The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - Former MLA taking his city back from Liberal rule (ft. Drew Barnes - Medicine Hat)

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. We have municipal election season in full swing now in Alberta

00:00:07.200 with municipal elections happening in every single major city and town, except I heard

00:00:13.060 not on the border of Saskatchewan because they sometimes do them at the same time as

00:00:17.080 Saskatchewan. That's just what Sean Newman from Lloyd Minister told me. But I've been

00:00:22.100 wanting to highlight good politicians around the province who are conservatives running

00:00:27.080 for municipal office because so often in the past, our municipal elections have just been

00:00:32.580 dominated by liberal candidates and those backed up by NDP public sector front groups. And today

00:00:39.980 on the show, I have somebody I think is a great conservative as well as a friend, Drew Barnes,

00:00:46.540 who is currently running to be the mayor of Medicine Hat. How's it going, Drew?

00:00:52.000 Oh, it's going great, Wyatt. Good morning. Thanks for talking to me today.

00:00:55.040 Absolutely. Well, what did make you, I guess, go from being an MLA to now wanting to be the mayor

00:01:02.260 of Medicine Hat? Because usually people go from local office and then they just, you know, leave

00:01:08.220 it behind and then go into provincial or go into federal.

00:01:11.980 Oh, yeah. Thanks for the question. Three main reasons. First of all, I've lived in Medicine Hat

00:01:17.260 since 1974 with my wife, my children and grandchildren as well at times. And we're in a

00:01:26.020 situation, Wyatt, where a very dysfunctional, chaotic council making headlines for all the

00:01:32.840 wrong reasons, infighting, suing each other, many staff on paid leave and Medicine Hat's not

00:01:42.380 growing. We also had the huge displeasure of having our property taxes increased substantially

00:01:49.060 last year with the plan announcement of another 5.6% property tax increase. And Wyatt, it seemed

00:01:56.240 like everywhere I went in the last year, friends and former constituents would stop me and say,

00:02:02.020 geez, Drew, please consider running for mayor of Medicine Hat. You know, we're a conservative

00:02:06.600 community and this mayor and this city council doesn't reflect that. And my wife and I talked

00:02:14.900 about it, prayed about it. And we came to the decision to jump in about a month ago. Overwhelmed,

00:02:22.960 very, very grateful right now, Wyatt. We've got, you know, hundreds of supporters and many signs

00:02:28.760 up and we're gaining momentum. We're still looking for more help, of course, but it's a good start.

00:02:33.760 Fantastic. And for anyone watching the show from Medicine Hat, in the description below and pinned

00:02:39.140 at the top of the comments is a link if you want a sign for Drew Barnes. I fully endorse you doing

00:02:44.220 that, getting one. But I was going to, I want to kind of go back to how sort of, I guess, like a city

00:02:52.800 like Medicine Hat ends up having a very liberal sort of representation on its council, because this is

00:03:01.000 something that we even see in places like Westlock, Alberta. Federally, that's in an area where it is

00:03:07.860 deep, deep blue, but they somehow end up electing people on as mayor and councillors who they would

00:03:15.500 have never considered even voting for provincially or federally. How do you think that's happening

00:03:19.760 in places like where you live? Well, unions, labour are very, very active when it comes to municipal

00:03:27.560 elections, especially. I believe it came from the Alberta Federation of Labour, but approximately 10

00:03:33.660 days before the last municipal election here, four years ago, they sent out an email with their slate

00:03:40.920 of candidates and their mayor that they wanted supportive. And all but one was successful. And of

00:03:47.040 course, why does we, as we know, government is so big throughout federal, provincial and municipal

00:03:54.300 politics. And when they're organized now with union donations allowed, with union support, with

00:04:03.220 organization, it makes a difference. And I also think I think that it's important to realize

00:04:10.800 that, you know, government in Alberta, government in Canada, taxation, especially has been so high

00:04:17.120 and so large the last several years. You know, Albertans need the opportunity to experience

00:04:24.140 conservative values again, smaller government and the opportunity to take care of ourselves and our

00:04:29.740 families. And that's another main reason I decided that, you know, I could offer a lot to the people of

00:04:35.580 Medicine Hat as mayor. This is one of the things that really annoys me in municipal politics these days.

