Western Standard - 2023 Alberta Election Poll Analysis & Results ｜ LIVE

00:00:00.000 Good evening, welcome to a special edition of the Western Standard and Alberta Report.

00:00:20.440 I am Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt, coming to you tonight live from the Western

00:00:26.280 standards uh studio in downtown calgary we're gonna have uh full and extensive coverage of

00:00:34.920 alberta's election uh this year it's uh everybody knows it's gonna be right down to the wire at least

00:00:42.040 we're expecting if all of the pollsters are correct and uh 10 pollsters they can't all be

00:00:47.480 wrong uh so we are expecting a very exciting night uh we've got a great lineup of co-hosts

00:00:54.840 and special guests coming to you uh political scientists uh political operatives journalists

00:01:02.360 uh really great team here uh before we get going though i want to thank uh my two favorite sponsors

00:01:08.360 the canadian shooting sports association i've been a member of the cssa for over a decade

00:01:13.080 because i trust them as canada's leading firearm owner rights group in canada if you're not yet a

00:01:18.200 member of the cssa go to cssa-cila.org or do what i do just google them and become a member today

00:01:24.840 This broadcast is also brought to you by Market Commodities. Market Commodities is a

00:01:32.280 Lethbridge, Alberta-based grain, barley, and wheat marketing company. If you are a farmer in

00:01:40.120 Western Canada and you need to get your products to market, check out Market Commodities. They

00:01:45.560 want to buy your grain. Okay, so I want to introduce our core panel tonight, my co-hosts.

00:01:51.320 I'm joined, as you would expect, by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:01:56.580 How are you, Nigel?

00:01:57.400 I'm great. It was a great night to be here.

00:01:59.400 I think so. Also joined by Western Standard senior Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:02:04.620 How are you, Corey?

00:02:05.240 Very good. I've been waiting a long time for this.

00:02:08.140 Indeed. Yeah, thank God it'll all be over soon.

00:02:12.860 But we've got a great lineup of guests coming who are going to come to us throughout the evening.

00:02:16.880 We've got our reporters on the ground at both the NDP headquarters in Edmonton and the UCP headquarters here in Calgary.

00:02:24.700 We're going to be going to them.

00:02:26.400 We've got our newsroom staffed up here.

00:02:29.040 We're going to be going to them for results as they come in.

00:02:33.160 But I guess what we'll do here, well, we're not going to go to them quite yet.

00:02:36.620 We'll go to them soon.

00:02:37.760 But I guess we'll start with you, Nigel.

00:02:42.560 Predictions for tonight.

00:02:44.660 Slim UCP victory.

00:02:46.580 but very slim. Very slim. I think that's that'll be the consensus of the polls at this point.

00:02:53.300 You're gonna put a number on it, how many seats? Yeah, I'll put a, I'll go 49 to 38, but

00:03:02.900 which it doesn't sound so slim, but some of those, some of those victories will be very thin,

00:03:08.500 small majorities. We're gonna have a pretty good idea fairly soon on, because of course

00:03:14.980 this advanced poll with 750,000. There are 2.8 million eligible voters in Alberta,

00:03:22.740 70% of them will vote if we do better than last time. So something like 2 million people voting

00:03:30.660 and 750,000, the results will be in very soon. So nobody had a better sample than that.

00:03:39.380 Yeah, so the polls close at eight o'clock. And normally we'd have to wait 45 minutes to an hour

00:03:44.740 for the first little tiny polls to trickle in,

00:03:46.600 but it's going to be very different today, Corey,

00:03:48.780 because there's automatic vote tabulating machines

00:03:52.100 for all those advanced polls.

00:03:54.420 Those of us who have voted in advanced polls,

00:03:56.600 you put it into a scanner, they scan it.

00:03:58.200 Now, there is still a paper copy, thankfully,

00:03:59.920 as a backup for recounts,

00:04:01.400 but the initial count is just done by a machine,

00:04:03.620 and those results are going to come to us pretty early on.

00:04:08.420 Let's get your skin in the game. 0.89

00:04:10.120 What do you think?

00:04:10.620 What are you expecting to see tonight?

00:04:11.780 Don't hedge your bets too much.

00:04:12.960 No, no, and I'm going back.

00:04:13.940 I'll stick to what we did way back at the start of the campaign with our office pool.

00:04:19.140 And I said 42-35 at that point.

00:04:21.800 I'll stick with that one.

00:04:23.440 And that floated, you know, if you'd ask.

00:04:24.540 42-35?

00:04:25.800 Sorry, 52-35.

00:04:29.260 You know, over the course of the election, in the middle of the campaign, I would have started thinking,

00:04:32.440 I was a little too generous.

00:04:33.640 Things are looking a little rough.

00:04:34.640 But then I'm seeing, you know, the undecideds have closed.

00:04:37.320 People have just accepted, you know, that I believe are going to move towards the UCP.

00:04:42.260 So I believe that's where we're going to land.

00:04:45.480 Yeah, I know my initial bet on the office pool had the UCP at a majority with 53 seats.

00:04:53.080 My prediction I put out today was at 51.

00:04:56.500 I mean, so many of these are a crapshoot.

00:04:59.460 So let's talk about the different paths to victory here, because it's not just which party gets the most votes.

00:05:07.560 There's actually no Alberta election.

00:05:09.000 There are 87 Alberta elections tonight, and each one of them is a unique race, even though there'll be some commonalities across them.

00:05:16.720 So, Nico, why don't we pull up our, from 338, not the map, let's just pull up the list of writings there.

00:05:24.220 It's a really smart graphic put together by 338.com.

00:05:29.520 They, no, that's the map.

00:05:31.540 Let's bring up the list.

00:05:33.400 There it is.

00:05:34.020 So 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.

00:05:47.760 The ones you see in really dark blue are the safe UCP seats.

00:05:52.920 The ones in really dark orange are the safe NDP seats.

00:05:55.960 and you know you can use your brain and figure it out the lighter the color gets in the shade

00:06:00.760 of blue or orange the closer it is uh expected to be in that race and you'll see here the number of

00:06:08.600 toss-ups the light blue those are called ucp leaning toss-ups um the ucp needs to win their

00:06:15.800 core seats the two likely seats and then only two of the toss-ups that the polls are predicting at

00:06:23.240 least, are going to go the UCP's way. So just two toss-ups. For the NDP to win, they've got to win

00:06:31.060 all four of the toss-ups leaning their way, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

00:06:36.420 nine of the toss-ups that are expected or predicted to be leaning to the UCP. It's a very

00:06:44.280 different, the NDP could win tonight, I think, Nigel, but it's a very, essentially, all of the

00:06:50.800 coin tosses. Every single coin toss in Alberta

00:06:52.920 has to go the NDP's way just to get to a

00:06:54.820 bare majority.

00:06:57.220 And that would, I mean, such things

00:06:58.900 have happened, but they're rare.

00:07:00.940 And I'm sure the UCP

00:07:03.060 is... We can take this screen down now.

00:07:04.840 I'm sure the UCP is

00:07:06.280 fairly confident

00:07:08.900 that that is not going to happen, because

00:07:10.680 they've done a good campaign, they haven't

00:07:12.780 made any serious mistakes.

00:07:14.920 Neither is the NDP, but

00:07:16.540 nevertheless, for that

00:07:18.520 degree of change to happen,

00:07:20.800 is uh it's kind of a generational thing you said earlier 44 is a majority and you're correct but

00:07:28.080 if you are 44 you've still got to provide a speaker now you're 43 to 43 you better hope nobody gets

00:07:35.040 cold and stays home yeah that would mean uh you can't have anyone sick and right and the speaker

00:07:41.040 would have to probably break every single tie vote so you could do it bc did it when they had a

00:07:47.120 a weird kind of minority slash coalition government, but it's, it's a perilous position

00:07:51.980 to govern in the legislature. It certainly is. Uh, let's bring up the map from 338.com now,

00:07:59.220 uh, their predictions. Now I like these guys. I know a lot of people like polls. If the poll

00:08:05.060 favors the side, they like, they hate polls. Polls are crap. If it doesn't favor their side, 1.00

00:08:08.760 but these guys are an aggregator of polls. They kind of take an average of all the major polls

00:08:13.100 out there and try to overlay it as best they can over the ridings to give you an idea of how it's

00:08:18.080 going to break down. So this is what they're predicting. And you'll see there that they're

00:08:23.700 predicting 52 seats for the UCP, 35 seats for the NDP. Now there's a lot of coin tosses in there

00:08:30.600 where perhaps a couple thousand, even a couple hundred votes could flip a seat one way or

00:08:37.140 another. And what you're seeing is what we've seen so far on the map, the big map of Alberta,

00:08:41.880 every riding that you can see with the naked eye on that map is blue they're probably all going blue

00:08:47.680 with the potential exception of uh bamf can and ask us that's a that's that's not a regular

00:08:54.520 we're running it's got like canmore and bamf a bit more of a urban and progressive pardon and

00:09:00.680 prittis that's mine yeah prittis but i don't think prittis has got that uh canmore bamf feel to it

00:09:05.980 no it's it's a very different riding from one end to the other actually yeah but then you see uh

00:09:11.160 Edmonton, Sea of Orange, and then Calgary.

00:09:14.460 Everyone's coming down to Calgary.

00:09:16.360 Northeast Calgary is, you know, trending orange.

00:09:20.720 South Calgary, at least outside the Beltline, is blue.

00:09:25.300 The real battleground here, if you're really going to drill down even within Calgary, is northwest Calgary.

00:09:30.520 Northwest Calgary.

00:09:32.660 And a few in the southeast.

00:09:34.100 So, you know, we've got, if the NDP, for the NDP to win, they've got to flip virtually the entire,

00:09:40.660 I think they have to win essentially every single riding in North Calgary

00:09:43.580 and even a few in the two Southeast Walgreens.

00:09:46.580 It's a tough way to get there.

00:09:49.620 Okay, well, polls are about to close soon.

00:09:52.200 Why don't we go to Dave Naylor, our news editor in the newsroom.

00:09:56.620 Dave, have you got anything for us here?

00:10:02.820 It may be on fire looking at your background there.

00:10:07.140 But as you say, it's just the waiting game now.

00:10:10.660 Polls close shortly, and Western Standard's got reporters everywhere they need to be.

00:10:16.120 So it should be a good night.

00:10:18.680 Very good.

00:10:20.620 Well, soon we're going to be, you know, once he gets dressed correctly,

00:10:24.960 we're going to go to Jonathan Bradley at the UCP headquarters in Calgary.

00:10:32.420 He's got to work on a few things before we dare put a camera on him.

00:10:36.880 But we've also got Arthur Green at the NDP headquarters up in Edmonton, going to come in fairly soon.

00:10:46.380 Dave, sorry, not Dave, Corey, Corey, what are the, give me the top three bellwether constituencies you're looking for.

00:10:55.160 If you're going to name three constituencies that if a party wins all three, they're likely to form government tonight.

00:11:01.100 Well, if we're looking at Calgary bellwethers, I would look at Calgary Glenmore, of course.

00:11:06.140 that was already a tight one. It could swing either way this time around as well. That one

00:11:13.320 would be very indicative of what's going on if that ends up going to one party or the other.

00:11:18.340 Calgary Elbow is another interesting one. I mean, that one has swung so many times. It's been the

00:11:23.100 Premier's riding twice. It was Ralph Klein's. It was Redford's. But then it went liberal for one

00:11:27.340 odd term in 2007. It went Alberta party for a while. It's gone conservative again. And then

00:11:34.400 it's been left vacant for a few months so it's strong conservative territory but they might feel

00:11:38.840 a little abused by the conservatives right now so and again though I mean if that can be clinched

00:11:42.820 for the conservatives it would look very good if UCP if it doesn't uh it goes NDP then then they

00:11:48.300 really got to start sweating a lot of those other Calgary uh constituencies give you two more two

00:11:52.660 more boy so you're saying you said Glenmore did you say elbow I said both Glenmore and elbow yeah

00:11:59.000 what's your third one perhaps Calgary bow even that one's an interesting one you know you've got

00:12:03.320 a cabinet minister in there, but you've also got Drew Farrell, who is certainly representative of

00:12:08.180 the NDP, a very solidly, consistently left-leaning person, but she's got name recognition. She's well

00:12:13.640 established in Calgary. And again, it's a riding that could kind of go either way, I think. So

00:12:19.200 if we start seeing results in some of those three, we'll have a pretty good idea what's happening in

00:12:23.020 this race. I would agree with Glenmore and Bo is the real bellweathers, but I think the UCP can

00:12:29.180 afford to lose elbow. If the NDP wins elbow tonight, they definitely have to win elbow to

00:12:35.160 win government. But the UCP does not. The UCP has to win Glenmore. It has to win Bo. But I think

00:12:43.120 they can't afford to lose elbow. Yeah, I just think if either party gets a strong showing and

00:12:48.120 one that swings so much that it would be very indicative of the rest. I don't know if he's

00:12:54.880 ready or not but uh perhaps we can go to uh what our uh western standard alberta legislative

00:13:00.380 reporter arthur green up in edmonton he is at the ndp headquarters this evening uh let's bring

00:13:07.060 uh arthur green into the broadcast here arthur uh you're up in uh orange headquarters what are

00:13:13.320 things up like up there right now uh right now it's pretty quiet in here uh in here derrick

00:13:18.580 everyone's just getting set up uh it's quite warm here actually i had to run across the street to

00:13:23.280 it in. But, you know, spirits are high and people are expecting an NDP win tonight.

00:13:31.760 So you're in Edmonton where, I mean, if you're walking around the streets of Brooks, you're

00:13:38.120 probably thinking everybody votes UCP. But if you're walking around the streets of Edmonton,

00:13:42.020 you probably think everyone there votes NDP. So what do you think is driving their positive

00:13:49.940 mood for their side at the ndp headquarters right now um optimism i would say uh everyone

00:13:58.020 is quite optimistic that the the ndp is going to form a majority government here in alberta tonight

00:14:04.180 and you know people are in high spirits eric they really believe in uh rachel notley and

00:14:10.740 an ndp government and that seems to be the uh the consensus here tonight

00:14:14.420 um where do you uh you know based on what you're hearing in the room there from uh

00:14:22.820 at nb ndp headquarters where do they think their their pickups are coming from i know

00:14:26.900 i know that they think they have to they know they have to win uh calgary but uh are there

00:14:32.020 any seats the ndp really think they have a shot of picking up outside um some of the

00:14:38.180 Oh, I think he may be able to pick up is Fort Saskatchewan.

00:14:44.660 They're looking for a win in Fort Saskatchewan.

00:14:46.860 Other seats, of course, would be in Calgary, like you said.

00:14:51.520 But there are some other rural areas.

00:14:53.880 Grand Prairie is another one that I'm hearing amongst people that they're looking for a win there as well.

00:15:01.340 Grand Prairie.

00:15:02.180 Well, I'll tell you, if Grand Prairie ends up in the NDP category tonight,

00:15:07.720 It's not even close.

00:15:08.860 The NDP have absolutely trounced things.

00:15:13.240 Maybe I'll come to eat my words, but if the NDP wins Grand Prix tonight,

00:15:20.680 you guys can call me Doors Day for a week.

00:15:23.940 That's better what we call you when you aren't around it.

00:15:25.600 There we go.

00:15:27.180 Okay, well, thank you for joining us, Arthur.

00:15:30.160 We'll check back with you soon.

00:15:32.020 At some point, we hope to have Jonathan Bradley in from the UCP headquarters.

00:15:37.180 Um, but I guess, uh, let's, um, why don't we pull up, uh, that, uh, the, from the 338,

00:15:45.900 we'll pull up that graphic showing the path to 44 again here.

00:15:48.900 Cause I really want people to understand this.

00:15:51.460 This is, uh, I think the best visible tool to see, not the map.

00:15:55.660 The map is nice.

00:15:57.120 I love coloring in the map.

00:15:59.160 I've always loved coloring in maps since I was a kid, but this is probably the best

00:16:02.800 graphic to help understand what we can expect tonight and the path to victory.

00:16:10.900 So you see all the lightly colored boxes, light blue, light orange. Those are the real

00:16:16.000 toss-ups. And you'll see here, the UCP have just got a, they've just got an easier path to victory.

00:16:25.880 Nigel, what would be, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Corey earlier. What would

00:16:30.940 be the three bellwethers you look at? The party that wins all three of these ridings you're going

00:16:35.860 to give is likely to be the government. Well, I was certainly looking at Calgary, Acadia.

00:16:42.640 Tyler Shandro is defending his seat there. And obviously a high profile cabinet minister,

00:16:49.820 got a history there. That would be one. I also thought that Calgary, Bo, again,

00:16:55.360 And it's always been a conservative area.

00:16:59.400 There's no bad stuff about Demetrius Stigolides.

00:17:04.160 He's been a very diligent representative for the people who live there.

00:17:09.820 And if that one goes, then I'd have to say that that's just a general rejection of the UCP.

00:17:17.760 The one that I'm particularly interested in is Calgary Northwest, where Regen Solny is defending her seat.

00:17:24.540 She's not defending a seat. She moves seats. She is not defending a seat. She's trying to hold it 0.68

00:17:29.100 for the UCP, but she parachuted out of her current seat, which was going to be lost to the, is likely

00:17:35.100 going to be lost to the NDP. She parachuted out to another better seat. Well, we'll see.

00:17:41.100 But we can't say she's defending her seat. No, you're correct. The reason that I look at that

00:17:46.860 is it almost struck me that she was on, out of the contenders for the leadership of the UCP,

00:17:52.620 she was less conservative than

00:17:55.240 all of the others

00:17:56.880 with the possible exception of Lila

00:17:58.960 here. So maybe

00:18:01.140 she felt she'd go down well in

00:18:02.800 an environment like that where

00:18:04.620 obviously the NDP is trending well

00:18:06.960 but maybe they're

00:18:09.120 going to decide to go for the real thing

00:18:10.500 rather than her.

00:18:12.600 That whole northwest area

00:18:15.180 I think, I mean, there's a lot

00:18:17.120 of battlegrounds around Calgary

00:18:18.880 as we all know. Calgary is where

00:18:21.200 the vast majority of the battlegrounds in Alberta are right now. But within Calgary, I think it's

00:18:25.600 the Northwest that's really in play. And the NDP's just got to sweep it. Corey, what do you think

00:18:33.040 the chances are that the NDP have got to take actually all of North? I think they're going to

00:18:37.120 possibly sweep the Northeast, possibly. But they've got to sweep, I think, everything in the

00:18:44.460 Northeast and the Northwest quadrant. What are the chances that they can pull that off?

00:18:48.100 They're very slim. Northeast, for example, I mean, they're looking good in preliminary polls,

00:18:52.780 but that's also the most volatile part of the city as far as voting goes in any direction.

00:18:56.940 That's one of the areas where the local candidates' community connections can very strongly impact the vote in the Northeast

00:19:03.080 is more than the party can. Quite often, I mean, the candidates can only have so much impact in their own constituency in the campaign.

00:19:09.820 It's important to get out the vote, meet the voters, but you're still dependent on the party campaign itself.

00:19:14.520 but northeast calgary it's a lot more candidate related so that could be tough they've you know

00:19:19.020 some of those things that look orange now i wouldn't be shocked to see a ucp uh win or two

00:19:23.040 up in there northwest is where it's going to swell well actually let's talk about these calgary for

00:19:26.820 a second because that's a really good point uh it's a bit of a trope about northeast calgary that

00:19:32.000 it's the ethnic area that's because it's largely true it is made up of that's where the the big i

00:19:37.780 think majority of visible minorities and immigrant communities live. And it makes for more complicated

00:19:44.740 politics makes it much more difficult to predict things. Now, in the aggregate, polling shows

00:19:50.520 generally visible minority communities lean NDP. I mean, generally, they tend to lean for more left

00:19:55.400 leaning parties. But there's been exceptions to that. The conservatives have captured it at least

00:20:00.260 once when Harper won his majority. Kenny did pretty well with them in 20, the 2019 Alberta

00:20:07.200 election. So there's been exceptions to it. They tend to lean that way. And the polling right now

00:20:10.960 shows visible minorities tend to lean NDP. But it is a total mistake to think all visible minorities

00:20:18.460 are just some homogenous group. We got pizza outside the studio here, and it's like a pizza.

00:20:24.920 It's just so complicated. It's a whole smorgasbord. And I think it makes it really difficult. Anyone

00:20:30.100 who's ever done politics in northeast calgary you know this cory um it's so difficult to predict it

00:20:37.700 the way you could say southeast calgary southwest calgary it's a very nuanced area and it can really

00:20:42.660 depend on who the candidate is and uh community connections and things such as that so i would be

00:20:47.440 surprised to see any one party sort of sweep the northeast there's going to be a speckling i think

00:20:51.720 going on up there and the ndp can't afford a speckling they have to have a solid way so we'll

00:20:56.640 see. Nigel, outside of Calgary, what would be the key writings you're watching that could

00:21:04.480 actually be in play? Well, Slave Lake is one. That's worth watching. Fort Saskatchewan, I heard

00:21:13.540 Arthur mention. That one surprised me. I don't think so. Can't see it. If any of you are winning

00:21:21.140 Fort Saskatchewan, they're winning the election handily. I don't think they're taking it. The

00:21:26.040 The other one is in Lethbridge, Lethbridge East, where Nathan Newdorf, of course, he's the deputy prime minister, premier.

00:21:33.400 I'll get there.

00:21:35.640 And, you know, it was a bit of a, I won't say it was a surprise, but he won that seat when everything was going UCP in 2019.

00:21:47.360 It doesn't have a long history of being a conservative, a safe conservative seat.

00:21:55.380 Good man.

00:21:56.020 I'd hate to see him lose, but I do think that's a possibility.

00:21:58.900 Okay.

00:21:59.540 Well, we're going to bring in one of our Western-Centered Calgary reporters,

00:22:04.020 Jonathan Bradley here.

00:22:04.980 Jonathan Bradley is at the United Conservative Party headquarters

00:22:08.440 at the big four buildings down on the Stampede grounds in Calgary here.

00:22:14.580 Jonathan, what's the mood like there on the ground at UCP headquarters?

00:22:19.780 Well, Derek, it's pretty tame right now.

00:22:22.140 Some supporters are starting to come in.

00:22:23.620 there's been a few people it just kind of feels like there's some excitement and optimism

00:22:27.580 happening right now I've run into a few of our friends Peter McCaffrey's here there's some other

00:22:32.320 journalists who we've interacted with in the past who are showing up yeah I mean results

00:22:38.780 don't start pouring in until eight but right now the mood feels pretty optimistic I know it's a

00:22:44.140 very general question but what are people telling you on the ground in there are they

00:22:47.860 are they kind of biting their nails thinking it's going to be close are they thinking this

00:22:52.200 is in the bag well people seem to think it's in the bag i've been hearing talk about people

00:22:56.620 thinking that the ucp are going to win obviously not as large as last time i'm thinking people are

00:23:01.040 saying 50 to 55 seats which is a sizable majority i mean if it's you know 44 seats 45 seats people

00:23:07.680 aren't going to be too happy but based on what people are saying what the polls are saying

00:23:11.500 okay uh anything else uh you could tell us uh from on the ground at the ucp headquarters right now

00:23:19.660 Well, 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.

00:23:28.660 And yeah.

00:23:30.660 Okay, thank you very much, Jonathan.

00:23:32.660 You're welcome.

00:23:36.660 Okay, Nigel, if you are, I mean, you were speechwriter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

00:23:45.660 Harper. If you were Danielle Smith's speech writer tonight, what are you doing for her?

00:23:53.420 Well, first of all, I would have two speeches.

00:23:57.500 That's what we did in 2015. Unfortunately, we got to use the wrong one, as we saw it.

00:24:08.300 There's a significant difference in the presentation of the NDP and under Rachel

00:24:14.700 notley and the ucp under danielle smith danielle smith has been upbeat throughout the whole thing

00:24:22.300 often when the news was not good she would be asked difficult questions she turned away with

00:24:27.180 a smile and i think that is the brand that she has now established and in victory she would 0.89

00:24:34.460 use that and be magnanimous to those who who had done their best and then as she would say something

00:24:41.740 about if you don't have any doubts about the loyalty of the other side to alberta and the

00:24:47.340 best of albertans so uh you would say that then the other speech of course would be

00:24:55.020 well we did our best and uh voters are always right okay uh corey i know you're not much of

00:25:02.940 a speech uh speech writer but you're uh writing for rachel notley tonight what uh kind of speeches

00:25:07.980 are you writing? Well, I mean, as Nigel said, you'd be writing two of them for sure. If Rachel

00:25:15.140 Notley doesn't win this election, I mean, she's really going to have to re-examine her future. So 0.95

00:25:19.580 it won't be just a speech of consolation. I think some people will be wondering if she's going to

00:25:23.980 indicate whether she's going to stay in as a leader or not. So how much of that she'd want

00:25:29.560 to cover. As if she wins, well, I guess start to lay out your policy priorities, thanking your

00:25:36.980 voters. I think she's going to stay pretty 0.99

00:25:38.940 to the basics there, I would hope.

00:25:41.240 I mean, if they're tired from the campaign,

00:25:43.420 try to put out an optimistic thing,

00:25:44.940 reach out to the rest of Albertans. I mean, both will

00:25:46.780 have to say it's been such a fear-mongering campaign.

00:25:48.920 The first thing they have to do is

00:25:50.220 make Albertans feel comfortable. Don't worry.

00:25:53.460 You're in good hands, whoever it might be.

00:25:55.940 Very good. All right.

00:25:56.720 Well, we're going to be switching out some of our panelists

00:25:58.660 throughout the night.

00:26:01.000 We're going to be coming and going

00:26:02.380 because we have a lot of work to do in the newsroom here.

00:26:06.980 But we're going to be joined by Corey and Nigel again soon.

00:26:10.580 But we're going to throw it to Dave Naylor in our newsroom right now, checking in with him.

00:26:16.160 Dave, polls are about to close.

00:26:19.300 Tell us what is going on.

00:26:22.040 Well, I'm sure there'll be a last minute rush at many of the voting stations to get the ballot counted and they were in.

00:26:29.580 there was a problem at one of the polling stations up in the Sun child area where

00:26:36.600 the where the polling station didn't open until late so it's not going to close

00:26:44.400 tonight in 946 so soon as they as soon as eight o'clock passes then the we

00:26:50.520 should get a good run of votes from the advanced polls because they'll be all

00:26:56.020 counted and ready to be leased right at eight o'clock. Different this time, Dave, because so

00:27:03.520 many of the ballots are in the advanced polls. There was so many of them, but also that they

00:27:08.720 were automatically scanned. Yeah, correct. So hopefully won't be any concerns about

00:27:20.260 i believe uh our colleague sean said they were all then uh take it up to edmonton and

00:27:29.140 and count it again so we should get uh fast and accurate results at uh uh seven or eight o'clock

00:27:35.380 sorry you soon all right well in the studio here uh we've got uh two uh two new panelists we've got

00:27:46.580 Josh Andrus here from Project Confederation, and David Parker here from Take Back Alberta.

00:27:55.700 But before we come to them, I'm going to go to Arthur Green up in Edmonton at the NDP headquarters.

00:28:00.960 Arthur, tell us what's happening in Orangetown.

00:28:04.940 Right now, Derek, everyone is just starting to pile into the room.

00:28:09.520 It's mostly media here right now.

00:28:11.820 If you can't hear me, it's because it's really loud in this room as all reporters are getting together their election coverage.

00:28:20.440 I'm told the candidates should be showing up here shortly.

00:28:23.840 Again, everyone seems pretty optimistic about an NDP majority government here tonight in Alberta.

00:28:33.860 I don't know. What are they making of the polls, though?

00:28:36.240 Most polls are not pointing towards an NDP majority government.

00:28:38.780 I mean, there is a possibility of it. There's a path to it.

00:28:41.400 it's very narrow uh are they just saying the polls are wrong or what are they thinking

00:28:46.240 um they're not saying the polls are wrong again i mean they're they're saying they're optimistic

00:28:52.780 eric that they're hoping the polls are wrong uh again the polls say uh that that it would be a

00:28:59.800 minority government uh other the ndp or the ucp uh depending on the uh the results tonight but i

00:29:07.900 I mean, the room seems pretty energetic.

00:29:10.460 We've got lots of people here getting ready for a long horse race tonight, I guess.

00:29:17.380 I'm not sure what time everything will wrap up here in Edmonton.

00:29:23.000 Again, the room is starting to fill up and people are starting to trickle in.

00:29:28.860 Okay. Thank you, Arthur. We'll check back with you soon.

00:29:31.640 All right. So in the studio now, we've got Josh Andrus from Project Confederation,

00:29:36.060 David Parker from Take Back Alberta.

00:29:38.600 I'm going to start with you, David.

00:29:41.520 Boy, you have become almost a household name in Alberta.

00:29:47.300 I know you're a longtime Alberta political operator.

00:29:53.000 You've been on a lot of campaigns.

00:29:55.400 I guess the two most prominent ones being the campaign to oust Jason Kenney from the UCP leadership,

00:30:00.700 which was obviously very successful.

00:30:03.060 and getting people at least involved in voting in the UCP leadership

00:30:09.400 to replace JC Kennedy, the resultant Daniel Smith.

00:30:12.280 But you guys have been out.

00:30:14.240 What have you guys been doing during the campaign?

00:30:16.400 Because you've been getting a lot of attention in the press.

00:30:19.780 Well, during the campaign, we've been pretty focused on just encouraging people to get involved.

00:30:24.660 Our whole policy has been it's not enough to just vote.

00:30:28.440 It's not enough to just talk about the vote.

00:30:30.560 what you need to focus on is you need to focus on recruiting people and persuading people on the

00:30:36.540 ground so like making teaching people how to be organizers basically and we've done 78 meetings

00:30:42.960 across the province since january 7th in order to do that to grow the movement of course there's

00:30:47.780 lots of rules around elections alberta and what we're able to do and what we aren't able to do

00:30:51.220 as a third-party advertiser but we've been mostly focused on just trying to build the movement and

00:30:56.400 encourage people to get involved. We have lots of people who've chosen to do all kinds of things

00:31:01.340 from teaching people about election scrutineering. That's not part of Take Back Alberta. People

00:31:05.660 involved with Take Back Alberta have done that. We have people who have been volunteering. People

00:31:11.720 have just been getting engaged, and that's really what we encourage people to do is be part of their

00:31:15.080 democracy. So I guess two-part question. What are you expecting to see tonight, and what are you

00:31:20.520 hoping to see tonight? I'm expecting

00:31:22.500 to see about 47 seats

00:31:23.940 is what I'm predicting for the UCP

00:31:26.180 That's narrow

00:31:27.940 I think it's going to be narrower than

00:31:30.480 I'd hoped, but I would say

00:31:32.400 my hope would be 55. That would be what I would

00:31:34.520 really be. I'd be at 55

00:31:36.240 I also think that it's very possible that

00:31:38.480 Danielle actually beats Jason 0.73

00:31:40.240 Kenny's popular vote. I think that is a

00:31:42.400 real possibility. By percentage or in gross numbers?

