Western Standard - AB REPORT： Alberta election campaigns kick off

00:00:00.000 you're watching the alberta report our daily uh alberta election coverage this is the first day

00:00:15.760 of alberta report because today is the first official day of alberta's 2023 election today's

00:00:22.640 may 1st 2023 uh really pleased to come here uh have you here today uh we're gonna try and keep

00:00:28.880 it short and sweet uh we're not gonna keep you here all day but we want to give you the real

00:00:33.520 highlights of what's happened on the previous day's campaign trail and what is expected

00:00:37.680 today and we're going to do it every at least every weekday of the campaign as we go through

00:00:42.720 so we're going to be talking about the uh what's happening today the writ being dropped the official

00:00:48.240 the election finally getting officially started uh we're going to talk about the different campaign

00:00:52.960 launches and some really interesting polling data kind of broken down by predictions of

00:00:58.240 different seats and really just how close uh too close to call this election really is uh and

00:01:05.680 throughout this we're going to normally have myself but also opinion editor Nigel Hannaford and uh

00:01:11.600 western centered news editor Dave Naylor but we're going to be bringing in reporters and columnists

00:01:16.560 uh scattered throughout alberta who are on the ground covering the election uh day by day here

00:01:22.960 uh well uh we're going to start with uh well the writ drum the election has been effectively underway for

00:01:29.120 quite some time this is alberta's first election with an actual fixed election date we've had fixed

00:01:35.120 election windows before where we knew within three four months roughly when it's going to be uh and

00:01:41.840 that's mostly been observed except for the time jim prentice kind of threw that one out of the window

00:01:45.920 much to his peril um by having a specific fixed election date it's resulted in this very long

00:01:52.560 election it's felt like we've been in it for a long time already but it starts uh officially today um

00:02:00.240 i guess really quickly uh Nigel do you think this is gonna change anything in the minds of voters does

00:02:06.240 this mean because it's official they pay more attention today than they did yesterday i think it i think

00:02:11.280 people start to pay attention in the last two weeks in fact given when the uh victoria day weekend is

00:02:18.240 that's probably when everybody is going to be watching it right now we've got a lot of people

00:02:23.920 watching it but they just just the way these things go it usually picks up through the campaign

00:02:29.520 your britishness is showing when you call it victoria day instead of may two four or may long

00:02:34.400 the proper name long may it flourish yeah here's to the queen uh dave uh

00:02:41.120 same question to you um do you think most uh albertans i mean some political political junkies

00:02:48.800 aside who watch this stuff for all four years um does anything really change today other than you

00:02:55.040 know some electoral finance rules start to kick in uh you know limits on how much parties can spend

00:02:59.840 how much they can raise etc uh but do you think anything really changes today are people going to

00:03:04.400 start paying more attention now that it's official it may uh depends how entertaining it is

00:03:10.080 we've got the two main party leaders uh smith and notley they don't like each other

00:03:14.720 uh so this could dissolve very very quickly into a very nasty nasty election campaign and if that

00:03:20.640 happens yeah all eyes will be on it because it's good fun so let's uh we're going to get to the launch

00:03:25.440 of the campaigns in a moment but we're going to talk about what's happening today first uh today

00:03:30.560 uh alberta premier and ucp leader rachel notley sorry whoa whoa go oh sorry uh danielle smith is in

00:03:39.680 auburn bay and that's southeast calgary i believe um for campaign event there we don't know what's going

00:03:46.720 to be happening other than some kind of campaign event where she will likely say something probably

00:03:51.680 interesting some kind of election promises similarly rachel notley in calgary both party leaders

00:03:58.080 in calgary on the first day of the campaign i don't think that should be shocking to either of

00:04:03.040 you battleground in calgary no it's going to be one and lost in uh in this city no doubt about it

00:04:09.520 yeah well we're going to have reporters on the ground they're covering uh rachel notley and danielle

00:04:14.000 smith in calgary here today um so uh the campaigns launched over the weekends

00:04:19.600 normally parties wait until the election is officially underway before launching a campaign

00:04:24.560 but i mean it's a weekend and you want a weekend to launch a campaign everyone knows it's coming

