The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - Nenshi seeks a seat while Smith dominates polls

00:00:00.000 If you thought the joy of the election was over, well Albertans might be in for a treat.

00:00:15.640 Three by-elections will soon be taking place in Alberta, with the leader of the Alberta NDP,

00:00:20.880 Nahid Nanshi, set to run in one of them. The leader of the Republican Party of Alberta,

00:00:25.620 Cam Davies, will also be running. These three by-elections are set to occur while Alberta

00:00:30.840 Premier Danielle Smith is running hot, with even the CBC showing that her government would

00:00:36.340 cruise to an easy majority if another provincial election occurred. The Alberta Prosperity Project

00:00:41.540 also officially filed its petition application to Elections Alberta while requesting that the

00:00:47.100 office prioritize its question over potential counter-questions from other groups that might

00:00:52.460 not warrant a citizen-initiated referendum. The province also cracked down on schools that

00:00:58.040 refuse to deal with the presence of explicit pornographic materials in K-12 school libraries.

00:01:03.800 Also, the province has been cracking down on commercial truck-driving schools for violating

00:01:08.660 the Traffic Safety Act. All that and more on this week's Alberta Roundup. I'm your host,

00:01:13.860 Isaac Lamoureux. Let's get into that first story now. Three Alberta by-elections were recently called

00:01:18.920 by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith across the province. The by-elections for Edmonton Strathcona,

00:01:25.060 Edmonton Ellerslie, and Old Didsbury Three Hills will occur on June 23rd. The seat in Edmonton

00:01:31.640 Strathcona became vacant when Rachel Notley resigned her seat last year. The seat has been held by the NDP

00:01:37.500 since 1997. It has not been held by a Conservative since Julian Koziak, who held the seat between 1971 and

00:01:45.580 1986. Now, Alberta NDP leader Nahid Nenshi is set to run in the riding, which is of course the safest NDP seat in the

00:01:53.520 province. Perhaps even more interestingly for some is the riding of Old Didsbury Three Hills, where the leader of the

00:02:00.560 Republican Party of Alberta, Cam Davies, will run in the by-election. This riding will be interesting to monitor as

00:02:07.160 constitutional lawyer Keith Wilson has warned that the Republican Party of Alberta might split the vote

00:02:12.640 on the right and grant the NDP power. Since 1997, the seat has been held by the Wild Rose and Conservative

00:02:19.660 parties. It recently became vacant because Nathan Cooper resigned to become Alberta's representative in

00:02:26.000 Washington, D.C. The Alberta NDP are running Bev Taves as their candidate in the riding. The three by-elections

00:02:32.700 are taking place while provincially, the UCP would soar to another easy majority if a provincial

00:02:38.120 election took place based on recent polling. And this is coming from polling from the CBC, so if

00:02:43.540 they're saying that the Conservatives are way ahead, you know it must be pretty dominant. The CBC conducted

00:02:49.000 a poll between May 7th and 21st, showing that over half of Albertans currently support the Alberta UCP.

00:02:55.480 The poll showed that Smith's favourability rating was 4.5 out of 10 last year, which rose to 4.7 this year.

00:03:01.520 Conversely, Nenshi received an average impression rating of 4.1. And speaking of polls, a recent

00:03:08.740 Leger poll showed that support for separation in Alberta might be rising, with 41% of Albertan

00:03:14.900 respondents saying they would vote to separate in a referendum, with only 44% saying they would vote no.

