Western Standard - AB REPORT： UCP safe streets plan & - Notley's promise to establish Lethbridge Teaching Clinic

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

00:00:15.920 the late breaking news as albertans get ready to vote on may the 29th today is tuesday may the 9th

00:00:25.520 welcome to the show with me today to talk about politics in alberta our our news editor

00:00:32.640 dave naylor morning nigel you sure so nice now and uh

00:00:40.560 and with me also sean pulser our business reporter and we'll be calling in young jonathan bradley

00:00:47.120 our reporter at large our reporter on the ndp as we like to like to tease him in the office but first

00:00:54.640 Dave, what is going on today?

00:00:57.060 Today, Daniel Smith just wrapped up a press conference launching the UCP's Crime and Safety.

00:01:05.080 And it's fairly ambitious, to say the least.

00:01:08.260 They vow to put ankle bracelets on dangerous people that get bail.

00:01:15.080 And we all know that once you get bail, then you start going to more dangerous crimes, it seems, these days.

00:01:20.000 They're going to bring in more sheriffs to follow these people.

00:01:23.880 100 more police officers on the street.

00:01:26.740 They're going to make specific anti-fentanyl teams to go after the drug flowing across the border, mainly from the United States.

00:01:36.120 They're going to set up gun trafficking teams to go after the guns that are stolen and end up in the hands of the bad guys.

00:01:46.300 They're throwing more money into child exploitation teams, more money into gang suppression teams, and they're going to make sex offenders easy to locate for people, kind of like the high-risk warnings that the police put out.

00:02:03.220 They're going to put them out on sex offenders so the parents can keep an eye out in their neighborhoods for these guys.

00:02:11.340 They were also promising more money for women's shelters and more money for sexual assault counselling.

00:02:19.200 And one thing Premier Smith did vow was there will never, ever be a safe supply of drugs as long as they're in charge.

00:02:27.720 What is her line that something there is no safe supply of?

00:02:31.240 There is no safe supply.

00:02:32.560 And, you know, she pointed out to cities like Portland, cities in the United States, San Francisco, which are quickly becoming, you know, zombie apocalypse zones in some areas.

00:02:47.140 Yeah, I would have been impolite to point to Vancouver, where the east side also shares many of those sad characteristics.

00:02:52.620 It does. Their public safety minister, Mike Ellis, former Calgary policeman for 10 years, basically told people, don't go there, it's too dangerous.

00:03:00.800 Sean, that seems like a pretty hard approach to dealing with crime.

00:03:05.440 Do you think they can actually make it work?

00:03:09.340 Well, it's definitely very ambitious.

00:03:11.760 And yes, I've spent some time in up and down California and Portland and those kind of places.

00:03:16.860 I have an uncle that lives in San Francisco.

00:03:20.640 And you're absolutely right.

00:03:22.140 I mean, it's a beautiful city, but it is the downtown is almost completely overrun.

00:03:29.640 It's almost uninhabitable, really, which is a shame.

00:03:33.120 And I think that you can attribute it to some of those, I guess we want to call them the left coast, you know, social policies that I think have kind of let them down.

00:03:45.040 Some of the policies I think are well-meaning, but, you know, this sounds like a little bit of tough love, a little bit of, you know, some practical measures combined with some steps to try to get people into treatment.

00:03:56.120 And I think, Nigel, one more point. There'll be more to come from the UCP on the involuntary drug treatment plant. Our sources say that could be coming to a head in the next couple of days.

00:04:08.400 i think our friend cory morgan our friend and colleague who wrote an excellent article saying

00:04:13.680 you know whenever you use the word involuntary it doesn't sound good but just leaving people

00:04:20.800 to suffer and die in their own in in their own uh addiction that's not kind either so uh well

00:04:28.160 we'll see what she does as you said tough love buffalo for me you know the the litmus test of

00:04:32.720 all of this stuff is where it hits most people when are we going to feel confident that we can

00:04:39.200 have an uninterrupted ride on the c-train or the edmonton transit service from one end of the city

00:04:45.520 to the other without having to watch somebody throwing up shooting up you know that when they

00:04:51.440 have fixed that i think they will have fixed the problem to most people's satisfaction how say you

00:04:57.280 agreed uh i think the the the downtown cores in both cities now are no-go zones for most people

00:05:06.240 certainly for for women who may want to go by themselves uh it's you know especially around

00:05:11.680 our building in downtown calgary we have we keep narcan kits in the office because we're sort of

00:05:16.480 in the center of it and coming in and out there there's usually somebody using uh so you know

