The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - August 03, 2024


“She almost got booed” - Is Danielle Smith losing support？


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

201.43767

Word Count

9,369

Sentence Count

577

Misogynist Sentences

32

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was elected as a leader of the United Conservative Party
00:00:13.460 less than two years ago. She won on the sixth and final ballot and at the time was considered
00:00:19.660 one of the most, if not the most conservative candidate in the race. However, in the months
00:00:26.020 since, some conservatives, including those who supported her during the leadership race,
00:00:30.340 are starting to feel a little bit disillusioned with Danielle Smith. They're saying that she is
00:00:34.480 failing to deliver on promises and policies that she backed during the leadership race,
00:00:39.680 like an Alberta pension plan, an Alberta police force, and lowering taxes. Today on the Alberta
00:00:46.120 Roundup with Rachel Parker, I am joined by Tariq Angala and Marty Belanger, otherwise known as
00:00:51.980 Marty Up North, to discuss. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure, Rachel.
00:00:56.620 Pleasure to be back. Wasn't I here just a couple of days ago? Yes. Fan favorite, I had to bring you
00:01:01.780 back pretty quickly. The people were demanding it. So Tariq, I wanted to start with you. Part of the
00:01:06.780 reason I wanted to have you both on is because you've been pretty vocal and pointing out some
00:01:10.320 of the inconsistencies in what Danielle said that she was going to deliver on versus now what she
00:01:14.620 has done about two years into her premiership. And you kind of have been pointing out, listen,
00:01:18.920 we need to see some action on her. So Tariq, why don't you start by saying whether or not you
00:01:22.620 supported Danielle during the leadership race and in the ways you feel she's not delivering now?
00:01:27.920 Okay, great question. So I definitely did support Premier Smith during the leadership race. And
00:01:32.280 I think I did everything I can as an Albertan to support the UCP in their run. So whether that was
00:01:40.020 buying a membership, donating to the party, volunteering. I remember running really a campaign
00:01:45.420 against the NDP seat by seat in Calgary and pointing out the flaws of every candidate. So
00:01:50.940 I was very, very energized and enthusiastic. And if anything, Rachel, if you remember, you and I met
00:01:55.560 at the Big Four last year and you interviewed me as Danielle was in her government was just getting
00:02:01.340 elected. Now, I feel like we've done our part to support Premier Smith and to support the UCP.
00:02:07.780 It was up to her now to do her part. And I expected big, bold moves in the first 100 days.
00:02:13.480 Because again, nobody makes big, bold moves in the last 100 days. I expected, you know,
00:02:17.840 aggressive tax cuts, aggressive size of government jobs, etc. None of that has happened. Exactly zero
00:02:23.540 things of the things she's run on have happened. So she's likable, she's visible. But in terms of
00:02:28.900 results, we haven't seen any.
00:02:30.520 Marty, why don't you go ahead and say if this is sort of your sentiments as well, or if you would
00:02:34.380 take different issues with Danielle?
00:02:35.640 No, it's my sentiment as well. And like Tariq, I, you know, I remember I was there on election
00:02:45.280 night. But I remember very specifically, you know, for the three months leading up to the
00:02:49.740 election, I was doing a weekly podcast with somebody else where we were specifically focused
00:02:54.280 on promoting Danielle. Like, that's how much we that's how much I faith I had in her, you know,
00:03:00.460 Tariq says she's a conservative, I thought she was supposed to be beyond a conservative,
00:03:05.520 I was hoping she'd be a libertarian, because I, you know, I believe in small government,
00:03:10.160 almost no government is what I believe in. And so, and yeah, I agree not I in, in industry,
00:03:18.700 we talk about the 90 days, not even 100 days, we go 90 days, you know, you have to make an impact in
00:03:24.700 those first 90 days. And after that, you either settle into a routine, or you run out of time.
00:03:30.460 And for me, I was being critical at first. And every time I'm critical of her, I get a lot of
00:03:34.920 pushback. So but in, but to answer your question, yes, she right now, I'm not I'm I, my patient is
00:03:41.780 exhausted. I don't think she's moving in the right direction. She needs a course correction.
