A special edition of the Western Standard and Alberta Report, brought to you live from The Western Standard studio in downtown Calgary, Alberta. Host Derek Fildebrandt is joined by co-hosts Nigel Hannaford and Corey Morgan to discuss the results of the latest advanced polling.
00:05:34.020So what you see here, folks up on the screen, is a list of every constituency in Alberta, the 87, and you need 44 seats to get to a majority government.
00:05:47.760The ones you see in really dark blue are the safe UCP seats.
00:05:52.920The ones in really dark orange are the safe NDP seats.
00:05:55.960and you know you can use your brain and figure it out the lighter the color gets in the shade
00:06:00.760of blue or orange the closer it is uh expected to be in that race and you'll see here the number of
00:06:08.600toss-ups the light blue those are called ucp leaning toss-ups um the ucp needs to win their
00:06:15.800core seats the two likely seats and then only two of the toss-ups that the polls are predicting at
00:06:23.240least, are going to go the UCP's way. So just two toss-ups. For the NDP to win, they've got to win
00:06:31.060all four of the toss-ups leaning their way, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
00:06:36.420nine of the toss-ups that are expected or predicted to be leaning to the UCP. It's a very
00:06:44.280different, the NDP could win tonight, I think, Nigel, but it's a very, essentially, all of the
00:06:50.800coin tosses. Every single coin toss in Alberta
00:06:52.920has to go the NDP's way just to get to a
00:22:04.980Jonathan Bradley is at the United Conservative Party headquarters
00:22:08.440at the big four buildings down on the Stampede grounds in Calgary here.
00:22:14.580Jonathan, what's the mood like there on the ground at UCP headquarters?
00:22:19.780Well, Derek, it's pretty tame right now.
00:22:22.140Some supporters are starting to come in.
00:22:23.620there's been a few people it just kind of feels like there's some excitement and optimism
00:22:27.580happening right now I've run into a few of our friends Peter McCaffrey's here there's some other
00:22:32.320journalists who we've interacted with in the past who are showing up yeah I mean results
00:22:38.780don't start pouring in until eight but right now the mood feels pretty optimistic I know it's a
00:22:44.140very general question but what are people telling you on the ground in there are they
00:22:47.860are they kind of biting their nails thinking it's going to be close are they thinking this
00:22:52.200is in the bag well people seem to think it's in the bag i've been hearing talk about people
00:22:56.620thinking that the ucp are going to win obviously not as large as last time i'm thinking people are
00:23:01.040saying 50 to 55 seats which is a sizable majority i mean if it's you know 44 seats 45 seats people
00:23:07.680aren't going to be too happy but based on what people are saying what the polls are saying
00:23:11.500okay uh anything else uh you could tell us uh from on the ground at the ucp headquarters right now
00:23:19.660Well, we're being told of results are coming in at eight. There's some screens going up showing all the candidates competing. Nothing really major at the moment.
00:52:10.260And those writings are rural writings, Peace River and Drayton Valley, Devon.
00:52:18.180So nothing from any cities yet, just the rural ones.
00:52:21.060Actually, I'll correct you there. I'm seeing one poll voting, reporting from Calgary, Buffalo. One vote, just one vote from this poll. And it's the UCP. So that means the UCP is winning with 100% of the vote in Calgary, Buffalo, on track to defeat Joe Ceci.
00:52:48.580Well, you know, I feel maybe a little more confident about those rural ones, but I'm not going to go on quite a limb and say the UCP is going to win Calgary, Buffalo, the most urban left-leaning riding in Calgary by 100%.
00:53:02.700I'm not going to quite go on that yet.
00:53:08.460Okay, well, I guess we'll just bring up the initial election map showing our leading right now, minus that.
00:53:15.480So, Mika, why don't we just bring up the map?
00:53:17.700I know it's not very much, but actually, the two you're really seeing here on the big screen, it might just be one poll in each of those reporting.
00:53:27.540But you can almost call those ones right away.
00:53:29.820That's Drayton Valley, Devon, and Peace River.
00:55:27.600yeah it's very early i hope you can hear me it is pretty loud here it's very early so far
00:55:32.080uh so i won't won't get into any of the details of the actual numbers so far
00:55:36.000um but one of the things i will be looking at tonight and this will be where i'll really start
00:55:39.600to look at some of the numbers is calgary bow calgary bow is the writing that i'm going to
00:55:44.480keep my own i could i could list off all of the tight seats but calgary bow is an interesting one
00:55:48.400because if the ndt can't win in calgary i really think that they don't have a path to win here
00:55:54.000they already have a narrower path to get to the 44 that they need and if they can't get it in
00:55:58.880calgary bow i think they're really going to struggle in a bunch of other areas it's also
00:56:02.160an interesting writing because of the candidates so you've got dimitri nikolaitis uh former uh
00:56:06.960current uh i guess incumbent uh for the seat uh he's been the advanced education minister
00:56:13.920and uh daniel smith and his opponent is drew farrell long long time uh counselor here in
00:56:20.800calgary uh so drew barrel can't roll a sitting cabinet minister here in calgary then i think
00:56:31.920yes there's a bunch of other types each there's a whole bunch i'll be looking at the numbers
00:56:35.600specifically but calgary bow in particular if you want to pick one so i'm going to ask you the same
00:56:40.000questions i have some of our other uh guests here um oh boy it's getting noisy there for your top
00:56:47.120three bellwether constituencies so bow i would include as you know so like uh where are your top
00:56:52.960including bow um if name three constituencies that if one party wins this they win the win the night
00:56:59.740so you've already named bow what are the two other bellwethers you're looking for that if you win
00:57:03.940that they're likely to die it's hard to name only three but off the top of my head if you force me
00:57:09.400pick three i'll go for bow uh glenn moore and calgary cross um if if the if if the ucp pick
00:57:18.840up two of those it's over uh if they pick up three then it could actually be quite a big win
00:57:23.880uh if you're going to get one of those then it might be a tight night
00:57:28.520very interesting um uh what do you expect from tonight overall like i know there's the polls
00:57:36.120and we've all got our thoughts but uh what are you what are you expecting to see you know if
00:57:41.160if you had a six pack on it uh what would be your best good uh my own personal projection is about
00:57:48.28050 seats for the ucp uh but this is such a such a weird election so that 50 seats is based purely
00:57:55.400off what the polls are showing and assuming the polls are accurate um but it's such a weird
00:57:59.720election that even a small difference between uh what the polls are showing in the reality could
00:58:04.680wildly swing it so for example if the ndp outperformed the polls by just a couple of points
00:58:09.880we could have a narrow ndp government if the ucp outperformed the polls by a couple of points
00:58:15.400we could actually see the ucp get a higher vote percentage than they did under jason kinney in
00:58:20.5202019. it would still be a much tighter election seat wise because effectively the alberta party
00:58:25.640but you could get a scenario where they used to actually do better than they did in 2019
00:58:31.800purely on a vote percentage so that's it's a really weird election couple of points
00:58:36.600either way compared to what the polls are showing could give dramatically different results uh my
00:58:41.480last question for you is about that alberta party vote um i was saying earlier before you were on
00:58:47.160the ndp has managed to completely cannibalize the liberal vote to the point where it is entirely
00:58:53.240non-existent now but they in this election appear to have uh digested the alberta party vote the
00:58:59.960ucp vote if the polls are to be believed is going to be actually fairly relatively steady compared
00:59:05.560to 2019 the difference being that the ndp have eaten up the um uh the alberta party vote uh how
00:59:14.040big i guess a two-part question how big a difference do you think that'll make and why
00:59:18.440do you think the alberto uh the alberto party vote ndp rather than ucp yeah so you're right
00:59:25.000the alberto party vote has really collapsed from the sort of 10 or 12 percent we were seeing
00:59:29.160at the last election the polls down to 2 34 percent i think they're going to start moving
00:59:34.360at that because they're not even running in most of the seats i think they're only running in less
00:59:38.120than a third of the seats so honestly they'll be lucky if they get two percent um almost all of
00:59:43.000that vote's gone likely to the ndp based on what we're seeing in the bowls and and like i said it's
00:59:47.240It's made it a two-way race, which means, honestly, yeah, the UCP could outperform even how they did in 2019, and it would still, on a seat basis, be a lot tighter.
01:00:28.520Do you think the whole fight over the arena has had much of an impact on the election in Calgary?
01:00:33.460I think it has for the casual voter, especially one, obviously, who's an NHL fan, a Flames fan who lives in Calgary, which is why I think they went and did it. So I think it's one of those things where they're trying to get people into what's called the easy politics. So who doesn't like, you know, chocolate? Who doesn't like potato chips? Who doesn't love NHL hockey? Everybody does. You know, only communists don't like hockey, right? And so it's easy for them to wedge the other on this issue.
01:01:01.640However, NHL owners and players are multimillionaires. They can fundraise themselves. It shouldn't be coming from taxpayers to pay for NHL rink.
01:01:12.680Now, I will say there was a bit of communications craftsmanship that went into this deal because the province, Daniel Smith and her team, got Mayor Gondek and her municipal taxpayers to pay for most of the freight of the NHL rink.
01:01:31.460Now, the province just put up taxpayers' money for the amateur baby rink next to the mama rink and for the transit station nearby and for the bridge upgrades.
01:01:40.840who doesn't like those things are you opposed to those mom and pop apple pie sort of things
01:01:46.600so that was quite clever so what we would have said to that and we did in a opinion editorial
01:01:52.760which you your western standard was so kind to run for us is that okay folks if you want to build a
01:01:58.980baby rink for amateur sports and you want to build a new shiny transit station and upgrade your bridge
01:02:04.820let's talk about that let's have a separate conversation about whether or not you guys
01:02:09.820need to spend money on that. But they didn't. They connected it directly to the NHL deal.
