Western Standard - May 19, 2023


Alberta leaders debate 2023 HIGHLIGHTS

Mentioned
Notley Smith Jason Kenney Scott Moe Alex
MORGAN： 'Premier Smith's EMS policy showing remarkable success.' The Little Parties in the #AlbertaElection2023 race...

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

176.86

Word count

1,552

Sentence count

112

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Alberta s premier, Rachel Notley, sits down with her challenger, Jason Kenney, to discuss her vision for the future of Alberta's energy grid, health care, education, and infrastructure, and the economy.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This election, Albertans have a choice between a UCP government that has lowered taxes,
00:00:05.140 balanced the budget, and returned Alberta to its place as the economic powerhouse of Canada.
00:00:11.060 Or we can choose to go backward with the same failed NDP policies that hiked taxes,
00:00:16.500 drove out jobs and investment, and almost bankrupted our province. We can't afford to go back.
00:00:22.880 Tonight, I want to talk about a better future for Alberta, where we fix health care,
00:00:27.260 lower household costs, and create jobs. This election is about trust, and it's about leadership.
00:00:34.680 We have to build a power grid based on it being reliable and affordable, as opposed to based on ideology.
00:00:41.840 We have a federal government that is propped up by the NDP that has put war on natural gas.
00:00:47.740 Our power grid here is almost 90% natural gas, and yet we have a federal government that wants us
00:00:54.340 to be able to be completely abated on natural gas by 2035. That is the commitment that Ms. Notley has signed on to.
00:01:00.400 A lot of Albertans aren't aware that in the pre-election period, the UCP put a cap on what folks are paying for their electricity
00:01:08.440 just for the last four months. What they don't know is that, in fact, come June, they're going to have to pay that back.
00:01:14.760 And that's going to cost about half of Alberta families about $200 million.
00:01:20.420 What we know is that there is roughly $16 trillion of international investment floating around out there looking to invest in renewable energy.
00:01:29.580 Well, I know Ms. Notley says she believes in science and she believes in experts,
00:01:32.880 but somehow the experts at the Alberta's electric system operator, she wants to discredit.
00:01:36.940 But you notice that she didn't disavow the 2035 target for net zero, even though the Saskatchewan NDP did.
00:01:43.440 Saskatchewan NDP voted with Premier Scott Moe saying it is unachievable.
00:01:47.420 If we want to have a realistic plan, a practical plan, we have to fight back against Ottawa.
00:01:52.080 This candidate will not. We have to fight back against Ottawa and make sure that we put a target that's reasonable,
00:01:57.680 realistic and achievable. And that's carbon neutrality by 2050.
00:02:01.080 You want to fight with Ottawa. You want to fight with the media.
00:02:04.340 You want to fight, frankly, with your former self. It's actually quite exhausting.
00:02:09.040 Here's what I need Albertans to know. I will always stand up for Alberta.
00:02:14.560 I will always stand up for the interests of Albertans.
00:02:17.660 I did that when I was Premier. I made sure we got a pipeline to Tidewater, the first one in 50 years.
00:02:24.300 I did that standing up against the B.C. government.
00:02:26.940 I did it standing up with a federal government.
00:02:30.120 And that's my record. And that will also be my blueprint.
00:02:34.320 So beyond dollars spent, what are your creative and transformative approaches to restoring confidence in the system for Albertans?
00:02:43.160 And Ms. Smith, we'll let you have the first crack at that question.
00:02:46.160 When I first got elected, I was being told that the AHS system was on the brink of collapse.
00:02:52.920 You had unions saying that we needed to go back to mandates and start masking kids in school. 0.88
00:02:58.160 And I said, absolutely not. We are not going back to that.
00:03:01.220 If the problem is AHS, then let's fix AHS.
00:03:04.480 So we talked to doctors and nurses and paramedics on the front line.
00:03:07.300 We listened to them and we implemented their ideas.
00:03:09.820 And guess what? It's working.
00:03:11.640 Hospital wait times are down. EMS response times are down.
00:03:14.880 We have effectively ended red alerts for EMS in both of our major cities.
00:03:19.820 Ambulances in rural are staying in rural and we're reducing surgical wait times.
00:03:24.020 There is a problem. We've put forward a reasonable, practical solution.
00:03:28.420 The answer is to get more Albertans access to a family doctor.
00:03:32.800 By doing that with our costed plan, we can take the pressure off of our emergency rooms,
00:03:38.380 off of our surgical wait times, off of our ambulances.
00:03:41.100 And we can also make sure that nobody ever, ever, ever has to pay to see a family doctor.
00:03:47.920 We have more health professionals today than we did when Ms. Notley left office. 0.89
00:03:51.740 8,500 more, in fact, including 700 more doctors.
00:03:54.940 And in April, our plan to recognize credentials is working.
00:03:58.460 We had 1,400 nurses who are now licensed and able to practice in Alberta,
00:04:03.240 more than any time in the previous three years.
