The United Conservative Party's Danielle Smith and the Alberta New Democratic Party's Rachel Notley make their case for why they should be the next premier of Alberta. Topics covered include: Affordability, the economy, and the cost of living.
00:19:23.500And that increased the cost of everything.
00:19:25.260We eliminated it, but Justin Trudeau wouldn't let us keep it off.
00:19:28.500And now Ms. Notley has not stood up to her boss, Jagmeet Singh, in Ottawa and worked with us to say don't increase that carbon tax any further.
00:19:38.220And in fact, certainly don't increase it 300%.
00:19:40.300no one has any credibility talking about affordability as long as they support a
00:19:44.480carbon tax which is going to increase the cost of everything. Ms. Smith I'm sorry you talk about
00:19:48.500grainy videos but actually we had high definition 18 months ago when those videos of you arguing for
00:19:54.460people to pay for their health care came out and you know what we had high definition when you said
00:19:59.240you wanted to sell our hospitals across Calgary and you know what we had high definition a week
00:20:04.200ago when your deputy premier said that he thought people should pay to use the emergency room. We're
00:20:09.400going to have to leave this right here we got a lot to get to tonight we've got to move on and
00:20:13.380our next question comes from courtney terrio from city news court well thank you uh this question
00:20:17.880is for ndp leader rachel notley now no matter the provider or contract situation uh utility costs
00:20:24.560remain high here in alberta now i know you both touched on previous policies but my question is
00:20:29.240what can government do to bring down the actual cost of utilities going forward
00:20:34.060Well that's a very good question and what we absolutely have to do is find a way to reduce
00:20:42.300those costs. A lot of Albertans aren't aware that in the pre-election period the UCP put a cap on
00:20:49.020what folks are paying for their electricity just for the last four months. What they don't know
00:20:53.900is that in fact come June they're going to have to pay that back and that's going to cost about
00:20:59.100half of Alberta families about 200 million dollars so the first thing that we will do is we will
00:21:05.100actually have those families backs and we won't force them to pay the cost of Danielle Smith's
00:21:11.980pre-election attempt at distracting people from what UCP policy has done to their utilities but
00:21:18.460then going forward we have to find a way to keep those costs lower. All right Niv Znotley that's
00:21:23.020your 45 seconds rebuttal to you Miss Smith 45 seconds. Well the first thing is that we have to0.75
00:21:27.420to build about a power grid based on it being reliable and affordable as opposed to based on
00:21:33.420ideology we have a federal government that is propped up by the NDP that has put on war on
00:21:39.360natural gas our power grid here is almost 90 percent natural gas and yet we have a federal
00:21:45.380government that wants us to be able to be completely abated on natural gas by 2035 that
00:21:50.360is the commitment that Miss Notley has signed on to she wants to achieve that that's going to cost0.93
00:21:54.200$52 billion and increase our power bills 40%. The other thing that's going to happen is they0.98
00:21:59.360also want us to phase off completely in their new green building strategy, phase completely off
00:22:04.400natural gas, which one of the presidents of our large companies has said would cost another $75
00:22:09.720billion. That is not the way to get affordable energy for Albertans. Okay. Ms. Notley, you now
00:22:15.180have the floor for your rebuttal. Well, thank you very much. Well, let me just say, first of all,
00:22:19.260that the numbers that Ms. Smith is throwing around are numbers that have been fully discredited.
00:22:23.660And they've actually been discredited by the people that the UCP hired to come up with the numbers.
00:22:30.080Almost the day after they came up with those numbers, the firm came out and said, nope, those weren't right.
00:22:35.160And in fact, the other report that they were relying on was also deeply flawed.
00:22:40.620What we know is that there is roughly $16 trillion of international investment floating around out there looking to invest in renewable energy.
00:22:49.700And if we are going to be forward looking, if we are going to create jobs, if we are going to position our economy for the future, we need to go out there and get that investment.
00:23:00.120We can't look backwards. We have to plan forwards. That's who Albertans are.
00:23:05.400Now, when we did the phase out of coal and we increased renewable energy in Alberta so successfully when we were in government, we controlled utility costs for the sole purpose of making sure consumers didn't pay the cost.
00:23:20.400And that's exactly what we would do again.
00:23:22.500All right, Ms. Smith, shaking your head during much of that, you have the floor.
