00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, and welcome back to the National Telegraph YouTube channel.
00:00:06.680I need to tell you guys all about an incredibly stupid election controversy currently playing out in my home province of Alberta.
00:00:16.420So right now, the Alberta NDP and their allies in the legacy media are trying to accuse Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP
00:00:26.500of trying to rig the 2027 Alberta provincial election.
00:00:32.500You will not be shocked when I tell you that this isn't true,
00:00:36.540but what is true is actually the exact opposite.
00:00:40.620People on the commission that were supposed to try and re-boundary the ridings
00:00:45.660were basically trying to cobble together an election victory for the Alberta NDP
00:00:50.300that they do not deserve, and because the UCP threw away the recommendations
00:00:55.500of this commission on the advice of a judge, they are somehow trying to rig everything.
00:01:01.660We're going to get into it in just a second here, but I do just want to remind you guys,
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00:01:20.360allow me to be less reliant on the very fickle YouTube algorithm. But let's quickly get into the
00:01:26.380details of this case. This was a great graphic for Jack to have posted for our information here.
00:01:32.940Jack here says, the Alberta NDP are accusing the UCP of gerrymandering. The NDP are big mad that
00:01:39.660the UCP are following the recommendations of a judge, go figure. So in fact, it looks as though
00:01:45.140of the Alberta NDP are the ones who are, in fact, gerrymandering. And they're right. And although
00:01:50.460Alberta has been ruled by the United Conservative Party since 2019, and the NDP have only ever won
00:01:58.160one government at Alberta between 2015 and 2019, the Alberta bureaucracy is still full of people
00:02:06.120who lean pretty left. And the commission very much was trying to make the rural advantage
00:02:12.580of the UCP far less in their redistricting that they conducted. So in this graphic, it says stop
00:02:20.460NDP gerrymandering, and it gives a few facts from the report that the judge had created on the
00:02:26.240commission to change the election boundaries, because Alberta is a growing province, the
00:02:31.460population has gone up a lot. The commission didn't actually want to increase the amount of
00:02:36.880seats. They wanted to keep the amount of seats stable, but they did want to eliminate two rural
00:02:43.000ridings. And the rural areas of Alberta are actually increasing massively in their population.
00:02:47.860And so just eliminating two rural ridings, redistributing much of their territory into
00:02:53.960other rural ridings, or pushing it towards a Calgary area, it's obviously meant to try and
00:03:00.640hurt the UCP. And we're going to get into why that's so illegitimate in a second here.
00:03:03.980But 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.
00:03:17.960The 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.
00:03:36.940So yes, so not only are we going to increase the number, but when they do increase the number from
00:03:42.40089 ridings to 91, that they should return the two rural ridings as they were, and then add on two
00:03:49.920new ones. Maybe they'll be cut down a little bit to redistribute where the population is, but that's
00:03:55.420it. And by the way, there's really no such thing as gerrymandering in the way that you would think
00:04:01.520about it in the United States in the United States you get these ridiculous ridings or I guess
00:04:06.580districts where you're in New York and the riding snakes up here and for one block the the the like
00:04:13.140the district is only like you know 10 meters wide and then it opens up into this area because
00:04:18.080somebody wanted that area to be in their district and they wanted that area to be in the district
00:04:22.060but they didn't want the in-between area to be they just have a single road that connects the
00:04:25.960to. That's not what happens in Canada. In Canada, when the boundaries change, you basically have to
00:04:32.280include whole neighborhoods in each of the ridings. And so it's not like you're going to have this
00:04:38.380little section of that neighborhood over there, and then the district's going to snake over here
00:04:42.840and grab up some rural area that disconnected from this urban center. That's not how this works.
00:04:48.100But that's kind of the NDP were trying to do a version of that. Their bureaucratic allies were
00:04:54.020trying to basically eliminate, move to get rid of two rural ridings, redistribute their population
00:05:01.340among the other rural ridings so that you could create either another Edmonton riding or another
00:05:06.500Calgary riding that would be more advantageous for the NDP. And I'm going to get into the NDP's
00:05:12.520electoral performance in the last election to prove why this is so illegitimate a bit later.
00:05:18.580But first, I just want to get into this video hosted by an NDP MLA, David Shepard, complaining
00:05:27.300about this whole thing. So you can get a little bit of a flavor for the rhetoric they're currently
00:05:31.560using. David Shepard says, as of yesterday, it's official, the UCP are going all in on rigging the
00:05:38.900next election. It's unprecedented and unacceptable. MLA should have no part in drawing the boundaries
00:05:44.740for seats they run to represent. We'll have more to say soon, because Alberta, we need to fight
00:05:52.360back. Now, I'll just play this video in a second here, but the only reason that the MLAs are having
00:05:59.060to step in is because the commission didn't take their jobs seriously. They basically were just
00:06:06.320trying to manufacture an NDP victory that completely goes against what the majority of
00:06:11.560voters want. And so, yes, the MLAs have to step in and implement the recommendations of the judge.
00:06:20.500And by the way, the board that they are going to put together, the committee, will include the NDP.
00:06:25.860If the UCP is doing it as pulling any big shenanigans, they'll be able to point it out.
