The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - February 17, 2024


Smith mocks Guilbeault’s bid to ban roads


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

167.98036

Word count

2,053

Sentence count

113

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this week's Alberta Roundup, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warns federal Environment Minister Stephen Guibault that he has already lost the election. She also announces a new promise to stop using electronic tabulators in provincial votes and calls for an end to the carbon tax.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's a new week and therefore the federal government has devised new ways to make your
00:00:04.760 life more difficult. We have long wait times for houses, hospitals, doctors, and if Justin Trudeau
00:00:11.120 has it his way, soon you'll be waiting years for a gas-powered vehicle that won't even be able to
00:00:17.220 drive to your house. Why? Because the federal government is importing people into this country 1.00
00:00:22.880 at the rate of millions, and yet they don't see why new roads might be necessary to deal with all
00:00:28.760 these people. At least we can hope things might be different in Alberta, where Environment Minister
00:00:34.920 Stephen Guibault's latest bid to stop road construction has once again put him in
00:00:39.860 Danielle Smith's crosshairs. I'm Rachel Emanuel, and this is the Alberta Roundup.
00:00:44.020 Taking a look at our first story here, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is warning Federal
00:00:59.300 Environment Minister Stephen Guibault that he already lost, after Guibault says he doesn't
00:01:04.600 want municipalities building new roads. On Monday, Guibault announced that the federal government
00:01:09.900 would no longer be providing municipalities funding to build new roads because it encourages
00:01:15.840 people to use cars. He said that municipalities should instead be focused on fighting climate
00:01:21.780 change, adding quote, of course, we will continue to be there for cities, provinces, and territories
00:01:27.820 to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government
00:01:33.540 to enlarge the road network. Premier Smith responded by saying that Stephen Guibault is losing credibility,
00:01:39.280 every single day. Take a listen. Stephen Guibault needs to understand that he lost. He put together
00:01:45.680 a bill that was found to be unconstitutional. It's illegal. And the court told them they had to rewrite
00:01:51.200 it. And part of the reason it was unconstitutional and illegal is because they did silly things like
00:01:56.300 come into our jurisdiction and tell us what projects we could and could not build, including
00:02:03.100 there was a line in there that any road that was longer than 75 kilometers needed federal approval.
00:02:09.000 Well, the Supreme Court has found that to be unconstitutional and illegal. So I don't take
00:02:13.440 much stock in Guibault trying to assert that he has authority in areas that he does not.
00:02:18.900 The controversy also caused Ontario Premier Doug Ford to weigh in, saying that he was, quote,
00:02:24.040 gobsmacked by the announcement. In a statement on X, Ford wrote, quote,
00:02:28.360 a federal minister said they won't invest in new roads or highways. He doesn't care that you're
00:02:34.040 stuck in a bumper to bumper traffic. I do. We're building roads and highways with or without a
00:02:39.960 scent from the feds. And in a new promise that I know you guys will all be very excited to hear
00:02:44.740 about, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has also promised to stop using electronic tabulators
00:02:50.660 in provincial votes. I exclusively covered this story for True North earlier this week,
00:02:55.920 and I also have the video. I haven't shared it with anyone yet. I thought I would share it with
00:02:59.760 you guys first. Here is the Premier at a UCP fundraiser in Bonneville last month.
00:03:05.680 And he used strictly paper ballots. There's a lot of people that don't trust tabulators and don't
00:03:11.240 trust voting machines at all. Are you going to end the use of voting tabulators across the province?
00:03:16.120 Yes.
00:03:19.440 The Premier's base has long called for more election transparency and decried the use of
00:03:25.920 electronics in the ballot counting process, believing that electronics increase the potential
00:03:31.460 for vote tampering. As part of Elections Vote Anywhere service, electors could show up at any
00:03:37.860 riding across the province and receive a ballot for their home riding. Electors would fill out their