00:23:25.820Well, I know Ms. Notley says she believes in science and she believes in experts, but somehow the experts at the Alberta electric system operators, she wants to discredit.
00:23:33.100But you notice that she didn't disavow the 2035 target for net zero, even though the Saskatchewan NDP did.
00:23:40.040Saskatchewan NDP voted with Premier Scott Moe, saying it is unachievable.
00:23:43.720If we want to have a realistic plan, a practical plan, we have to fight back against Ottawa.
00:27:49.360Welcome back to the Alberta Provincial Leaders Debate. UCP leader Daniel Smith and NDP leader
00:28:02.720Rachel Notley are here answering questions that matter to you. The state of health care is one
00:28:07.460of the most pressing issues in our province, highlighted by overrun hospitals over the winter
00:28:12.580months and the struggle for many Albertans to find a family doctor. That topic is front and
00:28:17.780center in this segment of the debate beginning with a question from cbc's judy aldus thank you
00:28:23.940and good evening uh fixing health care isn't just about spending more money it's about designing
00:28:30.020a more responsive and effective system so beyond dollars spent what are your creative and
00:28:37.220transformative approaches to restoring confidence in the system for albertans and uh miss smith
00:28:43.380we'll let you have the first crack at that question. When I first got elected, I was being
00:28:48.240told that the AHS system was on the brink of collapse. You had unions saying that we needed
00:28:53.240to go back to mandates and start masking kids in school. And I said, absolutely not. We are not
00:28:59.040going back to that. If the problem is AHS, then let's fix AHS. So we talked to doctors and nurses
00:29:04.760and paramedics on the front line. We listened to them and we implemented their ideas. And guess
00:29:09.100what? It's working. Hospital wait times are down. EMS response times are down. We have effectively
00:29:15.060ended red alerts for EMS in both of our major cities. Ambulances in rural are staying in rural
00:29:20.780and we're reducing surgical wait times. We're going to be able to keep this going and if we0.99
00:29:25.260continue at this rate we will have completely eliminated our surgical backlog by this time
00:29:29.540next year and be the first province in the country to do so. And your rebuttal now Ms. Notley?
00:29:33.820Well I will say Albertans have had enough of driving hundreds of kilometers to get the emergency
00:29:38.560care, obstetric care, cardiac care, any kind of care that they need. They're tired of looking
00:29:43.220for doctors. They're tired of 15-hour waits in the emergencies rooms. And they're particularly
00:29:47.760tired of having the UCP tell them, oh, the problem's fixed. There is no problem. There is a problem.
00:29:54.160We've put forward a reasonable practical solution. The answer is to get more Albertans access to a
00:30:00.640family doctor. By doing that with our costed plan, we can take the pressure off of our emergency
00:30:06.580rooms, off of our surgical wait times, off of our ambulances. And we can also make sure that nobody
00:30:12.560ever, ever, ever has to pay to see a family doctor. All right. Thank you very much, Ms. Notley. Once
00:30:18.980again, let's dive back into the free debate portion where you're free to challenge each0.91
00:30:22.660other's policies, beginning with Ms. Smith. You know, I heard of all of the things that0.99
00:30:26.660Ms. Notley mentioned when I was in politics last time in 2012, and she had four years to fix it,
00:30:31.280and she didn't. She didn't listen to the frontline. All she did was continue to build0.99
00:30:35.060bureaucracy and she didn't get to local decision making she didn't get to local control we did we
00:30:40.100heard from paramedics what they wanted us to do and it was very it was actually very straightforward
00:30:44.820we had to make sure that they had the ability to drop patients off when they arrived on the site
00:30:49.700so that they can get back out and be there for you when you needed them and that was a very
00:30:54.340straightforward idea that came from the front lines and ms notley had an opportunity to fix
00:30:58.900health care she didn't we're beginning on this pathway we're making great progress and we need
00:31:03.780to have another mandate to continue ms dotley will get you in on this yes no well quite honestly as
00:31:08.580i said before albertans are so frustrated when they're told that there isn't a problem and
00:31:12.260everything has been fixed the reality is is things have gotten considerably worse over the last four
00:31:17.140years the ucp uh cut to funding dramatically they ripped up the deal with the doctors they told
