Western Standard - AB REPORT： Alberta on fire

00:00:00.000 welcome to another episode of the western standards alberta report where we look at

00:00:16.840 what's going on as albertans prepare to go to the polls on the 29th of this month it's may the 8th

00:00:23.160 2023 i'm opinion editor nigel hannaford and with me today we have as usual for these programs news

00:00:31.300 editor dave naylor morning nigel and business reporter sean pulser former colleague of mine

00:00:39.640 and we'll also be hearing from legislative reporter arthur green and from our own very own

00:00:46.800 jonathan bradley who's been covering the election beat here in calgary even as the fires rage in the

00:00:54.140 north obviously this weekend it was not the election dominating the news but the enormous

00:01:02.500 out of control fires in northern and western alberta as of this moment the latest information

00:01:10.900 that we have is that the worst of the fires are around drayton valley this information by the way

00:01:18.160 comes from the government of alberta dashboard on forest fires and according to the government of

00:01:24.480 alberta's dashboard uh drayton valley and fox lake which is 550 kilometers north of edmonton

00:01:32.800 have the worst of the fires 20 000 25 000 people have had to leave their homes and we

00:01:39.600 we we we certainly think about those poor folks with uh with a lot of concern and uh the entire city of

00:01:48.460 edson edson 8 000 people has been ordered to evacuate there are 103 active fires

00:01:56.860 most of them are out of control and the total land area involved is something in the order of 122 000

00:02:06.940 hectares now what does that look like well let me tell you that for comparison's purpose

00:02:12.300 the city of edmonton is 68 000 hectares so if you've got 120 000 uh if you've got 120 000

00:02:21.600 hectares in flames that's a lot more than the city of edmonton and for those watching in calgary you

00:02:29.700 might want to know that calgary has an area of 82 000 hectares this is a very very big fire in fact

00:02:36.600 premier smith called it unprecedented uh dave premier smith declared a state of emergency

00:02:45.380 that seems like the obvious and right thing to do what powers does it give the provincial government

00:02:51.620 to deal with the situation basically it's a lot a lot of bureaucratic stuff nigel uh uh channels of help

00:02:57.920 get open quicker uh communication between the the uh the communities affected and the and the

00:03:05.360 provinces is streamlined uh what's what's going to be happening next is premier smith is currently as

00:03:13.620 we speak on the phone to provincial premiers asking for help i'm assuming that's in the uh in the form

00:03:19.840 of firefighting help and firefighting equipment bomber planes that type of thing and then she's got a

00:03:25.780 lunch hour phone call scheduled with prime minister uh prime minister trudeau i guess more more help

00:03:31.460 and uh more emergency cash uh to help help pay for the smiths do you think everybody i mean obviously

00:03:38.300 she's had an adversarial relationship with the prime minister to this point do you think when there's

00:03:44.160 a situation like this everybody can rise above party politics oh i think so you know it'll it'll make

00:03:50.540 trudeau look good he can say hey you know alberta comes running first first first opportunity they come

00:03:56.620 running into water for help so they they actually need us but uh he won't say that out loud obviously

00:04:01.580 but he'll smirk and uh and give alberta what they want yes now she also had a at a meeting with uh

00:04:08.300 opposition leader rachel notley she did uh sunday morning uh as you know uh during the last major

00:04:14.940 disaster premier notley was was in charge and she shared her tips on on on what to do in a in a sort

00:04:23.180 of a one-on-one meeting with just uh just premier smith and their top advisors and then after that they

00:04:28.700 went to uh evacuation center in edmonton together and they met with evacuees and uh you know it was

00:04:34.540 just a nice show of of cooperation normally between uh uh i don't think that it's wrong to say the two

00:04:40.940 people don't like each other very much but they came together when albertans are suffering and uh

00:04:45.980 you know that's what we do we come together it's the right thing to do i'd like to go now to arthur

00:04:50.940 green arthur is our legislative reporter but arthur is also our northern reporter in practice

00:04:57.260 arthur you were out where the fires were where were you uh on friday evening i uh i headed to drayton

00:05:07.020 valley and uh of uh of course all the uh all the roads were closed headed in there uh i was able

00:05:13.660 to get through uh through the roadblocks with my uh with my press id and uh you know it was a bit

00:05:19.420 airy uh driving into a town that's completely on fire everybody's going uh going one way and i'm driving

00:05:26.620 the other but uh you know i was in i was in drayton valley the town was uh completely completely empty

00:05:32.300 all was left was uh rtmp officers uh firemen of course and and foster units at the time you were

00:05:38.940 there arthur how close to drayton valley were the were the flames um the flames were actually uh