00:04:40.800 Whenever people run on freezing taxes, they don't run on lowering taxes, freezing them, even though

00:04:46.760 everyone acknowledges taxes have been too high for a long time. And it's not like the flat rate that

00:04:52.000 we're charging people's going up, we're charging you a higher percentage of your home's value over

00:04:57.180 time, which means that we should be able to set that price and then forget it, because it will keep

00:05:03.020 bringing in more money as housing prices come in anyways. But yeah, like Medicine Hat, you guys had a

00:05:08.460 5.6% increase. I think in Calgary, they're projecting a need for a 5.4% increase, all coming

00:05:14.480 from a mayor who promised to never raise taxes, and has somehow found a way to do so every single

00:05:21.300 year she's been in. Obviously, I'm talking about Calgary's mayor Jody Gondek. But I guess now that

00:05:28.840 the province has basically capped out the amount that unions are allowed to donate to third party

00:05:34.560 advertisers. Has that been helping? And what do you think about the party slate idea that's now

00:05:41.180 being piloted out in Calgary and Edmonton? Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm seeing again that our current

00:05:48.580 mayor is running again. Two of the councillors are back running. And it looks like similar support to

00:05:56.860 four years ago. So, you know, a $5,000 cap from the union is, I guess, some decrease or some

00:06:06.260 limitation. But organized labor is still going to be very, very involved in this election. And it's

00:06:13.700 important for all medicine hatters to realize that this council and this mayor have been so

00:06:18.280 dysfunctional, so chaotic, that we've experienced like virtually no growth in the last five years.

00:06:24.020 One of the stories I've heard many times is when investors or people looking to move to

00:06:30.300 Medicine Hat land here, the first thing they say is, what the heck's going on with your mayor and

00:06:34.420 your council? It's so dysfunctional. It's just scaring many, many people away. But I'll tell you

00:06:40.960 with the other question, with the idea of a slate or a party, I was surprised that the UCP put in the

00:06:46.060 law that you can only run a party or a slate in Calgary or Edmonton and not any of the other

00:06:51.280 municipalities in Alberta. Whatever the logic was for that, I've been hearing it was on a trial

00:06:58.800 basis, but I guess we'll see. But here in Medicine Hat, we have 40 people running for eight council

00:07:04.820 spots. And what I'm hearing at the doors, and I've talked to a lot of Medicine Hatters, and one of the 1.00

00:07:10.540 things people say to me is, who do I pick? How do I decide who, you know, who of those 40?

00:07:17.960 You guys are in the system where if there's eight spots, and there are 40 candidates, you mark down

00:07:24.500 the 40 candidates, the eight candidates out of the 40 that you want.

00:07:28.400 Yes. 0.90

00:07:29.060 Oh yeah, because then that's really ridiculous. That's really easy to get in if you're the union

00:07:34.640 candidates. Because, you know, if there's a dedicated group of people in the town, who either

00:07:41.440 because they're part of a union, or because they're, you know, they're just convinced that this is the

00:07:46.340 way you should do it, that you're going to be having large groups of people dedicatedly only picking

00:07:52.220 those eight. Whereas you get a lot of like, you know, two bit politicians who may be able to win on

00:07:58.720 their own efforts, attempting to go around getting enough people to put them down as just one of the

00:08:04.660 eight not running in a group. And then we'll inevitably that person's going to get swamped by

00:08:09.240 the fact that, you know, there's a bunch of other people going around not coordinating, telling people

00:08:13.980 to mark them down, but not that guy and not the union slate. So yeah, I'm actually always been a fan

00:08:20.640 of the party slate idea. Everyone's like, Oh, no, it makes our politicians less independent by doing

00:08:26.860 so it's like, well, no, not really. The thing is that there's already union slates being run right

00:08:33.220 now. So if conservatives then embrace this idea that no, we shouldn't have parties, we should have

00:08:37.940 only independence, you're going to end up in a situation where forever, you're all it's going

00:08:43.300 to be Lucy in the football, every election, you're thinking it's our time, people are going to want a

