“She almost got booed” - Is Danielle Smith losing support？
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Summary
Rachel Parker is joined by Tariq Angala and Marty Belanger to discuss Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's disappointing performance as United Conservative Party (UPC) leader. They discuss the inconsistencies in what Smith has said she was going to deliver on, and what she has actually delivered on.
Transcript
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was elected as a leader of the United Conservative Party
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less than two years ago. She won on the sixth and final ballot and at the time was considered
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one of the most, if not the most conservative candidate in the race. However, in the months
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since, some conservatives, including those who supported her during the leadership race,
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are starting to feel a little bit disillusioned with Danielle Smith. They're saying that she is
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failing to deliver on promises and policies that she backed during the leadership race,
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like an Alberta pension plan, an Alberta police force, and lowering taxes. Today on the Alberta
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Roundup with Rachel Parker, I am joined by Tariq Angala and Marty Belanger, otherwise known as
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Marty Up North, to discuss. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure, Rachel.
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Pleasure to be back. Wasn't I here just a couple of days ago? Yes. Fan favorite, I had to bring you
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back pretty quickly. The people were demanding it. So Tariq, I wanted to start with you. Part of the
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reason I wanted to have you both on is because you've been pretty vocal and pointing out some
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of the inconsistencies in what Danielle said that she was going to deliver on versus now what she
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has done about two years into her premiership. And you kind of have been pointing out, listen,
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we need to see some action on her. So Tariq, why don't you start by saying whether or not you
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supported Danielle during the leadership race and in the ways you feel she's not delivering now?
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Okay, great question. So I definitely did support Premier Smith during the leadership race. And
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I think I did everything I can as an Albertan to support the UCP in their run. So whether that was
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buying a membership, donating to the party, volunteering. I remember running really a campaign
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against the NDP seat by seat in Calgary and pointing out the flaws of every candidate. So
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I was very, very energized and enthusiastic. And if anything, Rachel, if you remember, you and I met
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at the Big Four last year and you interviewed me as Danielle was in her government was just getting
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elected. Now, I feel like we've done our part to support Premier Smith and to support the UCP.
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It was up to her now to do her part. And I expected big, bold moves in the first 100 days.
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Because again, nobody makes big, bold moves in the last 100 days. I expected, you know,
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aggressive tax cuts, aggressive size of government jobs, etc. None of that has happened. Exactly zero
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things of the things she's run on have happened. So she's likable, she's visible. But in terms of
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Marty, why don't you go ahead and say if this is sort of your sentiments as well, or if you would
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No, it's my sentiment as well. And like Tariq, I, you know, I remember I was there on election
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night. But I remember very specifically, you know, for the three months leading up to the
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election, I was doing a weekly podcast with somebody else where we were specifically focused
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on promoting Danielle. Like, that's how much we that's how much I faith I had in her, you know,
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Tariq says she's a conservative, I thought she was supposed to be beyond a conservative,
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I was hoping she'd be a libertarian, because I, you know, I believe in small government,
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almost no government is what I believe in. And so, and yeah, I agree not I in, in industry,
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we talk about the 90 days, not even 100 days, we go 90 days, you know, you have to make an impact in
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those first 90 days. And after that, you either settle into a routine, or you run out of time.
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And for me, I was being critical at first. And every time I'm critical of her, I get a lot of
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pushback. So but in, but to answer your question, yes, she right now, I'm not I'm I, my patient is
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exhausted. I don't think she's moving in the right direction. She needs a course correction.
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So why don't we take a little look at some of the policies that she has said she supported during
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the leadership race that we haven't seen any action on. One of the main things is obviously
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an Alberta provincial police force. I think this is something that a lot of conservatives Albertans
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feel very strongly about. They feel that this would give us a level of separation from the federal
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government and from Ottawa that we don't currently have, and that they would like to see. Now,
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Daniel Smith said she was in favor of a provincial police force during the election, but we haven't
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seen any dollars for that. Tariq, why don't you go first? Why do you think that is?
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You bet. So I think a couple of things. I think one, she bought into the pushback from ironically
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enough, the urban voters from Calgary and Edmonton, that do not have the RCMP and have their own
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municipal policing force. She introduced what I would call very half measures around it rather
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than just being bold and being aggressive. So Grand Prairie is the only municipality in the last,
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what, 18 months that have voted to transition from the RCMP into their own police force.
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And then again, half measures. She's like, well, we're going to backstop the policing shortage with
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the Alberta sheriffs. In my mind, if I was to do this, we were going to replace the RCMP with the Alberta
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sheriffs. And then constables can, if they wanted to, apply into the new police force and get
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accepted. So I'm pretty disappointed, I think, in her move to the left and realizing that, again,
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she won Calgary by a very narrow margin. She's now starting to cater to the left rather than say,
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you know what, the sky isn't going to fall if we get the police force and the pension plan and so on.
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Do it now so that in four years when you're up for re-election, you're good. You're in a good spot.
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And you could tell your voters, hey, this worked and crime rates have dropped. Drug overdoses have
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dropped. Drug crime has dropped. Like the things that she really, really cares about.
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Which is a key, which is a key for her, right? If I can just add to that, like when you listen to
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Danielle, yeah, she'll talk, she knows all the priorities that she was elected on. She can rhyme
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them off, right? She'll say she was elected to lower taxes, defend Alberta against Ottawa,
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promote her industry and things like that. By the way, she's very good with words. I mean,
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her 30 years in radio and media serves her well, but she speaks about the priorities. But when you
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compare her priorities with ours, you see sort of a little bit of a disconnect, which is she is a
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politician and she has her favorite projects and her favorite projects get advanced. And the ones that
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she doesn't favor, she'll find an excuse not to advance them. That's one of my...
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Let's be specific. What are those favorite projects in your mind?