00:31:43.960 By percentage, but not in... By gross numbers, but not

00:31:46.520 percentage? No, by percentage. I think that it

00:31:48.440 is possible. I think that is within the realm of possibility. I think she's far more popular in

00:31:53.000 rural Alberta, and I think she actually has taken the numbers up a little bit in Edmonton. The

00:31:57.260 question will be what happens in Calgary. Actually, that's an interesting point. I don't

00:32:01.660 think it's been given much consideration because the polls are showing the UCP is holding pretty

00:32:05.880 much more or less their vote from the last time, percentage-wise. What's changed is that the

00:32:11.700 Alberta Party has evaporated and gone. 2015, Josh, the NDP unofficially merged the left

00:32:20.000 by eating the liberals. And 2019, they digested them. 2023, it looks like now they've eaten the

00:32:29.280 Alberta Party, which got roughly 8-ish percent in the last election. They're not even running

00:32:34.040 candidates everywhere. Not even close to anywhere. How much, Josh, how much of an effect do you think

00:32:40.540 that has. And why do you think the Alberta party vote has skewed almost entirely to go to the NDP

00:32:45.300 and not to the UCP as that party's collapsed? Well, I think a lot of it is just polarization

00:32:49.400 within the political system in Alberta. The last four years, we've seen really only two, well,

00:32:54.960 only two parties of the legislature. So they dominate the storylines, they dominate the

00:32:59.040 news coverage. Also, this election campaign, I don't think it's going to work for it, but Rachel

00:33:03.360 Notley has worn blue jeans and blue blazers and pretended to be a conservative. So that kind of

00:33:09.340 does eat into the Alberta Party's vote. I do think also for just political expediency, you're seeing

00:33:14.940 a lot of left-wing voters or even left of centre voters. Just look at the NDP as the only other

00:33:20.320 option to the UCP, which has consolidated the vote and made this a two-horse race. But at the

00:33:26.020 same time, the UCP doesn't have to be concerned about vote splitting. There are other parties

00:33:30.820 running. I think they're competing for maybe one to two percent of the vote in the ridings they're

00:33:35.260 in this is very much a two-horse race and it's going to come down to how much some of these

00:33:40.460 distractions this campaign how much these distractions are liabilities to the party

00:33:47.300 vote and do the conservatives come home today is really the question for me okay well I'm told that

00:33:54.600 our reporter Jonathan Bradley at the Calgary headquarters sorry the UCP headquarters in

00:34:00.720 Calgary, has UCP cabinet minister Mike Ellis with him? If so, we're going to bring him in. In just

00:34:08.880 a moment, we'll bring him in. Actually, I'm told that the polls have closed. Let's go to Dave

00:34:13.360 Naylor in the newsroom before we go to Jonathan Bradley at the UCP headquarters.

00:34:19.120 Hey, Derek. The bell has told. It is eight o'clock. Voting is over and the counting has begun.

00:34:25.700 And let's hope they do it quicker than City of Calgary vote counters,

00:34:30.620 because if that's the case, we'll be here until in the early morning hours.

00:34:35.300 Very good.

00:34:36.360 All right.

00:34:37.080 Thank you, Dave.

00:34:38.120 And as we've said, we're expecting a real big flurry of results,

00:34:42.820 quite a few results very early because there's been so much advanced voting,

00:34:46.900 and it's all been electronically counted.

00:34:48.560 So it's not going to be poor grandma at the polling station doing it. 0.99

00:34:53.100 The only thing we can confirm is that Derek Fildebrandt will not win Chester McStraffmore this election.

00:34:57.320 I don't think I'm going to do very well this time.

00:35:00.520 Okay, well, we're going to move as soon as he's in front of his camera.

00:35:04.660 We're going to go to Jonathan Bradley at the UCP headquarters, standing by with UCP Cabinet Minister Mike Ellis.

00:35:13.160 Jonathan, you've got Mike Ellis there.

00:35:15.860 What's happening?

00:35:17.160 Unfortunately, Mike Ellis got dragged aside.

00:35:20.100 He's grabbed to do another interview.

00:35:21.240 but what i can say right now is if the arena is filling up uh there's more people coming in

00:35:26.280 there's just more anticipation and the vibes are coming there's more positive thank you all right

00:35:35.960 all right uh so uh josh let's actually let's talk uh i'm gonna go to both of you about this but um

00:35:41.960 the consolidation of the conservative vote uh it was pretty consult almost entirely consolidated

00:35:48.440 last time under Jason Kenney, but everyone

00:35:50.320 went on to UCP, gone.

00:35:52.260 But under Jason Kenney, it also

00:35:54.380 broke wide open again. We had

00:35:56.540 the Wild Rose Independence Party,

00:35:58.340 despite having no seats, no money,

00:36:00.860 no real profile

00:36:02.700 or leader with profile.

00:36:04.380 It was up around 15 percentage points

00:36:06.340 for a while.

00:36:08.360 There was a real danger that was going to continue to

00:36:10.400 grow. They'd probably get some floor crossings

00:36:12.780 at some point.

00:36:16.460 But Daniel,

00:36:17.700 with Daniel Smith's ascension as leader

00:36:19.940 that's come back in

00:36:21.860 why don't you tell us about

00:36:23.220 why you think she was able to

00:36:26.080 reconsolidate the conservative

00:36:28.060 and populist vote

00:36:29.380 and what she did to do it and perhaps

00:36:31.940 how perilous it is to try

00:36:33.980 and keep it. Well I think Kenny's issue

00:36:36.040 was that once he did consolidate

00:36:37.760 the vote he almost lost

00:36:39.980 track of what the people were saying on the ground

00:36:42.200 with the

00:36:43.840 re-election of Justin Trudeau in 2019

00:36:45.940 there was a populist wave there was a lot of frustration i think kenny had his eggs in the

00:36:49.800 andrew sheer basket that didn't work out and as he kind of struggled with uh the fair deal panel

00:36:57.100 stuff and covid it really created a fracture within the party smith came in and uh with the

00:37:03.260 wild rose independence party at 20 percent uh made the highlight of her campaign uh the alberta

00:37:08.760 sovereignty act with uh within a united canada that was passed in november this year or of last

00:37:14.460 year um and it's it really it's designed to kind of add some protection against federal intrusions

00:37:20.140 into provincial policy jurisdiction um we've seen that over the years with the impact assessment act

00:37:26.380 uh the no more pipeline which is otherwise known as the no more pipelines law we've seen it with

00:37:30.940 the don't with the tanker ban we've seen it with the carbon tax we've seen a whole bunch of federal

00:37:36.140 policies that directly intervene in provincial jurisdiction it's led to job losses and economic

00:37:41.500 uh well chaos within within the province of alberta so i think there was a lot of frustration

00:37:46.440 directed at the federal government we saw that even with the with the convoy to ottawa and the

00:37:51.260 impact that that had on the policies within the united conservative party uh so i think that's a

00:37:56.860 big reason why uh canny was forced to side smith did a good job during the leadership campaign of

00:38:01.820 communicating these issues effectively of putting a policy uh set of policy ideas on the table that

00:38:07.060 brought these people back into the fold and and really at the end of the day it does come down

00:38:11.860 to to whether or not these these policies are enough to hold the coalition together whether

00:38:16.340 it's some of the the pcs that were in that marriage stick around and show up at the polls despite

00:38:22.580 a lot of the distracting storylines we've seen in the mainstream media uh okay yeah thank you um

00:38:28.660 I generally agree with that.

00:38:32.120 But, David, you've kind of alluded to what could happen if Smith doesn't follow through.

00:38:39.520 So let's just operate on the likely but not guaranteed assumption that she comes through tonight.

00:38:45.580 Now, we know being an Alberta Premier, it's a good time.

00:38:49.820 It's not a long time, especially an Alberta Conservative Premier.

00:38:53.980 I was running the math today.

00:38:55.400 the last time a conservative premier in alberta finished a term was 2004 uh that was rov klein

00:39:03.360 his last election that's the last time a conservative premier finished election

00:39:05.940 i was in high school someone born the last that year the last time if you vote now they can vote

00:39:12.620 and die for their country now it's been that long the last time a premier uh of any party

00:39:19.060 left office of their own free will without being pushed out neither an election or their own party

00:39:23.540 revolt was Peter Lougheed in 1985, the year I was born. It is a perilous job. Now, so just the

00:39:32.060 history works against anyone who's a conservative leader trying to stay in their job. But, you know,

00:39:36.660 Smith won the leadership of the UCP on a very populist anti-establishment wave, anti-Ottawa,

00:39:42.840 anti-lockdowns, anti-mandates. But she's softened a lot of these things to try to appeal to the

00:39:49.500 general electorate, which, you know, a lot of people said was probably necessary, but she

00:39:53.300 softened a lot of these things. What risk is there for Daniel Smith? If she comes through tonight,

00:39:59.520 where's the risk to her leadership? Is it from kind of the Kenneite PC moderates who think she's

00:40:05.500 too radical? Or is it from the more right-leaning populist Wildrose side of the party that expects

00:40:11.680 her to pay up with what she got elected on the leadership for? Where's the danger from? 0.81

00:40:15.280 I think the biggest danger is from the Kenney people, to be honest, because I think they're

00:40:19.300 the ones that don't trust her i think if you look at the people josh made a good point that uh

00:40:24.780 the wild rose kind of pop more populous rural uh conservative base is with danielle right now

00:40:31.480 they're they're the ones that are showing up to volunteer they're the ones that are coming out to

00:40:34.800 vote and i think that if you look at the people who are upset right now the people who are calling

00:40:39.140 danielle smith crazy for example why are they calling danielle smith crazy because she supported

00:40:44.280 that group of people that you're talking about.

00:40:46.620 So I think after this, if she was to attack really hard to the left

00:40:50.800 and to try to appease the Kenne-ites, 0.84

00:40:53.680 then we would probably be in a different situation.

00:40:56.100 But I think the real risk comes from people who feel like she's crazy,

00:41:01.600 which, I mean, why are people saying that she's crazy?

00:41:03.980 Because she stood up for these people.

00:41:05.620 So I would say right now, the major threat is from the Kenney side.

00:41:10.160 Okay.

00:41:11.380 All right, we're going to go to,

00:41:12.960 uh we're gonna bring in some new panelists soon but first we're gonna go to arthur green

00:41:16.400 our reporter up in edmonton at the ndp headquarters uh arthur

00:41:23.360 all right i don't know uh we're gonna have to go to arthur up in uh ndp headquarters in edmonton

00:41:28.320 arthur tell us what's happening up there right now uh again derek uh people are starting to trickle

00:41:35.040 into the room here uh i mean there's been there's lots of hugs and uh and handshakes uh being given

00:41:41.920 tons of interviews uh being done the western standard hasn't been granted any interviews

00:41:47.040 with anybody from the nvp of course uh other than that i mean the optimism in the room uh

00:41:52.880 spirits seem high uh people are friendly uh you know it's uh it's it's it seems like

00:41:59.680 there's about to be a party breakout here uh here jerry but of course we'll have to wait for the

00:42:04.080 Thank you, Arthur. We're going to go to Jonathan Bradley at the UCP headquarters now.

00:42:15.440 Jonathan, tell us what's going on.

00:42:18.960 Derek, it's Mike Ellis here.

00:42:20.920 Oh, we got Mike Ellis there. Just a strange lighting.

00:42:23.960 Mike, thank you for joining us tonight.

00:42:26.920 Very good. Thank you for coming.

00:42:29.060 Mike, you've been representing Calgary West since 2015.

00:42:35.880 Actually, no, I think 2014 in the bio.

00:42:37.840 14, yeah.

00:42:39.260 14.

00:42:40.180 Now, you're in battleground Calgary, but your constituency is not considered necessarily a battleground constituency.

00:42:49.500 Although I know you're going to say you don't take any votes for granted.

00:42:52.240 I know that.

00:42:54.220 I don't take any for granted.

00:42:55.520 You're right there.

00:42:56.020 But how are you feeling about your chances and the party's overall chances in Calgary tonight?

00:43:01.820 Yeah, I mean, the reality is, Derek, I'm actually very cautiously optimistic.

00:43:06.720 You know, I really saw a turning point right after the debate that was really noticed at the doors.

00:43:13.920 And I would say that it was even reinforced when we had the kind of the get together on Sutina,

00:43:21.000 that rally where we saw nearly 2,000 people show up very much, I would say, organically.

00:43:28.160 I mean, I had people stopping me from Calgary West saying, you know, we heard about this.

00:43:33.220 We just wanted to show up and they just want to be a part of the excitement.

00:43:36.460 So the reality is this.

00:43:38.280 I am very optimistic and, you know, obviously cautiously optimistic.

00:43:42.460 That's the policeman in me, Derek.

00:43:43.660 But I am optimistic heading into seeing the results here.

00:43:47.040 uh what do you think is driving the tightness of the race in calgary calgary is long thought of as

00:43:54.540 a relatively conservative bastion uh you know some downtown pockets have voted liberal in days gone

00:44:01.380 by or ndp more recently but um and the ndp won a good number of seats obviously in calgary in 2015

00:44:08.140 but you know that could be chalked up at least in part to a so-called vote split between the

00:44:12.460 Wild Rose and progressive conservatives.

00:44:14.640 But what do you think is, because the NDP is obviously competitive right now.

00:44:21.660 What have you guys, what's been your main counterattack towards the NDP's encroachment

00:44:26.020 in Calgary?

00:44:27.780 Well, Derek, I think the NDP have been very successful in their fear and smear, which

00:44:31.980 is something that, as you know, very well, that they've been very good at that.

00:44:37.540 certainly over the last time that I've been in office, since 2014.

00:44:43.060 Look, I mean, we've been offering people hope, hope and optimism.

00:44:48.580 You know that very much that I have talked about public safety, mental health and addictions,

00:44:54.540 making sure that we're giving people hope and not heroin,

00:44:58.040 making sure that we're making sure that people feel safe in Calgary and Edmonton and rural Alberta,

00:45:03.820 as well as ensuring that we're stewards of the economy.

00:45:07.140 when it comes to jobs, the economy, and making sure that there is an actual path in the future

00:45:13.100 to make sure that we have a fiscally stable government, you know, going into the future.

00:45:22.300 All about your leader and premier, Danielle Smith, saying, you know, you can't trust her.

00:45:29.520 uh you know she's radical uh the i think your party on the other hand has been trying to

00:45:37.420 well kind of reflect uh the ndp's own record back at it about their uh their inability to

00:45:45.320 responsibly steward the economy and and the the books um what have you heard at the doors during

00:45:53.040 this campaign i know you've been campaigning quite a bit in your constituency and possibly

00:45:56.540 and others around Calgary,

00:45:57.860 role helping other candidates.

00:45:59.680 What was it you were hearing at the doors

00:46:01.180 and what were the biggest challenges

00:46:03.140 you were hearing at the doors?

00:46:05.720 Yeah, well, like I said,

00:46:06.540 the campaign that the NDP did

00:46:12.040 as far as fear and spear,

00:46:13.560 yeah, we were hearing that at the doors.

00:46:15.200 But again, I would say that,

00:46:16.840 you know, after the debate,

00:46:19.800 I think people saw somebody who is reasonable

00:46:22.580 and somebody who looked like

00:46:24.040 a real leader of the province.

00:46:26.540 and we saw an immediate turnaround after that debate um and uh you know this is this again

00:46:33.100 was demonstrated by the fact that we had so many people show up at that rally

00:46:37.980 all right well thank you so much for joining us tonight mike and uh best of luck in your calgary

00:46:42.940 west constituency thanks eric all the best good to see you thank you okay well uh we've got some

00:46:49.020 new panelists in the studio right now we've got chris sims alberta director of the canadian

00:46:53.980 Taxpayers Federation. Hey, Chris. Hi, thanks for having us. Thank you for coming. And we've got

00:46:59.100 D.B. Cooper, that is Dr. Barry Cooper, a political scientist from the University of Calgary.

00:47:07.180 Maybe I'll start with you, Mr. D.B. Cooper. Okay. The debate, I think was by most measures,

00:47:16.700 not a huge turning point in the campaign. There was no knockout punch that everyone's looking for 0.98

00:47:21.980 and almost never comes in these things.

00:47:25.340 But I think it might be fair to say that the NDP had set,

00:47:28.320 much of the media had set the bar so low for Danielle Smith, 0.98

00:47:30.840 they expected her to come out as the Tasmanian devil drooling at the mouth. 1.00

00:47:34.800 And she came out and appeared, I think, to most reasonable people,

00:47:38.480 to be reasonable, calm, and measured, and chipper.

00:47:43.080 How much of a, do you think the debate had much influence on the election?

00:47:48.160 Well, actually, I think it did.

00:47:49.420 And partly because the Conservatives' strategy was really not to get into a debate.

00:47:56.740 It was for Danielle to make the kind of points that she wanted to make, whatever the question was that was supposed to be debated.

00:48:04.980 And I think she did it quite eloquently.

00:48:07.880 I mean, she'd been on talk radio for so long, you'd expect her to be eloquent.

00:48:11.880 And I think she was.

00:48:13.060 On the other hand, Rachel Notley tended to be much more critical in a bad sense, sort of angry, irritated at Danielle. 1.00

00:48:28.180 And also, I had the sense that she was irritated that Danielle was doing so well.

00:48:36.000 I think that was part of her problem.

00:48:39.040 um chris you um well you've got you've got my old job at the canadian taxpayers federation yeah

00:48:46.320 this is kind of surreal yeah yeah and i've kind of got your old job you were at sun news network

00:48:50.720 this is i brought them brought them a coffee mug so similar to the western standard one there we go

00:48:57.600 um you're you know you're you're a taxpayer watchdog uh i know what you do here but um

00:49:04.560 this election seemed to be not a lot of talk of fiscal restraint. I mean, conservatives kind of

00:49:11.960 get a pass on fiscal issues the way the NDP get a pass on social issues, healthcare, education.

00:49:17.140 We just kind of assume, most voters just kind of assume one party's good at one, one's good

00:49:21.660 the other. It's just kind of brand affiliation parties have with these things. But both parties

00:49:26.900 didn't really do all that much, I think, making the case for any kind of real budget restraint,

00:49:32.120 no? Well, we were happy to see what the UCP government did before they dissolved into an

00:49:37.840 election. So during the budget, they announced that they would have balanced budget legislation.

00:49:43.560 And this is a big one. It sounds boring, but hear me out, guys, that they would restrain spending

00:49:49.120 to the rate of growth of inflation and population growth. That is something you know, Derek,

00:49:55.780 that the CTF has been asking for since the 1990s. Like the Backstreet Boys were top of the charts

00:50:00.740 when we were saying, folks, can you please rein in your spending to match population growth and

00:50:05.840 the rate of inflation? And then they did it. They passed the budget and they passed the law saying,

00:50:11.260 you know what, we're going to handcuff ourselves. And they said, we're going to pay down the debt

00:50:14.780 in a serious way. They're going to put 50% of their cash surplus down onto it. And they'd have

00:50:19.420 balanced budget legislation. So that all happened just before the writ was dropped. And so we were

00:50:24.120 really pleased with the Taxpayers Federation to see those commitments. Then we heard from the UCP

00:50:29.120 that they wanted to create a new lower bracket of income tax. So your first $60,000 of earnings

00:50:35.680 will be taxed at a lower rate at 8% instead of where it is right now at 10%. That was good.

00:50:42.020 And credit where it is due. The NDP said that they were going to reduce the small business tax down

00:50:47.420 to zero. Unfortunately, during the same announcement, they also announced they were

00:50:51.320 going to increase the regular business tax rate from 8% all the way up to 11%. So we were happy

00:50:57.140 to see some of those commitments. We think it was pretty substantive. It was interesting to see you

00:51:02.160 mentioned the debate. It was interesting to see Danielle Smith sticking to kind of those points 0.97

00:51:07.540 while smiling and talking about substance instead of using a lot more rhetoric. And it's something

00:51:13.440 that I think in communications is important. Show, don't tell. Give substance, don't just talk. And I

00:51:20.080 think that was the difference during the debate, actually. Okay. Well, I think we've actually got

00:51:25.460 uh some of the very first polls coming uh very very first results coming in now so why don't

00:51:31.380 we go to dave nailer our news editor in the newsroom right now uh with uh where we're at

00:51:39.620 uh starting to get trickle polls uh coming in derek uh right now there's uh just uh there's

00:51:46.100 1900 polls in total we've got results from uh four of those 1900 polls uh the uh

00:51:53.220 And the UCP has 46 of those votes, and New Democrats have 17.

00:52:01.580 The Advantage Party of Alberta charging them right along with one vote.

00:52:07.480 So early, early days yet.

00:52:10.260 And those writings are rural writings, Peace River and Drayton Valley, Devon.

00:52:18.180 So nothing from any cities yet, just the rural ones.

00:52:21.060 Actually, 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.

00:52:43.020 Are we going to declare them elected?

00:52:48.580 Well, 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%.

00:53:02.700 I'm not going to quite go on that yet.

00:53:08.460 Okay, well, I guess we'll just bring up the initial election map showing our leading right now, minus that.

00:53:15.480 So, Mika, why don't we just bring up the map?

00:53:17.700 I 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.

00:53:27.540 But you can almost call those ones right away.

00:53:29.820 That's Drayton Valley, Devon, and Peace River.

00:53:35.660 I'll call them now.

00:53:36.920 I mean, out of respect to the voters, I guess we'll wait for a little more.

00:53:39.900 But, I mean, it's...

00:53:41.440 Pretty confident.

00:53:42.320 It's happening.

00:53:43.980 Mr. Cooper, what are you expecting tonight?

00:53:47.200 Beyond the polls, the polls are showing what they're showing,

00:53:50.140 but what are you expecting at a more granular level?

00:53:54.100 Well, that's a very good question,

00:53:56.940 because I actually think that things may be a little more volatile,

00:54:01.900 particularly in Calgary, than a lot of the polling has suggested,

00:54:05.460 which means that it seems entirely possible to me

00:54:09.700 that the UCP might do a lot better in Calgary than they have been, than the pollsters have

00:54:16.940 said they're going to do. Partly because of the methodology of polling. And what is

00:54:24.760 missed? Particularly ages. The people that tend to vote more progressively tend to be

00:54:35.460 under or sort of overrepresented in the polls and the and the people who vote conservative

00:54:41.860 tend to be underrepresented so we could be in for some very interesting upsets 1.00

00:54:48.020 or at least upsets in the sense that they're not what is anticipated by the pollsters

00:54:52.020 okay uh before we go back to you chris uh i want to go to uh the ucp headquarters here

00:54:58.580 down at the Big Four in Calgary, where we've got Peter McCaffrey standing by.

00:55:04.720 Peter, thank you for joining us, coming to us from the Calgary headquarters.

00:55:08.560 I know we're only looking at the very, very, very earliest ones yet.

00:55:13.040 Practically, this means the UCP is leading in Calgary-Buffalo by 100%,

00:55:16.880 since there's only one vote counted.

00:55:18.360 It happens to be the UCP.

00:55:21.560 Some cheering in the background right now.

00:55:24.380 What are you seeing there right now?

00:55:27.600 yeah it's very early i hope you can hear me it is pretty loud here it's very early so far

00:55:32.080 uh so i won't won't get into any of the details of the actual numbers so far

00:55:36.000 um but one of the things i will be looking at tonight and this will be where i'll really start

00:55:39.600 to look at some of the numbers is calgary bow calgary bow is the writing that i'm going to

00:55:44.480 keep my own i could i could list off all of the tight seats but calgary bow is an interesting one

00:55:48.400 because if the ndt can't win in calgary i really think that they don't have a path to win here

00:55:54.000 they already have a narrower path to get to the 44 that they need and if they can't get it in

00:55:58.880 calgary bow i think they're really going to struggle in a bunch of other areas it's also

00:56:02.160 an interesting writing because of the candidates so you've got dimitri nikolaitis uh former uh

00:56:06.960 current uh i guess incumbent uh for the seat uh he's been the advanced education minister

00:56:13.920 and uh daniel smith and his opponent is drew farrell long long time uh counselor here in

00:56:20.800 calgary uh so drew barrel can't roll a sitting cabinet minister here in calgary then i think

00:56:31.920 yes there's a bunch of other types each there's a whole bunch i'll be looking at the numbers

00:56:35.600 specifically but calgary bow in particular if you want to pick one so i'm going to ask you the same

00:56:40.000 questions i have some of our other uh guests here um oh boy it's getting noisy there for your top

00:56:47.120 three bellwether constituencies so bow i would include as you know so like uh where are your top

00:56:52.960 including bow um if name three constituencies that if one party wins this they win the win the night

00:56:59.740 so you've already named bow what are the two other bellwethers you're looking for that if you win

00:57:03.940 that they're likely to die it's hard to name only three but off the top of my head if you force me

00:57:09.400 pick three i'll go for bow uh glenn moore and calgary cross um if if the if if the ucp pick

00:57:18.840 up two of those it's over uh if they pick up three then it could actually be quite a big win

00:57:23.880 uh if you're going to get one of those then it might be a tight night

00:57:28.520 very interesting um uh what do you expect from tonight overall like i know there's the polls

00:57:36.120 and we've all got our thoughts but uh what are you what are you expecting to see you know if

00:57:41.160 if you had a six pack on it uh what would be your best good uh my own personal projection is about

00:57:48.280 50 seats for the ucp uh but this is such a such a weird election so that 50 seats is based purely

00:57:55.400 off what the polls are showing and assuming the polls are accurate um but it's such a weird

00:57:59.720 election that even a small difference between uh what the polls are showing in the reality could

00:58:04.680 wildly swing it so for example if the ndp outperformed the polls by just a couple of points

00:58:09.880 we could have a narrow ndp government if the ucp outperformed the polls by a couple of points

00:58:15.400 we could actually see the ucp get a higher vote percentage than they did under jason kinney in

00:58:20.520 2019. it would still be a much tighter election seat wise because effectively the alberta party

00:58:25.640 but you could get a scenario where they used to actually do better than they did in 2019

00:58:31.800 purely on a vote percentage so that's it's a really weird election couple of points

00:58:36.600 either way compared to what the polls are showing could give dramatically different results uh my

00:58:41.480 last question for you is about that alberta party vote um i was saying earlier before you were on

00:58:47.160 the ndp has managed to completely cannibalize the liberal vote to the point where it is entirely

00:58:53.240 non-existent now but they in this election appear to have uh digested the alberta party vote the

00:58:59.960 ucp vote if the polls are to be believed is going to be actually fairly relatively steady compared

00:59:05.560 to 2019 the difference being that the ndp have eaten up the um uh the alberta party vote uh how

00:59:14.040 big i guess a two-part question how big a difference do you think that'll make and why

00:59:18.440 do you think the alberto uh the alberto party vote ndp rather than ucp yeah so you're right

00:59:25.000 the alberto party vote has really collapsed from the sort of 10 or 12 percent we were seeing

00:59:29.160 at the last election the polls down to 2 34 percent i think they're going to start moving

00:59:34.360 at that because they're not even running in most of the seats i think they're only running in less

00:59:38.120 than a third of the seats so honestly they'll be lucky if they get two percent um almost all of

00:59:43.000 that vote's gone likely to the ndp based on what we're seeing in the bowls and and like i said it's

00:59:47.240 It'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.

00:59:56.060 Very good.

00:59:56.820 Okay, thank you much for joining us, Peter.

00:59:58.400 I very much appreciate your time.

01:00:00.500 No problem.

01:00:01.260 Catch you later.

01:00:03.280 Chris, the arena deal.

01:00:06.760 Very weird.

01:00:08.220 Daniel Smith obviously supporting it.

01:00:09.660 She announces it.

01:00:10.500 But Rachel Notley opposing it, but not necessarily on principle, just that she kind of thinks she'd get a better deal.

01:00:20.980 I know you probably think of this from a policy perspective, but from put your pundit hat on for a second, if you would be allowed to.

01:00:27.300 Sure.

01:00:28.520 Do you think the whole fight over the arena has had much of an impact on the election in Calgary?

01:00:33.460 I 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.

01:01:01.640 However, NHL owners and players are multimillionaires. They can fundraise themselves. It shouldn't be coming from taxpayers to pay for NHL rink.

01:01:12.680 Now, 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.

01:01:31.460 Now, 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.

01:01:40.840 who doesn't like those things are you opposed to those mom and pop apple pie sort of things

01:01:46.600 so that was quite clever so what we would have said to that and we did in a opinion editorial

01:01:52.760 which you your western standard was so kind to run for us is that okay folks if you want to build a

01:01:58.980 baby rink for amateur sports and you want to build a new shiny transit station and upgrade your bridge

01:02:04.820 let's talk about that let's have a separate conversation about whether or not you guys

01:02:09.820 need to spend money on that. But they didn't. They connected it directly to the NHL deal.

01:02:16.060 Dr. Cooper, I'm going to talk about kind of the smaller parties that we are almost certainly not

01:02:22.260 going to see up on the screen tonight. One, the Alberta party, which did have a presence in the

01:02:29.940 last election, had somewhere between eight and 10% of the vote, came in with a caucus of three or

01:02:35.540 for MLAs, had a prominent leader, former Edmonton mayor and cabinet minister, completely disappearing

01:02:43.780 and that vote going to the NDP. And then the other, I guess, third party we could say is

01:02:49.760 Wildrose Independence Party, which kind of flared up since the last election, came to

01:02:56.680 about 15% in the polls, even without any money in MLAs, threatening the right flank, the

01:03:03.020 right populist flank of the UCP under Kenney. And that's since completely gone away, it seems,

01:03:09.660 and come back into the UCP fold. Can you tell us about maybe what the causes of both of those

01:03:15.840 phenomenons are and what impact that might have tonight? Well, I would guess with the Alberta

01:03:23.920 party that a lot of their support was up north rather than, say, in medicine hat, whereas the

01:03:30.500 opposite was true with with WIPA and they I was I knew some of the people involved in that and

01:03:39.040 they seemed to be very much against what Jason Kenney was doing to their sort of natural home

01:03:46.500 in a big party and they were they were very upset with him rather than with the sort of stated

01:03:53.080 principles of the conservatives so when when Danielle Smith became the new leader she pretty

01:03:59.680 much took the wind completely out of their sails because she did about 98% of what they were going

01:04:04.980 to do anyway, except for the independence part. And we'll, I'm sure we'll get to that sooner or

01:04:10.540 later anyway. But I think that's mainly what happened. It was, it was, she, she took the,

01:04:17.900 the main thing that drove the Wildrose Independence Party, which was just like of,

01:04:24.220 of what jason was doing and and what about uh maybe a bit more about the alberta party though

01:04:30.080 because uh it had votes in the last election a significant amount and it's just gone um yeah

01:04:36.860 is that because the alberta party is at its core a kind of left-leaning party or is it maybe more

01:04:43.460 along the media narrative that the ndp is the new center i would i would say it's that they were

01:04:49.860 certainly not a kind of populist party, put it that way. I don't know what appeal they would have

01:04:54.700 to rural Alberta. And I guess the NDP did a good job of persuading them that they're their real

01:05:03.340 representatives. And I guess a lot of Alberta party supporters agreed with it. But I mean,

01:05:08.380 I've got to say, I haven't paid much attention to the Alberta party for some time. And that may be

01:05:13.880 why. Most of the media is completely obsessed with them, even though they've been really a

01:05:18.000 non-entity most of this time. Okay, well, we're going to go to, actually, we're going to check

01:05:26.340 in with Dave Naylor in the newsroom to give us an update on new polls coming in.