01:02:16.060Dr. Cooper, I'm going to talk about kind of the smaller parties that we are almost certainly not
01:02:22.260going to see up on the screen tonight. One, the Alberta party, which did have a presence in the
01:02:29.940last election, had somewhere between eight and 10% of the vote, came in with a caucus of three or
01:02:35.540for MLAs, had a prominent leader, former Edmonton mayor and cabinet minister, completely disappearing
01:02:43.780and that vote going to the NDP. And then the other, I guess, third party we could say is
01:02:49.760Wildrose Independence Party, which kind of flared up since the last election, came to
01:02:56.680about 15% in the polls, even without any money in MLAs, threatening the right flank, the
01:03:03.020right populist flank of the UCP under Kenney. And that's since completely gone away, it seems,
01:03:09.660and come back into the UCP fold. Can you tell us about maybe what the causes of both of those
01:03:15.840phenomenons are and what impact that might have tonight? Well, I would guess with the Alberta
01:03:23.920party that a lot of their support was up north rather than, say, in medicine hat, whereas the
01:03:30.500opposite was true with with WIPA and they I was I knew some of the people involved in that and
01:03:39.040they seemed to be very much against what Jason Kenney was doing to their sort of natural home
01:03:46.500in a big party and they were they were very upset with him rather than with the sort of stated
01:03:53.080principles of the conservatives so when when Danielle Smith became the new leader she pretty
01:03:59.680much took the wind completely out of their sails because she did about 98% of what they were going
01:04:04.980to do anyway, except for the independence part. And we'll, I'm sure we'll get to that sooner or
01:04:10.540later anyway. But I think that's mainly what happened. It was, it was, she, she took the,
01:04:17.900the main thing that drove the Wildrose Independence Party, which was just like of,
01:04:24.220of what jason was doing and and what about uh maybe a bit more about the alberta party though
01:04:30.080because uh it had votes in the last election a significant amount and it's just gone um yeah
01:04:36.860is that because the alberta party is at its core a kind of left-leaning party or is it maybe more
01:04:43.460along the media narrative that the ndp is the new center i would i would say it's that they were
01:04:49.860certainly not a kind of populist party, put it that way. I don't know what appeal they would have
01:04:54.700to rural Alberta. And I guess the NDP did a good job of persuading them that they're their real
01:05:03.340representatives. And I guess a lot of Alberta party supporters agreed with it. But I mean,
01:05:08.380I've got to say, I haven't paid much attention to the Alberta party for some time. And that may be
01:05:13.880why. Most of the media is completely obsessed with them, even though they've been really a
01:05:18.000non-entity most of this time. Okay, well, we're going to go to, actually, we're going to check
01:05:26.340in with Dave Naylor in the newsroom to give us an update on new polls coming in.
01:05:33.240Well, Derek, latest count, we have 14 polls in across the province. We have the Alberta New
01:05:40.120Democratic Party leading or elected in five seats, and we have the UCP leading and elected
01:05:46.440in 14 seats uh in terms of uh popular vote the ndp currently leading at 52.48 percent
01:05:57.020the ucp at 43.14 percent so we're getting uh getting a bit uh a few more polls coming in and
01:06:05.380just update you on calgary buffalo ucp still ahead by one vote to nil
01:06:11.760that's the big one well i'm not putting that one up on the map uh you know i'll actually uh nico
01:06:18.280why don't we put the map up on the board right now uh these are writings that have got more than
01:06:24.080a single vote reporting there are some constituencies of single vote reporting we're
01:06:28.800just not putting those up on the board but these are kind of uh davy you'll see the map here it's
01:06:34.040showing largely what we would expect uh it's still very early coming in but you know you got peace
01:06:39.700River, Central Peace, Notley, West Yellowhead, Camrose, Cardson-Six-Sica, Calgary-Fish Creek,
01:06:46.980early polls all leaning to the UCP right now, and Edmonton Castle-Downs at Edmonton City Centre.
01:06:55.100Very much as expected, the early polls there leaning for the NDP. Is there anything not up
01:07:00.900on the map yet of note that you should fly for us?
01:07:04.120just in terms of the popular vote Derek I'll point out Edmonton Ellerslie almost 800 votes
01:07:13.120for the NDP candidate 384 for the UCP so that'll be where that large increase in popular vote came
01:07:21.220from from the NDP because because we're just so early in the county yeah I didn't know that
01:07:27.100Ellerslie had reported but yeah we've got it up on the board and I would be very shocked if
01:14:43.460I would say he picked up some habits, cabinet and executive habits in Ottawa that are probably necessary in Ottawa, stricter party discipline and kind of more top-down control, which do not work in Alberta and do not work in Edmonton and particularly did not work in the new UCP caucus.
01:15:06.320So I think it's unfortunate that Jason's still not leading the UCP yet.
01:15:13.440But as far as Danielle's strategy goes, I think she's done the right thing is consolidate, you know, talk about the UCP record.0.65
01:15:21.360And part of that, of course, is Jason's record and talk about the NDP record.
01:15:25.480The four years under the NDP, they didn't stand up for Alberta.
01:15:29.120They raised taxes and did a bunch of things to make us less competitive.
01:15:32.160and she is a member of the federal NDP party.
01:15:37.060You're a provincial NDP, you're a federal NDP
01:15:39.020and the federal NDPs are what crop up Justin Trudeau
01:15:42.540and Justin Trudeau is very, very anti-Alberta.
01:15:48.480Okay, I'm gonna come back to you in a moment, Dr. Morton,
01:28:45.560I've never had the gift of prophecy, so I can't predict the future.
01:28:50.220But I will say that I've been watching the polls the last couple of weeks, and almost all polls have converged on a margin of two to three points positive for the UCP, except for Janet Brown, who's reported an eight-point margin.
01:29:12.060Now, there's a lot of practical difference there.
01:29:14.680Two to three-point lead is a cliffhanger.
01:29:18.460Eight-point lead is a comfortable victory.
01:29:20.220So we'll see. Janet uses an updated version of the old fashioned methodology of live agent calling, which, you know, many people believe is a more accurate way of polling.0.83
01:29:35.500The other polls, I believe, are all in one way or another. They're all online internet polls. So we'll see. It's interesting for political scientists, you know, just to see which gives a better prediction. We'll find out.
01:29:51.520And it actually would be, I think, possible for, I mean, we're in such a strictly two-party system here in Alberta that no other province, even the other two-party provinces, aren't as two-party as we are at least this particular election.
01:30:08.020it would seem to be possible that the NDP could even win I don't expect them to but they could
01:30:15.560even win the popular vote but still fail to win the most seats because they're the the math on
01:30:21.640their path to victory to get to 44 seats plus is just so difficult yeah they have a you know one
01:30:29.880would expect them to roll up some very big majorities in Edmonton which you know in a sense
01:30:35.140become wasted votes uh you know much bigger majorities than they need uh another ucp has
01:30:41.480a small advantage in them in that the average size of the rural ridings is smaller than the urban ones
01:30:48.040and the ucp uh you know dominates these ridings so they get more bang for the buck
01:30:54.060if you want to put it that way um so a small ucp advantage their
01:31:00.140uh ndp disadvantage with their concentration in edmonton so uh yeah it wouldn't be out of
01:31:07.420the question for the ndp to get more votes and uh get fewer seats but i don't expect that to happen
01:31:13.660because every poll that's been taken in the last few weeks has shown some degree of ucp majority
01:31:20.780of votes um you're right about the two-party strict two-party uh competition but that's new
01:31:28.220in alberta this is the first time um you know last time there was still a nine percent vote
01:31:35.020for the alberta party i think many of those voters have probably migrated to the ndp
01:31:40.540um but that in in recent elections the multi-party split has actually been the most important thing
01:31:49.340uh when the tories lost it was because wild rose was still running separate candidates
01:31:54.620and before then for many years the liberals and the NDP were carving up the left of center vote
01:32:04.600you know there was almost always more than 40 percent of voters sometimes more than 50 percent
01:32:09.020of voters who were choosing liberal and NDP but because they were more or less evenly divided
01:32:15.720they couldn't win very many seats that's all changed now we we have become at least for the
01:32:22.260time being who knows for the future but for the time being it's a very strict two-party system
01:32:26.460all right well thank you very much uh dr flanagan i appreciate your time and uh if you're able to
01:32:33.360we'd love if you could chat back later when we've got some more results sure be i'm home all evening
01:32:38.940so uh just tell me when you want to want me to sign in and i'll come back i don't have the
01:32:44.040international vibe of ted morton but i'm happy to happy to appear oh i'm being careful not to
01:47:12.140as being pretty clearly conservative for a very long time.
01:47:18.760All right. Nigel, so when you were in here, we still didn't have any numbers in yet,
01:47:25.100but we've got some decent numbers in to give us a good sense of things.
01:47:31.220Where do you think things are going right now?
01:47:33.420Tell you what, if those numbers were reversed and it was the NDP that had 50 seats and the UCP that had 30,
01:47:41.320then I think everybody would be saying, well, there it is. There's the NDP sweep.
01:47:44.920so it isn't that it is what it is are we then to say well there may be more results coming in
01:47:53.820and there certainly will be some seats you think of one party now will turn out to be the other
01:47:59.080but it seems like a fairly clear indication as a sample size of the total voting population
01:48:05.760it is a very large number far far higher than you would take a poll and draw conclusions from
01:48:14.740So what we've got, I've got up right now for the reasonably leaning one way or another based on some results and just common sense is 43 NDP, sorry, 43 UCP, 29 NDP.
01:48:31.660Now it's 44 to your bare majority, you know, where you have to break every time, every vote with a speaker tie.
01:48:38.740But we've got UCP of 43 if this holds steady.
01:48:44.840And that still leaves a lot of seats up for grabs.
