The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - Trudeau Won't Show His Face in Alberta

00:00:00.000 After years of doing the most to let the Prime Minister know that he's not welcome in Alberta,

00:00:05.240 Justin Trudeau has finally taken the cue. The Prime Minister's office announced this week

00:00:09.900 that he would not be attending the Calgary Stampede for the first time.

00:00:14.360 Some pundits discuss the importance of the Calgary Stampede as a must-do

00:00:17.940 for politicians of all political stripes. Still others muse that the Prime Minister

00:00:23.100 is weighing his political future and doesn't want to give the appearance of campaigning.

00:00:28.260 Experts agree that the Prime Minister won't show his face at Stampede again

00:00:32.120 until he learns how to flip a pancake. And by experts, I mean myself, speaking to you right now.

00:00:38.060 But the truth is, none of that really matters. Politically speaking, Trudeau is a dead man walking.

00:00:44.500 And I, for one, will breathe a little easier this year, knowing that the stench of his idiocy

00:00:49.280 and corruption is thousands of kilometres away from our clean prairie plains and fresh mountain air.

00:00:56.440 I'm Rachel Parker, and this is the Alberta Roundup.

00:01:09.240 Okay, everyone. And I just wanted to start by letting you know that, yes, I have changed my name.

00:01:14.800 My byline will now be appearing as Rachel Parker. I basically did this because I had initially planned

00:01:20.160 to keep Rachel Emanuel as my pen name, if you will. And I honestly just really didn't like going by

00:01:28.200 two names. I found I was giving different names. Everywhere I would go, I would show up for an

00:01:32.540 appointment, and I wasn't sure what name I had given. I have two different emails, and it was just very

00:01:36.760 confusing for me. As well, as most of you know, I do have a son, and I just really wanted to have the

00:01:41.560 same name as my family. I felt like that was important. So yes, my byline will be appearing as

00:01:46.800 Rachel Parker moving forward. You might hear this announcement a few more times. I'll probably

00:01:50.980 just, you know, give a little explainer. Not everyone catches every episode, and I don't want

00:01:55.420 to cause any confusion. So apologies if you hear me give this little explainer a few more times.

00:02:00.200 The good news for all of you is that I can't use my AI theme song right now. I know that a lot of you

00:02:06.080 still really don't like it. So I'm going to have to figure something out. But for today, you didn't have

00:02:11.100 to hear the AI song, but don't get your hopes up too much. It might be back in a different form.

00:02:15.980 We'll see what we can do for you guys. But for now, I hope you enjoyed the break this week for

00:02:20.480 those of you who really seem to dislike that song. Okay, everyone, and now moving into our first topic

00:02:25.860 here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not be attending the Calgary Stampede this year. The 10-day

00:02:31.320 rodeo is typically considered a must-do for all politicians, and Trudeau hasn't missed a single

00:02:37.600 Calgary Stampede since he's been Prime Minister, except for the years of COVID-19 during 2020 and

00:02:43.480 2021. The Prime Minister's office did not give an immediate explanation for his absence this year.

00:02:49.160 However, they did announce that he would be traveling to Washington, D.C. to participate in

00:02:53.520 this year's NATO Summit, and that will take place from July 11 to July 10. Obviously, the Calgary

00:02:58.700 Stampede has already kicked off. It begins at the beginning of July, so there was lots of time for him to

00:03:04.520 attend the event. He obviously just doesn't want to go. He's not well-liked in Alberta. He receives a

00:03:09.380 lot of heckling when he comes. He, you know, a lot of crowds show up. Many more people show up to

00:03:14.200 protest him than they do to support him, so it's no surprise that he just wasn't up for it this year,

00:03:19.580 considering his recent and embarrassing election loss in Toronto, where the Liberals lost a seat.

00:03:24.600 Still, this is how the CBC explained the Prime Minister's presence at the Calgary Stampede last year.

00:03:29.480 They wrote, quote, last year, crowds jockeyed for selfies as Trudeau made his way through the Stampede

00:03:35.760 grounds. I don't know about you guys. I remember things a little differently, a little differently.

