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

00:00:24.640 welcome to the show with me today to talk about politics in alberta our news editor

00:00:32.640 dave naylor morning nigel you sure tonight's now and uh 0.72

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 today uh daniel smith just wrapped up a press conference

00:01:00.960 launching the ucp's uh crime and safety and it's uh it's fairly ambitious to say the least

00:01:08.080 uh they vow to put uh ankle bracelets on uh dangerous people uh that are that get bail

00:01:14.960 and we all know that once you get bail then you start going to more dangerous crimes it seems these

00:01:19.680 days they're going to bring in more sheriffs to follow these people uh 100 more police officers

00:01:25.600 on the street they're going to make uh specific anti-fentanyl teams uh to go after the drug flowing

00:01:32.560 across the border uh mainly from the united states uh they're going to go after gun or they're going to

00:01:37.440 set up gun trafficking teams uh to go after the uh the guns that are uh stolen and end up in the

00:01:44.480 the hands of the bad guys they're throwing more money into child exploitation teams more money into

00:01:51.600 gang suppression teams and they're going to make sex offenders easy to locate for people kind of like

00:01:59.360 the uh uh the high risk warnings that the police put out they're going to put them out on uh sex

00:02:06.080 offenders so the parents can keep an eye out in their neighborhoods for these guys they're also

00:02:12.560 promising more money for women's shelters and more money for sexual assault counseling and uh one

00:02:19.840 thing uh the uh premier smith did vow was there will never ever be a safe supply of drugs as long

00:02:26.400 as they're in charge what is her line that something there is no safe supply of there is no safe supply 0.59

00:02:32.560 and uh and you know she pointed out to uh uh cities like portland cities uh uh in the united

00:02:39.120 states san francisco which are are quickly becoming uh uh you know zombie apocalypse zones uh in some

00:02:46.240 areas yeah i would have been impolite to point to vancouver where the east side also shares many of

00:02:51.520 those sad characters it does their public safety minister mike ellis uh former calgary policeman for

00:02:56.720 10 years basically told people don't go there it's too dangerous yes sean that seems like a pretty uh

00:03:03.440 hard approach to dealing with crime do you think they can actually make it work

00:03:09.200 well i would say it's definitely very ambitious and yes i've spent some time in uh up and down

00:03:14.080 california and portland and those kind of places uh i have a uncle that lives in san francisco and uh

00:03:21.280 you're absolutely right i mean it's it's a beautiful city but uh it it is the the downtown is almost

00:03:28.800 completely overrun and it's almost uninhabitable really and which is a shame and i and i think

00:03:33.760 that you can attribute it to some of those uh i guess we want to call them the left coast you know

00:03:40.640 social policies that i think have kind of let them down uh some of the policies i think are well meaning

00:03:46.640 but uh you know this sounds like a little bit of tough love a little bit of uh you know some practical

00:03:52.640 measures combined with uh some steps to try to get people into treatment and i think nigel one more

00:03:57.760 point there'll be more more to come from the ucp on the uh involuntary drug treatment plant our sources

00:04:04.960 say that could be coming to uh to ahead in the next couple days i think our friend cory morgan our friend

00:04:10.560 and colleague who wrote an excellent article saying you know whenever you use the word involuntary it

00:04:16.720 doesn't sound good but just leaving people to suffer and die in their own in in their own

00:04:24.560 addiction that's not kind either so uh well we'll see what she does as you said tough love tough love

00:04:30.720 for me you know the the litmus test of all of this stuff is where it hits most people when are we going

00:04:36.640 to feel confident that we can have an uninterrupted ride on the c-train or the edmonton transit service

00:04:44.480 from one end of the city to the other without having to watch somebody throwing up shooting up

00:04:49.600 you know that when they have fixed that i think they will have fixed the problem to most people's

00:04:55.440 satisfaction i would say you agreed uh i think the the the downtown cores in both cities now are

00:05:03.920 no-go zones for most people uh certainly for for women who may want to go by themselves uh it's you

00:05:10.640 know especially around our building in downtown calgary we have we keep narcan kits in the office because

00:05:15.920 we're sort of in the center of it and coming in and out there there's there's usually somebody

00:05:20.320 using uh so you know what it's going to take going to take a lot of effort because there's a lot of

00:05:25.280 people that are suffering from these addictions i will say the effort has started i had occasion

00:05:29.920 actually it was that famous occasion when i went to meet uh miss notley and i actually decided to walk

00:05:35.120 rather 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 far

00:05:46.880 so good they had another big announcement the ndp made a big announcement uh this morning as well

00:05:53.360 i want to call in jonathan bradley jonathan took notes on this and uh jonathan what was the announcement

00:06:01.840 so the announcement was albert ndp leader rachel notley has vowed to set up the left bridge teaching

00:06:07.440 clinic to serve southern alberta families with healthcare needs if elected premier and she spoke