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Well, she wants to be... I think she's happy fighting Ottawa. She looks like she's happy. So
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she wants to be remembered as somebody who stood up to Ottawa for Alberta. Maybe that's because she's
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thinking of a longer career in Ottawa. So, you know, the Sovereignty Act and things like that,
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she's very, very proud of that. She doesn't seem to want to tackle making government smaller. She
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doesn't want that to be her legacy. I don't know why. You know, she's not a Ralph Klein that way.
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She's actually not interested in tackling Alberta Health and going after them and the College of
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Surgeons. She's, you know, she's... Yeah, her legacy as far as a defender of Alberta, I think is one of
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the ones that she wants to be known as. She just wants to be, you know, she wants to, in her mind,
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make Alberta great. And, you know, and then... Go ahead. Sorry.
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So just to, you know, push back or to be fair for a little bit, she did tackle
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Alberta Health Services in one capacity. She did break them up, divide them into different sections,
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sort of get rid of the centralization of power in that regard. But what I'm hearing you address
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specifically is that you maybe wanted to see a shakeup with more management, maybe people who
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are responsible. And this is me just assuming, so jumping if I'm incorrect here. People who are
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directly responsible for policies that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, maybe seeing a shakeup and
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having them rid of their positions. Is that more of the change that you were looking for?
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When I'm looking for a change, and I think the Conservatives in general are that way, we sort
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of had an overall plan, which is, we'd like to see smaller government, we'd like to see lower taxes,
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we'd like to see Ottawa be, you know, fought and pushed back into their lane, and we do our lanes.
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And they're all intertwined. They're not separate. And that's the thing, you can't make these things
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separate. So how do you lower taxes? By finding efficiencies in government somewhere. And where's
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a place where we think there's efficiencies? In Alberta Health. It's, you know, Alberta Health,
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we're not targeting, well, we are targeting Alberta Health, because it is a bit of a corrupt
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organization. But we're, but we're targeting them, because it's just the biggest chunk of our budget,
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like, I think it's $29 billion goes to Alberta Health. So, you know, go after that money, like it's
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multiple birds with one stone, cut the taxes, reform Alberta Health, find us some savings and improve it.
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So you don't do them separately. And, and whenever she starts to do them separately, like that,
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that's where it falls apart. You know, there's a reason you're not, you're not going after Alberta
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Health, just because we're vindictive or COVID, you're going out after Alberta Health, you need
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to go after Alberta Health, because it's a $29 billion juggernaut, like, you know.
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So Tariq, when Marty talks about needing to go after Alberta Health, for one reason to save money to cut
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the budget. I mean, it seems fairly obvious to me that one of the reasons that Danielle Smith has
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not found ways to cut costs is because the government is spending so much money. She's actually, you know,
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spending more than previous governments. So I don't know, you know, Marty, I believe that she is,
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ideologically speaking, libertarian, or at least was, she's certainly not governing as one, she's
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spending a lot of money. And I'm seeing policies that no one asked for, like the railway system,
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it doesn't seem like, you know, the best time to be implementing a policy like that, when what
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Albertans are really asking for are for tax cuts. But what's your take on the situation? Do you think
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her government, their high cost of spending, are we as Albertans getting value for the things that
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our government's spending money on right now? Unequivocally, no, I mean, you know, we used to have
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sort of a $40 billion a year budget, and we're, we're, I think we're approaching 70 billion. I mean,
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for me, the most current budget was a shocker when it came out. And I actually did a detailed
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analysis, I compared the growth of our budget with the growth of our population. And our budget is
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outpacing growth by a factor of four to one. So it's, it's crazy. And then when you look at
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spending per capita, in some categories, we're the highest, like, you know, we, I think we're almost
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the highest in spending per capita on healthcare. And we're not, we're not getting value compared to
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other places. So that's one answer. And to your, you know, she, you're right, she's not acting like
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a libertarian. She is a libertarian. I mean, at first people were, she has a tattoo, she literally
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has a tattoo on her arm, like a, from a libertarian institute, organization that she's attended, and she
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liked it so much, she got it tattooed on her arm. But, but, you know, just this week, she mentioned
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something like, you know, that, that a provincial auto insurance is not off the, not out of the
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question. I'm like, wow, like, that's, no, that's out of the question. If you're a libertarian, in fact,
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it's almost out of the question, if you're a conservative, like, you know, more, more state
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organizations, that's, that's contrary, that's completely contrary to what we've asked her or
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Tariq, I'll just go ahead and let you answer the same question there. Where do you think things have
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gone wrong with the budget? I think she, I mean, her budget is $20 billion more than Rachel Notley's
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biggest budget for, for, for an indication. And I, I don't know how you justify that. And I don't know
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how you justify even the front bench, like the Minister of Finance going on TV and saying, Nate
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Horner and saying, here's our budget. Oh, and by the way, we're deferring taxes, because we can't, we
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still have to spend, and we want to grow the heritage funds, and what have you. I think she could have
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made some bold moves in the first hundred days to chop out ministries that aren't, I will call,
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essential for today. So for example, if you're in a crunch, and you have $77 billion of debt,
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which the province does, and you need to lower taxes, I get healthcare spending, obviously,
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we are, inefficiencies in healthcare are gigantic. But then you look at ministries like, for example,
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sport, recreation, tourism, those can instantly, that you can go, like, we will still function as
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society, if, if these ministries go, and think about the millions and millions of dollars of
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staffing, real estate, policy, etc, that you could save on ministries like those to start with. And
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she hasn't done that. She hasn't brought small government solutions of opening up the utilities
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market, or the aviation market, or the telecoms market, or so on. So open up those. So make it
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cheaper for us as consumers to get into. So I'd like to see small government solutions, the private,
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like privatizing parts of the government where we, they're not essential services, but the public,
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the private sector does it better, cheaper, faster. And then ultimately, the thing that kind of shocks me,
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the most, Rachel, and I don't know if we're going to talk about this a little bit later,
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is she's put her foot down and said, I want to double Alberta's population. And just the
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unbridled immigration that we're seeing here. And I understand that immigration is a federal
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policy item from a total aggregate number. But there's certain tools within Premier Smith's hands
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that she could do to at least slow it down. But no, she's, she's encouraging it. I mean, 200,000
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people in the last... Did you, did you hear why she's taken the strategy? Like,
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you know, she, I, by the way, coincidentally, I, I, I listened to her yesterday. So she was in
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Calgary here yesterday. There was, what do you call it? Not an open house, but a town hall at one of the
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local constituency associations. And she came out to speak. So, and she, she, she reiterated this.