01:05:33.240 Well, Derek, latest count, we have 14 polls in across the province. We have the Alberta New

01:05:40.120 Democratic Party leading or elected in five seats, and we have the UCP leading and elected

01:05:46.440 in 14 seats uh in terms of uh popular vote the ndp currently leading at 52.48 percent

01:05:57.020 the ucp at 43.14 percent so we're getting uh getting a bit uh a few more polls coming in and

01:06:05.380 just update you on calgary buffalo ucp still ahead by one vote to nil

01:06:11.760 that's the big one well i'm not putting that one up on the map uh you know i'll actually uh nico

01:06:18.280 why don't we put the map up on the board right now uh these are writings that have got more than

01:06:24.080 a single vote reporting there are some constituencies of single vote reporting we're

01:06:28.800 just not putting those up on the board but these are kind of uh davy you'll see the map here it's

01:06:34.040 showing largely what we would expect uh it's still very early coming in but you know you got peace

01:06:39.700 River, Central Peace, Notley, West Yellowhead, Camrose, Cardson-Six-Sica, Calgary-Fish Creek,

01:06:46.980 early polls all leaning to the UCP right now, and Edmonton Castle-Downs at Edmonton City Centre.

01:06:55.100 Very much as expected, the early polls there leaning for the NDP. Is there anything not up

01:07:00.900 on the map yet of note that you should fly for us?

01:07:04.120 just in terms of the popular vote Derek I'll point out Edmonton Ellerslie almost 800 votes

01:07:13.120 for the NDP candidate 384 for the UCP so that'll be where that large increase in popular vote came

01:07:21.220 from from the NDP because because we're just so early in the county yeah I didn't know that

01:07:27.100 Ellerslie had reported but yeah we've got it up on the board and I would be very shocked if

01:07:32.860 if that one went out another way.

01:07:36.680 Just know for our guests in the studio,

01:07:37.820 you do not need earpieces,

01:07:39.160 just microphones here.

01:07:41.880 Okay, Dave.

01:07:44.980 Thank you for joining us

01:07:45.940 and check back with us soon

01:07:47.400 when you got something new for us.

01:07:49.200 You bet.

01:07:50.720 Okay, joining us at the Calgary studio right now

01:07:53.160 are two former progressive conservative

01:07:56.800 cabinet ministers.

01:07:57.800 We've got Christine Cusinelli

01:07:59.420 who represented Calgary Curry

01:08:01.140 from what year did you first? 2012 to 2015. 2012 to 2015. And you were a cabinet minister in which

01:08:10.520 portfolios? Tourism, parks and recreation. Yeah. And Jonathan Dennis, former minister of justice

01:08:15.620 and attorney general representing Calgary, Acadia from 2000, was it eight? 2008 to 2015.

01:08:20.600 2008 to 2015 in Calgary, Acadia. Both interesting writings tonight. I think the smart money is

01:08:30.200 curry's probably going back to the ndp it's possible it's a tough riding to win it's a very

01:08:36.380 urban riding so the demographics are kind of tough for a conservative to come out on but i i have to

01:08:41.820 say i'm hoping that it's going to be a surprise tonight i live in the riding and you know from

01:08:48.200 what i can tell people talking to my neighbors and so on and just looking around i think it's

01:08:54.420 looking not too bad so i've got my fingers crossed for nick milliken and i'm hoping that he can pull

01:08:59.920 through. So Jonathan, you're representing one of the, you represented one of the writings that

01:09:06.280 everyone's talking about tonight as a extreme bellwether, Calgary, Acadia. We've got Tyler

01:09:14.440 Shandro there. He was a health minister under Jason Kenney, shuffled out after, you know,

01:09:20.600 a lot of the COVID stuff that probably didn't go down so well, shuffled out to justice. So funny,

01:09:25.660 now we have two justice ministers from the same constituency. I know you've been involved in a

01:09:32.240 lot of the Calgary campaigns, but maybe we'll start with your old stomping grounds in Acadia first.

01:09:36.480 What are you expecting to see tonight there? I expect to see that it will be a loss or a victory

01:09:41.560 by under five points. One of the things to always remind yourself of is that, especially in the

01:09:46.560 urban ridings, the local candidate matters less than five percent out of the equation. People

01:09:50.760 typically will either vote for the leader or the party, and there's also the demograph of the

01:09:54.380 riding. So the southern part of the riding, like Willow Park, will probably go south of the UCP.

01:09:59.320 Northern part, Fairview, and the western part, Southwood, will probably go NDP. Those were

01:10:05.360 areas that were lost last time. I'm going to say it's too close to call, but I would say that

01:10:11.040 Shandra probably will win that by five points. That riding, in my view, would fall before Calgary 0.96

01:10:16.940 Glenmore. The NDP have put in both strong ground games. I took a drive-through earlier last week

01:10:23.380 that the sign count is almost equal.

01:10:25.840 Wow.

01:10:26.200 So if I get what you're saying correctly,

01:10:29.340 if the NDP win Acadia, they've probably won.

01:10:32.880 And if they win Glenmore, they've definitely won.

01:10:34.860 Yes, I would say specifically Glenmore.

01:10:36.700 Glenmore was an interesting one in 2015,

01:10:39.080 again, with a terrible campaign.

01:10:40.500 Less than 10 votes or something.

01:10:41.540 Six votes and a judicial recount.

01:10:43.800 So that was with a vote split.

01:10:45.920 So the interesting thing is I do think Whitney Isaac

01:10:48.560 has been a very strong local MLA.

01:10:51.380 She's well-known.

01:10:52.340 She's in with a lot of the communities there, and I would suggest that the advantage does go to her.

01:10:57.820 I would probably call that with about a 10-point victory.

01:11:00.540 You know what?

01:11:01.440 We're going to have a reunion of PC Cabinet Ministers here.

01:11:05.540 We've got standing by Ted Morton, former PC Cabinet Minister, Minister of Finance, Minister of Energy, and leadership contender.

01:11:16.640 And don't forget, the best Premier we never had.

01:11:18.460 a man who if he had been become premier we may have never heard the name wild rose before

01:11:23.520 uh so let's bring in uh dr ted morton uh i think coming to us uh actually i'm not going to disclose

01:11:31.940 this location i don't think you'd like that uh but uh dr morton thank you very much for joining

01:11:36.400 us tonight uh what are you expecting to see as the as the first poll start to trickle in here

01:11:42.380 oh we can't hear dr morton

01:11:48.460 uh dr martin we cannot hear you i think your microphone might be off

01:11:54.640 there we are how's that okay there there there we are sir so i said i i don't know what i'm

01:12:03.780 predicting but i know what i'm hoping and that's for a ucp majority i would hope uh in the range

01:12:09.120 of 50 seats well that's an absolute shocker sir um i know it's shocking uh in your estimation i

01:12:19.160 mean you are you're right you've been right in the thick of alberta politics but in alberta's

01:12:23.620 changing um some would say for the better some would say for the worse but uh what do you think

01:12:28.720 makes uh explains uh there being such a at least predicted tight race tonight and the early results

01:12:35.860 are probably two aren't good enough to tell yet but based on the polls why do you think we're in

01:12:40.500 such a knife fight tonight with with an ndp that against a unified right you know the logic goes

01:12:48.180 should have no business being competitive the simple answer to that question is simply that

01:12:54.820 for the past 30 or 40 years the the left of center's vote was split between the ndp and

01:13:00.740 the liberals so one of the reasons you had a 40 40 uh what 44 year conservative uh dynasty

01:13:09.060 was the left the anti-conservative vote was split the liberals have disappeared and all of a sudden

01:13:14.500 you have and then that's what happened in 2015 right the settling vote vote splitting was on

01:13:20.100 the right instead of on the left um you know i i've talked with some of our previous guests

01:13:27.780 before you were on about this but um you know kenny uh managed to bring the parties together

01:13:32.420 in 2017 uh came to a thumping majority in 2019 consolidating the conservative vote

01:13:38.260 uh but in the years since you know a combination of his stances on ottawa and actions during covid

01:13:46.500 he uh there was a real splinter at least a real chance of the right splintering again you had the

01:13:52.180 the Wild Rose Independence Party, which started showing a real heartbeat in the polls. Since

01:13:58.000 Danielle Smith has come in, that vote has come back to the UCP. How critical do you think,

01:14:06.380 but some of the criticism has been that maybe she tried too hard to bring that Wild Rose vote back,

01:14:10.720 and she should have been chasing the Alberta party vote. Do you think that's a fair analysis,

01:14:16.880 or was it more important to bring that vote back in from the right flank,

01:14:20.040 rather than chasing the center, perhaps?

01:14:24.500 Well, first of all, I'd say with respect to Jason Kenney,

01:14:28.140 it was very unfortunate that he had suddenly out of nowhere came COVID

01:14:34.600 and something that nobody was prepared for.

01:14:37.320 He did not handle it well, but a lot of politicians didn't,

01:14:41.820 and it was unfortunate to lose him.

01:14:43.460 I 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.

01:15:06.320 So I think it's unfortunate that Jason's still not leading the UCP yet.

01:15:13.440 But 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

01:15:21.360 And part of that, of course, is Jason's record and talk about the NDP record.

01:15:25.480 The four years under the NDP, they didn't stand up for Alberta.

01:15:29.120 They raised taxes and did a bunch of things to make us less competitive.

01:15:32.160 and she is a member of the federal NDP party.

01:15:37.060 You're a provincial NDP, you're a federal NDP

01:15:39.020 and the federal NDPs are what crop up Justin Trudeau

01:15:42.540 and Justin Trudeau is very, very anti-Alberta.

01:15:48.480 Okay, I'm gonna come back to you in a moment, Dr. Morton,

01:15:51.780 but I wanna bring in Dave Naylor

01:15:52.960 for a moment from our newsroom here.

01:15:54.740 I think we've just had a whole rash of polls closing.

01:15:58.680 There's now 105 polls closed

01:16:00.680 and some early results coming in.

01:16:05.340 Dave, why don't you give us an update?

01:16:08.320 36 polls closed at the moment, Derek.

01:16:12.180 UCP leading or elected in 42.

01:16:16.500 The NDP leading or elected in 22.

01:16:21.160 So that 42 is very, very close to the needed majority number

01:16:26.920 with obviously lots more to come.

01:16:30.680 In terms of the popular vote, it's 51% for the NDP, 46% for the UCP.

01:16:43.320 So just a bit of a dump there.

01:16:45.880 And, you know, I don't see any shocks on the board.

01:16:50.660 Even Calgary Buffalo, we've got another poll coming in.

01:16:53.920 It's 11 to 8 for the NDP in that writing.

01:16:56.680 uh okay so i know some of these though are still some of these have got some real results in

01:17:03.520 some of them are still just one three votes or something what are the some of the ones uh on

01:17:08.340 that we can maybe put up on the board here as you know reliably leaning one way or another

01:17:14.000 well it looks like uh calgary fish creek uh is going to uh

01:17:20.320 i see the last uh

01:17:26.680 Update. They're going to be staying NDP. Edmonton Meadows, two to one there, 2,246 votes for the NDP, 1,263 for the UCP.

01:17:41.780 um cameras uh doubling of the uh almost a doubling of the uh the vote for the ucp there now

01:17:51.300 uh cyprus medicine hat uh 343 for ucp 47 for uh uh the ndp so that's uh off to a good start

01:18:02.920 drayton valley and devon also a significant lead for the ucp at the moment

01:18:09.440 Mooranville-St. Albert, 569 for the UCP, 262 for the NDP.

01:18:20.720 That's an important one to watch.

01:18:22.400 That one is a bellwether.

01:18:23.560 If the NDP wins that one, they have a real path to victory.

01:18:26.680 So if the UCP is holding there, then that would be a sign that that's one of their –

01:18:33.680 that's kind of a – that's a readout.

01:18:36.200 They have – like that's one of their final defensible positions.

01:18:39.080 it is and actually if you look down here that's 865 to 569 that's at the advanced polls and we're

01:18:44.600 seeing a trend of the last few elections that more and more that parties are pushing people to the

01:18:48.760 advanced polls uh i don't know if that's an indication before i want to call that i'd actually

01:18:52.920 like to see an actual poll from today i i wouldn't say that's enough to call it that's leaning that

01:18:58.600 way but it's enough votes in that it's a reasonable leaning it's not uh two guys and you're absolutely

01:19:03.240 right i think that that is a particular riding that is going to be an important one to watch

01:19:07.240 tonight um and in calgary like for me i'm looking at a couple of that's one of them that i'm looking

01:19:13.160 at um i think that lethbridge east is one that it's not necessarily a bellwether but some of the

01:19:19.080 ones that are more interesting that i'm watching to see which way it's going to go calgary cross

01:19:24.120 is going to be interesting um and i kind of think uh as far as bellwether i think that uh some of

01:19:31.800 the regions just outside of Edmonton uh refer to the donut area in in uh just outside of Edmonton

01:19:38.440 I think those are very very important for us um even beyond Calgary because we know that we're

01:19:43.880 not necessarily going to be um owning as many seats perhaps in Calgary as we we did in the last

01:19:49.800 election uh I want to bring uh Dr Ted Morton back in here um uh Dr Morton um you know you're uh

01:19:58.840 quite familiar, I think, with how turbulent leadership politics is in Alberta. Before you

01:20:05.020 were on earlier, I was kind of getting into the history of it. I was crunching numbers earlier

01:20:08.580 today. The last time an Alberta conservative premier finished a term was 2004. I was in high

01:20:15.180 school, and someone born that year can vote now. That's the last time a conservative Alberta

01:20:19.500 premier completed a term, and the last premier period of any party to leave office of their own

01:20:25.580 free will was the year I was born. That was Peter Loughey, 1985. So, I mean, you know, I'm not asking

01:20:34.100 you to jinx anything here, but even if Daniel Smith won a thumping majority, as the last

01:20:41.000 conservative premier did, it's not a very reliably, it's not a job that comes with a lot of job

01:20:48.520 security. So, if Daniel Smith manages to come out of tonight, small majority or reduced decent

01:20:55.560 majority. What do you think her chances of hanging on to the leadership for a full four years are 1.00

01:21:01.960 considering no one's done that in a generation? Yeah, you wonder why anybody would want the job

01:21:11.540 anymore. Okay, here's a storyline maybe you haven't heard yet. I think if you go from where

01:21:20.160 I started and ran for the PC leadership back in 2006. And I ran very explicitly on the Alberta

01:21:27.640 agenda, the firewall, the firewall letter, the reforms, I think are still needed to give Alberta

01:21:34.360 a fair deal in the way Canada works. I came close, but certainly the PC establishment didn't like me

01:21:41.420 and they got behind Denning. Of course, Denning didn't win either. Ed Stelmex sneaked up the

01:21:46.800 middle on second preferences. But if you go through those leadership votes over the past,

01:21:52.500 all the premiers you just mentioned, the Alberta agenda, the firewall, the fair deal reforms,

01:21:58.480 which when I advocated them back in 2004, were very much kind of on the margin of the party.

01:22:05.000 You know, by the time Jason united the party, you have the fair deal panel. The fair deal panel

01:22:11.340 endorses all of those um i was hoping we'd get to see jason take you know act on those but now

01:22:18.800 he's gone but uh danielle has gone one step further the sovereignty act so the types of reforms

01:22:25.140 i think i think the types of reforms that i was talking about 20 years ago uh 20 years ago have

01:22:33.060 moved to the very center of alberta politics i think the splitting of the right uh in alberta

01:22:40.360 contributes to the instability of the two parties and i think frankly the conservative party

01:22:44.840 establishment was very ill-advised to ignore the growing number of albertans you know look at

01:22:52.040 federal politics federally we voted overwhelmingly for the reform party canadian alliance and then

01:22:58.040 the conservative party of canada so the the pc party paid a heavy price for ignoring and frankly

01:23:05.960 treating rather badly uh those of us who came from the reform party roots uh in the past 20 years

01:23:12.500 but danielle has taken that to the center of the debate i see that as very positive and i think

01:23:19.860 that's why she's going to win tonight and why i think she's likely to have a more stable majority 1.00

01:23:24.100 in the next four years all right dr morton well thank you very much for joining us uh if you're

01:23:29.960 able to join us later i'd uh very much uh appreciate your insight as we get more of the

01:23:35.060 results uh if you're able to uh thank you uh so much for your being generous with your time

01:23:40.660 yeah you're welcome uh i'm also going to go to uh we're going to bring in uh dr tom flanagan soon

01:23:47.060 but first i'm just going to go to the uh floor of the ucp headquarters in calgary with uh

01:23:51.860 jonathan bradley he's got uh mike solberg here um mike solberg i think from uh northwest strategies

01:23:58.660 if i got that right new west new west new west affairs i didn't even get it close

01:24:05.780 uh mike actually i think there's a lot of uh development happening right now isn't there

01:24:12.340 yeah you know what there is we're starting to see some of the polls come in uh you know trickle in

01:24:18.100 as they do after the polls close way too early to call most of them but you know some early signs

01:24:24.100 of some of the riders that the ucb must win uh in order to pull this off but you know way too

01:24:30.660 early to call anything yeah uh well uh it's too early to call most of these things but uh what

01:24:38.820 are you expecting uh to see this evening i know you watch this stuff uh very closely the ucb are

01:24:44.580 going to form a majority movement the story of tonight is whether or not daniel smith is going

01:24:49.460 to be able to form a large enough party to keep the knives in their seats uh and and have enough

01:24:56.100 credibility going to the next six months uh that she doesn't have to worry about what conservatives

01:25:00.740 have done for 25 years which is our leader for four performance whether real or proceed

01:25:07.540 uh but i expect her to win tonight and she'll have a speech tonight uh and we'll see you know

01:25:12.340 what message he has for the general population but certainly the base of the party the party members

01:25:19.460 who hold a lot of sway in her future as well.

01:25:23.420 So we'll see how it plays out,

01:25:24.740 but way too early still to make any predictions.

01:25:27.980 I expect there'll be a long night.

01:25:30.640 I guess I want to get into that.

01:25:32.460 What you've alluded to there is the leadership fights.

01:25:34.700 I'm not sure you may have heard me and Dr. Morton talking about this

01:25:38.460 and just how short-term a job Alberta Premier tends to be,

01:25:42.480 particularly if you're a Conservative.

01:25:44.320 uh actually only one conservative has actually lost an election as premier every single other

01:25:50.480 one's been done in by their party uh one way or another um how tough if danielle smith wins tonight 1.00

01:25:57.460 let's and let's just say for the sake of argument it's uh it's not razor tight but it's a

01:26:04.760 you know she's got five to seven seat majority it's it's comfortable but it's not big uh how 1.00

01:26:11.180 tough a job is she gonna have keeping her job a tough job a tough job you know let's be clear

01:26:18.220 the ucp under former premier kenny whether you liked him or hated him had a government that was

01:26:24.440 overseeing a very strong economy a 12 billion dollar surplus we've seen er times drop under

01:26:31.580 this government we've seen surgery wait times everybody under this government we've seen jobs

01:26:37.160 flood back to the province we've seen the Alberta is calling campaign I see great success and people

01:26:43.940 investing and returning to the province by most accounts this should have been an easy path to

01:26:50.480 victory by the UCB but through some missteps and other factors it's become close to the point where

01:26:57.900 we're still watching with vague breath so I think Daniel Smith needs to do very well tonight to make

01:27:03.360 sure those knives stay in their cheese and that she dwells any kind of potential 1.00

01:27:11.220 interaction against her leadership and most importantly keeps her caucus

01:27:15.680 united which is the hard work of the leader the day after this campaign should

01:27:20.700 Daniel Smith be rewarded with another mandate another 40-year-old all right

01:27:26.400 thank you very much for joining us Mike and being generous with your time have

01:27:30.480 good night. Thanks, Jared. Build the absolute man. Anytime. All right. I'm going to bring in

01:27:36.500 another. We've had a lot of the Calgary school here. I'm going to bring in Dr. Tom Flanagan,

01:27:43.640 former political scientist at the University of Calgary. He is also, I believe, he was involved

01:27:49.240 in the early Reform Party, Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance leadership run, and the early

01:27:55.480 The Wild Rose Party, certainly no stranger to Alberta politics.

01:27:59.580 Thank you for joining us, Dr. Flanagan.

01:28:02.780 What are you making of the early results that we've seen so far?

01:28:07.300 Well, they're very, very, very preliminary, but you'd rather be ahead than behind.

01:28:13.160 And the last time I looked, UCP was leading, you know, in something like 40 seats, already close to a majority.

01:28:22.820 And now that may not hold up as the evening goes on.

01:28:25.300 But, you know, so the very early results seem to be favorable.

01:28:29.820 One oddity was that the NDP actually had more votes.

01:28:34.300 I don't expect that to hold up as the evening goes on.

01:28:37.060 It's probably just an artifact of which particular polling places have reported.

01:28:43.820 Yeah, so we'll see.

01:28:45.560 I've never had the gift of prophecy, so I can't predict the future.

01:28:50.220 But 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.

01:29:12.060 Now, there's a lot of practical difference there.

01:29:14.680 Two to three-point lead is a cliffhanger.

01:29:18.460 Eight-point lead is a comfortable victory.

01:29:20.220 So 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

01:29:35.500 The 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.

01:29:51.520 And 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.

01:30:08.020 it would seem to be possible that the NDP could even win I don't expect them to but they could

01:30:15.560 even win the popular vote but still fail to win the most seats because they're the the math on

01:30:21.640 their path to victory to get to 44 seats plus is just so difficult yeah they have a you know one

01:30:29.880 would expect them to roll up some very big majorities in Edmonton which you know in a sense

01:30:35.140 become wasted votes uh you know much bigger majorities than they need uh another ucp has

01:30:41.480 a small advantage in them in that the average size of the rural ridings is smaller than the urban ones

01:30:48.040 and the ucp uh you know dominates these ridings so they get more bang for the buck

01:30:54.060 if you want to put it that way um so a small ucp advantage their

01:31:00.140 uh ndp disadvantage with their concentration in edmonton so uh yeah it wouldn't be out of

01:31:07.420 the question for the ndp to get more votes and uh get fewer seats but i don't expect that to happen

01:31:13.660 because every poll that's been taken in the last few weeks has shown some degree of ucp majority

01:31:20.780 of votes um you're right about the two-party strict two-party uh competition but that's new

01:31:28.220 in alberta this is the first time um you know last time there was still a nine percent vote

01:31:35.020 for the alberta party i think many of those voters have probably migrated to the ndp

01:31:40.540 um but that in in recent elections the multi-party split has actually been the most important thing

01:31:49.340 uh when the tories lost it was because wild rose was still running separate candidates

01:31:54.620 and before then for many years the liberals and the NDP were carving up the left of center vote

01:32:04.600 you know there was almost always more than 40 percent of voters sometimes more than 50 percent

01:32:09.020 of voters who were choosing liberal and NDP but because they were more or less evenly divided

01:32:15.720 they couldn't win very many seats that's all changed now we we have become at least for the

01:32:22.260 time being who knows for the future but for the time being it's a very strict two-party system

01:32:26.460 all right well thank you very much uh dr flanagan i appreciate your time and uh if you're able to

01:32:33.360 we'd love if you could chat back later when we've got some more results sure be i'm home all evening

01:32:38.940 so uh just tell me when you want to want me to sign in and i'll come back i don't have the

01:32:44.040 international vibe of ted morton but i'm happy to happy to appear oh i'm being careful not to

01:32:49.700 disclose his secret bunker location.

01:32:52.800 Okay.

01:32:53.740 It's another country anyway.

01:32:54.940 Put it that way.

01:32:56.120 Okay.

01:32:56.320 Bye-bye.

01:32:56.760 Thanks.

01:32:57.440 Okay.

01:32:58.060 We're going to go to Jonathan Bradley at the UCP headquarters in Calgary,

01:33:02.920 where he has Erica Barutz.

01:33:04.980 Erica Barutz was the president of the United Conservative Party.

01:33:08.960 I believe it's first president and also elected as a senator in waiting

01:33:14.120 during the most recent municipal elections.

01:33:18.680 Thank you for joining us, Erica.

01:33:20.680 How are you guys feeling on the ground there?

01:33:22.680 Yeah, I mean, the momentum is picking up.

01:33:25.680 Now that the polls have closed and a lot of the Logan campaigns are making their way down here.

01:33:29.680 We're definitely starting to see some of the early results come in.

01:33:32.680 They're looking pretty good for the United Conservative Party.

01:33:38.680 What are the...

01:33:40.680 Have you seen any surprises yet in the results coming in?

01:33:43.680 No, I mean, it's still pretty early.

01:33:46.680 We're seeing, you know, a lot of the rural seats, some of the Edmonton Donut come in.

01:33:51.560 No, no shops yet, but some positive vibes in the room.

01:33:59.720 If, let's, if either leader, I'm going to put you on the spot here.

01:34:04.840 I'm going to give you a nasty question.

01:34:06.180 I'm going to throw one out.

01:34:06.780 If either leader does not win tonight, what's the over-under that they, that they step down?

01:34:13.420 I mean, traditionally, that is something that the leader usually does.

01:34:18.660 We've seen it in the past where they've stepped down.

01:34:21.540 But I do say that both of these leaders have kind of made comebacks, right?

01:34:25.420 Rachel Notley lost and still remained popular within her party.

01:34:29.980 And Danielle Smith is kind of a comeback kid here over the last decade. 1.00

01:34:33.820 So I wouldn't say that this is, I mean, it's not a traditional election we're seeing.

01:34:38.440 it. I wouldn't think that the way that the leaders are going to handle the results are

01:34:42.580 going to be probably conventional either. Okay. Well, stand by Erica. I know Jonathan

01:34:49.960 Dennis and Kristin Cousinelli here are about to jump out of their seats. They're clearly

01:34:53.940 looking at interesting things on their computers and phones. I don't even really know what it

01:34:58.440 is. I'm just going to put it to you guys. What are you so excited about? Well, you know,

01:35:01.340 I think that this is starting to look encouraging. I'm not going to tell you how long I've been

01:35:05.040 the election but it's the long time and you usually sell what's happening in the earlier

01:35:10.080 polls and the law of averages comes in one thing i'm surprised of one poll has come in calgary

01:35:14.560 acadia 106 for the ndp uh 63 for the ucp and this is in manchester in uh in the neighborhood center

01:35:22.480 this is uh uh this is an area that uh could really go either way uh it has traditionally

01:35:28.080 gone conservative too early to call there in particular but if you look at some of the other

01:35:32.320 other areas here uh people were saying northwest well we've got 156 ucp to 98 uh there that is

01:35:38.880 looking encouraging here as well and uh if fish creek obviously i will call that that like we

01:35:44.120 even won that in 2015 that is ahead as well uh calgary bow uh 50 votes to 21 votes rather

01:35:50.960 polarizing ndp candidate former in drew farrell there demetrius nicolaitis has always had a very

01:35:56.080 good ground game i'm hoping for his victory there tonight uh christine and uh well of course i'm

01:36:03.140 looking over jonathan's shoulder here just like we're at school um and you're the principal i am

01:36:08.720 i am the principal i am a former principal so he knows not to misbehave um but i'm uh keeping my

01:36:14.780 eye on calgary bow um and i'm liking what i'm seeing yeah everyone's talking about bow and you

01:36:20.920 what it was a very contentious race uh we had you know drew has drew farrell um she's got name 0.97

01:36:26.840 recognition and certainly uh she is a favorite uh within the the ndp uh group there so i i wondered

01:36:34.760 how that was going to go but i really liked how the polls were trending uh overall um towards uh

01:36:41.160 you know a more of a victory uh closer victory hopefully for uh dimitrios nicolades who i think

01:36:46.440 has done a fantastic job in calgary bow um the other um the other thing that uh i'm i'm noticing

01:36:53.880 too is calgary acadia and you know it is too early to tell right now but as jonathan and i

01:36:59.400 are looking at these you kind of get a bit of a bullion when you start to see you know even at

01:37:03.640 these stages that your party is making gains and i don't like the looks of that to be honest i don't

01:37:09.720 like the looks of that very very quick because all the other polls are looking you know and i know

01:37:13.960 it's super early to say um but you know i i would prefer i'd feel safer if we were pulling in a

01:37:19.960 different direction there the last thing i just want to add here calgary falcon ridge last time

01:37:23.960 we won that by 99 votes there was a judicial recount i'm seeing 110 to 51 there right now

01:37:29.400 looking down again however that is the special ballot and advanced voting uh before you call that

01:37:34.600 again you want to see what the live results yeah okay uh real quickly we're going to check in with

01:37:39.160 dave nailer in our newsroom uh i just while you guys were talking there was a bunch of people i

01:37:44.280 saw that kind of run across the newsroom huddling over his shoulder must have been looking at

01:37:48.360 something interesting on his computer so let's bring in dave nailer in the newsroom uh dave

01:37:52.440 what do you got for us they were just running for the last piece of pizza derek um you told me it's

01:38:00.760 it's all gone? David took it. David Parker took the last piece. I can give you a bit of an overall

01:38:14.060 view, Derek. 94 polls reporting. That's 4%. Total of 22,500 ballots cast. NDP leading or elected in

01:38:25.320 29 calgary leading or ucp leading and elected in uh 45 but you know what polls have been closed

01:38:33.800 for an hour many writings haven't even filed a single poll yet utterly ridiculous uh yeah it's

01:38:42.200 just way too early to really get into anything at the moment so we're just gonna borrow your 1.00

01:38:46.760 credit card and order more pizza oh you son of a bitch do you want me to chip in for that or what 0.99

01:38:55.480 order some good scotch okay thank you dave uh so the map we've got up here uh just so folks know 0.99

01:39:01.560 uh this is a combination of common sense and what's leading common sense uh i mean if if

01:39:09.480 there's you know even one vote reporting in drumheller stetler i mean we're gonna put that

01:39:15.240 as leaning ucp because we know it's leaning ucp if there's one vote counted in edmonton strathcona

01:39:21.880 we're called we're putting that as leaning ndp because we know it's going to go ndp uh the ones

01:39:26.600 where there's just too few or no votes we're not filling it at all right now but that's that's where

01:39:31.480 we stand uh so based on any results we have real results we have i've got 39 ucp 27 uh ndp uh that's

01:39:41.480 still extremely extremely uh preliminary uh why don't we go um

01:39:50.840 let's see here uh uh let's check in with uh you arthur uh up in edmonton at

01:39:56.840 ndp headquarters uh arthur what can you tell us is happening up there

01:40:00.200 arthur we cannot hear you arthur you are muted

01:40:07.940 there i am now can you hear me uh the room here derek is uh is really starting to fill up uh we're

01:40:16.200 getting a lot of orange and uh motley crew shirts uh into the room again uh not too many candidates

01:40:24.480 in the room at the moment there's roughly about 150 people in here drinks are flowing and the

01:40:30.600 party is beginning okay all right thank you uh thank you for that uh update arthur we're gonna

01:40:42.780 go to jonathan bradley uh he's got an update for us from the ucb headquarters at the big four

01:40:47.500 building in Calgary thank you okay we're gonna come back to you later okay

01:41:09.640 okay from where you are um uh thank you uh mr morton uh we're gonna bring you in now

01:41:21.880 uh i guess uh i want to just get uh your take of where we're at we're starting to see some

01:41:26.520 some numbers come in um early leads for the ucp in calgary bow a bellwether but also an early lead

01:41:33.400 for the ndp in uh in acadia uh another bellwether so we've got two bellwethers it's still very

01:41:39.480 early to tell, but two bellwethers trending opposite directions.

01:41:47.900 I'm not an expert on specific writing, so I would just say the obvious, that it's a

01:41:56.160 contradiction, and we'll have to see how it shakes out.

