The West Standard Alberta Report looks at the latest in the campaign as Alberta voters head to the polls on May 29th. In this episode, the team takes a look at the UCP's new crime and safety plan, which includes new measures to combat the growing problem of fentanyl and violent crime.
00:00:57.060Today, Daniel Smith just wrapped up a press conference launching the UCP's Crime and Safety.
00:01:05.080And it's fairly ambitious, to say the least.
00:01:08.260They vow to put ankle bracelets on dangerous people that get bail.
00:01:15.080And we all know that once you get bail, then you start going to more dangerous crimes, it seems, these days.
00:01:20.000They're going to bring in more sheriffs to follow these people.
00:01:23.880100 more police officers on the street.
00:01:26.740They're going to make specific anti-fentanyl teams to go after the drug flowing across the border, mainly from the United States.
00:01:36.120They'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.
00:01:46.300They'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.
00:02:03.220They're going to put them out on sex offenders so the parents can keep an eye out in their neighborhoods for these guys.
00:02:11.340They were also promising more money for women's shelters and more money for sexual assault counselling.
00:02:19.200And one thing Premier Smith did vow was there will never, ever be a safe supply of drugs as long as they're in charge.
00:02:27.720What is her line that something there is no safe supply of?
00:02:32.560And, 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.
00:02:47.140Yeah, I would have been impolite to point to Vancouver, where the east side also shares many of those sad characteristics.
00:02:52.620It does. Their public safety minister, Mike Ellis, former Calgary policeman for 10 years, basically told people, don't go there, it's too dangerous.
00:03:00.800Sean, that seems like a pretty hard approach to dealing with crime.
00:03:05.440Do you think they can actually make it work?
00:03:22.140I mean, it's a beautiful city, but it is the downtown is almost completely overrun.
00:03:29.640It's almost uninhabitable, really, which is a shame.
00:03:33.120And 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.
00:03:45.040Some 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.
00:03:56.120And 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.
00:04:08.400i think our friend cory morgan our friend and colleague who wrote an excellent article saying
00:04:13.680you know whenever you use the word involuntary it doesn't sound good but just leaving people
00:04:20.800to suffer and die in their own in in their own uh addiction that's not kind either so uh well
00:04:28.160we'll see what she does as you said tough love buffalo for me you know the the litmus test of
00:04:32.720all of this stuff is where it hits most people when are we going to feel confident that we can
00:04:39.200have an uninterrupted ride on the c-train or the edmonton transit service from one end of the city
00:04:45.520to the other without having to watch somebody throwing up shooting up you know that when they
00:04:51.440have fixed that i think they will have fixed the problem to most people's satisfaction how say you
00:04:57.280agreed uh i think the the the downtown cores in both cities now are no-go zones for most people
00:05:06.240certainly for for women who may want to go by themselves uh it's you know especially around
00:05:11.680our building in downtown calgary we have we keep narcan kits in the office because we're sort of
00:05:16.480in the center of it and coming in and out there there's usually somebody using uh so you know
00:05:22.720what it's going to take going to take a lot of effort because there's a lot of people that are
00:05:26.400suffering from these addictions i will say the effort has started i had occasion actually it
00:05:30.320was that famous occasion when i went to meet uh miss notley and i actually decided to walk rather
00:05:35.440than take the c train and there was a squad car police car on every block along the c train loop
00:05:41.760they were obviously very aware of what the problem was they were trying to keep a lid on it so so
00:05:46.720far so good they had another big announcement the ndp made a big announcement uh this morning as
00:05:52.720well i want to call in jonathan bradley jonathan took notes on this and uh jonathan what was the
00:06:00.080announcement so the announcement was albert ndp leader rachel notley has vowed to set up the
00:06:06.640left bridge teaching clinic to serve southern alberta families with health care needs if
00:06:11.360elected premier and she spoke about how healthcare is a large issue in left bridge because even
00:06:16.560though it is i believe the fourth largest city in alberta there are a number of people who have
00:06:21.440to go elsewhere to obtain healthcare particularly when it comes to childbirth where they often have
00:06:26.880to drive to calgary to give birth so not least said that this left bridge teaching clinic would