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She views, she wants to grow Alberta by to 10 million people as a way to increase our clout within
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confederation. And it's like, well, that's, that's a flawed theory anyways, because there's a giant
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flaw in confederation, which already dictates who gets however many seats. There's a formula. So
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increasing our population will barely have an impact on our clout. And, and so it's a, that's a
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If I may, if I may, Marty, I think it's flawed for more than one reason. I think it's also flawed
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because I don't know that the people that you're bringing here are going to be on board with your
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conservative agenda. Typically speaking, you know, the people who live in Alberta are very unique.
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I've, I've lived in Ontario. I've spent much, much time elsewhere in the country. Alberta is a very
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unique and special place. And I don't know if that policy does enough to address and to want to
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conserve the uniqueness and the specialness of Alberta. I think that that's being missed. And I
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remember a few months ago, the premier said, we want to have a million people in red deer,
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a million people in red deer. The people who live in red deer don't want a million people there.
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The people who live in red deer like that it's a smaller city. They like that they can get into
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Edmonton quickly. They like that they can get into Calgary quickly without dealing with all the
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business. And frankly, the expense of those cities. I don't want. Yeah. Yeah. I find, you know,
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I'm from an Alberta when there was 1.9 million people here at four and a half. I find this place
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overwhelming, like overcrowded. So, you know, if it gets to 10 million, I'll be suffocating. So yeah,
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no, I agree. That's a, that's a great point. She addressed it by saying that actually somebody
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brought up a good point of perhaps addressing that, which is, you know, make, make the, the
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temporary foreign worker as a stepping stone. So accept workers here under that program. And then
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if you show yourself as being a valuable worker, then you can apply for permanent status afterwards,
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which was a great idea. And, but, but it's going to be difficult for her anyways, because
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immigration is kind of like a weird shared responsibility between.
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The other thing as well is we're not a system or a country that builds quickly. So roads, schools,
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hospitals, et cetera. So the funny part is we're, we're already behind capacity. Like if we stopped
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immigration as a temporary hold for, let's say three to five years, we'd barely still catch up.
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Um, yet it's absolutely unbridled. Like if you look at the cost of housing, Alberta used to be
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affordable. Like that was one of, and we wasn't affordable by choice. It was affordable due to
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organic, organic growth and small governments, uh, low taxes, et cetera, and strong economies.
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So it wasn't, it wasn't just by, by happenstance that we're affordable. We're losing that now.
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The Alberta advantage I think is either gone or just about to be gone. Um,
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Yeah. Tariq, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Yeah. It depends on where you live. It still
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depends on where you live. There are still pockets in Alberta. There's some smaller towns,
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especially if you go further North where not as many people want to live because of the weather,
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you can still get a lower cost of living. But you know, one of the reasons that I myself moved to
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Alberta was partly for a good job opportunity, but also because as a young person, I was priced out
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of Ontario and most recently living in Calgary, my rent is more than I would have paid if I was living
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in Niagara. Like my husband and I moved now, but for a two bedroom townhouse, very narrow,
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I think it wasn't even about nine feet wide. It was almost $3,000 a month.
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Well, the numbers don't lie. I mean, we, we were letting in, uh, about 250,000 people came to
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Alberta last year and, and our record year for building housing units is, uh, is 48,000 housing
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units. And you know, that was in the 1990s. We've done it three or four times, three or four times in the
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last 50 years. We've had years where we suddenly managed to build 40, 50,000 housing unit. And if
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you think of a housing unit as holding three or four people perhaps, and I don't even think it's
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that high, then, then that only accommodates 160,000 people. So when we let in 250, we're just
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And the craftsmanship of these homes that are being swept up are often coming into question as well.
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Like these new builds are not quality. They're not made to last and they're not providing a good
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quality of life either. Marty, you mentioned something that I think we need to mention,
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which is the fact that immigration is federal. That being said, there are things provinces can
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do to discourage people from, from moving here. I know that you were talking about this a little
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bit on X. Why don't you share some of your ideas? What are things you think the premier could be
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doing if she had a stance that we need to slow immigration down?
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Well, well, like I said, you, you, you, you would have, you would have to show that you have a place
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to live or a place to, um, to work. Like you could put, I think, I think she could put rule,
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a province could put rules like that. I mean, uh, language laws are also a rule, right? Um,
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Quebec does it all the time. You don't speak French within a certain, you, you can't work
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in Quebec. They won't let you in. I don't know how they do it technically, but Quebec
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does things like that. So there, there are things to discourage people from coming here
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or, or things we can do to pick and choose, but, but it would be very difficult. I, the,
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the way confederation works, once somebody is in Canada, they're almost free to move anywhere
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they want. And what happens right now, we're letting in millions of people and they're going
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to Ontario. They're going to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. It's, it's just, you know,
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no, I think that's the reality. I mean, she's not, it's by the way, she's not willing to change
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other things that I think are easier to change. So she's not going to tackle Ottawa in terms of
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immigration. She'll fall back to a, well, the rules are the rules. And she, she wants more
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people anyway. She's, this is not one of her pet projects. She wants more people in, in, in Alberta.
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So she's absolutely not going to interfere. I don't. Sure. Just before we maybe change direction
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to her, I was just going to say like, there might not be a lot that she could do to dissuade people
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from moving here. But I think some obvious things is maybe to not encourage them to come here. Like
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we have the Alberta is calling campaign and I get that those are targeted tax credits,
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but if you talk to someone in Ontario, they're like, I hear you guys, people want people to
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move there. And I hear it's a cheaper cost of living. I'm thinking about moving there. And I'm
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like, well, it's not what you think it is. Well, ironically, there's programs in place to
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encourage long-term Albertans to stay here. So like we're, this is getting ridiculous because
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new people are coming and people who've been here a long time are leaving.