01:41:58.740 now do you uh yeah i suppose you're more you're more from rural and the kind of the surrounding

01:42:14.980 area but you know actually one one area i want to ask you about is banff cananaskis because that

01:42:18.860 includes part of your old former constituency i think it was called um mountain view foothills

01:42:27.380 rocky view now it's it's a very different constituency than you had uh but it includes

01:42:32.340 a large part of it namely in the rocky view county part um spring bank area on the west side of

01:42:38.820 calgary very staunchly conservative but it's been kind of melded together in a way sorry uh our

01:42:45.540 guests in studio do not require uh earpieces um it's been uh fused together with uh kind of granola

01:42:54.020 country uh bamf and increasingly canmore so it's it's this really strange fusion of a constituency

01:43:01.220 that uh that is considered very much up for grabs tonight uh what's your prediction for for how your

01:43:07.700 old grounds are going to go well but i never represented uh bam for canmore uh there obviously

01:43:14.740 there's a lot more support for the liberals and ndp there and uh so it makes it a much more

01:43:19.700 complicated writing for a conservative party. I think, I mean, one of the things that is new

01:43:29.220 about the Alberta election, but also about politics on both sides of the border now,

01:43:34.260 is that historically, wealthier, more educated people tended to vote small c conservative.

01:43:40.180 And in the last decade or 15 years, that's changing. Certainly, both in baby boomers and

01:43:47.220 and younger generations like yours more educated more affluent people are voting left of center

01:43:53.060 there's a whole there's a new set of issues and i think you have as you said uh uh you call them

01:43:59.220 granola eaters i i like granola too but uh but uh i think you have well you have retirement

01:44:13.300 communities, and you have certainly in Canmore, it's become a retirement community. You have

01:44:17.620 wealthier, more educated people there that historically would tend to vote conservative,

01:44:21.860 but in the new constellation of so-called neoconservative or post-liberal politics,

01:44:32.180 suddenly those indicators are pushing voters in a leftward, so-called progressive direction. So

01:44:41.140 that's i think that that complicates that writing because i think certainly canmore

01:44:47.300 has a lot of those types of people yeah it's uh it's it is a real mess and complicated writing

01:44:56.260 uh for sure that uh i doubt you would recognize considering i think a majority of the population

01:45:01.060 now is uh from outside of it okay i want to actually uh turn to one of your old colleagues

01:45:06.900 here uh who's joining us in studio uh mr db cooper um uh so uh dr we had you on uh earlier i think

01:45:14.900 before we had any results yes i think uh but we've got we've got some results now um the map we've

01:45:21.620 got going we'll put the map uh keep the map up on the screen for now uh it is a combination of where

01:45:28.260 of results and some common sense so you know where we've got one five votes in we're not putting it

01:45:35.220 up unless it's like edmonton strathcona we just if the ndp is leading by one vote in edmonton

01:45:40.720 strathcona we're calling that and inversely in uh rimby rocky mountain house sundry uh there's

01:45:47.560 one vote in for conservatives we're putting up as leaning conservative uh so out of what we've

01:45:52.500 got right now yeah we've got the block of edmonton uh banf cananaskis leaning ndp um i'd say the only

01:46:01.680 a really interesting one I'm seeing right now is the NDP for the time being has a lead

01:46:05.440 in Calgary, Acadia. So leading in that bellwether, but the UCP winning in another one of these

01:46:11.080 two other bellwethers, Glenmore and Bo. So what do you make of what we're seeing so far?

01:46:17.040 I live in Bo, and I must say I'm not surprised that Dimitri is doing well there.

01:46:24.560 it's a traditionally it's a very it's been historically a very conservative writing

01:46:32.220 Drew Farrell as I was mentioning outside to some of the people people who remember her do not

01:46:38.800 remember her fondly she had more signs up I think than than than Dimitri did but you wonder sort of

01:46:48.760 how deep the signs are plugged into the ground

01:46:52.480 because the people who live there,

01:46:57.920 like my neighbors, basically,

01:46:59.600 have been conservative since Peter Loughey was there.

01:47:04.520 And I was surprised when that was considered a bellwether,

01:47:10.520 quite frankly, because it struck me

01:47:12.140 as being pretty clearly conservative for a very long time.

01:47:18.760 All right. Nigel, so when you were in here, we still didn't have any numbers in yet,

01:47:25.100 but we've got some decent numbers in to give us a good sense of things.

01:47:31.220 Where do you think things are going right now?

01:47:33.420 Tell you what, if those numbers were reversed and it was the NDP that had 50 seats and the UCP that had 30,

01:47:41.320 then I think everybody would be saying, well, there it is. There's the NDP sweep.

01:47:44.920 so it isn't that it is what it is are we then to say well there may be more results coming in

01:47:53.820 and there certainly will be some seats you think of one party now will turn out to be the other

01:47:59.080 but it seems like a fairly clear indication as a sample size of the total voting population

01:48:05.760 it is a very large number far far higher than you would take a poll and draw conclusions from

01:48:14.740 So 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.

01:48:31.660 Now it's 44 to your bare majority, you know, where you have to break every time, every vote with a speaker tie.

01:48:38.740 But we've got UCP of 43 if this holds steady.

01:48:44.840 And that still leaves a lot of seats up for grabs.

01:48:50.960 So actually, we're going to quickly turn to Jonathan Bradley, who's standing by the UCP headquarters in Calgary at the Big Four.

01:48:58.200 Jonathan, what do you got for us?

01:49:04.000 Jonathan, we cannot hear Jonathan.

01:49:05.360 we cannot hear jonathan all right well we'll come back to jonathan later uh when he gets his

01:49:12.040 volume work in there i'm good i'm good i'm good okay bring it back in okay so the crowd's doing

01:49:19.400 the crowd's energized people are cheering on the use of people as well people are doing when the

01:49:23.700 mdp uh when an mdp candidate or an mla comes on uh there's a whole bunch of positivity here i do

01:49:31.120 see people smiling looks like everyone's having a good time uh we've had a few people come on

01:49:36.560 who we've spoken with and i think it's going to be a ucp win okay all right thank you jonathan um

01:49:48.560 okay uh so actually uh i'm getting word from uh dave miller our news editor that a big

01:49:54.160 poll dump has just come in so let's go to dave in the newsroom for an update

01:49:57.920 After about 20 minutes of non-action, Derek, we suddenly went from 94 polls reporting to 173.

01:50:08.900 It's almost 10% of all polls.

01:50:11.680 We've got UCP leading and elected in 51, and we've got the NDP leading or elected in 31.

01:50:20.380 In terms of the percentage of votes, NDP at 39%, UCP at 57%.

01:50:29.980 Of course, that's going to waver as the night comes in.

01:50:34.960 Some interesting writings to point out.

01:50:37.980 Calgary Acadia has got Tyler Shandro ahead by six votes after two polls.

01:50:45.720 Calgary both and UCP are...

01:50:47.380 Sorry, the newsroom is going crazy behind me here.

01:50:55.160 UCP leading Calgary Bowl 194 to 90.

01:51:00.080 Calgary Buffalo 76 for the NDP.

01:51:03.660 UCP 52.

01:51:06.180 Calgary Fish Creek well into the UCP win category.

01:51:11.080 Calgary Glenmore UCP 225.

01:51:15.080 ndp 146 so that's uh looking a little bit better for uh the ucp calgary mountain view the ndp is

01:51:25.460 leading 235 to 178 uh what else can we bring you edmonton's pretty well going as it is the smallest

01:51:37.040 of margins, but in Edmonton Southwest, Casey Maddu is, there's only, let's see, 43 votes in,

01:51:48.260 but Casey Maddu is up by one. And I think we all know if the NDP, so if the UCP is going to hold

01:51:56.280 on, that is their only seat in Edmonton, and he is expected to lose it, but I mean, the UCP could

01:52:03.680 focused all their resources on that one running maybe maybe they pull through so for the moment

01:52:10.320 casey matt it was ahead by one vote yeah in uh in morinville saint albert ucp is ahead by uh

01:52:18.640 about 170 votes uh 2393 to 2270 uh saint albert ndp well ahead 1373 to 806

01:52:31.520 uh strathcona sherwood park the ucp has a slight edge 1264 to 966 and west yellowhead the ucp is

01:52:42.620 ahead by about 200 votes so nice to finally see us getting some figures derek and uh let's hope

01:52:49.460 they keep counting at this pace now thank you very much dave

01:52:53.660 all right nigel uh it's shaping up more or less as i think we've expected so far again still so 0.95

01:53:03.980 much to come in uh acadia for the moment leading ucp but by the slimmest of margins six votes yeah

01:53:13.540 uh bow i think by fairly slim as well maybe not as slim well actually uh yeah there's 100 votes

01:53:20.400 in it at the moment, which, given the

01:53:22.300 number of polls that are reported, is

01:53:24.360 significant, I think. Yeah, we got

01:53:26.440 yeah, up by

01:53:28.920 Dimitri Nikolaitis for the UCP

01:53:30.540 is up by just

01:53:31.480 104 votes there.

01:53:38.200 I'm actually surprised that Astrid

01:53:40.280 Kuhn is

01:53:41.060 as close to Joe Ceci as she is.

01:53:45.220 I mean, this was

01:53:45.800 there's no way

01:53:48.660 anything besides an NDP is happening when it is happening there no way yeah but it was supposed

01:53:53.160 to be a complete wipeout like a zero chance on the 338 yeah but it's still it's still so early

01:54:00.260 I mean like there are some polls uh in like uh I think carts and six sick showing the NDP in the

01:54:07.340 league there is a 0.0 chance lead uh you know if uh if my grandmother had wheels should be a wagon 0.72

01:54:16.180 The NDP is never winning there.

01:54:18.480 It's just one particular poll is going to be showing that.

01:54:21.240 So I would imagine that's got to be the case in Buffalo.

01:54:25.040 I will be floored if it's even competitive for the UCP there.

01:54:29.300 What's interesting is if you looked at the mood in the room in the NDP and the PC's or CPC.

01:54:40.220 UCP.

01:54:42.040 That would tell you what the insiders think.

01:54:44.840 And I suspect the room is a lot more jolly in Calgary than it is in Edmonton.

01:54:49.560 Yeah, I think so.

01:54:50.860 Yeah, actually, that's a good idea.

01:54:52.120 Let's go to Edmonton right now.

01:54:53.900 We're going to bring in our Alberta legislative reporter based at Edmonton, Arthur Green.

01:54:58.560 He is at the UCP headquarters.

01:55:00.400 I see they haven't given him quite the nice spot as Jonathan was given at UCP headquarters.

01:55:05.560 You've been put in some kind of, it looks like a padded room.

01:55:09.380 They must think you're insane if they've got you strapped up your...

01:55:14.380 I'm in exile corner here at Zurich.

01:55:20.000 I actually requested interviews with NDP candidates

01:55:23.540 and I was told they will not be speaking to the Western Standard tonight.

01:55:28.700 The room is heating up.

01:55:30.640 We just had quite the boo in the room.

01:55:33.880 They showed a picture of UCP leader Danielle Smith on the big screen here.

01:55:39.380 The crowd really lit up in a booing fashion.

01:55:43.900 They then showed a picture of NDP leader Rachel Notley, and the room lit up.

01:55:50.680 I mean, it's starting to get more loud in here.

01:55:53.900 Janice Irwin is just here in front of me. 0.99

01:55:56.420 She's doing an interview with CTP.

01:55:58.000 Sarah Hoffman's in the room.

01:56:00.060 More of the candidates are starting to trickle in, and like I said, the party is starting to be in the room.

01:56:06.000 well we're talking about the the mood in the room there uh is how are they feeling are they uh

01:56:13.680 because you know there's a difference between there's a brave face and then there's uh

01:56:19.280 happy like how are they how do you think they're really feeling right now um right now most people

01:56:24.640 are smiling i had a young fella come up to me a couple moments ago about 14 years old

01:56:29.520 uh put his crossed fingers in front of my face and said hope notley becomes premier so i mean

01:56:35.840 people are optimistic people are smiling um there are people from all walks of life

01:56:41.360 in this room right now and lots of orange shirts to be seen okay uh thank you very much arthur

01:56:52.080 uh very i don't think they sound pretty happy up there like yeah i i think things are trending

01:56:57.120 the ucp's way but i i'd say they still they still got a path at this point it's not over

01:57:02.640 yeah it's um i think you're right but you also have to remember for a lot of people

01:57:08.560 uh coming to these uh meetings it's a party period yeah uh and until you know till midnight

01:57:14.480 they'll be happy uh well they're not yeah they'll be happy on the hopeful spring eternal

01:57:21.360 until it's like cold against you you're just praying for the miracle um

01:57:28.240 And, Nigel, you've been in those rooms where you're just praying to God.

01:57:35.040 Maybe there's one poll.

01:57:37.420 It's like a little pocket.

01:57:38.700 You know, pocket aces.

01:57:39.700 You're waiting for pocket aces.

01:57:41.160 The right poll reports, flips it over.

01:57:45.480 What's it like in a losing party's headquarters?

01:57:48.140 Because you've been in a winning headquarters and you've been in a losing headquarters.

01:57:51.720 Well, I tell you what.

01:57:52.840 When you're in a winning party's headquarters, you can't hear yourself talk, think,

01:57:58.240 you can't put your drink down you just have to stand there and watch the screen and every now

01:58:05.000 and then there's another piece of good news up goes up and everybody goes yes you know

01:58:08.920 i didn't get the sense that that was happening up in edmonton i have also been in a losing room

01:58:16.440 and there people are quiet and reflective and say something along the lines of well

01:58:25.020 we did our best and i'm proud of my part in it but sometimes the dragon wins i don't get

01:58:33.740 just picking up the background from young jonathan there in the over there at the bmo center i don't

01:58:39.800 get the feeling that that's the move down there either so i got a winning room and a losing room

01:58:44.540 both are putting a good face the losers are putting a good face on it and they'll say they

01:58:50.300 fold hard and darn it next time it will be better down here everybody is breathing houston i believe 0.91

01:58:58.460 so i'm looking here uh very early but we've got uh shannon phillips leading in lethbridge west

01:59:06.060 not by a lot 52.8 to 41.5 but i think she's widely expected to to carry that constituency again

01:59:14.460 uh lethbridge east there's four votes in the ndp have two uh three of them uh so really not much

01:59:20.940 there but that's that's going to be a competitive one to watch uh may have canon ask us we've got

01:59:27.180 enough to do at least a poll of the constituency so if you're doing a local poll of the constituency

01:59:33.020 you'd want three four hundred that gives you an idea as long as it's spread across

01:59:36.380 There, 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.

02:00:01.780 I 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?

02:00:18.160 Okay. Dr. Cooper, is there anything in Calgary that's catching your eye right now?

02:00:24.460 i'm i'm actually uh somewhat surprised not entirely surprised but uh somewhat surprised

02:00:34.840 that the places where the ndp are supposed to have their strength it it it's not sort of as

02:00:39.900 overwhelming as as some of my distinguished colleagues at the university were predicting

02:00:44.280 it would be but they tended to be more um supportive of the ndp than i am put it that way

02:00:52.320 And with respect to the out in Canmore, I think you have to look at which polls have reported in.

02:01:00.020 A lot of them probably are in Canmore or Banff.

02:01:03.160 So it's easier to collect them.

02:01:04.900 And if they, in the more rural polling stations, they might not, they might not be in yet.

02:01:09.740 I would go for them.

02:01:13.620 Yeah, although advanced polls are kind of counted all at once now, it seems.

02:01:18.480 Although I don't know if we have them in yet.

02:01:20.480 But people will bring Dave Naylor from the newsroom, although I don't think he can hear us for the moment.

02:01:29.680 I'd like to know how much of the advance poll is in.

02:01:34.000 Dave, if you can hear us, we want to bring you back in here.

02:01:38.200 Okay, well, I guess Dave's just kind of looking around.

02:01:40.800 Here we are.

02:01:41.340 Okay, we're going to bring in Dave Naylor now from the newsroom.

02:01:44.000 Dave, what we want to know is what's happened with the advance ballots?

02:01:48.220 Have they been tabulated in yet?

02:01:50.480 or not well we were told somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 000 advanced ballots were

02:01:58.400 filled in and we've got a grand total of 39 000 reported so somewhere there's been a breakdown

02:02:06.240 in the system i think uh lots of polls uh across the province still haven't or lots of writings

02:02:13.680 just still have got zero uh ballots reporting and this is an hour hour and a half after the polls

02:02:21.440 close you know i was really looking forward to uh a big rash all at once of the event that was

02:02:29.600 coming in but it doesn't seem to have been so is it no it doesn't uh cory just raised a good point

02:02:35.760 out here that because of the sun child uh voting station being open until 9 46 perhaps some of the

02:02:44.320 results are being uh withheld so they don't they can't be uh accused of skewing uh any sort of

02:02:50.800 voting uh uh on sun child this is sort of like how uh in a federal election now people and people in

02:02:57.520 the west never be able to found out what uh what happened down east for fear of uh spoiling uh the

02:03:03.920 voting out here so uh that's just a guess but it uh to me it's a strange uh strange lack of

02:03:10.800 counting going on interesting okay uh thank you dave uh nigel how many seats do you think smith

02:03:23.760 has to like how comfortable margin does she have to have to like the knives are coming for no matter 1.00

02:03:30.560 what if she loses well she probably just walks the plank tonight uh but if she wins i mean unless 0.85

02:03:37.960 she keeps every single seat which seems to be extraordinarily unlikely almost impossible uh the

02:03:44.380 knives are coming for but they're more likely to be uh a bit sharper if the majority is smaller

02:03:49.020 uh what kind of padding majority do you think she needs to have the knives stay away for like a good 1.00

02:03:56.780 six months only six months you say well i would say look if it's less than 50 the fighting is

02:04:04.860 the infighting is going to start right away but you know let's say it was 50 that would mean 37

02:04:11.580 to the ndp a 13 seat spread you think would be a reasonable protection for a leader against a coup

02:04:20.380 it's only because it is daniel smith that we would rather see something she would rather see

02:04:30.900 something uh like 55 which of course is a is an unlikely 55 to 32 a pretty unlikely uh result even

02:04:40.460 though i see some strange numbers up on the glass over there uh but uh you know hope springs eternal

02:04:46.840 I guess for some punters. But no, seriously, I would say that if she doesn't get the 50, then

02:04:53.880 she's going to turn from fighting the NDP up to yesterday to fighting the dissidents in her own

02:05:01.400 party tomorrow. So Barry, I know you live in Calgary Bow. But you spent a lot of time around

02:05:10.600 Calgary varsity, obviously, is a university professor. I mean, university areas tend to lean

02:05:17.860 left. You want a constituency to vote left, put a university there. That's what happens.

02:05:24.780 But the UCP did win it last time. But do you think they really have any chance of holding

02:05:29.100 varsity this time? They've always got a chance, I guess. But one of the things that is not always

02:05:37.180 appreciated is that the students vote there and they are not all lefties no but on balance on

02:05:44.380 balance they are but they the ucp may do better in varsity than um than you would expect on the

02:05:50.860 normal kind of understanding of that i i honestly i don't know i i go up there every day but there

02:05:56.460 are very few signs around uh there's there's not much that you can uh the students are gone now

02:06:01.500 so i can't talk to them about it i was thinking when you were talking about danielle's future

02:06:07.180 If 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.

02:06:34.740 So I think if the UCP has any sense of, let's say, team esprit, they will stick with her.

02:06:45.420 Do you think they do?

02:06:46.980 This, I don't know.

02:06:48.100 I mean, I talk to Brody a lot, and he's got a lot of contacts in the UCP.

02:06:53.380 And he says that they're pretty divided.

02:06:55.980 But, you know, we were talking about what can Danielle do about it?

02:06:59.700 Well, she can rally the troops. 1.00

02:07:02.100 Now, whether she has the rhetorical as well as the policy skills to do that, I guess we'll find out.

02:07:09.360 Certainly, her policies, you would think, would appeal to just about everybody in that party. 0.88

02:07:16.220 Whether they do, we'll find out.

02:07:18.100 Okay. I'm going to be ducking out of here for a little bit.

02:07:20.780 But before I do, we're going to go to Dave Nehler back in the newsroom for another update on where we're at in the polls.

02:07:28.000 Dave, give us the goods.

02:07:29.580 Oh, 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.

02:07:50.480 it's 36 seats uh leading and uh elected uh calgary acadia still uh only the uh initials

02:07:59.760 results before from where chandra was ahead by six uh calgary bow doesn't seem to be anything new

02:08:08.160 we can tell you that

02:08:13.040 has been elected in brooks uh medicine hat she's uh where is she sitting at here oh she's got 0.98

02:08:20.400 1,400 votes to 400 for the NDP, so we'll go out on a limb and declare her elected.

02:08:30.960 Lethbridge, still nothing updated there. Morinville, St. Albert, the UCP seems to be

02:08:41.120 lengthening their lead by about 500. There's two polls out of 20 reported there, almost 5,000

02:08:47.840 votes for UCP, 3662 for the NDP. Red Deer South and Red Deer North both look to be staying UCP

02:09:00.380 blue. Sherwood Park actually very, very tight. NDP only leading by nine votes and that's after

02:09:08.760 four 22 have come in saying albert ndp by about 900 votes 2 990 to 2039 and uh west yellowhead the

02:09:24.440 uh ucp is doubling the ndp vote they've got 4164 votes so another big dump there but really not

02:09:32.800 much in the calgary area guys all right thanks dave we'll uh check back in here when the next

02:09:38.960 big spurt of votes happens to land i guess thanks gory thanks so nigel guys i mean just talking 0.93

02:09:48.960 about this i was speaking a bit outside though this is unusual i mean now we're an hour and 40

02:09:54.800 minutes after the poll closing and uh there's only about 12 of the votes have been counted

02:10:00.800 Have you seen anything like this? This is really unusual. The rumors are starting to turn on social media, which is really dangerous these days.

02:10:09.200 You know, it is unusual, right? I mean, I have seen some slow counts, and Lord knows we've seen them in leadership races especially.

02:10:18.240 But with the electronic voting, we thought this was fixed, that everything would be coming out quickly.

02:10:26.940 Certainly the theory that they're holding off on releasing the vote from the advanced poll,

02:10:33.440 just not to prejudice the voting that's going on up there in northern Alberta.

02:10:41.580 That one poll didn't open until quarter to ten.

02:10:47.300 Okay, fair enough.

02:10:48.660 That may be the whole reason right there.

02:10:51.480 I guess there's going to be a lot of questions asked.

02:10:53.280 There will be.

02:10:53.660 So we're just going to cut away quickly to Jonathan Bradley.

02:10:57.540 I believe he's got Vidor Marciano on at the UCP headquarters there.

02:11:01.860 Hello, Vidor.

02:11:02.480 How's it going over there?

02:11:05.320 I don't seem to have any sound from Vidor quite yet.

02:11:10.400 We shall see.

02:11:13.360 All right.

02:11:14.760 Well, when we get sound from Vidor, we'll have him on quickly and have a chat with him there.

02:11:20.140 Very, I mean, mistrust.

02:11:23.540 I mean, that was something I was talking about on the side.

02:11:25.040 You know, again, we get the world of conspiracies, the world of worried about results.

02:11:29.500 I 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.

02:11:37.200 Yeah, 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.

02:11:45.320 If you're going to mess around with things, you do it in a completely different way.

02:11:48.820 It's not ballot stuffing.

02:11:50.340 It's all in a manner that most of us haven't got a clue how to do it,

02:11:54.920 but those to do.

02:11:57.340 So that gives it an aura of mystery, if not of conspiracy.

02:12:03.680 And I know after the last municipal election here,

02:12:06.880 there was a lot of discussion about that.

02:12:09.060 And then having the ballots destroyed pretty quickly

02:12:13.400 didn't make things go away.

02:12:16.700 I think, didn't the UCP government say that you had to hang on to them for, what, two weeks or something like that?

02:12:22.080 They're going to be held on to, I believe, for three months, actually.

02:12:23.640 Three months, okay.

02:12:24.280 So, I mean, that's a comforting thing.

02:12:25.920 You know, we've got a backup, but I went in, I advanced, voted, and, you know, I thought, wow, this is kind of slick.

02:12:31.720 You know, it goes into a counter.

02:12:32.920 They save the paper.

02:12:34.160 This is an advancement.

02:12:35.160 You know, we'll look forward to 8-15, and we'll know what's going on.

02:12:37.640 But apparently, they haven't.

02:12:39.420 I are in the constituency in Boa where I voted it was all paper just as it had been like for

02:12:46.680 thousands of years and but at Flanagan's riding I saw him this morning and he said he did he was

02:12:53.120 electronic there so it's a it's a mixed sort of system technologically anyway which was again

02:12:59.660 makes us wonder a little why then there's everything delay yeah yeah maybe it had nothing

02:13:05.060 to do with the electronic aspects.

02:13:08.340 Maybe we need

02:13:09.060 a royal commission to find out.

02:13:10.900 Or perhaps a special rapporteur.

02:13:12.960 The first task of the incoming premier

02:13:14.760 is going to be to investigate the election.

02:13:20.020 Winning

02:13:20.500 politicians tend not to investigate

02:13:22.880 the election.

02:13:24.260 No, not typically.

02:13:25.860 They have to appoint a friend to make sure there's nothing to see there.

02:13:28.300 That's right.

02:13:29.880 Oh, no, he's disappeared again. I was going to look at Jonathan Bradley.

02:13:32.860 but uh jonathan's having fun i i see that he's coming and going okay let's see if jonathan's

02:13:38.060 ready to chat a little bit here and uh he's down at the headquarters of the big four building in

02:13:43.020 calgary hello jonathan okay let's go away from jonathan again all right so cory you've been

02:13:52.300 asking a lot of questions about um are you still confident about your own predictions you know i

02:13:58.140 still am i mean i i've seen a lot of well the results actually for what we have coming in are

02:14:03.660 sort of reflecting that i don't like reading in any until you get 30 40 you're really you know

02:14:08.700 you're starting to gamble with it but they're hanging quite closely if anything they're looking

02:14:12.300 better than what i guessed so here's the question here's the question i would ask if you've got um

02:14:16.940 1500 how many how many votes would you want sorry how many samples would you require to get a sense

02:14:24.140 of what a writing was going to do,

02:14:26.180 what a constituency was going to do.

02:14:28.140 300, 400?

02:14:29.900 It would be a pretty good idea.

02:14:30.780 If you're talking a ground general poll?

02:14:33.720 Properly distributed.

02:14:35.140 Properly distributed, I think you could get a good feel out of that.

02:14:38.040 But, you know, again, in this case,

02:14:39.580 they're reporting this poll, which was this part of the constituency,

02:14:42.340 and that.

02:14:43.200 It's enough to start reading in now.

02:14:44.820 It is.

02:14:45.940 I think that we're going to end up with one of those

02:14:48.240 really interesting situations

02:14:50.260 where the numerical vote count

02:14:53.640 is not reflected

02:14:55.420 by the seat

02:14:57.700 distribution. You're going to get a lot of seats

02:14:59.460 that are held, and it could be either party,

02:15:01.760 a lot of seats that are held by quite slender

02:15:03.440 majorities.

02:15:05.720 That's what's going to keep us here until midnight,

02:15:07.440 until we know. Well, we've got lots of coffee

02:15:09.600 on anyways.

02:15:11.380 Let's take one more crack at Jonathan. I see him

02:15:13.420 standing there at the headquarters. Perhaps

02:15:15.000 he's got something to add at this point.

02:15:17.320 No, he doesn't. Okay. So,

02:15:19.240 well, let's see.

02:15:21.380 I'll give a quick update

02:15:23.360 here actually if dave naylor has a moment we'll check back in with him because i do believe some

02:15:28.400 more votes have come in i don't know if to move the needle very well hello oh no i've got jonathan

02:15:35.040 hello jonathan how's things going at the ucp headquarters things are going well how's everything

02:15:39.600 in studio we're fine uh go ahead the crowd's still energized uh people are really excited

02:15:50.480 there's cheering uh whenever the ucp candidates come on scene people doing well i've been talking

02:15:55.440 to some people and they seem to think he's going to pull it off um yeah okay um you you did have uh

02:16:04.320 vedora marciano there for a little while i know we couldn't get him on but you imagine you spoke

02:16:08.720 with him a bit uh he's easily done his easier things he's maintaining optimism with how things

02:16:14.320 are looking right now yeah the tour is optimistic he's going to win um he's saying what the polls

02:16:20.880 are saying like productions are saying 15 to 55 seats uh yeah okay well thanks jonathan we'll

02:16:28.400 check in uh when something changes down there and uh what's happening all right so that was our

02:16:35.120 jonathan bradley let's have a quick look yeah so i it's jumping up now i've seen 155 000 votes cast

02:16:41.600 uh 158 000 now so finally i think we're on the move and uh 57 is where the ucp is saying the

02:16:48.720 popular vote versus 39 with the ndp uh with this meeting so just as long as we don't so long as

02:16:54.960 what they're going to be worried about is building up a huge majority in a safe seat and losing by

02:17:02.000 15 in a in a margin seat so how is that what can we see there yeah the seat by seat's hard i got

02:17:11.040 I've got to kind of drill down to find which ones are standing out.

02:17:13.940 You know, some have reported a lot and some a little.

02:17:15.880 But, I mean, when we're getting up into the 160,000 vote range,

02:17:19.180 we can, you know, with that overall province,

02:17:22.140 let's start reading in, it's looking pretty good for the UCP at this point.

02:17:25.420 So that's about 10% of the likely turnout.

02:17:30.460 Perhaps, yeah.

02:17:31.120 Well, that's actually 18% of the voting places reporting.

02:17:34.240 So, I mean, it depends on the size of the polls.

02:17:39.200 Yes.

02:17:39.600 actually when it's when it's double that you'll have a much better idea well yeah yeah okay okay

02:17:45.680 well i'm gonna check in with mr nailer there and see what's happening on his end he's checked into

02:17:50.480 a few more of those writings and uh we'll see what's going on out there it's gonna be a few

02:17:54.480 close ones to talk about hey dave how's it uh looking for you there well i'm getting a bit

02:17:59.360 frustrated i'm gonna have to leave to go down to the big four building to teach jonathan how to tie

02:18:04.400 But 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.

02:18:19.400 I think you just mentioned, Corey, the UCP has now got 56% of the popular vote compared to almost 40% for the NDP.

02:18:32.400 Calgary 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.

02:18:55.980 Oh, 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.

02:19:19.640 Calgary Foothills, close, 1220 for the UCP, 1063 for the NDP.

02:19:26.720 Other ridings that have a fair amount of votes in at the moment,

02:19:31.640 Calgary Varsity has a lead of 150 votes for the NDP.

02:19:37.560 They're at 981 at the moment.

02:19:41.040 No real big surprises that I'm seeing in Edmonton at the moment.

02:19:48.360 Airdrie looks to be at least Airdrie-Cochran, solidly UCP.

02:19:55.000 Airdrie East still hasn't got a ballot.

02:19:57.880 And yet, come on, Airdrie East, don't be lost.

02:20:01.140 Banff-Canonaskis, the UCP, ahead by a couple of hundred, 916 to 699.

02:20:09.540 We've mentioned Danielle Smith elected in Brooks Medicine Hat.

02:20:14.760 Drayton Valley, Devon, looks to be a lock for the UCP.

02:20:20.120 What else can I tell you, Corey?

02:20:25.140 Moranville, St. Albert, very close, 4,977.

02:20:31.280 UCP, 4,371 for the NDP.

02:20:35.220 That's four out of 20 ballots in.

02:20:39.480 Sherwood Park, 2,457 NDP.

