The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - June 14, 2025


Danielle Smith's approval jumps as Nenshi's NDP whines!

Topics
coal development in Alberta
Hosted by
Wyatt Claypool
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Nahid Nenshi Speaker Sarah Hoffman Bill C-63 Edmonton Ellerslie Pierre Poilievre Susan Holt Nahid Menchie Jason Kenney Tim Houston Angus Reid Doug Ford VoIP
New BC Party starts as BC Conservatives refuse to oppose NDP Carney LOSING to Trump on Trade - Elbows Down Liberals!

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

167.74

Word count

2,657

Sentence count

173

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Wyatt talks about the growing unpopularity of Alberta's premier, Danielle Smith, and why she needs to go. He also takes a deep dive into the fall of the Alberta NDP leader, Nahid Nenshi.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. I don't know about you, but in Alberta, I've been having a wonderful time watching the ongoing UNO reversal between Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Alberta NDP leader Nahid Nenshi.
00:00:16.640 Now, what I mean by that is that when you watch the media, especially over the last couple of years, Danielle Smith has been cast as the main villain of Canadian politics. Even more than Pierre Polyev, Danielle Smith is a radical nutcase that needs to be stopped.
00:00:34.440 She's a right wing nutjob. And then Nahid Nenshi will be seen as a very buttoned down and respectable progressive leader. But now all that seems to be changing with reality catching up to both of them.
00:00:47.840 But before I get into it, guys, I just want to quickly remind you, if you like my political coverage, make sure to drop a like on this video. Subscribe to the channel if you're not yet a subscriber. We're trying to make it to 100,000 subscribers by mid-December of this year. And leave a comment on what you think about the topic of the day.
00:01:08.780 And if you live in the city of Calgary, by the way, guys, make sure to register for a Sonia Sharp for Mayor lawn sign. She is easily the most conservative person running for mayor right now who can actually win.
00:01:21.820 So check out that link in the description below as well as pinned up at the top of the comments. Anyways, now let's get into it.
00:01:29.020 A new poll just came out from Angus Reid where they did the approvals of each of the provincial leaders. And we see that, you know, we have Wab Kanu still at the top right now, which makes sense.
00:01:41.420 He's currently in still a honeymoon period for his leadership of Manitoba. And he is kind of a left wing populist. So at the same time, I don't really agree with much of his agenda.
00:01:51.980 He knows what to do in order to keep himself popular. He knows which taxes to reduce. He knows what kind of programs to start in order for people to like him.
00:02:02.060 But Daniel Smith, who used to be way at the back fighting for, you know, maybe second last place with Doug Ford, is now in fourth place behind Susan Holton, New Brunswick, Tim Houston, Nova Scotia, and Wab Kanu in Manitoba.
00:02:18.860 That is a big improvement for Danielle Smith over time. She actually used to only be, I believe, in maybe the high 30s at one point. And now she actually has most Albertans approving, however, at 51%.
00:02:32.960 Now, Nahid Nenshi and the Alberta NDP at the same time are suffering through a massive popularity decline.
00:02:41.940 I really don't care about the personal popularity numbers of Nahid Nenshi. Opposition leaders, especially left wing opposition leaders, don't really have solid approval ratings that you can rely on in the sense that they usually have very good approval ratings.
00:02:56.240 But they're disconnected from their actual party's approval, which tells you what people actually think about their policy.
00:03:03.140 Because there's always so much of a media glow up for every left wing leader in Canada, naturally people disproportionately say they like the leader.
00:03:12.380 At the same time, they would never vote for the party.
00:03:14.860 So check out this poll that just came out yesterday from Leger.
00:03:18.560 The UCP in this poll is at 48%, with the NDP trailing by 14 points at 34%.
00:03:26.800 And the Alberta Liberal Party is actually now up at 9%, despite effectively not even getting 1% of the vote in the last election.
00:03:35.220 Now, do I think they're actually going to be able to score 9%?