00:08:47.540 grassroots candidate. It's like, okay, but people also want an easy way of identifying the people they

00:08:52.880 want to vote for. And you're going to have the slate team always winning, and the people running

00:08:57.380 as independents always losing. Yeah, those are good points. And I'm in favor of liberty, freedom

00:09:02.940 and choice all the time. So if somebody wants to be part of a slate or a group, wonderful, somebody

00:09:08.600 doesn't want to be that's their choice. And that's great, too. This is a really an election, Wyatt,

00:09:15.300 where a lot of family, fiscal, grassroots conservatives are stepping forward. They're tired

00:09:24.100 of the chaos. They're tired. There's been a huge amount of financial lack of discipline from this

00:09:29.920 council, taking money out of reserves, studying to buy us and build a solar farm after they've already

00:09:35.960 invested in it. And so it's a time where conservatives are saying to me and voters are saying to me,

00:09:43.620 they want to see medicine had increased jobs and opportunities, they do not want any more property

00:09:48.600 tax increases, and they want to do something about homelessness and crime. I have to ask now,

00:09:54.980 because you said that the union slate, the sort of labor slate, ended up basically sweeping the

00:10:01.740 entire council election, I assume the mayor's office as well last time. How was it then that it's been

00:10:08.300 so dysfunctional if they've basically elected on a prefab team in order to lead the city? Like

00:10:15.320 what's the kind of been the fundamental problem to cause so much fighting for like, you know, for the

00:10:20.480 medicine hat municipal government? Yeah, well, thank you. One of the councillors called in the

00:10:28.080 provincial government about a year ago, municipal affairs did an investigation report. And basically,

00:10:34.640 the census of that was a total lack of communication between the mayor, the CAO and the council. And

00:10:42.040 four years into it, right from the start, Wyatt, they never set a vision, they never worked towards

00:10:49.200 long term goal, and got into all kinds of minutiae, rather than, you know, letting good city employees

00:10:58.580 do good work. They got involved in details that they shouldn't have. We have some opportunities

00:11:05.100 down here, we're a beautiful place, weather wise, people wise, lots of room, we still have our own

00:11:11.440 electric generation license. So we make a considerable amount of money selling electricity to the rest of

00:11:16.880 Alberta. And this mayor and this council just couldn't come to any agreement at all over four years,

00:11:22.440 how to how to spend money, the only thing they seem to unify on was was tax medicine matters more.

00:11:28.840 Well, and you get all these seemingly like silly pet projects as well, when you have them investing in

00:11:35.280 like a solar farm and whatnot. And it's like, is this even going to be a money generator when it comes

00:11:41.660 down to it? Because if you're already generating a lot of money, like in order to sell energy to the

00:11:47.360 rest of the province, I assume that is mostly oil and gas type energy that's being created, not solar.

00:11:54.560 And so they're only doing this for basically the green trend that's on right now.

00:11:59.040 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Natural gas, electric generation is medicine had specialty right now.

00:12:07.020 From DP Energy, they bought the opportunity to build a solar farm. They paid somewhere between

00:12:14.000 seven and nine million dollars for the opportunity to build it and then studied the whole process after

00:12:20.320 after they bought the the license to build it. The belief is it could cost up to 700 million to build

00:12:27.440 the 225 megawatts that's entailed. And of course, what government ever comes in on or under budget?

00:12:34.640 It's always well over. It's not even going to work in the winter. It's not even going to work in the winter.

00:12:41.920 Yeah. And one hail storm could could wipe it out. But but but it but it's it's past the financial risk

00:12:51.920 capacity of the taxpayer of medicine had. You know, I don't say clearly if a big company of Brookfield or Suncor

00:12:59.840 wants to come in and use their money to do it, you know, let's look at it. But for us to be doing it

00:13:05.920 ourselves, it's just a debacle. And why, you know, we speaking of debacles, this council and this mayor

00:13:14.240 adopted something called Strong Towns two years ago. And Strong Towns is all about living, working and

00:13:22.400 recreating in the same little small community. They put in some some new roads that emergency vehicles

00:13:31.040 and fire trucks can't get down. They're so narrow and the bike paths are so wide. Every time that