00:31:23.620nurses uh that they uh that they needed to be laid off they threatened to lay off 10 000 uh frontline
00:31:28.980healthcare workers and then and then COVID hit so and then and the result unfortunately is is we've
00:31:36.420got whole cities without access to family doctors uh we've got uh just just last week we had 15
00:31:42.820hour waits in emergency rooms all across Calgary um and we we recently just this year half as many
00:31:51.220doctors are accepting new patients so there is a problem it's very real and selling our hospitals
00:31:57.700and forcing people to pay for private care is not the solution look we we signed a deal with
00:32:04.660the alberta medical association our health minister negotiated that we're going to have 25
00:32:10.100of our doctors on an alternative payment system within the next five years and that allows for
00:32:14.580team practice it allows for nurse practitioners and lpns like psychologists and other health
00:32:19.460practitioners to work together in a team practice so that uh more access will be given on on primary
00:32:24.660care we put two billion dollars towards this and we're making great progress we have more health
00:32:29.380professionals today than we did when miss notley left office 8 500 more in fact including 700 more
00:32:34.580doctors and in april our plan to recognize credentials is working we had 1400 nurses
00:32:40.580who are now licensed and able to to practice in alberta more than any time in the previous
00:32:45.380three years the system is working we've got much more work to do we know that that but we've got
00:32:49.700to continue on the work that we have because i've got the courage i've got the courage to talk to
00:32:53.460to the front line and I've got the courage to be able to implement some of the suggestions that
00:32:57.040they make. Ms. Notley has demonstrated. We're just going to leave it at that question because we have
00:33:00.740another one on health right now. You bet. Our next question is from Lisa Johnson from Post Media.
00:33:05.620There is already a lot of private delivery in our public health care system which has existed under
00:33:10.640the NDP and UCP governments. What criteria would you apply to determine when expanded private
00:33:17.280delivery is appropriate? And we'll go to Ms. Notley first please. Well honestly I mean at this point
00:33:23.180what we would always look at is to get the best care for the greatest number of people for the
00:33:28.940in the most efficient and cost-effective way now as you may know there was a study that came out
00:33:33.900today just today on the on the success of the Alberta government's surgical care initiative
00:33:39.740and what they concluded was that the act the number of surgeries went down and the cost went
00:33:45.420up now that's not entirely surprising because most often when you engage in experimentation
00:33:50.540with privatization. That's what happens. It's the same thing that's going on with the lab situation
00:33:55.300in Calgary right now. With the UCP's intention to increase private lab services, we now see
00:34:01.860Calgarians waiting up to a month to get a simple blood test. It doesn't work. We need to focus on
00:34:07.800public health care. All right, Ms. Notley, that is your 45 seconds. Ms. Smith, over to you.
00:34:12.760We need to have publicly funded health care for both doctors and doctor-run surgical centers.
00:34:18.560We have 300,000 surgeries being done per year.0.97
00:34:22.10060,000 of them are in doctor-run surgical centers that Ms. Notley apparently wants to shut down.
00:34:27.660She hasn't answered the question about how we would be able to replace those surgeries.
00:34:31.400And I can tell you what is actually happening because a lot has changed since November when we started making these changes in health care.
00:34:37.960What has happened, in fact, is that we identified that there were 39,000 people waiting longer than medically recommended.
00:34:44.620We've been cutting that list down by 3,000 surgeries per month.
00:34:48.040We're now down to 30,000 people waiting.
00:34:50.160And as I said, if we continue at this pace,
00:34:52.440those waits will be completely over by this time next year.
00:34:54.820And I think that's something to celebrate and continue.
00:34:56.940Okay, let's open up the floor now to some free debate.
00:35:01.640I mean, again, I think that we need to understand
00:35:04.920that there is a very, very serious problem.
00:35:06.560And we are not a year away from fixing all these problems.
00:35:09.580Ms. Smith, unfortunately, is playing a bit with the statistics.
00:35:13.200Last November, we had a COVID wave and a flu wave.
