Western Standard - September 21, 2021


BREAKING： Kenney to shuffle Shandro in a bit to head off caucus revolt


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

122.03013

Word Count

1,974

Sentence Count

128

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

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

The United Conservative Party of Alberta is in crisis. Premier Jason Kenney is facing a growing revolt within his caucus, and there are calls for him to step down as leader. The Western Standard's Dave Naylor and Editor-in-Chief Derek Fildebrandt break down the latest in the unfolding drama.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:00:30.000 Thank you.
00:01:00.000 Thank you.
00:01:30.000 Thank you.
00:02:00.000 Thank you.
00:02:30.000 Thank you.
00:03:00.000 Thank you.
00:03:30.000 Thank you.
00:04:00.000 Good day.
00:04:29.640 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard.
00:04:32.600 Today is September 21st, 2021.
00:04:37.000 You're joining us today for a special broadcast,
00:04:43.240 very breaking news taking place in Alberta right now.
00:04:45.480 I'm joined today by Western Standard News Editor, Dave Naylor.
00:04:49.160 We've confirmed and other media have also now confirmed
00:04:53.960 that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is
00:04:57.800 going to be dumping Tyler Shandro as health minister today at a cabinet to shuffle early
00:05:04.840 this afternoon, just a little over an hour from now. Dave, why don't you fill viewers in on the
00:05:09.960 story? Yeah, according to one UCP MLA that we talked to, this was all in a bid by Kenny to
00:05:17.080 try and stave off a cabinet, full-on cabinet revolt, vote of non-confidence at the caucus
00:05:24.120 meeting tomorrow. So Shandro is out as health minister. As we know, Derek, Alberta is under
00:05:33.000 attack from the fourth wave of COVID-19 with the Delta variant. Hospital ICUs are filled to
00:05:41.080 overflowing. And I think one of the big problems for Kenny is he backtracked on a promise never
00:05:47.740 to bring in vaccine passports said he would never do it and last week he did which also led to
00:05:56.700 another exclusive that we had this morning derek vice president of the ucp party vice president
00:06:04.380 of policy joel mullen who demanded can he go immediately he initially called for a leadership
00:06:11.500 convention as you know but it has now changed his mind says the stakes are too great and
00:06:17.420 and kenny's got to go so it's you know the day after a federal election when you think you'd be
00:06:22.940 talking about fallout from that we're certainly not we're focused on the dealings up up in
00:06:29.580 edmonton with the ucp at the moment yeah uh this is uh it really appears a little too little too
00:06:37.420 late, I think. If Kenny was going to offer up Chandra's head as a blood sacrifice, he had to
00:06:44.620 do it the day that they introduced the vaccine passports, the day that they flip-flopped for the
00:06:49.260 fourth time and introduced the fourth lockdown, that disastrous press conference. I think there
00:06:54.940 was really no, I think that was the point of no return anyway for Kenny. I do not see a way back
00:06:59.100 from him from that point, really regardless of what he did at that moment. But if he was going
00:07:04.700 to offer up, Chandra said, it had to be then. This is clearly just a reaction to the revolt in the
00:07:10.540 party. It is no longer just a caucus revolt. It's no longer just a membership revolt. We have
00:07:15.900 quite a few conservative MLAs on the record now saying that they're pushing for a vote of
00:07:22.460 non-confidence in Premier Jason Kenney. Their hope is to do that tomorrow at a meeting of the caucus.
00:07:27.820 if that is set in stone yet, is not yet determined, but that is what they're pushing for.
00:07:35.040 The UCP caucus is pushing for a vote of non-confidence in the Premier tomorrow.
00:07:40.080 At the same time, we have now confirmation, we had this story, I think, yesterday morning
00:07:47.760 or something, or late the night before, that more than 30 constituency associations of
00:07:54.620 of the United Conservative Party,
00:07:56.100 the presidents of those CAs agreed
00:07:59.120 in a quarterly president's meeting
00:08:00.960 to pursue essentially a recall of the leader.
00:08:04.380 It's a special resolution
00:08:05.460 demanding a leadership review,