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There are tools. Like I would say one to start with, get on TV tomorrow and say, Alberta's not
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calling anymore. We're full. Okay. Like to start with, right. Like just from a
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marketing standpoint. And then the other tools that are within her control because they're
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provincial is healthcare and education. You say, you know what, if you move here for the
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first 24 months, starting September 1st, it's a pay into system. So there's a holding period
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of 24 months until you get free healthcare and free education. That's well within her control
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easily, right? That will stop 70% of people right away because they're like, oh, I have to
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move to Alberta, but I have to pay for healthcare and education for two years. But yeah, it's fair.
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You need to build into the system until you can start to take out of it. So there's certain tools
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within her realm that she can take, if not to control the federal immigration numbers,
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to at least control the movement of internal immigration within the country.
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Another thing that I want to ask you guys about is this idea of an Alberta pension plan. Now,
00:20:50.180
this is something that the premier has said that she supports even well within the last few months.
00:20:54.640
It's something that would likely be difficult to get passed through. Marty, did this come up in
00:21:00.940
It's top three on the list all the time of things she gets asked on. I mean,
00:21:05.500
the data is overwhelmingly positive for Alberta. Like the data is just that positive. Like we should
00:21:14.140
have an Alberta pension plan. We'll do better than the Canada pension plan. It'll be everything about
00:21:19.520
it is better. So if anybody who says they're interested in researching things before they
00:21:25.880
make decisions, you wouldn't have to research this one very long. And she acknowledged that. She kind
00:21:31.680
of said that one third are in favor, one third are against it, and the other third are still wanting
00:21:37.000
more data. So her excuse or go-to right now is that she's still studying it. And so we'll see. But
00:21:44.100
yeah, there's no ifs, ands, or buts. It's a benefit to Alberta to have our own pension.
00:21:51.580
Yeah, I think that's something that conservatives largely agree on. Of course, when she says we're
00:21:56.140
still studying it, that's really a way for governments to continue kicking the ball down
00:22:00.340
the line and to not be accountable to people. Oh, we're still looking into it. Tariq, do you think
00:22:04.700
this is something that we are going to see the premier act on within her tenure?
00:22:08.420
I don't think so. I mean, I think the window for that has now closed. If she was going to pull the
00:22:14.480
trigger on this, this was the first 1900 days thing, because it is quite a contentious issue with
00:22:21.060
the left leaning voter in Calgary and Edmonton, but you don't, they're not going to vote for you
00:22:25.400
anyways. So start acting for the interests of Alberta. The other thing as well, Rachel, that really
00:22:31.360
disappointed me was Pierre Polyev came publicly against, openly in the media against the Alberta
00:22:38.460
provincial pension plan, rather. And, and she said nothing back. And, and I think she acquiesced
00:22:46.760
because again, here's a leader that wears our colors, but it doesn't show very well for him
00:22:52.920
in the GTA. And again, he's focused on winning the GTA. But I would have expected her to put her foot
00:22:59.780
down and say, you know what, we respect your opinion, but we're looking after provincial autonomy
00:23:03.620
first. Yeah. And, and, and very pragmatically, I think the, the, the Alberta pension was poorly
00:23:11.360
rolled out when they came out. I mean, you know, the, they didn't, they didn't think it out. They,
00:23:16.020
they, they neglected the fact that it had been studied. There were numbers that were contradictory.
00:23:19.880
I mean, there were numbers in there being thrown around that even for I went, Ooh, that sounds a
00:23:23.740
little bit. So, so they kind of blew an opportunity. And, and when that happens, you can't just sort of
00:23:29.140
pivot and reissue it. I think she, it, this one's unfortunately might have to sit on a shelf for
00:23:33.840
a while and be tried again, like in a second mandate. But she did say yesterday that if the
00:23:39.900
information that we requested from the chief actuary of Canada, whoever that guy is, or gal,
00:23:45.060
that she will do a campaign to promote it again and put it to a referendum. That's,
00:23:49.980
that's what she said, whether it's in this term or the next to be seen.
00:23:54.360
Yeah. There's certainly still organizers working on it and trying to grow support for an Alberta
00:23:59.840
pension plan. But I do agree with you that this is something that the longer they wait,
00:24:03.560
the more difficult it gets to rolls out. Cause this is not the type of thing that you really
00:24:06.380
want to be rolling out ahead of a general election. And, you know, as the time keeps ticking on,
00:24:10.420
we're getting closer and closer to that next election date against now and ahead and then she's
1.00
00:24:15.480
Sure. But time is also on our side in the sense that I look at what's happening at the Bank of Canada
00:24:20.020
and the Canada pension plan. And they're both being mismanaged right now and having hard time.
00:24:24.980
So, you know, maybe three years from now when the Canada pension plan has to disclose that they lost
00:24:29.840
whatever 20%, then we go, see, you know, should have done it earlier. So time could be beneficial in
00:24:37.380
Yeah. I know we were talking a little bit about the financial aspects of things, but just because we,
00:24:41.920
you know, are having this conversation, I think it would be remiss to not mention some of the things
00:24:46.020
that I hear most complaints about is the fact that we still have the provincial fuel tax and the fact
00:24:51.300
that there was a promise to cut income taxes. And that promise is now being kicked down the line
00:24:57.220
as well. Initially it was supposed to come into place 2024 of those cuts, which would have savings
00:25:01.540
for a couple hundred dollars for a family. Then it was moved to 2025. Now talk of 2026.
00:25:06.460
Marty, just because you were at the town hall, are these things that the premier is still being asked
00:25:10.040
about or are people kind of, you know, forgotten about these promises?