00:35:17.180and she's now comparing statistics to that period of time it's a seasonal change that she's trying
00:35:22.760to convince is turning into a long-term trend but it's not real what is real is that this year or
00:35:28.880this spring bc saskatchewan and manitoba filled all of their residency spots for family doctors
00:35:35.640alberta for the first time had 45 vacancies and then they offered them up again and there were
00:35:41.800still vacancies and we don't have family doctors coming to work here in Alberta and the reason is
00:35:47.460because Ms. Smith is doing things like referring to them as tyrants and suggesting that people who
00:35:53.120follow public health orders are Nazi sympathizers and these things undermine the ability to attract1.00
00:35:59.520frontline health care professionals. They don't feel respected and they don't feel that this
00:36:04.100government is at all focused on science and having their back. Go ahead. Our doctors, nurses,
00:36:09.160paramedics and other health professionals are the heroes of our health care system everybody knows
00:36:13.960that what i find so interesting is that miss notley isn't running at all on her record from0.95
00:36:18.600when she was premier because she would have to admit that surgical wait times actually went up0.99
00:36:23.240for nine key surgeries she'd have to admit that she didn't actually have the courage to take on
00:36:28.520the challenge of reforming health care i do i have we're already making progress of course there's
00:36:33.160much more to do but i but i am confident that with a new mandate we'll be able to continue making
00:36:38.520this progress the next step of course is building on our primary care system building out continuing
00:36:43.160care and adding more home care so that people can age in place and making sure that we've got that
00:36:47.800that team practice so that anybody has access to health care when they need it there's not like
00:36:52.280how to respond uh yes well i mean i think the fundamental problem here is that albertans are
00:36:56.680deeply concerned at the notion of a danielle smith led government reforming health care in any way
00:37:02.440shape or form she claims she's guaranteed that nobody will ever pay for a doctor but you know
00:37:07.480know, Ms. Smith, I was with you in the legislature in 2014. You stood up and you guaranteed you
00:37:13.260would never cross the floor. Three weeks later, you crossed the floor. Your understanding of the
00:37:18.440word guarantee is very different than that of most Albertans. And most people are deeply,
00:37:24.260deeply troubled at the prospect of you reforming health care based on your 15-year record of
00:37:31.620advocating to make people pay out of pocket. Okay, we are there out of time for this one issue,
00:37:37.360But we're going to move on. And economy, definitely something that many Albertans are concerned about as we head forward, given the historic reliance on the oil and gas sector for jobs and government revenue, the world beginning to shift away from petroleum products.
00:37:53.940Economy jobs are the key issue in this portion of the debate with the first question. Here is Cordy Terrio from City News.
00:37:59.460Now, both of you have made many promises in this election, committing to billions in new spending.
00:38:06.040With the price of oil sitting below budget projections at various times this year,
00:38:10.440and given that volatility, how will you pay for these commitments and stay on budget without steep cuts?
00:38:17.200That first question going to Ms. Smith.0.89
00:38:19.340Well, I must say, I know Erin in the intro talked about shifting away from petroleum products,
00:38:25.500and I would say that that is the notly view of the world.
00:38:27.920that is certainly not my government's view of the world. We believe that we are going to reduce
00:38:31.780emissions, not that we are going to reduce oil and natural gas. We know that with all of the
00:38:36.280exciting things that are happening with carbon capture, utilization and storage and all the
00:38:40.800green technology, we can continue to have a robust, vibrant oil and natural gas sector for years to
00:38:46.320come. What we want to do is make sure that we are finding more opportunities for our products,
00:38:51.380having bitumen be used more for asphalt so it reduces the amount of emissions, having LNG export,
00:38:56.880which creates a brand new stream of income for us we know that as long as we keep our energy
00:39:01.520industry strong we're going to keep alberta's economy strong ms notley won't do that i will
00:39:06.160okay we'll leave it there miss notley your rebuttal um well you know it there was actually
00:39:10.400some elements of what miss miss said that that i actually agree with you know i want to create jobs
00:39:15.280producing energy i want to create jobs upgrading our energy and i want to create jobs reducing
00:39:22.320emissions and reducing emissions is absolutely the focus it's not about reducing or production
00:39:27.920it is about emissions the difference is is that Ms Smith and her caucus have spent much of their
00:39:33.840career pitting emissions reduction efforts against economic growth and when we do that
00:39:40.400we fail on both what we want to do is understand the economic opportunity that comes from investing
00:39:47.680in emissions reductions, attracting investment from other parts of the world, and growing jobs
00:39:52.420while ensuring greater markets for our oil and gas. All right, thank you, Ms. Notley. Let's go
00:39:56.720back to our free debate format right now on this economic question. Ms. Smith, to you.