00:08:07.180 effectively amounts to recall.
00:08:09.120 And at the same time, as you said,
00:08:10.980 now the fight is broken into the board of directors
00:08:14.140 of the party itself,
00:08:14.980 something that has been considered a bastion
00:08:18.000 of support for Kenny's leadership
00:08:20.340 until just a few days ago.
00:08:22.260 Today we had, we published a letter exclusively from the vice president policy of the party.
00:08:30.100 Now, not just demanding a leadership review, but just saying Kenny needs to step down right now for the good of the party in the province.
00:08:35.180 No, it's in the grassroots now, Derek, as you say, dozens and dozens of grassroots constituency associations calling for a leadership review.
00:08:45.820 Unlike you, I don't think there is a way back for Kenny at the moment.
00:08:49.680 And I guess the question is, how does he read the tea leaves?
00:08:54.520 How graciously does he step down?
00:08:57.360 I think there was one MLA who talked to us today, Derek, who said Kenny would rather
00:09:02.260 blow the whole thing up than take the fall himself.
00:09:06.640 So it's going to be interesting.
00:09:09.240 I mean, Kenny's always being credited with having political smarts.
00:09:13.220 Is he smart enough to see it is time for him to go?
00:09:17.200 Yeah, I think let's dig into that a bit. We spoke to, of course, we protect the names of these MLAs
00:09:23.120 so that they will continue to speak to us. If a source ever speaks to us, we never jeopardize them,
00:09:28.560 so we're not using their names here. But we spoke to one MLA today who said that this is too little,
00:09:34.640 too late. I don't think that's particularly original opinion, but this MLA said that
00:09:39.520 Second, this is unlikely to, the blood sacrifice is not likely to satisfy caucus, Shandro is
00:09:48.460 expected to still remain in the cabinet.
00:09:51.400 He is expected to just trade places with Jason Copping, who is the Minister of Labor.
00:09:56.580 So Copping goes to health and Shandro goes to labor.
00:10:00.600 So he's still going to, he's not going to take a pay cut, he's still going to be paid
00:10:03.560 extra as a cabinet minister, still going to continue to remain an MLA.
00:10:08.520 Not really actually much of a punishment for a disastrous performance.
00:10:12.480 Not entirely a reshuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic, is it?
00:10:17.520 No, no.
00:10:18.520 It's just changing places on a couch.
00:10:21.140 So this MLA said that if Kenny had, he thinks it's no matter what he's done at this point,
00:10:31.760 But if this was going to work, he needed to punt Chandrault, at the very least, from the 0.99
00:10:38.720 cabinet entirely, possibly even from the caucus, maybe find a soft landing for him in the corporate
00:10:43.440 world somewhere.
00:10:45.380 That's obviously not the case, so caucus is not going to be happy, but this is an attack.
00:10:50.660 He says that Kenny will, quote, blow it up before he steps down gracefully, that there
00:10:56.340 was an opportunity when Kenny faces a potential vote of non-confidence tomorrow that the
00:11:02.420 Premier could step aside with at least some grace and dignity and try to allow the party
00:11:07.760 to recover.
00:11:08.760 They only have a year and a half or less until the next provincial election.
00:11:13.160 He says Kenny would rather blow it all up and take the ship down with him rather than,
00:11:19.400 in his words, do the right thing, step aside so that the party and the province can recover.
00:11:24.320 And let's face it, and one of our sources said the same thing, that Chandra was not a very good health minister.
00:11:31.960 I think we can all agree on that.
00:11:33.900 But he was only following the orders, as they say.
00:11:36.620 He was following Kenny's marching orders.
00:11:39.780 As we know, Kenny likes to have his fingers into every little pie.
00:11:44.000 So he was doing what Kenny told him to do.
00:11:45.780 And the results, doctors fighting, nurses fighting him, overflowing ICUs.
00:11:54.320 So yeah, Chandra had to go, but he was only doing what he was told.
00:11:58.000 It's not like Chandra was running some obscure ministry of tourism and culture or something.
00:12:02.720 This was the key ministry for the last year and a half. It's always a key ministry period,
00:12:08.560 but it is really obvious. It goes without saying, this has been the key ministry of the government
