The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - Smith tells Kenney to stay out of leadership race

This week on the Alberta Roundup: UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith asks Premier Jason Kenney not to interfere in the ongoing leadership contest to replace him, a new blueprint for provincial policing would add hundreds of officers to rural municipalities, Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange has won the UCP nomination in Red Deer North after a challenge, a UCP MLA is blaming the COVID19 restrictions on Calgary MLAs who advocated for them, and UCP Leadership Candidate Travis Teews says assisted dying should not be offered to those suffering from a mental illness. And of course, we ll have our update on the leadership race and the Alberta Liberal Party, who attracted no applicants to run in its deadline for party leader last week. All that and more happening now on The Alberta Roundup.

00:00:00.000 Hello everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel. Today

00:00:15.860 we're going to be talking about UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith, who has asked Premier

00:00:20.420 Jason Kenney not to wade into the ongoing leadership contest to replace him. A new blueprint

00:00:25.220 for provincial policing would add hundreds of officers to rural municipalities. Alberta

00:00:29.840 Education Minister Adriana LaGrange has won the UCP nomination in Red Deer North after

00:00:35.080 a challenge this week. A UCP MLA is blaming the COVID-19 restrictions on Calgary MLAs who

00:00:40.840 advocated for them. UCP leadership candidate Travis Teews says assisted dying should not

00:00:45.760 be offered to those suffering from a mental illness. And of course we'll have our update

00:00:49.680 on the UCP leadership race and the Alberta Liberal Party, who attracted no applicants to

00:00:54.760 run in its deadline for party leader last week. All that and more happening now on the Alberta

00:00:59.780 Roundup. Let's get into today's topics. UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith has asked

00:01:04.980 Premier Jason Kenney not to interfere into the ongoing leadership contest to replace him.

00:01:09.700 On his radio show last weekend, Premier Kenney called Smith's Alberta Sovereignty Act nuts

00:01:15.040 and said it would make Alberta a laughing stock. You guys know what this is, we've talked about

00:01:19.260 it many times before. The Alberta Sovereignty Act would essentially bar federal legislation

00:01:23.520 deemed harmful to Alberta. Smith has pitched it as a means to get major projects built in Alberta

00:01:29.160 again without federal interference. It is a pinnacle piece of her platform promises.

00:01:34.480 In response to Kenney's statement, Smith said his comments are premature,

00:01:38.300 ill-informed, and disrespectful to a large and growing number of UCP members that support this

00:01:43.560 important initiative. Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro has unveiled the government's blueprint

00:01:48.600 for provincial policing, which promises to add hundreds of officers for rural municipalities.

00:01:53.180 The blueprint said a provincial police service would add 275 police officers to the smallest 42

00:02:00.040 detachments. The model also proposes a minimum of 10 frontline police officers per detachment.

00:02:06.160 Currently, there is no minimum for a number of officers and some have as few as three.

00:02:11.440 Minister Shandro told me this week that provincial policing is a conversation happening all over the

00:02:16.160 country right now. He said, quote,

00:02:18.060 And we think that Alberta is on the precipice of being a leading voice in modernizing policing in

00:02:23.560 the country. Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange has won the UCP nomination in Red Deer

00:02:28.460 North. As I previously reported, she was being challenged by popular freedom fighter Andrew Clues,

00:02:33.620 the co-founder of Hold the Line. Hold the Line was a group that helped Albertans during COVID-19

00:02:39.320 restrictions, including to help them resist vaccine coercion. That vote happened in Red Deer on

00:02:45.100 Thursday. I was there for it. The polls closed at 8pm and the results were announced about one hour

00:02:49.760 later. LaGrange won the contest with 298 votes. That's 78 more than Andrew Clues received, but

00:02:55.980 pretty high turnout for a nomination contest. After the victory, LaGrange told me she was very grateful

00:03:01.580 and thankful for the support and that her victory was democracy in action. Let's talk about the

00:03:07.440 controversy of the week. UCP MLA Grant Hunter has said that COVID-19 restrictions came about because

00:03:13.600 Calgary MLAs on the committee overseeing pandemic policy outweighed the number of rural MLAs who did

00:03:19.800 not want restrictions. He made the comments on an unrelated Facebook post in which constituents

00:03:25.180 began responding and asking him why he did not speak out against the restrictions and he was forced

00:03:29.260 to address their comments. He said Calgary and Edmonton wanted the restrictions and so MLAs living in

00:03:35.300 those jurisdictions advocated for them. Those MLAs outweigh the number of rural MLAs on the committee

00:03:40.860 which made decisions about pandemic rules. He also said that the whole caucus was never given

00:03:45.660 the opportunity to vote on restrictions. He wrote, quote, if we were able to vote, I'm confident

00:03:51.140 because the majority of MLAs come from rural Alberta, we would have had a regional approach.

00:03:56.220 Hunter was Alberta's Associate Minister of Red Tape Reduction from April 2019 until July 2021.

00:04:02.640 He also said he was removed from cabinet for fighting against COVID restrictions.