00:25:12.520
No, no, no. They asked about that. She almost got booed when, when she, you know, she, she,
1.00
00:25:18.460
she's really trying to, she's focused on the fact that she's paying down debt. So not a big budget for
0.84
00:25:25.760
her. She's paying down debt and she's refunding the, the heritage fund. But, and so that's her excuse
00:25:32.360
for not the giving a tax break. And, and she, she, she got pushed back on that almost booed. It's,
0.95
00:25:38.260
it's a very, it's a question on the tip of everybody's, you know, yeah.
00:25:42.120
I can't believe that, you know, between Marty and I, we are either expressing dissatisfaction
00:25:48.160
or organizing or going out to perhaps tell our libertarian conservative premier to let
00:25:55.740
us keep a little bit more of our own money. I can't believe it. Like I can't, and two years
00:26:00.420
in now, almost like in October, she'll be two years in as the premier of Alberta. And between
00:26:07.300
the high spend and now certain crises, like the water crisis and, in Calgary and then
00:26:13.180
Jasper, the Jasper fires and so on, I think that's going to blow whatever budget room in
00:26:17.540
the budget she's seen. I'm a little bit now pessimistic in the sense that we'll ever see
00:26:21.940
a tax cut from the premier this year. And more so if we do see it, it's going to be very symbolic
00:26:27.560
rather than an aggressive, truly libertarian tax cuts. The government should be in the business
00:26:32.780
of nothing. That's the way I look at it. And, and for her to continue to grow, spend to continue
00:26:39.900
to grow. And I don't think she'll catch up even just on immigration, like immigration is
0.69
00:26:44.020
going to eat up whatever left is left of her budget in terms of healthcare and education
0.91
00:26:48.480
and infrastructure supports. So it's, it's, it's, I don't see that tax cut coming. And
00:26:54.260
if it does come, Rachel, I don't see it being one that's significant. It's like, here's a few scraps
00:27:00.540
to keep you guys quiet rather than truly a Klein-esque, you know, aggressive reduction in the size of
00:27:06.880
government debt and taxes. Well, we talk about dissatisfaction growing with Alberta premier
00:27:12.080
Daniel Smith. The one thing that I have to say is I hear most often about people in Alberta who are
00:27:16.300
struggling to meet payments. And I think that moving forward with those income tax cuts, offering
00:27:21.040
some relief at the pump and then maybe even a one-time payment to people. I mean, I'm not
00:27:25.300
against that because ultimately it's our money in the first place. I think that would go a long way
00:27:29.280
with some of the support that she's losing. I think that that could honestly be enough to turn things
00:27:32.840
around for people just because they are really feeling it in the wall. Tariq, what's your take on
00:27:36.760
that? Absolutely. I just like premier Smith to deliver what she ran on. Like we're not asking for
00:27:41.320
the moon here. She ran on the, on reducing taxes, on reducing the size of governments, on the pension
00:27:47.060
plan, on the police force, et cetera. We've held our end of the bargain. We've
00:27:50.780
empowered her with our votes. Um, and I'd like for her to hold her end of the bargain up. Um,
0.55
00:27:56.740
I'd like to see her start to deliver on this and deliver aggressively, not talk about it. She's
00:28:02.180
very good at talking about it. Um, but I want to see a plan in the next 90 days until the AGM. Um,
00:28:07.800
and a very concrete plan, no dilly dallying, no wishy-washy. Uh, I, I want an actual plan on the
00:28:13.620
things she's going to deliver on. If she doesn't, I've lost confidence, truly Rachel in, in the premier.
00:28:18.560
Uh, the tax one is, the tax one is confusing. I mean, she had one, she had one handed to her
00:28:23.520
on a silver platter in April. Like, you know, she had previous government had lowered the,
00:28:27.960
the, um, the fuel tax and she brought it back up. It's like, why would you do that? Like
00:28:32.760
if, if, if instead of bringing it back up, all she had to say is, Hey, you know what? We're leaving
00:28:36.480
it off permanently. It's seven cents a liter, whatever the heck it is. Everybody would have
00:28:40.040
gone perfect done. And you know, we don't, we're not asking for complex tax reform, like going back.
00:28:45.060
I'd love to go back to a flat tax, like we used to have under Klein, but you know, yeah,
00:28:48.980
drop the top rate or drop the middle rate from whatever, 13% to 12 and a half, something,
00:28:54.240
anything. She, she's funny that way. She, she digs her heels. I'm sure you've interviewed her.
00:29:00.120
You, I know you've interviewed her personally. I mean, she digs her heel. You know, let me just
00:29:04.040
tell you the other one. She, she got sort of booed on yesterday, apart from taxes is, um,
00:29:09.340
the, the whole evening started out the, the first line of questions towards her is why are you not,
00:29:14.440
uh, why are you not, um, uh, taking the, uh, MRNA vaccine off the approved list of, of vaccines,
00:29:21.240
you know, despite overwhelming evidence that it's harmful and boy, she dug her heels in there and
00:29:26.840
she was all, she was getting booed. And the, the, the interviewer on stage literally said to her,
00:29:32.260
he's like, Danielle, I'm trying to help you here. Look at this crowd. Like they're mad. And,
00:29:37.320
and, and she wouldn't have any of it. So it's, she, she's got an interesting personality. If it's
00:29:42.380
her pet project, full speed ahead, but in, you know, you're the leader of the province. You can't,
00:29:48.720
it can't be all about your pet projects. Yeah. The Vax, go ahead, Terry, go ahead.
00:29:52.980
On the, on the fuel tax, um, this was a 100% own goal on Danielle Smith's part. She reintroduces it
0.96
00:30:00.520
on the same day, April 1st, that the carbon tax, the federal carbon tax goes up. I'm like,
00:30:04.880
could you have had any worse optics, uh, as a libertarian, uh, to, to introduce it on the same
00:30:11.980
day that the carbon tax goes up? So, sorry, but I just wanted to add that, but.