00:05:46.460 right in drayton valley i mean at one point i was about 700 meters from from one of the fires and you

00:05:53.660 can feel the heat on your face and and smell the smoke i mean my car permanently smells like a bonfire

00:05:59.260 now uh um but it was moving pretty pretty quickly and at one point uh you know an officer said to me

00:06:06.460 you're crazy to be here and i agreed with him but i was just worried that the that the wind was going

00:06:12.780 to change and then i wouldn't get out but i did manage to get out of course there was no power in

00:06:19.100 the area and no gas stations open i did have a full tank of gas when i left of course having to take a

00:06:28.140 off route to get there didn't plan correctly but i ended up getting a tomahawk which is just outside

00:06:36.220 of drayton valley with eight kilometers left in the tank to spare so i managed to get cast well you've

00:06:42.940 got more guts on the sausage now tell me uh tell me out there uh you took some footage which i gather

00:06:52.060 has gone around the world what was that about uh i have uh i mean i was pretty much one of the only

00:07:00.700 journalists crazy enough to go into this zone uh so uh france tv uh actually is showing the western

00:07:07.340 standard footage uh in france uh last night i was on uh abc uh australia with uh with ross child so that

00:07:15.740 was pretty neat you know internationally uh people are coming to the western standard for their for their

00:07:21.340 news about the alberta fires and yesterday uh nodule i headed to n whistle and i said it right

00:07:27.740 because a townsperson taught me how to say it um and i was basically i wanted to look for one of the

00:07:34.140 most devastated areas in alberta and i was told it was this town and and of course luck we have it

00:07:39.900 premier smith was actually out on tour at the time she took time yesterday on the ground to visit

00:07:46.300 these towns and i actually uh attended with the premier uh got to got to get in her suv and and go

00:07:53.980 along um during this time and you may you may have seen the footage of the of the burnt trees and

00:08:00.940 whatnot um that was taken from the other side of the road out of out of respect for albertans uh you

00:08:07.180 know a lot of these people haven't been able to and of course there's 29 000 that have been evacuated now

00:08:12.860 a lot of these people haven't returned to their homes yet to to assess the damage nodules so out

00:08:18.380 of respect uh for homeowners i i didn't want to actually post any pictures of properties that were

00:08:26.060 were damaged but uh i can just say uh it's unbelievable to see how fire moves and danielle smith

00:08:34.780 spoke with officials yesterday i mean she had an update from from parkland county from the mayor

00:08:39.100 uh one house was lost in parkland county as of yesterday and some outbuildings um you know she

00:08:46.300 learned how fire moved it's amazing uh nodule to watch how uh after the fire is out of course uh how it

00:08:53.260 moved um you know it would stop in certain places and then go the other cross roads cross rivers but um

00:09:00.540 officials told smith yesterday that it's going to take upwards to a year uh to extinguish some of the

00:09:06.060 hot spots because of the soil that we have uh here in alberta yes there's um biological material in

00:09:13.340 the soil that will smolder underground and just pop up suddenly um sean tell me a little tell us a

00:09:21.580 little bit about forest fires i mean we want to get back to politics here pretty quick but how unusual

00:09:27.100 is it to have a fire like this well they happen just about every year um i can think of probably about

00:09:33.100 a half dozen different ones uh port mack has had a couple of course there was the really big one in

00:09:37.580 216 which i covered um white court um slave lake burned down to the ground a couple years back so

00:09:46.940 these happen fairly regularly it's a fairly normal part of life in northern alberta like it's part of

00:09:52.140 the the cycle of nature then i mean it's been happening forever i think so um i didn't know that alberta

00:09:59.820 didn't have a forest service up until about 1970 and the largest fire in the province's history burned

00:10:06.540 for well over a year like um and it was up in the northwest corner i think even further north than

00:10:13.260 fort mack before they actually got around to coming up with a forest service but the other thing that's

00:10:19.900 happened is that uh humans have encroached on a lot of this land like that that land used to be pretty

00:10:28.220 much uninhabited and my understanding is in i don't can't say ancient times but you know a few

00:10:35.980 hundred years ago that uh it would be quite common for all this uh forest to basically burn down and

00:10:42.460 then regenerate itself yeah one ugly thing we should mention uh nigel uh looting uh four people arrested in

00:10:50.780 drayton valley they're trying to loot a gas station after the town had been evacuated uh arrested by the

00:10:56.220 rcmp and uh let's hope they throw away the key on those guys yeah don't need any of that pretty

00:11:01.180 despicable pretty despicable action uh so uh there have been some other um effects too sean like

00:11:12.700 you were saying wells closed in yeah um northeastern alberta there grand prairie uh it's called the

