The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - April 17, 2026


NDP claims Danielle Smith is ＂rigging＂ next election - This is FALSE!


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Length

17 minutes

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167.63533

Word count

2,942

Sentence count

146

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

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5

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Summary

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

The Alberta NDP and their media allies have accused the United Conservative Party of trying to rig the upcoming election in their home province of Alberta. They claim that the UCP are actually trying to gerrymandering the election boundaries in order to give the NDP a better chance at winning in the next election. But is this really true?

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 .
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and welcome back to the National Telegraph YouTube channel. 0.95
00:00:06.680 I need to tell you guys all about an incredibly stupid election controversy currently playing out in my home province of Alberta.
00:00:16.420 So right now, the Alberta NDP and their allies in the legacy media are trying to accuse Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP 0.96
00:00:26.500 of trying to rig the 2027 Alberta provincial election.
00:00:32.500 You will not be shocked when I tell you that this isn't true,
00:00:36.540 but what is true is actually the exact opposite.
00:00:40.620 People on the commission that were supposed to try and re-boundary the ridings
00:00:45.660 were basically trying to cobble together an election victory for the Alberta NDP
00:00:50.300 that they do not deserve, and because the UCP threw away the recommendations
00:00:55.500 of this commission on the advice of a judge, they are somehow trying to rig everything.
00:01:01.660 We're going to get into it in just a second here, but I do just want to remind you guys,
00:01:06.200 if you like the channel, make sure to leave a like on the video, subscribe if you are not yet
00:01:10.960 a subscriber, and if you want to help support the channel, you can hit the join button below the
00:01:15.180 video and become a monthly contributor to help make the channel more sustainable for me and
00:01:20.360 allow me to be less reliant on the very fickle YouTube algorithm. But let's quickly get into the
00:01:26.380 details of this case. This was a great graphic for Jack to have posted for our information here.
00:01:32.940 Jack here says, the Alberta NDP are accusing the UCP of gerrymandering. The NDP are big mad that
00:01:39.660 the UCP are following the recommendations of a judge, go figure. So in fact, it looks as though
00:01:45.140 of the Alberta NDP are the ones who are, in fact, gerrymandering. And they're right. And although
00:01:50.460 Alberta has been ruled by the United Conservative Party since 2019, and the NDP have only ever won
00:01:58.160 one government at Alberta between 2015 and 2019, the Alberta bureaucracy is still full of people
00:02:06.120 who lean pretty left. And the commission very much was trying to make the rural advantage
00:02:12.580 of the UCP far less in their redistricting that they conducted. So in this graphic, it says stop
00:02:20.460 NDP gerrymandering, and it gives a few facts from the report that the judge had created on the
00:02:26.240 commission to change the election boundaries, because Alberta is a growing province, the
00:02:31.460 population has gone up a lot. The commission didn't actually want to increase the amount of
00:02:36.880 seats. They wanted to keep the amount of seats stable, but they did want to eliminate two rural
00:02:43.000 ridings. And the rural areas of Alberta are actually increasing massively in their population.
00:02:47.860 And so just eliminating two rural ridings, redistributing much of their territory into
00:02:53.960 other rural ridings, or pushing it towards a Calgary area, it's obviously meant to try and
00:03:00.640 hurt the UCP. And we're going to get into why that's so illegitimate in a second here.
00:03:03.980 But this graphic reads, the UCP accept the judge's recommendations, quote, cannot concur in the proposal of the Majority of the Election Boundaries Commission in its final report to remove two rural electoral divisions.
00:03:17.960 The assembly, and then here's another quote, the assembly make amendments to the Electoral District Act, increasing the number of electoral divisions from 89 to 91 for the next general election and restore the two electoral divisions this commissioner has removed.
00:03:36.940 So yes, so not only are we going to increase the number, but when they do increase the number from
00:03:42.400 89 ridings to 91, that they should return the two rural ridings as they were, and then add on two
00:03:49.920 new ones. Maybe they'll be cut down a little bit to redistribute where the population is, but that's
00:03:55.420 it. And by the way, there's really no such thing as gerrymandering in the way that you would think
00:04:01.520 about it in the United States in the United States you get these ridiculous ridings or I guess
00:04:06.580 districts where you're in New York and the riding snakes up here and for one block the the the like
00:04:13.140 the district is only like you know 10 meters wide and then it opens up into this area because
00:04:18.080 somebody wanted that area to be in their district and they wanted that area to be in the district
00:04:22.060 but they didn't want the in-between area to be they just have a single road that connects the
00:04:25.960 to. That's not what happens in Canada. In Canada, when the boundaries change, you basically have to
00:04:32.280 include whole neighborhoods in each of the ridings. And so it's not like you're going to have this
00:04:38.380 little section of that neighborhood over there, and then the district's going to snake over here
00:04:42.840 and grab up some rural area that disconnected from this urban center. That's not how this works.
00:04:48.100 But that's kind of the NDP were trying to do a version of that. Their bureaucratic allies were
00:04:54.020 trying to basically eliminate, move to get rid of two rural ridings, redistribute their population
00:05:01.340 among the other rural ridings so that you could create either another Edmonton riding or another
00:05:06.500 Calgary riding that would be more advantageous for the NDP. And I'm going to get into the NDP's
00:05:12.520 electoral performance in the last election to prove why this is so illegitimate a bit later.
00:05:18.580 But first, I just want to get into this video hosted by an NDP MLA, David Shepard, complaining
00:05:27.300 about this whole thing. So you can get a little bit of a flavor for the rhetoric they're currently
00:05:31.560 using. David Shepard says, as of yesterday, it's official, the UCP are going all in on rigging the
00:05:38.900 next election. It's unprecedented and unacceptable. MLA should have no part in drawing the boundaries
00:05:44.740 for seats they run to represent. We'll have more to say soon, because Alberta, we need to fight
00:05:52.360 back. Now, I'll just play this video in a second here, but the only reason that the MLAs are having
00:05:59.060 to step in is because the commission didn't take their jobs seriously. They basically were just
00:06:06.320 trying to manufacture an NDP victory that completely goes against what the majority of
00:06:11.560 voters want. And so, yes, the MLAs have to step in and implement the recommendations of the judge.
00:06:20.500 And by the way, the board that they are going to put together, the committee, will include the NDP.
00:06:25.860 If the UCP is doing it as pulling any big shenanigans, they'll be able to point it out.
00:06:30.980 And by the way, if it's true, the public will see that and they'll say that it's wrong and they'll
00:06:36.560 probably be less likely to vote for the ucp oftentimes being corrupt in these ways if the
00:06:42.100 ucp was even wanting to be would actually probably guarantee they would lose the next election because
00:06:47.560 it would look sleazy the ndp are worried because the ucp are actually in fact doing the right thing
00:06:52.980 and their attempts to make this look sleazy are not working but here's david shepherd whining in
00:06:58.600 his car hey so just arrived at the legislature and folks it's happening you see my videos over
00:07:08.020 the last couple weeks talking about how the ucp seem to be setting themselves up to rig the
00:07:14.620 electoral boundaries the map for the next election well yeah it's official we just found out this
00:07:21.560 morning the ucp is scrapping the entire report that was brought in by an independent commission
00:07:28.120 and they are going to replace it with a committee on which they will hold the majority that will
00:07:34.580 redraw the entire electoral map for the province of Alberta. That's right. The UCP are going to
00:07:40.320 strike a committee with a majority of their members and they are going to draw their own map
00:07:46.360 for the next election. We've never had a government in Alberta attempt anything like
00:07:51.280 this before and let's be frank this is outright cheating. This is not cheating just because also
00:07:57.740 just because a commission is quote unquote independent doesn't mean the people on it don't
00:08:03.380 absolutely know what they're doing by trying to eliminate two rural districts so that the NDP can
00:08:09.140 win an extra urban one that should not exist. Because again, the NDP are mad that they do
00:08:15.820 really bad with rural people. And so the independent commissioners who totally don't