00:04:06.560 What we're watching this week, UCP leadership candidate Travis Tape said assisted dying should

00:04:11.680 not be offered to those suffering from a mental illness. Of course, medical assistance in dying, 0.93

00:04:16.640 commonly referred to as MAID, was legalized in 2016. But the Trudeau Liberals recently expanded

00:04:22.100 the eligibility for it. They expanded it to include the disabled, despite every Canadian national

00:04:27.400 disability organization saying they did not want that expansion because it makes the disabled feel as

00:04:32.140 though they are a burden to society and valueless. Yet the Trudeau Liberals took it one step further

00:04:37.260 and they expanded the eligibility to those suffering from a mental illness beginning March 2023.

00:04:42.560 So beginning in March 2023, you would be eligible for assisted dying if you have depression, anxiety.

00:04:49.280 I don't even want to say this out loud because it's so disgusting that this would be considered a

00:04:52.860 treatment option for those people. We should be telling them that there is hope available and that

00:04:57.760 there is a way to recover from these illnesses and to go on to live a happy and normal life.

00:05:02.380 Legalizing and expanding doctor-assisted suicide creates a slippery slope, as evidenced by the

00:05:06.940 shifting conversation to protect those with mental illness, Travis Tape told me this week.

00:05:12.460 Of course, we're having this conversation now because Global News reported earlier this week

00:05:16.800 that a Canadian Forces veteran seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain

00:05:22.260 injury was unexpected and casually offered assisted dying by a Veterans Affairs Canada employee.

00:05:29.260 This is just the latest example of the federal government's assisted dying regime gone wrong,

00:05:33.860 and there is certainly no shortage of examples here. The Associated Press recently reported on a

00:05:39.640 recorded audio from a London, Ontario hospital that appeared to show the director of ethics raising the

00:05:45.780 subject of euthanasia with a disabled patient and saying that patient was costing the system,

00:05:50.520 quote, north of $1,500 a day. Travis Tape said, this is immoral and it should be illegal to even

00:05:57.520 mention the cost of services in a conversation about assisted dying. I'm curious to hear what

00:06:03.060 the rest of the UCP leadership candidates have to say about this. Of course, assisted dying falls

00:06:07.380 under the criminal code and as such is federal jurisdiction, but health care is administered by the

00:06:12.040 province. So what solutions, if any, do the other UCP leadership candidates have to offer to the

00:06:17.540 federal government's massively radical assisted dying regime. Let's move on to our UCP leadership

00:06:22.900 race update. Danielle Smith, who is emerging as a frontrunner with recent polls, placing her far 0.79

00:06:27.500 ahead of the remaining six candidates, won't seek to represent the riding of Calgary Elbow should there

00:06:32.440 be a by-election this fall. Smith is currently the only candidate in the riding who does not already

00:06:37.300 have a seat in the legislature. And it looked like one might be opening up for her this fall with

00:06:42.360 MLA Doug Schweitzer, who currently represents Calgary Elbow, saying he's going to step down

00:06:46.520 later this month or on another date established close to the time. He's already resigned his

00:06:52.360 cabinet position as a minister of jobs, economy, and innovation. But Smith isn't going to run in

00:06:57.280 this riding which is not a conservative safe seat. She wants to run in Living Cinema Cloud, which is

00:07:01.760 her home since 2011, and also a conservative safe seat. She says she's traditional. She thinks people

00:07:07.100 should run in the riding where they live. However, this seat is currently held by UCP MLA Roger Reed.

00:07:13.260 And even if Smith does win the nomination, Reed would stay in the seat until the next provincial

00:07:17.900 election, which is scheduled for spring 2023. This means that Smith wouldn't have a seat in the

00:07:22.800 legislature for the first six months of her leadership if she wins the premiership on October 6.

00:07:28.280 Let's move on to our funniest moment in Alberta politics this week. Looks like no one is interested to

00:07:33.020 be the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party. Not a single person submitted a nomination to run in

00:07:38.080 the Alberta Party Leadership Contest. That deadline was last Friday at 5 p.m. The party has since removed

00:07:43.340 the leadership section from their website, and they did not respond to my request for comment. But I

00:07:47.520 spoke to former Alberta Liberal Party leader Raj Sherman, who said nobody's interested in running to be

00:07:52.200 leader of the party because it struggled to elect any MLAs in the previous two provincial elections.

00:07:57.520 He's right, of course. In the 2015 election, the Liberals elected just one MLA. And in the most recent

00:08:02.740 2019 election, they did not elect a single MLA to the legislature. So if you're looking to get your

00:08:08.880 start in provincial politics, you could be easily acclaimed as a leader of the Liberal Parties,

00:08:13.580 something you're very interested in, I'm certain. Okay, guys, that's all for today. That's everything

00:08:17.480 I have for you. If you like what we do here at True North, please go to donate.tnc.news and support

00:08:23.960 our work. You can reach me on Facebook and Twitter as always. I look forward to hearing from you,

00:08:28.380 and we'll talk next week.

00:08:32.740 Bye.

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00:08:39.880 Bye.

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00:08:45.480 Bye.

00:08:49.560 Bye.

00:08:51.000 Bye.

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00:08:53.880 Bye.

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00:09:02.640 Bye.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - August 20, 2022

Smith tells Kenney to stay out of leadership race

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