00:03:43.400 ballot, insert it into a tabulator, which would then count their vote and spit out a printed form
00:03:48.920 with the results for each riding on election day. And as you guys likely remember, votes were delayed
00:03:54.340 hours on election night. Election Alberta later told me that the tabulators didn't malfunction,
00:04:00.540 but rather those forms they printed with the result for each riding had to be manually entered into a
00:04:06.540 computer and that process took hours. Moving into our next story here, I know that you are all
00:04:11.420 deeply invested in the outcome of the Alberta NDP leadership race. And this week, Janice Irwin
00:04:16.920 announced that she would not seek the nomination. In a lengthy post to X, Irwin said that she had
00:04:22.800 given the decision a lot of thought, adding, quote, what I hate most is that I feel like I'm letting
00:04:27.720 some of you down. I hope you'll understand that now is not the time for me. My focus will continue
00:04:33.820 to be on being the best darn MLA I can be for the people of Edmonton Highlands Norwood.
00:04:38.480 Meanwhile, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was asked to comment on some of the NDP candidates
00:04:43.460 saying that if elected, they would scrap the carbon tax. Here's what she had to say about it.
00:04:48.180 Well, they're sounding a lot like UCP supporters. So, you know, we welcome anyone who wants to
00:04:54.020 join us in trying to eliminate the consumer carbon tax. We asked the NDP to join us in that in the last
00:05:03.300 session and they refused to. So I'm glad to see that they've now realized that it's a losing
00:05:10.460 proposition. I should point out it was the NDP who brought in a carbon tax in the province without
00:05:16.940 running on it. And to sort of see the flip flop there, I find it amusing.
00:05:22.900 Taking a look at our controversy of the week, Calgarians hoping to kick out Calgary Mayor Jody
00:05:28.660 Gondek with recall legislation say it's so poorly worded that it makes their quest nearly impossible.
00:05:35.140 Amendments made in 2022 to the Municipal Government Act allow for the recall of municipal officials.
00:05:41.920 But the city says over 514,000 signatures are needed to recall Gondek. That's 40% of the city's
00:05:49.440 population. Christy Kohler, executive director of the citizens advocacy group Common Sense Calgary,
00:05:55.360 said that while half a million signatures are needed to recall Gondek,
00:05:59.380 only 390,000 votes were cast for all mayoral candidates in the 2021 municipal election.
00:06:07.760 She added, quote,
00:06:08.640 the requirement to collect signatures from a minimum 40% of the population is insurmountable.
00:06:14.560 Add in the requirements for paper signatures, witnesses, and the short time limit of 60 days,
00:06:20.180 and the odds are stacked against the petitioner.
00:06:22.780 I spoke to petitioner Landon Johnston earlier this week, and he agrees the criteria is ridiculous.
00:06:29.280 He also said that the 40% of the population includes children, and yet you have to be over 18
00:06:35.160 to sign the petition. But that's not going to stop Johnston. Here's a little clip of our interview
00:06:40.600 earlier this week.
00:06:41.500 I'm a very spiteful person, and I'm bad at math, and I'm very passionate. So I think those three
00:06:50.780 things just tell you that I'm going to do it anyways, and I'm going to do everything I can.
00:06:57.920 Because like I said, I'm starting to have fun.
00:07:00.300 Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Rick McIver said the province is reviewing recall legislation
00:07:05.520 after hearing back from stakeholders and online surveys. He also said the bar to remove an
00:07:11.720 elected official is high, as it should be. And here's Mayor Gondek's response to the recall effort.
00:07:17.220 It came as a surprise, and you know, I wouldn't be human if I didn't say, you know, it stings a
00:07:22.280 little bit. Later in that same press conference, Gondek utilized an interesting tactic when she
00:07:27.100 appears to try to scare those hoping to sign the petition by saying their information won't be
00:07:32.240 kept private. Take a listen. Now you've got a recall opportunity where people will be disclosing
00:07:38.360 their personal information to an individual. And I'm not really sure how confidentially that
00:07:45.780 will be kept or what will happen with that information. And finally, taking a look at what
00:07:49.620 we're watching in the weeks to come, an Alberta law firm is putting the Alberta government on notice
