The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - UCP comes out ahead on bungled announcement

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel. I hope that you

00:00:18.900 guys are having a great week so far. This week, I'm bringing you a special edition of the Alberta

00:00:23.860 Roundup called Election Watch. For the next four weeks of the show, I will be joined by panelists

00:00:28.520 and we'll discuss the top campaign moments of the week as the 2023 Alberta Provincial Election

00:00:34.420 Campaign between the UCP and the NDP rages on. This week, I'm joined by Chris Sims. She's the

00:00:40.960 Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Evan Menzies. He's a Senior

00:00:45.760 Campaign Strategist at Crestview Strategy and he's the former Director of Communications for the United

00:00:51.320 Conservative Party. I'm joined by them both now. Well, Evan and Chris, thank you so much for joining

00:00:55.900 me today on the Alberta Roundup. One of the things I wanted to start by discussing is just some of the

00:01:00.780 emerging trends coming out of this provincial election campaign. I suspect that coming out

00:01:05.460 of two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, we're seeing runaway inflation. Of course, many voters are upset

00:01:10.640 about that. People are definitely penny pinching. So affordability, of course, healthcare and public

00:01:15.500 safety, I'm figuring are some of the bread and butter issues that we're going to be focusing on

00:01:19.900 the campaign. Chris, what are you hearing from voters? What do you expect this campaign is really

00:01:24.320 going to be about? We're hearing the same thing that you guys are there, Rachel. I used to get a

00:01:29.860 phone call once every six weeks or so from a working person saying something like, you know what, I'm

00:01:34.320 busting my butt, but I still can't make ends meet. We're now getting a phone call like that kind of

00:01:39.260 every 10 days. So it's a lot more intense. Even here in Alberta, we are still seeing record demand for

00:01:45.760 food banks and often among working people. So that's a big high indicator that they need to take

00:01:52.220 inflation seriously. I will say that here in Alberta, we're still doing better than most.

00:01:57.700 We don't even have a provincial gas tax here. And it seems to be a serious dedication to fighting

00:02:02.460 higher taxes. So we're happy to see that. And Evan, outside of some of those main issues that

00:02:08.460 we just discussed, like healthcare, do you think those types of topics are going to be landing with

00:02:12.640 voters? Or do you think that they're a little bit tired of politics? Of course, we just came out of a

00:02:16.400 UCP leadership race not too long ago. And do you think that it's going to be harder for the

00:02:20.560 parties to actually land and to resonate with voters in this campaign?

00:02:25.200 Yeah, I think one of the advantages that the UCP had in this first week was Danielle Smith coming 0.99

00:02:30.760 out with that immediate huge income tax cut announcement, sort of framing the terms of the

00:02:37.580 debate in week one favorably to the UCP. And I'm not sure a lot of voters are hyper-tuned in

00:02:44.680 quite yet. But certainly, for the issues that have come up in week one so far, the UCP, I think,

00:02:52.820 have an edge to date. Folks have been telling pollsters this for a long time, that affordability

00:02:58.520 is a major issue. Chris just touched on the fact that it's something people will talk about all the

00:03:03.500 time. Even with the provincial gas tax cut, there's still the federal carbon tax that's driving up the

00:03:08.580 prices at the pumps. There's a lot of things going on. Inflation is still out of control. So

00:03:13.080 I think for the UCP, if they can continue to just be seen, to have their brand tied with the fact

00:03:19.000 that they are the party that's helping drive prices down, or at least keep things less crazy

00:03:23.600 than they have been, that's to their net advantage. The NDP, if they obviously want to talk about

00:03:28.680 healthcare, I don't really think they've got their message out so far this week. And if things stay

00:03:33.540 this way, I think it's, you know, come election day, the UCP will bear positive fruits.

00:03:37.860 Sure. Speaking of that tax cut, for my viewers who aren't aware, who haven't heard about it yet,

00:03:43.060 on Monday, Daniel Smith came out with sort of a pinnacle campaign announcement. She said a UCP

00:03:48.240 government, if reelected, would create a new 8% tax bracket on income under $60,000. So that's

00:03:54.120 saving of about $760 for an individual or closer to $1,500 per family. And then for those Albertans

00:04:00.820 that are earning less than $60,000 annually, they'll see a 20% reduction to their provincial tax bill.

00:04:06.940 Chris, maybe you could weigh on this. What would the impact of a tax cut like this

00:04:10.700 be on the Alberta economy, especially when people are really reigning in their savings?