01:48:50.960So actually, we're going to quickly turn to Jonathan Bradley, who's standing by the UCP headquarters in Calgary at the Big Four.
01:57:52.840When you're in a winning party's headquarters, you can't hear yourself talk, think,
01:57:58.240you can't put your drink down you just have to stand there and watch the screen and every now
01:58:05.000and then there's another piece of good news up goes up and everybody goes yes you know
01:58:08.920i didn't get the sense that that was happening up in edmonton i have also been in a losing room
01:58:16.440and there people are quiet and reflective and say something along the lines of well
01:58:25.020we did our best and i'm proud of my part in it but sometimes the dragon wins i don't get
01:58:33.740just picking up the background from young jonathan there in the over there at the bmo center i don't
01:58:39.800get the feeling that that's the move down there either so i got a winning room and a losing room
01:58:44.540both are putting a good face the losers are putting a good face on it and they'll say they
01:58:50.300fold hard and darn it next time it will be better down here everybody is breathing houston i believe
01:58:58.460so i'm looking here uh very early but we've got uh shannon phillips leading in lethbridge west
01:59:06.060not by a lot 52.8 to 41.5 but i think she's widely expected to to carry that constituency again
01:59:14.460uh lethbridge east there's four votes in the ndp have two uh three of them uh so really not much
01:59:20.940there but that's that's going to be a competitive one to watch uh may have canon ask us we've got
01:59:27.180enough to do at least a poll of the constituency so if you're doing a local poll of the constituency
01:59:33.020you'd want three four hundred that gives you an idea as long as it's spread across
01:59:36.380There, we've got the NDP with 288 votes, UCP at 213, so that's 55.7%, 41.2%. I mean, I wouldn't be shocked if that was reflective of the result. I mean, still lots of room for that to move. I know some of the people involved on the different sides of that campaign.
02:00:01.780I want a knife fight. And I know in particular, the UCP really want that one. Because when you look at the map of Alberta on Election Day, if they can keep the NDP just in the cities, at least the map still looks all blue, right?
02:00:18.160Okay. Dr. Cooper, is there anything in Calgary that's catching your eye right now?
02:00:24.460i'm i'm actually uh somewhat surprised not entirely surprised but uh somewhat surprised
02:00:34.840that the places where the ndp are supposed to have their strength it it it's not sort of as
02:00:39.900overwhelming as as some of my distinguished colleagues at the university were predicting
02:00:44.280it would be but they tended to be more um supportive of the ndp than i am put it that way
02:00:52.320And with respect to the out in Canmore, I think you have to look at which polls have reported in.
02:01:00.020A lot of them probably are in Canmore or Banff.
02:01:50.480or not well we were told somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 000 advanced ballots were
02:01:58.400filled in and we've got a grand total of 39 000 reported so somewhere there's been a breakdown
02:02:06.240in the system i think uh lots of polls uh across the province still haven't or lots of writings
02:02:13.680just still have got zero uh ballots reporting and this is an hour hour and a half after the polls
02:02:21.440close you know i was really looking forward to uh a big rash all at once of the event that was
02:02:29.600coming in but it doesn't seem to have been so is it no it doesn't uh cory just raised a good point
02:02:35.760out here that because of the sun child uh voting station being open until 9 46 perhaps some of the
02:02:44.320results are being uh withheld so they don't they can't be uh accused of skewing uh any sort of
02:02:50.800voting uh uh on sun child this is sort of like how uh in a federal election now people and people in
02:02:57.520the west never be able to found out what uh what happened down east for fear of uh spoiling uh the
02:03:03.920voting out here so uh that's just a guess but it uh to me it's a strange uh strange lack of
02:03:10.800counting going on interesting okay uh thank you dave uh nigel how many seats do you think smith
02:03:23.760has to like how comfortable margin does she have to have to like the knives are coming for no matter1.00
02:03:30.560what if she loses well she probably just walks the plank tonight uh but if she wins i mean unless0.85
02:03:37.960she keeps every single seat which seems to be extraordinarily unlikely almost impossible uh the
02:03:44.380knives are coming for but they're more likely to be uh a bit sharper if the majority is smaller
02:03:49.020uh what kind of padding majority do you think she needs to have the knives stay away for like a good1.00
02:03:56.780six months only six months you say well i would say look if it's less than 50 the fighting is
02:04:04.860the infighting is going to start right away but you know let's say it was 50 that would mean 37
02:04:11.580to the ndp a 13 seat spread you think would be a reasonable protection for a leader against a coup
02:04:20.380it's only because it is daniel smith that we would rather see something she would rather see
02:04:30.900something uh like 55 which of course is a is an unlikely 55 to 32 a pretty unlikely uh result even
02:04:40.460though i see some strange numbers up on the glass over there uh but uh you know hope springs eternal
02:04:46.840I guess for some punters. But no, seriously, I would say that if she doesn't get the 50, then
02:04:53.880she's going to turn from fighting the NDP up to yesterday to fighting the dissidents in her own
02:05:01.400party tomorrow. So Barry, I know you live in Calgary Bow. But you spent a lot of time around
02:05:10.600Calgary varsity, obviously, is a university professor. I mean, university areas tend to lean
02:05:17.860left. You want a constituency to vote left, put a university there. That's what happens.
02:05:24.780But the UCP did win it last time. But do you think they really have any chance of holding
02:05:29.100varsity this time? They've always got a chance, I guess. But one of the things that is not always
02:05:37.180appreciated is that the students vote there and they are not all lefties no but on balance on
02:05:44.380balance they are but they the ucp may do better in varsity than um than you would expect on the
02:05:50.860normal kind of understanding of that i i honestly i don't know i i go up there every day but there
02:05:56.460are very few signs around uh there's there's not much that you can uh the students are gone now
02:06:01.500so i can't talk to them about it i was thinking when you were talking about danielle's future
02:06:07.180If she gets 50, I think she'd be pretty safe. Even if she's under that, she can also persuade her caucus to back her. You don't want to have the seams of the UCP exposed. We've already got the press against her and the NDP and a lot of other people.
02:06:34.740So I think if the UCP has any sense of, let's say, team esprit, they will stick with her.
02:07:29.580Oh, whoa, whoa. We just got a whole bunch of polls come in. We're up to 273 polls at the moment, 110,000 votes cast, 50 seats leading and elected for the UCP, for the NDP.
02:07:50.480it's 36 seats uh leading and uh elected uh calgary acadia still uh only the uh initials
02:07:59.760results before from where chandra was ahead by six uh calgary bow doesn't seem to be anything new
02:08:13.040has been elected in brooks uh medicine hat she's uh where is she sitting at here oh she's got0.98
02:08:20.4001,400 votes to 400 for the NDP, so we'll go out on a limb and declare her elected.
02:08:30.960Lethbridge, still nothing updated there. Morinville, St. Albert, the UCP seems to be
02:08:41.120lengthening their lead by about 500. There's two polls out of 20 reported there, almost 5,000
02:08:47.840votes for UCP, 3662 for the NDP. Red Deer South and Red Deer North both look to be staying UCP
02:09:00.380blue. Sherwood Park actually very, very tight. NDP only leading by nine votes and that's after
02:09:08.760four 22 have come in saying albert ndp by about 900 votes 2 990 to 2039 and uh west yellowhead the
02:09:24.440uh ucp is doubling the ndp vote they've got 4164 votes so another big dump there but really not
02:09:32.800much in the calgary area guys all right thanks dave we'll uh check back in here when the next
02:09:38.960big spurt of votes happens to land i guess thanks gory thanks so nigel guys i mean just talking0.93
02:09:48.960about this i was speaking a bit outside though this is unusual i mean now we're an hour and 40
02:09:54.800minutes after the poll closing and uh there's only about 12 of the votes have been counted
02:10:00.800Have you seen anything like this? This is really unusual. The rumors are starting to turn on social media, which is really dangerous these days.
02:10:09.200You know, it is unusual, right? I mean, I have seen some slow counts, and Lord knows we've seen them in leadership races especially.
02:10:18.240But with the electronic voting, we thought this was fixed, that everything would be coming out quickly.
02:10:26.940Certainly the theory that they're holding off on releasing the vote from the advanced poll,
02:10:33.440just not to prejudice the voting that's going on up there in northern Alberta.
02:10:41.580That one poll didn't open until quarter to ten.
02:11:23.540I mean, that was something I was talking about on the side.
02:11:25.040You know, again, we get the world of conspiracies, the world of worried about results.
02:11:29.500I mean, whatever side loses now, there's going to be some actors kind of saying, you know, there was some funny business, even if there really wasn't necessarily anything going on.
02:11:37.200Yeah, and it's a different kind of funny business than it used to be because with the electronic stuff, most people don't understand it.
02:11:45.320If you're going to mess around with things, you do it in a completely different way.
02:17:39.600actually when it's when it's double that you'll have a much better idea well yeah yeah okay okay
02:17:45.680well i'm gonna check in with mr nailer there and see what's happening on his end he's checked into
02:17:50.480a few more of those writings and uh we'll see what's going on out there it's gonna be a few
02:17:54.480close ones to talk about hey dave how's it uh looking for you there well i'm getting a bit
02:17:59.360frustrated i'm gonna have to leave to go down to the big four building to teach jonathan how to tie
02:18:04.400But other than that, yeah, we've got almost 20% of the polls now in, 163,000 votes cast. Current standings are 53 to 33 for the UCP.
02:18:19.400I think you just mentioned, Corey, the UCP has now got 56% of the popular vote compared to almost 40% for the NDP.
02:18:32.400Calgary Acadia continues to be very close. The NDP leading by six ballots there. Calgary Bow, the UCP has got a bit of a lead, 831-661. Calgary Buffalo, the NDP pulling away, 1,687-971.