00:03:40.160 People jockeying for selfies. Let me just give you guys a little refresher in case you forgot what

00:03:45.560 Trudeau's last Calgary Stampede appearance looked like. Of course, there's no reference to the

00:04:06.840 heckling that Trudeau experienced at the Stampede, and truly that he experiences every time he comes

00:04:11.760 to Alberta. You guys might remember a few months ago he came, and the Prime Minister's office did

00:04:15.760 the absolute most to keep that visit and the location of that visit on lockdown. They are so

00:04:22.300 nervous when he comes here. They don't tell anyone where the meetings are going to be held. They don't

00:04:25.400 want any crowd showing up. Myself and the Countersignal Editor-in-Chief, Kian Bexty, showed up outside

00:04:30.060 the hotel to ask questions. We were told we weren't allowed to wait in the hotel to see him. We were told

00:04:34.780 that we were not allowed to wait outside the hotel to ask him a question. We were not allowed to ask him a

00:04:40.620 question at the press conference that he held at the university, and we were asked to leave those

00:04:45.700 grounds as well. We weren't even allowed to wait outside of the door to ask him a question. So, you

00:04:50.060 know, the Prime Minister is very afraid of Albertans. He's very afraid of Conservatives. And I think the

00:04:54.500 thing that was most insulting to me about that last event is that not only am I a journalist, and I have

00:04:59.700 a right to be in these rooms asking politicians questions, I have a very large audience of people

00:05:03.620 who are interested in what I have to say and also want to hear the answers to the questions that I want to

00:05:09.060 ask. But in addition to that, I'm actually in Albertan. I live in Calgary. And so I wasn't

00:05:14.700 even allowed to ask the Prime Minister questions when he came to the city that I live in. Just

00:05:19.620 pretty absurd if you think about it, the censorship that we're facing from the very top. But back to

00:05:24.340 the story here about the Calgary Stampede, the CBC continued, Trudeau also flipped pancakes at a

00:05:29.600 breakfast hosted by Calgary MP George Jehall, one of two Liberals elected in Alberta. Jehall is hosting a

00:05:35.620 pancake breakfast again this year. But Trudeau won't be there. I mean, come on, CBC, how can you talk about

00:05:41.320 Trudeau flipping pancakes and not mention that he doesn't know how to flip a pancake? This if even if

00:05:47.480 Jehall was hosting a pancake breakfast, there's almost no chance that Trudeau would be there flipping

00:05:52.020 pancakes. And if he did, we know they'd be the ones that were already fully cooked to avoid anything

00:05:56.120 going wrong. Let's just play this clip from last year. This is truly hilarious.

00:06:08.980 Here's what the Conservative Party of Canada had to say. A spokesperson for Pierre Polyev said the

00:06:13.900 news that Trudeau won't be attending must come as a welcome relief for Alberta Liberal and NDP MPs who

00:06:19.940 would prefer he stay in hiding. In a statement, the Conservative Party said, quote, having just been

00:06:24.920 rejected in one of the safest Liberal ridings in downtown Toronto, it's hard to imagine that

00:06:29.780 Canadians will miss Justin Trudeau all too much at Stampede. And you know, that's all true enough.

00:06:34.020 The relief really is for us Albertans who actually just don't want to see him. We don't want to see

00:06:38.680 him at Stampede. And I think we're all kind of hoping with our fingers crossed that this is the end of

00:06:43.460 his political life. It certainly looks like the signs are there. The writing is on the wall. Trudeau is on

00:06:50.200 his way out. And I don't think he's going to show his face at Stampede ever again. He obviously doesn't

00:06:53.780 like coming here. So who knows last year might truly have been his last ever Calgary Stampede.