00:04:15.280 Oh, it's huge. And this is something that we push for all the time. Every now and then you'll see a

00:04:19.880 politician, because it's easier for retail politics to give you little specified targeted tax credits 0.86

00:04:25.380 here and there. That's like giving out beef jerky when we want the whole steak. And their announcement

00:04:31.620 on Monday to give us the whole steak of boom, you're going to have a new lower income tax bracket, 0.96

00:04:38.240 and it's going to save people money across the board. Those are exactly the savings that taxpayers

00:04:43.200 need. And so what that does is that number one helps them pay their bills. Number two, it attracts

00:04:48.900 more people to Alberta, because if you're a family in someplace like British Columbia or Ontario,

00:04:54.180 and you take a look, and you realize how much money you're going to be saving when you combine that

00:04:58.420 with a lack of a PST, you're going to have even more moving trucks being booked here. So that is a

00:05:03.500 significant tax cut. In fact, I may say, and this is kind of a gentle criticism, because they were both

00:05:09.720 two good announcements, they should have broken up their huge income tax cut by creating an 8% one for

00:05:15.860 lower income folks, and the fact that they're going to extend their fuel tax reduction. So they made those

00:05:22.960 announcements on the same day. And that both of those are significant. The fact we don't have a fuel

00:05:28.340 tax, that saves you $15 every time you're filling up a light duty pickup truck. That is serious money.

00:05:35.360 That is a chicken and a jug of milk every time you're going to the grocery store. So they should

00:05:39.380 push that more. You know, fair enough, Chris. But when we're talking about tax cuts, it's not exactly

00:05:44.900 the sexiest issue. And you know, unless you're a very strong minded libertarian, you know, surprise to

00:05:50.020 voters, the NDP are coming out promising so called free things. One of the things Alberta NDP leader

00:05:55.180 Rachel Nolley has promised is free birth control. I'm wondering how that is going to resonate with

00:05:59.740 the female demographic in Calgary, where we know much of the election is going to be decided. Evan,

00:06:04.460 what's your take?

00:06:06.540 Yeah, I'm, when they first made the announcement, it's one of those types of policy

00:06:10.840 announcements, no matter where you sort of fall on the political spectrum. I think for more,

00:06:16.200 what we usually call like low information voters just mean that they're not consuming politics 30 minutes,

00:06:21.800 60 minutes a day. It's one of those announcements that is one of those like, yeah, that makes a lot

00:06:27.040 of sense announcements. So I think for a lot of voters in Calgary, that would probably be their

00:06:32.640 response. I'm not sure it's a huge, like swing vote issue that will, you know, pull UCP voters

00:06:40.140 away into the NDP tent or shift independent, independent voters on election day. I'm, I personally

00:06:47.240 think over time, this type of concept of having free, free birth control, or at least having an

00:06:55.720 access, a way to access a plan for birth control will probably become more and more popular over

00:07:00.080 time. It's up to conservatives to determine the most conservative way to frame a policy around that.

00:07:05.200 I just think that, again, just the reaction from the population will be like, yeah, it makes a lot of

00:07:10.180 sense. I can see why that would be needed on those terms. But at the end of the day, I think for the

00:07:16.360 NDP, it's mainly just a base motivator. This is what they're going to use to try and get their

00:07:21.960 people to show up on election day. Whether it actually pulls anyone out of the UCP tent, I'm

00:07:27.080 skeptical right now. I wanted to do a quick polling update. All the polls that we've seen come out in

00:07:33.500 recent weeks seem to show the UCP and the Alberta NDP neck and neck. One poll might have the UCP up by a

00:07:40.040 couple points, and then the next poll will show the NDP up by a couple points. Evan, are you seeing any

00:07:44.480 emerging trends coming out of the polling that we've seen so far?

00:07:48.620 Some say the bubbles in an Aero Truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth.

00:07:53.580 Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light.

00:07:57.240 Rich, creamy, chocolatey Aero Truffle. Feel the Aero Bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.

00:08:03.720 Yeah, one of the things I'm watching, you know, all these polls always have their own like little

00:08:08.200 variations within them. And obviously that old adage, wait until election day. But one of the things

00:08:13.300 I've noticed both from publicly released polls and some that I've heard from that are more internal

00:08:18.580 is that there is positive momentum for the UCP in Calgary right now. It's, you know, again,

00:08:24.980 it's early days. I have old battle scars when I worked for Danielle Smith during the 2012 Wildrose

00:08:31.600 election. And we were polling great for the first couple of weeks. And then it obviously fell apart

00:08:35.540 in the last week. So I don't think the UCP should be pumping their tires too much quite yet. But I think

00:08:42.200 there's some positive momentum heading towards the UCP. Their campaign plan seems pretty straightforward.