02:18:55.980Oh, what else do we want to see? Calgary Edgemont, very close. UCP with 1,019 votes compared to the NDP's 954. Calgary Elbow, 1,631 for the NDP, 1,486 for the UCP.
02:19:19.640Calgary Foothills, close, 1220 for the UCP, 1063 for the NDP.
02:19:26.720Other ridings that have a fair amount of votes in at the moment,
02:19:31.640Calgary Varsity has a lead of 150 votes for the NDP.
02:20:43.7602378 for ucp that one uh too close to call at the moment uh
02:20:54.880that's what i got at the moment so that's uh fully 20 of all ballots cast now uh uh
02:21:01.840cory or voting places reporting 185 000 votes cast all right dave well thanks for that update
02:21:08.880i'm glad that we've got some updates to get from you only go to i imagine they should start pouring
02:21:12.880in pretty fast quickly now let's hope so all right so that was dave naylor now i'm joined by
02:21:19.520a couple of guests uh back in the studio we've got david parker and chris sims here with me
02:21:25.600it's the magic that they swapped out while i was talking to dave uh so finally we got some numbers
02:21:30.560to talk about though finally i mean i i'll start a bit just uh with with david we were talking a
02:21:35.360little bit outside like the thing i already what i see as a loss in this election for albertans is
02:21:40.880now we've had some funny business and i don't i'm not going to read in corruption or fixing
02:21:46.240or anything like that but now we've had this odd unexplained delays and people are there's going to
02:21:51.280be some people who won't trust the bloody results well yeah the problem here is that the whole idea
02:21:56.080behind these tabulators was that they were going to make everything more efficient and quicker and
02:21:59.840we get better results and now we're seeing these huge delays i've watched a lot of elections why
02:22:04.640were we stuck at 65,001 votes for like half an hour i've never seen that before ever in elections
02:22:11.520now i'm sure there's a reason i'm hopeful that they'll give us a reason but the issue here is
02:22:15.520not that i think there's cheating because i actually don't think that there's cheating
02:22:18.640what i'm worried about is there's a lot of people who have been uh traumatized by their government
02:22:23.680and now have a lot of a lack of faith in their government and what we need is an institution
02:22:28.160that people can have faith in and that is why i was advocating for paper ballots it's not because
02:22:32.240i think that they're you know elections alberta's corrupt i don't think that what i think is that
02:22:36.160there's a lot of people who are worried about this and we need to calm their nerves and give
02:22:40.560them their trust in their institutions and this is not building trust in institutions this is
02:22:45.280this is fodder for conspiracy theory right now it certainly is but i mean uh so i'll go to you
02:22:51.040crystal now we've got some updated numbers i think we can start reading a little into this now
02:22:55.200so we've got a 21 reporting uh you know i won't go writing right by writing like dave did or
02:22:59.840constituency by constituency but popular vote is interesting i mean a lot of people were thinking
02:23:04.240the ndp might be even ahead in the popular vote but the seat count would work but right now it's
02:23:09.52055.7 ucp and 40.2 ndp that you know and with uh now with 21 reporting we could start to
02:23:17.920think boy this is starting to look kind of favorable at the very least for the ucp
02:23:22.960you know with our supporters we have thousands of them here in alberta uh by and large they of
02:23:27.440of course, want lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government within the Canadian
02:23:30.940Taxpayers Federation. So I think it stands to reason that most of the email and messages we
02:23:35.940would get at the CTF would be meat and potatoes issues like balance the budget, lower my taxes,
02:23:42.340fight Justin Trudeau's carbon tax, stop him from tripling it, fight just transition. Very economic
02:23:48.900and money level issues. And I think the reason why that's speaking to so many people now
02:23:54.200is because it's so bloody unaffordable like it's just not an option it's not like you're at the
02:23:59.400grocery store and you get to pick between paper and plastic bags if you can't afford groceries
02:24:04.120because food is inflating so much you're darn right that you're going to care most about pocketbook
02:24:08.960issues and so I think that is what we're seeing reflected here because not picking aside one
02:24:14.960party talked a lot about lowering taxes and balancing the budget and putting more money in
02:24:18.940your pocket and the other party didn't they focused more on what issues they care about in
02:24:23.460their social issues. And so I think this might show that more people are cared about pocketbook
02:24:29.320issues right now. Well, I mean, most people aren't like ourselves. We're very ideological. We have
02:24:34.560our views. A lot of people, it doesn't matter what you lean this way or that way. If you can't make
02:24:39.320the mortgage or if you're worried about buying groceries, it doesn't matter. Then you're starting
02:24:43.900to look for who you feel most confident that's going to help you there, even if it perhaps is
02:24:48.000holding their nose and voting. You know, a stat that jumps out at me every year, and it's something
02:24:51.940i check i have since my talk radio days is the food bank use and food bank use is at record high
02:24:58.100levels across canada including here in alberta where we're doing relatively well compared to
02:25:02.660other provinces another stat that really jumped out was from the grocers association it came out
02:25:07.380last week it might be even worse food purchases are down the volume did you see that i did like
02:25:14.740people are buying less less food and so that and so what that means they're getting less nutrients
02:25:20.660that's correct because they're skimping and scratching right and so we're seeing and i
02:25:25.020spoke with one of the ladies that works at the food bank and she said that they're seeing working
02:25:29.300people this is not people who've been thrown out of work you know god love them these are working
02:25:33.720people who are saying i still can't make ends meet so if you're dealing with a populace that's
02:25:38.540like that i think more people vote with their wallet and i think you know again for what i
02:25:43.640would read in i mean there was so much focus on the personality particularly with the mvp that
02:25:47.660was the strategy was if we can undercut the other party, that's fine. But my thoughts were towards
02:25:52.740the tail end, people wanted to hear, okay, we get it. But now what are you going to do? And they
02:25:56.820didn't pivot, you know, if they'd have changed, perhaps. They were really loud on the anti-Smith,
02:26:01.860right? All they wanted to talk about was all of the things that Daniel Smith had said and twisting
02:26:06.500them, making them look as bad as they possibly could. I mean, the whole pension stuff, I think,
02:26:11.260is a really good example, right? They claimed that Daniel Smith wanted to take people's pensions
02:26:15.540away. And that is just a blatant lie. If anything, we wanted to give more people more money from
02:26:22.180their pensions because Alberta puts way more into the CPP than they get back. But of course,
02:26:26.680that's lost in the noise of the constant repeated lie. But I'm quite proud of Albertans. If these
02:26:31.840are going to be the results, I don't know if we've seen any more, but it seems like we're seeing an
02:26:35.520incredible pushback against these lies of 55% UCP right now. It might not stay that way. But if it
02:26:43.120does stay that way i think that will be a a loud critique of the negative campaign that rachel0.99
02:26:48.520notley ran it certainly would and the votes are really coming in at 24 now and it's still holding
02:26:53.62056 ucp uh 52 seats looking at you know leading anyways into to 35 going on there i'd point out
02:27:01.380that 56 is two or three percent higher than jason kenny got in terms of the popular vote yeah it's
02:27:08.960early but uh we're seeing things start to come in maybe i i see uh i'll pull him in quickly uh ted
02:27:13.560morton on deck there too and and do you get an interpretation of somebody who's been you know
02:27:17.420outside watching from a distance if he's able to come in and talk for a little a little bit there
02:27:21.920uh there you are hello mr morton how you doing down there good good i'll just pick up uh on the
02:27:30.180on the economic issue uh when the ndp won in 2015 the people who were happy with that so this is the
02:27:37.740new Alberta. It's younger. People are coming from other places, more diverse, more ethnically
02:27:43.600diverse. It's not the old Alberta of Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein. And of course, they're
02:27:49.600partly right, but they're mostly wrong because people, since the 1960s, 70s, 80s, people have
02:27:59.760been coming to Alberta in large numbers. When I moved to Calgary, the population was 600,000.
02:28:06.100Today, it's, you know, a million two, a million three.
02:28:11.800When I moved there in 1981, everybody I met at the hockey rink, because I had kids in junior hockey, everyone was from Saskatchewan.
02:28:20.120Why were they from Saskatchewan? Because the NDP had killed the economy in Saskatchewan for decades.
02:28:25.320A decade or so later, there were all sorts of young people from B.C.
02:28:28.500Why were they here? Because the NDP was killing the economy in B.C.
02:28:32.300So new people, young people, different types of people, immigrants have been coming to Alberta for the last 40 or 50 years, and they're coming here for economic opportunity.
02:28:42.780And I think on that issue, as both all of your panelists have said tonight, Danielle and the UCP, both the Kenny record and the Danielle Smith campaign have focused on those issues.
02:28:55.860And I think both older Albertans, the majority of older Albertans and the majority of new Albertans and younger Albertans care about those issues.
02:29:03.600And that's why you're seeing the positive results.
02:29:06.500Yeah. So, I mean, it's still a little premature to formally call it, but it's looking quite good.
02:29:11.680But we've also I mean, you can see from that map we've got up no matter what happens to this.
02:29:15.440We've got a very regionally divided province, whoever the new premier may be.
02:29:20.140They've really got quite something to manage with that.