00:05:22.720 what it's going to take going to take a lot of effort because there's a lot of people that are

00:05:26.400 suffering from these addictions i will say the effort has started i had occasion actually it

00:05:30.320 was that famous occasion when i went to meet uh miss notley and i actually decided to walk rather

00:05:35.440 than take the c train and there was a squad car police car on every block along the c train loop

00:05:41.760 they were obviously very aware of what the problem was they were trying to keep a lid on it so so

00:05:46.720 far so good they had another big announcement the ndp made a big announcement uh this morning as

00:05:52.720 well i want to call in jonathan bradley jonathan took notes on this and uh jonathan what was the

00:06:00.080 announcement so the announcement was albert ndp leader rachel notley has vowed to set up the

00:06:06.640 left bridge teaching clinic to serve southern alberta families with health care needs if

00:06:11.360 elected premier and she spoke about how healthcare is a large issue in left bridge because even

00:06:16.560 though it is i believe the fourth largest city in alberta there are a number of people who have

00:06:21.440 to go elsewhere to obtain healthcare particularly when it comes to childbirth where they often have

00:06:26.880 to drive to calgary to give birth so not least said that this left bridge teaching clinic would

00:06:33.680 bring seven new medical students and 20 family medicine residents to increase healthcare access

00:06:39.120 for families and he spoke about how it would have a family health team consisting of doctors nurses

00:06:45.920 allied health professionals and care you mentioned a couple of numbers there jonathan

00:06:52.720 so really how many people are going to teach how many people are going to learn how many people are

00:07:00.560 going to graduate in the course of 12 months which did she give any of those kinds of details as to

00:07:05.360 what impact this would have so the left bridge teaching clinic would bring seven new medical

00:07:09.920 students and 20 family medicine residents to the area to increase health care access and this is

00:07:15.600 is to help with the shortages of doctors in Leftbridge because there's about 40,000 Leftbridge

00:07:20.960 residents who are without a family physician. Well, I think the shortage of doctors is going

00:07:27.800 to be more general as the year goes by. There's an awful lot of people in the medical profession

00:07:32.820 who are approaching the age of 65 or approaching the age at any rate that they want to stop

00:07:39.000 working maybe before 65 so uh what else what else have you been covering for rachel notley well i

00:07:49.240 went to an announcement yesterday about seniors where rachel notley spoke how she would be

00:07:53.960 investing uh more money into home care to allow more seniors just to allow 20 000 seniors to

00:08:02.200 stay in their homes as she said this is about a 100 million dollar increase compared to budget 2023

00:08:09.000 And she spoke as well about other measures that she will be taking.

00:08:12.140 She'll be making the shingles vaccine free for all eligible seniors.

00:08:15.380 And she'll be expanding housing in communal and individual settings to provide seniors with choice.

00:08:22.360 Now, I think you tried to ask her a question.

00:08:24.540 What was the question that you wanted to hear the answer to?

00:08:28.120 So I was going to ask a question, a follow-up.

00:08:30.480 And the question I wanted to ask was about her opinion on the military being called in to manage wildfires.

00:08:35.900 and then a follow-up I was going to ask was about Alberta NDP candidate Drew Farrell and she's

00:08:41.360 running in Calgary Bow about her facing a lawsuit and Notley's lawsuit and like the damages and

00:08:48.540 Notley's reaction to that. And how does that go when you try to ask a question? So I shouted up

00:08:54.440 the question because we're persona non grata when it comes to questions at the Alberta NDP press

00:08:58.820 conferences and what happened was people started applauding as I was asking the questions and then

00:09:05.300 ndp press secretary mike mckinnon got it up in my my space and said you're not allowed to ask

00:09:10.820 questions because you spread hate speech and then i fired back by saying what section of a criminal

00:09:14.500 code do we violate because we haven't violated any section of a criminal code when it comes

00:09:18.900 to hate speech uh anything that the far left disagrees with his hate speech nowadays and

00:09:25.220 he was just like i'm not gonna argue with you on this you know and like we you want to look

00:09:29.620 if your editors want to reach out and speak to us feel free to and then i was so annoyed with

00:09:34.900 that response that I went and posted a video on Twitter.

00:09:37.160 And last I checked, it's received more than 30,000 views.

00:09:41.180 And there are many positive comments on the video praising me

00:09:45.320 and encouraging me to do that again.

00:09:47.080 Steve Winick- It's really quite important that we show

00:09:49.760 that when it comes to honest inquiry, the NDP doesn't care

00:09:53.960 to answer questions that aren't on, aren't part

00:09:57.120 of their basic message.

