00:00:00.000The 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.
00:00:13.880Morneau 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.
00:00:22.960On 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.
00:00:37.460I'm Isaac Lamoureux, your host of the Alberta Roundup, and let's get into that first story now.
00:00:52.960Former 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.
00:01:10.380Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared the post of Morneau to X.
00:01:16.600Even PM Justin Trudeau's former Liberal Finance Minister knows how bad a production cap is for Canada and our economy.
00:01:24.780Smith, 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.
00:01:35.340Former Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose spoke on the show and referenced that the Liberals have an upcoming economic update at the end of November.
00:01:45.400I 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.
00:01:55.140Morneau 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.
00:02:04.800The Business Council of Canada warned that retaliatory measures from the United States would hurt Canadian businesses, the economy, and families in general.
00:02:13.800The tax would also impact Canada's relationship with the U.S. when the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement comes up for review in 2026.
00:02:22.680Morneau said that Canada needs to think about how it will hit defence spending more rapidly than the Liberals have planned.
00:02:28.920The Parliamentary Budget Officer warned that Canada must double its defence spending to meet its NATO commitment by 2032.
00:02:36.200Smith was not the only one to comment on what Morneau had to say.
00:02:39.920Alberta 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.
00:02:48.900Hopping into our next story here, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been rumoured as the potential new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation.
00:02:58.880According to Postmedia, sources close to the government say that Premier Smith has wanted Harper to take on the role for some time.
00:03:05.700However, he apparently needs to take care of some ongoing business activities.
00:03:09.560These activities don't signal any wrongdoing or anything of the sort, but they could be potential conflicts.
00:03:15.060AIMCO 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.
00:03:27.760The pension saw an $8.9 billion investment net return in 2023.
00:03:33.540Some of the managed assets include the Alberta Teachers Retirement Fund, the Local Authorities Pension Plan, and the Public Service Pension Plan.
00:03:41.660The pension fund operates independently from the province.
00:03:45.640It 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.
00:03:59.480He 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%.
00:04:13.920These increases apparently came despite the corporation managing a smaller percentage of funds internally.
00:04:19.580Ray Gilmore, a senior public servant in the provincial government for over five years, has been named interim CEO.
00:04:26.180Over the past five years, Gilmore oversaw an organization with more than 29,000 employees and a $73 billion budget.
00:04:35.860Ray has been the most trusted official in the province under three premiers.
00:04:39.940I have complete confidence in his ability to get costs at AIMCO under control and restore stability to the corporation.
00:04:46.500I reached out to the finance minister for confirmation on whether Harper would become the chair, and he told me, quote,
00:04:53.100Alberta's government will be announcing the new chair of AIMCO within the next couple weeks.
00:04:57.880So 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.
00:05:06.120Now hopping into some interesting news, which is that the Alberta government may be adding citizenship status to provincial driver licenses.
00:05:14.380Alberta's Minister of Service and Red Tape Production, Dale Nally, spoke briefly about this at the UCP's AGM.
00:05:22.460One 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.
00:05:31.480We 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.
00:05:40.440And look, we've also seen how useless these tabulators are in the recent BC election, which took weeks to tally.
00:05:47.980And 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.
00:06:00.880Documents acquired from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service by Postmedia previously showed that Alberta's resources, economy, and strong ethnic communities made it a, quote,
00:06:11.120very attractive target for foreign interference.
00:06:14.460The notes said that the foreign interference was not limited to the federal level and could occur provincially and even municipally.
00:06:21.080The 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.
00:06:31.440We 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.
00:06:44.400Yeah, I'm curious. Let me know in the comments if you think that played a role in the US election.
00:06:48.420So 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.
00:06:57.760This decrease was driven by new rental supply and slower population growth.
00:07:02.580So the 1.2% annual decrease brings average asking rents for all residential property types in Canada to $2,152 a month.
00:07:12.000Average 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.
00:07:23.580Rent decreases were most notable in Canada's most expensive provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, which saw 6% and 3% decreases, respectively.
00:07:32.500Conversely, Canada's least expensive provinces saw rent increases, led by Saskatchewan with a 17% rise.
00:07:39.080As 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.
00:07:48.520The average rent for all types of apartment and condo rentals in Alberta increased by 6%, which averaged $1,786 per month.
00:07:57.420However, interestingly, 6% of the 10 most affordable small and mid-sized cities for average apartment rents in the country were in Alberta.
00:08:05.160They were Lloydminster, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, Medicine Hat.
00:08:09.100In fact, Lloydminster was the cheapest of all the listed Canadian markets.
00:08:14.140However, as you can imagine, it also saw the biggest rent increase of 24.3%.
00:08:19.860This 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.
00:08:27.820Associate 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.
00:08:38.120They're just moving out of the most expensive provinces to find cheaper living elsewhere.
00:08:42.180Let me know how you feel about this trend.
00:08:43.980Lattis said he expects the rent softening to continue over the winter, but expects demand and costs to skyrocket next spring.
00:08:51.520Now getting into a quick sports update here, and admittedly, I've actually been watching less and less hockey these days,
00:08:57.820because 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.
00:09:08.660On the flip side of the coin, Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid became the 99th player to reach the 1,000-point mark.
00:09:15.980The 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,
00:09:25.320Mario Lemieux, who did it in 513, and of course, The Great One, who did it in 424.
00:09:30.940So that wraps up our stories for the week, but we'll hop into the comment roundup here.
00:09:34.980The first comment comes from Brayden Ahmet 343, who said,
00:09:39.360Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment for various reasons.
00:09:51.740First 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,
00:10:01.020when she announced she and Alberta would be the first non-U.S. state to enter an energy pact with 12 other U.S. states.
00:10:07.800She even tagged Donald Trump in her ex-post, and I could certainly see them at a press conference together in the near future.
00:10:14.000Also, 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.
00:10:20.440The next comment comes from at judithtaylor4799, who said,
00:10:25.160Yeah, so I decided to highlight this comment because, while I obviously agree that what you said is true,
00:10:35.680why does it seem like so many other leaders in Canada genuinely hate our country?
00:10:40.680From municipal to provincial to federal politicians, I mean, there seem to be way too many of them that genuinely hate Canada.
00:10:47.660Every 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.
00:10:55.680I'm just curious, how is this allowed to be the case?
00:10:58.540Should our cities, provinces, and countries' leaders not be the most honorable and freedom-loving among us?