00:13:38.800 or not every time, but a lot of times when somebody tries to turn onto the roads, they their tires hit

00:13:43.120 the curbs and that's causing considerable damage. What's it called again? It was Strong Towns was the

00:13:49.840 program they adopted. It sounds like a disease I need to take a pill for. But like every town,

00:13:55.840 every, every stupid council thinks it's Amsterdam or something like that. Like, oh, let's have 1.00

00:14:01.520 narrow, like narrower streets so that the buildings can be closer together. And we can have these kind

00:14:06.640 of like art, like art kind of sections of town with cafes and all this stuff and bikes everywhere.

00:14:12.480 It's like nobody's going to visit it. The thing is that if you make it that people can't drive to it,

00:14:16.960 people don't want to go in a driving province like Alberta. Like every time they try it,

00:14:22.320 like I've heard it's a grift that's been going on since like the 1960s. Oh, it's a walkable city.

00:14:28.560 Oh, it's a, you know, it's kind of like 15 minute cities, but it's like, oh, it's a walkable city.

00:14:32.640 This has been going on for decades where it's like, well, no, what you're going to do is you're

00:14:36.240 going to restrict traffic and no one's going to drive into that area because no one's going to park

00:14:40.880 their car on the perimeter and then walk in for another 15 minutes. They're just going to not

00:14:46.480 show up. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what strong towns is, but yeah. Yeah. I think the whole idea

00:14:53.680 is based on, on high congestion to maximize tax rates and minimize the cost of public service.

00:15:00.960 And, and we have a really nice little park in a very quiet area called Central Park. They put three

00:15:08.000 traffic circles, uh, right around the corners of the park on the avenues. Um, I don't know if it

00:15:14.560 would be a hundred cars a day that would, would go through those intersections. And a lot of medicine

00:15:18.880 hatters are unsure and unclear as to why they're there. And they're just driving right over them.

00:15:23.760 I just can imagine the horrific, uh, stuff that's going to happen in the winter when people are less

00:15:29.760 clear what they're seeing. Um, it, it's a boondoggle they've thrown away our hard earned tax dollars

00:15:35.440 and, and why that's what needs to change. Uh, maybe I just want to, I just want to

00:15:40.080 jump over to what your sort of top three, uh, campaign platform points are. And then I just

00:15:45.200 want to jump back, uh, or jump into provincial politics. Cause of course you used to be an MLA

00:15:50.400 for a few terms. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Top, top three things, uh, other than the dysfunctional and the

00:15:57.040 chaos of the mayor and the council, uh, medicine hat has barely grown in the last 10 years. You know,

00:16:02.960 uh, last census showed a growth of 11 people over five years. So medicine hatters are telling me

00:16:08.720 they want more jobs. They want more opportunities. They want an opportunity for their kids and their

00:16:13.280 grandkids to stay here and a broader tax base. So, so property taxes, uh, stop going up. Um,

00:16:20.160 and my job as mayor, my job is basically the chairman of the board will be get medicine hat on, on the right

00:16:26.960 track and then go sell medicine hat to Edmonton, Ottawa, uh, Mississauga, Surrey, Winnipeg and Calgary.

00:16:34.880 And let's, let's get some reasonable manageable growth. So, so our kids and our grandkids can stay

00:16:39.280 here. Number two, property taxes. Uh, even though we made tens of millions generating electricity the

00:16:45.440 last few years, our property taxes went up 5.6% last year. The council is planning on a 5.6% tax

00:16:53.440 increase again this year and over 5% increases in perpetuity. Uh, so I'm running on a three year

00:16:59.840 property tax freeze. I will not increase the mill rate for the next three years. It will stay,

00:17:04.400 stay the same. And why we used to brag that we were the community that cured homelessness, um,

00:17:11.200 six, eight years ago, there, there was very, very few, if any homeless people around now,

00:17:18.000 some side of 200 people, uh, sleeping throughout the city, um, give or take 25 of them consistently

00:17:26.000 and continually committing crimes. So what I'm going to do is help the homeless. If you're truly

