AB REPORT： Smith promises mandatory treatment for addicts
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Summary
In this special election edition of The Western Standard's daily election updates, we talk about the UCP's new plan to force addicts into mandatory treatment, Rachel Notley's promise to kill the small business tax, and the wildfires in the north.
Transcript
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G'day, it's May 16th, 2023. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're
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watching the Alberta Report, our daily election updates here. We're going to be talking about
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big promises from the campaigns today. Smith promising mandatory treatment for addicts,
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Rachel Notley promising to kill the small business tax, and massive contradictions in the polls,
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depending on who you're listening to. Anyone's winning. We've got the Western Standard's news
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editor, Dave Naylor, here. Western Standard business reporter, Sean Polzer, here. And we're
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going to be joined in a few moments by one of our Calgary reporters, Jonathan Bradley. Before we
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get going, though, I want you to give us a quick update on what's going on with the wildfires in
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the north. An evacuation of sorts of progress. Yeah, Operation Move. That was my line. Operation
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Move. You stole my line. I'm sorry. They're evacuating livestock up in some of the northern areas.
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There's twice as many cattle as there are people in this province, and they have whole emergency
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management plans for moving farm animals and livestock. So I'm going to be following up on
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that today. All right. Things are bad up there. No doubt about it. Time to move on. All right.
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Sean, you were at the UCP Daniel Smith, UCP leader Daniel Smith's press conference yesterday.
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She was promising a compassionate intervention act that would see
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addicts who pose a danger to themselves or to others forced into mandatory treatment. It's a
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controversial proposal, but tell us about it. Yeah, it is controversial. She had mentioned it
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before. This was the first time that she said that they were actually going to introduce legislation.
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There's some question over the constitutionality of it, but she thinks that under Section 7 guaranteed
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security of the person and freedom and pursuit of happiness and that, that they are justified in
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taking this. Pursuit of happiness is an American declaration of independence. I'm trying to think of what the
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exact word was. Peace order and good government? No, that's the case. Section 7, it was about the security
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of the person. Okay. Well-being and security of the person. Yeah. So she figures that it will be able to
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withstand a court challenge on constitutional grounds. It definitely will face a court challenge.
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Well, to be clear, this is going on as we speak with you minors. As an adult, you can make an appearance
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before a court and a judge can, can put an addict into mandatory treatment. So what they would be
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doing is extending it into adults, not just children. And you would have to appear before a
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non-criminal judge, make your application, and then the judge would, would have the final say. And then
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you'd be, if, if the judge agrees, yeah, then you go into a forced treatment plan. These applications,
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I believe, could be put forward by family, police, and... Family doctors, psychologists. Yeah.
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I mean, I'm a little leery on it. I'm open to it. I'm a little leery on it, though. You know, you're,
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it's, it's forcing someone to do things. You'd think all the people who believed in mandatory
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vaccination for adults who are not addicts and do have control over their faculties should be
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supportive of this. I'm not, not sure where they generally stand, but I'm open to it because these are
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not adults in control of themselves. Addicts have lost control. They're not consented. They're no
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longer able to consent to anything. Um, they're, they're not in control of themselves. Uh, well,
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you know, Smith is a libertarian, though. So how did she kind of square, square those two that might come
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into... That exact, that exact point, that, uh, these people, they've lost control of their faculties
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and that they aren't able to make these rational kinds of decisions to basically take care of
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themselves. And they're not only a danger to themselves, they're a danger to others.
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Absolutely. Because they're the ones that are downtown. They're the ones that are, uh,
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resorting to crime to feed their drug habits. They're the ones that are, you know, hanging out
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at the LRT stations, causing all sorts of havoc. Uh, so it's not just, it's not just the addict. It's the,
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you know, society around them. So I know the, the threshold they said they're going to set in a
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compassionate intervention act if they're reelected and pass this, is that they have to
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pose a danger to themselves or to others. Uh, I suppose there probably would be some addicts who
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don't fit either, who, some addicts who probably scrape by without too much threat to themselves
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or a threat to others. But I know in most cases there, there will be at least a threat to themselves,
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if, if, if not others. Um, any reaction from the NDP or, uh, other organizations to this?
