AB REPORT： UCP safe streets plan & - Notley’s promise to establish Lethbridge Teaching Clinic
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Summary
In this episode of the Western Standard Report, we look at the late breaking news as Albertans get ready to vote on May 29th on the UCP s proposed crime and safety plan. We discuss the proposed law, the proposed anti-fentanyl strategy, and the proposed drug treatment plant.
Transcript
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welcome to today's episode of the western standards alberta report where we look at
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the late breaking news as albertans get ready to vote on may the 29th today is tuesday may the 9th
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welcome to the show with me today to talk about politics in alberta our news editor
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dave naylor morning nigel you sure tonight's now and uh
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and with me also sean pulser our business reporter and we'll be calling in young jonathan bradley
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our reporter at large our reporter on the ndp as we like to like to tease him in the office but first
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dave what is going on today today uh daniel smith just wrapped up a press conference
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launching the ucp's uh crime and safety and it's uh it's fairly ambitious to say the least
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uh they vow to put uh ankle bracelets on uh dangerous people uh that are that get bail
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and we all know that once you get bail then you start going to more dangerous crimes it seems these
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days they're going to bring in more sheriffs to follow these people uh 100 more police officers
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on the street they're going to make uh specific anti-fentanyl teams uh to go after the drug flowing
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across the border uh mainly from the united states uh they're going to go after gun or they're going to
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set up gun trafficking teams uh to go after the uh the guns that are uh stolen and end up in the
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the hands of the bad guys they're throwing more money into child exploitation teams more money into
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gang suppression teams and they're going to make sex offenders easy to locate for people kind of like
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the uh uh the high risk warnings that the police put out they're going to put them out on uh sex
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offenders so the parents can keep an eye out in their neighborhoods for these guys they're also
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promising more money for women's shelters and more money for sexual assault counseling and uh one
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thing uh the uh premier smith did vow was there will never ever be a safe supply of drugs as long
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as they're in charge what is her line that something there is no safe supply of there is no safe supply
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and uh and you know she pointed out to uh uh cities like portland cities uh uh in the united
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states san francisco which are are quickly becoming uh uh you know zombie apocalypse zones uh in some
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areas yeah i would have been impolite to point to vancouver where the east side also shares many of
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those sad characters it does their public safety minister mike ellis uh former calgary policeman for
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10 years basically told people don't go there it's too dangerous yes sean that seems like a pretty uh
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hard approach to dealing with crime do you think they can actually make it work
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well i would say it's definitely very ambitious and yes i've spent some time in uh up and down
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california and portland and those kind of places uh i have a uncle that lives in san francisco and uh
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you're absolutely right i mean it's it's a beautiful city but uh it it is the the downtown is almost
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completely overrun and it's almost uninhabitable really and which is a shame and i and i think
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that you can attribute it to some of those uh i guess we want to call them the left coast you know
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social policies that i think have kind of let them down uh some of the policies i think are well meaning
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but uh you know this sounds like a little bit of tough love a little bit of uh you know some practical
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measures combined with uh some steps to try to get people into treatment and i think nigel one more
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point there'll be more more to come from the ucp on the uh involuntary drug treatment plant our sources
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say that could be coming to uh to ahead in the next couple days i think our friend cory morgan our friend
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and colleague who wrote an excellent article saying you know whenever you use the word involuntary it
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doesn't sound good but just leaving people to suffer and die in their own in in their own
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addiction that's not kind either so uh well we'll see what she does as you said tough love tough love
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for me you know the the litmus test of all of this stuff is where it hits most people when are we going
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to feel confident that we can have an uninterrupted ride on the c-train or the edmonton transit service
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from one end of the city to the other without having to watch somebody throwing up shooting up
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you know that when they have fixed that i think they will have fixed the problem to most people's
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satisfaction i would say you agreed uh i think the the the downtown cores in both cities now are
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no-go zones for most people uh certainly for for women who may want to go by themselves uh it's you
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know especially around our building in downtown calgary we have we keep narcan kits in the office because
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we're sort of in the center of it and coming in and out there there's there's usually somebody
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using uh so you know what it's going to take going to take a lot of effort because there's a lot of
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people that are suffering from these addictions i will say the effort has started i had occasion
