The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - November 16, 2024


Trudeau’s former finance minister SLAMS emissions cap

Hosted by
Isaac Lamoureux
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Stephen Harper Bill Morneau Justin Trudeau Donald Trump Nate Horner Rachel Gilmore Lloydminster Alberta Environment Stephen Guibault Rebecca Schultz Albert Einstein Connor McDavid Pierre Trudeau Mario Lemieux Ronna Ambrose Medicine Hat Dale Nally Mike Busey
Justin Trudeau’s “deranged vendetta” against Alberta Randy finally gets the boot — what’s next？

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

163.74

Word count

2,079

Sentence count

102

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The emissions cap is back at the top of our docket today, but this time the war isn t focused between Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but between former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. On the show today, we'll also be discussing former PM Stephen Harper's possible return to the arena as chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corp., the province potentially adding citizenship status to driver's licenses, and national rent decreases.

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 .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 The emissions cap is back at the top of our docket today, however this time the war isn't focused between Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but between Trudeau and former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
00:00:13.880 Morneau called on Canada to reconsider core liberal policies like the oil and gas emissions cap in light of US President-elect Donald Trump's recent re-election.
00:00:22.960 On the show today, we'll also be discussing former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's possible return to the arena as chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corp, the province potentially adding citizenship status to driver's licenses, national rent decreases, and more.
00:00:37.460 I'm Isaac Lamoureux, your host of the Alberta Roundup, and let's get into that first story now.
00:00:52.960 Former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau was interviewed on CTV's Question Period, where he highlighted that Canada's approach needs to shift to align with new American priorities following Trump's re-election, and should focus on defence spending, technology, and energy security.
00:01:10.380 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared the post of Morneau to X.
00:01:14.280 She said, quote,
00:01:16.600 Even PM Justin Trudeau's former Liberal Finance Minister knows how bad a production cap is for Canada and our economy.
00:01:24.780 Smith, who previously called the oil and gas cap a, quote, deranged vendetta against Alberta, also gave a special thanks to Rona Ambrose for sticking up for the province.
00:01:35.340 Former Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose spoke on the show and referenced that the Liberals have an upcoming economic update at the end of November.
00:01:43.320 She said, quote,
00:01:45.400 I would recommend that if they've written it, they rewrite it, and they look at it, and make sure that it outlines the domestic economic policies that will make us competitive.
00:01:55.140 Morneau said that Canada should consider how it aligns with its southern allies' technology sector, and questioned whether a digital services tax on technology is the right way forward.
00:02:04.800 The Business Council of Canada warned that retaliatory measures from the United States would hurt Canadian businesses, the economy, and families in general.
00:02:13.800 The tax would also impact Canada's relationship with the U.S. when the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement comes up for review in 2026.
00:02:22.680 Morneau said that Canada needs to think about how it will hit defence spending more rapidly than the Liberals have planned.
00:02:28.920 The Parliamentary Budget Officer warned that Canada must double its defence spending to meet its NATO commitment by 2032.
00:02:36.200 Smith was not the only one to comment on what Morneau had to say.
00:02:39.920 Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schultz shared the clip, asking him to give her federal counterpart, Stephen Guibault, a phone call and talk some sense into him.
00:02:48.900 Hopping into our next story here, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been rumoured as the potential new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation.
00:02:58.880 According to Postmedia, sources close to the government say that Premier Smith has wanted Harper to take on the role for some time.
00:03:05.700 However, he apparently needs to take care of some ongoing business activities.
00:03:09.560 These activities don't signal any wrongdoing or anything of the sort, but they could be potential conflicts.
00:03:15.060 AIMCO is one of the top 10 largest pension funds in Canada, and is responsible for managing over $160 billion in assets, with a 7.3% 10-year annualised rate of return.