02:20:43.760 2378 for ucp that one uh too close to call at the moment uh

02:20:54.880 that's what i got at the moment so that's uh fully 20 of all ballots cast now uh uh

02:21:01.840 cory or voting places reporting 185 000 votes cast all right dave well thanks for that update

02:21:08.880 i'm glad that we've got some updates to get from you only go to i imagine they should start pouring

02:21:12.880 in pretty fast quickly now let's hope so all right so that was dave naylor now i'm joined by

02:21:19.520 a couple of guests uh back in the studio we've got david parker and chris sims here with me

02:21:25.600 it's the magic that they swapped out while i was talking to dave uh so finally we got some numbers

02:21:30.560 to talk about though finally i mean i i'll start a bit just uh with with david we were talking a

02:21:35.360 little bit outside like the thing i already what i see as a loss in this election for albertans is

02:21:40.880 now we've had some funny business and i don't i'm not going to read in corruption or fixing

02:21:46.240 or anything like that but now we've had this odd unexplained delays and people are there's going to

02:21:51.280 be some people who won't trust the bloody results well yeah the problem here is that the whole idea

02:21:56.080 behind these tabulators was that they were going to make everything more efficient and quicker and

02:21:59.840 we get better results and now we're seeing these huge delays i've watched a lot of elections why

02:22:04.640 were we stuck at 65,001 votes for like half an hour i've never seen that before ever in elections

02:22:11.520 now i'm sure there's a reason i'm hopeful that they'll give us a reason but the issue here is

02:22:15.520 not that i think there's cheating because i actually don't think that there's cheating

02:22:18.640 what i'm worried about is there's a lot of people who have been uh traumatized by their government

02:22:23.680 and now have a lot of a lack of faith in their government and what we need is an institution

02:22:28.160 that people can have faith in and that is why i was advocating for paper ballots it's not because

02:22:32.240 i think that they're you know elections alberta's corrupt i don't think that what i think is that

02:22:36.160 there's a lot of people who are worried about this and we need to calm their nerves and give

02:22:40.560 them their trust in their institutions and this is not building trust in institutions this is

02:22:45.280 this is fodder for conspiracy theory right now it certainly is but i mean uh so i'll go to you

02:22:51.040 crystal now we've got some updated numbers i think we can start reading a little into this now

02:22:55.200 so we've got a 21 reporting uh you know i won't go writing right by writing like dave did or

02:22:59.840 constituency by constituency but popular vote is interesting i mean a lot of people were thinking

02:23:04.240 the ndp might be even ahead in the popular vote but the seat count would work but right now it's

02:23:09.520 55.7 ucp and 40.2 ndp that you know and with uh now with 21 reporting we could start to

02:23:17.920 think boy this is starting to look kind of favorable at the very least for the ucp

02:23:22.960 you know with our supporters we have thousands of them here in alberta uh by and large they of

02:23:27.440 of course, want lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government within the Canadian

02:23:30.940 Taxpayers Federation. So I think it stands to reason that most of the email and messages we

02:23:35.940 would get at the CTF would be meat and potatoes issues like balance the budget, lower my taxes,

02:23:42.340 fight Justin Trudeau's carbon tax, stop him from tripling it, fight just transition. Very economic

02:23:48.900 and money level issues. And I think the reason why that's speaking to so many people now

02:23:54.200 is because it's so bloody unaffordable like it's just not an option it's not like you're at the

02:23:59.400 grocery store and you get to pick between paper and plastic bags if you can't afford groceries

02:24:04.120 because food is inflating so much you're darn right that you're going to care most about pocketbook

02:24:08.960 issues and so I think that is what we're seeing reflected here because not picking aside one

02:24:14.960 party talked a lot about lowering taxes and balancing the budget and putting more money in

02:24:18.940 your pocket and the other party didn't they focused more on what issues they care about in

02:24:23.460 their social issues. And so I think this might show that more people are cared about pocketbook

02:24:29.320 issues right now. Well, I mean, most people aren't like ourselves. We're very ideological. We have

02:24:34.560 our views. A lot of people, it doesn't matter what you lean this way or that way. If you can't make

02:24:39.320 the mortgage or if you're worried about buying groceries, it doesn't matter. Then you're starting

02:24:43.900 to look for who you feel most confident that's going to help you there, even if it perhaps is

02:24:48.000 holding their nose and voting. You know, a stat that jumps out at me every year, and it's something

02:24:51.940 i check i have since my talk radio days is the food bank use and food bank use is at record high

02:24:58.100 levels across canada including here in alberta where we're doing relatively well compared to

02:25:02.660 other provinces another stat that really jumped out was from the grocers association it came out

02:25:07.380 last week it might be even worse food purchases are down the volume did you see that i did like

02:25:14.740 people are buying less less food and so that and so what that means they're getting less nutrients

02:25:20.660 that's correct because they're skimping and scratching right and so we're seeing and i

02:25:25.020 spoke with one of the ladies that works at the food bank and she said that they're seeing working

02:25:29.300 people this is not people who've been thrown out of work you know god love them these are working

02:25:33.720 people who are saying i still can't make ends meet so if you're dealing with a populace that's

02:25:38.540 like that i think more people vote with their wallet and i think you know again for what i

02:25:43.640 would read in i mean there was so much focus on the personality particularly with the mvp that

02:25:47.660 was the strategy was if we can undercut the other party, that's fine. But my thoughts were towards

02:25:52.740 the tail end, people wanted to hear, okay, we get it. But now what are you going to do? And they

02:25:56.820 didn't pivot, you know, if they'd have changed, perhaps. They were really loud on the anti-Smith,

02:26:01.860 right? All they wanted to talk about was all of the things that Daniel Smith had said and twisting

02:26:06.500 them, making them look as bad as they possibly could. I mean, the whole pension stuff, I think,

02:26:11.260 is a really good example, right? They claimed that Daniel Smith wanted to take people's pensions

02:26:15.540 away. And that is just a blatant lie. If anything, we wanted to give more people more money from

02:26:22.180 their pensions because Alberta puts way more into the CPP than they get back. But of course,

02:26:26.680 that's lost in the noise of the constant repeated lie. But I'm quite proud of Albertans. If these

02:26:31.840 are going to be the results, I don't know if we've seen any more, but it seems like we're seeing an

02:26:35.520 incredible pushback against these lies of 55% UCP right now. It might not stay that way. But if it

02:26:43.120 does stay that way i think that will be a a loud critique of the negative campaign that rachel 0.99

02:26:48.520 notley ran it certainly would and the votes are really coming in at 24 now and it's still holding

02:26:53.620 56 ucp uh 52 seats looking at you know leading anyways into to 35 going on there i'd point out

02:27:01.380 that 56 is two or three percent higher than jason kenny got in terms of the popular vote yeah it's

02:27:08.960 early but uh we're seeing things start to come in maybe i i see uh i'll pull him in quickly uh ted

02:27:13.560 morton on deck there too and and do you get an interpretation of somebody who's been you know

02:27:17.420 outside watching from a distance if he's able to come in and talk for a little a little bit there

02:27:21.920 uh there you are hello mr morton how you doing down there good good i'll just pick up uh on the

02:27:30.180 on the economic issue uh when the ndp won in 2015 the people who were happy with that so this is the

02:27:37.740 new Alberta. It's younger. People are coming from other places, more diverse, more ethnically

02:27:43.600 diverse. It's not the old Alberta of Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein. And of course, they're

02:27:49.600 partly right, but they're mostly wrong because people, since the 1960s, 70s, 80s, people have

02:27:59.760 been coming to Alberta in large numbers. When I moved to Calgary, the population was 600,000.

02:28:06.100 Today, it's, you know, a million two, a million three.

02:28:11.800 When I moved there in 1981, everybody I met at the hockey rink, because I had kids in junior hockey, everyone was from Saskatchewan.

02:28:20.120 Why were they from Saskatchewan? Because the NDP had killed the economy in Saskatchewan for decades.

02:28:25.320 A decade or so later, there were all sorts of young people from B.C.

02:28:28.500 Why were they here? Because the NDP was killing the economy in B.C.

02:28:32.300 So 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.

02:28:42.780 And 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.

02:28:55.860 And I think both older Albertans, the majority of older Albertans and the majority of new Albertans and younger Albertans care about those issues.

02:29:03.600 And that's why you're seeing the positive results.

02:29:06.500 Yeah. So, I mean, it's still a little premature to formally call it, but it's looking quite good.

02:29:11.680 But we've also I mean, you can see from that map we've got up no matter what happens to this.

02:29:15.440 We've got a very regionally divided province, whoever the new premier may be.

02:29:20.140 They've really got quite something to manage with that.

02:29:23.540 mean you are there to represent the entire province and it's very clear that edmonton

02:29:27.140 and area has solidly rejected the ucp so there's a lot of outreach say if it becomes a premier

02:29:31.940 smith to to try and soothe that there there's nothing very new about that either i mean

02:29:42.020 i mean the nickname in the pc caucus when i was there it was called not edmonton but redmonton

02:29:48.260 um right even i've heard that yeah yeah yeah so again that that's really not anything too new

02:29:57.120 no no it's just a very solid uh red these days but uh well again it's a university town it's

02:30:05.500 a government town and those are factors that push people to the left because they like more

02:30:10.720 government most definitely all right well thank you uh we'll we'll put you back there and check

02:30:16.620 in with the numbers again and see where we're going. I think we're getting towards the turf

02:30:20.460 where we're going to see some outlets getting tempted to call it. So thank you again Dr. Ted

02:30:28.620 Morton. I like how you mentioned people moving here for opportunity. I'm one of them. I thank

02:30:34.140 you very much Alberta for taking in British Columbian here. Our family moved here in the

02:30:40.140 summer and just speaking personally I can give you a road map. You mentioned the cost of living

02:30:45.820 in Vancouver it's about 77 cents per liter is taxes on your gasoline here it's around 32 cents

02:30:53.260 per liter folks if you're filling up a pickup truck in Calgary you're saving 50 bucks every

02:30:59.980 time you're filling up just in the tax difference between those two cities and so I think that is a

02:31:05.740 huge draw and if some of these numbers hold maybe that's the right ticket is to focus on economic

02:31:10.860 issues. Absolutely. And something I've said, you know, many times before and other things is New

02:31:15.600 Albertans, whether from other countries or they're from other provinces, these are people typically

02:31:19.480 of ambition. I mean, that takes some courage. You've got to get up and leave your comfort zone,

02:31:23.560 your friends, your family. You're trying to make something more than from where you came from.

02:31:27.520 They're not asking somebody to do things for them. And these are people that do things for

02:31:30.400 themselves. So, I mean, that's just good people to tend to be conservative voters.

02:31:35.060 And it's interesting that we know that the UCP was trying to make this election about economic

02:31:39.140 issues. And I think a lot of the pundits and a lot of people said that they weren't being very

02:31:42.800 successful in that. But I think maybe these results would speak to what you just said. Maybe

02:31:46.620 the average Albertan, which I've always believed is more intelligent than the attacks and is looking

02:31:51.860 at the numbers and saying, what is good for me? Albertans love freedom. That's probably part of

02:31:56.820 why you came here, I would imagine. And I mean, I was in Ontario, but I moved back here because

02:32:02.520 this was the only place that felt like it could be free. So I think we are seeing Albertans

02:32:08.380 you have a resounding approval, stamp of approval to the freedom-based message of Danielle Smith

02:32:13.880 right now. What are the numbers we haven't seen? Yeah, well, I'll go to a quick check-in with

02:32:17.660 Arthur, but somebody else, one of the commenters, is asking, because the numbers have been updating.

02:32:20.600 So, well, perhaps while Arthur comes in, I'll give a quick rundown of what I'm seeing now,

02:32:24.300 because they're changing fast, finally. It was so agonizing. Oh, it was horrible.

02:32:27.920 So we've got 288,000 votes counted now, 27%. That is working out to a popular vote of, again,

02:32:36.800 still sitting at about 56% for the UCP, a little over 40% for the NDP. And of course, the other

02:32:43.380 parties just aren't a factor in this election. And roughly that's translating in the leading

02:32:48.160 in seats then to 50 for the UCP and 36 for NDP at this time. I guess Rocky Mountain House hasn't,

02:32:55.500 or is it Airdrie East still? Oh yeah, you probably. No worries. Well, I want to quickly

02:33:01.920 check in with r3 he's at ndp uh headquarters there hey arthur uh i'm wondering as results

02:33:07.120 are coming in are you starting to get a feel i mean i it wouldn't be you know you'd be getting

02:33:11.520 pretty nervous if you're an ndp supporter right now um the broom is quite loud in here uh in here

02:33:19.440 we just had a huge chair janice erwin is actually just sat behind me uh taking an interview with

02:33:26.400 with another media outlet, Edmonton Highwood's Norwood, she received 2,417 votes, UCP in

02:33:37.000 second place at 923, and of course not all of the polls are in yet.

02:33:46.300 You know, the rule here is starting to get as static as more NDP supporters pour in,

02:33:53.400 You know, they're completely optimistic that Rachel Notley will be the next Premier of Alberta.

02:34:00.720 But, I mean, we have to wait until the rest of the results, of course, come in.

02:34:06.680 Right now, we have a total of 219,000 votes in.

02:34:12.120 You know, it's 27%.

02:34:14.040 I have been looking at the spoiled ballots.

02:34:18.320 We do have some projected ballots, 1,327, and 132 decline ballots.

02:34:27.580 According to the website, we have 301,000 votes cast number.

02:34:33.580 So the results are going to come in faster than yours.

02:34:37.840 Yeah, well, I mean, I guess they're just trying to keep the cheer and keep the optimism.

02:34:42.160 I mean, it ain't over until the drifts and lady sings, but it's hurting to look in one pretty distinct direction so far.

02:34:50.120 But, well, we'll see how things go, and we'll check in later.

02:34:56.380 Yeah, I do believe, Corey, that I'm not well-liked here.

02:35:00.860 I did ask for some interviews from an NDP staffer, and I was told until the Western Standard apologizes.

02:35:08.780 We will not be granted any interviews.

02:35:10.800 So that's why I'm back on here in Exile Corner doing my updating.

02:35:17.320 It's unfortunate.

02:35:18.380 I mean, as what's probably going to be an up-and-coming party trying to gain traction,

02:35:21.380 they'd want a friendly media outlet at some point.

02:35:23.060 But we'll do an update to Arthur.

02:35:24.820 Just make sure you pour your own water there.

02:35:26.720 Don't get somebody to get it for you.

02:35:28.440 And we'll check in with you in a little while.

02:35:31.480 I've got my car parked near the front door.

02:35:35.280 Okay.

02:35:36.320 Thanks, Arthur.

02:35:37.460 Do you make him say cart more?

02:35:39.000 Just like every time he talks.

02:35:40.800 It's beautiful. This is the diversity of Alberta. Okay. So thanks, Arthur. We'll check in with you

02:35:48.340 a little later. It looks like Jonathan's going to be speaking to somebody in a few moments,

02:35:52.300 but you know, we've got a lot to talk about finally, right? You know, it's not just speculation

02:35:57.280 anymore. We're at 30% and now it's 50, 36, 55, 41 on those percentages. So, you know, I think

02:36:06.940 it's looking good now the question i have if people are still looking and wondering what's

02:36:11.760 going to be happening the first is how many of the advanced polls are reporting and how many of

02:36:16.780 have they reported yet are they even going to report the advanced polls until after they count

02:36:21.900 all of the first ones yeah i have that okay there we go so uh we have uh regular votes 178 000 of

02:36:30.340 them uh counted uh 125 000 advance okay so and 13 000 mobile and 9 700 special ballots so we don't

02:36:37.520 really have any outlying odd ballots now there that can uh can skew things then no no so i would

02:36:42.400 say like i don't understand the uh the ndp optimism right now they're just united in their loathing of

02:36:47.640 poor arthur but uh we'll make it worthwhile i gotta switch over to jonathan bradley and then

02:36:52.640 uh we're uh gonna achieve some things over so i'll check in with jonathan he's got somebody

02:36:56.460 uh on deck there and uh we'll talk to you guys later okay hello jonathan oh you've lost jonathan

02:37:02.940 you want us to stay uh well this is the way we're gonna be doing a change up maybe we'll uh

02:37:08.040 check in with dave naylor and uh go there's jonathan again all right i'm gonna talk to

02:37:14.880 somebody in a moment and uh okay it looks like jonathan with that brad tenant hey how you doing

02:37:21.080 Brad? You've got no sound, Brad. All right. So we'll check in with Dave Naylor and see what's

02:37:31.760 going on with the updated results. I don't think Jonathan's got the sound going. So Dave,

02:37:37.420 there's room. It's getting a little more lively now.

02:37:41.600 Yeah, it's getting more interesting. But I know what everybody's wanting to know right now,

02:37:48.340 Corey is how many votes the commies have

02:37:51.100 and I can tell you across Alberta

02:37:53.360 the Communist Party of Alberta

02:37:55.020 has got 123 votes

02:37:56.460 so like what the heck's going

02:37:59.140 on

02:37:59.500 it's as many as you can slip

02:38:03.100 when reaching over the ballot

02:38:04.780 maybe it's he who shouldn't

02:38:07.220 be named but what the heck if we're going to

02:38:08.940 punch down any signs of

02:38:10.820 Ardur Palowski making a breakthrough in this poll

02:38:13.000 so far

02:38:13.500 he's the solidarity movement right or is he the

02:38:16.980 independence party uh something solid coming out of them solidarity 952 uh might as well just run

02:38:24.260 down a few of these uh cory the liberal party 1025 the alberta party 2946 the commies as mentioned

02:38:33.620 223. 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.

02:38:53.620 The Wild Rose Independence Party, 286.

02:38:59.760 Man, what a difference from the last election.

02:39:02.660 So right now we've got 31% of all polls reporting, 350,000 ballots counted.

02:39:10.960 And it seems to be holding out now at 51 UCP, 36 for the new Democrats.

02:39:18.800 UCP with 55% of the popular vote.

02:39:21.640 uh ndp with uh 41 all right thanks for the update dave uh we'll check in with you soon i'm sure it's

02:39:29.500 gonna be getting your time to to call this for uh one party or another and uh we'll pivot over

02:39:35.140 to the ucp headquarters where jonathan bradley has brad tenant i believe uh ready to chat with

02:39:40.840 us there and we'll see how are you doing oh i'm hearing some noise right on hello brad how you

02:39:47.360 doing out there excellent good good so I mean the rumors got to be starting to

02:39:55.420 get pretty jubilant after such a long stalling intention I guess waiting for

02:39:58.940 our results you know people are people are getting excited here it's going to

02:40:08.240 sustain UCP lead and I think people are just waiting to see some of the some

02:40:15.380 more depth for those results to come in to back that up.

02:40:19.620 Right. So, I mean, with things tonight though, I mean,

02:40:23.720 it's been quite a nail biter that there's still,

02:40:27.600 it looks like Edmonton's still going to stick pretty solidly orange.

02:40:30.620 Do you think there might be a couple of breakthroughs around there though?

02:40:33.260 I mean, the night's going well, but it can't seem to crack that crowd over there.

02:40:37.660 Yeah. I think that there's,

02:40:38.840 there's definitely a number that the UCP is going to play in. You know,

02:40:42.660 I think that the federal election shows that the Conservatives can usually win overwhelmingly there,

02:40:47.940 and we were close last Provincial election in a number of seats that, you know, in the last week

02:40:52.740 where you weren't able to get it done, but there's some good candidates there. I wouldn't count it

02:40:56.820 out at this point. So much of this is going to come down to advanced polls and still stuff to be

02:41:01.380 reported. So I think there's still some hope for the UCP in Edmonton. Right on. Well, we got a lot

02:41:09.300 lot of viewers looking forward to things some people who can't make it down to the rally

02:41:12.640 themselves uh anything you can uh send their way is it too late to come down or i imagine

02:41:17.660 the speeches are gonna start pretty uh yeah no i can see in my own view some people screaming

02:41:23.300 in i think some people are screaming in from local campaign offices too so uh you know still

02:41:28.300 still getting going here and i think uh at some point tonight we'll have a speech and a pretty

02:41:32.560 exciting crowd excellent well thanks for checking in with us there and uh your patience with our

02:41:38.900 audio. I really appreciate it. And well, let's see if you got a good night ahead of you.

02:41:44.400 Yeah, perfect. Thanks for having me.

02:41:46.440 Great. Thank you. Well, that was Brad Tennant kind of back there. Okay. So we've refreshed

02:41:52.980 our panel here. A couple of, well, kind of recycled, I guess you guys have been in tonight

02:41:58.900 already, but that's all right. And we've got Josh Anders and James Finkbeiner. How are you guys

02:42:05.060 doing? I'm good. I'm great. Things are looking good. Things are looking solid as the numbers

02:42:11.100 are coming in. I'm happy with what we're seeing. You know, I'd hope that with the tabulators that

02:42:16.900 some of the votes would be coming in a little bit more quickly. But, you know, it is what it is.

02:42:21.220 Every vote's going to get counted. And, you know, it should be wrapped up here, hopefully,

02:42:26.220 in the next hour or so. Yeah, we'll see. So, I mean, I'll give another quick update because

02:42:30.600 these numbers are just coming in really fast, finally. They were kind of blocked up at the

02:42:34.400 damn. So 410,000 votes cast, 35% reporting. We're looking at 42% for the NDP in popular vote, 0.99

02:42:44.280 55 for the UCP, roughly with the leading in ridings, 48 with the UCP to 39 with the NDP.

02:42:52.760 So Josh, what do you think, what's happened tonight? Well, it looks like the Conservatives

02:42:57.280 are coming home. It was touch and go there for a while during the campaign, but we're starting to

02:43:02.160 We saw the late endorsement by Pierre Polyev, we saw the late endorsement by Stephen Harper.

02:43:07.420 I think that put a lot of people's minds at ease, and I thought Danielle's performance in the debate

02:43:12.220 really calmed a lot of fears amongst more, what we won't call the mainstream conservatives,

02:43:17.720 but more progressive conservatives that were concerned about some of the more extreme rhetoric coming from,

02:43:22.920 well, more the mainstream media reporting than anything else.

02:43:26.780 But it is nice to see.

02:43:28.440 I mean, this election never should have been in doubt.

02:43:31.360 this is a very conservative leading province with very strong conservative values across

02:43:35.800 the board so I do think it's just the conservatives are coming home

02:43:39.240 to roost and it's just kind of part of the course with the united party yeah so I mean

02:43:46.520 what I think has kind of happened a little bit is I mean they overshot you know they kind of put

02:43:53.640 everything out in that first two weeks the NDP with the negative and honestly it brought me down

02:43:57.400 a little thinking wow okay that this has been effective but we'll see I mean just in the sense

02:44:01.540 of the negativity of it all uh but it seems to in my view I mean they inoculated it they couldn't

02:44:07.780 move on to becoming a policy thing they were just stuck uh James I think with that that whole

02:44:12.500 negative we've just got to smear the other team enough and not talk about ourselves well and that

02:44:16.400 was the thing and and I think Rachel Notley forgot that she was also the premier at a certain point

02:44:20.980 and she had a record to run on or run against as well and I think when people look back and they

02:44:26.520 really started to remember how bad things were under the NDP. I think that's where a lot of the

02:44:32.300 more progressive and the more moderate conservatives looked back and really thought, you know, what is

02:44:37.500 a 38% tax increase actually going to look like? Because last time it looked like hundreds of

02:44:42.560 thousands of job losses. And this time modestly, it was looking at tens of thousands of job losses.

02:44:48.600 And when you still have, you know, downtown Calgary, that's just starting to get back up

02:44:53.120 on its on its feet. It's just starting to turn the corner. The, you know, the progressives in

02:44:58.520 Calgary, they're showing up to vote and they're showing up and they're saying, you know, you know

02:45:02.140 what, we we trust Danielle, we trust conservative math. We trust their fiscal policy to continue to

02:45:09.200 guide us to prosperity. And that's how we do it in Alberta is by keeping taxes low.

02:45:14.860 Well, and that was something a bit more of a turning point to me when we finally got a policy

02:45:19.000 a real solid one from the NDP was that, hey, we're going to hike the corporate tax. And that one just

02:45:24.360 kind of flatlined a little. It felt like among the populace, you know, they didn't want to quite hear

02:45:29.240 that. But I think they had to throw some red meat to their own base. I mean, the NDP has really been

02:45:34.280 working hard to moderate themselves. They wanted to make them sound as if they're a more progressive

02:45:38.120 wing of a mainstream party. But, you know, they had to do something for their base, for their

02:45:42.840 union. So the old let's stick it to the corporations tax might have felt like a good idea, but it

02:45:48.200 It didn't seem to resonate at all the time.

02:45:49.640 Well, it wasn't just that.

02:45:51.140 I felt like a lot of, like, the attacks came early.

02:45:53.660 They came hard.

02:45:54.540 They came early.

02:45:55.820 And they seemed to peter out at the end.

02:45:57.660 I 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.

02:46:09.120 And all these attacks, they kind of, they fell flat.

02:46:11.620 They kind of ran out of steam.

02:46:13.800 And people just if you if you keep hearing the same thing over and over again, it kind of it disrupts the message.

02:46:19.180 And I did I do think that the back half of the campaign, I was really impressed with the UCP's message discipline.

02:46:25.220 They talked about the issues. They talked about what they were going to do.

02:46:28.300 They didn't focus on the fact that the NDP didn't really have much of a campaign platform other than attack, attack, attack.

02:46:35.060 So I do think that that these are the factors that are coming in.

02:46:38.560 The 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.

02:46:55.900 Well, to be fair, I mean, Premier Smith gave them a lot of ammunition to work with.

02:47:00.100 I 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.

02:47:25.340 Well, 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?

02:47:49.100 every other day we were reporting on this uh emergency rooms across the province were closing

02:47:53.980 every other weekend but we're seeing that start to stabilize we're seeing more doctors we're seeing

02:47:58.220 more nurses come into the province we've had uh the the um most in migration of any province in 0.98

02:48:04.860 the country right now uh we're continuing to grow and we're seeing some of the first policies that

02:48:11.100 she put in when she became the premier they're starting to actually have an effect and people

02:48:15.740 are starting to see these things change in their daily lives so you know if we continue down this

02:48:21.100 track well how long until the surgical wait times are dropped significantly with uh with the new

02:48:26.860 system that we're we're putting in place well that was quite a gamble on the part of danielle smith 0.93

02:48:31.740 when she said she committed back in january said we're going to make these changes to the ems and

02:48:35.740 she said we're going to see results by spring she was confident in it but that could have backfired

02:48:39.820 terribly because if those results hadn't been seen i know if i was an ndp strategist i'd be

02:48:43.740 playing that quote and said, look what she said in January. Obviously, the rest of her health care 1.00

02:48:47.820 policies aren't going to play. And I mean, it was difficult for her to campaign against herself. I

02:48:52.200 mean, some of those quotes, if you took them direct, though, she did say outright that perhaps

02:48:56.460 people should pay, you know, when they just do a doctor's visit or things like that. That scares a

02:48:59.660 lot of people. The NDP smelled blood in the water with that, but I guess it didn't resonate in the

02:49:04.500 end. Yeah, I think just because it was such a negative approach that they had throughout the

02:49:09.900 campaign. They had a difficult time really promoting policies that were positive. So just

02:49:16.220 by taking such a negative approach, it made it difficult for them to promote the things that

02:49:20.300 they were going to do to help. I mean, I can't really list off very many that I saw on the

02:49:25.880 multitudes of TV ads and other media sources where I saw NDP attack ads. I didn't see anything

02:49:32.640 talking about what the NDP was going to do. And a big reason for that is that they can't really

02:49:36.360 campaign on their record they for four years they were in government we saw unemployment go up you

02:49:42.920 know rapidly we saw one of the deepest recessions in the history of this province and and so for

02:49:47.540 them i think they had to they they the only approach they could take that made sense to them

02:49:52.320 was it was an approach that really was it was a negative approach it was to try and make

02:49:56.880 danielle seem like a crazy angry conspiracy theorist and and at the end of the day i think 0.96

02:50:03.140 that the way that she handled herself throughout the campaign she was very calm she was very

02:50:07.740 measured she was very academic and intellectual in her approach throughout the campaign and i

02:50:12.640 think it kind of it eased a lot of fears that amongst the population about a lot of the things

02:50:18.460 that the ndp were using as attacks um whether that be health care or or the economy or really

02:50:25.320 or a crime right like we have all yeah that was another big one that was uh really i think that

02:50:32.020 It probably really affected a lot of people.

02:50:33.760 We spoke earlier with the last panelists about how, you know, meat and potatoes issues such as paying the bills.

02:50:38.480 I mean, those resonate with people.

02:50:39.560 But feeling safe.

02:50:40.740 I mean, in the urban battleground, Calgary, Edmonton, when at least traditionally the NDP is going to take that permissive approach, things with drug enablement.

02:50:50.340 I mean, we've got a lot of battles going on in every city, a very bad problem of addiction everywhere.

02:50:55.620 Again, Premier Smith took a very definitive stance on approaching policing and addictions treatment.

02:51:00.180 And the NDP didn't say much.

02:51:02.600 They just kind of didn't put out a counter policy, I didn't think, on that.

02:51:05.780 No, and kind of surprising, in the Premier's debate against NDP candidate Gwendolyn Dirk in the Brooks Chamber of Commerce debate,

02:51:17.060 the NDP candidate came out swinging, saying that the UCP's policy of recovery doesn't work,

02:51:23.700 and that the facilities that they've opened up are a mess

02:51:27.180 and that they're struggling to treat people properly.

02:51:31.560 And I mean, I know people personally,

02:51:33.360 I've had family that have since gone

02:51:35.720 into these treatment facilities

02:51:37.260 and people are actually coming out successful

02:51:39.660 and they're doing better.

02:51:41.200 And the new Alberta recovery model that's going in place,

02:51:45.440 like the recovery facility that's opening up in Red Deer,

02:51:48.220 that has taken some long-term thinking

02:51:50.400 and it has a long-term goal.

02:51:51.720 That'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.

02:52:08.660 so far, they've done nothing but to push it off, you know, to, we started with the needle

02:52:15.720 exchanges and the clean needles, and then we went to safe injection, and we've just seen nothing

02:52:20.080 but chaos and deaths. And I think the numbers that came out, I think it was actually a National Post

02:52:26.700 article that came out in the last week. Right now, just at the beginning of this year,

02:52:32.400 Alberta's numbers are down significantly, and British Columbia's numbers are almost double.

02:52:36.760 So 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.

02:52:49.940 Well, you know what? We can compare side by side which program's actually doing better.

02:52:55.200 And, you know, the NDP didn't come up with a better idea.

02:52:57.940 They didn't, you know, they said, OK, we're going to keep expanding recovery.

02:53:01.780 OK, but what else? You know, where's the policing and security that comes with it?

02:53:05.660 You 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.

02:53:22.280 There is not a single community in this province that the mental health and addictions crisis isn't affecting.

02:53:28.840 And, you know, the UCP has basically built their entire health care and their plan around health care, policing, security, mental health, addictions, everything.

02:53:39.480 It starts around this recovery model and grows out.

02:53:41.860 It grows out into jobs.

02:53:43.060 It grows out into training, into education.

02:53:45.420 And, you know, that's a full plan.

02:53:47.000 And that's something that Albertans could sink their teeth into.

02:53:49.320 And the NDP just had nothing to come back to that with.