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actually it was that famous occasion when i went to meet uh miss notley and i actually decided to walk
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rather than take the c-train and there was a squad car police car on every block along the c-train loop
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they were obviously very aware of what the problem was they were trying to keep a lid on it so so far
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so good they had another big announcement the ndp made a big announcement uh this morning as well
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i want to call in jonathan bradley jonathan took notes on this and uh jonathan what was the announcement
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so the announcement was albert ndp leader rachel notley has vowed to set up the left bridge teaching
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clinic to serve southern alberta families with healthcare needs if elected premier and she spoke
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about how healthcare is a large issue in left bridge because even though it is i believe the fourth
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largest city in alberta there are a number of people who have to go elsewhere to obtain healthcare
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particularly when it comes to uh childbirth where they often have to drive to calgary to give birth
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so notley said that uh this left bridge teaching clinic would bring seven new medical students and 20
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family medicine residents to increase healthcare access for families um and he spoke about how it
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would have a family health team consisting of doctors nurses allied health professionals and
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you you mentioned a couple of numbers there jonathan so really how many people are going to teach how
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many people are going to learn how many people are going to graduate in the course of 12 months
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which did she give any of those kinds of details as to what impact this would have so the left bridge
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teaching clinic would bring seven new medical students and 20 family medicine residents to the
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area to increase healthcare access and this is to help with uh the shortages of doctors in left bridge
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because there's about 40 000 left bridge residents who are without a family physician well i think uh i think
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the shortage of doctors is going to be more general as the as the year goes by there's an awful lot of
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people in the medical profession who are approaching the age of 65 or approaching the age at any rate
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that they want to they want to stop working maybe before 65. so uh what else what else have you been
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covering for racial notley well i went to an announcement yesterday about seniors where rachel notley spoke how
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she would be investing uh more money into home care to allow more seniors just to allow 20 000 seniors
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to stay in their homes as she said this is about a 100 million dollar increase compared to
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budget 2023 and she spoke as well about other measures that she will be taking she'll be making
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the shingles vaccine free for all eligible seniors and she'll be expanding housing in communal and in
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individual settings to allow uh to provide seniors with choice now i think you tried to ask her a
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question what that was the question that you wanted to to hear the answer to so i was going to ask a
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question a follow-up and the question i wanted to ask was about uh her opinion on the military being
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called in to manage wildfires and then a follow-up i was going to ask was about uh alberta ndp candidate
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drew farrell and she's running in calgary bow about her facing a lawsuit and not lee's lawsuit and like
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the the damages and not lee's reaction to that hmm and how does that go when you try to ask a question
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so i shouted up the question because we're persona non grata when it comes to questions at the albert ndp press
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conferences and what happened was people started applauding as i was asking the questions and then
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ndp press secretary mike mckinnon got it up in my my space and said you're not allowed to ask questions
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because you spread hate speech and then i fired back by saying what section of a criminal code do we
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violate because we haven't violated any section of a criminal code when it comes to hate speech uh
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anything that the far left disagrees with his hate speech nowadays and he was just like i'm not gonna
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argue with you on this you know and like we you want to look if your editors want to reach out and
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speak to us feel free to and then i was so annoyed with that response that i went and posted a video
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on twitter and last i checked it's received more than 30 000 views and there are many positive comments
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on the video praising me and encouraging me to do that again it's really quite important that we show
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that when it comes to honest inquiry the ndp doesn't care to answer questions that aren't on aren't part
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of their basic message and it should give us what what it would be like if they were ever to form
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government and what's interesting is the press secretary for the ndp who blocked me he's a former
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journalist himself he used to work at global news so i was thinking in my head like i found this out
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later i'm like like why would you block on your fellow reporter from asking questions like you were in
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that position once and did you respond to that no i didn't ask him that there but i'll definitely
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ask him that next time yes well that's uh life is full of compromises for some people isn't it that's
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one of the things uh jonathan at least you you stood your ground there and well done thank you very much
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for joining us forest fires what about it sean how are we doing well after the rain that we've had
