Western Standard - April 11, 2022


Brett Wilson on Kenney’s leadership review.


Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

194.36052

Word count

3,281

Sentence count

249


Summary

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

In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and long-term supporter Brett Macleod to discuss his views on Jason Kenney's leadership bid. Brett has been a long-time supporter of the Kenney leadership campaign and has come out publicly in support of the UCP leader. He also shares his thoughts on the current state of the economy in Alberta.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Well, thank you very much for coming on today, Brett.
00:00:02.480 I really do appreciate it.
00:00:03.900 It's as I said when I invited you, you know, we've got some really tumultuous times provincially
00:00:08.160 in the political scene and such, and a lot of strong views and opinions, including from
00:00:12.820 out of here.
00:00:13.840 And, you know, a lot of people, when it comes to the leadership review with Jason Kenney,
00:00:17.960 are, well, they're beating on him pretty hard.
00:00:20.200 They have been for the last couple of years, and I wanted to see some balance.
00:00:23.720 And you've come out and been very supportive of Premier Kenney in this review, and you've
00:00:27.680 come out with something of an endorsement for him.
00:00:30.440 Yeah, I'm very much aligned with him.
00:00:33.380 I have business interests in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC.
00:00:38.300 So I'm actively engaged and have been in the world of COVID, which has been probably the
00:00:43.680 highlight of the challenges that we've all been facing for the last couple of years.
00:00:47.140 And it's been the, call it the lightning rod for leadership.
00:00:50.720 And I watch the outcomes and what's been happening in Ontario, a disaster.
00:00:56.140 Saskatchewan, in line with Alberta.
00:00:58.900 And you've seen both Scott Moe and Jason Kenney move very much in lockstep with mandates
00:01:04.200 and passports and vaccination protocols and all those things.
00:01:08.200 They've moved in line.
00:01:09.600 And BC has been an unmitigated disaster.
00:01:11.940 And again, I own a gym.
00:01:13.160 I own restaurants.
00:01:13.920 I own activities in various places.
00:01:16.020 And in Calgary, and pardon me, Alberta has stood head and shoulders above.
00:01:19.700 Have we done things perfectly?
00:01:21.500 No.
00:01:22.400 And part of my frustration is that the medical community is divided.
00:01:26.960 And so if you get professionals who say masks don't work and professionals who say you need
00:01:31.880 masks for all ages at all times, then they say mandates don't work, that the passports are
00:01:36.820 meaningless.
00:01:37.180 All of these things become interesting when the medical community, who are the thought
00:01:41.520 leaders that we should be able to rely on, are completely divided.
00:01:45.180 And they're not divided in a small range.
00:01:47.200 They're divided to extremes.
00:01:48.600 You watch Joe Vipond, who is obviously carrying an NDP card, ranting and crapping all over every
00:01:55.480 decision that was made.
00:01:57.460 And yet Alberta is bleeding edge in terms of the COVID response for Canada.
00:02:02.580 So who gets the benefit of that?
00:02:04.740 Well, Albertans, who gets the blame?
00:02:08.200 Kenny.
00:02:08.760 And this is my frustration.
00:02:10.100 The extreme right and the extreme left have crapped all over our leadership, in particular
00:02:15.360 Kenny.
00:02:16.100 I don't see a viable alternative to Kenny, but ignore that.
00:02:20.540 I happen to like the man, not just on a relative basis, but on an absolute basis.
00:02:26.140 As we pivoted and navigated through COVID, I was in trouble in March of 2020.
00:02:32.780 I'm a lender.
00:02:33.840 I'm a borrower.
00:02:34.440 I'm a landlord.
00:02:35.160 I'm a tenant.
00:02:36.060 And it looked like I was screwed on every level.
00:02:39.600 Over the next couple of months, we renegotiated with banks.
00:02:42.300 We renegotiated with borrowers.
00:02:44.000 We renegotiated with landlords.
00:02:46.400 And we solved our problems.
00:02:48.440 But I got to tell you, I was frustrated and scared at a point in time.
00:02:52.400 And so now we've got people continuously dumping on Kenny in particular, claiming every decision
00:02:59.960 he made was wrong.
