The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - UCP Leadership candidates face-off

00:00:00.000 hey everyone welcome to the alberta roundup i'm your host rachel emmanuel we're going to do our

00:00:14.500 best to keep the episode super brief so let's jump into today's topics beginning with general news

00:00:19.720 the alberta court of appeals has ruled in favor of pastor arthur palowski who was arrested jailed

00:00:25.680 and fined for continuing to preach in breach of alberta's covet 19 lockdowns he has some pretty

00:00:31.200 horrific tales of how he was treated while in jail he was held in solitary confinement i suggest you

00:00:36.420 research that a little bit more so of course the ruling was a big win for civil liberties and for

00:00:41.300 religious freedoms here in alberta he will be reimbursed for the fines that he was paid

00:00:45.480 ultimately the cost of this is going to be passed down to taxpayers however so definitely a lesson

00:00:50.460 learned here in alberta and for alberta health services the trudeau government meanwhile is

00:00:56.280 looking to impose a requirement to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer by 30 percent

00:01:01.500 as part of its overall effort to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2030 of course we've all

00:01:07.880 heard lots about prime minister justin trudeau's radical environmental agenda and how that seems

00:01:12.760 to be overshadowing any of the other much more pressing problems in our country right now

00:01:16.860 i caught up with agriculture minister nate horner who said it seems like ottawa pulled a target out

00:01:22.060 of the air and they have no idea where they found the 30 percent reduction from he also said he was

00:01:26.940 very disappointed to learn that while ottawa will be consulting with the provinces on how to move

00:01:31.420 forward with their target they have absolutely no plans of reconsidering the target to a lower and

00:01:36.200 more reasonable one this is of course absolutely more insanity from the trudeau government food prices

00:01:41.880 are at an all-time high and there's even problems with food shortages emerging especially with the

00:01:46.320 conflict going on in russia and ukraine right now this is going to turn into a big problem and of

00:01:51.360 course as minister horner said to me it's either going to result in less food being produced or higher

00:01:56.440 costs which will ultimately be passed down to the consumer which seems to be how everything works

00:02:01.000 these days let's jump into the uocp leadership debate so of course there's an ongoing united

00:02:05.720 conservative party leadership debate happening here in alberta this seems to be dominating most of the

00:02:10.840 headlines it is summer things are a little sleepy but this has been keeping things very interesting

00:02:15.000 so the deadline for candidates to apply was on july 20th that's last week wednesday uh just seven

00:02:22.020 candidates made it past the first deadline they had to submit 75 000 and a thousand signatures from

00:02:28.720 the province's five different regions um that's the first 75k in total they're going to have to pay

00:02:34.540 175k so they still have two more deadlines of 55 50 000 each so of the candidates just calgary

00:02:41.040 businessman john horseman didn't get his signatures in on time about an hour before the 5 p.m deadline

00:02:45.980 he posted on social media saying he was on track to meet it but there were so many candidates in the

00:02:50.480 running and he just didn't feel like it was worth it for him to throw his name in because of how many

00:02:54.820 candidates there were so raj serman as well was hoping to run he's the former alberta liberal party

00:03:00.800 leader he actually did get his signatures and the money in but the party didn't accept it as he was never

00:03:05.200 approved to run in the first place he required an exemption to run because he wasn't a party member

00:03:10.160 for six months prior to the contest but the party did not grant him uh that waiver so he will not be

00:03:16.380 running as well so now we're left with seven candidates it's still quite a few to choose from

00:03:19.860 interestingly they're all current or former mlas so six of them are sitting mlas five of those are

00:03:27.220 ucp mlas and that includes four who were cabinet ministers under jason kenney so of course that's

00:03:33.300 leela ahir rebecca schultz travis taves and rajin sani um and then of course we have danielle smith who's

00:03:39.240 the only one who's not a sitting mla currently but of course she is very well known here in alberta

00:03:44.100 she is a the former opposition wild rose party leader and she's probably best known for her 2014

00:03:50.260 floor costing when she crossed the floor to join jim prentice's pcs as an act of unity it did not go