00:08:47.300 They want to be boring. They want to stick to their bread and butter issues like affordability,

00:08:51.760 tax cuts, like we had already mentioned. They're able to stay on those messages, not sort of lose

00:08:57.840 the plot over the next few weeks. I think their brand, their message will carry the day. The NDP have

00:09:04.980 hit a ceiling in Calgary, in my view. I don't think there's any new NDP voters out there. There might be

00:09:10.140 some undecideds who could shift their way at election day. But the UCP's challenge in the city

00:09:15.340 is getting what I call UCP shy voters to show up at advanced polls. And on election day, there's

00:09:21.680 still a large section of UCP voters in the city who are just not quite sure what to make

00:09:27.320 of Danielle Smith quite yet. She's been premier since October, but obviously have some long memories,

00:09:34.140 still trying to sift through those old Wild Rose PC debates back in the day. So I think Danielle,

00:09:41.220 as premier, has done a good job showing those voters that they're welcome in the tent. And she

00:09:45.840 obviously has to, her job as leaders to make sure that they show up for those advanced poll 1.00

00:09:51.900 dates and on election day.

00:09:54.960 Sure. And arguably, you know, with the NDP attacking Danielle Smith and saying she can't

00:10:00.100 be trusted or that she's crazy. That's some of the sentiments that we've seen in the rhetoric

00:10:04.140 they're trying to build around Smith. The UCP's focus on running what you're saying is a boring

00:10:08.460 campaign would be a very good one just to show voters that they are trustworthy and they are

00:10:12.840 consistent. Now, when we look at the polling numbers, Chris, we know that the Alberta NDP spent

00:10:17.140 $6 million on attack ads in the pre-writ campaign period. I'm not sure that that is actually

00:10:23.340 having an impact in Calgary. Do you know if that has been successful? Has that actually been able

00:10:27.940 to swing voters over in the Calgary or does it seem largely like that was a swing and a miss?

00:10:33.120 That's a great question. I will say, anecdotally speaking, and taking off my CTF hat for a moment,

00:10:38.660 even when I'm watching the playoff hockey, like I'm watching the Edmonton Oilers, I see attack ad

00:10:44.740 after attack ad and I don't see answering ads. Usually they match and I don't know why there aren't

00:10:51.900 answering UCP ads abutted next to those NDP ones. Also, even on local radio. So I'm here in

00:10:58.200 Lethbridge and I'm listening to the country station or the rock station. It is wall to wall. Every time

00:11:03.280 they go to a break, I'm not surprised they spent that amount of money because it sure sounds like

00:11:07.620 it. It's always a Rachel Notley attack ad on Danielle Smith. So if that sways people who are on

00:11:15.060 the fence, that's a pretty good question. I will say that the UCP has brought in some heavy hitters

00:11:22.480 and seasoned campaign managers. So Steve Outhouse is a very experienced campaign manager out of

00:11:30.000 Ottawa. I worked with him there when I was a staff member and largely as a journalist on Parliament

00:11:36.200 Hill with the gallery. And what I find interesting about that is that there's always a pool of staffers

00:11:42.820 that will hang out or talk to each other, even from other parties. And I don't know anyone who's

00:11:48.120 ever said anything bad about the guy after 20 something years, which is remarkable from that

00:11:54.020 perspective of a place like Ottawa. And so I think he's probably got a pretty solid game plan. The

00:12:00.240 question is, what don't they don't know? Anything can happen in three weeks and there's always some

00:12:06.880 sort of risk of an October surprise. So we're really early, like Evan said, we'll have to see.

00:12:11.820 Speaking of surprises, there was a bit of a hiccup in the UCP campaign this week on Tuesday. I'm sure

00:12:17.000 you guys caught this. I'm just going to give a brief recap for my viewers. Basically on Tuesday,

00:12:21.820 UCP candidates Brian Jean and Rebecca Schultz had a big announcement. They had two independent reports

00:12:26.980 that said that Rachel Notley's plan to reach a net zero electricity grid by 2035 would cost the 0.62

00:12:32.980 province and taxpayers $87 billion. They had added together two separate reports on this issue.

00:12:38.480 The one was the ASO report. That's the Alberta electric system operator. They estimated the cost

00:12:43.680 of the actual power generation grid at $52 billion. And then they had a Navius research report finding

00:12:49.880 that the opportunity cost of the economy would be $35 billion between now and 2035. That's for a

00:12:56.900 total of $87 billion. However, Navius research came out and basically said their numbers were being

00:13:02.140 mischaracterized. They said reports in the media pegged their report at almost double what the actual

00:13:07.060 cost would be. Eventually it seemed that the UCP and Navius came to an agreement. The UCP released

00:13:12.220 a tweet. Their war rooms be specific, released that tweet in acceptance with Navius. They had 0.78

00:13:17.280 worked on this statement together, kind of coming on an agreement of the specific wording that should

00:13:21.720 be used. That being said, the sentiment is sort of that when you're explaining, you're losing.

00:13:27.100 Evan, do you think this was a missed opportunity for the party? Now it seems like they've had to explain

00:13:31.480 so much what these numbers are. Do you think that that really distracted from the issue at hand here?