00:11:19.340 peace river block uh deep basin down around drayton valley i used to work at the newspaper in drayton valley

00:11:24.540 you know uh the permanent oil field is one of the largest oil fields in the world so uh just doing

00:11:30.860 a rough count this morning here we're up to about 145 000 barrels a day so far which would be about

00:11:37.740 four percent of alberta's oil production but i wouldn't be surprised if that number is quite a bit

00:11:41.500 higher by contrast in 2016 in the fort mack fires they have to shut in a million barrels a day of oil

00:11:48.620 sands so it's still it's significant but it's not i think the question that springs to everybody's

00:11:55.100 mind is whether we're going to see the effect of that on the pumps i'm not so sure about the pumps

00:12:00.780 but definitely in the provincial treasury depending on how long it stays down hopefully it's only for

00:12:05.740 a few days but uh with the fort mack fires you know we had a million barrels offline for almost two

00:12:11.340 months darn it nothing like a nothing like a big forest fire when you're in the middle of an election

00:12:18.860 to take your mind off the issues but issues we have dave issues we do have and uh yeah it seems like uh

00:12:26.620 the election is sort of in in neutral at the moment uh the ndp and ucp candidates suspending their

00:12:34.060 campaigns in the in the writings that are affected and certainly you're not seeing any campaign events

00:12:39.580 from the from the leaders rachel notley or or daniel smith so i think what's probably going to be

00:12:45.420 happening i don't think we would want to see leader events no oh no no they're they're playing it they're

00:12:50.860 playing it exactly right uh now is not the time for big rallies when you know when so many people are

00:12:56.620 in peril so i think probably the the only action you're going to be seeing is door knocking i would

00:13:01.740 guess you know local candidates out knocking on the doors and trying to trying to curry votes votes that way but

00:13:08.060 uh uh yeah notley and smith seem to be uh in sync in this one we'll come back to the door knocking

00:13:16.060 a bit later but uh i did want to talk to we need to bring jonathan in and because there was one

00:13:23.740 announcement on recognition of foreign credentials which uh uh rachel notley made was it on friday

00:13:30.060 friday afternoon friday afternoon just before just before everything broke out yeah hello jonathan so

00:13:36.380 you were there at the at the meeting how what exactly is the announcement so the rachel notley

00:13:43.260 held a campaign rally in the northeastern part of calgary on friday she announced that uh if the

00:13:49.980 albert ndp win they would be expanding foreign credential recognition she spoke about how she would be

00:13:55.980 streamlining uh credential recognition and anyone who needs assistance to obtain that would receive income

00:14:02.460 support and one of the stories that she based it off was she spoke with a lady named harabwaswamy who

00:14:08.620 had trained as a licensed practical nurse in the medical assistant in the states which in canada

00:14:14.380 would be a licensed practical nurse and she wasn't able to work in that career because of foreign

00:14:19.420 credential problems so who is it who doesn't recognize the credentials the provincial government or the

00:14:26.300 professional bodies under which are responsible for these particular uh skills the professional bodies

00:14:34.780 so did miss notley say how she meant to address that with the professional bodies she didn't say

00:14:41.580 how she would like formally like she said but she'd be streamlining the process but she didn't like

00:14:46.140 elaborate on what that would entail um she obviously northeastern calgary has a large uh ethnic and

00:14:52.380 immigrant community so i assume that was the point that was being made and why they held that rally in

00:14:57.420 that area yes i think you're i think you're right about that but she didn't get into i mean i i think

00:15:03.580 we've all heard this theme both in provincial politics and in federal politics many many times you

00:15:10.220 know it's the it's the foreign foreign trained professional who's driving a cab or doing menial work

00:15:17.660 because their credentials are not recognized and you feel a certain sympathy for the the individual

00:15:23.900 especially when you wonder whether this might be just closed door uh politics with the professional

00:15:29.580 bodies just just to keep the rate up nevertheless um there there are issues about how people are trained

00:15:37.740 uh in other countries and whether they are trained to to the same level as we expect in canada

00:15:44.940 did she touch on any of that at all not at all but one point that she did make was she said that if

00:15:52.060 she won she would not rest until people could work into in the careers that they deserve well

00:15:58.940 this is a frustrating thing because it's uh miss notley comes on stage makes an announcement no

00:16:04.700 specifics and there's young jonathan who wants to know specifics and wants to ask questions uh about

00:16:10.700 specifics to get those specifics and as we all know the western standard is not allowed to uh address

00:16:16.380 miss notley exactly in fact they did you say they had put a tail on you