00:03:21.380 The third by-election is occurring in Edmonton-Ellersley, because the seat was vacated by

00:03:26.140 Rod Loyola, who stepped down to run for Mark Carney's Liberal Party. Remember, Loyola joined the Liberals

00:03:32.320 despite blasting the party for years. On March 25th, 2014, he said, quote,

00:03:37.800 You won't catch me working with the Liberal Party of Canada. They talk like NDPers, but they act like

00:03:43.700 Conservatives. The Liberals subsequently axed the candidacy of Loyola after a video surfaced of him

00:03:50.080 praising terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. He then pledged to run against Edmonton Mayor

00:03:55.200 Amarjeet Sohi as an independent candidate in Edmonton's southeast. Loyola and Sohi both lost

00:04:01.300 to Conservative Jagsharan Singh Mahal. Sohi returned to be Edmonton's mayor for now, but said he won't

00:04:07.780 run again when his term concludes. For our next story, the Alberta Prosperity Project has officially

00:04:13.560 filed its petition for a referendum on separation, but more accurately, the group filed the placeholder

00:04:19.520 petition application. The CEO of Alberta Prosperity Project, Mitch Sylvester, filed the petition

00:04:24.940 application last Friday. However, the group asked Elections Alberta to hold the application until Bill

00:04:31.280 54 is officially proclaimed. The bill, which lowers the referendum threshold from 600,000 to 177,000

00:04:39.000 signatures, received royal assent on May 15, 2025. The Alberta Prosperity Project's letter confirmed

00:04:46.380 the group has received over 250,000 pledges as of May 21, 2025, which consists of Albertans pre-registering

00:04:55.220 their intent to sign a petition. Remember, the Alberta Prosperity Project unveiled its official

00:05:01.400 question at the start of May. The proposed referendum question is, do you agree that the province of

00:05:07.200 Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province of Canada? But now, countergroups 0.65

00:05:13.760 are trying to propose questions of their own. For example, the APP's letter addressed another

00:05:18.460 petition application that was recently filed. The Alberta Prosperity Project's letter, written by

00:05:23.580 a constitutional lawyer and general counsel with the project Jeffrey Rath, reads, quote,

00:05:28.260 We note that Mr. Thomas Lukashuk, on behalf of Forever Canada, has filed a publicly available

00:05:33.500 petition with the following question. Do you agree that Alberta must remain in Canada and any form of

00:05:39.220 separation be rejected? Rath added, quote, The question is not a proper referendum question to be

00:05:45.080 used on a constitutional issue. Furthermore, to the extent that the question seeks nothing than to

00:05:50.740 preserve the status quo, it is not a suitable question for determination through a citizen's

00:05:55.480 initiated referendum. The letter continued, concluding, quote, As such, we would request that

00:06:01.800 you prioritize the approval of the question put forward by Mr. Sylvester ahead of any other

00:06:06.860 applicants filing mischief applications seeking to interfere with the orderly collection of signatures

00:06:11.940 in support of the referendum question put forward by Mr. Sylvester. Rath also outlined the remaining

00:06:18.480 steps between the petition application and the official referendum vote. The next four steps are to wait.

00:06:24.760 Wait for the amended legislation that lowers the legal referendum threshold from $600,000 to $177,000

00:06:31.600 to be proclaimed into law. Wait for Elections Alberta to approve the application. Wait for official

00:06:37.320 instructions and wait for official petition sheets. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will also have to

00:06:43.340 decide how to deliver the referendum. She previously pledged that the question on separation would be put to

00:06:48.820 a vote in 2026 if enough signatures were collected. Rath cautioned Albertans, however, not to sign any

00:06:55.860 petitions until Elections Alberta issues official sheets and canvassers receive proper training. He

00:07:01.680 said, quote, If anyone asks you to sign something before the APP launches the petition drive, they are

00:07:06.940 tricking you. Take Back Alberta leader David Parker commented on the Alberta Prosperity Project moving

00:07:12.940 forward in its process. Parker said, quote, Alberta Prosperity Project has made the right move. Odds are

00:07:19.780 it will take a month for Elections Alberta to approve the question. With NDP operatives already filing

00:07:25.020 their own question, there is no choice but to press forward. For our next story, it's the family and

00:07:30.760 friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise. Two days only.