02:29:23.540mean you are there to represent the entire province and it's very clear that edmonton
02:29:27.140and area has solidly rejected the ucp so there's a lot of outreach say if it becomes a premier
02:29:31.940smith to to try and soothe that there there's nothing very new about that either i mean
02:29:42.020i mean the nickname in the pc caucus when i was there it was called not edmonton but redmonton
02:29:48.260um right even i've heard that yeah yeah yeah so again that that's really not anything too new
02:29:57.120no no it's just a very solid uh red these days but uh well again it's a university town it's
02:30:05.500a government town and those are factors that push people to the left because they like more
02:30:10.720government most definitely all right well thank you uh we'll we'll put you back there and check
02:30:16.620in with the numbers again and see where we're going. I think we're getting towards the turf
02:30:20.460where we're going to see some outlets getting tempted to call it. So thank you again Dr. Ted
02:30:28.620Morton. I like how you mentioned people moving here for opportunity. I'm one of them. I thank
02:30:34.140you very much Alberta for taking in British Columbian here. Our family moved here in the
02:30:40.140summer and just speaking personally I can give you a road map. You mentioned the cost of living
02:30:45.820in Vancouver it's about 77 cents per liter is taxes on your gasoline here it's around 32 cents
02:30:53.260per liter folks if you're filling up a pickup truck in Calgary you're saving 50 bucks every
02:30:59.980time you're filling up just in the tax difference between those two cities and so I think that is a
02:31:05.740huge draw and if some of these numbers hold maybe that's the right ticket is to focus on economic
02:31:10.860issues. Absolutely. And something I've said, you know, many times before and other things is New
02:31:15.600Albertans, whether from other countries or they're from other provinces, these are people typically
02:31:19.480of ambition. I mean, that takes some courage. You've got to get up and leave your comfort zone,
02:31:23.560your friends, your family. You're trying to make something more than from where you came from.
02:31:27.520They're not asking somebody to do things for them. And these are people that do things for
02:31:30.400themselves. So, I mean, that's just good people to tend to be conservative voters.
02:31:35.060And it's interesting that we know that the UCP was trying to make this election about economic
02:31:39.140issues. And I think a lot of the pundits and a lot of people said that they weren't being very
02:31:42.800successful in that. But I think maybe these results would speak to what you just said. Maybe
02:31:46.620the average Albertan, which I've always believed is more intelligent than the attacks and is looking
02:31:51.860at the numbers and saying, what is good for me? Albertans love freedom. That's probably part of
02:31:56.820why you came here, I would imagine. And I mean, I was in Ontario, but I moved back here because
02:32:02.520this was the only place that felt like it could be free. So I think we are seeing Albertans
02:32:08.380you have a resounding approval, stamp of approval to the freedom-based message of Danielle Smith
02:32:13.880right now. What are the numbers we haven't seen? Yeah, well, I'll go to a quick check-in with
02:32:17.660Arthur, but somebody else, one of the commenters, is asking, because the numbers have been updating.
02:32:20.600So, well, perhaps while Arthur comes in, I'll give a quick rundown of what I'm seeing now,
02:32:24.300because they're changing fast, finally. It was so agonizing. Oh, it was horrible.
02:32:27.920So we've got 288,000 votes counted now, 27%. That is working out to a popular vote of, again,
02:32:36.800still sitting at about 56% for the UCP, a little over 40% for the NDP. And of course, the other
02:32:43.380parties just aren't a factor in this election. And roughly that's translating in the leading
02:32:48.160in seats then to 50 for the UCP and 36 for NDP at this time. I guess Rocky Mountain House hasn't,
02:32:55.500or is it Airdrie East still? Oh yeah, you probably. No worries. Well, I want to quickly
02:33:01.920check in with r3 he's at ndp uh headquarters there hey arthur uh i'm wondering as results
02:33:07.120are coming in are you starting to get a feel i mean i it wouldn't be you know you'd be getting
02:33:11.520pretty nervous if you're an ndp supporter right now um the broom is quite loud in here uh in here
02:33:19.440we just had a huge chair janice erwin is actually just sat behind me uh taking an interview with
02:33:26.400with another media outlet, Edmonton Highwood's Norwood, she received 2,417 votes, UCP in
02:33:37.000second place at 923, and of course not all of the polls are in yet.
02:33:46.300You know, the rule here is starting to get as static as more NDP supporters pour in,
02:33:53.400You know, they're completely optimistic that Rachel Notley will be the next Premier of Alberta.
02:34:00.720But, I mean, we have to wait until the rest of the results, of course, come in.
02:34:06.680Right now, we have a total of 219,000 votes in.
02:38:13.500he's the solidarity movement right or is he the
02:38:16.980independence party uh something solid coming out of them solidarity 952 uh might as well just run
02:38:24.260down a few of these uh cory the liberal party 1025 the alberta party 2946 the commies as mentioned
02:38:33.620223. The Greenies, 2,848. The Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, 19. The Reform Party of Alberta, 29. The Buffalo Party of Alberta, 20. The Independence Party of Alberta, 994.
02:38:53.620The Wild Rose Independence Party, 286.
02:38:59.760Man, what a difference from the last election.
02:39:02.660So right now we've got 31% of all polls reporting, 350,000 ballots counted.
02:39:10.960And it seems to be holding out now at 51 UCP, 36 for the new Democrats.
02:45:55.820And they seemed to peter out at the end.
02:45:57.660I mean, I talked to people, and they were, they keep hearing the same attack ad about, you know, spending for doctor's appointments or having to pay for doctor's appointments or so on and so forth.
02:46:09.120And all these attacks, they kind of, they fell flat.
02:46:13.800And people just if you if you keep hearing the same thing over and over again, it kind of it disrupts the message.
02:46:19.180And I did I do think that the back half of the campaign, I was really impressed with the UCP's message discipline.
02:46:25.220They talked about the issues. They talked about what they were going to do.
02:46:28.300They didn't focus on the fact that the NDP didn't really have much of a campaign platform other than attack, attack, attack.
02:46:35.060So I do think that that these are the factors that are coming in.
02:46:38.560The polls showed that the UCP had momentum coming in, and I think it's a lot of that has to do with message discipline and just, you know, the fact that the NDP came out too hard, too fast, and ran out of attacks about midway through the campaign.
02:46:55.900Well, to be fair, I mean, Premier Smith gave them a lot of ammunition to work with.
02:47:00.100I mean, there were a lot of very questionable statements that there was thousands of hours of podcast time of radio time, you know, shows all over the place. But I mean, you can only dig it up so much. I mean, the people who are going to be put off by something she said in a past radio show or a podcast or something, they were put off in the first week. You know, when you keep compounding, it didn't compound into an added effect, I think, and losing this.
02:47:25.340Well, the major attacks were that the UCP is going to make you pay to see your family physician, but we know that that's not even possible. Under the Canada Health Act, it's not even possible. And she's always supported a single-payer public system with mixed private public delivery. And we're already seeing just a few changes. We're seeing ambulances. When was the last code read?
02:47:49.100every other day we were reporting on this uh emergency rooms across the province were closing
02:47:53.980every other weekend but we're seeing that start to stabilize we're seeing more doctors we're seeing
02:47:58.220more nurses come into the province we've had uh the the um most in migration of any province in0.98
02:48:04.860the country right now uh we're continuing to grow and we're seeing some of the first policies that
02:48:11.100she put in when she became the premier they're starting to actually have an effect and people
02:48:15.740are starting to see these things change in their daily lives so you know if we continue down this
02:48:21.100track well how long until the surgical wait times are dropped significantly with uh with the new
02:48:26.860system that we're we're putting in place well that was quite a gamble on the part of danielle smith0.93
02:48:31.740when she said she committed back in january said we're going to make these changes to the ems and
02:48:35.740she said we're going to see results by spring she was confident in it but that could have backfired
02:48:39.820terribly because if those results hadn't been seen i know if i was an ndp strategist i'd be
02:48:43.740playing that quote and said, look what she said in January. Obviously, the rest of her health care1.00
02:48:47.820policies aren't going to play. And I mean, it was difficult for her to campaign against herself. I
02:48:52.200mean, some of those quotes, if you took them direct, though, she did say outright that perhaps
02:48:56.460people should pay, you know, when they just do a doctor's visit or things like that. That scares a
02:48:59.660lot of people. The NDP smelled blood in the water with that, but I guess it didn't resonate in the
02:49:04.500end. Yeah, I think just because it was such a negative approach that they had throughout the
02:49:09.900campaign. They had a difficult time really promoting policies that were positive. So just
02:49:16.220by taking such a negative approach, it made it difficult for them to promote the things that
02:49:20.300they were going to do to help. I mean, I can't really list off very many that I saw on the
02:49:25.880multitudes of TV ads and other media sources where I saw NDP attack ads. I didn't see anything
02:49:32.640talking about what the NDP was going to do. And a big reason for that is that they can't really
02:49:36.360campaign on their record they for four years they were in government we saw unemployment go up you
02:49:42.920know rapidly we saw one of the deepest recessions in the history of this province and and so for
02:49:47.540them i think they had to they they the only approach they could take that made sense to them
02:49:52.320was it was an approach that really was it was a negative approach it was to try and make
02:49:56.880danielle seem like a crazy angry conspiracy theorist and and at the end of the day i think0.96
02:50:03.140that the way that she handled herself throughout the campaign she was very calm she was very
02:50:07.740measured she was very academic and intellectual in her approach throughout the campaign and i
02:50:12.640think it kind of it eased a lot of fears that amongst the population about a lot of the things
02:50:18.460that the ndp were using as attacks um whether that be health care or or the economy or really
02:50:25.320or a crime right like we have all yeah that was another big one that was uh really i think that
02:50:32.020It probably really affected a lot of people.
02:50:33.760We spoke earlier with the last panelists about how, you know, meat and potatoes issues such as paying the bills.
02:50:40.740I mean, in the urban battleground, Calgary, Edmonton, when at least traditionally the NDP is going to take that permissive approach, things with drug enablement.
02:50:50.340I mean, we've got a lot of battles going on in every city, a very bad problem of addiction everywhere.
02:50:55.620Again, Premier Smith took a very definitive stance on approaching policing and addictions treatment.
02:51:51.720That's not just a 28-day program. That could be up to a year. That could be more, depending on what the client's needs are. You know, this is something that no other government in this country has actually tried, which is taking the addiction crisis head on and actually doing something about it.
