The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - NDP leadership candidates already taking aim at Smith

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.

00:00:14.860 Four NDP MLAs have announced that they are seeking the leadership for the Alberta NDP,

00:00:20.980 along with a union leader and a very popular former mayor of Calgary.

00:00:26.820 Today, we are joined by Cheryl Oates. She used to work for Alberta NDP leader and former premier

00:00:33.880 Rachel Notley. She was the executive director of communication, and she's going to break this

00:00:38.100 all down for us. Cheryl, thanks so much for joining the show today. 0.94

00:00:42.080 Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:00:43.640 So when we look at the candidates, we've got a bunch of candidates joining so far. We have until

00:00:47.220 Friday, if anyone new wants to join. What direction do you think the NDPers are looking to go in? Are

00:00:54.020 they looking for someone more moderate, maybe someone like Nenshi, or are they looking for

00:00:57.960 someone who's going to take their party a little further to the right?

00:01:02.100 Yeah, I think there's a divergence of opinions, just like any party. This is a coalition of people,

00:01:07.080 and I think, speaking for myself, I'm looking for a unicorn. I'm looking for someone who can

00:01:12.260 uphold the values of the party and the history of the party and the things that the NDP has long

00:01:17.160 fought for and also have the ability to be competitive in 2027. We know that Daniel Smith

00:01:23.340 is an expert, expert communicator, and the next leader of the NDP will have to be just as good

00:01:29.060 of a communicator to be able to stand up to her. Right. When we look at the candidates, we've got 0.96

00:01:35.260 a bunch of MLAs and NDPs. I mentioned we've got two former cabinet ministers. We've got Kathleen

00:01:39.420 Gainley and Sarah Hoffman. They have a little more profile than some of the other Edmonton MLAs that

00:01:44.220 we have, including Raki Pancelli. She was just elected in 2019. We have another MLA who was just

00:01:49.900 voted in 2023. Those MLAs that have the ministry behind them, are they someone with a little bit

00:01:55.360 more profile? Do you think that will benefit them during the leadership race? For sure. I mean,

00:02:00.040 anytime that you're looking to win over existing members and continue to build the party, having

00:02:04.860 those decades, in some cases, of experience where you've had the chance to build one-on-one

00:02:08.740 relationships with people, build your profile, have a little bit of history of getting things done

00:02:13.820 behind you, obviously that's really helpful in terms of having people hear your message,

00:02:17.980 but also having a record to point to. And certainly the MLAs that have multi-terms as MLAs have tons

00:02:24.540 of profile and a really big base of relationships to work from. Let's talk about Nahid Nenshi for a

00:02:30.000 moment. He announced that he was going to be seeking leadership earlier this week. I think a lot

00:02:33.880 of people were sort of expecting him to jump in the race. He was obviously a very popular mayor of

00:02:37.880 Calgary, and I think a lot of people are taking this announcement pretty seriously. And he actually

00:02:42.400 already commented on Danielle Smith earlier this week. He took a stab at her government. Let's play

00:02:47.140 that clip now. $14,000 a bottle on Tylenol when the federal government had already ordered some,

00:02:53.120 just so you could own the libs. $100 million on the failed privatization of Dynalife. $9 million

00:03:01.240 on advertising for the Alberta pension plan, something that in the election she said she would never do.

00:03:07.680 And the list goes on and on and on and on. And yesterday I had a very busy day,

00:03:12.600 so I haven't had a chance yet to look at what they're suggesting they're going to fix

00:03:16.700 in the utility system. But what they broke in the utility system has caused utility bills to

00:03:22.620 quadruple in Alberta to be by far the highest in Canada. Our insurance rates, our auto insurance

00:03:28.180 rates are something like two and a half times what they are in Saskatchewan next door. This is direct

00:03:33.580 results of UCP government policy. Setting aside the crisis and family doctors, the closure of

00:03:39.280 emergency rooms, the fact that here in one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world,

00:03:44.340 you can't be guaranteed that you'll get an ambulance when you call 911 when you're in need.

00:03:48.460 This is sheer incompetence combined with the lack of any moral fiber. And, you know,

00:03:53.480 I will call them on that every single day.

00:03:55.800 So I thought it was really interesting that Nenshi's already attacking Danielle Smith. Do you

00:03:59.180 think he's seeking to sort of place himself as her opponent? And by that, you know, gain some

00:04:04.520 profile for himself. I'm not running against the other candidates in this race. I'm actually

00:04:08.060 running against the current premier. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both because

00:04:12.180 truly any party, whether it's the NDP or the conservatives, want to believe that they're

00:04:17.260 setting themselves up for success and they're choosing the best leader who can be competitive

00:04:21.500 in the next election and hopefully form government.

00:04:23.640 So I think Nenshi's tactic here is one to let people see that he has the ability to sort of go

00:04:29.840 toe to toe with Danielle Smith in terms of communication, but also to position himself

00:04:34.120 to say, I can take her on, I can win, and I'm the candidate position to do that. And I mean,

00:04:38.720 the NDP historically, leadership races have been pretty friendly. So I think it makes sense for him

00:04:43.320 to take his aim outside the party rather than at the other candidates.