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00:07:45.660 We'll discuss how the Alberta government is cracking down on school boards that allow

00:07:49.840 pornographic materials to remain on K-12 library shelves. Education Minister Demetrius Nicolaides

00:07:56.380 announced a new public consultation to develop mandatory standards for library content,

00:08:01.700 standards that will now be enforced province-wide. He said, quote,

00:08:06.160 It is extremely concerning to find out that books explicitly depicting sexual acts are available

00:08:12.180 to students in some school libraries. We are going to do something about this serious issue.

00:08:17.720 The province says books like Genderqueer, Flamer, and Fun Home, which include passages involving

00:08:23.840 sexting, sexual violence, and profane pornographic content, have been discovered in libraries for

00:08:29.840 children as young as kindergarten. The content of these books has sparked outrage among parents who

00:08:35.300 claim schools are exposing children to pornography under the guise of diversity and inclusion.

00:08:41.520 And to be honest, some of the quotes we covered in this article are so obscene that I'm not going to

00:08:46.860 say them here. And remember, this is available for children. Previously, Alberta only offered voluntary

00:08:54.100 guidelines. But with inconsistent vetting by school boards, the province says it's stepping in.

00:08:59.920 The new rules will apply to public, Catholic, Francophone, Charter, and independent schools,

00:09:05.740 and school boards will be required to publish their policies for evaluating library materials.

00:09:11.060 However, the new rules will not apply to public libraries, including the 55 municipal libraries

00:09:16.500 housed inside school buildings. Albertans are being invited to weigh in through an online survey where

00:09:22.420 they can share their views on what should be accessible in school libraries. The province says it will

00:09:27.960 collect feedback and then issue a ministerial order ahead of the 2025-26 school year.

00:09:33.780 That means explicit material will soon be on its way out, permanently.

00:09:38.140 Nicolaides said, quote,

00:09:39.860 School libraries should be a place where kids can go to learn and explore without being exposed to

00:09:44.200 sexually explicit material that is clearly inappropriate for their age.

00:09:49.000 For our last story today, we'll discuss how Alberta is clamping down on truck driving schools that 1.00

00:09:53.940 have been skirting the law. Following multiple investigations, Transportation Minister Devin

00:09:59.000 Dreeshan told True North that several driving schools and instructors have had their licenses

00:10:03.780 revoked and have been fined up to $10,000 for, quote, serious violations of the Traffic Safety Act.

00:10:10.360 Those violations include fake student records, cheating on road tests, and falsified assessments,

00:10:16.040 all of which, Dreeshan says, put Albertans at risk. He said, quote,

00:10:21.100 Any school or instructor that compromises public safety will face serious consequences.

00:10:26.840 Our enforcement strategy is proactive, data-driven, and uncompromising when it comes to protecting Albertans.

00:10:33.260 The minister said the province regularly inspects driver training schools, instructors, and examiners to ensure

00:10:39.320 compliance with provincial traffic laws. Dreeshan pledged that the province would continue to take

00:10:44.420 strong actions against bad actors in the commercial driving industry. The crackdown comes as the

00:10:49.440 province rolls out its new Class 1 learning pathway, which replaces the MELT program and introduces

00:10:54.720 tiered apprenticeship-style training for new drivers. The crackdown follows several recent incidents.

00:11:00.580 In March, an Albertan-based semi-truck driver and their company were charged with 28 offenses after a load

00:11:07.000 struck an overpass on Shorewood Park Freeway. The driver faced 13 tickets totaling around $25,000,

00:11:12.960 and the company faced 9 tickets totaling around $13,000 for a cumulative $38,000.

00:11:19.920 Last fall, another Albertan driver was fined after a modular home he was hauling slammed into a BC

00:11:25.980 overpass, the 24th overpass strike of the year in BC, far surpassing the 17 recorded in all of 2023,

00:11:34.120 and by year's end, BC recorded 29 overpass crashes involving commercial vehicles.

00:11:39.440 That wraps up this week's show. My name's Isaac Lamroo, your host of the Alberta Roundup.

00:11:44.160 Have a great weekend. Thank you, and God bless.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - June 01, 2025

Nenshi seeks a seat while Smith dominates polls

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