00:40:00.820Ms. Notley has so many anti-oil and gas candidates. I have lost count, including one who compared it
00:40:06.300to slavery, and I know he hasn't apologized yet, nor have you, or condemned his comments.
00:40:10.940What I would say is that when you take a position of increasing business taxes, you're creating a
00:40:16.800of uncertainty in our sector we took the 12 percent tax that Ms. Notley had imposed brought
00:40:22.720it down to eight percent look what happened year over year we ended up diversifying our economy
00:40:27.360attracting more investment creating more jobs more people are coming into this province than
00:40:32.480ever before and what a bonus we now have more corporate income revenue than we have in our
00:40:37.680history 6.4 billion dollars when you reduce taxes you end up attracting jobs and investment and
00:40:44.240people when you increase taxes you chase it away she wants to increase taxes again we can't let her
00:40:49.200do that ms notley well two points there first of all i find it deeply ironic that ms smith is
00:40:54.000talking about uncertainty and its impact on attracting investment this is a person who
00:41:00.160well started by bringing in the sovereignty act an act that her former finance minister very
00:41:05.680clearly said was going to chase away investment because it undermined the rule of law that of
00:41:11.200course was before she was found today to have broken the law in an effort to support the private0.71
00:41:18.080interests of someone accused of wanting to promote violence against the police all of that chases
00:41:25.440away investment because it is such a profound compromise to the rule of law but also let me
00:41:30.640talk for just a moment about the issue of corporate taxes here's what we're going to do we are going
00:41:35.840to take the lowest corporate taxes in the country and move them to be the lowest corporate taxes
00:41:42.880in the country lower than scott mose lower than doug ford and at the same time we will have the
00:41:50.640income necessary to rebuild our education rebuild our post-secondary and invest appropriately in a
00:41:56.240stable system of health care and all of that creates and attracts investment back to miss
00:42:00.960with? Ms. Notley, it's you and the CDC who need to apologize for Albertans. You flat out lied for
00:42:05.760several months saying that I and my office had contacted Crown prosecutors. She said that is
00:42:09.760absolutely not true and she also confirmed that I did not direct or interfere in any COVID-related
00:42:15.600cases. I would say that we have increased the amount of investment that has happened in our
00:42:20.740province. We have a $760 million renewable diesel project announced by Imperial. We have $600 million
00:42:27.320dollars that came in from mccain's our pathways oil sands group is investing we have an increase
00:42:33.560in the amount of drilling rigs that is not a sign that people have lost confidence in our economy
00:42:38.040you know what it is a sign of that when you stand up to ottawa and you tell the industry that you're
00:42:41.800gonna you're gonna stand up for them they actually increase their amount of confidence and they
00:42:46.280increase their except that we have fewer corporate headquarters in calgary in alberta now than we did
00:42:51.640before in 2019 before you announced your incredibly uh spendthrift uh corporate handle all right
00:42:59.160that's gonna do it for this question we have another economic question coming right now and
00:43:02.520that's coming from judy aldis of cbc thank you uh you've both mentioned uh the desire to reduce
00:43:09.560emissions um both of your parties have signaled the desire in fact to would to move towards a net
00:43:15.800zero future so miss notley we'll start with you can you outline for us specific actions that you
00:43:21.720will take to make sure that that happens well that's a a very good question so let me first
00:43:28.200point out in contrast to what miss smith had said previously is that i was actually the first uh
00:43:34.120political leader in alberta uh over a year ago to uh speak out on behalf of albertans and point out
00:43:40.920that the draft emissions targets coming from the federal government were unrealistic i do however
00:43:47.240believe that we need to come up with a made in alberta plan that includes practical achievable
00:43:53.640emissions limits and then we need to find and incent the investment we have to compete with
00:43:59.800the u.s and the inflation reduction act to get that investment but there's a lot out there and
00:44:04.680we have some of that set out in our proposed in our platform but there's more to do okay miss
00:53:20.340to try to catch up over the next four years,
00:53:22.8203,000 more EAs, and to restore PUF funding.
00:53:26.780All right, let's get Smith back in there.
00:53:27.880Well, I would say that Ms. Notley had the opportunity to address class size, and indeed she put forward a proposal to do exactly that, a proposal that the Auditor General said was so badly implemented, they couldn't actually track whether it was successful or not, and didn't actually know where the funding went.