00:09:58.400 And it should give you a sense of what it would be like

00:10:01.500 if they were ever to form government.

00:10:03.600 what's interesting is the press secretary for the ndp who blocked me he's a former journalist himself

00:10:09.040 he used to work at global news so i was thinking in my head like i found this out later i'm like

00:10:14.400 like why would you block a fellow reporter from asking questions like you were in that position

00:10:17.840 once and did he respond to that no i didn't ask him that there but i'll definitely ask him next

00:10:23.120 time yes well that's uh life is full of compromises for some people isn't it that's one of the things

00:10:29.920 jonathan at least you you stood your ground there and well done thank you very much for joining us

00:10:35.840 forest fires what about it sean how are we doing well after the rain that we've had yesterday

00:10:44.320 uh we seem to be doing a little better uh there was over 100 yesterday and we're down to about 89

00:10:50.240 um i don't have the exact number of how many are that are out of control but it's

00:10:54.240 it's dropped significantly just in 24 hours so there's a little bit of relief up there but

00:11:02.240 a lot of people still remain under evacuation order in Drayton Valley some folks were allowed

00:11:07.120 to go back home in Edson yesterday and we've got more oil and gas shutdowns

00:11:15.280 probably about 350 000 barrels a day well that's three times as much as or two and a half times

00:11:20.320 as much as yesterday, isn't it?

00:11:22.880 Yeah, I think it's because more companies are reporting.

00:11:25.400 So there's still a couple of large companies

00:11:27.320 that haven't disclosed exactly how many are under shut-in.

00:11:32.620 But the bigger issue in those areas

00:11:35.540 is the gas processing facilities and the pipelines.

00:11:39.020 So having a pipeline reopened up a 20-inch line

00:11:46.240 from Fox Creek up to Edmonton yesterday

00:11:48.160 that would be probably oil and gas liquids.

00:11:51.480 So that's a promising sign.

00:11:55.100 On the downside, the weather's expected to get hot again

00:11:58.740 in summer, so they're looking for 27 degrees

00:12:01.600 in Grand Perry on Friday.

00:12:04.660 So there's a good chance that these conditions

00:12:06.900 could spark up again.

00:12:08.560 So that controlled burn that our colleague,

00:12:11.920 Linda Slobodian was writing about out near Banff.

00:12:14.780 I think I'm not under control now.

00:12:18.020 I'm assuming so.

00:12:21.280 When you look on the map, there's kind of a little flame thing that bounces under fire

00:12:27.380 warning.

00:12:28.380 It was listed as under control on Sunday.

00:12:32.740 The other big news yesterday for people affected by the fire was Premier Smith announcing financial

00:12:38.940 aid.

00:12:39.940 You've been displaced for seven days, and you're a family of four, you're eligible for $3,500.

00:12:47.380 And the government is working to get you that money fast.

00:12:53.060 Well, that's good.

00:12:54.120 Probably much needed.

00:12:55.600 Anything else from the NDP that we – I think that was the whole of their campaign, wasn't it?

00:13:01.660 Yeah, it was seniors and teachers, and yeah, I think that was it.

00:13:08.180 They've got more stuff planned today.

00:13:09.420 actually that's not the whole of their campaign because they resurrected and in my opinion took

00:13:15.500 out of context a clip from danielle smith where she was i'll use the word philosophizing on a on

00:13:23.020 a podcast hosted by a financial organization and it was an hour and a half conversation with uh

00:13:30.860 with a lot of different subjects covered but um what did she say and and what uh what did the

00:13:37.740 ndp do with that well she was talking this was keep in mind the height of the covid pandemic

00:13:42.700 yes and this was in october 21 was october 2021 and she was muted what what the ndp made it seem

00:13:50.380 like was that she was musing that people who uh went and got vaccinated were no different than

00:13:56.460 the people who followed adolf hitler yeah and uh and of course that that sent the ndp into

00:14:05.100 all sorts of uh uh excitement and you know they were throwing around nazis and

00:14:11.580 the nazi word and all that sort of stuff and the other thing in the in there that

00:14:16.620 caused some concern was uh smith saying that because of all the the pandemic stuff and the

00:14:22.700 pandemic politicians she didn't want to wear a poppy that year she didn't felt she felt that it

00:14:27.980 It wasn't the right time.

00:14:30.220 So I know you've got a different take on it, Nigel.

00:14:34.460 What is the real story?

00:14:36.440 Well, I don't know that it's such a different take, but you're right.

00:14:39.160 It was, this whole thing was in the context of a discussion of Remembrance Day,

00:14:45.760 and she mentioned to the host, I see you're not wearing a puppy.