00:06:33.680bring seven new medical students and 20 family medicine residents to increase healthcare access
00:06:39.120for families and he spoke about how it would have a family health team consisting of doctors nurses
00:06:45.920allied health professionals and care you mentioned a couple of numbers there jonathan
00:06:52.720so really how many people are going to teach how many people are going to learn how many people are
00:07:00.560going to graduate in the course of 12 months which did she give any of those kinds of details as to
00:07:05.360what impact this would have so the left bridge teaching clinic would bring seven new medical
00:07:09.920students and 20 family medicine residents to the area to increase health care access and this is
00:07:15.600is to help with the shortages of doctors in Leftbridge because there's about 40,000 Leftbridge
00:07:20.960residents who are without a family physician. Well, I think the shortage of doctors is going
00:07:27.800to be more general as the year goes by. There's an awful lot of people in the medical profession
00:07:32.820who are approaching the age of 65 or approaching the age at any rate that they want to stop
00:07:39.000working maybe before 65 so uh what else what else have you been covering for rachel notley well i
00:07:49.240went to an announcement yesterday about seniors where rachel notley spoke how she would be
00:07:53.960investing uh more money into home care to allow more seniors just to allow 20 000 seniors to
00:08:02.200stay in their homes as she said this is about a 100 million dollar increase compared to budget 2023
00:08:09.000And she spoke as well about other measures that she will be taking.
00:08:12.140She'll be making the shingles vaccine free for all eligible seniors.
00:08:15.380And she'll be expanding housing in communal and individual settings to provide seniors with choice.
00:08:22.360Now, I think you tried to ask her a question.
00:08:24.540What was the question that you wanted to hear the answer to?
00:08:28.120So I was going to ask a question, a follow-up.
00:08:30.480And the question I wanted to ask was about her opinion on the military being called in to manage wildfires.
00:08:35.900and then a follow-up I was going to ask was about Alberta NDP candidate Drew Farrell and she's
00:08:41.360running in Calgary Bow about her facing a lawsuit and Notley's lawsuit and like the damages and
00:08:48.540Notley's reaction to that. And how does that go when you try to ask a question? So I shouted up
00:08:54.440the question because we're persona non grata when it comes to questions at the Alberta NDP press
00:08:58.820conferences and what happened was people started applauding as I was asking the questions and then
00:09:05.300ndp press secretary mike mckinnon got it up in my my space and said you're not allowed to ask
00:09:10.820questions because you spread hate speech and then i fired back by saying what section of a criminal
00:09:14.500code do we violate because we haven't violated any section of a criminal code when it comes
00:09:18.900to hate speech uh anything that the far left disagrees with his hate speech nowadays and
00:09:25.220he was just like i'm not gonna argue with you on this you know and like we you want to look
00:09:29.620if your editors want to reach out and speak to us feel free to and then i was so annoyed with
00:09:34.900that response that I went and posted a video on Twitter.
00:09:37.160And last I checked, it's received more than 30,000 views.
00:09:41.180And there are many positive comments on the video praising me
00:14:51.000And then she said something to be along the general lines
00:14:55.500of the political leaders standing on their soapbox pretending
00:15:00.860that they cared about all the things that you just talked
00:15:03.640about and this was the events of the war.
00:15:06.160And pretending they understand the sacrifice,
00:15:09.240understanding their actions of the men and women in uniform.
00:15:13.300And she just said it was hard for her to watch that
00:15:16.060and just sort of feel any sincerity there.
00:15:19.260And then she, as the premier is known to do, kind of expanded the thought.
00:15:26.700It was a series that was popular at the time.
00:15:29.820It's still out there on Netflix called How to Become a Tyrant.
00:15:34.640This is actually quite a sensible series.
00:15:39.360And it just goes through the manner in which people who probably love freedom
00:15:44.520in principle allow themselves to be seduced.
00:15:47.400You 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.
00:16:01.780And 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.
00:16:15.300Yes, you would. You know, at the time, it all seemed to make sense, was her argument.
00:16:24.300And in just the same way, people here in Alberta, who, if you say, do you love freedom, they will all say yes.
00:16:33.800When 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,
00:16:40.880and accepted lockdowns and many other very restrictive measures.