00:03:00.960 And yet the reality is, when you look at our economic recovery, which is spectacular and highly anticipated, we all knew that the price of oil would recover when COVID fell behind.
00:03:12.560 The impacts of COVID on supply and demand were obvious.
00:03:16.540 And we all thought that COVID would disappear in a year.
00:03:19.520 It took two years.
00:03:20.300 But the recovery, the global recovery of the oil industry is spectacular.
00:03:24.560 And Alberta's participation in that, because we were ready, is also spectacular.
00:03:30.160 So to blame our leader for the challenges of COVID is wrong.
00:03:34.440 The division within the party is goofy.
00:03:37.060 I see some of the stupidest commentary.
00:03:39.920 You know, all due respect, I know you guys and certainly the news, Rebel News, talks about the pastor that got arrested.
00:03:45.740 Well, there's 10,000 pastors and preachers in Alberta.
00:03:48.820 Only two couldn't accommodate working with the system.
00:03:52.220 And those two get all the profile, not the other 9,998 who accommodated.
00:03:58.160 So I just, I struggle with the extremes getting all the noise.
00:04:02.260 And the extremes with that noise have undermined the party.
00:04:06.880 And I wouldn't doubt for a moment that the NDP have signed up in spades so they could vote at this upcoming election.
00:04:12.960 Because they're terrified that the reality of a recovering economy in Alberta will solidify the UCP for the future.
00:04:21.140 There's my rant.
00:04:21.940 I can continue, but I'll let you take it wherever you want.
00:04:26.020 No problem.
00:04:26.700 No, the economic recovery is certainly going to help.
00:04:29.160 I mean, people feel more comfortable as they're going forward.
00:04:31.420 Something you brought up, though, was Premier Moe in Saskatchewan.
00:04:34.640 As you said, he's been doing well out there as well.
00:04:36.880 His policies, when it came to restrictions and such very much parallel Premier Kenney's.
00:04:41.740 But Scott Moe isn't dealing with such internal division and these kinds of problems like Jason Kenney is.
00:04:48.440 I mean, I'm certain he's got activist doctors in Saskatchewan like Vipond out here and others who have been on his case.
00:04:54.920 But it doesn't seem to be stuck to Moe so strongly as it does with Jason Kenney.
00:04:59.420 Why is he having such a difficulty maintaining unity?
00:05:02.640 Well, that is an interesting parallel because they have run very much in lockstep and Saskatchewan has celebrated what they've accomplished.
00:05:12.420 They've punched down, if you will.
00:05:14.740 I think the problem is twofold.
00:05:16.240 One is our medical community was divided.
00:05:18.620 And I blame our medical community, the incompetence of some of the leadership in our medical community.
00:05:24.540 And that's, I mean, it's just, I'm not going to name names because it doesn't matter.
00:05:28.020 But if they can't agree, then how can the politicians who have to rely on input, I mean, it's just like economists and business people provide input to the government.
00:05:37.020 And hopefully they respond in a thoughtful way with budgets that accommodate, with royalty systems, tax systems that make sense.
00:05:43.800 But here we are relying entirely upon the medical community, and it can't agree.
00:05:49.000 And even today, you can find a wide disparity of opinions on whether masks work and whether vaccines work, on whether COVID has any impact on your life or not.
00:05:58.700 You get a wide disparity.
00:06:00.180 And that's the blame that has been dumped on.
00:06:02.220 And that's, I think, so the medical community and the NDP or the left or the woke have captured the flag on waving a flag very inappropriately that says this is all Kenny's fault and blaming someone who's actually in the driver's seat, who's actually navigated and steered through.
00:06:18.740 I mean, one mistake Kenny made clearly was last July when he announced that Alberta was open for business.
00:06:24.680 I own restaurants here.
00:06:25.860 We were spectacularly delighted.
00:06:27.940 And it went well.
00:06:28.700 It went extremely well.
00:06:29.440 Now, Kenny's mistake that day, though, was he didn't say, we're open until the next variant comes and hits us.
00:06:36.620 And there we were three months later with a variant.
00:06:38.600 So he opened and thought we'd be open for good.