00:06:59.140 And he certainly went out with a bang. Okay, moving on to our next story here. I think you guys are

00:07:03.440 really going to like this one. Nahed Nenshi's Alberta NDP is trailing the United Conservative

00:07:08.620 Party by 14 points according to a new poll. It's true that the Alberta NDP elected Nahed Nenshi in a

00:07:14.900 decisive victory contest last month. He won on the first ballot. But it seems that the rest of the

00:07:21.220 province is not so convinced in Nahed Nenshi's ability to lead Alberta. A new abacus data poll

00:07:26.800 that surveyed voting age Albertans in the days after Nahed Nenshi won the leadership contest

00:07:32.180 found that he is trailing the United Conservative Party by 14 points. 54% of decided voters said they

00:07:38.840 would choose the UCP and if election were held today. And another 40% said they would vote for the

00:07:43.640 Alberta NDP. And 6% said they would choose another party. Now let's take a look at the breakdown of these

00:07:48.920 numbers. The UCP holds a 34 point lead over the Alberta NDP outside of Edmonton and Calgary. So

00:07:55.180 that's a massive lead. The Alberta NDP has no support outside of Edmonton and Calgary. That's

00:08:00.800 going to be a problem for them in days to come. But even in Edmonton where the UCP won no seats in the

00:08:05.800 last election, the Alberta NDP are actually just two points ahead of the UCP right now. UCP caucus

00:08:11.680 Whipshane Getson said that Albertans recognize the work their government is doing to make life better

00:08:16.020 for them. And since the 2023 general election, he said the UCP caucus has created jobs, paid down

00:08:22.160 debt and grown the heritage fund. In a statement to True North, Getson said quote, Albertans also have

00:08:27.300 no interest in going back to the NDP's radical ideas and job killing policies. A change in NDP

00:08:33.480 leadership won't change that. Now Nenshi has been able to shore up support in Calgary where he served

00:08:39.160 as the mayor from 2010 to 2021. The Alberta NDP trail the UCP there by just four points and that's down

00:08:45.740 from eight points in March. So he is able to close that gap in Calgary, but there's going to be big

00:08:50.020 problems feel the Alberta NDP if he is not able to expand his support across the province and

00:08:55.340 especially in Edmonton. The survey also shows that Nenshi's proposal to separate the Alberta NDP from

00:09:01.360 the federal branch appears to be a popular one in Alberta. We covered this pretty extensively last

00:09:05.680 week. During the campaign, Nenshi floated the idea of divorcing the Alberta NDP from the federal 0.89

00:09:10.320 party. He says it doesn't seem to make sense that they're associated and he hears that from the

00:09:15.040 membership everywhere he goes people are talking about it might be time to leave the federal party.

00:09:19.020 Makes sense to me. Jagmeet Singh, very unpopular. The federal NDP just doing a terrible job. They are

00:09:25.320 a horrible party. Really ineffective in every sense of the word. And then immediately after winning the

00:09:31.340 leadership contest and then she told reporters that he wanted to put that question to the membership as

00:09:36.040 soon as possible because it is such a hot topic within the party right now. Now when asked about this

00:09:41.560 possible separation from abacus data, the poll found that 49% of Albertans said they supported it

00:09:47.040 compared to just 21% who oppose the Alberta NDP splitting from the federal party. And when we're

00:09:53.260 looking at Alberta NDP supporters specifically, 49% said they support the split as did 43% of federal

00:10:01.600 NDP supporters. So I think the membership within the party recognizes that this is really a branding and a

00:10:07.200 marketing issue for them. The UCP and Alberta premier Danielle Smith has used this fact to

00:10:12.840 attack the Alberta NDP rather effectively. So that's been a big problem for the Alberta NDP.

00:10:17.680 It seems pretty self-explanatory to me that Nenshi would be looking to rectify that branding and that

00:10:23.860 marketing issue. Okay guys, moving into our controversy of the week, this is going to kill you.