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yesterday uh we seem to be doing a little better uh there was over 100 yesterday and we're down to
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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
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significantly just in 24 hours so there's a little bit of relief up there um but uh a lot of people
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still remain under evacuation order in drayton valley uh some folks were allowed to go back home in edson
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yesterday and uh we've got more oil and gas shutdowns um probably about 350 000 barrels a day
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well that's three times as much as you know or two and a half times as much as yesterday isn't it
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um yeah i think because more companies are reporting so there's still a couple large companies that haven't
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disclosed exactly how many are uh under under uh shut in but uh the bigger issue in those areas is um
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the gas processing facilities and the pipelines so um uh having a pipeline uh reopened up uh a 20-inch
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line from fox creek up to edmonton yesterday that would be probably oil and gas liquids so uh that's
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a promising sign on the downside uh the weather is expected to get hot again on summer so they're
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looking for 27 degrees in grand perry on friday so uh there's a good chance that these conditions
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could spark up again so that controlled burn that our colleague uh linda slabodian was writing about
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out near banff uh i think that under control now this is i'm i'm assuming so when you look on the map
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there's a kind of a little flame thing yeah you know that bounces under fire warning it was listed
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as under control on sunday all right the uh the other big news yesterday for people affected by the
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fire was uh premier smith announcing uh financial aid if you've been displaced uh for for seven days and
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you're a family of four uh you're eligible for thirty five hundred dollars and uh you know the government is
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working to get uh to get you that money fast so well that's good probably much needed anything else from
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the ndp that we um i think that i think that was the whole of their campaign wasn't it yeah it was
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seniors and teachers and uh uh yeah i think that was it they got more stuff planned today yeah actually
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that's not the whole of their campaign because they resurrected and in my opinion took out of context a
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clip from danielle smith where she was i'll use the word philosophizing on a on a podcast hosted by a
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financial organization and it was an hour and a half conversation with uh with a lot of different
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subjects covered but um what did she say and and what uh what did the ndp do with that well she was
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talking this was keep in mind the height of the covid pandemic yes and this was in october 21 was it
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october 2021 and she was muted what what the ndp made it seem like was that she was musing that people
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who uh went and got vaccinated were no different than the people who followed adolf hitler yeah and uh
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and of course that that sent the ndp into uh all sorts of uh uh excitement and you know they were
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throwing around nazis and and the the nazi word and and all that sort of stuff and the other thing
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in the in there that uh caused some concern was uh uh smith saying that because of all the the the
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pandemic stuff and the pandemic politicians she didn't want to wear a poppy that year she didn't
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felt she felt that it wasn't the right time so i know you've got a different take on it nigel uh
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uh what what what is the real story well i don't know there's a such a different take but you're
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right it was this whole thing was in the context of a discussion of remembrance day and she mentioned
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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
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something to be along the general lines of um the political leaders standing on their soapbox pretending that they
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cared about all the things that you just talked about and this was the events of the war and
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pretending they understand the sacrifice understanding their actions of the men and women in in uniform and
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she was just so it was uh it was hard for her to watch that and and just sort of feel any sincerity there
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and then she as as um as the premier is um known to do kind of expanded the thought uh it was a series
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that was popular at the time it's still out there on netflix called um how to how to become a tyrant
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this is actually quite a it's quite a sensible series let's just go through the the manner in
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which people who probably love freedom in principle allow themselves to be seduced you know serious
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academics like crane brinton the written on this for decades uh the stages in which uh people can
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change their whole political philosophy uh you know the anatomy of a revolution as it were and so she
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went on to say that there are so many people who look at the suppression of their freedoms in germany
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during the war and say well i would never have gone for that yes you would you know at the time it all
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seemed to make sense was her argument and in just the same way people here in alberta who if you say
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do you love freedom they will all say yes when it came down to it they just held their wrists out for
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that well put they buried their shoulder for the for the injection is what it was and accepted lockdowns
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and many other very restrictive measures you weren't allowed to meet you couldn't go and see your mother