00:04:05.420 Your numbers around job losses, I think we need to kind of talk a little bit about that, Danielle. 0.74
00:04:10.760 Many, many experts have reviewed that and they've said they're absolutely ridiculous.
00:04:14.780 In fact, at the end of our term, we had, after a very difficult recession,
00:04:20.240 we came out about 45,000 jobs ahead.
00:04:22.980 These kinds of policies end up chasing away investment and it costs average taxpayers,
00:04:27.920 it costs average citizens the most.
00:04:29.700 Ms. Notley won't agree to that. 0.97
00:04:30.660 And the reason for that is she wants to increase corporate taxes, 1.00
00:04:33.940 which are going to, once again, chase out investment, just like it did last time.
00:04:37.340 Alex says, please tell us one specific policy your opponent has put forward that you agree with and why.
00:04:45.020 Very early on in the UCP mandate, it was under the former Premier, Jason Kenney,
00:04:49.720 they introduced the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation
00:04:53.160 as a means to expand Indigenous participation in our economy.
00:04:58.100 We like it.
00:04:59.200 We're going to expand it.
00:05:00.140 Another one was they expanded funding of the film and TV tax credit.
00:05:07.040 And that was a good idea.
00:05:08.900 It's brought more excitement into our industry.
00:05:11.220 We will absolutely maintain that.
00:05:13.420 I'm very proud of both of the initiatives that Ms. Notley mentioned.
00:05:17.720 The Indigenous Opportunities Corporation has been so successful,
00:05:21.140 I think, in addressing true economic reconciliation.
00:05:24.640 And the film and TV tax credit brought the last of us here,
00:05:27.160 which I think all of us feel pretty excited when we watch that on the big screen.
00:05:31.700 We are now going to head to our closing remarks.
00:05:34.300 Each leader will have 90 seconds.
00:05:36.440 I first want to say how much of an honour it's been to be your Premier for these last seven months.
00:05:42.880 I've been overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of Albertans that I meet every single day.
00:05:48.140 These last three years have been difficult for all of us.
00:05:52.100 And now the wildfires are testing our resolve as a people once more.
00:05:55.740 But I know that together we will overcome every challenge we face,
00:06:00.160 whether it's a pandemic, flood, fire, or economic headwinds.
00:06:04.020 We will take care of one another and we will move our province forward to a better future.
00:06:09.260 My commitment to each of you, if re-elected, is to serve you with everything I have
00:06:14.440 and to the best of my ability, however imperfect that may be at times.
00:06:19.460 I will continue to focus on growing and diversifying our amazing economy,
00:06:24.520 making life more affordable and our communities safer,
00:06:28.060 and improving health care for all Albertans.
00:06:30.800 And I will carefully listen to you and my UCP caucus,
00:06:34.940 because whatever I may have said or thought in the past while I was on talk radio,
00:06:39.500 Albertans are my bosses now, and my oath is to serve you and no one else.
00:06:45.280 I love this province and everything it stands for.
00:06:49.460 We are a land of entrepreneurs and innovators, of pioneers and farmers,
00:06:54.220 of families and communities.
00:06:56.540 A place where the best and brightest come from every corner of the world
00:07:00.100 to join us in building one of the greatest places on earth
00:07:03.520 to live and work and raise a family.
00:07:05.760 From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
00:07:08.100 Tonight, ask yourself, who do you trust to build a better future?
00:07:13.360 Who will focus on the things that actually matter to you?
00:07:17.160 Now, Ms. Smith has spent her entire career campaigning for Albertans to pay out-of-pocket
00:07:24.120 for basic health care.
00:07:26.020 She's also campaigned to pull Alberta out of the Canada pension plan,
00:07:30.480 something that would create huge instability in your retirement.
00:07:34.960 Today, she was found to have broken the law by interfering with our justice system. 1.00
00:07:40.780 This is just not how our province should be run.
00:07:45.100 Every day is a new drama.
00:07:47.220 You just don't need to put up with this.
00:07:49.560 Enough is enough.
00:07:51.300 So my offer to you is stable, predictable, thoughtful leadership that you can count on.
00:07:57.040 It's time to get back to the things that matter to people.
00:08:00.080 I will make life more affordable, capping car insurance and lowering your utilities.
00:08:05.060 I will support our entrepreneurial spirit by cutting to zero small business taxes and creating
00:08:11.520 more jobs.
00:08:12.600 And because I'm passionate about making sure your family has health care that you always
00:08:18.140 need without paying for it, I have a balanced, costed plan to make sure you get a family doctor.
00:08:24.000 So that is a better future for Alberta.
00:08:26.840 Now, you may not always agree with me, and I may not have always gotten it right, but I
00:08:31.020 say what I mean, and I mean what I say.
00:08:33.020 If I am premier, again, I will work daily to earn your trust and to focus on your priorities.
00:08:41.360 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited
00:08:46.040 access.