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Um, well, they, uh, so, so part of it was, uh, the safe supply that, um, um, Smith said there is
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no such thing as a safe supply that, uh, the Alberta government will never hand out free drugs to the,
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so the difference between, um, harm mitigation and, uh, and intervention.
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I, I, I think I saw NDP leader Rachel Notley say something to the effect of, uh, well,
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there's elements we can support, like, uh, increased treatment. There's all, uh, this comes with also,
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She said, well, she says she's added and then they're gonna.
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Anyway, not least she would support increased beds and whatnot, but I think, uh, she shied
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away from directly condemning mandatory treatment for addicts, didn't support it, but I think
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she just kind of took a wobbly position, Dave, right?
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Well, I think this is a, one of the, the few things where there's a clear black and white.
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And we know what that has done traditionally to neighborhoods around the belt line that
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Uh, Nolly denied that they would, they're in favor of a safe supply of drugs.
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She denied she's, she's, uh, into that, but yeah, she, she basically said, uh, uh, intervention
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Uh, you need, uh, you know, the sort of, and, and she, she equated it to like 40 or 50 hardcore
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drug addicts and you have to give those people all the, you know, safe drugs or the safe
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So it's two very, uh, contradictory, uh, platforms.
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I mean, we've tried more on drug strategies since say the sixties, where we tried jailing
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people who do drugs, not just the dealers, the pushers, drug lords, but users that clearly
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You're more likely to get even further addicted to drugs once you're in prison.
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Uh, we've tried the safe supply, safe consumption.
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Well, we just have to look, you know, a hundred meters in every direction around the current
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building here to see what the results of that have been.
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This might work, but I, I'm also hesitant though.
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I mean, if it's hard to help someone who doesn't want to be helped, that's, that's the problem.
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Like you, I mean, uh, you know, an alcoholic is not going to get on the wagon unless they
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Generally it's, uh, unless they're forced to, right.
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It takes someone who's not willing to take that first step and it forces them to take
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I was going to say with alcoholism that, you know, that is the first step is to actually
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To seek help, but that, that, that requires someone to want it.
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Uh, you know, the war on drugs has totally failed and coddling and almost aiding and abetting,
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I think one of the things that struck me and I'm sure it did you, Sean, was the, uh, uh,
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There were people crying at one point, uh, uh, the premier had tissues handed to her.
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Some very, very powerful stories of what addiction had done to families and how the, the, you know,
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individual teenagers and families were saved because of, uh, mandatory, uh, treatment.
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And also first nations, um, blood reserve had April 23rd declared a local state of emergency
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because of, uh, the drug problems that were happening on the reserve.
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If you've got around some of our reserves, you've seen it's, uh, geez, the zombie land
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we've got around downtown Calgary here is nothing.
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And there were four, four chiefs, uh, there yesterday.
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Um, one thing that I was going to note is, uh, note it was, um, under Notley, apparently,
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um, addicts had to pay $40 a day out of pocket to, uh, get treatment beds, which I thought
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I can imagine addicts want to spend $40 a day on something other than treatment.
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But it also seems at odds with, uh, her promise that people aren't going to pay out of pocket
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We're going to bring in, uh, one of our Calgary reporters, Jonathan Bradley here.
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Jonathan was at, uh, NDP leader, Rachel Notley's press conference at a place called, funny
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enough, Madam Premier, uh, which was not meant, I think, in the, uh, political sense of the
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word, but, uh, Premier isn't like showing something you're premiering something.
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Uh, Jonathan, uh, you were, uh, at, uh, Notley's press conference where she promised to eliminate
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the small business tax, uh, that takes, so the way the small business tax works in Alberta,
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This is in addition to the federal business tax.
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You pay 2% on the first $500,000 of your net income or profit, after which the regular business
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tax or corporate tax kicks in, which is normally about 8%.
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Uh, Jonathan, uh, tell us, uh, flesh out this, uh, promise made by Notley a bit for us.
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So Notley said that she would be eliminating the small business tax for 100,000 small businesses.
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And these include industries such as retail establishments, restaurants, mechanic shops,
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It's expected to save small businesses $10,000 per year.