00:03:46.280 So why don't we take a little look at some of the policies that she has said she supported during
00:03:50.480 the leadership race that we haven't seen any action on. One of the main things is obviously
00:03:54.320 an Alberta provincial police force. I think this is something that a lot of conservatives Albertans
00:03:58.120 feel very strongly about. They feel that this would give us a level of separation from the federal
00:04:03.060 government and from Ottawa that we don't currently have, and that they would like to see. Now,
00:04:07.500 Daniel Smith said she was in favor of a provincial police force during the election, but we haven't
00:04:11.660 seen any dollars for that. Tariq, why don't you go first? Why do you think that is?
00:04:16.580 You bet. So I think a couple of things. I think one, she bought into the pushback from ironically
00:04:23.180 enough, the urban voters from Calgary and Edmonton, that do not have the RCMP and have their own
00:04:31.000 municipal policing force. She introduced what I would call very half measures around it rather
00:04:36.340 than just being bold and being aggressive. So Grand Prairie is the only municipality in the last,
00:04:40.920 what, 18 months that have voted to transition from the RCMP into their own police force.
00:04:47.260 And then again, half measures. She's like, well, we're going to backstop the policing shortage with
00:04:52.320 the Alberta sheriffs. In my mind, if I was to do this, we were going to replace the RCMP with the Alberta
00:04:58.260 sheriffs. And then constables can, if they wanted to, apply into the new police force and get
00:05:03.800 accepted. So I'm pretty disappointed, I think, in her move to the left and realizing that, again,
00:05:10.460 she won Calgary by a very narrow margin. She's now starting to cater to the left rather than say,
00:05:16.220 you know what, the sky isn't going to fall if we get the police force and the pension plan and so on.
00:05:20.460 Do it now so that in four years when you're up for re-election, you're good. You're in a good spot.
00:05:25.320 And you could tell your voters, hey, this worked and crime rates have dropped. Drug overdoses have
00:05:30.040 dropped. Drug crime has dropped. Like the things that she really, really cares about.
00:05:34.220 Which is a key, which is a key for her, right? If I can just add to that, like when you listen to
00:05:39.320 Danielle, yeah, she'll talk, she knows all the priorities that she was elected on. She can rhyme
00:05:45.080 them off, right? She'll say she was elected to lower taxes, defend Alberta against Ottawa,
00:05:49.600 promote her industry and things like that. By the way, she's very good with words. I mean,
00:05:53.660 her 30 years in radio and media serves her well, but she speaks about the priorities. But when you
00:06:01.400 compare her priorities with ours, you see sort of a little bit of a disconnect, which is she is a
00:06:07.900 politician and she has her favorite projects and her favorite projects get advanced. And the ones that
00:06:13.020 she doesn't favor, she'll find an excuse not to advance them. That's one of my...
00:06:18.340 Let's be specific. What are those favorite projects in your mind?
00:06:21.920 Well, she wants to be... I think she's happy fighting Ottawa. She looks like she's happy. So
00:06:26.920 she wants to be remembered as somebody who stood up to Ottawa for Alberta. Maybe that's because she's
00:06:31.380 thinking of a longer career in Ottawa. So, you know, the Sovereignty Act and things like that,
00:06:36.160 she's very, very proud of that. She doesn't seem to want to tackle making government smaller. She
00:06:42.700 doesn't want that to be her legacy. I don't know why. You know, she's not a Ralph Klein that way.
00:06:46.800 She's actually not interested in tackling Alberta Health and going after them and the College of
00:06:52.740 Surgeons. She's, you know, she's... Yeah, her legacy as far as a defender of Alberta, I think is one of
00:07:00.440 the ones that she wants to be known as. She just wants to be, you know, she wants to, in her mind,
00:07:04.660 make Alberta great. And, you know, and then... Go ahead. Sorry.