00:17:31.840 homeless, we'll give you a hand up. We'll, we'll help you get back into society. We'll, we'll help you,

00:17:37.280 with a, with a place and a job. But if you're one of those people committing crimes,

00:17:42.000 I'm going to ask the provincial government to ask the crown prosecutors to crack down on all crimes,

00:17:47.840 the serious ones like break and enter and theft, but also trespassing and vagrancy. Uh, I'm going

00:17:53.600 to ask our police chief and our police commission the same. Um, our good police officers are, are

00:17:59.280 frustrated and potentially worn out because of the catch and release situation that's happening. But,

00:18:05.680 uh, it is time to, to hold criminals accountable. Why at the same way that you and me are accountable in

00:18:11.440 our life? Um, and, and I, and I'm surprised that our politicians, our mayor and our council hasn't

00:18:17.280 stepped up and demanded this. I've just read lately that both the Edmonton city police and the Toronto

00:18:23.440 city police have sent letters to crown prosecutors and judges, uh, demanding that the catch and release

00:18:29.760 be ended. Uh, one was in response to a 12 year old, terrific death in Toronto. Uh, and I understand

00:18:36.320 basically from, uh, a potential, uh, the, the criminal was just released, uh, Edmonton. It's

00:18:42.880 the same thing that, you know, in medicine hat, we, we have a beautiful historic downtown

00:18:48.480 why it, and I'm tired of hearing from my family and my friends that they're scared to go downtown

00:18:53.600 that they can't bank after six o'clock and it's not safe. This problem is ours. So, so let's,

00:18:59.360 let's own it and solve it. Yeah, no, that's the same exact thing in Calgary. Uh, but to,

00:19:04.560 to shift over to, and of course, again, people can check out your website description below,

00:19:09.040 uh, into the top comments. Uh, now I just want to shift into provincial politics because of course

00:19:14.160 you used to be a wild rose MLA and then you were a UCP MLA and then you were an independent MLA

00:19:20.800 as you are one of the, you were the first, uh, conservative, uh, MLA who was questioning the

00:19:27.040 lockdowns that Kenny was pursuing during COVID. Uh, and then you just decide not to run again in the

00:19:32.160 last election, but I guess I would, here's an interesting question because it's popping up

00:19:36.880 recently. What do you think about the current state of electoral politics in the province and the scheme

00:19:43.360 to try and rename the Alberta party to the progressive conservatives, uh, that Guthrie and Sinclair are

00:19:49.120 running? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I have the, well, the progressive conservatives, they've run their course.

00:19:56.000 They've, they've come and gone, but, but for, for Pete and Scott, good luck. I mean, if they want

00:20:00.640 to present opportunities to two people, that's, that's great. That's up to them. Um, interesting

00:20:07.440 because right now, and of course being focused on Medicine Hat and representing Medicine Hatters

00:20:13.200 as a mayor that grows the city, it's important to note that Danielle Smith is one of our two MLA's. 0.99

00:20:18.960 She represents the north part of Medicine Hat and Brooks. So, uh, it's important for Danielle to,

00:20:25.280 to realize, uh, you know, what, uh, what Medicine Hat needs. Um, just this last weekend, we, we didn't

00:20:32.800 have specialists, uh, doctors for childbirth, um, at all in our hospital. So if you were, you know,

00:20:39.680 a woman in childbirth that needed a cesarean or something like that, um, it was pretty, it was,

00:20:46.640 it was, it was uncertain. And, uh, so again, the, the problems of, uh, of the province and the services

00:20:54.400 that are provided, um, I'll be calling on, on Danielle Smith to ensure that, uh, Medicine Hat 0.98

00:20:59.760 gets his fair share. And so what I, uh, here's a question on how you sized up Nenshi as the Alberta

00:21:07.120 NDP leader, uh, you know, not to throw a bunch of random, like provincial questions at you. Although

00:21:12.640 I think that, you know, the audience would probably find it interesting. Have you been surprised at how

00:21:17.760 the NDP has been performing since he became, he came on as leader? My whole impression was,

00:21:23.440 oh, three-term Calgary mayor, probably going to be pretty formidable. And then it's just not really

00:21:28.480 materialized. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm not surprised. Uh, I had two or three chances to interact with him

00:21:35.600 while I was MLA and, you know, he, he, uh, he seemed like he, he at times never really understood,

00:21:44.240 you know, the heartbeat of Alberta and just how truly conservative we are, how, how many of us are,

00:21:50.080 are truly want smaller governments so we can take care of our families so we can have our churches

00:21:54.800 and our community groups, groups do more. Um, never seemed to understand that, that 80% of us,

00:22:00.800 you know, sure we want to stay in Canada, but we want to push for a better deal.