00:03:27.760 The pension saw an $8.9 billion investment net return in 2023.
00:03:33.540 Some of the managed assets include the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund, the Local Authorities Pension Plan, and the Public Service Pension Plan.
00:03:41.660 The pension fund operates independently from the province.
00:03:45.640 It has recently come under new leadership, as Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner announced last week that he would become the sole director and chair until a new chair is appointed within 30 days after sacking the CEO and the entire board.
00:03:59.480 He cited that between 2019 and 2023, AIMCO's third-party management fees have increased 96%, the number of employees by 29%, while salary, wage, and benefit costs have increased 71%.
00:04:13.920 These increases apparently came despite the corporation managing a smaller percentage of funds internally.
00:04:19.580 Ray Gilmore, a senior public servant in the provincial government for over five years, has been named interim CEO.
00:04:26.180 Over the past five years, Gilmore oversaw an organization with more than 29,000 employees and a $73 billion budget.
00:04:34.520 Horner said, quote,
00:04:35.860 Ray has been the most trusted official in the province under three premiers.
00:04:39.940 I have complete confidence in his ability to get costs at AIMCO under control and restore stability to the corporation.
00:04:46.500 I reached out to the finance minister for confirmation on whether Harper would become the chair, and he told me, quote,
00:04:53.100 Alberta's government will be announcing the new chair of AIMCO within the next couple weeks.
00:04:57.880 So keep your eyes out on that, and let me know whether you'd trust Harper with managing this fund, or whether you'd rather see Harper return in some other way.
00:05:06.120 Now hopping into some interesting news, which is that the Alberta government may be adding citizenship status to provincial driver licenses.
00:05:14.380 Alberta's Minister of Service and Red Tape Production, Dale Nally, spoke briefly about this at the UCP's AGM.
00:05:21.120 He said, quote,
00:05:22.460 One of the things that we're looking at is how we can put citizenship on the driver's license, so that when people come to vote, we can make sure they are a Canadian citizen.
00:05:31.480 We know that Smith has been steadfast in protecting election integrity and has promised to ban the use of vote tabulators at both the municipal and provincial levels.
00:05:40.440 And look, we've also seen how useless these tabulators are in the recent BC election, which took weeks to tally.
00:05:47.980 And it seems that these tabulators only ever make election result counting take longer, and certainly do nothing to protect the integrity of elections given some of the controversies we've seen about these tabulators in the past.
00:06:00.880 Documents acquired from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by Postmedia previously showed that Alberta's resources, economy, and strong ethnic communities made it a, quote,
00:06:11.120 very attractive target for foreign interference.
00:06:14.460 The notes said that the foreign interference was not limited to the federal level and could occur provincially and even municipally.
00:06:21.080 The public inquiry into foreign interference focused on China, Russia, and Iran, along with other foreign state or non-state actors that had a particular interest in Alberta.
00:06:31.440 We all know the importance of voter ID in elections, especially in light of the recent electoral results in the United States, where the majority of the states that went Democrat had more lax requirements on voting ID.
00:06:44.400 Yeah, I'm curious. Let me know in the comments if you think that played a role in the US election.
00:06:48.420 So now hopping into a story with a bit more of a national context, that being that rents have decreased nationally for the first time in over three years.
00:06:57.760 This decrease was driven by new rental supply and slower population growth.
00:07:02.580 So the 1.2% annual decrease brings average asking rents for all residential property types in Canada to $2,152 a month.
00:07:12.000 Average rents for houses or townhouses decreased by 5.3%, followed by condos, which saw a 3.8% decrease, and apartments, which saw a 1.7% increase.
00:07:23.580 Rent decreases were most notable in Canada's most expensive provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, which saw 6% and 3% decreases, respectively.
00:07:32.500 Conversely, Canada's least expensive provinces saw rent increases, led by Saskatchewan with a 17% rise.
00:07:39.080 As Canada's third least expensive province, trailing only Saskatchewan and Manitoba, you might imagine that Alberta saw an increase in rents, and this would be correct.
00:07:48.520 The average rent for all types of apartment and condo rentals in Alberta increased by 6%, which averaged $1,786 per month.
00:07:57.420 However, interestingly, 6% of the 10 most affordable small and mid-sized cities for average apartment rents in the country were in Alberta.