00:30:15.860
No. And I think even also like when we look at the NDP government in Manitoba, they've even
00:30:20.740
reduced their fuel tax. So it's shocking that we still have it in Alberta, um, when it, and it's
00:30:26.660
the fact that she brought it back as well with the mRNA vaccines. I mean, the crazy part about that is
00:30:31.260
it's something that even the United Conservative Party is pushing the government to change.
00:30:35.420
And I guess, Marty, I'm just curious what she actually said yesterday, because when I interviewed
00:30:39.080
her a couple months ago, she actually said that there was a misunderstanding and that the,
00:30:43.960
the COVID-19 vaccine was only being recommended for babies beginning at six months when they had,
00:30:48.920
um, already a preexisting illness, which is not the case. It is being recommended for all
00:30:52.540
children, as I'm sure, you know. So I'm just wondering what her response to that was yet on,
00:30:56.960
She did some weird mental gymnastics on that one. You know, basically the question was that,
00:31:02.120
um, that, that, that group yesterday, that constituency association is the one that had
00:31:08.480
the injection of truth, uh, uh, you know, two months ago. And so that group is, has talked
00:31:14.880
to a lot of doctors. And so that group, so they, they, they basically, the way they phrased the
00:31:19.340
question is there is a lot of evidence that the vaccine is harmful to kids. And, and why
00:31:25.360
won't you remove it? And her answer to that was, um, I want to keep giving parents choices.
00:31:31.600
So, okay, that's, that's, that's valid, but you're going to allow parents to still choose
00:31:36.940
something that's dangerous. That's interesting. You know, if, if, if a car is anyways, and,
00:31:41.980
and, and then she justified it by saying, yeah, besides very few people get the vaccine. So
00:31:48.060
that's how she justified it. She said among children, only about 6% of parents get their
00:31:52.800
kids injected, but then the, the interviewer caught her in a loop because then he started
00:31:58.840
talking about ivermectin and how come we can't get ivermectin. And, and she, she had to do these
00:32:05.600
mental gymnastics to justify not being able to get ivermectin. And he said, well, shouldn't
00:32:09.920
we have a choice? So she got caught really bad on that one. Really, really bad on that
00:32:15.420
one. And, and it's a, it's a weird one because other, the really weird thing about this is Alberta
00:32:21.300
used to collect really good information when it comes to COVID and cross-referencing it to vaccines
00:32:27.500
and stuff like that. And other jurisdictions like Florida literally used our information,
00:32:33.120
our data to help make the decision to ban the mRNA vaccine. So other jurisdictions are using our data,
00:32:40.340
but when we interpret our own data, we come to a different conclusion. It's, it was fascinating to,
00:32:45.140
on, on, on that point. I, again, I, I, I, I don't know if she's compromised in that sense,
00:32:51.340
or if it's stubborn, that one, uh, well, actually I haven't, I have a theory on that one. I think
00:32:56.660
big pharma is very, very, very, very, very, um, more powerful than we give it credit for, I think.
00:33:04.360
Okay. I just wanted to quickly clarify because I said, so the town hall with Danielle was on Tuesday,
00:33:08.900
we're recording the show on Wednesday and it's going live on Saturday. So for my audience,
00:33:12.280
you're trying to do mental gymnastics, figuring out what days we're talking about, you have the
00:33:15.600
timeline there. So just remember that as we flip back and forth between dates. Okay. I just want
00:33:20.000
to talk to you guys about one other thing, maybe two more topics before we talk about the AGM that's
00:33:24.680
coming up this fall, because that is a big part of why this conversation matters. But first and
00:33:29.280
foremost, something that I've personally been surprised by is Danielle's seeming shift in her
0.58
00:33:34.680
supports for the Coots boys, specifically if we're talking about the Coots three. So we've got,
00:33:39.000
uh, Marco van Huygenbos, Alex van Heer, George Vanson. I've interviewed most of them a couple
00:33:44.040
of times now they are waiting for their sentencing. I believe that it got, it was supposed to be in
00:33:48.280
July. I believe it's been pushed back, but they're ultimately facing jail time. I believe it's up to
00:33:52.280
five years for mischief over 5,000 for their involvement with the Coots border blockade.
00:33:56.900
And I asked Danielle this question and, you know, she basically just said like the law is the law,
00:34:01.500
um, didn't seem to have, you know, much information on it. I know that she has been found, you know,
00:34:07.580
guilty for putting, for putting pressure on her justice minister and her attorney general
00:34:11.740
to, you know, regarding the prosecution of this case, but would it have been so bad for her to
00:34:16.780
just simply, you know, voice a word of support or encouragement to these men? Because to me,
00:34:21.660
that isn't the same as maybe going and speaking with your justice minister, seeing if there's something
00:34:25.620
you can do about the actual case itself. Tariq, let's start with you. What's your take?
00:34:28.980
I agree. Like one, I think she, it's not just a voice of support and fine. She's, she's saying,
00:34:35.500
I can't get involved in the legal process. That's supposed to be independent from the executive
00:34:39.060
process. That's fine. But here's how we prevent this from happening again, or here, here's how we
00:34:45.220
make sure that we don't have a court system that is used as a political tool of the federal government.
00:34:51.260
I would have liked her to start saying, okay, I can't do something here, but this is what I could
00:34:57.220
do to prevent it from ever happening again. She hasn't even done that. And, and she hasn't even
00:35:01.720
said, okay, this is how we're going to reform the judicial or legislative process so that this
00:35:06.520
doesn't happen again. So, I mean, I, I know Marco personally and, and, and talk to him quite a few
00:35:12.080
times. It's unfortunate that this has happened. It is unfortunate in the first place that Albertans
00:35:17.280
got to the point where we had to protest and, and the blockade and so on to regain our rights.
00:35:24.240
Like it wasn't to get additional rights. It was just to regain our rights and our freedoms at the
00:35:29.140
time. And, but, but to answer your question, I think she should have, could have done a little
00:35:35.180
bit more or at least shown stronger colors rather than, than ride the fence.