00:22:05.120 And, uh, I, I never saw any signs that Nenshi understood those things. So I'm not surprised

00:22:11.120 at all. He's floundering. Well, and it's like, I look at the, what they're running on these days

00:22:16.160 and when they're defending like inappropriate books in school libraries, uh, or saying, well,

00:22:21.200 it's only high school kids seeing some of this stuff. It's like, okay, well, some of the stuff

00:22:25.280 nobody should be even looking at, but, uh, and then like the other thing was they're going after,

00:22:30.240 and I think they're shredding their working class base when you're running on things 1.00

00:22:34.800 like banning coal mining in the Rockies, just completely shutting down a bunch of local

00:22:40.320 small town economies along the, uh, the west side of Alberta, because some people think that this

00:22:46.080 could be, you know, I don't even know what their problem is like that. We're going to ruin the

00:22:50.960 planet by releasing coal onto the energy markets or whatever at the same time that they don't actually

00:22:56.640 really, they don't want to sell LNG to China, which keeps opening up new coal fire plants.

00:23:02.240 Uh, so what, what, what do you think is going to be, uh, do you think that there are any of the

00:23:07.760 separatist parties or how do you think the referendum is going to go if ends up going through

00:23:12.560 and how do you think the, uh, a separatist party will perform in the next general election?

00:23:17.200 Well, I, you know, I'm just focused on Medicine Hat at this point. Uh, so, so I don't really know.

00:23:24.800 I just know that we have to push. If Peter Lougheed hadn't stood up for Alberta when Pierre Elliott

00:23:31.840 Trudeau wanted to nationalize our oil and gas industry in the mid seventies, my God, we'd have

00:23:37.760 been Venezuela. We'd, we'd have been in worse shape than we're in now. So, so I'm glad when I hear 1.00

00:23:43.280 Albertans, you know, proud Albertans, proud Canadians, proud Medicine Hatters. 1.00

00:23:47.360 That speak up and say, you know, let's, let's get a better deal for Alberta. So I'm,

00:23:51.120 I'm glad for that. Uh, certain, sure. A certain percentage want to take it all the way to separation

00:23:56.320 and, uh, in a, in a free, um, society and a free province and a free country, uh, you have that right

00:24:02.320 to, to say what you want. Um, back to the NDP, um, remember when Rachel Notley pushed, uh, bill six

00:24:09.520 through, even though everybody advised her not to, that may have, have led to her defeat more than

00:24:15.360 anything. Even though it was the farmer's bill, right? That's the farmer's bill where she, she,

00:24:21.040 there was no real need to get involved as much as she did. And, uh, it, that lingered on and it may

00:24:27.840 have cost her, but the other thing why it is the affordability crisis. My goodness, I've had the,

00:24:32.960 the opportunity to talk to hundreds of Medicine Hatters at the door in the last month and a large 0.99

00:24:38.400 percentage are saying, Hey, I might have to sell my house because taxes are too high. I'm having

00:24:43.040 trouble, you know, affording to buy the grocery store because of my tax bill or because of the

00:24:47.440 high cost of living. And we know all about the money that the federal government's borrowed and

00:24:51.840 printed and what that's done for inflation. So when then she comes along singing that same song

00:24:56.800 of more taxes, more, more waste, more debt, more government, you know, smart, uh, Medicine Hat

00:25:02.480 or smart Albertans say, no, no, don't do that. And you get, you get treated like you're simplistic

00:25:07.680 for saying that, Hey, no, maybe instead of building a solar farm, maybe instead of installing a bunch of