00:14:49.180 And he said, well, no, I guess not.

00:14:51.000 And then she said something to be along the general lines

00:14:55.500 of the political leaders standing on their soapbox pretending

00:15:00.860 that they cared about all the things that you just talked

00:15:03.640 about and this was the events of the war.

00:15:06.160 And pretending they understand the sacrifice,

00:15:09.240 understanding their actions of the men and women in uniform.

00:15:13.300 And she just said it was hard for her to watch that

00:15:16.060 and just sort of feel any sincerity there.

00:15:19.260 And then she, as the premier is known to do, kind of expanded the thought.

00:15:26.700 It was a series that was popular at the time.

00:15:29.820 It's still out there on Netflix called How to Become a Tyrant.

00:15:34.640 This is actually quite a sensible series.

00:15:39.360 And it just goes through the manner in which people who probably love freedom

00:15:44.520 in principle allow themselves to be seduced.

00:15:47.400 You know, serious academics like Crane Brinton have written on this for decades, the stages in which people can change their whole political philosophy, you know, the anatomy of a revolution, as it were.

00:16:01.780 And so she went on to say that there are so many people who look at the suppression of their freedoms in Germany during the war and say, well, I would never have gone for that.

00:16:15.300 Yes, you would. You know, at the time, it all seemed to make sense, was her argument.

00:16:24.300 And in just the same way, people here in Alberta, who, if you say, do you love freedom, they will all say yes.

00:16:33.800 When it came down to it, they just held their wrists out for that, well, they buried their shoulder for the injection, is what it was,

00:16:40.880 and accepted lockdowns and many other very restrictive measures.

00:16:45.760 You weren't allowed to meet.

00:16:46.640 You couldn't go and see your mother in the hospital. 1.00

00:16:48.420 You couldn't see your father in the old people's home.

00:16:50.660 You couldn't go to their funeral when they died alone.

00:16:53.120 You know, it went on and on and on.

00:16:54.520 There was a tremendous degree of suffering caused by measures that turned out to be ill-advised

00:17:02.060 and where some people recognized as unlikely to be useful in the first place.

00:17:05.760 But there was no room for disagreement.

00:17:07.460 though if you were not vaccinated you were a terrible person and that was the general thrust

00:17:14.860 of the thing i think we all know premier smith well enough to say but there is no way that she

00:17:20.640 would ever say that vaccination was like the holocaust i mean people don't say that sort of

00:17:27.380 thing nor would she have said people who uh are are vaccinated are nazis but she did say

00:17:35.040 that the way in which people give up their freedoms,

00:17:38.440 little bit by little bit,

00:17:40.460 is a well-proven political technique

00:17:42.740 for getting control.

00:17:45.500 I wouldn't disagree with her.

00:17:47.540 So you're saying the NDP may have misled people on this?

00:17:50.860 I think...

00:17:51.340 Kind of like they're misleading people

00:17:52.640 when they say that we're going to have to pay for doctors

00:17:55.360 and we're going to lose our old-age pension,

00:17:58.640 stuff like that.

00:17:59.460 Dave, I know you find this very hard to accept, 0.82

00:18:01.760 that racial notley and the ndp would ever mislead anybody oh sacrilege sacrilege sean

00:18:09.440 um i didn't have a problem with the comments as much as uh the notion that she didn't wear

00:18:14.000 the poppy and i think there's a public figure you know it's maybe that's that was the thing

00:18:20.800 that bothered me the most uh my thoughts on the pandemic uh my mother died during the pandemic

00:18:26.480 she was in mexico and there was travel restrictions and we my family my sister and my brother and i

00:18:32.880 we couldn't go down to see her laid to rest and it was extremely painful i eventually did get

00:18:40.800 back there after the travel restrictions were lifted and it was uh it was very emotional but

00:18:46.960 my sense on the whole pandemic thing is there was a lot of division there was a lot of

00:18:51.280 of bitterness, there were a lot of unreasonable rules,

00:18:58.040 not being, you know, who was it,

00:19:00.040 Joey Moss in Edmonton, you know,

00:19:02.460 he died in a hospital alone basically

00:19:05.100 because of the pandemic restrictions that were going on.

00:19:08.420 So I think it was extremely hurtful

00:19:10.360 and there has to be a point where everybody

00:19:14.880 just kind of has to move on, you know, and get over it.

00:19:17.440 And you know, you've raised some good points

00:19:20.300 about the restrictions and not being able to gather.