00:53:44.400We know that the very best people to make the decision about what ought to happen in the classroom are our locally elected school trustees.
00:53:52.440That's why we're giving more funding for mental health, more funding for complexity, more funding for transportation,
00:53:57.700making sure that every school district has the funding it needs to make its own decisions about what the best mix in the classroom is so that they can meet the local needs.
00:54:06.900All right, that is our time for that. Unfortunately, we have to get to our next viewer question, and here it is.
00:54:10.860And this question comes from Alex Hamilton from Edmonton.
00:54:13.640Alex says please tell us one specific policy your opponent has put forward that you agree with and
00:54:21.080why? Ms. Notley. Well you know that's a really good question and and I will say this and I've
00:54:26.120said it before it's actually two I'm gonna go with two. So you know very early on in the UCP mandate
00:54:33.160it was under the former premier Jason Kenney they introduced the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities
00:54:38.520corporation as a means to expand Indigenous participation in our economy. We like it,
00:54:44.760we're going to expand it, and we're going to expand the number of opportunities that would
00:54:50.200qualify for that kind of support with Indigenous communities across the province. Another one was
00:54:55.960they expanded funding of the film and TV tax credit and that was a good idea. It's brought
00:55:04.280more excitement into our industry we will absolutely maintain that uh and we look forward
00:55:08.920to it all right thanks very much ms notley miss smith once again uh specific policies that you
00:55:13.720agree with for the ndp i'm very proud of both of the uh the initiatives that that ms dotley mentioned
00:55:19.720the uh indigenous opportunities corporation has been so successful i think in addressing
00:55:24.760true economic reconciliation and the film and tv tax credit brought the last of us here which i
00:55:29.480think all of us feel pretty excited when we watch that on the big screen. What I think Ms. Nutley
00:55:35.640and I would agree with is that we know that there are a number of doctors who are now wanting to
00:55:40.360specialize and I completely understand a lot of time goes into becoming a doctor and so we're
00:55:45.400seeing fewer doctors go into family medicine and so we I think we would both agree that we need to
00:55:50.120move towards team practice that we need to make sure that we've got team practices for family
00:55:54.840doctors to work with nurse practitioners LPNs and other health professionals to ensure everybody
00:55:59.400gets the health care they need without having to pay for it okay thank you both it doesn't really
00:56:03.360lend itself to much free debate that question but we're glad that we got that one in that because
00:56:08.100we really like that one so let's head to our next question and this is a wild card question on a
00:56:13.080theme that's outside of our main topics here's lisa johnson from post media thank you this
00:56:18.040election may be decided by who albertans trust more ms notley based on the ndp's fiscal record
00:56:26.080in government there are some people who don't trust you to manage alberta's finances and ms smith
00:56:32.880you were found today to have broken conflict of interest rules why should albertans trust you
00:56:39.040ms smith this question goes to you first well first what i would say is that when ms notley
00:56:44.240campaigned last time around she didn't tell anybody she was going to increase the carbon
00:56:48.160tax she brought in a business tax and she also ended up running up more debt than we've seen
00:56:54.240of any premier in our province's history and the results speak for themselves we we saw 183 000
00:57:00.720jobs lost in the first couple of years we had a number of people moving out we had 13 quarters
00:57:05.920of people leaving this province in fact the energy minister at the time said well if you can't find
00:57:10.720a job in alberta go work in bc for a while that kind of defeatist attitude is not what alberta
00:57:16.720is all about alberta is back on track we have more people coming in here than ever before
00:57:22.240our alberta is calling campaign is working we've got more diversification and business investment
00:57:27.440we got to keep that going all right thank you miss smith miss notley the floor is yours
00:57:31.600um first of all let me let me say i guess there's two things first of all i was very pleased uh to
00:57:37.760roll out um a pretty well thought out costing document for our platform and that document uh
00:57:44.080which ensures that over three years, we would maintain a cumulative surplus of $3.6 billion.
00:57:52.140That is in contrast to what the UCP hurriedly rushed out today,
00:57:57.980which would actually very possibly go into deficit in the third year
00:58:01.600and is considerably smaller surplus than what we're proposing.