00:25:14.800 public infrastructure that nobody asked for, maybe we should just freeze taxes and then move towards

00:25:20.720 actually being able to cut it. Because no doubt if you're in, if you're within the city administration

00:25:25.360 long enough, you're going to be able to find stuff all over the place where it's like, well,

00:25:28.640 why do we spend $5 million a year on this at all? It's not even that the budget's too high. We could

00:25:33.680 just, you know, get rid of this DEI program over here. We get rid of this, uh, you know, random city

00:25:40.160 initiative over there. And you're like, you end up discovering another $75 million that you could

00:25:46.400 have just given back to taxpayers instead of like gouging them every year. But again, you,

00:25:51.200 you bring stuff up like that and it's just act treated like, Oh, you just don't get it. Like,

00:25:56.080 I don't get it. It's like, it's kind of people have to live at the end of the day. And I always find it,

00:26:01.200 you know, mark of a bad politician who doesn't actually understand that tax, how much of an issue

00:26:07.680 taxes are right now. We have this Calgary party running, not a mention of lowering taxes or anything.

00:26:13.120 It's just that we need to, we need to be a world-class city with better services. 0.96

00:26:17.120 And it's all just, it's just about investing in random garbage. It's just, it just turns into

00:26:22.560 frankly, union job handouts, creating more HR positions, creating more admin positions,

00:26:27.840 raising wages. And Hey, it's great if people can get a rate or wage raise, but we're just doing it

00:26:33.440 where basically a small portion of the city is holding the rest of the city hostage, where their wages

00:26:39.280 are going to go up by six or 7% every year while everyone else is completely stalled out. That's

00:26:45.040 where I don't follow when it comes to other people getting wage increases, you know, it's public service.

00:26:51.200 It's gotta be understood that it's a secure job with a good pension at the end of the day,

00:26:55.440 but you're not gonna be hard charging on wage increases every single year, the way you would

00:27:00.080 if you went into finance and had no guarantees of a future. But maybe last question here, I guess,

00:27:06.960 like, uh, so how, how many, uh, opponents do you right now have for mayor in, uh, in medicine hat?

00:27:13.440 And, uh, how is it feeling at the doors with people? Oh, thanks. Well, yeah, there's six of us

00:27:18.400 counting myself and the incumbent mayor. Uh, one of the former counselors is running as well. Um,

00:27:24.800 of course they were very much part of this current, uh, chaos and his financial lack of discipline.

00:27:31.040 These two are just fighting each other cause they don't like each other anymore.

00:27:33.760 Uh, yeah, they, uh, they, they were, they were at odds many times at council and, uh, um,

00:27:40.000 but it's time to refocus. It's time to refocus on what medicine hatters need. Uh, as you said,

00:27:45.680 it's been an affordability crisis. It's time to, you know, to at least freeze the tax burden and

00:27:50.640 reduce it where we can. Um, crime and homelessness has grown, so our city's not as safe as it was. Uh,

00:27:57.360 and, and it's time to have somebody that focuses on medicine hatters needs and to sell our opportunity

00:28:02.960 in our great city to the rest of Canada so we can grow. Fantastic. Well, good luck on the campaign

00:28:09.680 trail out there. And thanks for coming on the show today, Drew. Again, last shout out to everybody.

00:28:14.720 Make sure if you live in medicine had to get a sign for Drew Barnes, uh, it does how it does help.

00:28:20.560 The science of it tends to be that if you have a law and sign up it, you know, it's not going to make

00:28:24.880 someone look at it and say, Oh, I'm suddenly now very interested in Drew Barnes, but other people

00:28:29.440 on your street who likes the way that you think as a person, and they see you put up a sign for a

00:28:33.920 candidate, it makes them more likely to look into them or vote for them. If you guys are of like

00:28:39.520 minds, but anyways, well, thank you for coming on drew. And we'll definitely have you back on,

00:28:44.320 uh, next time, hopefully as the mayor of medicine hat. That would be great. Why? Thank you very much.

00:28:50.480 Thanks for you for doing what you do.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - September 27, 2025

Former MLA taking his city back from Liberal rule (ft. Drew Barnes - Medicine Hat)

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