The Candice Malcolm Show - Separatist SURGE coming in Alberta byelections？ Republican leader speaks out

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for

00:00:07.260 you today, folks. It is a very important week in Alberta politics next week. So on Monday,

00:00:14.360 there will be three by-elections, by-elections that will have an impact on the future of

00:00:20.180 that province, particularly the future of Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP party.

00:00:26.120 So there's two specific by-elections that I think are going to be really important and

00:00:30.680 ones to watch. The first one is Edmonton Strathcona. That is actually the riding I used to live

00:00:35.700 in. It's where the University of Alberta is located. It's typically seen as like an island

00:00:40.520 of socialism in an otherwise, you know, very sensible province. And Nahid Nenshi, the leader

00:00:46.360 of the NDP party, will be running in that riding. Now, you may have asked yourself, I asked myself

00:00:50.980 this too, why would Nahid Nenshi run in Edmonton, right? He's the longtime Calgary mayor. We

00:00:56.080 were told that he's popular in Calgary as part of the reason why he's leading the party is that

00:01:00.780 maybe he'll be able to appeal to a broader base than just the NDP. And yet here he is running in

00:01:06.700 Strathcona. Originally, he said he was going to wait for a Calgary seat, but I guess he became too

00:01:11.740 impatient. And when a safe NDP riding like Alberta Strathcona came around, Nahid Nenshi jumped at

00:01:17.440 that. So it'll be interesting to see how he does relative to Rachel Notley, the former NDP leader

00:01:22.960 in that riding, whether he'll be able to beat her numbers or whether he'll come in

00:01:27.540 quite a bit behind how she used to run. The other interesting and I think consequential riding

00:01:33.640 in this election, by-election, is in Olds, Didsbury, Three Hills. Now that is a rural riding

00:01:40.300 just north of Calgary. It's considered to be the most conservative riding in the entire province.

00:01:47.240 Most conservative riding in the most conservative province. Hey, you might say that these are my kind

00:01:51.400 of people. These are sensible, good, common sense folks in Olds, Didsbury. And 75% of them voted in

00:01:58.600 the UCP, for the UCP candidate last time around in 2023. So why is it an interesting by-election?

00:02:05.180 What's happening? You know, we're going to do a bit of a deep dive to find out what is happening

00:02:09.320 there. And I'm pleased to be joined by one of the candidates that is running in that election.

00:02:14.840 He is the head of something called the Alberta Republican Party, sorry, the Republican Party of Alberta.

00:02:20.380 It is a registered political party that has made joining the United States central to its platform.

00:02:27.760 And so I'm very pleased today to be joined by its leader, Cam Davis, who is the leader of the Republican Party of Alberta,

00:02:32.960 and the candidate. He is a former Wild Rose figure, and he was an early United Conservative Party supporter.

00:02:39.780 Now, I just want to preface this by saying that some of my friends in Alberta don't like this character very much.

00:02:46.660 And some of them told me not to have him on the show. But hey, he's a newsmaker, and it's an interesting proposition, right?

00:02:54.460 This idea of Alberta separatism. He is running against Premier Danielle Smith, though.

00:02:59.400 And many see him as trying to undermine her, undermine what she's doing in that province.

00:03:04.600 So I'm going to let the audience make up their own mind on him. And I thought I would give him the opportunity to speak for himself.

00:03:10.280 So, Cam, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:03:14.520 Well, thanks for having me, Candice. And I would just preface with some clarity that we are, in fact, a party that we want to see Alberta as an independent constitutional republic.

00:03:27.120 And so joining the United States is not something that is part of our platform at all.

00:03:31.960 We are, and by definition of why we call ourselves Republicans, is we see that the broken system of confederation is something that is the source cause of all of the issues,

00:03:46.740 or most of the issues, that Alberta faces within Canada.

00:03:49.640 And so our mission is to form Alberta into a constitutional republic.

00:03:55.340 Okay, well, sorry for misstating that. I thought I read that you wanted Alberta to join the United States.

00:04:03.640 I know you yourself are a dual American-Canadian citizen. It says here you served in the United States Marines.

00:04:10.100 So tell me, Cam, when did you get back into, when did you move to Alberta? When did you get into Alberta politics?

00:04:16.780 Moved to Alberta in the early 90s. My parents were missionaries to Spruce Grove, Alberta.