02:53:51.580 if i could just piggyback on now cut in quickly sorry we've had someone on deck for a bit there

02:53:56.460 so we'll check in because i got a feeling it's going to get too loud to speak to people over

02:53:59.740 there pretty soon at the ucp uh gathering down there and we've got rebecca shoals there uh hey 1.00

02:54:06.620 how are you doing over there hi there yeah it's a little loud in here so it's a bit hard to hear

02:54:13.020 you guys but things are uh going well i think there people are pretty anxious uh to see some

02:54:18.700 but the results start to roll in great um so i mean this was a uh well i don't want to call it

02:54:25.420 over yet but you know it's it's definitely been one of the most hard fought elections i've seen

02:54:30.140 in quite some time i believe it was mr cloutier down south you were running against uh have you

02:54:36.460 found it to be a more difficult campaign than 2019. you know i would say it's a different campaign

02:54:42.780 than in 2019 obviously there have been a couple of challenging years here in alberta

02:54:47.180 uh with what we saw economically speaking but where we are today coming out of this leading

02:54:52.140 the nation seeing a more diverse uh very strong economy jobs and opportunity more people choosing

02:54:57.420 to call alberta home i think when people look at where alberta is today versus where alberta was

02:55:02.620 uh back in 2019 i think that that's the choice that albertans are making tonight

02:55:08.300 great well and i mean uh you know you you ran for the leadership you made a good goal of it and you

02:55:14.700 stuck with it which is something you know i would like to see more of i mean while you're young

02:55:18.620 there's a lot of uh in the future for you uh as part of unity felt uh good i mean it might be some

02:55:24.620 tense times you've all come through in this last month you know uh it has been a challenging couple

02:55:32.860 of years like i said but after the leadership race i think our team really came together

02:55:37.340 uh obviously in the best interest of our party and for albertans uh we solidified behind our

02:55:44.300 leader Danielle Smith and put forward a platform that built on the work that we had done over the

02:55:49.260 last four years and what we had released in a spring budget that's really focused on jobs,

02:55:55.500 economic growth, keeping our communities safe. We balanced the budget not once but twice and

02:56:01.900 introduced balanced budget legislation which it does matter to Albertans. Albertans know what it

02:56:06.060 was like to have the debt paid in full and so we were really focused on coming together to keep

02:56:11.500 Alberta moving forward and you know put forward a platform that Albertans could really get behind

02:56:16.940 and support. Well it's not over yet but it's getting close so it looks like you have a lot

02:56:23.820 of work ahead of you either way that you look at it so I appreciate you checking in with us. Is there

02:56:28.700 anything you'd like to leave our viewers with before I let you go back to the gathering there?

02:56:33.980 Oh sorry I didn't quite catch that last question there but I also appreciate your time and I think

02:56:40.460 we're all very much looking forward to the results great thank you very much uh we'll talk again soon

02:56:45.660 i hope all right so that was uh rebecca shells coming from the the ucp headquarters i'm going

02:56:52.940 to check in with dave because we've had a lot of numbers coming in and uh it's getting uh yeah

02:56:58.140 we're getting close to i think being able to to make some strong predictions on how things are

02:57:02.380 going to come hey dave how are we looking now well corey we're approaching 600 000 ballots counted

02:57:09.340 44 percent of the polling stations have reported and we seem to be settling in at 52 to 35

02:57:17.020 writings for the ucp taking a look at some of the closer ones uh calgary acadia the ndp is pulled

02:57:25.820 ahead but it's only by about 60 votes and that's with less than half of the uh poll stations

02:57:32.700 recording calgary bow ucp ahead by uh 500 votes uh with seven out of 16 poll stations uh reporting

02:57:43.660 uh what else is close in calgary calgary edgemont uh that's been back and forth all night currently

02:57:49.180 UCP ahead 93.13 to 88.75. Calgary Elbow, about 300 vote leading for the NDP there.

02:58:03.820 Calgary Foothills, the UCP candidate is up only by 200, and that's with more than half of the

02:58:11.520 polls reporting now. Calgary Northwest, UCP up 35-62, 31-49 for the NDP. So that one's

02:58:23.520 not over by a long shot. And Edmonton is all NDP as predicted. Looks like Airdrie is going

02:58:36.860 to be all UCP. Banff Kananaskis, the UCP candidate, up by 1,700 votes right now. So that's a bit of a

02:58:47.440 shock there, Corey. That was marked down by many as a bellwether riding that was going to be very

02:58:53.800 close. But UCP seemed to be off to a running start there. Drayton Valley, Devon, the easy win for the

02:59:03.740 UCP. Both the Fort McMurray

02:59:07.260 ridings appear to be going the UCP.

02:59:11.660 What else do we want to talk about? Lethbridge, both of the

02:59:15.340 ridings down there going to NDP. Lethbridge East

02:59:18.820 is the closer of the two, 768 to

02:59:22.820 618. Morinville now

02:59:27.060 with a 1,100 vote lead for the UCP.

02:59:30.380 red deer continues to be voting ucp sherwood park it looks like it's going ndp with a

02:59:39.900 almost a 1500 vote majority there and the rest is the rest so the big surprise to me there is the

02:59:49.640 the big the big lead that ucp has in banff cory that comes as a bit of a shock to everybody

02:59:56.760 Yeah, all right. Well, including me, as I said, I live in Bay of Canaanaskis. It is a tricky

03:00:03.960 riding. You know, Miranda Rosen, that's her first term in it. And the further east you go in that 0.93

03:00:09.400 one, the constituency starts way out in Prentice where I am, which is very conservative and ends

03:00:13.720 up in Lake Louise, which is not. So it looks like Miranda's really done her groundwork out there

03:00:19.560 and then done well with it yep it's uh she's in in the catbird seat right now right on okay well

03:00:27.400 thanks dave well uh looks like somebody will be calling this one fairly soon i imagine uh you

03:00:32.920 would think so we have 46 of the ballots uh now cast so you know uh elections uh in previous years

03:00:40.360 we were able to call them after 30 minutes but uh you know we're now three hours into this one

03:00:45.240 Yeah, no, nothing's happening fast tonight. All right. Thanks, Steve. We'll check in with you

03:00:49.920 again soon, I'm sure. Thanks. All right. And I'll just throw one more out there. I saw a commenter

03:00:55.540 asking about Fort Saskatchewan, Vigraville. That's 3,400 for the UCP and 1,700 for the NDP. So that

03:01:00.860 one's pretty, pretty solidly UCP. Okay. So we've shaken up our panel again. It's gotten a lot

03:01:06.860 prettier now. Oh, thank you. Last couple of guys. Oh, Josh, you know, you're looking in the right

03:01:12.140 light he can either way that's sidetracking so chris sim's back again and christine cusinelli

03:01:19.660 welcome back to the desk tonight we got some results to discuss now they're really pouring

03:01:23.820 in uh so uh it's been a while since you've been in uh christina what do you think you know it looks

03:01:29.340 like we would the conservative ucp uh nail biter hasn't turned out to be quite as much of what they 0.52

03:01:35.100 thought it well and you know i i didn't think it was going to be too much of a nail biter to be

03:01:39.020 honest tonight um i feel pretty confident um even arriving tonight i felt really confident because

03:01:45.900 um you know if you look at how things were played out the media always likes to kind of play oh you

03:01:52.140 know uh we have a two-party system at the moment really and it's a bit of a like two horse race

03:01:58.140 right so the media really really played that up and i think that they were more dramatic

03:02:02.620 um about uh what the result tonight is going to show um my feeling going into this was that it

03:02:07.820 was going to be a win a solid win maybe we weren't going to be you know a total landslide but it's

03:02:13.340 going to be a solid win i think it's it's certainly starting to to shape up that way uh again chris

03:02:18.780 you know uh this was this landing kind of around where your predictions were or it's see i'm in

03:02:23.980 lethbridge east which looks like a flipping seat back and forth how many votes are in there if i

03:02:29.420 put you on the spot here because so so for me right outside my front door it felt close

03:02:36.460 And every time I was listening to the news, it felt close.

03:02:38.800 So I thought it was going to be closer.

03:02:40.520 Again, we've only got 46% of ballots.

03:02:42.700 So Lethbridge East, one of 27 polls has reported.

03:02:46.240 It was a big one because it has 768 votes for the NDP and 618 for the UCP.

03:02:52.640 But only one?

03:02:53.720 Only one out of 27, according to this.

03:02:55.760 And see, that can be different.

03:02:56.940 So that can change a great deal yet.

03:02:59.300 It depends on which part of Lethbridge you're in.

03:03:01.100 Exactly.

03:03:01.460 Exactly. And so so I'm on the east side and I live in the north side. Well, you know, we'll see.

03:03:06.820 We'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.

03:03:15.400 And 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.

03:03:24.320 And so that could, depending on which polling station is in, that could be how it's showing up, depending that way.

03:03:29.920 I find it again very interesting how for the most part I've been getting messages about issues

03:03:36.920 people write to us about their pocketbook about not being able to afford to fill up their vehicles

03:03:42.260 about not being able to afford food what kind of prospects their kid is going to have for a job

03:03:47.040 what I find interesting is that a lot of us especially those of us who've been in media for

03:03:51.680 a long time can get kind of caught up in the Hollywood you know back and forth fun game show

03:03:56.480 thing of politics most normal people don't care about politicians what you know they don't and

03:04:02.720 i'm sorry to burst people's bubble to me this is just the olympics but most normal people don't

03:04:07.520 care and so i think that's where they drift away from the whole horse race personality who said

03:04:13.360 what blah blah blah and they're really about pocketbook issues well and twitter isn't the

03:04:18.400 real world no and i spend a lot of time there i know that i have a good time on twitter and that

03:04:22.960 But if Twitter was the reality, we'd have probably 82 NDP seats right now or something already.

03:04:29.600 So, I mean, they've dominated social media, but Twitter accounts can't vote, thankfully, yet.

03:04:33.280 There you go. And the real people that are going out to vote, I think,

03:04:36.400 represent the folks that you're talking about. The real people that are going out to vote,

03:04:41.040 they're the ones who are motivated because they have concerns about what is happening within

03:04:45.040 their household, the income that they're bringing in versus what they're going to be having to put

03:04:48.720 out there and I think that probably the stake in the ground I believe happened to be when the NDP

03:04:55.360 announced that they were going to be upping a corporate tax because most people understand

03:04:59.840 that at the end of the day there is only one taxpayer and it doesn't matter where you're going

03:05:04.400 to go and increase that tax everybody should understand at this point who's going to be the

03:05:08.320 responsible voter going out there they understand that at the end of the day that means less money

03:05:13.200 coming into their household. And what's really interesting about that corporate tax hike

03:05:17.680 bear with me because it sounds counterintuitive when the corporate tax rate is low when it's eight

03:05:23.280 percent the government took in more money i'll repeat that when the corporate tax rate was at

03:05:30.640 eight percent it took in around six billion dollars from that tax when it was floating at

03:05:36.160 around twelve percent it took in around four billion dollars now why is that of course that's

03:05:42.080 because more people are opening up shop more people are physically moving here more people

03:05:46.160 are investing and actually starting businesses so it sounds counterintuitive right if you want to

03:05:50.960 make more money from something just increase the price but that's not how that works because the

03:05:54.960 corporation the business will find other ways of cutting costs they might leave depends it might

03:05:59.840 downsize it may not hire those extra folks it all depends but actually at that lower corporate tax

03:06:04.960 rate you take in more revenue as a government and i think we're going to see that people are going

03:06:09.840 to gravitate towards that mentality because you know at the end of the day what we're all looking

03:06:15.840 for is to be able to have make our money go a lot longer so those are the people that i think uh have

03:06:22.240 gone out to vote today i'm counting on that um and at the at the end of our results today i think that

03:06:27.600 we're going to see a broader conservative um i guess mindset that is going to be pervasive more

03:06:33.920 more so across the province i don't think that the ndp coming in in 2015 was going to be something

03:06:40.720 that was going to trend in the future i never believed that um the the day that i lost my seat

03:06:46.000 um and and that is because i i think that albertans are by and large people who uh believe

03:06:52.560 strongly in uh stimulating our economy uh using principles that are conservative principles fiscal

03:06:59.280 fiscal principles that are that are conservative and you know at the at the end of tonight's show

03:07:05.840 my thinking is that Rachel Notley unfortunately is probably going to have to decide whether or 0.99

03:07:11.840 not she'll continue as the leader of the party and they're going to have to do some thinking

03:07:16.000 about where they're headed in the future. I also think that there's going to be some

03:07:19.920 interesting makings and certainly some inroads that the Alberta party could make as a result of

03:07:24.800 whatever happens tonight which I believe is going to be a UCP victory. At the end of the day I don't

03:07:29.680 really think that similar to Saskatchewan how people have left Saskatchewan to come to Alberta

03:07:35.040 I believe it was you earlier who said that.

03:07:36.480 I came from British Columbia too.

03:07:37.600 Yeah, lots of people came from Saskatchewan, yeah.

03:07:40.080 I think that those have been the historic trends politically that have taken place.

03:07:47.280 And Alberta, I think we lost our way a little bit because we looked at the

03:07:51.760 Progressive Conservative Party as entitled and we had lost our way.

03:07:57.120 We assumed we were going to continue winning.

03:07:59.200 But I don't think that people are going to keep the NDP necessarily

03:08:03.760 in the next election. The Alberta party, I think, has a really, really good opportunity here.

03:08:09.040 Well, yeah, I'm glad you brought up the third parties, because we've just passed the 50%

03:08:14.080 mark now. We've got 721,000 votes in, it's 51%. We're looking at 44% for the NDP,

03:08:20.400 52% for the UCP. It's a 52 to 35 is sort of where the seats are sitting at right now.

03:08:26.480 Now we've got, I don't know what it is, a dozen or more other parties in this race of varying strength,

03:08:31.680 and none of them have broken 1%.

03:08:35.060 I had spoken with Professor Flanagan on my show a little while back

03:08:39.860 and he pointed out to me, though, he said, look, as I said, with no right split, this should be

03:08:43.960 easy. He says, Alberta isn't as right as you think it is 0.98

03:08:47.000 before you had a Liberal Party that was also cutting up things kind of on the left

03:08:51.900 so you could afford to have this. Right now we are truly two-party

03:08:55.860 and this might be the, it's been the first time in a long time, might be the first time for a long time coming

03:08:59.580 because parties will start sprouting up perhaps and expanding,

03:09:02.580 but it gives a good measure of the province then right now.

03:09:04.900 So, I mean, if we're looking at a 52% UCP, 44% NDP,

03:09:11.540 that's a conservative-leaning province, but not overwhelmingly so.

03:09:14.200 It doesn't look like our federal outlook does.

03:09:15.580 And it doesn't look like it used to look years ago.

03:09:19.760 However, I found it interesting, I heard a commentator point this out,

03:09:22.980 that for the longest time, whatever term you want to use

03:09:26.940 the Conservative Party that existed here in Alberta, it encompassed so many more people within that,

03:09:32.940 right? You'd have a much wider range of views within that very, very big blue tent. Now it

03:09:38.300 seems to be concentrating more into more firm, clear philosophy and ideology, and maybe that's

03:09:44.460 why we're looking at more of a two-party system right now. No matter what happens, we're at 51%

03:09:50.460 you said ballots are in it's encouraging to see people get a voice and have some hope one of the

03:09:57.260 things that we do at the taxpayers federation is try to empower people and give them agency

03:10:01.900 into voice and tell them you know what you can go to your city council and you can monitor them

03:10:07.580 uh you can write that letter you can call that mla because you are their boss and i find giving 0.82

03:10:13.180 people that agency really brings up their level of hope and it involves and includes participation

03:10:19.500 There 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.

03:10:42.240 And I think that Danielle, her greatest strength, which is also her greatest weakness, is the fact that she is so open minded.

03:10:50.300 Now, that's very rare, because quite often when a leader gets into the seat, they start to lose touch.

03:10:56.580 And it's so easy. I can tell you from personal experience, you get sucked into.

03:11:01.040 We actually call it dome disease.

03:11:03.500 We call it auto wash at the Ottawa level.

03:11:05.960 There you go. Dome disease.

03:11:07.020 I 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.

03:11:37.020 for all of the things that she may have said in the past.

03:11:40.320 Being a media personality versus being a leader of a party are two different things.

03:11:45.100 And I think that if she continues doing the same things that she has done so far,

03:11:49.580 which is listen to people, listen to the grassroots of the organization,

03:11:53.740 she's not always going to be able to say yes to everybody.

03:11:56.660 She will not.

03:11:57.620 That's just by virtue of being in that seat of authority and power.

03:12:01.780 But I know for a fact my experience so far has been she is still reachable.

03:12:07.020 She 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.

03:12:16.720 And I really think that the future ahead for her is going to be great.

03:12:20.880 Great.

03:12:21.340 Okay.

03:12:21.720 Well, we're going to do a check in with Dave and then a little shuffle here and we'll move on with our coverage here.

03:12:27.840 It's teasing magic.

03:12:28.560 We're going to disappear.

03:12:29.640 Absolutely.

03:12:30.620 So, Mr. Naylor, how are things going?

03:12:33.460 Going live.

03:12:34.140 I don't know where he's going.

03:12:37.020 hey uh cory how's it going good good good sorry sorry didn't wake wake up uh yeah 50 not really

03:12:47.600 much news cory uh 54 percent of uh writings now uh uh polls now reporting 782 988 ballots cast

03:12:59.900 which means so far we've got a turnout of about 28 percent where that ends up of course up in the

03:13:07.020 air and we're holding at 53 seats elected and leading for the ucp and 34 seats elected and

03:13:16.460 leading for the ndp in terms of percentage of the vote ndp at 52 and a half percent and the ndp at

03:13:26.220 43.7%. 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.

03:13:44.980 UCP ahead by a couple of hundred and actually by 400.

03:13:48.920 The number just got updated in Calgary Bow.

03:13:52.400 Calgary Curry appears to be gone to the NDP, 8,211 votes to 6,325.

03:14:02.360 Calgary Edgemont is still fairly close with the UCP leading by less than 400 votes.

03:14:10.060 Calgary Elbow is also close with the NDP up by about 150 votes.

03:14:16.620 Don't trust my math here, though, Corey.

03:14:20.000 Don't forget I did fail math 10.

03:14:21.860 That's why I went into journalism, because I can't count.

03:14:26.100 What else is of interest here?

03:14:30.100 Let's check in again with Banff.

03:14:33.820 Banff Kananaskis.

03:14:36.520 Wow.

03:14:36.880 the UCP candidate is up 4,824 votes to 2,642 votes. So that's turned out to be not even close.

03:14:49.900 So that's the latest update from out here, guys. Throw it back to you guys in the studio.

03:14:56.240 Thank you very much, Dave. All right. Well, some of you are wondering, why haven't we called it yet?

03:15:02.440 Well, that's because there's a lot of ridings that have results coming in, which makes sense.

03:15:12.120 It's not, you know, when there's like one vote coming in in Fort McMurray for the NDP, we're not calling it for that.

03:15:19.100 It doesn't make sense.

03:15:20.800 But there's a lot of ridings that are on a knife's edge that I think might go the way they're trending,

03:15:27.640 but there's still way too many polls to come in and could flip at any moment.

03:15:33.900 Christina, one, so I'll come back to your old stomping grounds, 1.00

03:15:38.420 Calgary Curry, which you represented from 2012 to 2015.

03:15:43.600 Calgary Curry right now, it's trending NDP.

03:15:47.500 I think at this point it probably is going 8,213 votes.

03:15:52.720 Actually, more just came, yeah, 8,213 to 6,327.

03:15:56.860 Probably not going UCP.

03:15:59.480 But it wasn't a bellwether.

03:16:00.640 The NDP was expected to win this one, right?

03:16:02.020 Absolutely.

03:16:02.720 I had hope.

03:16:03.760 Hope springs eternal.

03:16:06.220 Yeah.

03:16:07.160 But maybe we'll look at some of the ones in that neighborhood.

03:16:11.840 So let's talk Elbow.

03:16:13.560 Elbow is a must win for the NDP.

03:16:16.260 It's a nice win for the UCP.

03:16:19.180 But it's a nice fight.

03:16:21.480 I actually thought the NDP would run away with a bit more at this point.

03:16:24.760 Yeah.

03:16:24.820 48.1% NDP, 46.6% UCP, and still a fair number of votes still to come.

03:16:33.240 And 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.

03:16:42.620 Chris Davis is a great candidate.

03:16:45.600 He, I think he could, he was able to rival the NDP, who's, I'm sorry, I don't know his name.

03:16:53.700 You're talking an elbow?

03:16:55.700 Yeah.

03:16:56.700 Samir Kayandi?

03:16:58.700 Yeah, Kayandi, who is also a terrific candidate. 0.58

03:17:03.700 And of course, Jonathan mentioned this earlier.

03:17:05.700 So I just want to say it's usually the leader that carries the flag that way.

03:17:10.700 But nonetheless, if you're going door to door and you're looking down to the vote by vote by vote,

03:17:15.700 we have two very comparable candidates, evenly matched.

03:17:18.700 Chris Davis is a very compassionate man.

03:17:21.700 he has dedicated himself quite a bit in the community and so I didn't think it was going

03:17:26.700 to be as an easy win for the NDP as I think was portrayed in the very beginning. I live right next

03:17:31.820 door so I drive around a lot and I so signs don't vote we know that but nonetheless I saw a ton of

03:17:39.040 support out there on private properties for Chris Davis and again he is somebody that I think would

03:17:44.520 appeal to people at the doors especially if they're more progressive in nature which they are

03:17:48.140 an elbow. So I want to come down to talk about writing here that I thought it is definitely

03:17:53.340 100% must win for the NDP. I thought was going to be in the NDP column. One vote separating right

03:18:00.360 now. Calgary, Kline, Jeremy Nixon. This keeps on going up and down and up and down. Jeremy

03:18:06.160 Nixon, UCP. This is not Jason Nixon. They're brothers. Jeremy Nixon, UCP, 4,275. The NDP's

03:18:16.280 Lizette Tejada 4,274. This is going to be interesting. But this is a must win for the

03:18:25.000 NDP. The NDP doesn't win this riding. Thanks for coming out. It's over. And I love that it's going

03:18:31.160 that direction. I actually underestimated this particular riding. I had it a bit on the X and

03:18:36.680 I was feeling really upset about it because Jeremy is, again, he's a great man. I think he's

03:18:44.520 he's a very caring person i think he represented his riding really well um he started off as a

03:18:49.800 brand new mla and i think he really grew into the role so um i'm really happy to see this

03:18:55.480 um get the like this map up on do you have it yeah okay uh you know nico let's bring up uh let's

03:19:03.740 bring up the path to 44 uh graphic not the map but the graphic here uh we're gonna put that up

03:19:09.780 on the screen there we go so this is we haven't showed this yeah we have hours and this is a

03:19:14.820 great one yeah i just wanted to point out that if you look at the path to victory for the ndp and

03:19:19.880 you look at the seats that they're currently leading in i it doesn't look good for them

03:19:24.800 they needed to pretty much sweep a lot of these toss-ups it doesn't look like that's going their

03:19:28.940 way it is you needed to win just two of the toss-ups they're winning the bulk of them right

03:19:34.780 now yeah not all of them they're winning the bulk and i i think it goes back to i think the

03:19:38.800 conservative vote is coming home i think that's what we're seeing here tonight i know it's too

03:19:42.460 early to call according to but at the end of the day i think i i'm actually really confident uh

03:19:50.560 right now uh i'm really happy with what i'm seeing i think that the ucp is performing

03:19:56.260 kind of what we were hoping that we would see yeah um this is your way of trying to stick it

03:20:02.460 to me saying i'm calling it i'm calling it before the western standard does that's what yeah that's

03:20:07.080 i'm doing it i mean that's literally the only reason i'm still here we're supposed to be at

03:20:12.680 the yeah i want to go look um like if you're telling me to put my money down money's hard

03:20:19.800 down on uc okay but i'm not calling it i'm not calling it but if i'm betting it's like okay i'm

03:20:27.480 going all in all right i didn't know you were such a rule meister i'm going all in on the

03:20:32.120 there's policies around here

03:20:35.140 that we're supposed to follow

03:20:36.020 we're not trying to be too mickey mouse

03:20:39.660 about this stuff

03:20:40.540 so let's look at

03:20:43.460 Glenmore

03:20:44.000 still very tight, a lot of votes to come

03:20:47.240 still leading UCP

03:20:49.300 Whitney Isaac

03:20:49.900 51.1% to 46.8%

03:20:53.680 I think we're seeing

03:20:55.800 two things Josh

03:20:56.840 one is the conservative votes

03:20:59.440 come home, it does seem that

03:21:01.340 the so-called moderate or progressive conservative vote has stuck with the ucp and smith has uh you

03:21:07.380 know the first thing she did in her leadership was bring that wild rose vote back in and everybody 0.63

03:21:11.800 was saying oh she's going to lose the pc vote it does not look like she lost the pc vote what we've

03:21:16.300 seen and you can speak to this uh you know you're a former progressive conservative cabinet minister

03:21:20.760 but what we have seen is the ndp brought the alberta party vote home that i think is really

03:21:26.860 the only change significantly

03:21:28.800 that we've seen since the last election

03:21:30.600 that the Alberta Party has now gone

03:21:32.860 the way of the Liberal Party and has

03:21:35.000 been unofficially merged

03:21:36.440 into the NDP. Yeah, and at the

03:21:38.980 same time, I think you're seeing, like, if you

03:21:40.960 look at the PC vote that left

03:21:42.900 the party, it's the Thomas Lukasik vote.

03:21:45.360 Right? Yeah, it's like

03:21:46.840 five guys. Technically, it's like, yeah,

03:21:48.960 they were in the PCs, but

03:21:50.840 were they really committed

03:21:52.800 to conservative concept? Well, that's a grass tops thing.

03:21:54.340 Some of the grass tops left. You saw the same thing when the UC

03:21:56.800 was created in 2017, between 2017 and 2019, some grass tops left, but most of the voters,

03:22:03.280 even the vast majority of the activists, they stayed. It was some kind of, some of the elites

03:22:07.200 moved on. Yeah. And this is to my point that I was saying earlier, that I think that people

03:22:13.120 in Alberta are voting for the NDP because they might think they are in more of that progressive

03:22:18.720 side um that that progressive part of the tent the ucp is still um a wide tent um but i think

03:22:27.520 that a lot of people are looking to oh where where's my home because i used to be a pc and

03:22:32.640 you know it's danielle smith and that's the wild rose and i mean there is hard and fast conflict

03:22:38.080 between our parties um so that is still lingering out there you know so speaking of uh an interesting

03:22:45.360 character uh i know i think i'm seeing someone in our you know what our producer nico or he knew

03:22:50.320 i was going to go to i didn't even name it we've got a gentleman uh from the ucp headquarters at

03:22:55.200 the big four uh complex the big four complex at the ucp headquarters here uh i can't make

03:23:03.600 out quite who it is though but he's got a hell of a hat oh thank you guys uh we've

03:23:09.680 i'm sorry we could barely make out your audio same i i can hardly hear you here as well so

03:23:18.240 uh it's just quite loud around us here so oh okay i think we've got you good enough for now

03:23:24.000 i think we've got you good enough for now okay uh so you i think uh you're from the

03:23:29.920 the Banff Kananaskis constituency right federally yes but I think you live there provincially as

03:23:38.120 well right yeah but you know the area pretty well and right now it's it's surprising us this

03:23:51.080 uh this is tarik and galak um right now this constituency is surprising a lot of us uh most

03:24:00.480 of the predictions were the ndp we're gonna win it but in a close toss-up so far though ucp is

03:24:07.120 really pulling away uh miranda rosen 63.4 percent of the vote or 4 837 to the uh to sarah l mingle

03:24:17.000 I'm sure I butchered that, 34.7%.

03:24:22.580 Now, I think there's still a lot of votes to come in,

03:24:24.980 but really encouraging indications for the Conservatives in that writing so far.

03:24:30.320 Is this surprising to you?

03:24:32.620 You know what I would say positively surprising, Derek?

03:24:35.940 I look at it and I say Miranda's worked incredibly hard.

03:24:39.540 She's knocked on literally every single door in the writing.

03:24:43.180 The other thing as well as the writing is roughly 50-50 split.

03:24:46.500 in terms of conservative and orange voters.

03:24:50.140 You've got a town like Canmore and Bank, which are very orange. 0.95

03:24:53.220 And then you've got towns like Springbank and areas around Bragg Creek

03:24:57.480 that are very, very conservative.

03:24:59.620 So it's really immense.

03:25:00.980 So it's really who's got out to vote.

03:25:02.940 And to me, it's a get-out-the-vote exercise.

03:25:05.180 So we'll see what happens.

03:25:05.940 If Canmore and Bank didn't get out and didn't get out to vote,

03:25:09.640 Miranda's going to win this one handily. 0.98

03:25:12.180 Well, that's what it's increasingly starting to look like.

03:25:15.540 And if the NDP is not getting Banff Kananaskis, their path to victory gets narrower and narrower and narrower.

03:25:23.940 If 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.

03:25:39.340 And that, hopefully, in my mind, I was hoping, was going to get people to be motivated to head out to the polls.

03:25:47.560 And I think that might be what we're seeing here.

03:25:51.080 She did a lot during COVID, too.

03:25:53.320 Like, she was in the right place at the right time.

03:25:56.000 She was signing the right letters.

03:25:57.580 She was speaking out at the right time.

03:25:59.380 She kind of did go to, maybe not to war with the Kenney government, the Kenney side.

03:26:04.420 She was poking people in the eye. 0.69

03:26:06.500 yeah and i i do i actually do think that is beneficial to her because there was a lot going

03:26:11.860 on at that time that was it wasn't just unpopular within the conservative movement it was something

03:26:16.900 that was unpopular across the across the board so i do think that that the efforts that she took

03:26:22.820 to stick to her true values and to really be herself when she was sitting in that legislative

03:26:28.740 seat really has done her a huge service and and i hope she continues to do that and continues to

03:26:35.620 really just be herself uh as an MLA and I think she'll be safe there for a while she keeps doing

03:26:41.220 that yeah I think you've given a great description of her and you know that's not easy to do and in

03:26:46.100 particular um you know here's my plug for women in politics it's difficult you know and it doesn't 1.00

03:26:51.380 matter I don't think it matters anyways uh which party you're in and so I she was pretty impressive 0.99

03:26:57.380 uh to stand up to Jason Kenney um that that takes a lot of courage he is a formidable formidable

03:27:05.060 politician. He's very intimidating. Yeah, I've found that way. Well, I don't think he's necessarily

03:27:10.320 intimidating. I'm a JCPenney fan. I try to avoid arguing with him in public settings.

03:27:17.760 Well, he would probably win, though. He's very intellectual. Yeah, exactly. So, we've got Dr.

03:27:22.900 Ted Morton standing by. Another favorite. Another favorite. Mr. Morton. What is the saying? I'm

03:27:29.740 supporting Morton. Yeah, well, you know, he's easy to support. Yeah. I got lost on the highway with

03:27:34.980 Dr. Morton. Yep, last. I'm not sure it sounds appropriate. Well, it totally is. It was

03:27:42.820 Len Weber and him and they gave each other the wrong directions. I was in the back seat just

03:27:46.820 going, yeah, I'm just a candidate. But it was a great ride. We had a great conversation.

03:27:53.460 We had great conversations, Ted. All right. Well, Dr. Morton, what we're seeing now,

03:27:59.700 Now, 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.

03:28:08.620 I'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.

03:28:18.840 But the path to an NDP victory gets narrower and narrower and narrower.