00:10:29.020 Calgary has unveiled a new logo and it's even worse than you can possibly imagine. We are certainly living

00:10:34.300 in the era of ugly and depressing art. Take a look at this new logo. It just seems to be a random

00:10:40.540 assortment of shapes forming a C and it's a terrible attempt to advertise the city's new and really

00:10:49.000 unoriginal new slogan. The new slogan dubs Calgary as the blue sky city. And I say that's unoriginal

00:10:56.260 because the slogan is already being used in neighboring provinces and states. Saskatchewan's slogan

00:11:02.360 is land of the living skies and Montana's slogan is big sky country. So like we couldn't have found

00:11:08.840 something less original. And when you consider the fact that Calgary's slogan used to be, be part of

00:11:14.240 the energy. That speaks to Alberta's unique interests far more than blue sky city. And I think speaks to

00:11:22.560 Alberta's economy. We're a very rich province because of our energy. I think that's something to celebrate.

00:11:26.780 But of course now in the day and age of wokeness, you know, they wanted to get rid of any reference

00:11:32.580 to energy, the evil energy that allows us all to live and to have a really high quality of life.

00:11:38.500 So if you thought it couldn't get worse, you were wrong. To date, the city of Calgary has spent $1.7

00:11:42.900 million on the rebranding efforts. To date, that's going to be important. Remember that number.

00:11:48.380 According to the city's website, this funding went to research and engagement with residents,

00:11:52.380 businesses, and visitors through surveys, focus groups, and workshops. The development of brand

00:11:58.080 assets for community partners, such as photography and videography. The creation of the visual identity,

00:12:03.700 including a toolkit and storytelling playbook, as well as promotional materials for upcoming

00:12:08.520 community events. I don't understand why they need to have focus groups to come up with a new name for

00:12:14.060 the city and a new logo. Like it's just an unbelievable amount of effort that went into producing

00:12:18.940 something so crappy. So these costs are actually expected to balloon to closer to $5 million with

00:12:26.220 all the advertising and rebranding exercises that they have planned. And if you dig into this further,

00:12:32.340 it becomes immediately obvious that this was all part of some woke exercise. That's really what this

00:12:36.940 is. Here's the evidence for that. Brad Perry, the president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development,

00:12:42.620 as well as the CEO of Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund said, quote,

00:12:46.180 Calgary story doesn't belong to any one group. It belongs to all Calgarians. And it's a story about

00:12:52.320 our collective voices that come together to tell a larger story about who we are as a city. That's

00:12:58.040 why we intentionally engaged with all of our communities to unearth a story that we hope

00:13:03.260 reflects the diversity of Calgarians and draws people to our city to visit, build a life or build

00:13:09.400 a business. Just going to go ahead and let you guys know right now that you failed. You didn't manage

00:13:14.660 to include all voices. I certainly don't feel included in this. I think that the slogan is

00:13:19.220 stupid. I think that the logo is ugly. I think you probably should have just left things as they were

00:13:24.140 and done a better job branding the perfectly good slogan that you already had. So, you know,

00:13:29.320 you failed. You wasted $5 million on this. And I think, as I mentioned before, you know,

00:13:33.480 I'm feeling really disheartened in Calgary. The city is so mismanaged. They can't even seem to

00:13:38.900 deliver basic services like water to its residents. And, you know, now this is just signed for me.

00:13:43.800 Maybe it is time for me to take my business somewhere else, pay taxes to somewhere where

00:13:47.680 they're not going to be wasted in such a stupid and inefficient way. It does get worse. It does

00:13:54.300 get worse. I mentioned before that the city had had to have focus groups to design a new slogan.

00:13:59.400 So the city said that three truths emerged during these focus groups. The first is that Calgary,

00:14:04.300 it's a place of unexpected possibilities. Nothing original about that. Everyone says that. Every

00:14:09.260 brand says that. Oh, come to our coffee shop. It's full of unexpected possibilities.

00:14:13.580 It really doesn't mean anything. Of course, there's limitations in life. Everyone has

00:14:17.340 limitations. I have limitations. It's sort of like telling your kid they can do anything or

00:14:21.400 they can be anything. It's actually not true. Everyone has a certain set of skills. You'll

00:14:26.300 probably be more likely to excel in life if you lean into your existing skills and try to hone those

00:14:32.180 things as opposed to be like me trying to be a mathematician. It's just never going to happen.