00:03:38.300 No, the Alberta Liberals aren't even really much of a real party.
00:03:42.300 They are running candidates in all the by-elections on June 23rd, or maybe they're not in Didsbury, but they're in the two Edmonton ridings.
00:03:50.080 But I still have my doubts that they're really going to reform and become competitive once again.
00:03:55.980 I guess they're trying to, you know, run in these by-elections off of the momentum that they are associated somewhat with the federal Liberals,
00:04:04.860 and they just did better than usual in Alberta.
00:04:07.760 But still, at the end of the day, the real story here is nobody likes the NDP.
00:04:15.040 Again, there is tons of bad news constantly being thrown at the UCP, and still nobody will vote for the NDP.
00:04:23.620 And when I say bad news, I don't even necessarily mean the UCP is doing anything bad.
00:04:28.880 More so, they're just constantly hit in the media with every little minor infraction they make and, like, turning it into a huge scandal.
00:04:37.740 Even the UCP's AHS scandal, which I guess is basically just saying that they overpaid a contractor, isn't really that bad.
00:04:46.440 And, like, I have my criticisms of the UCP.
00:04:48.820 I don't like they even have a deficit this year.
00:04:50.840 They could have easily had a surplus, but they didn't want to cut any wasteful spending in certain areas.
00:04:55.400 So they ended up just eating a $5 billion deficit that wasn't necessary.
00:04:59.940 At the same time, I'm really not going to over-criticize that, considering that they are cutting taxes,
00:05:05.360 and the NDP would be probably running a $15 billion deficit at this point because these people spend money like drunken sailors.
00:05:13.580 And now I just want to cut over to some of the criticisms that the NDP are making of the UCP to demonstrate why these guys aren't doing very well.
00:05:22.520 Like, their own attacks are the attacks on themselves.
00:05:26.600 Every time they attack the UCP, it bounces off Daniel Smith and the UCP and just ends up hitting the NDP instead.
00:05:33.640 This is a clip that, in fact, on X, Nahid Menchi was sharing himself on his party account.
00:05:42.740 This is absolutely insane.
00:05:44.340 This is what the NDP in Alberta thinks is a good attack line on the UCP.
00:05:48.520 The shadier it gets, when the UCP government rescinded the 1976 coal policy, it caught many Albertans by surprise.
00:05:56.800 But you know who wasn't surprised?
00:05:58.340 The coal companies.
00:05:59.840 Turns out the government had been in conversation with them about opening the eastern slopes to more coal developments
00:06:04.920 for at least seven months before telling Albertans, to the minister, why the secrecy?
00:06:11.060 Why do Albertans have to learn about these backroom deals through a VoIP request?
00:06:14.560 The Honourable Minister of Energy and Minerals is rising.
00:06:18.680 I'm just going to let the answer also be included in this before I start breaking down what a travesty of a question this is for the NDP to be asking.
00:06:26.060 Mr. Speaker, let's be clear, we are open and transparent as a government and we insist on that happening with all of the agencies.
00:06:36.060 They are required at law, Mr. Speaker, to provide information as required.
00:06:48.580 And we, in return, have to protect Albertans, Mr. Speaker.
00:06:51.760 But the Premier has been clear that we will be transparent, as we will, because we serve Albertans and that's in their best interest.
00:06:57.120 But I want the opposition to know.
00:06:59.380 Mr. Speaker, through you, I found the smoking gun.
00:07:02.620 It's right here, Mr. Speaker.
00:07:04.080 And it's a letter from the Crown, when, of course, the NDP was in power, asking the Ram River Coal Corporation to dig.
00:07:12.060 So, yeah, the NDP was, in fact, in favor of coal development when they were in government.
00:07:20.840 And now they are only reflexively against it because the UCP is pursuing it.
00:07:25.540 And by the way, coal development in Alberta is rightfully popular.
00:07:30.400 What, should we not be extracting coal from our mountains?
00:07:34.340 Oh, well, we're going to destroy the natural world.
00:07:37.060 Okay, well, if your definition of destroying the natural world or harming the environment is digging for coal in limited areas, then we can't extract any natural resources.
00:07:49.060 That's insane.