00:07:54.900 with hopes to file a class action lawsuit representing the businesses that were affected by COVID-19
00:08:00.800 closures. The proposed suit filed by Rath and company follows the recent Ingram decision where
00:08:05.940 the Calgary Corps of King's bench declared several of Alberta's public health orders to be unlawfully
00:08:11.220 enacted. That decision laid the groundwork for potential financial redress for impacted businesses.
00:08:17.100 The proposed class action lawsuit targets financial losses for businesses in Alberta that were either
00:08:22.240 fully or partially restricted due to the public health orders during the pandemic. Lead counsel,
00:08:28.100 Jeffrey Rath, talked about the suit on Bridge City News. Take a listen.
00:08:31.440 Yeah, that's right. The way class action law works in Alberta is everybody who would be entitled to
00:08:38.520 join the class or be part of the class is deemed to be in the lawsuit unless they directly contact our
00:08:44.440 office and declare that they want to be out of the lawsuit. So as of now, we have the honor of
00:08:50.400 representing every Albertan and Alberta business that lost money as a result of being shut down by the
00:08:56.800 Dina Hinshaw COVID orders, which we all know now are completely illegal. 0.57
00:09:00.640 For a class action lawsuit to move forward, a court certification is required and that process
00:09:06.000 can take a few years. A judge must determine that it is the appropriate legal avenue for a case
00:09:12.040 and determine that the plaintiffs are generally representative of a broader group.
00:09:16.740 And finally, moving into our weekly comment roundup and taking a look at some of the comments
00:09:21.380 underneath last week Saturday's episode. You guys will definitely want to go take a listen to that
00:09:25.920 one if you haven't yet. Taking a look at our first comment here, I'm just going to round on some of
00:09:29.380 the numbers. Correction, Mayor Gondek only received 174,000 votes in the election. The total votes cast
00:09:35.460 for the mayor were over 386,000. So I cannot see how a recall vote would require 32% more votes than the
00:09:42.340 total that were cast for all the mayoral candidates in Calgary. This recall legislation is a joke.
00:09:46.920 There's a lot of confusion around this recall legislation because no one understands why
00:09:51.420 more votes are needed to rescind Mayor Gondek's mayoralship than were even cast
00:09:56.340 for mayoral candidates in the first place. So I can understand your confusion here. Everyone I've
00:10:00.840 talked to thinks this recall legislation needs to be amended because it's very unfair and almost
00:10:05.800 impossible to complete as it currently stands. User comment creator said, just to be clear,
00:10:11.460 Smith took all the risk here. And when it panned out, Pierre Pelliev decided to latch on.
00:10:16.200 Danielle is a real one. That comment was in response to last week's episode where I covered
00:10:21.280 Pierre Pelliev's defense of Premier Danielle Smith and her policies on transgenderism and
00:10:27.120 parental rights. I do agree that Pierre Pelliev is sort of jumping on the bandwagon here. I think
00:10:31.940 he's done that a couple times to great success and effect. He sort of did that with the Freedom
00:10:36.760 Convoy. He didn't come out initially, but he came out in defense of it later. And people often forget
00:10:41.260 that he wasn't quick to jump on the Freedom Convoy bandwagon until it became safe to do so.
00:10:46.200 That being said, I just have such low expectations for politicians. I don't really expect them to do
00:10:52.680 the right thing anymore. I think the actual proper response is for all of us to be so loud and so
00:10:58.200 demanding with societal change that it becomes not only advantageous, but it becomes so that
00:11:04.280 politicians actually have to do what we want them to do and have to make the changes that we ask them
00:11:09.260 to make or they know they won't be able to stay in office. So it's true. It'd be nice to have
00:11:13.320 more politicians like Danielle Smith who take strong stances on such controversial topics
00:11:18.860 like transgenderism, but I think it's our job to make it impossible for them to do anything but that. 1.00
00:11:24.860 Okay, everyone, that's all I have time for today. Please like this video and please subscribe to
00:11:28.680 True North. As always, if you're able, you can support our work over at donate.tnc.news.
00:11:33.760 I hope that you guys have a great weekend. I'll see you guys later next week and God bless.
00:11:43.320 Thank you.