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in hospital you couldn't see your father in the old people's home you couldn't go to their funeral when
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they died alone you know it went on and on and on there was a tremendous degree of suffering caused by
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measures that that turned out to be ill-advised and where some people recognize is unlikely to be
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useful in the first place but there was no room for disagreement though if you were not vaccinated
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you were a terrible person and that was the general thrust of the thing i think we all know
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premier smith well enough to say but there is no way that she would ever say that vaccination
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was like the holocaust i mean people don't say that sort of thing nor would she have said people who
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are are vaccinated are nazis but she did say that the way in which people give up their freedoms
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a little bit by little bit is a well-proven political technique for getting control
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people i wouldn't disagree with her so you're saying the ndp may have misled people on this
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i think kind of like they're misleading people when they say that we're going to have to pay for
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doctors and uh we're going to lose our old age pension stuff like that dave i know you find
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this very hard to accept that racial notley and the ndp would ever mislead anybody oh sacrilege
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sacrilege sean um i didn't have a problem with the comments as much as uh the notion that she didn't
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wear the poppy and i think as a public figure you know it's maybe that's that was the thing that
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bothered me the most uh my thoughts on the pandemic uh my mother died during the pandemic uh she was in
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mexico and there was travel restrictions and we my family my sister and my brother and i uh we couldn't go
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down to uh see her laid to rest and it was extremely painful i eventually did get back there after the
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travel restrictions were lifted and it was uh it was very emotional but uh my my sense on the whole
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pandemic thing is um there was a lot of division there was a lot of uh uh bitterness there there were
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a lot of unreasonable rules uh not being you know uh who was it joy moss in edmonton you know he died in
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in the hospital alone basically because of the pandemic restrictions that were going on so
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i think it was extremely hurtful and um there has to be a point where everybody just kind of has to
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move on you know and get over it and uh you know you've raised some good points about the restrictions
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and not being able to gather you know this happened in china people were getting boarded up inside their
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apartment buildings and there was fires and and all that kind of thing so you know there is a kind of a
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thin edge of where authoritarianism takes over you know people literally you could almost imagine that
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the chinese government was using the pandemic for political purposes to kind of repress people but at
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the same time you know legitimate public health measures and i think that most people
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were in favor of what they felt were legitimate public health and safety measures and i think if
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it ever happens again then the experts say that it probably will that there has to be some kind of
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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
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well you know you say that but there actually was a framework where they had an emergency plan for
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all of this every province had an emergency plan and not one of them actually went to the emergency
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plan they all just looked to the federal government said what do we do now and they did what uh they
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did what federal government told them to do you know these uh commandments would come out and i
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remember thinking to myself i wish i could be as offshore of anything as these guys are of everything
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and yet somehow or other we ended up and i'm gonna wrap this up here but they uh we ended up with the
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situation that uh in bc they they kept the restaurants open and closed the churches and in alberta they kept
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the churches open and closed the restaurants i mean same what happened to the bug as it came across the border
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there's obviously change that's uh changed this nature so well and we spent a lot of time in dc that
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somewhere so yeah the uh the differences at least well it was a little bit ridiculous it's like there
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like you said there was no quick response which makes you wonder if there isn't a if there isn't an
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actual right answer on something as simple as that who actually knew really what they were doing so anyway
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so we can look forward to uh your column later on today on this situation i certainly will be uh
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talking about uh danielle smith and the uh the comments that are attributed to her gentlemen it is
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always a pleasure to talk politics with you and we will do it again on thursday see you then and with
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actually you won't see me because i'll be on my bike on the way to somewhere else but okay
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derek will be back derek will be back and i bet we can persuade young jonathan to come in and keep
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company as long as he's not you know unless he's out harassing the ndp right and he should be doing
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that yes i'm sure they're pretty scared of him the most that roared thanks very much sean david thanks
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and ladies and gentlemen while you are still watching think about having a subscription to the western
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00:22:39.280
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