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Um, the tax rate will be reduced from 2% to zero.
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And she said she would be doing this measure to help out struggling small businesses recover
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She acknowledged that this will be for certain industries and other ones, such as professional
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associations, such as lawyers and accountants wouldn't be eligible.
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So what she would do with them is she would bring back this STEP program and the STEP program
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would allow, uh, certain businesses to receive a wage subsidy for employing students in their
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Uh, Dave, it's not usual to see an NDP leader propose to do anything to a tax other than increase
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I mean, uh, Notley to win cannot win with just unionized government employees in Edmonton.
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She's got to get middle-class people, at least a portion of small business owners on side.
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Anytime you promise to cut somebody's tax and leave more money in their trousers, that's
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And it's a fairly modest amount really in the scheme of things.
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Uh, bigger businesses are going to obviously be bringing in more than 500,000.
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They're going to be paying the full rate already.
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So it's not, it's not a, it's not going to be a big hit to the treasury here.
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Um, I have to think though, Jonathan, that, uh, the value in this might not, some small
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business owners, uh, not to be too flippant about it, but, uh, you know, uh, brew pub or,
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uh, I don't know, uh, a Birkenstock, uh, distributor, they, they, small business owners
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of that kind, you know, like we just saw it as lefty businesses might vote for, but it's
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not a ton, but I, I would think the political effect of this is going to be more symbolic
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that Rachel Donnelly is not against small businesses, uh, a label that she pro she largely
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Well, with her, she talked about how she's going to support small businesses and how the
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Alberta United Conservative Party has failed them.
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And she spoke about how this goes along with her commitment to not raise income taxes or
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But she has said she is going to raise the business tax.
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Uh, well, I just generally refer to it as business tax.
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If you're a business and you have more than $500,000 profit in a year, you're regardless
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of how big you are, you might be a big company only eking out that.
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Uh, so it might be a lot if you're a business of one person or two people, but it might be
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very little if you're a business of a hundred or two hundred.
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Um, but, uh, Sean, uh, has she said by what amount she'll raise the business tax by yet?
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The only thing I've heard her say is that she's not going to raise taxes.
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So I don't know if that's just personal taxes or I wouldn't know what the number was in
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I certainly haven't heard a number that, uh, she had been.
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She says, I will not raise your income taxes, which is fair enough because income taxes are
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pretty much the level they were at when she left the premier's office.
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Jason Kenney, Jason Kenney actually raised personal income taxes by a little bit with bracket
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creep, uh, but they're almost the same relatively as when Richard Notley left office.
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But, uh, but she's been kind of cagey, more or less implying she will probably raise business
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And that's kind of probably a political death sentence as soon as you order those words.
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Although Rachel Notley's, uh, retort to that was yes, but I didn't say I wouldn't bring
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So if you don't explicitly say you won't do something, it's just not talked about, then
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Um, we're going to switch it up to more dueling polls.
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Yesterday, we were talking dueling polls as well.
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So yesterday, I'd say there was kind of two big polls.
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Uh, the Western Standard, uh, had provided exclusively to us a poll from Sovereign North
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Um, it's a new polling, a pretty relatively new polling forum, but, uh, a lot of the
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Now that would be by far the high watermark for the NDP in Alberta's history.
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When they formed government in 2015, it was 40, maximum 41%, somewhere right around there.
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You had, uh, competitive progressive conservatives, competitive wild rows.
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Um, so, you know, it takes less of the vote to win a majority government if you have a
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In a strict two-party system, which we seem to be in now, you need almost approaching 50%
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But this, this would be 10% more than they've ever had.
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Now, Janet Brown, these polls are not normally very public because these are private polls
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And this happens to her polls every once in a while when there's a result that someone
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I think someone in the UCP looked at that and said, well, that'll give our troops a shot
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So I'm gonna, without any evidence, but significant hard circumstantial evidence, the UCP, or someone
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And that has, uh, not just the UCP in the lead, but the UCP in a strong lead, 50% to 40%,
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And if that's true, the, if that's true, and that holds up, like the election would
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I mean, that's a crushing UCP majority right there.