00:16:22.940 well with uh me at that event they had a one of their staffers follow me around the entire time

00:16:28.460 um even you know just like as i was interviewing people she was like watching over me and as uh i was

00:16:34.620 live tweeting the rally she was like standing next to me the entire time watching me and i i found it

00:16:39.660 weird like it wasn't like she was like hounding me or anything like that it was just odd to have

00:16:43.500 like a person like stand beside me as i was like you know like doing my job jonathan that is actually

00:16:50.380 beyond weird have you ever seen anything like that you ever been tailed by a party official at a

00:16:56.300 at a public meeting well there was at the i mean you're a rogue if anybody would have been you would

00:17:01.820 have been so um saudi arabia yeah okay yeah okay fair enough i think i think that makes the point

00:17:11.340 jonathan thank you very much and arthur i don't believe i thank you for your contribution earlier

00:17:15.740 i gotta salute you arthur sticking yourself in harm's way and uh and getting the story out for

00:17:21.740 albertans generally and but first for readers of the western standard well done and jonathan well done

00:17:28.380 thank you what else have we got for the for the good people uh this morning foreign credentials

00:17:34.940 and then there was a promise to hire more teachers how are we going to do that again short on specifics

00:17:40.140 uh 4 000 more teachers the ndp promised also on on friday in the in the lunch hour i believe and uh 3 000

00:17:48.780 more teacher aids uh you know so that's 7 000 jobs there no specifics how they're going to do it no

00:17:55.660 specifics how they're going to pay for it and uh once again we tried but we're not allowed to ask

00:18:01.420 questions to get those specifics interestingly none of the i did i don't recall seeing any other reporters

00:18:07.900 asking the same thing one thing about that meeting that struck me was that she said that her focus was

00:18:14.620 going to be on the public and catholic schools uh systems uh which by being so specific excludes and i

00:18:26.380 think she i think she was asked about this the the private school sector which is quite large i think

00:18:33.660 it was maybe as many eight or nine percent of uh alberta students are either in private schools or in

00:18:41.340 charter schools which aren't quite the same thing or they're homeschooling and i'm trying to decipher

00:18:49.020 what the message might be by that very particular way she worded it are they going to try and defund

00:18:55.500 those schools are they just going to try and uh reduce the the funding so that they become inoperable

00:19:02.860 under normal standards what do you make of that you know again they're short on specifics but if i had a

00:19:09.420 child or if i was involved in the public private school sector i'd be worried uh because the sense

00:19:15.020 that you're getting is uh you're going to get your funding slashed and uh all the money is going to

00:19:20.220 be going into the public in the catholic system so i think the question that if you were in that

00:19:24.940 situation if i were in that situation i would be asking why are they not supportive of private education

00:19:35.100 it actually saves a lot of money because there's a per capita grant that goes to this whatever that

00:19:40.780 per capita grant is that goes to the public school system it's only about 70 percent that the private

00:19:47.340 schools get and of course the home schools get virtually nothing at all so that's actually saving

00:19:52.780 money to the education system so what's the interest here i i think they're you know they're they're

00:20:01.900 probably just ideally ideologically against them you know they're they're union backers the ata teachers

00:20:08.220 association uh you know the uh the janitors and their union so i think they're just looking after

00:20:14.780 their you know their their people their their supporters um you know it's it's it's it's something

00:20:22.780 that's going to need to be addressed in the uh in the coming days we need to be specific questions put to

00:20:29.260 uh put to miss notley about uh what her thought plan is uh and i think our education your education

00:20:35.740 columnist john hilton o'brien uh discussed this issue uh last week if i remember correctly i think we

00:20:41.580 launched that on i believe it was saturday but anyway yes he did uh what did he have to say very

00:20:47.980 much what you said except that he was more explicit he thinks that the uh ndp is actively looking to

00:20:54.300 defund uh and perhaps altogether eliminate uh um private and homeschooling because they just feel

00:21:02.060 that all the children should go through the same sausage machine a sausage machine of course which

00:21:07.660 the ata controls and um which i suspect is very much in sync with the way that the ndp leadership also

00:21:17.980 thinks so they want all children to have drag drag queen story time you know which they're probably

00:21:24.700 not getting at the private schools you know i i guess they're not but you know dave john when you

00:21:29.980 think about it what a lot we missed when we were at school well we had to concentrate on the three hours

00:21:36.060 we didn't have anything well your your comments reminded me of the pink floyd movie where he's going

00:21:41.900 through the school and i think it was a sausage machine of kids just going through the whole thing

00:21:48.700 there's a lot of wisdom in pink floyd look um there was one other um okay so foreign credentials hiring