02:52:08.660so far, they've done nothing but to push it off, you know, to, we started with the needle
02:52:15.720exchanges and the clean needles, and then we went to safe injection, and we've just seen nothing
02:52:20.080but chaos and deaths. And I think the numbers that came out, I think it was actually a National Post
02:52:26.700article that came out in the last week. Right now, just at the beginning of this year,
02:52:32.400Alberta's numbers are down significantly, and British Columbia's numbers are almost double.
02:52:36.760So when you have, you know, an NDP government that is being echoed by the NDP party in Alberta, you know, they're already failing there and they want to champion the exact same programs here.
02:52:49.940Well, you know what? We can compare side by side which program's actually doing better.
02:52:55.200And, you know, the NDP didn't come up with a better idea.
02:52:57.940They didn't, you know, they said, OK, we're going to keep expanding recovery.
02:53:01.780OK, but what else? You know, where's the policing and security that comes with it?
02:53:05.660You know, what about the random attacks? What about the stabbings? What about the murders? What about the open air drug use? And these aren't just Calgary Edmonton problems. You know, I did, I lost the nomination in Cypress Medicine Hat. This is a Medicine Hat issue. This is a Lethbridge issue. This is a Red Deer, Grand Prairie, Fort McMurray.
02:53:22.280There is not a single community in this province that the mental health and addictions crisis isn't affecting.
02:53:28.840And, you know, the UCP has basically built their entire health care and their plan around health care, policing, security, mental health, addictions, everything.
02:53:39.480It starts around this recovery model and grows out.
03:03:01.460Exactly. And so so I'm on the east side and I live in the north side. Well, you know, we'll see.
03:03:06.820We'll see. You know, for me, honestly, what matters is how much money people are keeping in their pockets and how what the size of government is and how, you know, nasty it can become.
03:03:15.400And so the north side of Lethbridge, for example, is a bit more working class, whereas the south side, you've got more voter concentration around the hospital, for example.
03:03:24.320And so that could, depending on which polling station is in, that could be how it's showing up, depending that way.
03:03:29.920I find it again very interesting how for the most part I've been getting messages about issues
03:03:36.920people write to us about their pocketbook about not being able to afford to fill up their vehicles
03:03:42.260about not being able to afford food what kind of prospects their kid is going to have for a job
03:03:47.040what I find interesting is that a lot of us especially those of us who've been in media for
03:03:51.680a long time can get kind of caught up in the Hollywood you know back and forth fun game show
03:03:56.480thing of politics most normal people don't care about politicians what you know they don't and
03:04:02.720i'm sorry to burst people's bubble to me this is just the olympics but most normal people don't
03:04:07.520care and so i think that's where they drift away from the whole horse race personality who said
03:04:13.360what blah blah blah and they're really about pocketbook issues well and twitter isn't the
03:04:18.400real world no and i spend a lot of time there i know that i have a good time on twitter and that
03:04:22.960But if Twitter was the reality, we'd have probably 82 NDP seats right now or something already.
03:04:29.600So, I mean, they've dominated social media, but Twitter accounts can't vote, thankfully, yet.
03:04:33.280There you go. And the real people that are going out to vote, I think,
03:04:36.400represent the folks that you're talking about. The real people that are going out to vote,
03:04:41.040they're the ones who are motivated because they have concerns about what is happening within
03:04:45.040their household, the income that they're bringing in versus what they're going to be having to put
03:04:48.720out there and I think that probably the stake in the ground I believe happened to be when the NDP
03:04:55.360announced that they were going to be upping a corporate tax because most people understand
03:04:59.840that at the end of the day there is only one taxpayer and it doesn't matter where you're going
03:05:04.400to go and increase that tax everybody should understand at this point who's going to be the
03:05:08.320responsible voter going out there they understand that at the end of the day that means less money
03:05:13.200coming into their household. And what's really interesting about that corporate tax hike
03:05:17.680bear with me because it sounds counterintuitive when the corporate tax rate is low when it's eight
03:05:23.280percent the government took in more money i'll repeat that when the corporate tax rate was at
03:05:30.640eight percent it took in around six billion dollars from that tax when it was floating at
03:05:36.160around twelve percent it took in around four billion dollars now why is that of course that's
03:05:42.080because more people are opening up shop more people are physically moving here more people
03:05:46.160are investing and actually starting businesses so it sounds counterintuitive right if you want to
03:05:50.960make more money from something just increase the price but that's not how that works because the
03:05:54.960corporation the business will find other ways of cutting costs they might leave depends it might
03:05:59.840downsize it may not hire those extra folks it all depends but actually at that lower corporate tax
03:06:04.960rate you take in more revenue as a government and i think we're going to see that people are going
03:06:09.840to gravitate towards that mentality because you know at the end of the day what we're all looking
03:06:15.840for is to be able to have make our money go a lot longer so those are the people that i think uh have
03:06:22.240gone out to vote today i'm counting on that um and at the at the end of our results today i think that
03:06:27.600we're going to see a broader conservative um i guess mindset that is going to be pervasive more
03:06:33.920more so across the province i don't think that the ndp coming in in 2015 was going to be something
03:06:40.720that was going to trend in the future i never believed that um the the day that i lost my seat
03:06:46.000um and and that is because i i think that albertans are by and large people who uh believe
03:06:52.560strongly in uh stimulating our economy uh using principles that are conservative principles fiscal
03:06:59.280fiscal principles that are that are conservative and you know at the at the end of tonight's show
03:07:05.840my thinking is that Rachel Notley unfortunately is probably going to have to decide whether or0.99
03:07:11.840not she'll continue as the leader of the party and they're going to have to do some thinking
03:07:16.000about where they're headed in the future. I also think that there's going to be some
03:07:19.920interesting makings and certainly some inroads that the Alberta party could make as a result of
03:07:24.800whatever happens tonight which I believe is going to be a UCP victory. At the end of the day I don't
03:07:29.680really think that similar to Saskatchewan how people have left Saskatchewan to come to Alberta
03:07:35.040I believe it was you earlier who said that.
03:08:35.060I had spoken with Professor Flanagan on my show a little while back
03:08:39.860and he pointed out to me, though, he said, look, as I said, with no right split, this should be
03:08:43.960easy. He says, Alberta isn't as right as you think it is0.98
03:08:47.000before you had a Liberal Party that was also cutting up things kind of on the left
03:08:51.900so you could afford to have this. Right now we are truly two-party
03:08:55.860and this might be the, it's been the first time in a long time, might be the first time for a long time coming
03:08:59.580because parties will start sprouting up perhaps and expanding,
03:09:02.580but it gives a good measure of the province then right now.
03:09:04.900So, I mean, if we're looking at a 52% UCP, 44% NDP,
03:09:11.540that's a conservative-leaning province, but not overwhelmingly so.
03:09:14.200It doesn't look like our federal outlook does.
03:09:15.580And it doesn't look like it used to look years ago.
03:09:19.760However, I found it interesting, I heard a commentator point this out,
03:09:22.980that for the longest time, whatever term you want to use
03:09:26.940the Conservative Party that existed here in Alberta, it encompassed so many more people within that,
03:09:32.940right? You'd have a much wider range of views within that very, very big blue tent. Now it
03:09:38.300seems to be concentrating more into more firm, clear philosophy and ideology, and maybe that's
03:09:44.460why we're looking at more of a two-party system right now. No matter what happens, we're at 51%
03:09:50.460you said ballots are in it's encouraging to see people get a voice and have some hope one of the
03:09:57.260things that we do at the taxpayers federation is try to empower people and give them agency
03:10:01.900into voice and tell them you know what you can go to your city council and you can monitor them
03:10:07.580uh you can write that letter you can call that mla because you are their boss and i find giving0.82
03:10:13.180people that agency really brings up their level of hope and it involves and includes participation
03:10:19.500There you go. And, you know, I love that you brought that up because one of the things that I was hoping to be able to say tonight is about the leadership of Danielle Smith. You know, she didn't have a lot of runway when she won the leadership, you know, back six whatever months, however many months ago. That's not a lot of time. And I'll tell you that that to me is probably the most amazing comeback politically I've ever seen.
03:10:42.240And I think that Danielle, her greatest strength, which is also her greatest weakness, is the fact that she is so open minded.
03:10:50.300Now, that's very rare, because quite often when a leader gets into the seat, they start to lose touch.
03:10:56.580And it's so easy. I can tell you from personal experience, you get sucked into.
03:11:07.020I don't know who coined it. I don't know where it came from. But we certainly, you know, we poke each other and say dome disease. And you know what, I think that Danielle is going to have the next if she wins tonight, which I believe she will, the next six to nine months. What I hope to see from her is, I don't feel like I think the people need to rally around and I'm speaking directly to our party. We need to rally around this leader. We need to be able to say to her that she doesn't need to apologize anymore.
03:11:37.020for all of the things that she may have said in the past.
03:11:40.320Being a media personality versus being a leader of a party are two different things.
03:11:45.100And I think that if she continues doing the same things that she has done so far,
03:11:49.580which is listen to people, listen to the grassroots of the organization,
03:11:53.740she's not always going to be able to say yes to everybody.
03:11:57.620That's just by virtue of being in that seat of authority and power.
03:12:01.780But I know for a fact my experience so far has been she is still reachable.
03:12:07.020She is still somebody who's in touch with, you know, if you have her personal cell phone number, she will continue to embrace those people who got her there in the first place.
03:12:16.720And I really think that the future ahead for her is going to be great.
03:12:37.020hey uh cory how's it going good good good sorry sorry didn't wake wake up uh yeah 50 not really
03:12:47.600much news cory uh 54 percent of uh writings now uh uh polls now reporting 782 988 ballots cast
03:12:59.900which means so far we've got a turnout of about 28 percent where that ends up of course up in the
03:13:07.020air and we're holding at 53 seats elected and leading for the ucp and 34 seats elected and
03:13:16.460leading for the ndp in terms of percentage of the vote ndp at 52 and a half percent and the ndp at
03:13:26.22043.7%. Close ridings, Calgary, Acadia, Tyler Shandro now ahead by 10 votes. So it's more than half of the, or just under half of the polls counted.