00:14:36.120 I really struggle with numbers. I'm probably dyslexic, but it doesn't matter. Not something I'd ever be

00:14:42.740 able to do. I recognize that about myself. I leaned into the writing field and now I've expanded that

00:14:49.140 to include podcasting, but writing is something I've always been much more natural at and enjoyed.

00:14:54.020 And, you know, like I have learned some new skills in video podcasting, but I would never be able to

00:14:59.280 be a mathematician and my parents knew that and they didn't encourage me and it encouraged me in

00:15:02.980 that field. So a place of unexpected possibilities, that sort of slogan, it just annoys me. I think it's

00:15:07.700 really dumb. They also said, number two, we have more sunny days in any other major city in Canada.

00:15:14.020 All right. You know, fair enough. I'm not going to take issue with that too much. I don't know if

00:15:17.440 that's been my experience in Calgary. Every time I looked up, there's little lines, little white

00:15:21.480 lines all over the sky from those planes. They seem to be up there all the time. And finally, number three,

00:15:28.300 we all live under the same blue skies. And then the explanation for this is really just quite

00:15:33.920 stomach churning. The city wrote quote, the sky belongs to all of us equally. When the sky looks

00:15:40.000 down on us, it cannot differentiate between ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or any other

00:15:46.920 facets of our being. To the sky, we are all equal. You know, the reason the sky is not differentiating

00:15:52.940 between all these things is because the sky is an inanimate object. It's not a living being. It's not

00:15:57.460 looking down at us and thinking anything about us. The biggest criticism I actually have is that I'm not

00:16:02.320 even really sure what the logo is. So take a look at this picture here. We have a variety of Cs with

00:16:07.480 different patterns and different colors. Which one is actually the logo? In order to have successful

00:16:12.300 branding, you should be able to think of immediately what the branding and what the slogan is. So for

00:16:17.820 example, with the Alberta Roundup, you guys know what my show name is. If I came to you every week

00:16:22.680 and some week I called it the Alberta Rope Up or the Alberta Report, you would have brand confusion.

00:16:29.160 You would wonder, what's the name of that show again? I don't remember what it's called. That

00:16:32.800 would be a problem for me and for people who are trying to find my show. And even now,

00:16:37.600 I'm changing my name. You know, I've changed my name to Rachel Parker. I'm going to have to be very

00:16:40.940 clear about that in my episode so that I don't have a branding problem. People are going to go

00:16:45.300 and they're going to try and find my work and they're going to say, hmm, don't see anything recent

00:16:48.740 from Rachel Emanuel. I wonder what happened there. So it's going to be important for me to clearly explain to

00:16:52.940 people over the next coming weeks that I've changed my name. Please look for my byline under the name

00:16:57.680 Rachel Parker. You know, I'm going to have to give a couple announcements about that because I want

00:17:01.200 people to know who I am. I want them to know what my show is named and I want them to easily be able

00:17:05.360 to find my work. The city of Calgary has failed here. They don't even have one clear logo. Why

00:17:10.080 couldn't they have just picked one of these C shapes with the color? Instead, they had to use all

00:17:15.260 these different Cs. Looking at this, I'm just confused about what the logo actually is. They spent

00:17:20.460 millions of dollars on something and it's unclear to me now what the logo is, what the city of

00:17:24.980 Calgary's logo is. So all around a stupid and failed exercise is just depressing to me. And again,

00:17:33.060 reiterate, I just don't think Calgary is the place for me. And finally, you guys, moving into what

00:17:37.520 we're watching in the weeks to come, we are back in Calgary. Again, the city of Calgary is now saying

00:17:42.560 that indoor water reductions can be eased as the repaired feeder main is now operating at 50% capacity.

00:17:48.780 Wow. Finally, it's been absolute weeks. Here's Mayor Gondek on Thursday.