00:03:57.300 over that way the people did not accept it at all and she lost her nomination the following year

00:04:01.420 and left politics for six years where she was on the radio and i would say she was you know quite

00:04:06.520 successful on that show it seems albertans are ready to forgive her and to give her another shot

00:04:10.780 at government as shown in recent polls so leisure released a poll on sunday let's just talk about

00:04:15.560 the results of that for a minute uh respondents were ucp supporters and they were asked who would make

00:04:20.640 the best party leader so the poll found that smith is in the lead at 22 this is sort of similar to

00:04:26.280 the numbers that we've been seeing since the race began she's been pulling ahead and she's followed

00:04:30.080 closely by brian gene at 20 so just a two point difference there of course brian gene is a household

00:04:36.140 name here in alberta he's been in alberta politics for forever everyone knows who he is and he was

00:04:40.940 a former conservative mp as well so he has that name recognition going for him which is really

00:04:45.720 advantageous in a leadership race and following him we have the former finance minister travis taves

00:04:50.420 he's at 15 so those numbers are all kind of similar to what we've been seeing for the last month not a lot

00:04:55.020 of movement there uh then we have rebecca schultz she was a former kenny minister and mla todd lowen

00:05:02.020 they each got two percent todd lowen was actually removed from the ucp caucus with drew barnes last

00:05:07.900 year for calling for jason kenny's resignation due to his covet 19 pandemic handling but also because

00:05:13.380 they felt that the premier wasn't making enough progress on getting alberta a fair deal with ottawa

00:05:17.700 i mean now we have rajan sani she was the former transportation minister who resigned to run for the

00:05:23.320 ucp leadership race as is custom she had zero percent support with the poll and leela ahir who

00:05:28.860 is the most progressive candidate in the running she did not register any support in this in the

00:05:33.080 poll other issues that were important to ucp supporters was a clear plan to get alberta's

00:05:38.180 economy back on track and growing 42 said that was the most important issue for the ucp leader to deal

00:05:43.760 with and a clear plan to rebuild important services like health care and education in the province that

00:05:48.800 was the 21 the second most important issue for ucp supporters not terribly surprising albertans have

00:05:54.880 been really worried about their economy for a while luckily we're seeing you know oil prices rebound now

00:05:59.740 so that's been good and we're forecasting a really high surplus but also there's been a lot of

00:06:04.280 discontentment with ahs we have a lot of problems with ambulances and wait times and of course a lot of

00:06:08.860 people were just really unhappy with how hs handled the covet 19 pandemic and want to see a rehaul there

00:06:14.440 let's move into the ucp leadership debate so the first official ucp leadership debate was on wednesday

00:06:20.240 night all the way in medicine hat they held it at an airport hangar sorry rather a emergency medic

00:06:25.760 helicopter hangar um it was interesting location i guess that's kind of a special place and they hold

00:06:30.780 events there might not have been the best location to hold a leadership race on just because we had so

00:06:35.080 many issues with wi-fi and of course the party was trying to live stream for the debate for the many

00:06:39.660 people who didn't feel like making the trip down to medicine hat but there are copies of it available

00:06:43.520 online now if you hadn't had a chance to watch it um the debate quickly turned into an everyone versus

00:06:49.500 danielle smith of course as i mentioned she's the front runner seems like the other candidates know

00:06:53.640 that and they're trying to find you know ways to attack her i'm not sure their tactic really worked

00:06:59.400 because it ultimately just ended up giving danielle smith so much airtime and she did remain her calm

00:07:04.840 and was very level-headed and sort of responded to their complaints so it made her look really really

00:07:09.760 strong um the way the debate format worked is there were seven questions every candidate was given a

00:07:14.500 question they were allowed to respond to that for two minutes and then they were allowed to pick an

00:07:18.340 opponent to respond to that question for a minute and a half and then those two candidates sparred off

00:07:22.700 for about four minutes and just had some back and forth debate i really liked the debate format i heard