03:13:44.980UCP ahead by a couple of hundred and actually by 400.
03:13:48.920The number just got updated in Calgary Bow.
03:13:52.400Calgary Curry appears to be gone to the NDP, 8,211 votes to 6,325.
03:14:02.360Calgary Edgemont is still fairly close with the UCP leading by less than 400 votes.
03:14:10.060Calgary Elbow is also close with the NDP up by about 150 votes.
03:14:16.620Don't trust my math here, though, Corey.
03:16:24.82048.1% NDP, 46.6% UCP, and still a fair number of votes still to come.
03:16:33.240And if you look at the vote split there, I think that may be part of the reason that we're seeing, you know, this kind of like push and pull.
03:25:05.940If Canmore and Bank didn't get out and didn't get out to vote,
03:25:09.640Miranda's going to win this one handily.0.98
03:25:12.180Well, that's what it's increasingly starting to look like.
03:25:15.540And if the NDP is not getting Banff Kananaskis, their path to victory gets narrower and narrower and narrower.
03:25:23.940If that's the case, because as he was talking, I was thinking the same thing is that, you know, towards the end, there was a lot of a lot of light shone on Miranda's campaign and that, you know, there was a possibility that it was really neck and neck.
03:25:39.340And that, hopefully, in my mind, I was hoping, was going to get people to be motivated to head out to the polls.
03:25:47.560And I think that might be what we're seeing here.
03:26:06.500yeah and i i do i actually do think that is beneficial to her because there was a lot going
03:26:11.860on at that time that was it wasn't just unpopular within the conservative movement it was something
03:26:16.900that was unpopular across the across the board so i do think that that the efforts that she took
03:26:22.820to stick to her true values and to really be herself when she was sitting in that legislative
03:26:28.740seat really has done her a huge service and and i hope she continues to do that and continues to
03:26:35.620really just be herself uh as an MLA and I think she'll be safe there for a while she keeps doing
03:26:41.220that yeah I think you've given a great description of her and you know that's not easy to do and in
03:26:46.100particular um you know here's my plug for women in politics it's difficult you know and it doesn't1.00
03:26:51.380matter I don't think it matters anyways uh which party you're in and so I she was pretty impressive0.99
03:26:57.380uh to stand up to Jason Kenney um that that takes a lot of courage he is a formidable formidable
03:27:05.060politician. He's very intimidating. Yeah, I've found that way. Well, I don't think he's necessarily
03:27:10.320intimidating. I'm a JCPenney fan. I try to avoid arguing with him in public settings.
03:27:17.760Well, he would probably win, though. He's very intellectual. Yeah, exactly. So, we've got Dr.
03:27:22.900Ted Morton standing by. Another favorite. Another favorite. Mr. Morton. What is the saying? I'm
03:27:29.740supporting Morton. Yeah, well, you know, he's easy to support. Yeah. I got lost on the highway with
03:27:34.980Dr. Morton. Yep, last. I'm not sure it sounds appropriate. Well, it totally is. It was
03:27:42.820Len Weber and him and they gave each other the wrong directions. I was in the back seat just
03:27:46.820going, yeah, I'm just a candidate. But it was a great ride. We had a great conversation.
03:27:53.460We had great conversations, Ted. All right. Well, Dr. Morton, what we're seeing now,
03:27:59.700Now, I'm not sure if you heard, but, you know, I told Josh here, if I was a betting man, I'd go all in on blue.
03:28:08.620I'm not quite ready to 100% call it yet because I'm stubborn because there's still a lot of polls to come in on some of these key roddings.
03:28:18.840But the path to an NDP victory gets narrower and narrower and narrower.
03:28:24.900it's starting to look like the hot gates and there's just no way for the ndp to get through
03:28:30.900them at this point um uh do you are you seeing any path uh dr morton for the ndp to make it to 44 at
03:28:40.140this point no and i'm sticking with my early prediction of 50 seats that i think i made two
03:28:45.880and a half hours ago so i think i'm going to be pretty close to that i was just going to add one
03:28:50.680thing derek that i think if you go back through a couple hours of your coverage here tonight i don't
03:28:55.960think the words oil and gas have even been mentioned by anybody which is pretty crazy uh
03:29:02.040you know yeah pretty crazy because this province before oil and gas was discovered there were less
03:29:09.000than a million people it was the poorest province in canada and now they're four and a half million
03:29:12.840people it's the richest province in canada and a third of the people work directly or indirectly
03:29:18.280in it and the rest of us who don't realize that what we do depends on how active that is and
03:29:24.760i think danielle's this was a key part of the success because the ndp uh rachel notley belongs
03:29:32.680to a party that's holding up uh the liberals and uh justin and his anti-oil and anti-gas policies
03:29:42.200and i think people know that and that helped and i think the good news here is there's no reason
03:29:49.560the next couple of decades can't be just as affluent just as successful just as much opportunity
03:29:54.680for alberta families as the last couple because the events of just the last 14 15 months the war
03:30:02.360in europe and what china is doing in the middle east suddenly energy security is easily out of par
03:30:09.000if not ahead of climate change. And people realize that both for the cost of living and also for
03:30:15.500national security, particularly for the Western democracies and democracies. So the not Western
03:30:21.380democracies. So suddenly the door of opportunity is really opening again, not just for Alberta,
03:30:27.120for Canada. Canada, we're the third largest oil reserves in the world, fifth largest in natural
03:30:32.820gas. Natural gas is the transition fuel on climate change, all sorts of opportunity. I think,
03:30:38.660Danielle and UCP communicated that. If we can get Pierre next in Ottawa, it's going to be a great
03:30:46.380couple of decades for this country. Josh? Yeah, I just wanted to kind of piggyback on that.
03:30:52.760That makes a great point about energy policy. Energy is the industry that powers every other
03:30:57.100industry. And we are facing a national and global, not financial crisis, but an affordability crisis
03:31:04.180that is driven not just by monetary policy and fiscal policy, but in a lot of ways, energy policy.
03:31:09.940And Ted mentioned that the war in Ukraine has impacted energy prices.
03:31:15.660Well, that's the downfall of poor energy policy on the behalf of Western governments, including Canada, and probably especially Canada.
03:31:26.900Alberta has energy resources that can help alleviate some of these pricing pressures across the world.
03:31:34.440We aren't able to export it. We've got export bottlenecks caused by federal policies.
03:31:39.540And I thought that the UCP government did a really good job in really highlighting the coalition between not just Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau,
03:31:50.740but also with Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau over her term in office,
03:31:56.040where she effectively, that NDP government for four years under her reign,0.98
03:31:59.600was a doormat for the federal government when it comes to their climate change policies
03:32:03.680that really hindered our ability to provide reasonably priced energy products
03:32:09.020to the rest of the world and even to our own people.
03:32:11.440So I'm going to try to make a couple of writings.
03:32:13.840Sherwood Park, it looks very likely now.
03:32:17.040Jordan Walker goes down to defeat to the NDPs.
03:32:19.940kyle kasowski uh marie renault uh expected to be re-elected but the fact that she's0.98
03:32:28.580in the donut of edmonton technically it's like she's saint albert uh she looks to be
03:32:33.140say uh pretty securely re-elected but uh it looks like the only two so-called donut seats
03:32:41.060around edmonton um the only two that the ndp are winning is one that they already held
03:32:47.300st albert and they're picking up just one sherwood park and they're not getting stressed
03:32:52.420kona sherwood park there's no donut for the ndp no donut no path no donut no path are you guys
03:33:01.620ready for it are we ready are you ready are we ready are you guys ready for it are we allowed
03:33:06.980drum roll uh jeez i wish we had the audio ready for a drum roll i'm calling it uh western center
03:33:13.460gonna project a ucp majority government tonight oh i mean i'm supposed to be non-partisan sorry
03:33:20.420i am you guys are just guessing you guys oh yeah you want you guys i'm trying to i'm trying to play
03:33:25.380you guys do whatever you want is there like graphics going on right now there are there are
03:33:31.300you know like we're serious we got we got serious graphics yeah all right we got a ucp majority
03:33:36.980Are we the first to make a projection?
03:55:21.720It does look a lot like the UCP vote just stayed and the NDP vote took itself and added a large chunk of the Alberta party vote on top of that.
03:55:59.340Didn't seem to have really gone anywhere.
03:56:01.460It's just the Alberta Party vote kind of moved around.
03:56:04.160That's it. And now we have totally, finally consolidated into an ultimate two-party system.
03:56:10.840Now, this being Alberta, I expect us to have 20 parties next time because, I mean, this wouldn't be Alberta if nothing ever makes sense more than six months, right?
03:56:20.440In six months, none of your assumptions are going to make sense anymore.
03:56:23.920But for now, we have the most two-party system of anywhere in Canada.
03:56:27.960This is comparable to like an American state election at this point.
03:56:31.060Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Manitoba would be the only comparable, I guess, with their NDP PC going back and forth.
03:56:38.340But yeah, I'm going to we're going to go to Dave Naylor now in the newsroom.
03:56:42.140I know some of the campaigns have got people up on the stage speaking.
03:56:45.820None of the leaders speaking yet, but I'm not sure if anyone's ready to tut their victory or concede defeat.
03:56:53.040But Dave, do you know yet? Is anyone prepared to concede defeat yet?
03:56:56.940Well, not that I've heard, Derek. I just got off the phone with Jonathan Bradley from the UCP headquarters in the Big Four building. He says that Danielle Smith's expected to take the stage any minute, which kind of surprises me. I thought she might wait and let Miss Notley go first with a concession speech.