00:08:20.880 vote for the NDP just decided, well, maybe we should arbitrarily have two less rural ridings
00:08:25.880 and have two more urban ridings. This is gerrymandering. Governments should not be
00:08:31.420 choosing their voters. Voters choose their governments. And they chose a majority UCP
00:08:40.360 government, not just in seats, but in popular vote. We're going to get into the statistics later.
00:08:48.060 The NDP got trounced in the last election on the popular vote, and they are trying to engineer the
00:08:54.060 map so that it doesn't matter that they always lose the popular vote. They can win by making
00:08:59.520 the ridings lean more towards urban centers to make it so that you can really just double down
00:09:05.700 on winning Edmonton and most of Calgary and you can win the whole election. You don't need any
00:09:10.760 appeal in all the rural areas, none of the small towns. They never even have to visit. They can
00:09:15.400 just tell them to go screw themselves. All they need is Edmonton, Calgary, Buffalo, and a couple
00:09:20.500 of the other Calgary ridings that snake into the downtown area where people vote heavily NDP.
00:09:26.120 We just found out about this. We're going to be going in, talking about it at the legislature
00:09:29.120 today. If you get a chance, tune in. QP is this morning. We'll be debating the motion,
00:09:33.620 I think, a little later today. Stay tuned. We're going to need everyone to stand up and speak out.
00:09:39.520 Yeah, everyone needs to stand up and speak out against fair election rules,
00:09:44.740 against fair election districts. The funny thing is when he's invoking that everyone needs to do
00:09:49.440 something when in fact his party is unpopular and represents a minority of Albertans. New polls
00:09:56.920 just came out. Pretty much every pollster agrees that the UCP are leading the NDP by around
00:10:02.360 potentially six points all the way up to like 12 points. That would be a pretty easy election,
00:10:09.020 re-election for Daniel Smith. Here's Nahid Nenshi posting this on Twitter on the same day.
00:10:16.340 I'm sorry, bringing this back up.
00:10:19.560 Nahid Nenshi, the leader of the Alberta NDP, says,
00:10:21.940 Today, Daniel Smith of the UCP caucus unveiled plans to rig the next election and silence the voices of Albertans.
00:10:28.640 A new motion indicates the UCP government plans to manipulate the election map for the next election in their favor and without any requirement to consult the public.
00:10:38.080 This has never been done in Canadian history.
00:10:41.560 No, it's never been had.
00:10:43.040 They're not manipulating anything.
00:10:44.220 they are unmanipulating the map unmanipulating it they are making it fairer in fact there is
00:10:50.940 actually some re they're changing boundaries in downtown calgary that have fewer of the ridings
00:10:56.820 arbitrarily just snake into the downtown to have like or to basically break up some of these
00:11:02.060 downtown ridings so you don't get ridings where everyone who lives in the riding just lives in a
00:11:06.880 skyscraper it's not really a balanced riding and oftentimes those are really bad ridings to
00:11:12.100 campaign in because you really can't doorknock when everyone lives in an apartment. Yeah, you
00:11:16.140 can technically get into it, but not really. People don't really like you doorknocking in
00:11:20.480 there. And that means that everyone in that district pretty much just listens to the legacy
00:11:25.480 media in terms of who they're going to vote for. Now I need to get to an incredibly stupid take 1.00
00:11:31.680 here from a professor at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary, Dwayne Bratt, 0.96
00:11:38.400 who says, there's a reason that we do not have MLAs decide on electoral boundaries.
00:11:45.040 Tossing out the Electoral Boundaries Commission and replacing it with a UCP-dominated committee
00:11:49.720 is not just a bad idea. It is really bad for democracy. Ask the U.S. Ask Hungary. This is
00:11:56.000 not normal. Elections are about people choosing their representatives, not politicians choosing
00:12:01.360 their voters. Yet this is what the UCP is planning. It is planning to deliberately
00:12:06.600 disenfranchised urban voters, Red Deer and Lethbridge would not exist as autonomous
00:12:11.180 political entities. And then he just includes this podcast episode. Basically, again, they need
00:12:20.580 very, very specific election boundaries to win, that being the NDP. The UCP, if the election
00:12:27.840 boundaries were more general and Calgary ridings along the city outskirts included a couple
00:12:33.940 outside of Calgary bedroom communities, the UCP would have a better chance of winning.
00:12:38.520 The NDP needs basically very urban suburban ridings to win. If a riding is too suburban,
00:12:44.460 like the riding I live in back in Calgary, Calgary West, they can't win it. They need