00:17:53.120 Now I want you to remember that we are still under stage four outdoor water restrictions and we are

00:17:59.480 still under the fire ban. And once the water services team says that the water system is

00:18:05.180 healthy enough, we will move from those stage four restrictions down to stage three.

00:18:10.760 Now the city is saying to help our system adapt, please be mindful of your water use for the first

00:18:15.720 few days. If you have been waiting to catch up on laundry or other activities, please space it out.

00:18:19.820 So this, I just really didn't understand. They posted this image on X. Who is doing these

00:18:26.040 images over at the city of Calgary? They have a photo of a washing machine. They have a photo of

00:18:29.680 a shower, a toilet, and a dishwasher. So no explanation as to what this means. I barely even

00:18:36.020 understood it myself and I cover this for a living. So let's take a look at some of the comments

00:18:39.920 underneath this post because they were very funny. So one user said, what does ease back mean? So I can

00:18:45.400 take six minutes in the shower instead of five. Another user said, I want to fire you as soon as 0.95

00:18:50.680 possible. You and me both. And finally, I told you guys I have a very immature sense of humor. So bear

00:18:55.720 with me. User MapleZerop said, oh, thank you so much for letting me flush the toilet after I

00:19:01.320 I can't even finish it. After the bowl filled up.

00:19:06.340 I'm sorry. It's just the situation in Calgary is just too ridiculous. I'll try that again from the

00:19:14.980 beginning. Oh, thank you so much for letting me flush the toilet after the bowl filled up.

00:19:25.060 Okay, here we go. I'm going to get this. I'm going to get through this, you guys.

00:19:29.660 After the bowl filled up, I was forced to use the tub as overflow, but now I will start flushing again,

00:19:35.720 which is so true. Like the city is just like, just don't flush your toilet as often, I guess.

00:19:40.020 It's like, what an unbelievable recommendation. We're basically just being asked to live like

00:19:43.960 third world countries. I know that's not politically correct. I guess we're not supposed 1.00

00:19:47.140 to use that term anymore, but I really don't care. Anyways, businesses can return to normal water use

00:19:51.540 stage four. Water restrictions are still in place. What that means is indoor swimming pools are open,

00:19:56.380 but you still can't water your garden outside or your car or fill up your own kiddie pool at home.

00:20:01.440 Finally, we are going to move into our weekly comment roundup. Okay, I've been talking for a long

00:20:05.360 time. So I'm going to just do one or two of these. User at Paul Jackson said, at this point,

00:20:09.380 I don't think the UCP should bother with Nenshi. Just let him prattle on his Marxist nonsense and

00:20:14.060 Alberta voters will reject him. The UCP should focus a little more inward and guard against

00:20:18.240 attaching themselves to nonsense like high speed rail, maintain, expand and build new roads.

00:20:23.220 Well said, Paul. And finally, user Zoanna Simpson said, OMG, Singh thinks he can defeat both the

00:20:29.060 liberals and the conservatives. That's the funniest thing I heard today. LOL. So true.

00:20:33.960 I bet his party will be decimated in the next election. Okay, everybody. Thank you so much

00:20:38.660 for tuning in. Friendly reminder that my week midweek episode of the Alberta roundup has been

00:20:43.600 replaced with a new show, Rachel and the Republic covering US politics. You guys are not going to

00:20:49.920 want to miss it. I dive deep into the issues of the day in American election, which is of course,

00:20:54.260 one of the most important elections. And even if you're Canadian, it's still going to be 0.65

00:20:58.540 important for your future. I would be surprised if you guys aren't. So you're going to want to tune

00:21:02.540 into that on Wednesdays. I will see you guys all midweek with Rachel and the Republic. I hope that

00:21:07.540 you have a great weekend. For those of you who are in Calgary celebrating the stampede and joy,

00:21:12.500 I will not be participating this year, but I'm sure I'll be back next year. I just wanted to take

00:21:16.860 a break this year. All right, everyone have a great weekend. God bless.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - July 06, 2024

Trudeau Won't Show His Face in Alberta

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