00:13:35.700 Yeah, it's possible, but I kind of see it from another point of view. I wasn't sure as I was

00:14:00.200 following the press coverage from that press announcement until Navius put out that tweet,

00:14:04.480 I wasn't sure it was getting the coverage that it deserved. It turned out that the next day,

00:14:09.320 this is all everyone is talking about. It's an important topic to talk about.

00:14:13.680 Listen, when the NDP were in charge, they took coal off the grid, moved us to 70-30 natural gas

00:14:20.820 and renewables. Those renewables are intermittent and not reliable. Our power grid is going to face

00:14:26.220 significant issues in years ahead. This idea of Alberta getting to net zero in just 12 years with

00:14:32.540 our current power mix is something that needs to be discussed this election campaign. I think

00:14:38.020 the fact that maybe there was a bit of a communications blip, sure, but it sounds to me

00:14:43.300 at the end of the day that Navius at least concedes it's going to cost us in the tens of billions of

00:14:48.500 dollars as ratepayers, taxpayers could be on the hook for even more. Beyond that discussion,

00:14:53.780 just what it's going to cost us as taxpayers and as ratepayers, what's our power grid actually going

00:15:01.140 to look like? How reliable will our power be when it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter?

00:15:05.980 That's not at all clear to me with Rachel Notley's plan for net zero. I'm glad it's been brought up.

00:15:12.760 I'm glad that reporters caught interest in this story once they saw a communications blip because,

00:15:19.160 quite frankly, Rachel Notley and the NDP are hoping no one really talks about this election. So maybe

00:15:23.420 this is, maybe it's one of those things where it's an opportunity for the UCP to keep pressing the

00:15:27.280 issue. Certainly for the NDP, they wanted to talk about the UCP's record on healthcare over the last

00:15:33.380 few days. They haven't. So it's, it's kind of, campaigns are interesting and they're unpredictable.

00:15:38.760 So that's kind of my read on it over the last 24 hours. Yeah, but I think that's a fair perspective.

00:15:44.440 Maybe this blip has actually caused the situation to get more media attention than it otherwise would have

00:15:48.920 I talked to the UCP about it this week and they said, even if you look at just the $52 billion

00:15:53.960 number, that's still the most expensive political campaign promise in Alberta political history.

00:15:59.220 And they've also said what you just said now that Rachel Notley doesn't want to talk about what

00:16:03.000 this is going to cost. Chris, you can weigh in here. You're our numbers expert. Has Notley spoken

00:16:07.620 about the cost of this and what do you think it would actually mean for Alberta taxpayers if this pledge

00:16:12.560 of net neutrality by 2035 goes forward? That's a great question. I was listening to her interview

00:16:17.700 on Calgary radio station yesterday and she very deftly moved around those questions of numbers,

00:16:23.320 even though the host was pressing saying, Hey, like, how are you going to pay for this?

00:16:26.820 You're promising to balance the budget. Now there's always asterisks around that. And you're proud,

00:16:31.460 you're, you're promising to not raise personal income taxes. So where are you going to get this

00:16:34.960 money from? And she was ducking and weaving the way most seasoned politicians do. I think to Evan's

00:16:40.580 point, that's very clever. That's a good point. And a good way of looking at it. It kept it in the media

00:16:44.860 where otherwise wouldn't have been, even though it was kind of a comms-ish mistake in communications.

00:16:51.060 And so what I was surprised by is seeing the contradiction come forward from the research

00:16:56.980 group itself. That's a conversation that should have happened last week. Just saying, Hey, just so

00:17:02.620 we're clear, these are the numbers are going out with. This is the kind of wording we're going out

00:17:06.480 with. Everybody cool? Yes, everybody cool. We work with numbers here at the Taxpayers Federation all the

00:17:11.560 time. And you don't want to get undermined as you're trotting out your message. However, again,

00:17:17.180 to Evan's point, it did keep it in the media. And I think if it's 50 billion, 30 billion, or 80 billion,

00:17:24.720 that is a heck of a lot of money. And I think the average Albertan is going to be wondering,

00:17:30.020 how am I going to pay for this? To give people an idea of a billion, a billion builds you a pretty

00:17:36.180 good looking hospital. So instead of imagining $30 billion, picture 30 new hospitals, or 50 new

00:17:45.580 hospitals. So that's a better rule of thumb when people are trying to wrap their head around these

00:17:50.360 big numbers. A billion dollars is pretty close to a hospital bill. Well, I think that's a great place

00:17:54.900 to leave it for today. Chris and Evan, thank you so much for joining our show. I know our viewers will

00:17:58.940 appreciate your input. Viewers, thank you so much for tuning in today to this special edition of the

00:18:03.340 Alberta Roundup. As always, if you're able, please consider supporting independent media.

00:18:07.200 You can do that over at donate.tnc.news. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - May 06, 2023

UCP comes out ahead on bungled announcement

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