00:19:22.920 You know, this happened in China,

00:19:24.060 people were getting boarded up

00:19:25.240 inside their apartment buildings

00:19:26.800 and there was fires and all that kind of thing.

00:19:29.540 So, you know, there is a kind of a thin edge

00:19:31.680 of where authoritarianism takes over.

00:19:34.920 You know, people literally,

00:19:36.700 you could almost imagine that the Chinese government

00:19:39.200 was using the pandemic for political purposes

00:19:41.720 to kind of repress people,

00:19:44.120 but at the same time, you know,

00:19:46.320 legitimate public health measures.

00:19:48.800 And I think that most people were in favor of what they felt were legitimate public health and safety measures.

00:19:57.640 And I think if it ever happens again, and the experts say that it probably will,

00:20:03.040 that there has to be some kind of a framework that's done in place so that we can respond.

00:20:08.720 Because nobody knew how to respond to this thing when it came, right?

00:20:11.320 Well, you know, you say that, but there actually was a framework.

00:20:13.880 They had an emergency plan for all of this.

00:20:15.820 Every province had an emergency plan, and not one of them actually went

00:20:19.220 to the emergency plan.

00:20:20.760 They all just looked to the federal government and said,

00:20:22.620 what do we do now, and they did what the federal government told them to do.

00:20:27.720 You know, these commandments would come out, and I remember thinking to myself,

00:20:33.120 I wish I could be as cop-shor of anything as these guys are of everything.

00:20:37.280 And yet, somehow or other, we ended up, and I'm going to wrap this up here,

00:20:40.920 But we ended up with the situation that in B.C. they kept the restaurants open and closed the churches.

00:20:50.320 And in Alberta, they kept the churches open and closed the restaurants.

00:20:54.100 I mean, same, what happened to the bug as it came across the border?

00:20:57.400 It's obviously changed its nature.

00:21:00.300 Well, and we spent a lot of time in B.C. that summer.

00:21:02.520 So, yeah, the differences in restrictions. 0.62

00:21:05.440 Well, it was a little bit ridiculous.

00:21:06.440 It's like you said, there was no court response.

00:21:09.480 which makes you wonder if there isn't a if there isn't an actual right answer on something as

00:21:16.060 simple as that who actually knew really what they were doing so anyway so we can look forward to

00:21:24.280 uh your column later on today on this situation i certainly will be uh talking about uh danielle

00:21:31.420 smith and the uh the comments that are attributed to her gentlemen it is always a pleasure to talk

00:21:39.300 politics with you and we will do it again on thursday see you then and with uh actually you

00:21:46.740 won't see me because i'll be on my bike on the way to somewhere else but okay derek will be back

00:21:52.580 there it will be back and i bet we can persuade young jonathan to come in and keep company

00:21:57.780 as long as he's not you know unless he's out harassing the ndp right and he should be doing

00:22:02.660 that yes i'm sure they're pretty scared of them the most that roared thanks very much sean david

00:22:09.460 thanks and ladies and gentlemen while you are still watching think about having a subscription

00:22:15.780 to the western standard if you do not have one already ten dollars a month if you're not if

00:22:23.300 you're enjoying the program and you're enjoying our articles help us keep on going by taking a

00:22:29.380 subscription we don't get any funds from the government and we never will you're our only hope

00:22:37.540 for the western standard i'm nigel hannaford the current lethbridge feed grain prices are as

00:22:42.420 follows cash barley is down a dollar at 409 feed wheat is down two dollars at 406 and corn is down

00:22:49.540 four dollars at 395 dollars per ton in the milling wheat markets july minneapolis features gained

00:22:55.940 8 cents at 8.29 with local hard red spring bid for may movement at 10.40 cents per bushel

00:23:02.820 in the oil seeds nearby canola futures are down two dollars at 730 dollars 80 cents per ton

00:23:09.380 with delivered values for may movement at 16.30 cents per bushel in the pulse markets nearby red

00:23:15.780 lentil prices are trading at 35 cents per pound and yellow peas are holding at 11.50 per bushel

00:23:22.180 In the cattle markets, June Live Cattle slid $0.30 at $162.12.50 per 100 weight.

00:23:30.380 I'm David Lee at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

00:23:36.600 Canadian Shooting Sports Association. Without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:23:43.200 These guys are on the front lines, helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms, regulations and legislation in Canada.

00:23:50.420 and more importantly, educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.

00:23:56.180 If you become a member, it's absolutely worth every penny.

00:24:01.040 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $9.

Western Standard - May 10, 2023

AB REPORT： UCP safe streets plan & - Notley's promise to establish Lethbridge Teaching Clinic

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript