already been a couple of days and we haven't heard anything from her about that
00:06:15.740
But the NDP are not stopping their calls and are demanding the Premier to apologize nonetheless.
00:06:20.040
Okay guys, let's briefly move over to discuss the Emergencies Act Inquisition which began
00:06:26.300
On Thursday, witnesses gave their opening remarks.
00:06:29.140
Alberta, along with the government of Saskatchewan, is participating in the process.
00:06:33.140
Now for those of you who need a little refresher, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February
00:06:36.640
invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history to grant himself special
00:06:41.300
emergency powers to deal with freedom convoy protesters who were in Ottawa to protest the
00:06:46.060
federal government's COVID-19 restrictions, including vaccine mandates.
00:06:50.000
Now I can say with some certainty that the protesters were peaceful because I was in Ottawa covering
00:06:54.340
the federal government at the time of the freedom convoy.
00:06:56.940
And we already know that the Ottawa police say they did not ask the federal government
00:07:00.440
for the Emergencies Act to be invoked, contradicting earlier claims from Public Safety Minister
00:07:06.180
Now the government of Alberta's and Saskatchewan are saying they also didn't need the Emergencies
00:07:10.240
Act to deal with their respective border blockades.
00:07:14.440
And the Alberta government says it was able to deal with that blockade without powers needed
00:07:20.140
Okay guys, what we're watching in the weeks to come.
00:07:22.640
Just after Danielle Smith was announced the new Premier in the UCP leadership race, I had
00:07:27.000
a 30-minute interview with her, and I asked her about what some of her plans are in the
00:07:31.100
I also asked her about the $160 million that former Premier Jason Kenney announced in his
00:07:38.020
That includes $73 million to the aviation sector and with a partnership with WestJet.
00:07:42.740
And Premier Smith said she might have to take a closer look at some of those funding announcements.
00:07:47.600
She has said her chief of staff, Marshall Smith, who worked in the Kennedy government,
00:07:51.340
flagged some of the items and said the government might need to take a closer look at them.
00:07:55.000
So it'll be interesting to see if she decides to roll back any of those funding announcements.
00:07:59.440
One other thing for you guys to be aware of and to watch for in the weeks to come is
00:08:02.640
that Danielle Smith confirmed that she will be running in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election.
00:08:06.440
As you know, UCP MLA Michaela Fry resigned on Friday morning, just after Smith won the
00:08:12.400
UCP leadership race, and encouraged Smith to run in that riding.
00:08:16.340
Smith confirmed on Saturday that she will run in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election, and
00:08:20.820
if she's confirmed in that seat, she could be in the legislature as early as November
0.55
00:08:24.820
So I think we can see the House being recalled in late November.
00:08:27.920
It is worth noting that the seat is a conservative safe seat, and it's also a rural riding, with
00:08:32.460
Smith saying that she wants to run in that region because she wants to present
00:08:37.220
Something else worth noting that I told you I'd follow up with is that UCP MLA Todd
00:08:41.020
Lohan has been confirmed back to the UCP caucus.
00:08:43.600
I told you guys last week that he was in the UCP caucus meeting on Friday morning, and
00:08:47.180
he's confirmed that he's now back in the party once again.
00:08:50.180
Okay guys, moving into the Alberta politics funniest moment of the week.
00:08:52.940
Premier Smith has announced that she will run in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election, but
00:08:55.960
she said she's going to leave the Calgary Elbow Sea open.
00:08:59.280
You guys might remember the former MLA, Doug Schweitzer, who was also a Kenny cabinet
00:09:02.880
minister, resigned from both his cabinet post and later his month, his seat in Calgary Elbow.
00:09:10.620
A couple of people have expressed interest in running for it, including John Horseman.
00:09:15.160
He, of course, was a UCP leadership candidate for a brief period of time.
00:09:19.460
Daniel Smith said she's going to leave that seat open because there needs to be a race
0.51
00:09:22.020
between all the candidates who are interested in running for the UCP and winning that nomination.
00:09:25.900
And of course, the Alberta NDP just can't handle it.
00:09:28.800
They have decided to make an enormous deal about the fact that Smith is leaving this
00:09:32.300
seat open, despite the fact that seats sit open all the time ahead of a general election.
00:09:37.560
In fact, listen to Rachel Notley's comments for yourself.
00:09:43.020
And so we're here today to call on the UCP to call a by-election in this area before the
00:09:48.760
next election so that the people of this area can have their voice.
00:09:52.260
It's no surprise that the opposition would want to attack the government that is in fact
00:09:55.660
But you'd think that the opposition in this case would be able to find something a little
00:09:59.080
more meaningful or substantial to attack the premuron.
00:10:04.500
All right, guys, that's all I have for you today.
00:10:06.600
I want to take a quick moment and thank my listeners.
00:10:08.660
This show has grown so much in the number of weeks since we started it.
00:10:11.780
We're at about 17,000 to 19,000 weekly listeners, which is so exciting.
00:10:19.360
And of course, if you support our work over at True North, please visit donate.tnc.news
00:10:24.520
and show us your appreciation so that we can continue bringing you the independent news.
00:10:29.940
Have a great week and I'll see you next weekend.