03:57:18.700I haven't heard from Arthur he texted me now says they're just waiting for
03:57:25.840not only any moment so I expect though we'll be getting some leaders very
03:57:29.380quickly there so we're expect so you're saying that the Smith UCP campaign is
03:57:36.520waiting on not Lee to give a concession first that would be my guess that's
03:57:41.940than usually the normal protocol but oh your sound is very sketchy Dave are we
03:57:55.920hearing anything from Dave okay I guess we've lost Dave for now have we got
03:58:05.440Arthur Arthur standing by I'm not sure I can't see his video but waiting for
03:58:10.760Arthur here. Okay. Uh, all right. Well, uh, uh, we're going to, uh, Dave, uh, can you give us
03:58:22.520a bit of a riding by riding breakdown, uh, for now? Uh, just kind of run us through some of the
03:58:27.420key races. Yeah. The Derek not least taking the stage. Okay. Okay. We're going to go to Rachel
04:07:55.720And unfortunately for her, blue suit or not, it didn't come off well.
04:08:00.380I think she's still wearing a blue suit right now.0.99
04:08:02.820It's the unwilling ghost of Peter Locke, I guess.
04:08:06.200She's trying to invoke that mantle of small-c progressive conservatism.1.00
04:08:13.360Anyway, whatever it is that she's trying to message, if she's trying to message anything, of course she feels upset.
04:08:19.660She had a tough job to do, and unfortunately for her, she had somebody in Danielle Smith who could take that kind of persifrage and just smile and carry on and say what she was going to say.
04:08:33.860So I'm actually just getting word now from the newsroom, not confirmed, but we believe she's actually just said she's going to stay on as opposition leader.
04:08:42.600now being you know conservatives or leaders are not allowed to lose in alberta there's a
04:08:50.380like if daniel smith had lost tonight there's a 100 chance she resigns because she doesn't
04:08:55.760she's gone like there's no way to stay on uh but i mean the expectations for the ndp in alberta
04:09:01.460are very different and the end i think the ndp's culture in general nationally generally has
04:09:06.440longer-term leaders who are allowed to lose elections and come on they're not they have
04:09:36.760I suspect in the next general election we're
04:09:38.860going to see a different face at the front of you.
04:09:40.920Well, that's a good question. I know a lot of people think that the NDP will get rid of her. I think she's got a lock on the NDP because she pulls so much higher than the NDP does. If Richard Alley wants to stay and fight a, what would this be, a third or fourth election? See, 2015, 1923, a fourth election. If she would want to fight a fourth election as NDP leader, my gut tells me she'd probably have the backing of the party to do it.
04:10:12.860Now, she might be saying for now, okay, I'll stay on as opposition leader, kind of doing the opposite of a Jim Prentice, which is, oh, if I can't be premier, I don't even want to be an MLA.
04:13:41.820It's been for almost its entire history.
04:13:44.200They have a beautiful conscience, but they never form power.
04:13:46.500Corey, I know we're going to be bringing Rachel Notley in soon. Actually, if Arthur Green is able to sit still for a few minutes, we want to bring him in from the Alberta NDP headquarters. Arthur, if you could just sit. Yeah, we're going to get him in. We're going to bring Arthur in from the NDP headquarters soon.
04:14:04.980And soon we're going to be going to the UCP headquarters at the Big Four in Calgary for the victory speech of Danielle Smith.
04:14:24.560Are they going for, you know, you were right about Nenshi kind of auditioning for NDP leader.
04:14:29.040But where do you think that party goes?
04:14:30.760Is it going to get like a kind of a Calgary so-called moderate liberal like Nenshi, Todd Hirsch, or are they going to go for like a Shannon Phillips or Sarah Hoffman, that kind of thing?
04:14:40.120Well, I think a race would really determine that.
04:14:42.000You know, if they had a race against a more pragmatic sort of, you know, progressive sort, like Nenshi, as you said, versus Hoffman or even Shannon Phillips, the members will make that choice.
04:14:53.220And that choice will be between, are we actually going to try and win government again, or are we going to take up our traditional role of being the voice of left-wing conscience in the legislature and accept that we won't win again?
04:15:05.860So that'll really, I think that'll be quite a moment for the members to try and determine which they want.
04:15:10.960Because I think a lot of the idealists in there don't like the moderation and the pragmatism, and they want to, you know, unlike the conservative end of things,
04:15:18.860they didn't spawn a bunch of break-off parties when the ideologues get frustrated. But all the
04:15:23.740same, I'm sure there's a lot of members who would rather they kind of pulled back to their
04:15:26.620traditional left spot. So assuming Premier Notley does, you know, pull the pin and bring about a
04:15:33.480race, it's going to be quite a decision for that party to make. You know, about 25 years ago,
04:15:38.000the NDP in Saskatchewan were the kind of moderate party that Derek is talking about. Romano. Yeah,
04:15:43.720those guys. And, you know, they did a good job, actually. Everybody thought we were the NDP.
04:15:49.300No, they were kind of more like a social critic, I don't know, to be honest with you.
04:15:53.280But I don't think that's what it's – I don't get the sense that that's going to appeal to people like Rodney O'Reilly and the rest of them.
04:16:00.720Well, I want to bring in Arthur Green from Edmonton.
04:16:03.240He is sort of at the NDP's headquarters in Edmonton.
04:16:08.880I know they've put him in a dark closet somewhere.
04:16:13.160There was some joking around here that Arthur is in the closet or something like that.
04:16:19.140Arthur, you were in the room as Rachel Notley gave her concession speech.
04:16:30.840But, you know, definitely some bright spots for the NDP there.
04:16:34.260But, you know, beneath the brave face, what was the genuine sentiment in the room?
04:16:40.060The gender and sentiment in the room seemed to be sorrow, Derek.
04:16:45.720I mean, they were happy that they are forming the largest opposition that they've ever formed in Alberta history.
04:16:53.780But I think there was quite the sense of disappointment that they didn't form the government here in Alberta.
04:17:02.580Like you said, I was in the back of the room.
04:17:05.000I'm just outside here now as people are exiting NDP headquarters.
04:17:10.060here at Edmonton. A lot of somber faces. You know, they really thought that Rachel was
04:17:17.360going to be elected as Premier of Alberta. Of course, we all saw that's not the case.
04:17:25.320You know, Rachel did say that she did call Danielle Smith, UCP leader Danielle Smith
04:17:30.360on the phone. Congratulate her. You know, she was pretty humble in giving her speech.0.99
04:17:35.340She didn't mention if she's going to step down as the opposition leader, but, of course, the future will tell Derek if that happens or not.
04:17:46.540Well, she did say she would continue as opposition leader, but I guess it did not give a more definitive answer than that.
04:17:54.560I think it kind of leaves the door open for her to get some time.
04:17:58.940I mean, as we were saying, conservative leaders are you win or you die.
04:18:03.720In fact, even if you win, you might still die.
04:18:07.580I think that Danielle's over the line.
04:18:58.660We, you know, we kind of, she got into thanking everyone and her dog at some point, which is important, but not terribly exciting for our viewers.
04:31:58.540Big smiles from Premier Danielle Smith as her party will return.
04:32:09.980All right, while we just finished watching re-elected Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
04:32:19.060give her victory speech, short, actually significantly shorter than not least concession
04:32:25.580speech but um i think pretty boisterous uh relatively humble though for someone who just
04:32:33.160won but she used the term uh that i'm actually kind of angry because people think i plagiarized
04:32:38.960my column on this but i wrote it before she spoke uh it was the miracle on the prairies
04:32:44.200kind of uh mirroring what happened with uh ralph klein 1993 took over from um don getty lost a
04:32:52.220comparable number of seats, but everyone expected them to lose government. Instead, they just lost
04:32:57.360seats but held on to government. The miracle on the prairies. Well, she's a big Ralph Klein fan,
04:33:02.960so that would have been a very natural thing for her to even have to think of that. It was a nice
04:33:09.180speech. It hit exactly the right note. This is now her premiership. Some people say, well, if you
04:33:17.300kind of become premier by becoming leader of the party between elections, okay, she campaigned for
04:33:24.380this, she's got it, it's what, 52, 35, 51, 36, we're not quite sure at the moment, but this is her
04:33:33.080victory, and she can celebrate tonight, so than her husband, Dave. Corey, I mean, it's a loss of
04:33:42.860seats but a year ago today uh every poll showed used to be headed for a catastrophic and historical
04:33:49.220defeat so uh i don't know should the ucp how down should they be on themselves if they lost a good
04:33:56.060number of seats well it's unfortunate they're gonna lose some caucus members there's been some
04:34:00.340turnover but uh they pulled it's been pulled out of the fire and and premier smith has as as nigel
04:34:06.600said a mandate no more of this undercutting no more saying she doesn't deserve to be there0.87
04:34:09.860she took it to Albertans and now she has a majority mandate to act on what she's been
04:34:15.460promising and to govern. I think it's time to push back against it. It's been like that since
04:34:22.460the leadership began with every tall forehead and academic, everyone else saying Daniel Smith
04:34:27.780was going to be a disaster. Well, I believe it hit a low of 22% supported under Premier
04:34:32.820Kenney at one point. And to having a majority government at this point, this is doing quite well.
04:34:39.860Yeah, I mean, it's a few things are going back and forth. Actually, let's go to Dave Naylor in the newsroom right now. Dave, I know there's been some shifts going around. The UCP has actually taken the lead for the first time, I think, in Lethbridge East, but has actually fallen behind the NDP by a little bit in Banff-Cananaskis.
04:35:02.440Oh, we cannot hear Dave. We are not hearing Dave right now.
04:35:09.860All right. Are we going to be able to get sound for Dave?