00:21:56.700 more more teachers there was also um i i think we all we were all a little surprised but there's a

00:22:05.740 fundraising letter that we need to talk about dave and it's from yeah this this came out on the weekend

00:22:10.860 from the uh from the president of the uh the alberta party uh fundraising letter uh you know please

00:22:17.420 please send your cash you know what nigel as you know happens all the time during campaigns and whatnot

00:22:23.500 and normally it's not a big deal uh but some people are upset by this because they sent it out during

00:22:29.020 the middle of a state of emergency and they look at it as uh as pretty tacky uh you know when the

00:22:35.420 especially when the two party leaders have set everything aside to to to push out this partisan

00:22:40.860 uh plea for cash uh certainly has certainly got uh lips wagging in the in the ucp uh area too but uh

00:22:51.180 yeah it's you know okay just just to give them the benefit the benefit of any doubt there may be

00:22:57.260 is it possible that that is something that was that they hit the green button to start the process

00:23:02.940 a few days ago and you know once it was in motion they really they couldn't pull it back i mean yeah

00:23:08.620 yeah absolutely it could have been could have been timed out three weeks ago right uh we just don't

00:23:13.180 know but uh no matter what happened it came out you know they they just look a bit tacky that's all

00:23:17.900 yeah it's it's it's not a scandal to end all scandals by any means but they just look a bit tacky

00:23:24.460 sean as you're driving you drive around town quite a lot um as you've seen what do you get is there any

00:23:30.380 sense you get from the lawn signs um you said we'd come back to this door knocking thing and i

00:23:36.300 certainly was out on saturday and i saw teams of people banging on doors so um i was listening to

00:23:43.660 the radio and they had interviewed a fellow i'm not sure what political science department he was in

00:23:50.060 waterloo or something they did a study on election signs and whether or not there's an actual correlation

00:23:55.660 between the vote and uh the number of signs that are out there and they came to the conclusion that

00:24:01.820 yeah there is but it's towards the end of the campaign like um and and it only applies to the

00:24:08.540 signs that are on private property yeah so the i've noticed with uh the ndp signs that the kind of

00:24:16.060 the anti-smith ads are going up on the you know on boulevard and on the median way and that there's

00:24:22.940 actually a smaller number of the actual signs on the on the yards but that said i have seen more

00:24:29.420 ndp signs than i have today sorry nigel day one of the campaign the ndp said they had 55 000

00:24:37.100 signs out and ready to be put up so i think they're certainly winning the battle of the signs at the

00:24:42.540 moment uh but uh it's early well it is and i wonder if that's actually a battle worth winning this early

00:24:48.540 and like is it possible to peak too soon my my sense of what the uh ucp might be up to is that

00:24:56.060 sure you put your signs out everybody gets used to them and then about 10 days before the election

00:25:01.660 a week before the election when everybody is finally paying attention to what's going on suddenly this

00:25:07.500 ocean of blue signs appears all over the all over the cities and all over the sidewalks and everything

00:25:13.980 else and the story is momentum they may just be waiting till after uh may long and uh yeah as you

00:25:20.940 say uh victoria day victoria day sorry i should oh my goodness you know what i'm tired after getting

00:25:27.660 up on watching the coordination so my uh my apologies victoria uh yeah i mean and then just overwhelm them

00:25:36.220 and uh and take and claim momentum your picture of the queen is on its way oh sorry of the king look i

00:25:42.700 think it's good note to end on uh look folks if you're watching this and you are not subscribers

00:25:49.340 to the western standard why aren't you become one it's ten dollars a month we'll give it to you for a

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00:26:06.620 that they see in australia before they see it in ottawa thanks to arthur green i'm nigel hannaford

00:26:14.860 and this is the western standard the current lethbridge feed grain prices are as follows

00:26:19.500 cash parties at 410 feed wheat's at 408 and corns unchanged at 3.99 per metric ton in the milling

00:26:26.540 wheat markets july minneapolis futures gained five and a half cents at 841 with local hard red spring bids

00:26:33.020 for may movement at 10 30 per bushel in the oil seeds nearby canola futures are down 2.90 cents

00:26:39.580 at 732.20 per metric ton with delivered values for may at 1638 per bushel in the pulse markets

00:26:48.140 nearby red lentils are trading at 35 cents a pound and yellow peas are holding at 11.50 per bushel

00:26:54.220 in the cattle markets june live cattle increased 17 cents at 162 10 per 100 weight for more information

00:27:00.780 on grain marketing call me at 403 394 1711 i'm sean smith of marketplace commodities accurate real-time

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Western Standard - May 08, 2023

AB REPORT： Alberta on fire

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