00:04:22.220 So just west of Edmonton, small town. It's not so small anymore. Lots of immigration to Alberta.

00:04:29.720 And so it's a growing city. It's almost right next to Edmonton now.

00:04:34.620 So I began involvement in Alberta politics in 2008 with the early Wild Rose and the Alliance merger, and then 2009 by-election, 2012 Wild Rose campaign, which you were on,

00:04:51.380 and stayed around the Wild Rose through the floor crossings.

00:04:54.820 And I was Brian Jean's campaign manager in 2015. We brought the party back from the ashes and four seats up to 21.

00:05:03.700 And after that, I helped merge the Wild Rose and PC parties.

00:05:07.980 That's something that I think many Albertans, especially in rural Alberta, regret supporting, in fact.

00:05:13.900 There's a lot of understanding now that what we ought to have had was two pragmatic conservative parties in a coalition to avoid some of the mistakes in the past.

00:05:24.940 And that's what the Republican Party of Alberta is trying to accomplish today now.

00:05:29.800 So my involvement after that, of course, was with Jason Kenney in the leadership race of the UCP.

00:05:37.780 He was a founding member of the UCP, and like many Albertans, I had high hopes for Jason.

00:05:43.840 And I think like many Albertans, we were disappointed.

00:05:46.700 And of course, as you've mentioned, there's lots of questions that swirl.

00:05:52.140 We've asked, we've heard these questions many times.

00:05:55.700 And, you know, when we began to get involved with Jason Kenney and his campaign,

00:06:00.480 I was a member of his Electoral District Association.

00:06:06.140 And as a young man in my mid-20s, I should have asked more questions when I was told to do certain things for his campaign.

00:06:15.040 And I was told they were okay to do.

00:06:17.340 I should have investigated further and could have avoided some of the heartache and headaches that came along with that.

00:06:24.280 And, but those are life lessons that you learn and you, you move on from those mistakes and you learn from them and you pick yourself up like most Albertans do.

00:06:32.440 And you dust yourself off and you learn from it and carry on.

00:06:35.060 So, um, fast forwarding, I, I helped, uh, Danielle.

00:06:39.720 Just to clarify to the audience, sorry to interrupt you there, Cam, just to clarify, you were charged and I believe you were convicted of violating the elections laws in, that's, that's what you're referring to making some mistakes in the past.

00:06:53.200 Is that correct?

00:06:54.580 Um, so charge and convicted is, is probably not the correct terminology.

00:06:58.000 They were administrative penalties.

00:06:59.500 And so when you, when you use terms like charge and convicted, you're, you're referencing a criminal investigation and that's not what occurred.

00:07:06.780 Uh, so I think what you're referencing is an administrative penalty, which is a very expensive parking ticket.

00:07:13.820 There were financial laws that the NDP government changed, uh, three or four times in an attempt to trip up and cause issues for not only Jason Kenney, but the UCP in its fledgling days, uh, financial laws that were legal a few months prior became illegal in the middle of a contest.

00:07:34.540 And I did not keep up with those changes.

00:07:37.160 I trusted the financial agents to inform me as to what was legal and what was not, and I should have done my due diligence at that time.

00:07:44.420 And so, uh, I was fined an administrative penalty and I've paid those fines and learned from that mistake.

00:07:51.840 Almost a decade, almost a decade ago.

00:07:54.220 Fair enough.

00:07:55.080 Okay.

00:07:55.340 Let's, let's move on to, I think you were heading this way in what you were saying, Cam, talking about Premier Danielle Smith.

00:08:01.240 Uh, because I understand that you previously supported her, you previously campaigned for her, um, and recently in her own leadership review in the party, she received 91% support.

00:08:12.500 So I'm wondering, like, what, what caused you to decide that, you know, the future that you want for Alberta is outside of the UCP party?

00:08:20.520 Well, this goes back to 2008 and the whole reason the wild rose party was formed was for better governance.

00:08:31.440 It was for smaller limited government.

00:08:34.420 It was for, uh, eliminating the corruption and entitlement and arrogance of the 44 year PC dynasty.

00:08:41.100 That's why we created the wild rose party, um, back then.

00:08:45.080 And so you're, you're correct in that I did assist Danielle and her leadership race and subsequently, um, over a dozen of the current UCP MLAs in their contests and have many friends in the UCP.

