The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - July 06, 2024


Trudeau Won't Show His Face in Alberta


Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

200.19691

Word count

4,270

Sentence count

305

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

After years of doing the most to let the Prime Minister know that he's not welcome in Alberta, Justin Trudeau has finally taken the cue. The PM's office announced this week that he would not be attending the Calgary Stampede for the first time this year.

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 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.