00:07:49.920 But this was considered a big win for the NDP or, like, what Nenshi considers to be, like, a big messaging win for them.
00:07:57.840 Again, I think this clip was actually from 2024.
00:08:02.640 And for some reason, Nenshi, right now, in the middle of a by-election cycle in which includes a Edmonton working-class neighborhood, Edmonton Ellerslie, that they need to hold on to, they're messaging against energy development.
00:08:17.000 Okay, guys, let's see how that one works out for you.
00:08:20.120 I want to bring up some other stuff that they've been messaging on that is just openly just either a lie or ends up making them look bad for attacking over it, and that's over healthcare.
00:08:30.700 So the NDP are trying to claim that the UCP is radically mismanaging healthcare, and they're selling us out to private healthcare companies.
00:08:39.360 And we see Naheed Nenshi here saying, the simple truth, under the UCP, wait times have only increased.
00:08:46.200 This is unacceptable.
00:08:48.020 We need a government that is focused on giving Albertans the healthcare they need when they need it.
00:08:53.100 Now, is that generally true that healthcare wait times have increased since the UCP took over in 2019?
00:09:00.820 Yes.
00:09:01.780 Also, healthcare wait times went up between 2015 and 2019 when the NDP were in.
00:09:08.240 The difference here is that since COVID, since 2020, when healthcare wait times went up literally everywhere because of stupid restrictions, which are, in fact, partially the fault of people like Jason Kenney and the UCP at the time, although the NDP were in, it would have been even worse.
00:09:26.340 Since then, healthcare wait times have actually been going down.
00:09:29.600 But this is the health critic, Sarah Hoffman, putting out this letter that says,
00:09:34.880 the UCP government has failed to reduce wait times for Albertans needing diagnostic treatments and surgeries.
00:09:40.420 Said Alberta, new Democratic shadow minister of health, Sarah Hoffman.
00:09:43.600 Instead of investing in public money into public healthcare, the UCP government has been funneling taxpayer money into private providers they know are not getting people the surgeries they need.
00:09:53.860 Privatization is not working, except privatization is actually working.
00:10:00.560 Check this out.
00:10:01.960 Here is a report from CTV News just released a little bit ago.
00:10:06.140 And it says, and this was actually a report on how all Canadian wait times are getting worse at the same time they're getting better in Alberta.
00:10:13.920 So, and this section says Alberta is seeing some gains.
00:10:17.580 While the national picture shows longer waits, Alberta is seeing some improvements in a number of procedures tracked.
00:10:24.080 And these procedures they're tracking are not cherry-picked.
00:10:26.580 These are usually benchmark surgeries that you use to track how efficient the system is.
00:10:31.780 In 2024, 73% of Albertans needing a hip replacement had the procedure done in six months.
00:10:37.320 Now, obviously, that's still unacceptable, and we hope it gets faster.
00:10:40.440 But that's, in contrast, a significant jump from 58% in the year prior.
00:10:46.300 So, they have gone up to from 58% of people getting the hip replacement surgeries they need in six months to 73.
00:10:56.880 That is a 15% improvement.
00:11:00.380 Not 15, like, are the rate 15% higher than what it was.
00:11:04.860 No, it's 15 points higher, which is fantastic.
00:11:07.440 Fantastic.
00:11:08.780 Going down further, for knee replacements, 62% of people received the surgery within the recommended time last year, up from 49% in 2023.
00:11:18.540 But the median wait times for cancer surgeries, MRIs, and CT scans in Alberta all increased in 2024 compared to 2023.
00:11:25.220 And that isn't good, but overall, compared to the country's average, or literally compared to any other province, it's actually gotten better in Alberta.
00:11:35.280 But the NDP don't really have anything to, you know, the nuance is not really what they care about.
00:11:41.120 They don't care about the actual details.
00:11:43.600 They just want to look at what the wait times were generically in 2019 and what they currently are in 2025.
00:11:49.900 Also, barring the fact that the UCP does not control immigration.
00:11:53.960 Like, I've disagreed with Premier Smith wanting more immigration before.
00:11:57.760 But it's not her actual fault that mass immigration has also put more pressure on the system.