00:08:59.860 And, um, and, um, you know, when we look at what kind of transpired of the last year, we see that there's been a drift back towards, uh, some of those same habits, if you will, of the 44 year PC dynasty.

00:09:14.680 Some of the, the, um, um, corruption things are bubbling up, the lack of ability to speak up within the party.

00:09:23.680 And so when you see things like that, it became clear that if MLAs in the party can't speak up with truth, uh, against massive deficit spending, like the MLA for Lesser Slave Lake did in standing up for his constituents and was subsequently removed from the party.

00:09:42.520 If, if, if UCP ministers who see corruption occurring and procurement issues and pressure from the premier's office on procurement occurring within their ministry, and they speak up and they're subsequently removed from the party.

00:09:58.800 And we're not talking about, uh, you know, troublemakers.

00:10:01.600 We're talking about people who actually stood up to Jason Kenney, uh, during COVID and they're removed from the party where we're going down the same path of the 44 year PC dynasty.

00:10:12.740 And I begin to see the, the correlations between the UCP and the PC 44 year government under Redford.

00:10:19.220 And in fact, Redford's back in, I don't know if you're, if your viewers watch that, but Danielle Smith reappointed Redford.

00:10:26.040 Um, so there's a troubling occurrences that are happening, uh, last year at the AGM that you referenced, um, UCP members voted for what I thought was a very, very strong, uh, articulate, uh, bill of rights amendment.

00:10:41.820 And then what ultimately ended up getting passed in the legislature was a watered down version that became a bill of privileges and government does not give you your rights.

00:10:53.420 Your rights come from God. And if government can give you those rights, they can take them away.

00:10:58.160 And I was very disappointed to see that that was what the legislation that got passed.

00:11:02.440 And, uh, those are things that, uh, as a wild rose, uh, member from, from back in 2008 to 2015, we fought for smaller government for, for lower taxes, for more frontline workers, less managers for managers.

00:11:15.940 Uh, we fought for those things.

00:11:17.580 And I see that fight continuing now and being even more important than ever before, as we face yet another four or maybe five years of a Mark Carney government.

00:11:26.740 Well, certainly, I think that following the federal election, uh, I mean, I've, I've never seen anything like it, Cam, like the interest and the spark of separatism in Alberta.

00:11:37.160 I mean, it was simmering ever since president Trump made his 51st state comments.

00:11:41.780 Um, but following the reelection of the liberals, I, I, it's, you know, there's always been this sort of Wexit movement.

00:11:47.380 And every time Justin Trudeau got reelected, you would see the frustration in Alberta, but it seems to be bigger than ever.

00:11:54.420 Uh, I was really surprised.

00:11:55.760 I read the Calgary Herald, uh, Don Brade's column.

00:11:58.260 Uh, he, he was right.

00:11:59.720 He wrote that nobody would be surprised if separatist Cam Davies wins up to 30% in his writing.

00:12:06.280 So is it, is that sort of what you're predicting?

00:12:08.940 What do you think is going to happen on Monday night?

00:12:11.600 Well, two weeks ago, they were saying I wouldn't win more than the PPC.

00:12:15.440 And they were trying to, to label our party as, as a PPC party that was going to get 5% of the vote and, and this and that.

00:12:24.800 And now they're saying we might get 30%.

00:12:27.120 Uh, you know, the votes on Monday, uh, we're a brand new party.

00:12:30.680 We're, we're two months, roughly two and a half months old in this, in this rebrand.

00:12:34.560 And I've been leader since the end of April.

00:12:36.940 And, um, I would just say, look, you know, in 2008, the wild rose ran in this writing.

00:12:42.040 Um, we were, we were a newer party.

00:12:45.040 We were around for about a year at that point.

00:12:46.740 Uh, the merger had occurred and I believe Paul Hinman was the leader and, uh, the party, the wild rose party got 20%.

00:12:54.560 And, uh, in the general election.

00:12:56.280 So, uh, typically, you know, you can do a little better in, in those scenarios when everyone's paying attention and more people are talking about it.

00:13:03.920 So by elections, uh, there's been, uh, 31 by elections, I believe in the last 50 years and only five of them have ever changed hands.

00:13:13.780 Uh, I was involved in two of those campaigns, one for Paul Hinman and Glenmore in 2009.

00:13:18.400 Uh, and of course, Prasad Pandas in, uh, 2015 in Calgary have managed that campaign.