03:28:24.900 it's starting to look like the hot gates and there's just no way for the ndp to get through

03:28:30.900 them at this point um uh do you are you seeing any path uh dr morton for the ndp to make it to 44 at

03:28:40.140 this point no and i'm sticking with my early prediction of 50 seats that i think i made two

03:28:45.880 and a half hours ago so i think i'm going to be pretty close to that i was just going to add one

03:28:50.680 thing derek that i think if you go back through a couple hours of your coverage here tonight i don't

03:28:55.960 think the words oil and gas have even been mentioned by anybody which is pretty crazy uh

03:29:02.040 you know yeah pretty crazy because this province before oil and gas was discovered there were less

03:29:09.000 than a million people it was the poorest province in canada and now they're four and a half million

03:29:12.840 people it's the richest province in canada and a third of the people work directly or indirectly

03:29:18.280 in it and the rest of us who don't realize that what we do depends on how active that is and

03:29:24.760 i think danielle's this was a key part of the success because the ndp uh rachel notley belongs

03:29:32.680 to a party that's holding up uh the liberals and uh justin and his anti-oil and anti-gas policies

03:29:42.200 and i think people know that and that helped and i think the good news here is there's no reason

03:29:49.560 the next couple of decades can't be just as affluent just as successful just as much opportunity

03:29:54.680 for alberta families as the last couple because the events of just the last 14 15 months the war

03:30:02.360 in europe and what china is doing in the middle east suddenly energy security is easily out of par

03:30:09.000 if not ahead of climate change. And people realize that both for the cost of living and also for

03:30:15.500 national security, particularly for the Western democracies and democracies. So the not Western

03:30:21.380 democracies. So suddenly the door of opportunity is really opening again, not just for Alberta,

03:30:27.120 for Canada. Canada, we're the third largest oil reserves in the world, fifth largest in natural

03:30:32.820 gas. Natural gas is the transition fuel on climate change, all sorts of opportunity. I think,

03:30:38.660 Danielle and UCP communicated that. If we can get Pierre next in Ottawa, it's going to be a great

03:30:46.380 couple of decades for this country. Josh? Yeah, I just wanted to kind of piggyback on that.

03:30:52.760 That makes a great point about energy policy. Energy is the industry that powers every other

03:30:57.100 industry. And we are facing a national and global, not financial crisis, but an affordability crisis

03:31:04.180 that is driven not just by monetary policy and fiscal policy, but in a lot of ways, energy policy.

03:31:09.940 And Ted mentioned that the war in Ukraine has impacted energy prices.

03:31:15.660 Well, that's the downfall of poor energy policy on the behalf of Western governments, including Canada, and probably especially Canada.

03:31:26.900 Alberta has energy resources that can help alleviate some of these pricing pressures across the world.

03:31:34.440 We aren't able to export it. We've got export bottlenecks caused by federal policies.

03:31:39.540 And I thought that the UCP government did a really good job in really highlighting the coalition between not just Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau,

03:31:50.740 but also with Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau over her term in office,

03:31:56.040 where she effectively, that NDP government for four years under her reign, 0.98

03:31:59.600 was a doormat for the federal government when it comes to their climate change policies

03:32:03.680 that really hindered our ability to provide reasonably priced energy products

03:32:09.020 to the rest of the world and even to our own people.

03:32:11.440 So I'm going to try to make a couple of writings.

03:32:13.840 Sherwood Park, it looks very likely now.

03:32:17.040 Jordan Walker goes down to defeat to the NDPs.

03:32:19.940 kyle kasowski uh marie renault uh expected to be re-elected but the fact that she's 0.98

03:32:28.580 in the donut of edmonton technically it's like she's saint albert uh she looks to be

03:32:33.140 say uh pretty securely re-elected but uh it looks like the only two so-called donut seats

03:32:41.060 around edmonton um the only two that the ndp are winning is one that they already held

03:32:47.300 st albert and they're picking up just one sherwood park and they're not getting stressed

03:32:52.420 kona sherwood park there's no donut for the ndp no donut no path no donut no path are you guys

03:33:01.620 ready for it are we ready are you ready are we ready are you guys ready for it are we allowed

03:33:06.980 drum roll uh jeez i wish we had the audio ready for a drum roll i'm calling it uh western center

03:33:13.460 gonna project a ucp majority government tonight oh i mean i'm supposed to be non-partisan sorry

03:33:20.420 i am you guys are just guessing you guys oh yeah you want you guys i'm trying to i'm trying to play

03:33:25.380 you guys do whatever you want is there like graphics going on right now there are there are

03:33:31.300 you know like we're serious we got we got serious graphics yeah all right we got a ucp majority

03:33:36.980 Are we the first to make a projection?

03:33:40.620 Maybe.

03:33:42.960 Got to be close.

03:33:46.060 Got to be close.

03:33:47.140 But there's obviously the caveat.

03:33:50.400 This could shrink.

03:33:51.820 If these polls are coming in, a lot of the flips go the wrong way.

03:33:55.940 It could be a tiny, tiny majority.

03:33:58.160 It doesn't look like it will be, but it could be a tiny majority still.

03:34:00.960 It's hard to say.

03:34:01.500 Are there mail-in ballot drop-offs happening in the middle of the night?

03:34:04.540 don't start don't sorry the conspiracy theory started here right here

03:34:11.860 I don't think there are I don't know are there I know I'm just kidding I'm just asking questions

03:34:21.080 just just asking questions uh but yeah I think this is looking like there's just no path so

03:34:30.500 you're joining us now and the confidence no I've had the confidence for a while but we just have

03:34:35.000 to be damn sure it's it's different when you're putting a name out there I watch it now now that

03:34:38.800 I've done it it's jinxed yeah you better not have you better not have but I don't think you have

03:34:44.100 right okay uh well uh we're gonna go to an update from Dave in the newsroom and uh we're gonna be

03:34:52.540 bringing in some new panelists thank you for joining us for now guys uh we're gonna go to

03:34:56.300 dave nailer in the newsroom now uh dave uh we've called it for the ucp but what have you got for

03:35:02.300 us hi derek yeah we have uh called it for the ucp uh and we've now just passed the one million uh

03:35:12.220 ballot to be cast mark uh we're closing in we're gonna call it 70 percent of all the polling

03:35:18.540 stations have counted in now. We've got 52 to 35 for the UCP, and it seems to be settling into a

03:35:28.380 52.6 versus a 43.7 percentage of vote. Just a quick run through. Calgary Buffalo has gone to

03:35:41.300 Joe Ceci again.

03:35:43.060 Calgary Acadia, still too close to call.

03:35:47.880 It's getting late.

03:35:49.080 The UCP is trailing the NDP by 150 or so there.

03:35:55.880 Calgary Cross, looks like it's gone to the UCP.

03:36:01.660 Calgary Edgemont, still very close.

03:36:03.920 The UCP up by exactly 400.

03:36:07.360 I like it when they make the counting easy for me, Derek.

03:36:10.780 ucp up by 400 in that uh writing uh calgary elbow looks like it will go ndp

03:36:18.540 uh calgary fish creek solidly ucp uh calgary glenmore the ucp pulling ahead there by about 470

03:36:28.460 votes uh calgary northeast the ndp looks to be uh have a victory there calgary pegan is the ucp

03:36:39.100 victory uh they're leading by uh more than 2500 votes uh there calgary varsity looks to be going

03:36:47.260 ndp calgary west uh don't know what they're doing out there on the west but uh they've only filed

03:36:53.260 one poll in so uh we don't really know what's uh going on right there that's yeah that's kind of

03:36:59.820 an anticlimactic one doesn't matter they don't even have to send any ballots all right so and as

03:37:05.340 mentioned Marin in Banff Kananaskis she's increased her lead to 2,800 Derek so that's

03:37:15.840 that's amazing nobody saw that coming there's got to be some missing polls from like I don't know

03:37:22.500 the bagel shop in Canmore that charges like $30 for a bagel that the polling place in there has

03:37:28.680 not reported I was I was told that it was gonna be close everyone said it was I still think it's

03:37:33.720 to be you do i still think i at this point but you're still calling it for the uc well overall

03:37:39.880 yeah but i'm saying miranda rosen and baff canon ask us i think at the end of the day is going to

03:37:43.640 be significantly closer than looking right now right but i mean you're not picking up 2800 votes

03:37:51.240 not likely dave lethbridge east is only one still dave no uh lethbridge lethbridge east only the

03:37:58.360 one poll and that's uh just the advanced poll there lethbridge west looks uh solidly uh ndp

03:38:07.000 yeah um okay thank you for joining us dave okay guys gotta get writing very good uh all right

03:38:16.200 nico let's pull up the um the path to 44 the road to 44 graphic this will explain why we've been able

03:38:24.360 to call it even though there's so many seats that could still flip one way or another there's a lot

03:38:28.920 that could still flip but we're going to talk about the path to 44. so what you see up here

03:38:35.160 the dark blue every one of the dark blue you've seen is still dark blue they're solidly in uh

03:38:42.840 those dark orange they're dark orange they're ndp uh for the ndp to win they had to win one

03:38:52.680 two so when you see the medium orange and the light orange they had to win all of the medium

03:38:59.000 orange one two three four five uh right now in fact they're leading in all of those except for

03:39:09.240 one so one of their pretty strong ones calgary klein yeah jeremy nixon like let's give it to him

03:39:16.760 he's a hard campaign like that one he's been door knocking for four years actually actually

03:39:20.520 sorry to bust your bubble. The NDP have taken a minute lead there right now. 4,348 votes through

03:39:28.980 4,321. So 48.9 to 48.6. Insanely too close to call, but we got to put that in the NDP ever so

03:39:40.520 slightly leaning column right now. So that's a question mark. There's a question mark. They

03:39:46.180 might get Klein, they might not. But then in the toss-up column, they have to win Calgary

03:39:53.080 Northeast. They, at present, are pretty solidly in the lead. Let's see where they're at there.

03:40:02.820 No, no, that's, let's see, Calgary Northeast. Calgary Northeast, let's see.

03:40:09.540 Yeah, they'll probably take it. Not by a lot, but they'll probably take it. So Calgary Northeast,

03:40:13.960 Calgary Elbow

03:40:15.680 I think they're going to take it

03:40:18.080 I've called them taking it

03:40:19.400 The Alberta party, you know, it's weird riding

03:40:22.040 It's got a weird

03:40:23.700 history going on

03:40:25.020 UCP's got an outside chance of taking Elbow

03:40:28.040 still, probably not

03:40:29.720 So, let's give them Elbow 0.99

03:40:31.300 So, we're going to give them Klein 0.98

03:40:33.220 for the sake of argument

03:40:34.180 Klein, we're going to give them Northeast 0.99

03:40:36.520 We're going to give them Elbow 0.94

03:40:38.160 Calgary East, they must win Calgary East

03:40:42.980 How's Calgary East doing right now?

03:40:45.700 Well, I think they're in the lead.

03:40:51.440 Let's see.

03:40:54.580 Calgary East.

03:40:55.260 No, they are not.

03:40:56.320 Right now, now there's still a lot of votes to come in.

03:40:58.540 This one could flip.

03:40:59.220 But right now, Calgary East has got 52.7% UCP Peter Singh, 42.5% NDP Rosman Valencia.

03:41:09.580 also remember a very low voter turnout generally in that riding and one of the smallest number of

03:41:15.100 electors in that ride yeah so calgary east uh you don't know yeah question mark must wins

03:41:21.300 bamf cananaskis we don't know what's going on there it's weird uh i could be wrong maybe i'll

03:41:27.620 have egg in my face but i i'm putting x on that they're not getting it i don't they're not getting

03:41:33.180 Now, Calgary-Edgemont is another must-win.

03:41:38.640 Right now, Calgary-Edgemont, very close.

03:41:41.140 It could win it, maybe, but the UCP are winning it, 49.6 to 47.7.

03:41:49.160 Okay, for the sake of argument, let's give them Edgemont.

03:41:54.320 Yeah, we just give it to them all.

03:41:56.160 Calgary Northwest, they must win Calgary Northwest.

03:41:59.520 they are they got a shot but probably not rajansani she has leading uh ejected seats from 0.99

03:42:06.960 northeast she's now in the northwest in that seat she's leading 10 148 votes to 9 643 0.99

03:42:14.920 there's not gonna be many more votes there because that's that's pretty that's pretty

03:42:17.880 topped out so uh calgary northwest no i don't think they're doing it calgary cross

03:42:26.420 absolute must win for the NDP right now the UCP narrow lead but not a ton more coming in Mickey

03:42:34.780 Emery leading there 50 to 46.3 and he is a great campaign I'll say Mickey may be one of the greatest

03:42:40.880 campaigners the UCP has he's just on like his team was amazing not gonna happen but let's let's give

03:42:47.440 it to them for the sake of the math Calgary Beddington must win don't win Beddington you

03:42:54.400 You can't win.

03:42:55.840 Calgary-Bettington right now.

03:42:59.000 I'm just doing my best impression of Wolf Blitzer.

03:43:01.180 I always wanted to do this.

03:43:02.280 I'm going through every single ride.

03:43:04.160 Calgary-Bettington.

03:43:04.860 Okay, so Bettington, they've got a small lead.

03:43:07.900 Josephine Pong going down to Amanda Chapman, likely. 0.85

03:43:11.520 Let's get them Bettington.

03:43:12.980 Maybe they get Bettington.

03:43:14.100 Okay, Glenmore.

03:43:15.620 One of the bellwethers everyone looked at.

03:43:18.040 Right now, it's not happening.

03:43:20.960 Could still turn 51.5% to 46.5 UCP leading.

03:43:27.560 More than 10,000 votes in.

03:43:29.960 Probably not.

03:43:31.360 I'm not giving them Glenmore.

03:43:32.820 No.

03:43:33.300 And you know, Whitney is a good campaigner as well.

03:43:37.180 Yeah.

03:43:37.840 So I don't think so.

03:43:39.860 Calgary North must win.

03:43:42.880 They could.

03:43:44.100 That one is razor thin.

03:43:46.440 A lot of votes to come in still.

03:43:48.000 but the ucp is muhammad yassin 3571 votes 3335 okay now for the sake of the argument give them

03:43:58.040 that one give them that one lethbridge east we don't know way too early yeah well let's give it

03:44:03.240 to him okay let's give it to him calgary bow this is a good question i don't think calgary bow i

03:44:08.700 don't either uh no i don't think they're gonna take it now calgary bow's tight it's a bellwether

03:44:14.100 The NDP could, but probably not.

03:44:17.860 I don't think they're winning this one.

03:44:20.240 How many votes is it at right now?

03:44:22.640 It's tight.

03:44:23.600 5,225 to 5,043.

03:44:27.260 Yeah.

03:44:27.720 It's close.

03:44:28.220 It's close.

03:44:28.760 We don't know.

03:44:29.020 It's close and not a ton more to come in.

03:44:31.080 That one was expected to be one of the closest.

03:44:32.960 Yeah.

03:44:33.480 So, for sake of argument, let's give it to them.

03:44:40.760 We're giving them all the gross points.

03:44:42.600 No kidding.

03:44:44.300 Acadia.

03:44:45.740 Another one of those bellwethers we've been talking about all night long.

03:44:49.200 Deanna Batten, currently leading over Tyler Shandro.

03:44:53.020 But a lot more votes to come in.

03:44:54.260 It's hard to tell.

03:44:56.100 She's winning with 3,910 votes.

03:44:58.820 His 3,747.

03:45:00.520 There's a lot more votes to come in there. 0.72

03:45:03.680 Let's get Acadia.

03:45:05.620 But they also needed to win Mourneville St. Albert.

03:45:09.240 Not happening.

03:45:11.260 No.

03:45:11.700 Not happening.

03:45:12.380 Well, yeah, what's Mournville at now?

03:45:14.780 Mournville-St. Albert.

03:45:15.960 Let's take a look up there.

03:45:18.200 But I think that one's totally out of play now.

03:45:22.300 Well, actually, no, it's closer, but I think Dale McNally's got it.

03:45:28.140 12,102 votes to 11,054.

03:45:30.940 Big turnout there.

03:45:32.060 Yeah.

03:45:32.540 Big turnout.

03:45:33.740 I'm impressed.

03:45:34.480 Can't be a lot more votes to come in there.

03:45:37.740 You know, he's probably got it.

03:45:40.220 Probably.

03:45:40.620 How many polls left to report?

03:45:42.380 it's not saying here uh and then let's go down to calgary calgary foothills

03:45:49.420 all right it's calgary foothills here okay this is another must win very close but jason le juan

03:45:57.500 still yeah still in the lead uh 5 699 5 604 so could could totally flip so we'll put that in

03:46:06.540 their in their camp here well let's see the ucp need to just win two toss-ups i've got one two three

03:46:17.260 that are just impossible they're not going to win the yeah so the ucp need two toss-ups

03:46:22.140 and we've got three toss-ups they're leading in almost all of those yeah the ucp is leading in

03:46:27.900 most but not all the toss-ups and three of them are off the table which means just at a minimum

03:46:33.660 ucp's got 45 yeah yeah at a minimum so that's that's minus look on penoni

03:46:41.180 yeah well uh jennifer johnson for speaker you heard it here first

03:46:47.180 yeah uh okay i've talked for a long time but i had to run through the math there i need a lot of time

03:46:53.180 um so i'll put it to you james um and for those of you don't know james was our operations uh

03:46:58.860 vice uh vice president of operations here at the western standard uh did a great job for us

03:47:03.660 We used to run cameras when we were a little mom-and-paw shop.

03:47:06.780 If we could even call those cameras.

03:47:08.600 The very first election that we did, I was producing it, running the cameras, making sure the lights were on,

03:47:16.300 and trying to make sure that we did not all overheat die.

03:47:20.000 It's getting pretty hot in here.

03:47:21.060 Yeah, but it's still not as hot as that one room with a cell phone camera and a laptop trying to produce a four-hour long live stream.

03:47:30.060 No, no, that was 11 hours.

03:47:31.480 That was the first one.

03:47:33.520 that was the uh that was the cpc leadership and i hadn't started for that one yet no i was there

03:47:39.840 for it was even before you okay yeah okay so you haven't even seen the worst of it you were in

03:47:44.720 pretty early but you didn't see the absolute i missed the absolute worst one but i've been here

03:47:48.400 for every single one afterwards you've seen bad yeah okay uh so back to you now uh

03:47:56.000 so even with this very generous calculation here unless i'm wrong it just does not look like there's

03:48:02.800 There's no path, no way forward.

03:48:04.120 No, I don't think so.

03:48:06.720 Even with the really, really tight ones,

03:48:08.520 I think that there's still enough polls

03:48:11.480 that still need to come in

03:48:12.440 in some of these constituencies

03:48:13.680 that I think we're actually going to see

03:48:15.360 the UCP's number push a little bit higher

03:48:17.280 than what it's at right now.

03:48:18.680 I think right now the official number

03:48:20.180 is somewhere around 52.

03:48:21.840 I think we're going to see it finish around 54, 55.

03:48:26.060 I think every single one of these needs to flip

03:48:28.780 and the absolute max the UCP can pull out right now is 56.

03:48:32.800 which is upsetting because that was my prediction,

03:48:35.020 and it looks like I'm not winning the offense.

03:48:36.800 Well, actually, let's go through the maximum.

03:48:40.860 Okay.

03:48:41.080 So, Foothills, Bourneville, St. Albert.

03:48:45.640 Okay, that gets you to – that's your 44.

03:48:48.740 Acadia, Bow, Lethbridge East.

03:48:53.300 Actually, so if they win these toss-ups that they got chances in,

03:48:57.360 I'm not going to give them elbow.

03:48:58.900 I just don't see them getting elbow.

03:49:00.240 but uh but what what kline that's a surprise eh kline kline was supposed to be out of play

03:49:07.220 yeah people said it was not gonna happen uh win lose or draw i mean jeremy nixon you gotta take

03:49:13.420 some hats off that guy like a honey badger and has been for for four years yeah well he always

03:49:19.440 knew he was gonna have to fight like hell there to keep it exactly yeah yeah uh but let's look

03:49:25.260 What would the maximum UCP?

03:49:26.900 So they take Foothills, St. Albert, 44.

03:49:30.840 Take it all the way up.

03:49:32.760 They take Northwest, 52.

03:49:35.140 It looks like 3, 4, 5, 6.

03:49:38.840 I'd say the UCP ceiling is 56.

03:49:42.880 Probably not.

03:49:43.900 Yeah.

03:49:44.360 It would be a really, really good 50. 0.57

03:49:46.640 I've been saying for a long time it was going to be between 48 and 52,

03:49:50.580 and it looks like we're going to be right at that.

03:49:52.060 We're at 52 right now.

03:49:53.040 52 right now.

03:49:53.800 So I think this is a great night for the UCP.

03:49:57.960 I think anyone who says otherwise is not paying attention to the fact

03:50:01.940 that the Alberta party has collapsed, consolidated behind the NDP,

03:50:06.780 and yet we're still seeing a massive majority,

03:50:09.320 potentially a 17-seat majority.

03:50:11.100 Well, I wouldn't call this a massive majority, but...

03:50:12.940 17 seats.

03:50:14.320 Well, at most.

03:50:16.900 Like, really most.

03:50:18.000 No, no, 17 is 52.

03:50:20.200 Okay, okay, yeah, that's comfortable.

03:50:22.100 Yeah.

03:50:22.280 that's that's a very comfortable majority yeah uh so i think it's important yeah that this starts

03:50:29.180 to go into context now um the you know we all expected the ucp to lose seats here and there's

03:50:37.940 been a lot a lot of guff directed at smith but i guess you have to think you have to put your

03:50:44.700 victory in context and there's contextual defeats as well i remember 2015 wild rose was supposed to

03:50:49.640 dead. And we came out

03:50:51.740 and we won 21 seats and then

03:50:53.500 22 when we saw a

03:50:55.300 by-election. We won 21 seats, formed official

03:50:57.720 opposition, came back from the dead.

03:50:59.860 Five seats to 21.

03:51:02.440 We didn't technically

03:51:03.600 win the election, but we felt like we did.

03:51:06.160 Well, it was a contextual victory.

03:51:07.900 It felt awesome.

03:51:09.600 So both the NDP and the Wild Bros kind of both

03:51:11.760 felt like they won the election. It was only the PCs

03:51:13.620 who didn't that night. Turned out that

03:51:15.780 with the NDP winning, it felt pretty horrible

03:51:17.920 over those four years. Oh, yeah, yeah.

03:51:19.640 Even I did not predict how that was.

03:51:22.520 But even though it was a technical defeat, it felt like a victory.

03:51:26.320 But I think a lot of conservatives are kind of coming in tonight taking a technical victory and feeling like a defeat.

03:51:32.520 And I think that might be a mistake.

03:51:33.480 As you look at 1993, Ralph Klein takes over from Don Getty, and they lost eight seats in a smaller legislature.

03:51:40.500 So a comparable number of losses from 1993.

03:51:45.140 but it was called the Miracle on the Prairies

03:51:46.960 because they were supposed to lose and they didn't.

03:51:50.100 They lost seats, but they were supposed to lose the government.

03:51:53.860 A year ago, the UCP was headed for certain defeat, 100%.

03:51:58.940 So maybe I'll start with James.

03:52:03.320 Well, first, we have to look back to what was happening

03:52:08.440 with the NDP's accidental government

03:52:10.500 and how much momentum they had going into that, right?

03:52:13.280 and then when we had Jason Kenney going in

03:52:15.580 he had just united the parties

03:52:17.260 and he had been campaigning for what two years

03:52:19.440 at that point so he had a ton of

03:52:21.440 momentum going in

03:52:22.600 4,000 volunteers

03:52:23.760 he had a crazy amount of momentum

03:52:27.040 going into that election

03:52:28.940 Daniel Smith essentially

03:52:31.240 came into a party that was ripping itself

03:52:33.540 apart if that same sheet

03:52:35.300 if that same path to victory was there

03:52:37.500 with Jason Kenney's name on top as the

03:52:39.460 leader of the party we would be looking

03:52:41.520 at significant losses

03:52:43.120 not only would we have lost the government and all of the seats that came with it if he was still

03:52:47.660 there and even if we were able to sneak out 44 it would barely be 44 danielle smith has been able to

03:52:53.420 take a party that was tearing itself apart months ago put it back together hold it together and get

03:53:00.020 some of her policy positions that she ran on for that leadership done er response times are down

03:53:05.540 healthcare is seeing the most drastic changes we've ever seen to happening to it things are

03:53:10.340 changing she's getting stuff done and now on top of it um we lost a few seats tonight i think it's

03:53:16.500 11 i think it's a with this math right now yeah 11 it's going to be 11 down 11 gain for the ndp

03:53:22.680 but you know um there's still a lot of room for that to move around yeah and and i i i still think

03:53:27.960 it's going to i still think it's going to be 54 55 i think this number is going to move up when the

03:53:32.440 final votes come in and i think that's going to be a credit to uh the ucp's campaign manager

03:53:37.880 Mr. Outhouse and his plans for get out the vote and it's going to be the individual candidates

03:53:44.340 and the campaign managers and their volunteers who have been out there every single day door

03:53:49.500 knocking doing the voter ID getting the people out to vote begging the people and I know you've

03:53:54.660 had 9,000 text messages I know you've had 10,000 phone calls your email you shut it off two weeks

03:54:00.720 ago and you've had probably three knocks at your door and that is because I know that right from

03:54:07.280 the top down from this campaign that the ucp intended to earn every single vote and i think

03:54:12.240 we're seeing that and i think we're seeing that in some of these constituencies tonight that uh

03:54:16.300 that these ucp candidates really really work to pull this off yeah and i think we're seeing it

03:54:21.360 especially i think honestly jeremy nixon is a great example right like that is someone who's

03:54:26.200 never supposed to win that just shows you the how great a good ground game can do yeah i think we're

03:54:32.020 seeing it with acadia it's super close everyone was saying it was probably going to go the other

03:54:35.600 way we're seeing it go uh this way that's a testament to tyler shandro and both of these

03:54:42.140 people are people i don't necessarily get along with but i think i can you know credit them with

03:54:45.660 the skill that they have and and say that they've done a great job but honestly this all comes down

03:54:50.460 to danielle smith it all comes down to the fact that there was a dying party and someone came and

03:54:55.180 they said they were going to try to save it i think if anyone else in that leadership race had

03:54:58.400 won i think we'd be doing worse because i think she spoke to the people who needed to hear right

03:55:04.420 The people that needed to be brought back into the fold, the party has been reunited.

03:55:09.240 Of course, there's going to be people who are unhappy with things that have happened during this campaign.

03:55:13.200 That's normal.

03:55:14.020 But I think if you look at this result, she's probably going to get over 50% of the popular vote. 0.70

03:55:18.600 That is incredible.

03:55:20.000 It is looking like that.

03:55:21.160 That is incredible.

03:55:21.720 It 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.

03:55:34.160 And that's it.

03:55:36.080 Like, the UCP vote just didn't go anywhere.

03:55:39.260 We were talking with Christine Cousinelli earlier about this.

03:55:42.300 Smith brought the Wildrose vote back in

03:55:44.380 after it was very quickly moving out of the barn.

03:55:46.860 It was going 22%, remember?

03:55:48.240 Yeah.

03:55:48.600 That horse was halfway out the barn with Kenny.

03:55:53.100 But everyone was saying,

03:55:54.240 with a progressive conservative vote, it's leaving,

03:55:56.640 because Danielle's crazy. 1.00

03:55:59.340 Didn't seem to have really gone anywhere.

03:56:01.460 It's just the Alberta Party vote kind of moved around.

03:56:04.160 That's it. And now we have totally, finally consolidated into an ultimate two-party system.

03:56:10.840 Now, 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?

03:56:20.440 In six months, none of your assumptions are going to make sense anymore.

03:56:23.920 But for now, we have the most two-party system of anywhere in Canada.

03:56:27.960 This is comparable to like an American state election at this point.

03:56:31.060 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Manitoba would be the only comparable, I guess, with their NDP PC going back and forth.

03:56:38.340 But yeah, I'm going to we're going to go to Dave Naylor now in the newsroom.

03:56:42.140 I know some of the campaigns have got people up on the stage speaking.

03:56:45.820 None of the leaders speaking yet, but I'm not sure if anyone's ready to tut their victory or concede defeat.

03:56:53.040 But Dave, do you know yet? Is anyone prepared to concede defeat yet?

03:56:56.940 Well, 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.

03:57:18.700 I haven't heard from Arthur he texted me now says they're just waiting for

03:57:25.840 not only any moment so I expect though we'll be getting some leaders very

03:57:29.380 quickly there so we're expect so you're saying that the Smith UCP campaign is

03:57:36.520 waiting on not Lee to give a concession first that would be my guess that's

03:57:41.940 than usually the normal protocol but oh your sound is very sketchy Dave are we

03:57:55.920 hearing anything from Dave okay I guess we've lost Dave for now have we got

03:58:05.440 Arthur Arthur standing by I'm not sure I can't see his video but waiting for

03:58:10.760 Arthur here. Okay. Uh, all right. Well, uh, uh, we're going to, uh, Dave, uh, can you give us

03:58:22.520 a bit of a riding by riding breakdown, uh, for now? Uh, just kind of run us through some of the

03:58:27.420 key races. Yeah. The Derek not least taking the stage. Okay. Okay. We're going to go to Rachel

03:58:36.100 Notley right now.

03:58:52.860 Your compass spins you astray.

03:58:57.340 You're feeling cold and blue.

03:59:01.560 You're not grown those tattoos.

03:59:06.100 find that blood flow by my heat

03:59:08.980 find that fruit for your feast

03:59:13.560 there's a sea change coming with that orange dawn

03:59:18.320 and color so much brighter when it shines on it

03:59:23.240 thank you thank you so much jody for that wonderful wonderful introduction

03:59:33.420 And by the way, congratulations, Jody!

03:59:43.420 Friends, obviously tonight I come before you with mixed emotions.

03:59:49.420 On one hand, I feel tremendous gratitude and pride in the people of Alberta

03:59:54.420 and those who stood up and put their support behind building a better future.

04:00:03.420 As a movement, we have grown our support in every corner of this province.

04:00:14.800 I'm very pleased that we will be welcoming at least 10 more MLAs to our caucus, who will

04:00:31.020 form part of the largest official opposition this province has ever seen in its history.

04:00:45.580 And that as a party, we earned the largest percentage of the popular vote in our party's

04:00:51.460 history.