00:08:05.160 They were Lloydminster, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, Medicine Hat.
00:08:09.100 In fact, Lloydminster was the cheapest of all the listed Canadian markets.
00:08:14.140 However, as you can imagine, it also saw the biggest rent increase of 24.3%.
00:08:19.860 This has been a trend that has continued in Canada, where the most expensive markets are getting cheaper, and the opposite is happening to the cheapest markets.
00:08:27.820 Associate Director of Communications for Rentals.ca, Yakimo Lattis, told me that this is largely attributable to interprovincial migration from Canadians who are seeking affordable living.
00:08:38.120 They're just moving out of the most expensive provinces to find cheaper living elsewhere.
00:08:42.180 Let me know how you feel about this trend.
00:08:43.980 Lattis said he expects the rent softening to continue over the winter, but expects demand and costs to skyrocket next spring.
00:08:51.520 Now getting into a quick sports update here, and admittedly, I've actually been watching less and less hockey these days,
00:08:57.820 because I usually find myself focusing on my work or on my love life, and unfortunately, the latter is kind of like the Leafs in the first round of the playoffs.
00:09:07.640 An epic failure.
00:09:08.660 On the flip side of the coin, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid became the 99th player to reach the 1,000-point mark.
00:09:15.980 The 659 games it took him makes him the 4th fastest player to ever do so, surpassed only by Mike Bossy, who did it in 656,
00:09:25.320 Mario Lemieux, who did it in 513, and of course, The Great One, who did it in 424.
00:09:30.940 So that wraps up our stories for the week, but we'll hop into the comment roundup here.
00:09:34.980 The first comment comes from Brayden Ahmet 343, who said,
00:09:39.360 Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment for various reasons.
00:09:51.740 First and foremost, I see this as a likely possibility, especially considering the fact that Premier Smith has been aligning herself with Trump most recently on Thursday,
00:10:01.020 when she announced she and Alberta would be the first non-U.S. state to enter an energy pact with 12 other U.S. states.
00:10:07.800 She even tagged Donald Trump in her ex-post, and I could certainly see them at a press conference together in the near future.
00:10:14.000 Also, we've already discussed that Trump plans to restart the Keystone Project, so, I mean, there could be various reasons for the two to meet.
00:10:20.440 The next comment comes from at judithtaylor4799, who said,
00:10:25.160 Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment because, while I obviously agree that what you said is true,
00:10:35.680 why does it seem like so many other leaders in Canada genuinely hate our country?
00:10:40.680 From municipal to provincial to federal politicians, I mean, there seem to be way too many of them that genuinely hate Canada.
00:10:47.660 Every policy they enact works against the country's well-being, and every word they utter puts the country to shame instead of lifting it up.
00:10:55.680 I'm just curious, how is this allowed to be the case?
00:10:58.540 Should our cities, provinces, and countries' leaders not be the most honorable and freedom-loving among us?
00:11:04.880 Not the very opposite?
00:11:06.140 So, the last comment today that I'm going to feature is actually a pair of comments.
00:11:10.860 Firstly, from that old white guy, sweet name, by the way, who said,
00:11:15.120 Yeah, so look, obviously I was too young to be alive during Pierre Trudeau's tenure,
00:11:29.420 but a theme that I've seen popping up is that Justin is just like his father, an enemy of the West.
00:11:37.160 My question is, how can and will the West ever become free of the East's control? 0.93
00:11:42.300 Will the West ever stop bailing the East out through equalization payments and otherwise? 0.82
00:11:46.860 I mean, I somehow find it doubtful.
00:11:49.060 And the second comment that I wanted to attach to this was from at Nipples of Destiny,
00:11:53.360 who explained the history of Canadian politics quite nicely when they said, quote,
00:11:57.780 Conservative, Conservative, Liberal.
00:11:59.700 Oh no, Conservative to clean up the Liberals' mess. 0.88
00:12:02.820 And the cycle repeats itself.
00:12:04.700 Look, in studying history, this seems to always be the case,
00:12:07.360 and I'm wondering whether anyone has any examples of it not being true.
00:12:11.200 What was it that Albert Einstein said again?
00:12:14.120 Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
00:12:18.960 So I'd like to thank everyone for watching this episode of the Alberta Roundup.
00:12:22.580 Please let me know if you have any ideas for additional segments of the show
00:12:27.100 or other things that I could implement to make the show better.
00:12:30.220 I'm always open to constructive criticism.
00:12:32.880 I've always, since I started, since I took over the Alberta Roundup,
00:12:36.200 really want to make this a show that I build together with you.
00:12:40.000 Thank you and God bless.
00:12:41.140 Have a great weekend.