Western Standard - September 21, 2021


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

Topics
cabinet revolt push
Mentioned
Kenny Derek Fildebrandt Chandra Jason Kenney Dave Naylor Jason Copping Dina Hinshaw Chandrault COVID-19 Shandro Premier
PPC Rally in Strathmore Alberta Alberta doctor says hospital capacity numbers manipulated by AHS

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

122.03

Word count

1,974

Sentence count

128

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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.
00:14:48.640 We do this supported purely by readers who become members and are advertisers.
00:14:55.020 If you are not yet a member of the Western Standard, please go to westernstandardonline.com,
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.