00:04:46.240 Out of all the candidates currently in the race, who do you think would have the best chance of

00:04:49.860 beating Danielle Smith?

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00:05:14.540 Honestly, this is an awesome slate of people. And any of them would make a really great leader. I

00:05:21.120 think I'm waiting to sort of see how their positioning comes out, what they think of

00:05:25.180 themselves in terms of what they see for the party going forward and how they're going to

00:05:28.460 listen to the membership. And the person who will do the best is a person, like I said, who can be a

00:05:33.080 concise, compelling communicator, because we know that's what Danielle Smith is, and someone who can

00:05:37.880 uphold the values of the party and bring Alberta along with them. We need the party to continue to

00:05:42.500 grow if we want to be competitive. The NDP has seen incredible success growing over the last

00:05:47.380 decade. And if we want to win in 2027, we need to continue to grow. We need to win more seats in

00:05:52.920 Calgary and more seats outside of both the major cities. And whoever positions themselves to best

00:05:58.240 do those things is the person who's going to be successful.

00:06:00.500 Raki Pancheli said that she would abolish the carbon tax if she was elected the leader. What do you think

00:06:04.880 of that? Is she maybe seeking to attract people who wouldn't have traditionally voted for the NDP? Or is

00:06:10.000 this a policy that's actually quite popular within the party's base?

00:06:14.880 I think, you know, having served in government at the time that the carbon tax was brought in,

00:06:19.460 I still believe this was the most effective and efficient policy to curb emissions. Now we have

00:06:25.000 seen it is absolutely not the most popular policy, and it doesn't have durability. This is politically

00:06:30.140 poisoned now. And I think it makes sense for candidates to start talking about how do we,

00:06:35.360 is there a better approach? How do we combat climate change in a way that we can bring Albertans

00:06:40.080 along with us, something that people can buy into? And the carbon tax just isn't politically

00:06:44.760 popular in Alberta, and it's not politically palatable. So I think she's one of many candidates

00:06:49.000 saying, is there a better solution here? Yeah, I think that's really interesting to hear you say

00:06:52.280 that you thought it was a good policy, but it's obviously not very politically popular anymore.

00:06:56.500 Do you think that it's always been that way? Or has something changed to make it just

00:06:59.720 such a detrimental policy to any party that tries to put it forward?

00:07:04.140 Yeah, I think, I mean, certainly at a time of peak unaffordability, it's hard to swallow an

00:07:09.520 additional tax. Even if people are getting a rebate that is beyond what they're paying for the tax,

00:07:13.640 it's hard at the time to swallow the fact that we're paying more. So I think at the time the NDP

00:07:19.660 looked at this, we got the advice from experts, we got the advice from outside academics to say,

00:07:24.320 what is the best way to curb emissions in our province? And this is the advice that we got.

00:07:28.840 But since then, the policy has been weaponized, it has been brought into public discourse in the

00:07:35.620 realm of affordability. And, and it's just not durable. It's just not a, it's not a policy that's

00:07:40.800 going to last beyond multiple changes in government. So I think it's time for us to look at what could

00:07:45.020 actually work, and what could stay in place for multiple changes of government to come.

00:07:49.740 As I mentioned before, candidates have until Friday for anyone else hoping to join the race.

00:07:54.180 I'm wondering if you think there's anyone else that might jump in? I know there's been some

00:07:57.720 speculation online that former cabinet minister Thomas Lukasik might join in the race. What do

00:08:02.460 you think? I think it's probably set like I could be surprised and see someone, you know,

00:08:08.040 jump out of the woodwork in the last couple of days here. But I think most of these people who have

00:08:13.300 announced that they are in the race have been thinking about it for a long time and have been

00:08:17.120 doing some work behind the scenes. And once they were approved doing, you know, a lot of work on the

00:08:22.180 ground to sell memberships and raise money. And I just, I think it would be hard for anyone joining

00:08:26.640 the race at this point. Sure. Just my last question for you here. If you think this is everyone who's

00:08:30.160 going to be in the race, any predictions for who might win it? I do not have any predictions for who

00:08:35.540 might win it. I think that we are going to see a lot more debate and ideas and platforms from

00:08:42.000 candidates in the coming weeks. And I think that NDP members, a lot of them are still open and still

00:08:46.480 thinking about who's best to lead the party. And as we see those ideas and demonstrations held up

00:08:52.100 in contrast, I think a lot more people are going to start making up their minds. Cheryl, thanks so

00:08:55.960 much. Thanks for having me. All right, everyone. That's all we have time for today. As always,

00:09:00.280 I will be back on Saturday with my regular programming. You guys will not want to miss

00:09:03.580 this week's episode. We've had some crazy news in Alberta this week, something to do with the

00:09:07.960 prime minister being here and guests who wasn't allowed into his press conference. I'll be back with

00:09:13.020 that on Saturday. Have a great week and God bless.

00:09:16.480 We'll be back with you.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - March 14, 2024

NDP leadership candidates already taking aim at Smith

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