00:13:23.440 Uh, so the history of, of by elections changing hands, uh, certainly doesn't, uh, lean in favor of parties, uh, gaining seats during by elections.

00:13:35.620 However, they do serve as a, as a wake up call that the electorate is prepared to move if action isn't taken.

00:13:44.040 And particularly what I'm finding is that voters in Alberta wholeheartedly reject this notion that's come from the UCP of, we have to give Mark Carney a chance.

00:13:55.820 Uh, that we have to give him, whether that be six months or 12 months or whatever the case may be, uh, voters here don't want to give Mark Carney a chance.

00:14:03.920 They recognize that he is worse than Justin Trudeau.

00:14:06.760 Uh, Mark Carney wrote the book on how to be a socialist.

00:14:10.140 Trudeau just might've read a couple of pages.

00:14:12.040 Uh, this man is dangerous and he's focused on a mission to fundamentally alter Canada in a way that isn't helpful to Albertans.

00:14:19.960 Uh, just a few weeks ago, he, uh, announced a $340 million to confiscate legally owned firearms.

00:14:27.200 Uh, you know, Justin Trudeau said, uh, budgets will balance itself.

00:14:30.680 This guy doesn't even think he needs a budget.

00:14:32.620 And so fundamentally Albertans don't believe that giving him a chance is something that any government should consider, let alone a conservative government.

00:14:41.540 And so we're starting to see, well, do we actually have a conservative government?

00:14:44.960 Is, is this the direction they want to go?

00:14:47.460 As you know, last summer, uh, the UCP premier decided to tell on a very, uh, large podcast audience that she wanted to double Alberta's population from 5 million to 10 million.

00:14:59.580 Uh, those are things that Albertans don't align with.

00:15:02.500 And so we're seeing the, the negative consequences of that mass immigration needs to come to a rapid halt, uh, across this country. 0.97

00:15:09.480 And so we're standing with Albertans on those issues and, uh, on June 23rd, uh, we'll see what they have to say.

00:15:16.940 And it'll be, it'll be, it'll be a, it'll be a clear signal for both our party, uh, and the UCP as to what direction Albertans want to go and where they have concerns.

00:15:25.080 And so I'm wondering, like, uh, you know, we, we mentioned off the top that Old Stidsbury is probably the most conservative writing in the province.

00:15:33.240 It actually has a history of voting for a separatist in, in the eighties, uh, briefly, there was a separatist candidate that was elected as an MLA in that writing.

00:15:42.480 Um, but, but some say, you know, this is sort of like if for, for the Alberta Republican party, if you can't win here, you know, what, what chance do you, uh, run in, in, in a regular, uh, general election?

00:15:53.920 Like, do you see this as sort of make or break for your party?

00:15:57.260 Not at all.

00:15:57.760 Not at all.

00:15:58.420 The writing was much different in the eighties.

00:16:01.260 Um, it had, uh, regions further West, which tend to have higher separatist, uh, leanings, uh, independence minded Albertans in the sundry area.

00:16:10.840 And in subsequent boundary changes, it picked up areas, uh, like three hills, which, uh, you know, as their, their former hockey team was called the monarchists.

00:16:20.140 Uh, so, uh, independence, uh, pockets, uh, are, are not necessarily as strong in parts of the new boundaries.

00:16:28.360 So, you know, when we look at, uh, when we look at, uh, the writing and our perspective, uh, we've, we've started at zero.

00:16:34.940 And so, uh, in previous by-elections, there's been, uh, independence parties that have run.

00:16:41.600 And, uh, I think the last one, uh, got around nine, maybe 10% in Fort McMurray.

00:16:46.600 And so that's kind of our metrics for success.

00:16:49.240 Of course, it is a conservative area.

00:16:50.900 There's no question about that.

00:16:52.680 Um, but there are also areas of the writing that are more traditional.

00:16:55.960 And so we have to take those things into consideration as well as being a brand new brand and a brand new party.

00:17:03.340 And so as voters get to know us and what we're about and why we're fighting for a vision for Alberta that sees us as truly strong and free, independent Alberta Republic, uh, as voters warm up to that, I think we'll see more success in subsequent elections as well.

00:17:19.700 Now, I just want to raise this, uh, point and bring it to your attention, Cam.

00:17:24.200 You probably know this, but the 2023 election was really close, right?