00:58:04.960And so that calls into question many of the items that they're proposing to Albertans.
00:58:09.600The other thing I would say, I've been in office since 2008.
00:58:12.600I have never actually breached the conflict of interest legislation.
00:58:31.180I have to tell you, when I'm putting together our affordability payments,
00:58:33.900to have to ask whether it was going to be hack-proof from the NDP,
00:58:37.780that's not something that Ms. Notley should be very proud of.
00:58:40.020What I will also say is that when she came out with her costing document, it was almost immediately discredited because Todd Hirsch said he hadn't done the analysis on what kind of impact it would have on chasing away investment.
00:58:53.460Others did. Trevor Toom did. Jack Mintz did. There are several business reporters who did. The Alberta Chamber of Commerce did.
00:59:00.000and what they have said is that would create instability and the instability would chase
00:59:04.880additional investment out it would chase jobs out and we would go back and have a rerun of what we
00:59:09.620did in the period of time that Ms. Nutley doesn't want to talk about which was when she was premier
00:59:13.300all right Ms. Nutley obviously has thoughts on this back to you I do yes I mean obviously
00:59:17.780the fact of the matter is is that many of those people back peddled on some of that the credit
00:59:23.120union has actually said there's not a problem with the increase of the corporate income tax
00:59:28.720to being the lowest corporate income tax in the country and indeed it seems to work okay in in
00:59:34.080ontario because heaven knows they're attracting far more venture capital and business than we are
00:59:39.360in alberta under the ucp but i do want to go back to this issue of the conflict of interest
00:59:45.680legislation this is a fundamentally important issue miss smith you were found to have broken
00:59:53.600the law in order to interfere with the system of justice to assist with somebody who had been
01:00:00.480charged with attempting to get people to commit violence against police officers we're gonna
01:00:06.160let you talk about instability that does not engender trust that more than that it engenders
01:00:12.320fear on part of albertans ms notley the ndp and the cbc lied for months saying that i was calling
01:00:19.680crown prosecutors and my staff are calling crown prosecutors and it wasn't true and that is what
01:00:24.560the ethics commissioner found look i'm a non-lawyer and i know that i need to be able to to talk to my
01:00:30.080justice minister i'm looking forward to advice on how to be able to do that more more constructively
01:00:34.480in the future i think that's important for us to be able to get those kind of of rules set out
01:00:39.440but i will say we continue to have this issue i am running on my record miss notley is running away0.85
01:00:45.200from hers. And there is a reason for that. The Global Petroleum Survey is one of the surveys that
01:00:51.440looks at what our business environment looks like. When she got elected in 2015, we were number three
01:00:56.200in the world. By 2018, we were number 43 in the world. This is the reason she doesn't want to talk
01:01:01.380about her record. Forgive us. We are running out of time. We're almost at the end of the debate,
01:01:04.400so we do have to move on. We do. We have one final wildcard question, and here is CityTV's
01:01:08.580Courtney Theriault. Well, thanks again. Both parties have insisted they would increase the
01:01:12.920number of police officers in major centers. But on the surface, I would only allow them to better
01:01:17.980respond to crimes as they're committed. So in terms of creating safer communities beyond boots
01:01:23.580on the ground, what distinguishes your approach from your opponents? And we'll go to Ms. Notley
01:01:29.020first. Well, that's a really very good question. So, you know, I was pleased to see that Ms. Smith
01:01:34.700made the announcement to restore the funding to police officers that the UCP cut at the beginning
01:01:41.960of their term by hiring the extra 150 officers we matched that and then we also went further
01:01:47.960and said we would also hire 150 more social workers mental health therapists those kinds of
01:01:52.840folks we would to help with with social disorder on our streets because we know that's worrisome
01:01:59.160to people very worrisome we also however have committed to restoring funding for affordable
01:02:05.320housing under the ucp we've lost 8 000 affordable housing units and a further 4 000 people were cut
01:02:11.800off of shelter allowances and that level of homelessness has created a real crisis contributing
01:02:18.120to the concerns around community safety all right miss smith your time well first off we wouldn't
01:02:23.240defund the police again ms notley has so many defund the police candidates on her platform on
01:02:28.760her candidate roster i've lost count of them as well the the frontline services are demoralized
01:02:34.120and we are giving courage and confidence back to our frontline officers we've embedded sheriffs