00:12:49.360 a certain mix in order to actually be able to win the seats. And I can show prove it to you
00:12:54.880 Because look here, this was the last election. In 2023, the UCP won 52.6% of the vote, and the NDP won 44% of the vote.
00:13:10.540 They beat the NDP by over 8%, and it's somehow wrong for the UCP to not only throw out the awful recommendations by the Electoral Boundaries Commission, but also change the boundaries so it's more reflective of what the average population wants.
00:13:32.000 It's more reflective of what the popular vote is.
00:13:35.080 Now, I'm not a proportional representation guy, but the NDP, in fact, win a lot of seats in Calgary by very thin margins.
00:13:45.620 You can see here that they won the majority of Calgary.
00:13:48.540 It was a little bit close.
00:13:49.800 It was kind of close, but I still think they won the majority of seats.
00:13:54.060 But they swept all of Edmonton.
00:13:55.960 They won Banff-Candanaskis, and they won one Lethbridge riding.
00:13:59.560 Now, do you think it would feel democratic for the NDP?
00:14:04.260 because if they got literally half a percent of the vote more in that last election in Calgary,
00:14:09.060 they would have won. There were so many seats that were down to like 50 votes, 100 votes,
00:14:14.220 200 votes. If the NDP in theory were able to win Calgary Bow, Calgary, like, I think there's a
00:14:22.420 couple others. I'm trying to remember the names of the area, Calgary Cross, they would be the
00:14:26.920 government if just a few other ridings flipped from the ucp to the ndp but like that but the
00:14:34.720 thing is that that this is why it's so illegitimate all these people saying that oh this is bad for
00:14:38.760 democracy none of these people believe in democracy they wanted two rural ridings to be eliminated
00:14:44.720 so that the ndp could beat the ucp without ever having to talk to a rural voter without ever
00:14:51.780 having to talk to even a small town voter or a voter in a suburban area outside of Edmonton.
00:14:58.240 They can win suburbs in Edmonton, but it's just because there's so many government employees
00:15:01.580 there. Calgary is a little tougher. And so they need there to be a higher concentration of
00:15:07.300 ridings because what the commission was going to do is eliminate two ridings in the rural areas.
00:15:11.860 And then they were going to be adding effectively one to Edmonton and one to Calgary. And even if
00:15:16.760 they couldn't win those new ridings, maybe those two new ridings would suck a little bit more 0.97
00:15:21.380 would suck a little bit of the population out of some of the suburban
00:15:24.760 ridings, turning those ridings more urban, and then 0.97
00:15:27.660 the NDP could win it. This is complete
00:15:30.960 garbage. Anyone accusing the UCP of rigging 1.00
00:15:34.620 the next election, in fact, wanted the election
00:15:37.480 to be rigged, and are mad that it is no longer going
00:15:40.640 to be rigged. If you look at the current
00:15:43.520 polls in Alberta, the NDP are being
00:15:46.060 fully demolished. I just want to show you guys
00:15:49.280 what the current polling looks like on 338, just to give you a bit of a taste for how things are
00:15:54.560 going right now. Here we go. Bring it up here. These are the last four polls. We have two from
00:16:03.240 Leger, one from Abacus, and one from Main Street. Leger has it 53% UCP to 36% NDP.
00:16:10.460 Leger, before, had it 48% UCP to 36% NDP, 5% for the Progressive Tory party, and 3% for the Liberals.
00:16:20.520 Liberals basically don't even exist anyway. Sometimes they over-pull because people think it's federal.
00:16:26.480 Albuquerque, 49% UCP, 36% NDP. Main Street, 48% UCP, 40% NDP.
00:16:35.380 The NDP would lose.
00:16:37.320 They're going to lose.
00:16:38.260 And the only way they can win because of their complete just bloated corpse of a leader,
00:16:42.960 Nahid Nenshi, is for the election boundaries to just let them win.
00:16:46.920 Make it so that effectively every riding has enough urban hipster areas in it that the
00:16:52.540 NDP don't ever actually have to listen to what a suburban or rural person thinks.
00:16:56.960 They can win purely on maximizing the urban vote.
00:17:00.860 They could potentially win based on the bad commission report.
00:17:04.300 they could have won an election with less votes than they got in this last provincial election
00:17:08.940 simply because the boundaries favor them. It's so messed up. Anyways, so that should be it for
00:17:15.860 this video, guys. Hopefully you don't mind it when I cover regional stuff like this in Alberta.
00:17:20.260 I will be back either later today or tomorrow with another video, but make sure to do the
00:17:25.980 normal stuff. I always recommend like, share, subscribe, all that stuff, and I will see you
00:17:31.580 guys all next time.