00:17:28.940 Danielle Smith did win a majority government.

00:17:31.040 Uh, but I want to share this graph.

00:17:32.560 It shows here.

00:17:33.320 It says, Andy, this is a tweet from an individual called Blake Schaefer.

00:17:36.520 He said the NDP needed 2,611 votes across six ridings to win a majority.

00:17:42.700 And so even though there were, you know, it ended up being that Danielle Smith won her majority by a few safe seats, um, there was a lot of seats.

00:17:53.220 I think there's 10 seats that were won by fewer than a thousand votes.

00:17:55.960 So it's pretty easy for an upstart right wing party to come and spoil everything for Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP and enable what happened in 2015, which I think everyone agrees is a nightmare scenario where the right is split in half.

00:18:11.480 And it enables the NDP to win and form government with only 40% of the vote.

00:18:16.820 So is that something that is, you know, that you're, you're, you're consciously aware of that something you're nervous about?

00:18:22.400 Like, you know, I, I'm just wondering like what, what, what, what happens if you're successful and you create that sort of scenario?

00:18:29.640 I don't think anyone wants that in Alberta.

00:18:32.460 So as the manager for the 2015 Wild Rose campaign, I can tell you that there were only two ridings that were a direct cause of vote splitting.

00:18:42.200 Uh, the vast majority of ridings that went NDP saw a net reduction in overall turnout.

00:18:47.780 And so it wasn't as if a flick got, a switch got flicked and, and 35% increase in socialists in Alberta happened overnight.

00:18:57.440 That is not what occurred in 2015.

00:18:58.800 What did occur is that after 44 years of a PC government that became entitled, arrogant and corrupt, and the devastation of the floor crossing to the Wild Rose is that conservative voters stayed home.

00:19:12.000 Many of them stayed home.

00:19:13.780 Some of them chose to hold their nose and protest vote with the NDP.

00:19:18.400 Uh, and so when conservatives stop being conservative, we divide ourselves and we lose elections.

00:19:26.260 And so the real message that we should have taken from the 2015 election is that stick to being conservative, stop watering down where we are on the issues.

00:19:35.760 Stop doing the finger in the wind, uh, style of, of politics.

00:19:39.820 Um, stay true to our values and principles as conservatives and we'll win elections because, uh, the electorate doesn't want conservative light.

00:19:47.500 They want actual conservatives to run and represent them.

00:19:51.460 Um, and so you mentioned the 2023 election and I was heavily involved in, in that election.

00:19:56.620 And many of those seats that narrowly won, uh, I was involved with helping, uh, including the justice minister and making sure that the UCP did have a majority government.

00:20:06.360 But what we saw in many of those election, uh, on the ground is that, um, again, conservatives were not happy and a lot of them stayed home.

00:20:16.040 In fact, if you look at the numbers between 2019 and 2023, 111,000 conservatives stayed home.

00:20:23.120 They just chose not to even show up.

00:20:25.320 Uh, and at a time when our province's population grew significantly from 2019 to 2023, uh, we can't afford to lose 111,000 conservatives staying at home because they didn't like the leader.

00:20:36.160 They didn't like some of the policies.

00:20:37.640 They didn't feel that there was adequate, um, reconciliation with what occurred during COVID.

00:20:43.520 Uh, there was no accountability during COVID.

00:20:46.040 And those conservatives stayed home and, and almost cost the UCP the election.

00:20:52.220 Uh, but I don't put that on the voters.

00:20:53.880 I actually put that on the parties that run.

00:20:56.740 If you're running to represent conservatives, then you promised, uh, Alberta sovereignty and you change it to a sovereignty within a United Canada.

00:21:04.620 If you promised Albertans accountability on COVID and you delivered none and you actually elevate the people who, uh, oppressed Albertans, then they're going to stay home.

00:21:13.420 Um, and that's what happened in 2023.

00:21:17.840 All right.

00:21:18.560 Well, Cam, I really appreciate your time.

00:21:20.600 Best of luck in the by-election on Monday.

00:21:22.260 We'll be watching it very closely.

00:21:23.700 Thank you for joining the show today.

00:21:25.540 Thank you, Candace.

00:21:26.340 Appreciate having me on.

00:21:27.180 You

The Candice Malcolm Show - June 21, 2025

Separatist SURGE coming in Alberta byelections？ Republican leader speaks out

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