00:35:40.980
And I, I think this just goes back to something like conservatives in Alberta, like largely her
00:35:45.320
base are particularly supported these men. Right. So it's so out of, out of touch with her base.
00:35:50.160
Marty, what's your take? Yeah. Um, you know, she, she, she describes herself as a constitutional
00:35:57.920
person. Like she, she, she likes to talk about the Canadian constitution and law. And, um, and so
00:36:05.240
I think that, that, that does, uh, fog her, her opinions on a few things, but, but fundamentally I
00:36:13.220
disagree when she says she can't interfere. Like I, we're not asking her to interfere. We're asking her
00:36:17.980
to do her role as a premier, which is inquire and inform yourself and ask questions. She,
00:36:24.020
we're not asking her to call the judge and say, Hey, you know, um, whatever, shorten the sentence.
00:36:29.660
We're asking you to call the judge and say, why is it taking so long? Or if not the judge call the
00:36:34.340
attorney general and have the attorney general have discussions with the judges and things like that.
00:36:38.340
So, um, and again, I don't know why she's, she, she'll even yesterday, she was asked this question
00:36:45.320
again, and she referred back to, she, she said, I can't do this. It's in the constitution. She got
00:36:51.640
laughed at when she said that because the audience literally said, wow, you're the first person
00:36:56.280
suddenly who's going to follow the constitution and, and, and, and let others abuse the constitution.
00:37:01.560
We're asking. So yeah, I, I don't buy this one. I don't buy this one from Danielle. Danielle as an
00:37:06.500
elected premier of a province is the primary lawmaker. So in order to make laws, you should
00:37:13.920
be able, once you've made laws, you're allowed to go visit with the, the lawyers and the judges
00:37:19.780
and the courts to see how your laws are working, get feedback in case you need to adjust the laws.
00:37:25.000
I, I, I, maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but she should have, and specifically in the case of
00:37:30.360
coots and whatnot, as far as I'm concerned, that's a gross, uh, miscarriage of justice.
00:37:34.860
I mean, for, for something to take this long, somebody should have stepped in.
00:37:39.260
Okay. So let's now talk about this in the context of why this conversation matters so much right
00:37:43.820
now, because we're looking at the United conservative party annual general meeting is
00:37:47.500
coming up. It'll be held in red deer the first weekend of November, and there will be a vote on
00:37:52.100
whether to have a review of Danielle's leadership at that convention. I know a couple of weeks ago,
00:37:56.800
I did a story on this and I heard from sources that the premier's office was feeling very
00:37:59.900
confident that they were hoping to get, uh, more than 80% support from the party membership.
00:38:06.240
I have a feeling that in the last few weeks, things have shifted. I'm hearing a lot more
00:38:10.180
resentment among conservatives. And I know that people are quietly starting to organize,
00:38:14.540
um, to see about maybe having a, a recall of Danielle, or at least to significantly, you know,
00:38:20.600
dampen her numbers so that perhaps she takes her base a little more seriously. Are you guys
00:38:24.840
thinking that this is a likelihood that she could actually be in a tough battle to hold on to her,
00:38:29.900
her leadership and ultimately the premiership in November?
00:38:32.580
Let me seek one clarification. And I think maybe Tariq knows this, but I don't think she has a
00:38:37.620
choice. It's not like there's a, it's not like there's a first vote where we say, should we have
00:38:41.500
a leadership review? And then we have a leadership review. I think the, the UCP constitution says
00:38:46.860
there's a leadership review every, uh, three out of every four AGMs. You don't have one.
00:38:53.480
Sorry. They'll be asking the question as to whether there's no ifs, ands, or buts. There's
00:38:56.860
a very simple question on the ballot. Everybody in attendance, is she doing a good job? Yes or no?
00:39:01.140
That's it. And, um, and, and the rules are pretty straightforward. It's, it's a, it's a classic
00:39:07.200
majority, 50% of the votes plus one person. So, um, I don't think it's a slam dunk for her. Not at this
00:39:14.120
Well, and I would also add that it's not even a 50% plus one because no leader will stay as leader of
00:39:19.460
the party if they don't have support from 70 to 80% of the membership. So she actually needs to
0.86
00:39:23.740
get support from much higher than 50%. Otherwise at that point, the calls will be too loud for her
00:39:27.920
to step down and she won't have a choice. But Tariq, do you see this as something that is going
00:39:31.280
to be an issue for her? You know, it's, it's all, it's all going to depend on her really in the next
00:39:36.420
90 days. It's in her court to see, is she going to deliver or is she not? Um, I know where I'm going
00:39:42.640
to stand as one individual. Uh, you know, I've got four things that she ran out low taxes,
1.00
00:39:47.400
small government pension police force among others. And I think that the fifth one that
00:39:51.500
I'd like to see her actually address head on is immigration. Uh, I know where I stand on
00:39:56.840
November one in the evening, if she doesn't have a plan for all five of them, um, I'm not
00:40:00.820
voting in confidence for premier Smith. Um, if she does have a plan and again, it's not
00:40:05.820
like she has to execute on all five. She has to just have a plan on how to execute on all
0.68
00:40:10.400
five, but, but concrete plans with timelines and dates and numbers and so on. She doesn't
00:40:14.600
have that. I'm not going for it. Now I do know that there are groups that are organizing
00:40:18.220
for, um, Rachel, ultimately politics. This is the unfortunate part is sometimes it's
00:40:23.720
about performance. Sometimes it's exclusively about organization. So it's who's going to
00:40:28.320
show up at the AGM, um, and who's, who's a better organizer. Um, who's going to bring the
00:40:34.720
people in that are truly, um, going to say, uh, this is what we stand for. This is the base
00:40:40.900
engaged to the membership and make sure they show up. I mean, the rules are, you've got
00:40:44.880
to buy a ticket. That's $170. You've got to be a member, um, by October 11th, that's
00:40:49.400
for 10 bucks. And you've got to be present in red deer on November 2nd to make the vote.