00:07:09.720 So just to, you know, push back or to be fair for a little bit, she did tackle
00:07:13.540 Alberta Health Services in one capacity. She did break them up, divide them into different sections,
00:07:18.660 sort of get rid of the centralization of power in that regard. But what I'm hearing you address
00:07:23.020 specifically is that you maybe wanted to see a shakeup with more management, maybe people who
00:07:27.640 are responsible. And this is me just assuming, so jumping if I'm incorrect here. People who are
00:07:31.280 directly responsible for policies that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, maybe seeing a shakeup and
00:07:35.780 having them rid of their positions. Is that more of the change that you were looking for?
00:07:39.740 When I'm looking for a change, and I think the Conservatives in general are that way, we sort
00:07:45.140 of had an overall plan, which is, we'd like to see smaller government, we'd like to see lower taxes,
00:07:50.960 we'd like to see Ottawa be, you know, fought and pushed back into their lane, and we do our lanes.
00:07:57.120 And they're all intertwined. They're not separate. And that's the thing, you can't make these things
00:08:00.780 separate. So how do you lower taxes? By finding efficiencies in government somewhere. And where's
00:08:07.840 a place where we think there's efficiencies? In Alberta Health. It's, you know, Alberta Health,
00:08:12.240 we're not targeting, well, we are targeting Alberta Health, because it is a bit of a corrupt
00:08:15.580 organization. But we're, but we're targeting them, because it's just the biggest chunk of our budget,
00:08:21.700 like, I think it's $29 billion goes to Alberta Health. So, you know, go after that money, like it's
00:08:28.040 multiple birds with one stone, cut the taxes, reform Alberta Health, find us some savings and improve it.
00:08:35.560 So you don't do them separately. And, and whenever she starts to do them separately, like that,
00:08:41.520 that's where it falls apart. You know, there's a reason you're not, you're not going after Alberta
00:08:46.080 Health, just because we're vindictive or COVID, you're going out after Alberta Health, you need
00:08:51.200 to go after Alberta Health, because it's a $29 billion juggernaut, like, you know.
00:08:57.160 So Tariq, when Marty talks about needing to go after Alberta Health, for one reason to save money to cut
00:09:02.260 the budget. I mean, it seems fairly obvious to me that one of the reasons that Danielle Smith has
00:09:07.260 not found ways to cut costs is because the government is spending so much money. She's actually, you know,
00:09:12.520 spending more than previous governments. So I don't know, you know, Marty, I believe that she is,
00:09:17.340 ideologically speaking, libertarian, or at least was, she's certainly not governing as one, she's
00:09:22.600 spending a lot of money. And I'm seeing policies that no one asked for, like the railway system,
00:09:27.720 it doesn't seem like, you know, the best time to be implementing a policy like that, when what
00:09:31.640 Albertans are really asking for are for tax cuts. But what's your take on the situation? Do you think
00:09:36.660 her government, their high cost of spending, are we as Albertans getting value for the things that
00:09:41.360 our government's spending money on right now? Unequivocally, no, I mean, you know, we used to have
00:09:48.540 sort of a $40 billion a year budget, and we're, we're, I think we're approaching 70 billion. I mean,
00:09:54.100 for me, the most current budget was a shocker when it came out. And I actually did a detailed
00:09:59.900 analysis, I compared the growth of our budget with the growth of our population. And our budget is
00:10:05.020 outpacing growth by a factor of four to one. So it's, it's crazy. And then when you look at
00:10:10.720 spending per capita, in some categories, we're the highest, like, you know, we, I think we're almost
00:10:16.760 the highest in spending per capita on healthcare. And we're not, we're not getting value compared to
00:10:22.400 other places. So that's one answer. And to your, you know, she, you're right, she's not acting like
00:10:27.300 a libertarian. She is a libertarian. I mean, at first people were, she has a tattoo, she literally
00:10:32.520 has a tattoo on her arm, like a, from a libertarian institute, organization that she's attended, and she
00:10:39.820 liked it so much, she got it tattooed on her arm. But, but, you know, just this week, she mentioned
00:10:43.900 something like, you know, that, that a provincial auto insurance is not off the, not out of the
00:10:52.520 question. I'm like, wow, like, that's, no, that's out of the question. If you're a libertarian, in fact,
00:10:57.960 it's almost out of the question, if you're a conservative, like, you know, more, more state
00:11:01.320 organizations, that's, that's contrary, that's completely contrary to what we've asked her or
00:11:07.400 elected her to do.