00:04:28.720 so they did it anyway uh well i will start with uh we're going to bring in jonathan bradley here uh

00:04:35.440 one of our reporters based in our calgary headquarters uh jonathan was on the ground at the ucp's launch

00:04:43.280 at least in calgary there were there was one launch in edmonton uh the ucp did two launches one in

00:04:48.640 edmonton one in calgary uh uh jonathan you were on the ground at uh the launch of uh

00:04:56.240 smith and ucp campaign uh here in calgary uh tell us what was uh what were the main themes that smith

00:05:03.040 and her team hit on yesterday so the main themes that smith and her team were hinting on was contrasting

00:05:09.200 her to rachel notley she was talking about oh i'm gonna do this and rachel notley wants to do the

00:05:13.760 opposite and you don't want that because it's bad for you uh the big themes that she talked about

00:05:18.480 were taxes she talked about the how daniel smith wants to do the no tax site guarantee whereas rachel

00:05:24.400 notley has committed to raising business taxes she spoke about uh crime public safety and she talked

00:05:30.400 about how uh the ucp wants treatment and you know more police officers on the street whereas the ndp

00:05:36.720 has implicitly and they're going to defend the police and uh promote safe consumption sites and

00:05:42.480 then the arena was a big issue as well where smith talked about how we're going to build the new

00:05:47.840 entertainment uh the entertainment and sports district in calgary whereas uh notley might kill

00:05:53.760 the deal what was uh what was the general vibe or feeling in the crowd uh obviously these are these

00:06:00.560 are partisan crowds uh for both the ucp and ndp launches it's normally die-hard party members who

00:06:05.840 want to give up uh a very the first really nice sunny saturday uh of the year who took to go to a

00:06:12.640 political rally but uh what was the general reception uh and vibe uh talking to uh the the supporters at

00:06:20.400 the uh uc peace launch it felt positive like i spoke with a a few supporters i tweeted about uh what they

00:06:27.360 were saying and many of them were happy to be there and said that they think daniel's gonna win

00:06:31.840 um obviously many of them voice concerns with rachel notley i remember i spoke with one lady

00:06:35.680 who had grown up in manitoba and she told me that when she was living in manitoba was when the ndp

00:06:40.640 was in charge for about 30 years and she said they completely destroyed the province so there was a

00:06:45.040 little bit of fear but it was mainly optimism and happiness um what do you think what was the big

00:06:52.320 takeaway uh from the event the big takeaway was that uh danielle was talking about how she has a

00:07:00.640 direction she wants to keep moving this province forward uh one person who the person who kicked

00:07:05.440 off the event was albert united conservative party candidate for calgary shaw rebecca schultz

00:07:10.880 schultz spoke about how albert is booming and we have this great economy and people are moving here

00:07:15.920 and people love living here and it was kind of like if you want that to stay you have to vote for us

00:07:20.480 all right uh western standard alberta reporter jonathan bradley coming to us from calgary thank you

00:07:27.440 very much jonathan you're welcome uh so uh smith's uh launching calgary obviously very calgary centric um

00:07:38.960 i i the arena deal though i'm i'm not sure it's a slam dunk a political win though as a lot of pundits

00:07:45.120 are saying um in particular because it i think like that kind of thing divides conservatives

00:07:50.640 more moderate conservatives tend to like that kind of thing it's you know corporate welfare-y it's

00:07:55.680 investing in public infrastructure but it's not necessarily socialist but it's uh it's it's government

00:08:02.320 spending money to ostensibly improve the community but more a lot you know populist conservatives don't

00:08:07.600 like seeing taxpayers money go towards private business interests um nigel do you think uh i don't know

00:08:15.520 but you think this is a net win for her net you don't like it i don't like it however there aren't

00:08:23.440 too many conservatives who are going to say you know that's just too much for me i'm going to vote

00:08:28.400 ndp instead and the big out for danielle on that is that uh what the provincial contribution is going to

00:08:36.400 is not actually the arena it's everything that makes the arena possible if somebody else i.e the

00:08:42.960 city and the uh and the uh flames want to build it so yeah the city's putting money directly into the