04:00:59.080 we have achieved tremendous growth and opportunity for our future and for the values that we all

04:01:04.920 share however tonight i also know that we are all very deeply disappointed in the overall result

04:01:11.720 we had all hoped for a different one moments ago i called premier danielle smith to concede the race 0.94

04:01:19.960 and I congratulated her party on their victory to all those of you to those who offered their

04:01:32.440 unwavering support their dedication and their belief in our vision for Alberta in this election

04:01:38.440 you are the reason that we fight for what we believe in and to our candidates all across

04:01:52.040 this province congratulations on your campaigns successful or not you have all demonstrated

04:01:59.160 tremendous leadership i have spent the last few months being so inspired by your dedication by

04:02:06.440 your heartfelt commitment to standing up for Albertans without a voice for your

04:02:12.560 honest belief that we can and will come together to be better I commend your

04:02:18.800 integrity and your perseverance and your unparalleled work ethic and I will never

04:02:24.800 ever ever stop being deeply grateful for your decision to join our team so thank

04:02:31.640 you to all of you and to those new mlas i say to you welcome congratulations

04:02:50.760 get some rest tonight and then get ready to get right back down to work

04:02:55.320 to my amazing amazing campaign team uh i i can't say enough uh it it they they are unparalleled in

04:03:09.640 in the work and the achievement that that they have uh and that they have uh done you know across

04:03:16.840 the country they are just unparalleled in their skill i cannot thank that team enough and i cannot

04:03:22.440 thank as well our incredible volunteers enough your commitment your hard work your countless

04:03:31.800 hours of effort have been the absolute backbone of our campaign you've all shown incredible

04:03:45.640 dedication and passion and i am forever grateful for your support and i need to say this as well

04:03:52.760 where we fell short the responsibility rests entirely with me

04:04:02.360 that's that's fine that's that's the joys of being the leader you know it's it's fine it's just it's

04:04:07.320 a thing uh you know it's part of responsibility and accountability those are things we we care

04:04:12.120 about here but i do know that at the same time we ran a strong principle campaign and it was based

04:04:18.920 on our beliefs and it was based on our desire to create a better future for all albertans

04:04:42.120 NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT! NGT!

04:05:00.920 And to my family, these guys, thank you to the four of you for standing by me in this

04:05:08.920 often very crazy journey thank you to ethan and to sophie for accepting the difference that it has

04:05:15.880 been meaning in their lives for all this time and ultimately turning it into their own pride

04:05:21.560 and their own set of beautiful values that make me very proud

04:05:26.120 and thank you again seem like i'm doing this every four years thank you again to lou

04:05:41.400 my lifelong sounding board

04:05:56.120 Oh, for heaven's sakes, give it a round. 1.00

04:06:11.120 Anywho, lifelong sounding board, sparring partner, and apparently personal cheerleader, but also...

04:06:18.460 All right.

04:06:19.680 All right, well, we just heard there from NDP.

04:06:26.120 leader and official opposition leader

04:06:27.960 Rachel Notley who has

04:06:29.980 conceded that she is still

04:06:32.220 the official opposition leader

04:06:33.620 and will not win

04:06:34.960 big gains for the NDP

04:06:37.980 tonight

04:06:38.420 estimates are around 10

04:06:41.640 pickups it's the

04:06:44.000 biggest official opposition in Alberta's history

04:06:46.120 it's

04:06:48.200 definitely the high watermark in

04:06:50.240 I think even a popular vote I think

04:06:52.000 they may have exceeded the popular vote when they won

04:06:54.020 in 2015

04:06:56.500 I think they over-exceeded even when they lost last time.

04:06:59.480 Bigger population, too.

04:07:00.660 Bigger population, but it was a good night for the NDP, but not good enough.

04:07:07.920 We're going to kind of cut her off here, but I don't know.

04:07:10.740 Perhaps we'll get ahead of ourselves, but okay.

04:07:13.960 We'll get into potential resignation in a bit.

04:07:16.220 Keep that on ice for now.

04:07:17.560 But, Nigel, your thoughts on Notley's concession speech?

04:07:22.240 Well, I thought it was very interesting that she actually congratulated the UCP.

04:07:25.720 the party. She didn't congratulate

04:07:27.640 Danielle Smith. She said she called

04:07:30.000 Danielle Smith to congratulate her

04:07:31.680 on her party's win.

04:07:33.640 Well, that to me

04:07:35.420 said she

04:07:36.360 it was less than warm.

04:07:40.800 And well, it might have been.

04:07:41.980 It has not been.

04:07:43.680 She is, I mean, to give

04:07:45.140 Rachel Notley

04:07:47.600 the most

04:07:48.700 grace that one can, when you

04:07:51.760 are in opposition, your job is to

04:07:53.620 attack. And she did. 1.00

04:07:55.720 And unfortunately for her, blue suit or not, it didn't come off well.

04:08:00.380 I think she's still wearing a blue suit right now. 0.99

04:08:02.820 It's the unwilling ghost of Peter Locke, I guess.

04:08:06.200 She's trying to invoke that mantle of small-c progressive conservatism. 1.00

04:08:13.360 Anyway, whatever it is that she's trying to message, if she's trying to message anything, of course she feels upset.

04:08:19.660 She 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.

04:08:32.980 We saw it in the debate.

04:08:33.860 So 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.

04:08:42.600 now being you know conservatives or leaders are not allowed to lose in alberta there's a

04:08:50.380 like if daniel smith had lost tonight there's a 100 chance she resigns because she doesn't

04:08:55.760 she's gone like there's no way to stay on uh but i mean the expectations for the ndp in alberta

04:09:01.460 are very different and the end i think the ndp's culture in general nationally generally has

04:09:06.440 longer-term leaders who are allowed to lose elections and come on they're not they have

04:09:10.920 less of an expectation of winning

04:09:12.980 particularly in Alberta. This is different

04:09:14.900 though. This isn't somebody who was constantly

04:09:16.860 ascendant and trying to get there. She's

04:09:18.900 been there now. And then

04:09:20.760 this is the second kick at the cat

04:09:22.440 since. So I mean that

04:09:24.720 sets the bar at a bit of a different level. You know

04:09:26.860 it's not somebody who's expected to continue

04:09:28.960 to keep winning opposition

04:09:30.100 level wins. I mean

04:09:32.820 I got a feeling

04:09:34.320 she say what she may right now

04:09:36.760 I suspect in the next general election we're

04:09:38.860 going to see a different face at the front of you.

04:09:40.920 Well, 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.

04:10:07.760 I think you're right.

04:10:09.380 But will she actually want to do it all again?

04:10:12.660 Yeah.

04:10:12.860 Now, 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.

04:10:20.640 I'm out of here.

04:10:21.580 I mean, like, everyone remembers how petulant and terribly that went over.

04:10:26.940 She's very aware of how that kind of thing goes.

04:10:28.860 So it's fine to say, I'll stay as opposition leader.

04:10:32.680 Now, does that translate? Does she want to put it another four grueling years to maybe do it again? 0.99

04:10:41.940 It's no fun in opposition.

04:10:44.360 I had fun in opposition.

04:10:46.240 Yes.

04:10:46.820 But I never got to be a good one.

04:10:47.600 I don't think she would have fun in opposition.

04:10:49.320 Yeah. Well, once you've tasted government, I guess it's a bit different.

04:10:54.860 But do you think she – okay, so she says she's going to stay as opposition leader.

04:10:57.880 But do you think she'll actually stay the full four years and fight another general election?

04:11:03.260 No, I'm with Corey on this.

04:11:04.860 What I think she's doing is that she is going to see that the transition happens in an orderly way.

04:11:10.940 She doesn't become the story tonight at her resignation.

04:11:15.900 So, yeah, she'll do things decently and go and taste this thing called retirement. 1.00

04:11:25.360 59 now is probably looking forward to it.

04:11:27.880 Yeah, and she's been in MLA since I think 2008 or something crazy.

04:11:34.260 She's been there a while.

04:11:35.140 She's been there a long time.

04:11:36.580 And she's been with the NDP since it was a caucus of two, her and Brian Mason, two.

04:11:41.900 She was there from two in 2008 to four in 2012 to, I don't know, 50-odd something in 2015 when she was premier and then now through.

04:11:54.740 um i mean she is without a doubt indisputably known even in her universe the most successful

04:12:00.960 ndp leader in the history of alberta which arguably might make you the most successful

04:12:06.600 ndp leader anywhere in canada because she's made the ndp a competitive force here uh i guess the

04:12:13.800 worry uh for the ndp might be now can they survive without her uh i mean i don't think any parties

04:12:20.760 too wrapped up in their leader, but she is so much

04:12:24.980 more popular than the party

04:12:27.000 itself. And they could go one of two ways

04:12:28.980 and I want to get to your sense, this is maybe way too far

04:12:31.140 but I think the NDP post

04:12:33.000 Notley, assuming

04:12:34.280 who knows, maybe shows her fourth kick at the camera 0.99

04:12:36.840 if she doesn't, it's going to go one of two ways

04:12:38.800 it's going to bring in some

04:12:40.500 a Calgary

04:12:42.280 someone from Calgary who

04:12:44.960 has the appearance of a moderate progressive

04:12:47.120 conservative. They'll get a Nenshi 0.81

04:12:48.880 or they'll get a Todd Hirsch

04:12:50.340 or they're going to go to a Sarah Hoffman or a Shannon Phillips,

04:12:54.220 kind of go to their more hard left base.

04:12:58.320 Let's start with you, Nigel.

04:13:00.200 Which way do you think the NDP actually goes?

04:13:03.120 Depends who makes the decision, but if it's up to the membership,

04:13:06.760 I would vote for the hard left.

04:13:09.200 I am not a Notley fan, obviously,

04:13:11.960 but I at the same time would say that she is a steadying influence

04:13:17.820 on some of the crazier people within the party.

04:13:20.880 Things would be more extreme without her,

04:13:24.280 given some of the players there.

04:13:26.760 So without a strong, sensible person to keep a lid on things,

04:13:32.760 I think the party could go off and become

04:13:34.840 sort of a left-wing version of a small right-wing Alberta party.

04:13:39.500 We'll go back to what the NDP used to be.

04:13:41.100 It used to be, yeah.

04:13:41.820 It's been for almost its entire history.

04:13:44.200 They have a beautiful conscience, but they never form power.

04:13:46.500 Corey, 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.

04:14:04.980 And soon we're going to be going to the UCP headquarters at the Big Four in Calgary for the victory speech of Danielle Smith.

04:14:13.100 But, Corey, maybe your thoughts.

04:14:15.640 If not, Lee, you know, let's say she does a year. 1.00

04:14:18.900 I would expect maybe in a few months she announces, I'm going to retire as leader.

04:14:22.740 They have an orderly transition.

04:14:24.560 Are they going for, you know, you were right about Nenshi kind of auditioning for NDP leader.

04:14:29.040 But where do you think that party goes?

04:14:30.760 Is 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?

04:14:40.120 Well, I think a race would really determine that.

04:14:42.000 You 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.

04:14:53.220 And 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?

04:15:05.860 So that'll really, I think that'll be quite a moment for the members to try and determine which they want.

04:15:10.960 Because 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,

04:15:18.860 they didn't spawn a bunch of break-off parties when the ideologues get frustrated. But all the

04:15:23.740 same, I'm sure there's a lot of members who would rather they kind of pulled back to their

04:15:26.620 traditional left spot. So assuming Premier Notley does, you know, pull the pin and bring about a

04:15:33.480 race, it's going to be quite a decision for that party to make. You know, about 25 years ago,

04:15:38.000 the NDP in Saskatchewan were the kind of moderate party that Derek is talking about. Romano. Yeah,

04:15:43.720 those guys. And, you know, they did a good job, actually. Everybody thought we were the NDP.

04:15:49.300 No, they were kind of more like a social critic, I don't know, to be honest with you.

04:15:53.280 But 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.

04:16:00.720 Well, I want to bring in Arthur Green from Edmonton.

04:16:03.240 He is sort of at the NDP's headquarters in Edmonton.

04:16:08.880 I know they've put him in a dark closet somewhere.

04:16:13.160 There was some joking around here that Arthur is in the closet or something like that.

04:16:19.140 Arthur, you were in the room as Rachel Notley gave her concession speech.

04:16:25.400 I think a brave face.

04:16:27.540 I mean, it's tough to lose an election.

04:16:29.500 It's not very nice.

04:16:30.840 But, you know, definitely some bright spots for the NDP there.

04:16:34.260 But, you know, beneath the brave face, what was the genuine sentiment in the room?

04:16:40.060 The gender and sentiment in the room seemed to be sorrow, Derek.

04:16:45.720 I mean, they were happy that they are forming the largest opposition that they've ever formed in Alberta history.

04:16:53.780 But I think there was quite the sense of disappointment that they didn't form the government here in Alberta.

04:17:02.580 Like you said, I was in the back of the room.

04:17:05.000 I'm just outside here now as people are exiting NDP headquarters.

04:17:10.060 here at Edmonton. A lot of somber faces. You know, they really thought that Rachel was

04:17:17.360 going to be elected as Premier of Alberta. Of course, we all saw that's not the case.

04:17:25.320 You know, Rachel did say that she did call Danielle Smith, UCP leader Danielle Smith

04:17:30.360 on the phone. Congratulate her. You know, she was pretty humble in giving her speech. 0.99

04:17:35.340 She 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.

04:17:46.540 Well, she did say she would continue as opposition leader, but I guess it did not give a more definitive answer than that.

04:17:54.560 I think it kind of leaves the door open for her to get some time.

04:17:58.940 I mean, as we were saying, conservative leaders are you win or you die.

04:18:03.720 In fact, even if you win, you might still die.

04:18:07.580 I think that Danielle's over the line.

04:18:10.440 It's our conversation earlier.

04:18:12.280 You asked me how many.

04:18:13.460 I said 50. 0.60

04:18:14.520 You got 52.

04:18:16.180 I'm likely, yeah.

04:18:17.440 That's great in that area.

04:18:19.760 Okay, well, Arthur, stay safe.

04:18:24.220 Yeah, I'm going to try to run to my car as quickly as possible.

04:18:29.260 Get out of here.

04:18:29.800 Yeah, I'm sure there's some folks probably not too thrilled around,

04:18:34.360 but thank you for your work tonight.

04:18:37.140 Excellent reporting, and we look forward to your stories being filed.

04:18:43.920 The real work begins now, Derek.

04:18:47.120 All right, thank you.

04:18:49.160 All right, let's check in with Dave Naylor in the newsroom.

04:18:53.620 Dave, you've been watching this.

04:18:56.760 Did we miss anything on Notley?

04:18:58.660 We, 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.

04:19:08.480 Was there anything we missed?

04:19:11.080 Oh, you're missing Smith on stage right now.

04:19:14.480 Oh, well, let's go to her immediately.

04:19:15.900 What are we doing?

04:19:21.260 What are we doing?

04:19:22.120 Let's get her up right now. 1.00

04:19:28.660 Oh, thank you, thank you, Albert.

04:19:37.660 Sean, Your Honor.

04:19:40.660 Oh, boy.

04:19:41.660 Thank you.

04:19:42.660 Oh, thank you, my dear friend.

04:19:47.660 Thank you so much.

04:19:51.660 Well, to paraphrase our dear friend, Ralph Klein, welcome to another Miracle on the Prairie.

04:19:57.660 on the prairies.

04:20:03.660 Hi, friends.

04:20:04.660 This was the very definition of a hard-fought election.

04:20:09.660 We face the most extensive, fierce, and coordinated opposition in third-party political campaigns

04:20:15.660 in provincial history.

04:20:27.660 .

04:20:57.660 .

04:21:27.660 .

04:21:57.660 .

04:22:27.660 .

04:22:57.660 Join me in genuinely thanking her for her public service.

04:23:27.640 So I would like to thank the hundreds of thousands of Albertans who voted for the UCP today.

04:23:32.700 I want to speak for a moment to every Albertan who did not.

04:23:36.820 I want you to know that my oath is to serve all Albertans, no matter how you voted.

04:23:43.800 And though I didn't do enough in your judgment to win your support in this election, I will

04:23:51.980 work every day to listen to improve and to demonstrate to you that i can be trusted to

04:23:57.820 improve on the issues that you care so deeply about now i won't be perfect of course we all

04:24:03.420 know that but when i make a mistake i will listen correct course and learn from it so that i can

04:24:08.940 improve and become a better leader and so i invite all albertans regardless of who you supported in

04:24:13.660 this election to reach out to me with your ideas and your concerns and your questions that feedback

04:24:19.100 that you give me positive and negative helps make our ucp caucus and i to make better decisions

04:24:25.100 and that is what a healthy democracy is all about now before i go further i think it's

04:24:35.180 important tonight to recognize the courageous sacrifice and efforts of our firefighters

04:24:40.460 and other first responders who are fighting and winning the battle against forest fires

04:24:45.020 across our province i'd ask all of us to stand here and applaud our heroes of alberta

04:24:54.460 that is what alberta is all about we look after each other we take care of each other and we must

04:25:00.780 remember that there is much more much more that unites us than divides us and we will need to

04:25:06.860 be unified in the days and years ahead because there's so much work to do together for example

04:25:12.380 we need to make sure that you and your family keep more of your money for the things that you

04:25:16.460 need especially during this time of high inflation we yeah

04:25:25.660 we have to make sure that our communities and streets are safe again for our families and our

04:25:29.820 businesses and we have to keep powering and diversifying our amazing economy and i want

04:25:39.980 to tell every business owner and investor listening tonight whether doing business

04:25:44.060 inside or outside of alberta we are throwing our doors wide open for businesses large and small

04:25:55.100 to make this province a home for your business and its employees enjoy the benefits of the

04:26:00.780 alberta tax advantage and bring your jobs and investments here because you are both welcomed

04:26:06.220 and valued and to demonstrate that the first bill of our government in the legislative session in

04:26:11.980 the fall will be to guarantee that unless albertans say otherwise by referendum the

04:26:16.300 only direction business and personal taxes are headed in this province is down

04:26:29.500 because we know that when businesses thrive people thrive and when we grow our economy we

04:26:34.140 attract the best and brightest from all over the world and we want that we have built the most

04:26:38.780 powerful economy and diverse population in the country on the principles of free enterprise

04:26:44.300 entrepreneurship and economic growth let's not ever forget that and let's not ever change that

04:26:53.980 we also need to ensure that our health care and education systems are the best

04:26:58.060 in the world not simply adequate not middle of the pack the very best in the world

04:27:06.620 and that means we need to study the best systems and practices around the world and improve upon

04:27:11.820 the strong foundation that we've built here but it also means empowering our doctors and nurses

04:27:16.860 teachers and other frontline professionals along with feedback from patients and parents

04:27:22.060 to innovate and improve in these areas every single day so i'm asking healthcare and education

04:27:27.980 professionals tonight i'm also asking parents and patients to work with me and the ucp caucus

04:27:34.300 to build a healthcare system and an education system that are models for the entire world

04:27:43.660 i know we can do this together and i am here to listen and to work alongside of you and finally

04:27:49.660 my fellow Albertans we need to come together no matter how we have voted to stand shoulder to

04:27:54.380 shoulder against soon to be announced Ottawa policies that would significantly harm our

04:27:59.660 provincial economy. Now we have been made aware that in the coming weeks Justin Trudeau is planning

04:28:09.820 on bringing forward new restrictions on electricity generation from natural gas that will not only

04:28:15.100 massively increase your power bills but will also endanger the integrity and reliability of our

04:28:20.700 entire power grid which we rely on during our cold and dark alberta winters in addition the

04:28:26.460 prime minister is already ready to introduce a de facto production cap on our oil and gas sector

04:28:33.260 that if implemented if implemented will result in tens of thousands of jobs lost tens of billions

04:28:42.700 in lost investment, damage our province's fiscal position, and bring economic hardship to Albertans.

04:28:48.460 Now, I've made myself clear on this matter to the Prime Minister in person and in public,

04:28:53.500 but I feel we need to do it again.

04:29:12.700 Well, hopefully the Prime Minister and his caucus are watching tonight.

04:29:20.700 But let me be clear, this is not a road we can afford to go down.

04:29:26.720 If he persists, he will be hurting Canadians from coast to coast,

04:29:29.840 and he will strain the patience and goodwill of Albertans in an unprecedented fashion.

04:29:35.360 and as premier i cannot under any circumstances allow these contemplated federal policies to be

04:29:44.340 inflicted upon albertans i simply can't and i won't

04:29:48.320 And so I invite the Prime Minister to instead halt the introduction of these harmful policies

04:30:10.360 and come to the table in good faith to work collaboratively with Alberta on an energy

04:30:14.940 emission strategy that will both grow the Alberta and Canadian economies while using the export of

04:30:20.460 Alberta LNG and emerging technologies to achieve meaningful reductions in emissions because when

04:30:26.060 Canadians work together there is no challenge that we can't overcome I believe that but it takes two

04:30:31.420 parties acting in good faith to build that meaningful partnership now Alberta is willing

04:30:36.700 to be that partner and we need our federal government to show it is willing to partner in

04:30:41.260 good faith as well and now is the time to do so we are waiting

04:30:51.180 so in closing my friends tonight is a time for celebration we celebrate

04:31:02.540 we celebrate the candidates that won their election races and the efforts of those who

04:31:06.700 did not we celebrate the commitment to democracy of all volunteers and supporters regardless

04:31:11.980 of party affiliation and we celebrate those who have sacrificed to secure and protect our right

04:31:17.660 to vote and be a free and prosperous people and we celebrate this beautiful province and all who live

04:31:24.140 here this uniquely special place where the best and brightest come from every corner of the world

04:31:36.060 to join us in building one of the greatest places on earth to live and work and raise our families

04:31:41.500 and where the only things that are larger than our mountains is the compassion and irrepressible

04:31:47.420 spirit of our people from the bottom of my heart thank you alberta and may our province remain

04:31:53.900 forever strong and brave thank you

04:31:58.540 Big smiles from Premier Danielle Smith as her party will return.

04:32:09.980 All right, while we just finished watching re-elected Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

04:32:19.060 give her victory speech, short, actually significantly shorter than not least concession

04:32:25.580 speech but um i think pretty boisterous uh relatively humble though for someone who just

04:32:33.160 won but she used the term uh that i'm actually kind of angry because people think i plagiarized

04:32:38.960 my column on this but i wrote it before she spoke uh it was the miracle on the prairies

04:32:44.200 kind of uh mirroring what happened with uh ralph klein 1993 took over from um don getty lost a

04:32:52.220 comparable number of seats, but everyone expected them to lose government. Instead, they just lost

04:32:57.360 seats but held on to government. The miracle on the prairies. Well, she's a big Ralph Klein fan,

04:33:02.960 so that would have been a very natural thing for her to even have to think of that. It was a nice

04:33:09.180 speech. It hit exactly the right note. This is now her premiership. Some people say, well, if you

04:33:17.300 kind of become premier by becoming leader of the party between elections, okay, she campaigned for

04:33:24.380 this, she's got it, it's what, 52, 35, 51, 36, we're not quite sure at the moment, but this is her

04:33:33.080 victory, and she can celebrate tonight, so than her husband, Dave. Corey, I mean, it's a loss of

04:33:42.860 seats but a year ago today uh every poll showed used to be headed for a catastrophic and historical

04:33:49.220 defeat so uh i don't know should the ucp how down should they be on themselves if they lost a good

04:33:56.060 number of seats well it's unfortunate they're gonna lose some caucus members there's been some

04:34:00.340 turnover but uh they pulled it's been pulled out of the fire and and premier smith has as as nigel

04:34:06.600 said a mandate no more of this undercutting no more saying she doesn't deserve to be there 0.87

04:34:09.860 she took it to Albertans and now she has a majority mandate to act on what she's been

04:34:15.460 promising and to govern. I think it's time to push back against it. It's been like that since

04:34:22.460 the leadership began with every tall forehead and academic, everyone else saying Daniel Smith

04:34:27.780 was going to be a disaster. Well, I believe it hit a low of 22% supported under Premier

04:34:32.820 Kenney at one point. And to having a majority government at this point, this is doing quite well.

04:34:39.860 Yeah, 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.

04:35:02.440 Oh, we cannot hear Dave. We are not hearing Dave right now.

04:35:09.860 All right. Are we going to be able to get sound for Dave?

04:35:13.200 I blame James for that one.

04:35:16.420 Yeah, the NDP has staged a stunning comeback in Banff.

04:35:19.920 They're now ahead by 330 votes or so.

04:35:24.800 So I think you were right to be cautioning us on that one.

04:35:28.960 And Acadia is also extremely close.

04:35:32.980 78 votes, I think, between the two of them with Tyler Shandro in the lead.

04:35:44.900 And there's only one more polling station to go on that one, Derek.

04:35:50.280 Overall, we got 1,564,000 votes counted.

04:35:55.600 That's 91% of all polls reporting.

04:35:58.780 and it's currently 50 to 37 for the UCP.

04:36:05.060 All right.

04:36:06.440 Yeah, there's just a couple of these races that are on a knife's edge,

04:36:10.120 none of which will change the ultimate outcome of the election.

04:36:12.920 It'll change how good a night individual candidates in MLAs have,

04:36:17.400 but won't change things necessarily overall.

04:36:21.900 We haven't talked too much about Edmonton.

04:36:23.840 Edmonton's been the least talked about part of Alberta, I think,

04:36:27.280 because it's just been taken for granted.

04:36:29.660 The NDB is going to sweep the whole thing, and they did.

04:36:33.080 We talked about Calgary, and everyone talked about Calgary ad nauseam

04:36:36.080 for a good reason because that was where it was decided.

04:36:38.560 But there were some couple battles around that mattered

04:36:42.540 if the NDB was going to have a path to victory,

04:36:44.680 Banff Kananaskis maybe, Lethbridge East, the donut around Edmonton.

04:36:51.680 Edmonton proved to be the Orange Fortress, 1.00

04:36:54.200 but they got stuck inside that wall.

04:36:56.660 they did not get out they held St. Albert and but they picked up only one in the entire two in the

04:37:02.620 entire Edmonton region they picked up Edmonton Southwest taking out Deputy Premier Casey Maddow

04:37:07.880 and they took uh Sherwood Park taking um what's his name sure who was there yeah uh anyway they

04:37:16.780 took Sherwood Park they didn't take Strathcona Sherwood Park they didn't take anything else

04:37:21.520 They got restricted completely to Edmonton there.

04:37:25.340 They did take the donut.

04:37:26.540 But it is quite a feat to take every single seat in Edmonton,

04:37:30.280 as they did the time they formed government in 2015, Nigel.

04:37:34.080 It's not actually a good thing.

04:37:36.080 It shows the extent of the division in the province.

04:37:41.860 I mean, there are two very different visions of how the province should look,

04:37:45.880 how it should operate, how it should perform.

04:37:47.820 And you've got this collectivist vision in Edmonton.

04:37:51.520 and the rest of the province, they want to do things differently.

04:37:56.940 You know, this is going to be the challenge for Premier Smith going forward,

04:38:04.680 is to bring people along.

04:38:06.760 I mean, let's be realistic about our expectations.

04:38:09.080 She's not going to turn the orange fortress into the blue fortress, but she has to.

04:38:15.640 Hold on a second.

04:38:16.500 I want to go back to Dave in the newsroom on Calgary Bow.

04:38:19.560 Calgary Bow, Drew Farrell, and the NDP have actually just taken the lead.

04:38:25.240 Dave, can you give us a – how many polls are left to report in Calgary Bow?

04:38:29.760 Three polls to go in Calgary Bow, and Drew Farrell is up 8,847 to 8,664.

04:38:40.280 So he's got almost a couple hundred road lead with three polls to go.

04:38:47.620 You know, this is funny.

04:38:49.100 some of the bellwethers uh well they've been flipping back and forth all night the ndp could

04:38:54.940 still win some of these really key bellwethers and not win uh acadia even if they win acadia bow

04:39:03.180 they're they're still not taking it well we knew this was how it was going to be when we started

04:39:07.420 that there were a dozen or so seats in calvary that were could go either way and we said that

04:39:13.420 The NDP would have to win nine of them.

04:39:18.200 The UCP just had to hold three or four of them.

04:39:21.340 So that's how it's turning out.

04:39:23.260 Yeah, it looks like they squeaked by in Calgary Edgemont too.

04:39:27.240 All the remaining, but they're leading 11,419 to 11,243.

04:39:34.280 So Panda is going to have to pick up at least a few hundred votes

04:39:38.600 and then one poll remaining if he wants to.

04:39:40.320 so yeah and panda was elected for the first time i think um in 2017 so that was he was in the

04:39:48.100 by-election replacing yeah so that was called calgary foothills at the time but there was a

04:39:51.340 redistribution there's another running called calgary foothills but it was all kind of chopped

04:39:54.360 up he was elected in the by-election replace because jim prentice never actually took his

04:39:59.020 seat so he never technically resided just never accepted the seat i guess it was a never heard

04:40:03.900 of anything like that yeah um but then he replay uh ran and won the seat for the wild rose um

04:40:10.500 so you know he's been there for a while and he'd run for the wild rose actually for the first time

04:40:14.080 in like 2012 under danielle smith i think he might have been the last wild rosers still in there

04:40:19.220 is there anybody else was an original wild roser still in caucus he was never there is no uh drew

04:40:24.840 barnes was the last original wild roser well along with prasad well he wasn't original but

04:40:29.820 Prasad was a Wild Rose.

04:40:31.140 I'm just saying there's no other Wild Rosers left.

04:40:32.860 None.

04:40:34.020 No, there are people who were Wild Rose MLAs.

04:40:36.240 Todd Lowen.

04:40:37.120 Oh, sorry.

04:40:37.640 Thanks.

04:40:38.080 No, there's a few.

04:40:39.440 You got...

04:40:40.360 Todd, yeah.

04:40:40.880 Brian Jean.

04:40:41.720 Brian Jean, yeah, it was in and out.

04:40:43.240 Yeah.

04:40:43.480 Brian Jean.

04:40:46.960 Daniel Smith.

04:40:48.620 Daniel Smith.

04:40:49.900 Okay.

04:40:50.940 There's just aren't too many remnants of that original caucus anymore or longer.

04:40:53.980 Anyways, but look at that couple in there. 1.00

04:40:55.160 Okay, well, I guess we'll just give time for final thoughts before we wrap it up.

04:41:01.180 We don't want to abuse the time of our viewers, but final thoughts from you, Corey.

04:41:07.420 It's been a long night, but the decision's done.

04:41:10.860 It's over.

04:41:11.780 And she does, Premier Smith has a majority.

04:41:14.900 I'm going to write about that.

04:41:16.260 She's got to treat it like one.

04:41:18.100 It's no more pussyfooting around either.

04:41:20.380 No more apologizing for being conservative.

04:41:23.060 Yeah, that's so true.

04:41:25.160 Nigel, your closing thoughts.

04:41:26.980 I just hope the party gets behind her 0.86

04:41:28.560 and that the people who have their own private ambitions

04:41:31.360 save it for another day and we actually get things done.

04:41:33.560 This province needs what this government can deliver

04:41:38.020 if it's allowed to.

04:41:39.300 There's a strong stance towards Ottawa

04:41:42.460 when Ottawa comes calling.

04:41:44.960 All right.

04:41:45.440 Well, it's...

04:41:46.360 Wish her good luck.

04:41:48.160 It's quite an evening tonight.

04:41:50.320 I guess another miracle on the prairies,

04:41:51.980 He's, Smith, pulling this one out of the fire.

04:41:56.340 You bet.

04:41:56.780 All right, gentlemen, thank you very much.

04:41:58.180 I want to thank our whole team, all of our reporters, Dave Naylor, Arthur Green,

04:42:05.760 Jonathan Bradley, Sean Polzer, all the other staff in the background,

04:42:10.820 Regina Shakurva, Nick Wiebe, and, of course, our broadcast editor,

04:42:17.160 Nico Avote, and all of our guests.

04:42:19.560 We've had just so many people coming through here.

04:42:21.320 I'm definitely leaving out a ton of people, but I want to thank everybody for their contribution

04:42:26.880 tonight to giving an independent view of Alberta's election here.

04:42:31.360 And I think we may have actually been the first media to call this, as hesitant as I was.

04:42:36.020 Thank you all very much for joining us on this special Alberta election broadcast.

04:42:41.140 We'll see you soon.

04:42:42.240 God bless.

04:42:51.320 You

Western Standard - May 30, 2023

2023 Alberta Election Poll Analysis & Results ｜ LIVE

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript