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.
00:03:00.960And 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.
00:03:12.560The impacts of COVID on supply and demand were obvious.
00:03:16.540And we all thought that COVID would disappear in a year.
00:04:26.700No, the economic recovery is certainly going to help.
00:04:29.160I mean, people feel more comfortable as they're going forward.
00:04:31.420Something you brought up, though, was Premier Moe in Saskatchewan.
00:04:34.640As you said, he's been doing well out there as well.
00:04:36.880His policies, when it came to restrictions and such very much parallel Premier Kenney's.
00:04:41.740But Scott Moe isn't dealing with such internal division and these kinds of problems like Jason Kenney is.
00:04:48.440I mean, I'm certain he's got activist doctors in Saskatchewan like Vipond out here and others who have been on his case.
00:04:54.920But it doesn't seem to be stuck to Moe so strongly as it does with Jason Kenney.
00:04:59.420Why is he having such a difficulty maintaining unity?
00:05:02.640Well, that is an interesting parallel because they have run very much in lockstep and Saskatchewan has celebrated what they've accomplished.
00:05:16.240One is our medical community was divided.
00:05:18.620And I blame our medical community, the incompetence of some of the leadership in our medical community.
00:05:24.540And that's, I mean, it's just, I'm not going to name names because it doesn't matter.
00:05:28.020But 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.
00:05:37.020And hopefully they respond in a thoughtful way with budgets that accommodate, with royalty systems, tax systems that make sense.
00:05:43.800But here we are relying entirely upon the medical community, and it can't agree.
00:05:49.000And 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.
00:06:00.180And that's the blame that has been dumped on.
00:06:02.220And 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.
00:06:18.740I mean, one mistake Kenny made clearly was last July when he announced that Alberta was open for business.
00:06:50.300And, 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.
00:07:11.160Because they're overloaded with opportunity.
00:07:13.880And that, to me, is where a province should be celebrating, not dividing.
00:07:17.840So, I mean, just getting into some more speculation.
00:07:21.560I 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.
00:07:27.560We just don't want to end up there again.
00:07:29.840That would be the end of our province.
00:08:01.520You 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.
00:08:16.240But I like where Kenny's at right now.
00:08:18.060So, 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.
00:08:30.420But that's still not going to be enough to really solidify the hornets underneath them.
00:08:34.980What do you think he's going to have to do, though, to consolidate?
00:08:38.480Because, 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.
00:08:43.420There's definitely going to be a divided house.
00:08:45.120And it just looks so frighteningly similar to what we saw prior to when Rachel Notley won in the past.
00:08:53.900No, the shame is on the UCP membership.
00:08:57.160The shame is on many of the individuals who seek to divide the party.
00:09:01.660Some 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.
00:09:09.120There's a lot of this stuff that just has no reason to be in the public domain.
00:09:12.640And I think some serious mistakes have been made by some of the members.
00:09:16.620And they've reached – several have reached out to me saying, how can you possibly support Kenny when he says this and does this?
00:09:23.020And I'm like, well, yeah, but he said it and he did it.
00:09:24.640By the way, Jason Kenney is still the only politician in Canada that answers questions.
00:09:29.200The rest of them all have speaking notes.
00:10:25.060And with the fair deal panel and the goals that it set out, I mean, going out, as you said, listening and talking.
00:10:31.200But they really, really dragged their feet on all the recommendations.
00:10:34.620I'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.
00:10:44.080Perhaps, 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.
00:12:01.120Nobody expected COVID, maybe except for a lab in Wuhan.
00:12:03.980But the bottom line is nobody expected that.
00:12:06.880So 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.
00:12:16.100Then 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.
00:12:24.320But 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.
00:12:37.620Quebec doesn't care about pipelines, doesn't want the fossil fuel industry to exist.
00:12:41.640So 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.
00:12:55.920If 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.
00:13:06.320But I do believe Kenny's the right leader at the right time for this province.
00:13:13.600And 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.
00:13:21.860And that's the case that Premier Kenny would have to make to, to everybody, I think, to keep things from getting too divided.
00:13:27.760I 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.
00:13:34.920There'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.
00:13:40.520A repeat of the, the, the election back that put Notley in power, but.
00:13:45.160Well, 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.
00:13:51.860Once 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.
00:14:10.920Yeah, 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.
00:14:19.240So, I mean, it's a fantastic trait, but it makes it increasingly difficult to manage a party.
00:14:23.880I mean, the left will close ranks even if their leader has done something to upset them and they'll deal with it inside.
00:14:28.560Like 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.
00:14:36.980I mean, but still at the same time, you don't want to silently take something if you don't see it.
00:14:40.460So 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.
00:14:47.340And that's going to be up to him to try and soothe those things, assuming he gets past this, this review.