00:12:02.560 But you now have Nahid Nenshi cutting videos like this and somehow wondering why everyone just finds him tiring.
00:12:08.800 Under Danielle Smith and the UCP, emergency room wait times have ballooned, if the emergency room is even open.
00:12:15.880 Wait times for hip and knee surgeries have gone up and up, causing people to suffer in pain.
00:12:22.500 Literally, no.
00:12:23.780 They have gone down.
00:12:25.280 In the last year, they have been cut significantly.
00:12:28.340 Like, these are surgery wait times, or the amount of people being seen in the recommended amount of time.
00:12:33.740 Like, by 30%, by like 25%, it is going 25, 30% faster in a single year because of the reforms being taken.
00:12:42.700 But they're actually, when they say that wait times are up, they're comparing, again, they're saying that basically they went up because of the COVID strain.
00:12:53.700 But then they're not measuring what the actual new program is doing.
00:12:56.760 So they're blaming privatization, even though we've only seen gains, when privatization was actually seriously pursued. 0.83
00:13:04.140 Completely ridiculous.
00:13:06.000 And Danielle Smith and her four health ministers say everything is just fine. 0.76
00:13:11.360 That somehow it's okay that we have to wait longer than we ever have for hip and knee surgeries.
00:13:17.680 Longer than we ever have before was two years ago, or more like during COVID, like three or four years ago.
00:13:23.440 So I don't know what he's talking about.
00:13:24.740 And you know why it's okay?
00:13:26.320 Because Danielle Smith's UCP insider friends are getting giant contracts to not provide you the surgeries you need. 1.00
00:13:34.600 At this point, one of these providers should just come out and sue Naheed Nenshi.
00:13:39.900 He's accusing them of taking money to not provide service.
00:13:43.300 And they are objectively providing service.
00:13:45.880 They are providing service faster than it has been in the last few years.
00:13:50.560 And he is coming up to say, look, they're not providing service for the money.
00:13:54.220 Now, this is getting back to why the MDP are probably going to be losing the Edmonton-Ellersley by-election on June 23rd.
00:14:04.520 They're sanctimonious.
00:14:06.120 They're whining. 0.96
00:14:08.040 Naysaying.
00:14:08.560 At the same time, people are actually noticing things getting better.
00:14:11.680 People notice things get better.
00:14:13.220 The economy is doing best in Alberta across the country.
00:14:15.700 And you still have these people pretending like we're falling behind everyone.
00:14:19.280 At some point, you actually need a constructive solution to the problem.
00:14:24.160 You can't just be pointing up problems.
00:14:26.060 Sometimes problems that don't even exist, like, oh, my goodness, we're coal mining?
00:14:30.640 Yes.
00:14:31.120 Or, like, trying to make up statistics about health care and then wondering why people don't like you when all it is is the complaint without the solution.
00:14:40.320 If you don't provide the solution, you're just complaining.
00:14:43.880 And that's really what the NDP has turned into.
00:14:46.060 It's naysaying whining from a man who thinks he's smarter than everyone, which is hilarious when then he refuses to give you a solution.
00:14:52.160 Anyways, that should be it for that today, guys.
00:14:57.120 We will probably be coming out maybe either later today or tomorrow with some stuff about federal politics.
00:15:02.700 Naturally, since federal politics are kind of in a bit of a sluggish mode right now, not much news is coming out, which is why we talked about the senator joining the conservative Senate caucus yesterday.
00:15:14.440 Again, the Senate usually never makes the news, but that's how slow the news cycle is right now.
00:15:20.900 It is still good that the conservatives are gaining more senators, but, you know, nothing's really – like, maybe we'll break down Bill C-2 shortly here, Bill C-3, but I will decide if I'm going to be breaking those down soon.
00:15:34.560 I've kind of already talked about C-3, but I want to talk about the border bill because while it is tougher on the border, it's also then also including a bunch of dumb surveillance measures or dangerous surveillance measures that we shouldn't be in favor of.
00:15:46.820 But anyways, so that's it for me today, guys.
00:15:49.660 See you later.