00:06:30.980And by the way, if it's true, the public will see that and they'll say that it's wrong and they'll
00:06:36.560probably be less likely to vote for the ucp oftentimes being corrupt in these ways if the
00:06:42.100ucp was even wanting to be would actually probably guarantee they would lose the next election because
00:06:47.560it would look sleazy the ndp are worried because the ucp are actually in fact doing the right thing
00:06:52.980and their attempts to make this look sleazy are not working but here's david shepherd whining in
00:06:58.600his car hey so just arrived at the legislature and folks it's happening you see my videos over
00:07:08.020the last couple weeks talking about how the ucp seem to be setting themselves up to rig the
00:07:14.620electoral boundaries the map for the next election well yeah it's official we just found out this
00:07:21.560morning the ucp is scrapping the entire report that was brought in by an independent commission
00:07:28.120and they are going to replace it with a committee on which they will hold the majority that will
00:07:34.580redraw the entire electoral map for the province of Alberta. That's right. The UCP are going to
00:07:40.320strike a committee with a majority of their members and they are going to draw their own map
00:07:46.360for the next election. We've never had a government in Alberta attempt anything like
00:07:51.280this before and let's be frank this is outright cheating. This is not cheating just because also
00:07:57.740just because a commission is quote unquote independent doesn't mean the people on it don't
00:08:03.380absolutely know what they're doing by trying to eliminate two rural districts so that the NDP can
00:08:09.140win an extra urban one that should not exist. Because again, the NDP are mad that they do
00:08:15.820really bad with rural people. And so the independent commissioners who totally don't
00:08:20.880vote for the NDP just decided, well, maybe we should arbitrarily have two less rural ridings
00:08:25.880and have two more urban ridings. This is gerrymandering. Governments should not be
00:08:31.420choosing their voters. Voters choose their governments. And they chose a majority UCP
00:08:40.360government, not just in seats, but in popular vote. We're going to get into the statistics later.
00:08:48.060The NDP got trounced in the last election on the popular vote, and they are trying to engineer the
00:08:54.060map so that it doesn't matter that they always lose the popular vote. They can win by making
00:08:59.520the ridings lean more towards urban centers to make it so that you can really just double down
00:09:05.700on winning Edmonton and most of Calgary and you can win the whole election. You don't need any
00:09:10.760appeal in all the rural areas, none of the small towns. They never even have to visit. They can
00:09:15.400just tell them to go screw themselves. All they need is Edmonton, Calgary, Buffalo, and a couple
00:09:20.500of the other Calgary ridings that snake into the downtown area where people vote heavily NDP.
00:09:26.120We just found out about this. We're going to be going in, talking about it at the legislature
00:09:29.120today. If you get a chance, tune in. QP is this morning. We'll be debating the motion,
00:09:33.620I think, a little later today. Stay tuned. We're going to need everyone to stand up and speak out.
00:09:39.520Yeah, everyone needs to stand up and speak out against fair election rules,
00:09:44.740against fair election districts. The funny thing is when he's invoking that everyone needs to do
00:09:49.440something when in fact his party is unpopular and represents a minority of Albertans. New polls
00:09:56.920just came out. Pretty much every pollster agrees that the UCP are leading the NDP by around
00:10:02.360potentially six points all the way up to like 12 points. That would be a pretty easy election,
00:10:09.020re-election for Daniel Smith. Here's Nahid Nenshi posting this on Twitter on the same day.
00:10:19.560Nahid Nenshi, the leader of the Alberta NDP, says,
00:10:21.940Today, Daniel Smith of the UCP caucus unveiled plans to rig the next election and silence the voices of Albertans.
00:10:28.640A 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.
00:10:38.080This has never been done in Canadian history.
00:10:44.220they are unmanipulating the map unmanipulating it they are making it fairer in fact there is
00:10:50.940actually some re they're changing boundaries in downtown calgary that have fewer of the ridings
00:10:56.820arbitrarily just snake into the downtown to have like or to basically break up some of these
00:11:02.060downtown ridings so you don't get ridings where everyone who lives in the riding just lives in a
00:11:06.880skyscraper it's not really a balanced riding and oftentimes those are really bad ridings to
00:11:12.100campaign in because you really can't doorknock when everyone lives in an apartment. Yeah, you
00:11:16.140can technically get into it, but not really. People don't really like you doorknocking in
00:11:20.480there. And that means that everyone in that district pretty much just listens to the legacy
00:11:25.480media in terms of who they're going to vote for. Now I need to get to an incredibly stupid take
00:11:31.680here from a professor at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary, Dwayne Bratt,
00:11:38.400who says, there's a reason that we do not have MLAs decide on electoral boundaries.
00:11:45.040Tossing out the Electoral Boundaries Commission and replacing it with a UCP-dominated committee
00:11:49.720is not just a bad idea. It is really bad for democracy. Ask the U.S. Ask Hungary. This is
00:11:56.000not normal. Elections are about people choosing their representatives, not politicians choosing
00:12:01.360their voters. Yet this is what the UCP is planning. It is planning to deliberately
00:12:06.600disenfranchised urban voters, Red Deer and Lethbridge would not exist as autonomous
00:12:11.180political entities. And then he just includes this podcast episode. Basically, again, they need
00:12:20.580very, very specific election boundaries to win, that being the NDP. The UCP, if the election
00:12:27.840boundaries were more general and Calgary ridings along the city outskirts included a couple
00:12:33.940outside of Calgary bedroom communities, the UCP would have a better chance of winning.
00:12:38.520The NDP needs basically very urban suburban ridings to win. If a riding is too suburban,
00:12:44.460like the riding I live in back in Calgary, Calgary West, they can't win it. They need
00:12:49.360a certain mix in order to actually be able to win the seats. And I can show prove it to you
00:12:54.880Because 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.
00:13:10.540They 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.
00:13:32.000It's more reflective of what the popular vote is.
00:13:35.080Now, I'm not a proportional representation guy, but the NDP, in fact, win a lot of seats in Calgary by very thin margins.
00:13:45.620You can see here that they won the majority of Calgary.