00:11:09.020 Tariq, I'll just go ahead and let you answer the same question there. Where do you think things have
00:11:12.160 gone wrong with the budget? I think she, I mean, her budget is $20 billion more than Rachel Notley's
00:11:19.180 biggest budget for, for, for an indication. And I, I don't know how you justify that. And I don't know
00:11:25.040 how you justify even the front bench, like the Minister of Finance going on TV and saying, Nate
00:11:29.580 Horner and saying, here's our budget. Oh, and by the way, we're deferring taxes, because we can't, we
00:11:35.240 still have to spend, and we want to grow the heritage funds, and what have you. I think she could have
00:11:40.700 made some bold moves in the first hundred days to chop out ministries that aren't, I will call,
00:11:46.140 essential for today. So for example, if you're in a crunch, and you have $77 billion of debt,
00:11:51.560 which the province does, and you need to lower taxes, I get healthcare spending, obviously,
00:11:56.480 we are, inefficiencies in healthcare are gigantic. But then you look at ministries like, for example,
00:12:02.180 sport, recreation, tourism, those can instantly, that you can go, like, we will still function as
00:12:09.100 society, if, if these ministries go, and think about the millions and millions of dollars of
00:12:14.720 staffing, real estate, policy, etc, that you could save on ministries like those to start with. And
00:12:20.860 she hasn't done that. She hasn't brought small government solutions of opening up the utilities
00:12:27.440 market, or the aviation market, or the telecoms market, or so on. So open up those. So make it
00:12:33.660 cheaper for us as consumers to get into. So I'd like to see small government solutions, the private,
00:12:40.380 like privatizing parts of the government where we, they're not essential services, but the public,
00:12:46.100 the private sector does it better, cheaper, faster. And then ultimately, the thing that kind of shocks me,
00:12:50.860 the most, Rachel, and I don't know if we're going to talk about this a little bit later,
00:12:53.620 is she's put her foot down and said, I want to double Alberta's population. And just the
00:12:58.980 unbridled immigration that we're seeing here. And I understand that immigration is a federal
00:13:02.880 policy item from a total aggregate number. But there's certain tools within Premier Smith's hands
00:13:09.740 that she could do to at least slow it down. But no, she's, she's encouraging it. I mean, 200,000
00:13:15.240 people in the last... Did you, did you hear why she's taken the strategy? Like,
00:13:20.500 you know, she, I, by the way, coincidentally, I, I, I listened to her yesterday. So she was in
00:13:27.000 Calgary here yesterday. There was, what do you call it? Not an open house, but a town hall at one of the
00:13:34.160 local constituency associations. And she came out to speak. So, and she, she, she reiterated this.
00:13:40.660 She views, she wants to grow Alberta by to 10 million people as a way to increase our clout within
00:13:46.860 confederation. And it's like, well, that's, that's a flawed theory anyways, because there's a giant
00:13:51.820 flaw in confederation, which already dictates who gets however many seats. There's a formula. So
00:13:57.040 increasing our population will barely have an impact on our clout. And, and so it's a, that's a
00:14:05.120 troubling, that, that one really troubled me.
00:14:07.360 If I may, if I may, Marty, I think it's flawed for more than one reason. I think it's also flawed
00:14:11.880 because I don't know that the people that you're bringing here are going to be on board with your
00:14:16.140 conservative agenda. Typically speaking, you know, the people who live in Alberta are very unique.
00:14:20.800 I've, I've lived in Ontario. I've spent much, much time elsewhere in the country. Alberta is a very
00:14:25.240 unique and special place. And I don't know if that policy does enough to address and to want to
00:14:31.640 conserve the uniqueness and the specialness of Alberta. I think that that's being missed. And I
00:14:35.940 remember a few months ago, the premier said, we want to have a million people in red deer,
00:14:39.540 a million people in red deer. The people who live in red deer don't want a million people there.
00:14:43.500 The people who live in red deer like that it's a smaller city. They like that they can get into
00:14:47.240 Edmonton quickly. They like that they can get into Calgary quickly without dealing with all the
00:14:50.640 business. And frankly, the expense of those cities. I don't want. Yeah. Yeah. I find, you know,
00:14:57.020 I'm from an Alberta when there was 1.9 million people here at four and a half. I find this place
00:15:02.060 overwhelming, like overcrowded. So, you know, if it gets to 10 million, I'll be suffocating. So yeah,
00:15:07.720 no, I agree. That's a, that's a great point. She addressed it by saying that actually somebody
00:15:13.900 brought up a good point of perhaps addressing that, which is, you know, make, make the, the
00:15:19.480 temporary foreign worker as a stepping stone. So accept workers here under that program. And then
00:15:25.900 if you show yourself as being a valuable worker, then you can apply for permanent status afterwards,
00:15:33.960 which was a great idea. And, but, but it's going to be difficult for her anyways, because
00:15:38.640 immigration is kind of like a weird shared responsibility between.
00:15:44.300 The other thing as well is we're not a system or a country that builds quickly. So roads, schools,
00:15:49.560 hospitals, et cetera. So the funny part is we're, we're already behind capacity. Like if we stopped
00:15:54.900 immigration as a temporary hold for, let's say three to five years, we'd barely still catch up.
00:16:00.180 Um, yet it's absolutely unbridled. Like if you look at the cost of housing, Alberta used to be
00:16:04.560 affordable. Like that was one of, and we wasn't affordable by choice. It was affordable due to
00:16:09.240 organic, organic growth and small governments, uh, low taxes, et cetera, and strong economies.
00:16:14.300 So it wasn't, it wasn't just by, by happenstance that we're affordable. We're losing that now.
00:16:19.000 The Alberta advantage I think is either gone or just about to be gone. Um,
00:16:24.140 Yeah. Tariq, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Yeah. It depends on where you live. It still
00:16:29.780 depends on where you live. There are still pockets in Alberta. There's some smaller towns,
00:16:33.940 especially if you go further North where not as many people want to live because of the weather,
00:16:37.040 you can still get a lower cost of living. But you know, one of the reasons that I myself moved to
00:16:41.420 Alberta was partly for a good job opportunity, but also because as a young person, I was priced out
00:16:45.780 of Ontario and most recently living in Calgary, my rent is more than I would have paid if I was living
00:16:51.540 in Niagara. Like my husband and I moved now, but for a two bedroom townhouse, very narrow,
00:16:56.800 I think it wasn't even about nine feet wide. It was almost $3,000 a month.
00:17:01.760 Well, the numbers don't lie. I mean, we, we were letting in, uh, about 250,000 people came to
00:17:07.620 Alberta last year and, and our record year for building housing units is, uh, is 48,000 housing
00:17:14.880 units. And you know, that was in the 1990s. We've done it three or four times, three or four times in the
00:17:19.220 last 50 years. We've had years where we suddenly managed to build 40, 50,000 housing unit. And if
00:17:25.140 you think of a housing unit as holding three or four people perhaps, and I don't even think it's
00:17:29.380 that high, then, then that only accommodates 160,000 people. So when we let in 250, we're just
00:17:35.780 falling behind.
00:17:36.700 And the craftsmanship of these homes that are being swept up are often coming into question as well.
00:17:41.200 Like these new builds are not quality. They're not made to last and they're not providing a good
00:17:44.760 quality of life either. Marty, you mentioned something that I think we need to mention,
00:17:48.120 which is the fact that immigration is federal. That being said, there are things provinces can
00:17:53.360 do to discourage people from, from moving here. I know that you were talking about this a little
00:17:56.960 bit on X. Why don't you share some of your ideas? What are things you think the premier could be
00:18:00.160 doing if she had a stance that we need to slow immigration down?
00:18:03.440 Well, well, like I said, you, you, you, you would have, you would have to show that you have a place
00:18:08.220 to live or a place to, um, to work. Like you could put, I think, I think she could put rule,
00:18:14.980 a province could put rules like that. I mean, uh, language laws are also a rule, right? Um,
00:18:21.060 Quebec does it all the time. You don't speak French within a certain, you, you can't work
00:18:24.600 in Quebec. They won't let you in. I don't know how they do it technically, but Quebec
00:18:28.200 does things like that. So there, there are things to discourage people from coming here
00:18:34.100 or, or things we can do to pick and choose, but, but it would be very difficult. I, the,
00:18:39.520 the way confederation works, once somebody is in Canada, they're almost free to move anywhere
00:18:44.160 they want. And what happens right now, we're letting in millions of people and they're going
00:18:48.040 to Ontario. They're going to Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. It's, it's just, you know,
00:18:54.780 no, I think that's the reality. I mean, she's not, it's by the way, she's not willing to change
00:19:00.340 other things that I think are easier to change. So she's not going to tackle Ottawa in terms of
00:19:04.640 immigration. She'll fall back to a, well, the rules are the rules. And she, she wants more
00:19:09.100 people anyway. She's, this is not one of her pet projects. She wants more people in, in, in Alberta.
00:19:13.520 So she's absolutely not going to interfere. I don't. Sure. Just before we maybe change direction
00:19:18.380 to her, I was just going to say like, there might not be a lot that she could do to dissuade people
00:19:22.480 from moving here. But I think some obvious things is maybe to not encourage them to come here. Like
00:19:26.240 we have the Alberta is calling campaign and I get that those are targeted tax credits,
00:19:29.340 but if you talk to someone in Ontario, they're like, I hear you guys, people want people to
00:19:32.880 move there. And I hear it's a cheaper cost of living. I'm thinking about moving there. And I'm
00:19:35.480 like, well, it's not what you think it is. Well, ironically, there's programs in place to
00:19:40.000 encourage long-term Albertans to stay here. So like we're, this is getting ridiculous because
00:19:45.940 new people are coming and people who've been here a long time are leaving.
00:19:50.100 There are tools. Like I would say one to start with, get on TV tomorrow and say, Alberta's not
00:19:55.520 calling anymore. We're full. Okay. Like to start with, right. Like just from a
00:19:59.220 marketing standpoint. And then the other tools that are within her control because they're
00:20:02.900 provincial is healthcare and education. You say, you know what, if you move here for the
00:20:07.820 first 24 months, starting September 1st, it's a pay into system. So there's a holding period
00:20:13.360 of 24 months until you get free healthcare and free education. That's well within her control
00:20:19.080 easily, right? That will stop 70% of people right away because they're like, oh, I have to
00:20:23.260 move to Alberta, but I have to pay for healthcare and education for two years. But yeah, it's fair.
00:20:28.040 You need to build into the system until you can start to take out of it. So there's certain tools
00:20:33.440 within her realm that she can take, if not to control the federal immigration numbers,
00:20:40.740 to at least control the movement of internal immigration within the country.
00:20:45.800 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
00:20:58.380 your town hall at all in Calgary this week?
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
00:24:14.480 NDP.
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
00:24:36.300 that sense.
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,
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
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,
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
00:26:44.020 going to eat up whatever left is left of her budget in terms of healthcare and education
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,
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
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,
00:30:55.640 uh, on Wednesday.
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
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
00:39:13.300 point.
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
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,
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
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
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
00:43:20.760 Danielle premier?
00:43:21.760 I think again, any, any move she does that delivers for the benefits of Alberto, um,
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.
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.
00:46:02.080 God bless him.
00:46:19.200 Bye.
00:46:20.800 Bye.
00:46:24.960 Bye.
00:46:27.280 Bye.
00:46:29.760 Bye.