00:06:41.140 We all did.
00:06:41.680 We all hoped that.
00:06:42.460 But, of course, the moment the variant came, they blamed Kenny for incompetence.
00:06:46.760 Well, no.
00:06:47.660 We adapted.
00:06:48.440 We adjusted.
00:06:49.440 Here we are.
00:06:50.300 And, by the way, the fact that Calgary today is 30% empty in terms of downtown, that's too bad because most of the buildings are owned by guys in Toronto.
00:06:58.200 Too bad, so sad.
00:06:59.820 The underlying economy in this province, in this city, is absolutely rocking.
00:07:05.200 And I know that as we're struggling to hire people in all of our businesses.
00:07:10.120 Why are we struggling?
00:07:11.160 Because they're overloaded with opportunity.
00:07:13.880 And that, to me, is where a province should be celebrating, not dividing.
00:07:17.840 So, I mean, just getting into some more speculation.
00:07:21.560 I mean, I think what all Conservatives can agree on is the most horrific outcome we could have is having to say Premier Notley for four more years.
00:07:27.560 We just don't want to end up there again.
00:07:29.840 That would be the end of our province.
00:07:31.500 It would truly be the end.
00:07:32.760 If the Alberta economy aligned through the NDP with what's happening at the federal level, it's the end of our economy.
00:07:40.720 This nonsense about having only EVs by 2035.
00:07:45.060 We can't power the EVs.
00:07:46.600 We don't have enough charging system infrastructure, let alone the transmission lines, to power them.
00:07:52.380 The stupidity of what's happening right now on a national level.
00:07:55.740 And if it was mirrored at a provincial level, wow.
00:07:58.900 And that's where I am worried.
00:08:00.200 I mean, just ranting a bit.
00:08:01.520 You know, I don't see either Brian Jean or Danielle Smith providing leadership that's significantly different in terms of taking Alberta and moving our economy forward, period.
00:08:14.040 It's just, I like them both.
00:08:15.460 They're good people.
00:08:16.240 But I like where Kenny's at right now.
00:08:18.060 So, I mean, a big challenge Premier Kenny is going to face after this mail-in vote now and the review, assuming he wins it, say, with a decent number of 65 percent.
00:08:30.420 But that's still not going to be enough to really solidify the hornets underneath them.
00:08:34.980 What do you think he's going to have to do, though, to consolidate?
00:08:38.480 Because, I mean, you know there's going to be – there's a lot of people who have crossed the line of no return within this caucus.
00:08:43.420 There's definitely going to be a divided house.
00:08:45.120 And it just looks so frighteningly similar to what we saw prior to when Rachel Notley won in the past.
00:08:52.180 He's going to have a –
00:08:52.700 Not very much.
00:08:53.900 No, the shame is on the UCP membership.
00:08:57.160 The shame is on many of the individuals who seek to divide the party.
00:09:01.660 Some of the stuff that's been put out publicly should be discussed privately, you know, whether it's a family or a business or a political system.
00:09:09.120 There's a lot of this stuff that just has no reason to be in the public domain.
00:09:12.640 And I think some serious mistakes have been made by some of the members.
00:09:16.620 And they've reached – several have reached out to me saying, how can you possibly support Kenny when he says this and does this?
00:09:23.020 And I'm like, well, yeah, but he said it and he did it.
00:09:24.640 By the way, Jason Kenney is still the only politician in Canada that answers questions.
00:09:29.200 The rest of them all have speaking notes.
00:09:31.040 You asked Justin Trudeau.
00:09:32.120 Is today, Monday?
00:09:33.060 And he'll talk about the stars and the clouds and the alignment with the planets.
00:09:36.420 He has no concept of what it means to actually answer a question thoughtfully.
00:09:41.260 Kenny has and does.
00:09:42.720 And the fact that we rake him over the coals for being honest as a leader, I'm struggling with that at all as well.
00:09:48.800 So the party is divided.
00:09:50.240 There's a group in the right that has gone extreme.
00:09:53.620 And people are pressing me continuously to be more involved with the true separatist movements.
00:09:59.000 I actually like Kenny's approach on equalization and therefore separation, which is we need a better deal.
00:10:05.800 And if we had a fair deal – a better deal is what it takes to get to a fair deal.
00:10:09.720 But if we had a fair deal in equalization and therefore confederation, many of our problems would be ameliorated.
00:10:16.360 It's that simple.
00:10:17.420 Yeah, well, those two words – like that's one of the areas where I've been frustrated with Premier Kenny was I was very optimistic.
00:10:23.820 I was thrilled when he got elected.
00:10:25.060 And with the fair deal panel and the goals that it set out, I mean, going out, as you said, listening and talking.
00:10:31.200 But they really, really dragged their feet on all the recommendations.
00:10:34.620 I'm just wondering maybe if getting out of the gate after this leadership, if we could see some solid action on some of the items that came up with all of that consultation, with all that time with Albertans.
00:10:44.080 Perhaps, you know, if we saw a Premier willing to take a stronger stance with Ottawa, not necessarily independents, but some of the people like me might be more comfortable seeing him going forward.
00:10:53.740 Well, and it's a good point you make.
00:10:56.220 The equalization referendum was somewhere between amusing and confusing.
00:11:01.500 The question was crystal clear, and yet I still have people challenge me that the question didn't make sense.
00:11:07.180 Well, I had no problem with it, and I'm not smarter than the average, but I'm not dumber than the average.
00:11:11.800 We could read the question.
00:11:13.460 The fact that only, what was it, 65%, 70% of Albertans said, yes, we would like a fair deal in equalization is stunning.
00:11:21.760 And the stunning part is the 30% that said, no, we're happy with where we're at.
00:11:26.640 That 30% doesn't think.
00:11:29.460 It's absolutely one of the stupidest.
00:11:32.360 I mean, the fact that we weren't at 90 plus percent is stunning.
00:11:35.500 And I just don't understand that at all.
00:11:38.080 But going back to your point, Kenny has always said that he would do the equalization referendum out at the timing that he did.
00:11:45.840 So when he took office, he told a group of business leaders, I was there.
00:11:49.320 He said it publicly.
00:11:50.200 He said it privately.
00:11:51.120 He was continuously clear that he would do the equalization referendum in due course, a couple of years into his mandate.
00:11:58.340 And no one expected COVID.
00:11:59.960 Nobody.
00:12:00.500 We know that.
00:12:01.120 Nobody expected COVID, maybe except for a lab in Wuhan.
00:12:03.980 But the bottom line is nobody expected that.
00:12:06.880 So the point was that Kenny moved out equalization as a referendum for a couple of years to give him time to solidify the province and set it up for the future.
00:12:16.100 Then the opportunity comes for him to go back to Ottawa and say, look, I have a mandate and 70%, 65%, 90%, whatever it should have been, could have been.
00:12:24.320 But now I truly do expect, I mean, there's, there's, there's go back saying we don't feel like equalizing our, the number of people that are in part of it.
00:12:35.460 We just, we're special.
00:12:36.600 We don't care.
00:12:37.620 Quebec doesn't care about pipelines, doesn't want the fossil fuel industry to exist.
00:12:41.640 So we need to be able to go back and slap, spank and push Quebec in particular, but the feds as a group in terms of Canada's perspective on Alberta and Saskatchewan as their, as to their role in confederation.
00:12:55.920 If we can't get a fair deal, I then shift further to the right in terms of the separation movement that says we need a better deal and we're not going to get it staying in confederation.
00:13:06.320 But I do believe Kenny's the right leader at the right time for this province.
00:13:10.520 That's why I stay where I am.
00:13:12.620 I understand.
00:13:13.600 And the main question, I guess, is, is going to be post leadership, you know, who is most likely to stave off the potential of an NDP government.
00:13:21.860 And that's the case that Premier Kenny would have to make to, to everybody, I think, to keep things from getting too divided.
00:13:27.760 I mean, I do believe a lot of people who are frustrated with him for whatever reason it may be, he opened up too early, he opened up too late, all of those things.
00:13:34.920 There's a good chance they would unify just to say, well, I'm annoyed with him, but darn it, you know, we can't have.
00:13:40.520 A repeat of the, the, the election back that put Notley in power, but.