00:40:53.640
So if these people are dissatisfied or satisfied with Danielle either side, but they're not
00:40:58.040
there or they don't have a ticket or they don't have a membership, they're not expressing
00:41:01.420
it. So what I'll say is get involved. If you support premier Smith, get involved.
00:41:05.780
If you don't support her get involved, but you have to show up in red deer on
00:41:09.020
November 2nd, because otherwise, you know, the old forever hold your peace, um, thing
00:41:13.080
that, and as if she survives this one, I don't think even non Danielle supporters are going
00:41:19.680
to be making big moves in future AGMs because it gets closer and closer to a general election
00:41:24.380
date. Um, so, so it's, it's now or never in my mind.
00:41:28.340
And yeah, I mean, I want her to succeed. Like when, when I look at the, the, the people that
00:41:34.220
we've had in the last, you know, 20 years. And when I look at the pool of talent around
00:41:38.420
us, she's got the right talent. She's, she, she, I want her to succeed. I think we have
00:41:44.480
a good chance with her. And I agree. It's for me, it's the next two, three months and
00:41:50.480
it's, it's hers to lose, but in the next two, three months and in the next two, three months,
00:41:55.300
if she doesn't start delivering, she's going to have to do, um, deliver a pretty, uh, compelling
1.00
00:42:02.200
speech to get me to support her in the next, you know, at, at the AGM now. And that said,
00:42:09.340
um, you know, I just said the talent pool is, is, is thin that, that weighs on my mind.
00:42:15.080
I mean, I, you know, we could, it could be chaos to just look at what happened into the
00:42:20.260
U S right now, you know? So, yeah, I, yeah, I agree. It's good to hold politicians accountable,
00:42:26.020
but I also have to be pragmatic about the shit we're dealing with in the world we live
00:42:31.520
in. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think those are the tensions that most people will be going
00:42:35.320
into the AGM with. I think there's still a ton of support for Danielle among the United
00:42:39.300
Conservative Party. I, but I have been hearing increased numbers of complaints. Um, so I
00:42:44.040
think, you know, what you said Tariq about seeing a plan, but also I think people are going
00:42:48.380
to be looking for specific actions over the next couple of weeks. And like I said, I feel
00:42:51.340
like there's some super obvious things she could do right off the hop, sort of do a better
00:42:55.260
job of solidifying that, that support in November. And I just don't understand why
00:42:59.160
some of those simple things are not being done, like lowering taxes or one time payments.
00:43:04.660
I know that the premier is now working on a bill of rights. I know that that was largely
00:43:08.080
done to sort of reassure some supporters who may be adrift. This is something that a lot
00:43:12.760
of people in her very conservative base wanted. Do you think that that will do a good job of
00:43:17.420
bringing back some supporters who otherwise would have maybe been a bit disillusioned with the
00:43:21.760
I think again, any, any move she does that delivers for the benefits of Alberto, um,
0.98
00:43:27.280
and the conservative moon are good for her, you know, ultimately that that's, that's good. So I,
00:43:31.600
now, is it enough? It'll all depend, you know, in 90 days, a lot can happen. And, and I think it's
00:43:37.920
up to her to win it or lose it. Now, in terms of the talent pool and, and who comes next? And they're
00:43:43.840
like, well, I don't buy, I personally don't buy into the fear of, oh, if we don't, if we don't get
00:43:48.080
Danielle, we'll get Nahet Manchi. Um, that's shooting for the lowest common denominator.
1.00
00:43:52.560
That's shooting for the lowest bar. Um, I want excellence. I want a Ralph Klein. I, I want
00:43:57.760
absolute excellence and people like, well, if not premier Smith, then who to me, it doesn't matter
00:44:02.180
who it matters, what, what they do. Um, I, I don't care who that individual is. Um, liking or
00:44:08.360
disliking the head of government is not what I'm in the business of. Um, I want them to deliver results.
00:44:13.840
Um, and, and maybe I dislike them, but they get the right results. That's okay too. Um,
00:44:18.800
but at this point, you know, premier Smith does have support. She is well liked. Um,
00:44:23.760
but she has delivered in my mind, limited results at best. Um, that's, that's not good enough for me.
00:44:30.080
Um, again, this is a performance review, uh, not a leadership review. And in terms of a performance
00:44:35.040
review, I don't know if I give her a C minus right now.
00:44:37.680
And this will be a good test. Like a really good leader takes criticism and will, um, you know,
00:44:44.320
adjust the course and make the necessary adjustments. You know, having to change course
00:44:49.840
on something is not a, it doesn't mean you're admitting failure. It, it, it does technically
00:44:54.640
mean you made a mistake and you're changing, but, but mistakes are fine. I mean, we're human. And so she,
00:45:00.160
so yeah, change, changing a few things in the next three months, that's not a failure. It's,
00:45:05.040
it's an adjustment. And if, but if she's unable to make adjustments, then yeah, then,
00:45:09.200
then she's not the right leader, by the way, just so I don't, I, I, I lived under Ralph Klein. I mean,
00:45:15.280
I, Ralph Klein was my premier. I played poker against Ralph Klein at the Yellowhead Casino in
00:45:20.480
Edmonton. We will never see another Ralph Klein. We will never see another Ralph Klein. Ralph was
00:45:25.760
unique. God bless him. He was unique. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, I think we'll leave it there for today.
00:45:32.080
I really appreciate your insight. I hope that our listeners enjoy the show. And I think we'll have
00:45:36.720
to sit down and do it again, a little closer to the AGM to see where we've landed just ahead of
00:45:41.360
November. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Well, you can have us as correspondents for the
00:45:44.720
AGM that gets us in for free instead of not. You can come do the camera work for me. That's fine.
00:45:50.320
Sure. There you go. Awesome. All right, everyone have a great weekend. I'll see you guys next week and God bless.