00:12:13.120 and every government probably on the planet for the last year and a half. Kenny is a notorious
00:12:18.800 control freak. They've had the senior cabinet committee, I think it's called policies and
00:12:24.980 priorities cabinet committee. They meet regularly. They're effectively the real cabinet making the
00:12:30.120 decisions right now. Shandro's in that cabinet, in that committee. Kenny chairs that committee.
00:12:36.480 I don't know how Kenny can say that. I didn't know what was going on. This guy went rogue,
00:12:42.320 wasn't following orders, and he's going to pay the price for it. He was doing exactly what he
00:12:47.200 was commanded to do. He was operating on Kenny's orders. So it's going to be a very, it's going
00:12:53.900 to be a fascinating press conference. I really don't know how Kenny is going to say, heads need
00:12:59.020 to roll, and it should be that guy over there that I put in the job and told what to do. It's
00:13:05.040 going to, I don't know how he's going to square that circle. No. Interestingly, at the press
00:13:10.220 conference, it's going to be a 3.30 Mountain Time, and we'll be live streaming it on the
00:13:15.460 Western Standard website. Dr. Dina Hinshaw, the Chief Medical Officer of Health will be there
00:13:21.920 and Kenny and the doctor will update us all on the COVID numbers. It's been really bad lately,
00:13:28.500 Derek, as you know, 4,200 cases over the weekend, an incredible number.
00:13:36.340 Yeah, it's, the whole government is in a mess right now. Kenny's being blamed for
00:13:44.760 the collapse in the O'Toole campaign the last few days before the election, which may or may not
00:13:52.240 have cost him some seats. So, yeah, that's certainly a must-watch TV, a much-watched video
00:13:59.220 this afternoon. Yeah, we're definitely going to live stream that on the Western Standard.
00:14:06.620 Everyone will be able to catch that live. 3.30 Mountain Time, you said?
00:14:09.820 3.30.
00:14:10.560 Yeah.
00:14:11.400 I know Kenny has refused to ever take a question from the Western Standard or yourself.
00:14:16.980 Do you think he's going to take one today?
00:14:19.160 No, because we're not invited to even go to his press conferences.
00:14:23.020 Well, we should go anyway.
00:14:23.880 Well, yeah, maybe.
00:14:26.160 Maybe we should go anyway.
00:14:27.760 You'll be like the Kool-Aid man, just coming through the wall.
00:14:30.440 Coming through the wall.
00:14:31.160 I got questions, Mr. Premier.
00:14:32.780 Yeah, I see the sheriffs leading me away in handcuffs.
00:14:35.860 Good press.
00:14:36.840 Things you have to do for the Western Standard.
00:14:38.700 Good press.
00:14:39.820 Okay, this was a special bulletin, so we're not going to abuse everyone's time.
00:14:44.120 I want to thank you all for joining.
00:14:45.260 Remember, the Western Standard refuses to accept government money.
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00:14:58.960 click on Membership, try it free for 15 days, see if you like it.
00:15:02.900 It's only $10 a month or $99 a year to get bailout-free Western media.
00:15:07.180 And, I mean, I'm tooting our own horn here a bit, but if you have not been following
00:15:13.060 the Western Standard for the last year, you actually don't know what's happening in Alberta
00:15:17.080 politics.
00:15:17.900 It is, I mean, when we write the history of the Kenney government, it's going to be impossible
00:15:25.200 to understand it, I think, without the exclusive stories that you can find nowhere else that
00:15:29.960 have come from the Western Standard.
00:15:31.300 So if you want to follow the ins and outs, you have to...
00:15:32.820 Even the Toronto Star today was quoting us.
00:15:34.800 I think we actually, maybe we're doing something wrong.
00:15:37.840 Maybe we're doing something wrong.
00:15:39.840 I don't know.
00:15:40.840 Do you think a special edition of weekly leaks tomorrow for Western Standard members?
00:15:46.200 I can't say 100%, but I think there is, oh no, I could say with 99% certainty, we've
00:15:53.040 already got some weekly leaks for tomorrow, but we might have more than one weekly leaks.
00:15:57.840 We're going to see, but yeah, definitely stay tuned.
00:16:01.420 There is an extremely high likeliness we're going to have more very important exclusive
00:16:06.400 news coming for you.
00:16:07.900 Thank you very much for joining us and God bless.