00:08:49.280 flames arena the the province's money is public infrastructure and whatnot kind of around around

00:08:54.880 the district yeah getting rid of the mess and so forth so you know it's it's most unconservative

00:09:02.160 thing to be doing but i don't think it's going to chase conservatives away they're still going to

00:09:07.600 say well i i really don't like the ndp i suppose i could stay home but i really don't like the ndp so

00:09:14.560 i better get out and hold my nose and vote for it okay well uh we're going to turn we're going to bring

00:09:19.680 in uh arthur green now he is the western standard alberta legislative reporter based in uh edmonton

00:09:26.400 arthur was at uh the launch of the ndps campaign in that city yesterday uh arthur uh thanks for

00:09:34.880 joining us uh tell us what was uh what were the big themes the key messages of rachel notley and her

00:09:40.960 team at uh the campaign launched saturday uh um you know not least says that uh she's ready for the

00:09:48.400 election here in alberta and main theme derrick uh that i took from french campaign was healthcare

00:09:55.040 uh you know notley uh took the stage from her from her as they exited their diesel bus there was a

00:10:01.440 there was a lineup of ndp supporters who uh who gave her high fives before she took the stage with a

00:10:07.520 uh with a live and um you know she kind of joked when she got on stage and said you know it's just

00:10:13.200 kind of a sunny thing sunny day anything new folks uh she didn't really know uh if anything was going on

00:10:19.840 she told the crowd but i mean there were less than there were less than 200 people there it was held

00:10:24.720 outside of the the bicycle cafe on 91st street uh here in edmonton um one of the main themes like i said

00:10:34.560 was healthcare um she continues to claim and tell seniors that were in the crowd that they're going

00:10:41.120 to have to pay for a uh for a doctor and that uh our danielle smith is uh is planning on having

00:10:47.280 albertans pay for for healthcare uh which uh the premier or the former premier now until the election

00:10:53.280 ends uh um told us that uh you know this isn't the case uh other other things uh you know she talked

00:11:00.400 about uh was um you know seniors medications uh she's going to make life more affordable for albertans

00:11:08.640 and protect pensions okay well by pensions i think she's referring to uh you know danielle smith's

00:11:17.280 and the ucp's support for pulling out of the canada pension plan and take porting people's pensions

00:11:23.440 into a new alberta pension plan under alberta's uh so you know that that's been one of the dividing

00:11:28.160 lines we've seen here uh and danielle smith has kind of downplayed some of those harder more

00:11:33.280 autonomy and sovereignty focused measures that helped her with the uh leadership election but

00:11:38.400 maybe a little less popular with the broader public kind of hasn't repudiated them but definitely

00:11:43.840 not putting them front and center the way she did in the leadership um uh you know the look from

00:11:50.160 the some of the video you caught on the ground there was pretty energetic i mean they came um

00:11:55.120 running out of that i know you keep on emphasizing it's a diesel bus i think you know people might

00:11:59.680 get a chuckle out of the ndp using a diesel bus when they're supposed to be the you know party of evs

00:12:03.840 and whatnot but um they came kind of charging out of the bus like uh you know like uh like football

00:12:10.720 players coming out of the locker room they you know they come charging out for them for the most part

00:12:14.960 pretty energetic what what was the mood there mood there what was the was the vibe uh at the launch

00:12:20.400 among both the supporters and her her edmonton candidates uh friendly and upbeat uh any i did

00:12:27.760 hand out a a bunch of western standard business cards while i was there and i was the first person

00:12:32.160 that the uh that the ndp saw when they got off the bus and i mean everyone was friendly and kind

00:12:36.640 derrick uh spirits were were high uh you know notley told people there that uh she's excited to hit the

00:12:43.680 open road and you know talk to albertans and uh deliver better education and create more jobs for

00:12:49.600 an affordable alberta and you know the crowd really believed what she was saying so uh you know

00:12:56.640 spirits were high uh sunglasses were on and uh i'm sure there will be lots of uh lots of pictures in

00:13:03.360 the next 29 days of of notley with uh with her supporters baby seniors you name it now uh they had

00:13:11.280 their campaign launch did rachel notley take uh questions afterwards from media or was it just