00:13:45.160 Well, and that's where it goes back to your earlier point, which is there's subterfuge and there's subdivision occurring within the party at the grassroots level.
00:13:51.860 Once we get past this leadership review, my hope is that the economic results, what we're doing in terms of activity, employment, all of the things that, that personify a great Alberta will be attributed in some small way to the existing leadership.
00:14:10.920 Yeah, well, and one of our greatest, I think, gifts as Conservatives and our greatest flaws is that we speak for ourselves and we're individualists.
00:14:19.240 So, I mean, it's a fantastic trait, but it makes it increasingly difficult to manage a party.
00:14:23.880 I mean, the left will close ranks even if their leader has done something to upset them and they'll deal with it inside.
00:14:28.560 Like Conservatives, well, we're going to pull out the pitchforks as we saw federally twice now and we're seeing provincially, which isn't the most productive way to go.
00:14:36.980 I mean, but still at the same time, you don't want to silently take something if you don't see it.
00:14:40.460 So I'm just hoping, I think a lot of Premier Kenny's challenges too, though, have come with internal management and dealing with his own caucus.
00:14:47.340 And that's going to be up to him to try and soothe those things, assuming he gets past this, this review.
00:14:54.060 I guess time will tell.
00:14:56.140 Oh, there's been people issues.
00:14:57.500 We all know that in terms of moving his cabinet around, but none of those are unique to Alberta.
00:15:03.300 Cabinets are shifted and rolled.
00:15:05.000 I mean, you watch what's going on in Ontario and I just roll my eyes.
00:15:08.340 How can the Conservative movement in Ontario support the hypocrisy and the range of outcomes that occur within the Conservative Party?
00:15:15.280 Well, then you get the Liberal Party federally.
00:15:18.380 And again, we'll avoid that rant.
00:15:20.940 That's a separate show.
00:15:22.780 That's a separate week.
00:15:24.420 Yeah.
00:15:25.220 We've covered a lot of, you know, what I wanted to do today and I really appreciate it.
00:15:29.040 Like I said, what I do want to see, I mean, I've got my own bias.
00:15:31.580 Well, that's why I got an opinion show.
00:15:33.040 But I like to see a balance of guests and opinions.
00:15:35.620 And to be honest, it's been hard to find people of profile speaking on behalf of Premier Kenny.
00:15:40.140 And we need to have that if people are going to make an informed choice when they make their membership vote.
00:15:44.660 So I appreciate you coming on and speaking from that perspective today.
00:15:48.660 Well, and that's where I appreciated the opportunity because certainly I watch your work.
00:15:52.020 I enjoy your work.
00:15:52.920 Sometimes you're a little further right than I am in my thinking.
00:15:56.460 But again, we're in the same province.
00:15:58.160 And if we can't have a thoughtful conversation as we're doing right now, what's the point?
00:16:03.640 Well, that's it.
00:16:04.140 We don't have to agree.
00:16:04.980 We just have to have respect.
00:16:06.120 And we've been lacking a whole lot of that lately.
00:16:08.700 I agree.
00:16:09.060 All right.
00:16:10.240 Well, thanks again, Brett.
00:16:11.240 Always good to talk to you.
00:16:12.740 And I hope we get the chance again soon.
00:16:14.760 Maybe we'll start dissecting the post-leadership thing down the road here.
00:16:18.740 Well, I'd be happy to chat about the participants running for leadership of the federal party as well.
00:16:25.580 I am terrified of a couple of the members that are running.
00:16:29.100 Anyway, that's another day.
00:16:30.420 Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:31.260 I've been interviewing a number of them.
00:16:32.620 I've interviewed five so far.
00:16:34.300 And, yeah, I've got a lot of thoughts I could share on what I've concluded.
00:16:37.280 I want to get some more of those interviews in the bag before I really go into it.
00:16:41.100 But, yeah, we're not seeing some real great shining lights overall out there.
00:16:44.800 They'll probably have looks interesting for sure.
00:16:46.940 I'm with you.
00:16:48.300 All right.
00:16:48.680 Well, thanks again.
00:16:49.620 And we will talk again later.
00:16:51.880 All right.
00:16:52.320 Thanks for your time.
00:16:52.800 Thank you.