00:06:13.120 about how healthcare is a large issue in left bridge because even though it is i believe the fourth

00:06:18.160 largest city in alberta there are a number of people who have to go elsewhere to obtain healthcare

00:06:23.280 particularly when it comes to uh childbirth where they often have to drive to calgary to give birth

00:06:29.120 so notley said that uh this left bridge teaching clinic would bring seven new medical students and 20

00:06:36.640 family medicine residents to increase healthcare access for families um and he spoke about how it

00:06:42.880 would have a family health team consisting of doctors nurses allied health professionals and

00:06:49.600 you you mentioned a couple of numbers there jonathan so really how many people are going to teach how

00:06:58.480 many people are going to learn how many people are going to graduate in the course of 12 months

00:07:02.880 which did she give any of those kinds of details as to what impact this would have so the left bridge

00:07:07.840 teaching clinic would bring seven new medical students and 20 family medicine residents to the

00:07:12.800 area to increase healthcare access and this is to help with uh the shortages of doctors in left bridge

00:07:18.880 because there's about 40 000 left bridge residents who are without a family physician well i think uh i think

00:07:25.440 the shortage of doctors is going to be more general as the as the year goes by there's an awful lot of

00:07:31.520 people in the medical profession who are approaching the age of 65 or approaching the age at any rate

00:07:37.600 that they want to they want to stop working maybe before 65. so uh what else what else have you been

00:07:46.560 covering for racial notley well i went to an announcement yesterday about seniors where rachel notley spoke how

00:07:53.600 she would be investing uh more money into home care to allow more seniors just to allow 20 000 seniors 1.00

00:08:01.360 to stay in their homes as she said this is about a 100 million dollar increase compared to

00:08:07.200 budget 2023 and she spoke as well about other measures that she will be taking she'll be making

00:08:12.480 the shingles vaccine free for all eligible seniors and she'll be expanding housing in communal and in

00:08:18.640 individual settings to allow uh to provide seniors with choice now i think you tried to ask her a

00:08:23.920 question what that was the question that you wanted to to hear the answer to so i was going to ask a

00:08:29.520 question a follow-up and the question i wanted to ask was about uh her opinion on the military being

00:08:34.080 called in to manage wildfires and then a follow-up i was going to ask was about uh alberta ndp candidate

00:08:40.160 drew farrell and she's running in calgary bow about her facing a lawsuit and not lee's lawsuit and like

00:08:46.720 the the damages and not lee's reaction to that hmm and how does that go when you try to ask a question

00:08:53.680 so i shouted up the question because we're persona non grata when it comes to questions at the albert ndp press

00:08:58.720 conferences and what happened was people started applauding as i was asking the questions and then

00:09:05.280 ndp press secretary mike mckinnon got it up in my my space and said you're not allowed to ask questions

00:09:11.120 because you spread hate speech and then i fired back by saying what section of a criminal code do we

00:09:14.880 violate because we haven't violated any section of a criminal code when it comes to hate speech uh

00:09:20.560 anything that the far left disagrees with his hate speech nowadays and he was just like i'm not gonna

00:09:26.400 argue with you on this you know and like we you want to look if your editors want to reach out and

00:09:30.720 speak to us feel free to and then i was so annoyed with that response that i went and posted a video

00:09:36.480 on twitter and last i checked it's received more than 30 000 views and there are many positive comments

00:09:42.880 on the video praising me and encouraging me to do that again it's really quite important that we show

00:09:49.600 that when it comes to honest inquiry the ndp doesn't care to answer questions that aren't on aren't part

00:09:56.960 of their basic message and it should give us what what it would be like if they were ever to form

00:10:02.480 government and what's interesting is the press secretary for the ndp who blocked me he's a former

00:10:08.320 journalist himself he used to work at global news so i was thinking in my head like i found this out

00:10:13.600 later i'm like like why would you block on your fellow reporter from asking questions like you were in

00:10:17.280 that position once and did you respond to that no i didn't ask him that there but i'll definitely

00:10:22.560 ask him that next time yes well that's uh life is full of compromises for some people isn't it that's

00:10:28.640 one of the things uh jonathan at least you you stood your ground there and well done thank you very much

00:10:33.440 for joining us forest fires what about it sean how are we doing well after the rain that we've had

00:10:43.120 yesterday uh we seem to be doing a little better uh there was over 100 yesterday and we're down to

00:10:48.640 about 89 um i don't have the exact number of how many are that are out of control but it's it's dropped

00:10:55.280 significantly just in 24 hours so there's a little bit of relief up there um but uh a lot of people

00:11:02.800 still remain under evacuation order in drayton valley uh some folks were allowed to go back home in edson

00:11:09.040 yesterday and uh we've got more oil and gas shutdowns um probably about 350 000 barrels a day