00:13:16.080 strictly a campaign launch no media questions uh there was no media availability for for the launch

00:13:21.680 okay thank you very much for joining us arthur okay uh gentlemen so we've got um some very interesting

00:13:29.680 uh numbers here now we discussed this on the pipeline last week uh data from abacus but it's been um

00:13:37.280 taken by 338 canada.com they're uh they're kind of a seat projection website where they take polls

00:13:44.480 and they do their best using some different mathematical and algorithm models to impose it

00:13:50.720 onto constituencies to see the way would actually break down by seats because people can vote however

00:13:55.920 you want but if the votes aren't in the right place it doesn't matter um so they've uh they've kind

00:14:01.200 of come up with a breakdown and then uh a uh i think university of calgary economist trevor toome

00:14:06.640 he's a great um he's a great graphics maker he's very good at taking abstract concepts and putting

00:14:11.600 into a really easy to understand graphic now what this shows is just how close this is um according to

00:14:19.360 the to the abacus poll they the two parties are statistically tied dead heat 36 with a significant

00:14:27.040 number of undecideds uh but we've also got other polls that had ucb with other very small leads

00:14:33.520 often within the margin of error or just barely outside of it but ucb with a slight leading calgary

00:14:38.960 for the ndp to win though they've got to sweep calgary because they're not going to get all those

00:14:43.280 rural seats they won with vote splits in 2015 the math is just not there it's not happening um so let's

00:14:50.800 let's kind of go through some of this here um the closest seats seats that will be decided by just

00:14:56.880 a handful of votes within a few hundred votes right now expected calgary acadia and that's tyler

00:15:02.480 shandro uh so very very interesting seat and that's at the that's listed as the closest

00:15:08.080 seat in the province that is a ucp hold so a few hundred votes one way or the other are going to

00:15:13.680 decide if he if he comes back to the legislature uh calgary foothills calgary bow calgary elbow calgary

00:15:20.240 edgemont um those are all so except for elbow those are those are suburban seats mostly in the north

00:15:28.160 except for acadia that's southeast um and uh calgary elbow which is a kind of an urban

00:15:36.000 yuppie sorry people live in elbow but it's a yuppie riding

00:15:39.280 um and then uh mournville saint albert uh in the edmonton donut just so close to edmonton that

00:15:44.960 orange wave emanating like like the sun's radiation from there threatens to overtake

00:15:50.640 it but then um within uh within three percentage points we've got lesser slave lake calgary glenmore

00:15:57.360 strathcona sherwood park uh calgary northwest calgary north calgary east calgary cross calgary beddington

00:16:03.840 calgary north east um so many roddings that are projected to go ucp right now just ever so slightly

00:16:14.000 um and with the exception of one they all appear to be in calgary uh uh dave your thoughts well it's

00:16:24.880 what we've expected all along that calgary is going to be the battleground uh rachel nottley has put her

00:16:31.360 headquarters in calgary and you're going to get door knocked to all every which way but sunday if

00:16:38.320 both uh if all the candidates have their games on uh it's uh it really is exciting and certainly in

00:16:46.000 recent memory in alberta i can't remember an election that's going to be this close

00:16:51.200 uh nigel do you think uh calgary voters are just going to get downright annoyed the ndp are spending

00:16:56.560 massive dollars uh pre-writ already on advertising if you went on youtube you got it you got ton you

00:17:02.320 got bombarded with ndp ads uh television radio they were spending huge pre-writ probably going

00:17:08.640 to get more intense during the official election writ period here now um do you think uh do you think

00:17:14.800 calgary voters are going to be sick of it or do you think maybe flatter by it because you know

00:17:18.960 federally we get zero attention no one cares about calgary in federal elections but in an alberta

00:17:23.200 election we're the new toronto we'll all be sick of it by the end i'm sure i think what this what

00:17:28.160 this very close uh graph shows is that in those constituencies the issue is not going to be so much

00:17:37.760 as the ideas of the campaign but the uh technical efficiency of the ground teams in getting out the

00:17:44.480 vote when you are down to things changing hands on 100 votes or less which is what you're talking about