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Uh, Dave, what the hell do you think explains all these contradiction in polls?
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I just know on, uh, May 30th, somebody is going to wake up with eggs on their face.
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Uh, one of these, these companies, uh, the sovereign poll is interesting in that it's
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got a large, uh, huge sample size, 2,900, which is huge, huge for polling.
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So that's the biggest Alberta poll I've ever seen.
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But on the other hand, Janet Brown, very, very respected and just nailed the last election,
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So if you're asking me to explain it, I can't, maybe they're just getting different people
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And, you know, I'm sure by the time we get out of this broadcast, uh, today, there'll
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be two more polls on my desk and they'll both say the exact opposite thing.
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Well, I'm not sure there'll be egg on their face yet.
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Cause the only one that'll count will be your last one before election day.
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So the election's on the 29th and if someone releases a poll on the 28th, that's the one
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Cause, cause the polls go up and down during campaigns.
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The problem is, I mean, there's, there's a 10 point spread between these two polls.
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There's a, I mean, one is the NDP winning a majority, not crushing, but winning a majority
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The other one is the UCP crushing the NDP in a historical and spectacular fashion.
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Uh, I mean, the one from Sovereign North, uh, that we released is more consistent with
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the other polls, Sean, but, uh, Jenna Brown is a incredibly respected pollster.
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I think you have to cancel out the high and the low.
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You have to take, uh, the lowest one out and the highest one out and then go with the
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reversion to the mean on, on the rest of them that are in the middle.
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I, I, I can't explain the difference either, other than some kind of methodology.
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Well, I think it also, some of it might just be the timing.
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Um, the Sovereign North poll was a, is a rolling poll over, I think a longer period of
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Um, yeah, I think the Janet Brown poll is more, more recent.
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Uh, but I would have thought more recent one, like the NDP appeared to have more momentum.
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So I think the more recent the poll is stronger, that would favor the NDP here.
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But there's also the, uh, the je ne sais quoi of, of campaign momentum is just how it
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And Daniel Smith has had a rough go of it the last week, week and a half.
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Um, you know, videos of past statements that have been controversial that she's apologized
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And these things just kind of, you know, you talk to guys on the doorsteps in the UCP campaigns
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Some of them are not feeling terribly spirited.
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I have to agree that she's kind of been put on a back foot, uh, not just because of these
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videos and, and whatever else and, and having to backtrack, but also because of the fires.
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She's, she's not able to devote her full attention to campaigning.
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Well, I think, uh, we'll get a better sense of things, uh, with the debate coming up.
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That is not tomorrow, but the day after the 18th, we're going to have live coverage of
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Uh, we'll be carrying the debate live here on the Western standard, but we'll also, uh,
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Well, Mama Naylor is, uh, one of our most loyal watchers from the beginning.
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All right, Dave, Sean, thank you very much for joining and thank you, thank all of you
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Uh, if you're not yet a member of the Western standard, be sure to go to West, uh, Western
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It's only $10 a month or a hundred dollars a year for unlimited access to all Western
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Thank you very much for joining us today and God bless.
00:21:10.840
Well, it's a little bit of a smoky day out there today, and it seems to have smoked out
00:21:15.120
the bulls out of this market as well, with markets starting to settle down a little
00:21:20.380
And we got cash barley holding steady at $4.07 a metric, feed wheat's holding at $4.08 a
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metric, and corn's actually down to $3.90 per metric.
00:21:28.960
Taking a look at the milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures slid $2 cents to $8.71
00:21:33.620
per bushel, with local hard red spring bid for May movement at $10.30 per bushel delivered.
00:21:39.260
Moving over to the oil seeds, nearby canola futures slid $0.70 to $730 per metric tonne, with
00:21:46.400
delivered values for May movement at $16.35 per bushel.
00:21:50.380
Continuing on to the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading at $0.34 per
00:21:55.640
cents per pound, and yellow peas remain at $11.50 per bushel.
00:22:00.900
Finishing up with the cattle markets, June life cattle are down $0.42.5 to $1.63.90 per
00:22:08.020
For more information on pricing and picked up on farm options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.
00:22:13.280
I'm Mike Van Dyke at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and
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