00:11:17.200 well that's three times as much as you know or two and a half times as much as yesterday isn't it

00:11:21.920 um yeah i think because more companies are reporting so there's still a couple large companies that haven't

00:11:27.680 disclosed exactly how many are uh under under uh shut in but uh the bigger issue in those areas is um

00:11:36.240 the gas processing facilities and the pipelines so um uh having a pipeline uh reopened up uh a 20-inch

00:11:45.920 line from fox creek up to edmonton yesterday that would be probably oil and gas liquids so uh that's

00:11:53.520 a promising sign on the downside uh the weather is expected to get hot again on summer so they're

00:12:00.240 looking for 27 degrees in grand perry on friday so uh there's a good chance that these conditions

00:12:06.800 could spark up again so that controlled burn that our colleague uh linda slabodian was writing about

00:12:13.680 out near banff uh i think that under control now this is i'm i'm assuming so when you look on the map

00:12:22.000 there's a kind of a little flame thing yeah you know that bounces under fire warning it was listed

00:12:28.720 as under control on sunday all right the uh the other big news yesterday for people affected by the

00:12:35.280 fire was uh premier smith announcing uh financial aid if you've been displaced uh for for seven days and

00:12:42.960 you're a family of four uh you're eligible for thirty five hundred dollars and uh you know the government is

00:12:49.520 working to get uh to get you that money fast so well that's good probably much needed anything else from

00:12:56.320 the ndp that we um i think that i think that was the whole of their campaign wasn't it yeah it was

00:13:02.080 seniors and teachers and uh uh yeah i think that was it they got more stuff planned today yeah actually

00:13:11.040 that's not the whole of their campaign because they resurrected and in my opinion took out of context a

00:13:16.640 clip from danielle smith where she was i'll use the word philosophizing on a on a podcast hosted by a

00:13:24.800 financial organization and it was an hour and a half conversation with uh with a lot of different

00:13:32.160 subjects covered but um what did she say and and what uh what did the ndp do with that well she was

00:13:39.520 talking this was keep in mind the height of the covid pandemic yes and this was in october 21 was it

00:13:45.280 october 2021 and she was muted what what the ndp made it seem like was that she was musing that people

00:13:52.640 who uh went and got vaccinated were no different than the people who followed adolf hitler yeah and uh

00:14:02.080 and of course that that sent the ndp into uh all sorts of uh uh excitement and you know they were

00:14:09.280 throwing around nazis and and the the nazi word and and all that sort of stuff and the other thing

00:14:15.040 in the in there that uh caused some concern was uh uh smith saying that because of all the the the

00:14:21.680 pandemic stuff and the pandemic politicians she didn't want to wear a poppy that year she didn't

00:14:26.800 felt she felt that it wasn't the right time so i know you've got a different take on it nigel uh 0.87

00:14:33.600 uh what what what is the real story well i don't know there's a such a different take but you're

00:14:38.880 right it was this whole thing was in the context of a discussion of remembrance day and she mentioned

00:14:46.480 to the host i see you're not wearing a poppy and he said well no i guess not and uh and then she said

00:14:53.120 something to be along the general lines of um the political leaders standing on their soapbox pretending that they

00:15:01.120 cared about all the things that you just talked about and this was the events of the war and

00:15:06.240 pretending they understand the sacrifice understanding their actions of the men and women in in uniform and

00:15:13.360 she was just so it was uh it was hard for her to watch that and and just sort of feel any sincerity there

00:15:19.200 and then she as as um as the premier is um known to do kind of expanded the thought uh it was a series

00:15:27.920 that was popular at the time it's still out there on netflix called um how to how to become a tyrant

00:15:34.480 this is actually quite a it's quite a sensible series let's just go through the the manner in

00:15:41.520 which people who probably love freedom in principle allow themselves to be seduced you know serious

00:15:48.880 academics like crane brinton the written on this for decades uh the stages in which uh people can

00:15:55.440 change their whole political philosophy uh you know the anatomy of a revolution as it were and so she

00:16:03.520 went on to say that there are so many people who look at the suppression of their freedoms in germany

00:16:12.960 during the war and say well i would never have gone for that yes you would you know at the time it all

00:16:20.320 seemed to make sense was her argument and in just the same way people here in alberta who if you say

00:16:30.960 do you love freedom they will all say yes when it came down to it they just held their wrists out for

00:16:36.800 that well put they buried their shoulder for the for the injection is what it was and accepted lockdowns

00:16:43.520 and many other very restrictive measures you weren't allowed to meet you couldn't go and see your mother

00:16:47.600 in hospital you couldn't see your father in the old people's home you couldn't go to their funeral when 0.59

00:16:51.760 they died alone you know it went on and on and on there was a tremendous degree of suffering caused by

00:16:58.880 measures that that turned out to be ill-advised and where some people recognize is unlikely to be