00:17:51.840 there then it really does matter that you get your supporters to the polls some parties are very

00:17:57.200 good at that some have a lot to learn um that's where that that's really where that's going to be

00:18:05.280 decided and we all think it's going to be the rhetoric and the speeches from the leaders and that's

00:18:10.080 important but in the end it's going to be the foot soldiers in a half a dozen constituencies

00:18:16.640 around calgary who decide this yeah so right now um and they will nag you definitely yes you will be

00:18:23.520 sick of them that was your question yeah so these projections are far from perfect the polls are far

00:18:29.120 from perfect but they're very useful and they can tell you a lot more often than not they're right um

00:18:35.920 on this model the ndp are still nine seats short of getting to a one seat majority which would be almost

00:18:44.720 unfunctional because then you'd have the ndp speaker of the house and you'd have a tie vote every vote

00:18:51.120 for four years if someone gets sick the government could fall out of vote of confidence it would be

00:18:55.280 it'd be unworkable um and a single angry backbencher could hold the government hostage on a piece of

00:19:01.360 legislation if they wanted to um but uh it's still nine seats short the math is just so like even though

00:19:09.120 the polls are tight and the ndp are so far running a good campaign campaign officially starts today

00:19:15.360 it's been going for a few months really uh they've been running a i think a pretty good campaign it's

00:19:20.160 well funded um they've had discipline the ucp has had some missteps but their math is just so damn hard

00:19:28.480 because they're not going to be getting those rural seats the only rural seat in the really close to call

00:19:34.320 ones here is lesser slave lake which the ndp won in 2015. um that's a far north seat uh it's got large

00:19:42.560 first nation populations and it's actually got a lower population than most constituencies it's under

00:19:47.440 special it's got a special rule applying to it because it's so big already that it's allowed to

00:19:51.680 be more sparsely populated other than that and then banff can and ask us those are the only two quote

00:19:57.760 non-big-city ridings that that they've really got on the list here uh none of the red deers

00:20:04.720 nothing in medicine hat you know they won two red deer in uh in uh 2015. they won the downtown

00:20:10.800 medicine hat proper in 2015 but not 2019. that got redrawn so the ndp have no chance of winning

00:20:17.440 medicine hat now it's now a hyper conservative riding uh they've got um you know they won like yellow um

00:20:24.720 um um what was it called uh yellowhead and stuff like that in the rural north uh they have they had

00:20:31.600 a number of these things and they've just you know what task away and stuff like that they've just got

00:20:35.920 zero percent chance now so this just means that like they're all calgary what are the chances that

00:20:41.600 they can actually sweep the table on calgary they're going to need roughly 20 seats in calgary that seems

00:20:46.160 damn near impossible to me you know the numbers the numbers are there and uh right now the numbers aren't

00:20:54.160 what the ndp needs um again where this is what all the next 29 days is about is is the arena deal

00:21:02.480 enough to to swing calgary um you know is there going to be a bozo eruption uh from the ucp are they

00:21:12.320 going to get uh premier smith's photo wrong on the campaign bus again you know all these uh all these

00:21:18.160 little things can't famous 2012 bus the famous 2012 bus uh but yeah it's everything's to play for

00:21:24.640 it's everything to play for and when you're talking about a couple hundred votes i mean that's just it

00:21:29.440 doesn't get any tighter than that to your point though to swing 20 votes in calgary would take a

00:21:36.160 massive rejection of the ucp and premier smith um what kind of a bozo eruption would trigger that

00:21:47.120 it's hard to imagine it's like a whole lot like i'm not suggesting that that that the ucp team should

00:21:52.640 be complacent far from it but boy oh boy if i if i were a betting man i don't think i'd bet on that i

00:21:58.880 don't think you put any money behind that prediction indeed okay well we're going to wrap it up there i

00:22:03.600 promise to try and keep it short and sweet thank you all for joining us uh if you're not yet a

00:22:07.440 member of the western standard go to westernstandard.news click on membership it's only ten

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00:22:15.440 thank you very much for joining us on the alberta report today we'll see you tomorrow god bless

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Western Standard - May 01, 2023

AB REPORT： Alberta election campaigns kick off

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