00:07:27.100 a lot of complaints about how bad it was but the reason that i liked it is because they actually

00:07:31.200 allotted a good amount of time for back and forth debate a lot of times we don't really see that in

00:07:35.300 in leadership debates or elections anymore it's like 30 seconds to debate back and forth so i really

00:07:39.860 liked that they allowed for some genuine back and forth but as i mentioned the candidates were

00:07:43.540 you know so keen to go after danielle smith so they often chose her as a person to spar off with

00:07:48.420 which ultimately just gave her more airtime i felt like we didn't really hear from lila here

00:07:53.320 very much we didn't really hear from todd lowen very much um and raj and sonny came out as a total

00:07:58.420 attack dog on danielle smith all the sort of what are being called the establishment candidate candidates

00:08:02.840 you know candidates that worked in jason kenney's governments were definitely attacking smith the

00:08:07.340 most but raj and sonny was totally the smith attack dog even in her opening statements she made a

00:08:11.860 little bit of a slight at smith she said the province needs more than a talk show host ouch um i have to

00:08:17.600 say that i actually think raj and won the debate i know you were not expecting me to say that because

00:08:22.840 people are talking about her campaign and she's pulling at two percent and nobody's really been

00:08:26.780 talking about her campaign very much so i think that kind of put her on the map and following the

00:08:31.400 debate in a media scrum she said you know i want to be the danielle smith antidote so she's making it

00:08:36.580 very clear where she stands and how she wants to portray herself as a candidate whether that's what

00:08:41.180 the party membership is looking for i'm not sure but at this point in the race i think it's good that

00:08:45.800 she's sort of generating some discussion about what type of leader she would be and making it clear and

00:08:50.380 sort of setting herself apart from the pack of you know candidates that worked in jason kenney's

00:08:54.660 government okay let's move to the controversy of the week so i'm sure you've heard by now

00:08:59.780 danielle smith's comments on cancer and preventative treatment what had happened is she held a podcast

00:09:04.800 last week thursday where she was discussing naturopathy medication for those of you who

00:09:09.800 aren't familiar with naturopaths what they do is they take a look at your body and all the issues that

00:09:13.620 they're you're having and from there they determine what the issue might be and then they give you

00:09:19.020 supplements and they might you know prescribe you a specific diet and exercise regime to follow

00:09:23.360 so that your body can fix itself whereas in contrast western medication or mainstream medication

00:09:28.540 whatever you want to call it it's a lot of times a band-aid fix it doesn't get at the root of the

00:09:33.080 issue it more just helps you with whatever pain and symptoms you're feeling naturopaths really want

00:09:38.220 to get to the root cause and to help your body learn to fix itself now the naturopath that danielle

00:09:43.600 smith had on dr christine perkins said we need both types of medication you can't just have naturopathy

00:09:48.340 there are times when i have a patient that's going to need cancer or radiation or chemotherapy and

00:09:53.340 sometimes they come to me it's too late but she said we really need both forms of medication

00:09:57.760 and then danielle smith i'll just read you exactly how she responded and you can decide for yourself

00:10:02.740 how you feel about her comments smith responds that's a perfect example because absolutely once

00:10:08.220 you've arrived and got stage four cancer and there's radiation and surgery and chemotherapy

00:10:13.060 that's an incredibly expensive intervention not just for the system but also very expensive in the

00:10:19.180 toll it takes on the body but when you think about everything that built up before you got to stage

00:10:23.320 four on that diagnosis that's completely within your control and there's something that you can do about

00:10:28.880 that that is different and i want to talk a little bit more about that so of course you know a clip of

00:10:33.960 these comments kind of went around the internet and everyone piled on ndp leader rachel notley piled on

00:10:39.320 rebecca schultz travis tapes brian jeans they said her comments were hurtful um inappropriate raj

00:10:44.600 and sonny said during the debate that she diminished the experience of cancer and that she didn't buy

00:10:48.440 danielle smith's explanation and danielle smith has been very clear about this you know i think if

00:10:53.200 people listen to my comments in the full context they'll understand what i was getting at and what