00:17:04.160 useful in the first place but there was no room for disagreement though if you were not vaccinated

00:17:11.360 you were a terrible person and that was the general thrust of the thing i think we all know

00:17:16.560 premier smith well enough to say but there is no way that she would ever say that vaccination

00:17:24.160 was like the holocaust i mean people don't say that sort of thing nor would she have said people who

00:17:31.200 are are vaccinated are nazis but she did say that the way in which people give up their freedoms

00:17:38.400 a little bit by little bit is a well-proven political technique for getting control

00:17:44.640 people i wouldn't disagree with her so you're saying the ndp may have misled people on this

00:17:50.800 i think kind of like they're misleading people when they say that we're going to have to pay for

00:17:54.960 doctors and uh we're going to lose our old age pension stuff like that dave i know you find

00:18:00.400 this very hard to accept that racial notley and the ndp would ever mislead anybody oh sacrilege

00:18:06.720 sacrilege sean um i didn't have a problem with the comments as much as uh the notion that she didn't

00:18:13.840 wear the poppy and i think as a public figure you know it's maybe that's that was the thing that

00:18:20.880 bothered me the most uh my thoughts on the pandemic uh my mother died during the pandemic uh she was in

00:18:26.800 mexico and there was travel restrictions and we my family my sister and my brother and i uh we couldn't go

00:18:33.840 down to uh see her laid to rest and it was extremely painful i eventually did get back there after the

00:18:41.600 travel restrictions were lifted and it was uh it was very emotional but uh my my sense on the whole

00:18:47.760 pandemic thing is um there was a lot of division there was a lot of uh uh bitterness there there were

00:18:56.240 a lot of unreasonable rules uh not being you know uh who was it joy moss in edmonton you know he died in

00:19:03.440 in the hospital alone basically because of the pandemic restrictions that were going on so

00:19:08.960 i think it was extremely hurtful and um there has to be a point where everybody just kind of has to

00:19:15.440 move on you know and get over it and uh you know you've raised some good points about the restrictions

00:19:21.040 and not being able to gather you know this happened in china people were getting boarded up inside their

00:19:25.760 apartment buildings and there was fires and and all that kind of thing so you know there is a kind of a

00:19:30.880 thin edge of where authoritarianism takes over you know people literally you could almost imagine that

00:19:38.320 the chinese government was using the pandemic for political purposes to kind of repress people but at

00:19:44.400 the same time you know legitimate public health measures and i think that most people

00:19:51.200 were in favor of what they felt were legitimate public health and safety measures and i think if

00:19:59.440 it ever happens again then the experts say that it probably will that there has to be some kind of

00:20:04.240 a framework that's done in place so that we can respond because nobody knew how to respond to this thing when it came right

00:20:06.960 well you know you say that but there actually was a framework where they had an emergency plan for

00:20:15.360 all of this every province had an emergency plan and not one of them actually went to the emergency

00:20:20.400 plan they all just looked to the federal government said what do we do now and they did what uh they

00:20:25.280 did what federal government told them to do you know these uh commandments would come out and i

00:20:31.920 remember thinking to myself i wish i could be as offshore of anything as these guys are of everything

00:20:37.280 and yet somehow or other we ended up and i'm gonna wrap this up here but they uh we ended up with the

00:20:43.920 situation that uh in bc they they kept the restaurants open and closed the churches and in alberta they kept

00:20:51.920 the churches open and closed the restaurants i mean same what happened to the bug as it came across the border

00:20:57.200 there's obviously change that's uh changed this nature so well and we spent a lot of time in dc that

00:21:01.920 somewhere so yeah the uh the differences at least well it was a little bit ridiculous it's like there

00:21:07.280 like you said there was no quick response which makes you wonder if there isn't a if there isn't an

00:21:13.600 actual right answer on something as simple as that who actually knew really what they were doing so anyway

00:21:22.880 so we can look forward to uh your column later on today on this situation i certainly will be uh

00:21:29.920 talking about uh danielle smith and the uh the comments that are attributed to her gentlemen it is

00:21:38.080 always a pleasure to talk politics with you and we will do it again on thursday see you then and with

00:21:46.240 actually you won't see me because i'll be on my bike on the way to somewhere else but okay

00:21:51.840 derek will be back derek will be back and i bet we can persuade young jonathan to come in and keep

00:21:56.640 company as long as he's not you know unless he's out harassing the ndp right and he should be doing

00:22:02.640 that yes i'm sure they're pretty scared of him the most that roared thanks very much sean david thanks

00:22:10.400 and ladies and gentlemen while you are still watching think about having a subscription to the western

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00:22:31.200 any funds from the government and we never will you're our holy hope for the western standard i'm nigel

00:22:39.280 hannaford the current lethbridge feed grain prices are as follows cash barley is down a dollar at 409

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Western Standard - May 09, 2023

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

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