The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - January 07, 2023


Smith challenges Notley to stand up to Trudeau

Topics
Alberta fuel tax relief program
Hosted by
Isaac Lamoureux
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Marco Mendicino Rachel Notley Jeremy Nixon Jonathan Wilkinson Alberta Roundup Marco Medellino Steven Guilbeault Rachel Emanuel Heather Smith Jason Kenney Travis Taves Kaelin Forn
The Top Stories in Alberta of 2022 Smith says Trudeau appealing to ‘extreme base’

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

178.36

Word count

1,503

Sentence count

84

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

This week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is challenging Rachel Notley to stand up to Ottawa, Alberta is the first province to announce a permanent fuel tax relief program, a nurses group wants to reimpose a mask mandate in indoor spaces, an Alberta minister says the federal government must consult with the province before investing in vulnerable communities, and finally, Public Safety Minister Marco Medellino now says Ottawa is working with a potential third party to implement its gun buyback scheme. All that and more happening now on the Alberta Roundup.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.960 It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart.
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00:00:30.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:33.200 I'm your host, Rachel Emanuel.
00:00:34.640 I hope you all had an amazing Christmas break.
00:00:36.800 I was back in Ontario visiting family and friends and I was surprised at the number of
00:00:41.040 people who came up to me and told me they watched the Alberta Roundup every week.
00:00:44.960 So there you have it.
00:00:45.920 Conservative Canadians across the country are paying attention to what's going on in Alberta right now.
00:00:51.360 Now, let's take a look at what we're going to be talking about on today's show.
00:00:54.800 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith is challenging Rachel Notley to stand up to Ottawa.
00:00:59.280 Alberta is the first province to announce a permanent fuel tax relief program.
00:01:03.040 Danielle Smith shut down a request from the United Nurses of Alberta 0.98
00:01:06.640 to reimpose a mask mandate in indoor spaces.
00:01:09.440 An Alberta minister says the federal government
00:01:11.520 must consult with the province before investing in vulnerable communities.
00:01:15.520 And finally, Public Safety Minister Marco Medellino
00:01:18.480 now says Ottawa is working with a potential third party to implement its gun buyback scheme.
00:01:24.080 All that and more happening now on the Alberta Roundup.
00:01:26.400 This week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took aim at the federal government's renewed intention
00:01:31.280 to transition oil and gas sector jobs to renewable energy jobs.
00:01:35.840 The federal government has framed its so-called just transition legislation
00:01:39.920 as a way to lessen the impact on energy workers displaced by the transition to a low-carbon economy.
00:01:45.440 Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has described the bill's focus
00:01:49.360 as being sustainable job creation and economic growth in every region of the country.
00:01:54.080 But Danielle Smith disagrees.
00:01:55.680 She wrote on Twitter, quote,
00:01:56.960 The federal government's ill-conceived and short-sighted plan is extremely harmful
00:02:00.800 to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are supported by the energy sector
00:02:04.560 and will be detrimental to Canada's economic recovery.
00:02:07.840 Smith is also calling on NDP leader Rachel Notley to join the government in opposing the federal government's bill.
00:02:13.840 She said Notley must quote put aside partisanship for the sake of Alberta's economy and join us.
00:02:20.000 After a number of provinces announced fuel tax relief last year,
00:02:23.680 Alberta is the first province to announce their fuel tax relief program will become permanent this year.
00:02:28.320 Under former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney,
00:02:30.560 the United Conservative Party government suspended its 13 cents per litre tax on April 1.
00:02:35.360 That tax was partially reinstated on October to 4.5 cents per litre on gas and diesel,
00:02:40.560 as oil prices fell below 100 USD per barrel.
00:02:43.840 In a broadcast to the province in November,
00:02:46.080 Smith said the entire fuel tax relief program will be turned for six months.
00:02:50.240 That relief began this week on January 1, and it will run until June,
00:02:54.560 after which time the province will implement its permanent fuel tax relief program.
00:02:58.240 Alberta Finance Minister Travis Taves said beginning July 1,
00:03:01.200 the permanent program will return to the current system,
00:03:03.920 of providing fuel tax relief based on the price of West Texas Intermediate Oil.
00:03:08.640 In a statement, he said, quote,
00:03:10.320 The measure is just one of a number we brought forward to help Albertans deal
00:03:13.760 with the higher cost of living.
00:03:15.280 It's relief we're able to provide thanks to our strong fiscal situation,
00:03:19.120 which is helping us fulfill our commitment to make life more affordable.
00:03:22.560 This story happened last month, but I haven't got a chance to cover it in the show yet,
00:03:25.520 so I'm going to let you guys know now, because many of you were very excited to hear it.
00:03:29.680 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shut down a request from a nurses group to reimpose a mask mandate
00:03:34.720 indoors. The United Nurses of Alberta made the request after Alberta Health Services announced
00:03:39.840 an emergency situation at the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, following a surge of kids
00:03:45.600 with respiratory viruses. Smith said she was aware of the situation, but her government has been
00:03:50.560 clear that anyone who feels comfortable wearing a mask should do so. She said, quote,
00:03:55.360 I always appreciate the input of our frontline workers, but we do support choice.
00:03:59.840 Smith's comments came after the United Nurses of Alberta president, Heather Smith,
00:04:04.080 issued an open letter to the premier after the intensive care unit at Stollery reached 100%
00:04:09.040 capacity. She wrote, quote, For the sake of Alberta's children and all Albertans,
00:04:13.760 it is imperative that our government cease treating this situation as if it were a political inconvenience
00:04:19.600 and address it immediately as a public health crisis that it is. The letters a mask meant it would be
00:04:24.800 easy for people to comply with, but also effective to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.
00:04:30.640 Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.
00:04:35.360 Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.
00:04:38.960 Rich, creamy, chocolatey arrow truffle. Feel the arrow bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.
00:04:45.440 Following accusations that a Calgary school teacher was pushing an anti-conservative bias onto students,
00:04:50.800 the founder of a Calgary charter school says she's not concerned her educators will push a bias onto
00:04:56.080 students because they're too busy teaching a fundamentally different curriculum.
00:05:01.200 Kaylin Forn, the founder of the Calgary Classical Academy, rejects the view that education should be
00:05:06.480 seen as a means of a vehicle for social transformation. A philosophy progressive education reformers began to
00:05:13.600 embrace in the 20th century. She said, quote, that's part of why you end up with a lot of this kind of
00:05:18.560 thing in schools, a lot of focus on contemporary social issues, on turning students into agents of
00:05:24.000 change. Ford said teachers at the Calgary Classical Academy are too busy teaching students things like
00:05:28.880 Latin, music, and world history. She said, quote, we expose kids to texts in the works of art and literature
00:05:35.360 and stories that have stood the test of times and are in some cases centuries or millennia old.
00:05:40.400 Frankly, we don't have time for much else beyond that. Alberta Seniors Community and Social Services
00:05:45.600 Minister Jeremy Nixon says the federal government's efforts to invest in vulnerable communities fall
00:05:50.880 short when the federal government doesn't first consult with the province. In a year-end interview
00:05:56.000 with True North, Nixon said the Trudeau Liberals have bypassed consultation with his government.
00:06:00.960 He said, quote, they try to directly apply these things in ways that don't always make sense with what
00:06:05.040 the government is trying to do or in ways that doesn't align with the needs that are in our community.
00:06:09.920 To address issues and supports for vulnerable Canadians, they need to work with the provincial
00:06:14.080 governments and allow us to do what we do best. For example, Ottawa recently announced rent subsidies
00:06:20.080 for those earning under $20,000 per year, a commitment which excludes those with a disability
00:06:25.680 by just $200. Albertans on assured income for the severely handicapped receive $20,220 from the
00:06:32.960 province annually. Nixon said the government either knew what they're doing or they're willfully
00:06:37.520 incompetent. Okay guys, moving into the controversy of the week. After four provinces said they would
00:06:42.960 not aid the Trudeau Liberals' gun buyback scheme, Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino now
00:06:49.120 says the federal government is consulting with potential third parties on administering the
00:06:53.760 program. In September, Alberta was the first province to oppose Mendicino's request to confiscate
00:06:58.640 its citizens' legally acquired firearms. It was followed promptly by Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
00:07:03.360 and New Brunswick. Now, Mendicino says Ottawa is looking at a variety of options to deliver the
00:07:08.080 buyback program. He said, quote, we're taking the time that is necessary to get it right. It's going to
00:07:13.360 involve a number of critical stakeholders and partners, including law enforcement, but we're
00:07:18.320 also working with other levels of government. We're working with industry leaders. We're working
00:07:22.320 with potential third parties. So we are exploring all of these options. Okay guys, and what we're watching
00:07:27.360 on the weeks to come, I reported on this just ahead of the Christmas holidays. We haven't covered it in
00:07:31.440 the show yet. The Alberta government is considering utilizing its Alberta Sovereignty Act to push back
00:07:36.560 on the Liberal government's absurd electric vehicle mandate. In December, Liberal Minister Stephen
00:07:42.240 Gilbeau announced that every major passenger vehicle sold in Canada must be electric by 2035.
00:07:48.800 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith's office said the mandate is a clear violation of Alberta's right to freely
00:07:53.600 regulate its economy. Our cabinet and caucus will discuss this issue and what tools we will consider
00:07:58.000 using to push back on this absurd federal policy, including potential use of the Alberta Sovereignty
00:08:03.040 Act within a United Canada Act, the Premier's office said. Okay guys, that's everything I have for
00:08:07.600 you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're able, please consider supporting our work
00:08:11.520 at donate.tnc.news. I'll see you guys next week and God bless.
00:08:23.600 you