00:10:57.680 she was really getting at is that we need to start looking at preventative treatment so that people's

00:11:01.360 cancer can get caught earlier on because if it gets caught earlier on there's more options for

00:11:06.320 treatment as opposed to once you're at stage four late stage cancer it's very hard you're probably just

00:11:12.280 going to be left with radiation or surgery or chemotherapy it's the way to follow into next week

00:11:17.540 gas gouging are alberta gas pumps gouging you at the pumps premier jason kenney announced last week

00:11:24.340 he's investigating potential price gouging he's already met with the canadian fuels association

00:11:29.140 and he's asked the competition bureau to investigate potential gasoline price fixing here in alberta

00:11:34.100 so as you know our provincial government removed the 13 cents per liter provincial sales tax

00:11:39.980 at the pump to just kind of offer some relief to alberts considering how high gas prices are right now

00:11:45.500 but interestingly on last week friday the average price of gas in toronto was around

00:11:50.720 a dollar 68 per liter while in calgary and edmonton it was a dollar 76 per liter so historically albertans

00:11:58.720 have paid much lower gas prices than in alberta and we also have the full you know provincial sales tax

00:12:03.560 being removed from our from our gas here so it's just quite interesting that our gas prices are still

00:12:08.720 so high and that's why they're going to be looking into gas gouging already since jason kenney has made the

00:12:13.580 announcement we've seen prices fall at the pumps a little bit ucp leadership candidate brian gene has

00:12:19.580 come out very strong on this he said customers are not seeing the 13 cents per liter savings being passed

00:12:24.420 on and as someone who is campaigning for the alberta premiership he has a solution he would like

00:12:29.680 legislation that would allow the government to trigger short notice retail margin caps when their

00:12:35.060 margins substantially exceed the margins charged in other provinces so that's his solution to make sure we

00:12:41.800 don't see gas gouging happen the province i think it's something to keep your eye on hopefully we

00:12:45.560 continue to see prices fall um in the province and just to finish off for today here the funniest

00:12:52.180 moment in alberta politics i think this is probably something you guys haven't seen because it happened

00:12:57.360 in a media scrum following the ucp leadership debate which was not televised um so lila ahir who is

00:13:04.360 running as one of the candidates as we mentioned she did not have any support in the recent leisure

00:13:08.200 leisure poll uh she's the most progressive candidate you know she hasn't really been

00:13:12.540 on the offense about covid restrictions she supported some of them she said the roe versus

00:13:17.700 wade overturnal was devastating you know lots of people are pro-choice but a lot of the candidates

00:13:23.200 didn't say anything because a lot of conservatives in alberta are pro-life and they probably didn't

00:13:27.020 want to make a stance on that she said the decision was devastating she also attended a calgary

00:13:31.620 stampede pancake breakfast with prime minister justin trudeau so she says that she thinks most

00:13:36.220 conservatives are like her she thinks that most conservatives are fiscally conservative and

00:13:40.640 socially liberal and she actually said i represent 90 of conservatives the candidate who did not

00:13:45.440 register any support in a recent leisure poll says she represents 90 of conservatives interesting

00:13:51.740 another thing she said which was rather funny was that there are many albertans in the province who

00:13:57.200 vote federally liberal but provincially conservative so certainly i'm sure those people do exist

00:14:02.920 however we only have two federal liberal mps here in the province so if those are the members that

00:14:09.100 you're gunning for i don't think it's a huge surprise that you're not registering any support

00:14:13.300 in recent polls just something to consider maybe i'm out to lunch on this one though well that's what

00:14:18.460 i think the funniest moment in alberta politics is if you think it's something different feel free

00:14:22.180 to let me know well drop the socials below so you can find me on twitter and facebook i'd love to

00:14:27.060 hear from you guys what you think of the show what you think are things to watch for in the coming

00:14:30.600 weeks and what you think are the funniest things happening in alberta politics thanks so much for

00:14:34.560 tuning in see you next week

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - July 30, 2022

UCP Leadership candidates face-off

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