Western Standard - July 28, 2022


Cory reviews the UCP debate

Mentioned
Danielle Smith Rebecca Schultz Rajan Sani Justin Trudeau Todd Lohan Brian Jean
Cory talks about the latest release of Lich on bail. Vegas hit by flash flooding

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

207.77

Word count

1,025

Sentence count

62

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The United Conservative Party of Alberta held its first leadership debate last night in Madison, Alberta. It was a good one, but there were a lot of technical issues that overshadowed it, and I'm here to give my thoughts on them.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.320 Last night was the first United Conservative Party debate.
00:00:04.940 It was a good one.
00:00:06.200 It was held in Madison Hat.
00:00:07.640 Unfortunately, they had all sorts of technical issues.
00:00:10.880 I'm just going to give my interpretation of what happened with it.
00:00:13.660 So, starting.
00:00:15.320 The best line from the first UCP leaders debate actually came after the event was over.
00:00:20.420 It was from Todd Lohan, and he said,
00:00:22.240 The UCP asked for $1,050,000 in leadership fees,
00:00:26.260 of which apparently very little was spent on a stable internet connection.
00:00:30.120 I mean, the debate was live-streamed, but it was constantly cutting out for extended periods.
00:00:33.960 The terrible broadcast was the first news-making part of the event,
00:00:37.280 and it didn't reflect very well on party management.
00:00:39.860 Leadership contenders, I mean, they were forced to pony up $175,000 each to take part in the race.
00:00:45.780 The least they could have hoped for is a solid streaming broadcast for an official leadership event.
00:00:50.860 Unfortunately, they were to be disappointed.
00:00:53.960 Now, let's get to it.
00:00:54.820 Every candidate got a short opening statement.
00:00:56.680 Almost all of them used those moments to take shots at Daniel Smith.
00:01:00.840 This isn't unexpected.
00:01:02.200 I mean, a perceived frontrunner is always going to take the most flack in these events.
00:01:06.240 And Danielle used her opening to clarify her stance on cancer prevention, 0.99
00:01:10.020 as she knew it was going to be coming up, and it certainly did.
00:01:12.840 It was during the body of the debate, though,
00:01:14.580 where the candidates trying to pull down Smith really blew it.
00:01:18.080 With seven candidates in the race,
00:01:19.500 it's tough for contenders to stand out in the crowd in a debate.
00:01:21.780 Organizers tried to model a format where each candidate got to respond to one issue in question.
00:01:27.120 Then they could choose another candidate to debate with them on that issue,
00:01:30.000 and they get four more minutes.
00:01:31.900 It was a way to encourage one-on-one debates,
00:01:33.840 rather than having seven voices shouting over each other or taking half an hour per subject,
00:01:38.060 because, you know, if you go through seven people, it's just not going to work.
00:01:40.980 So, I mean, Rajin Sani was asked about the environment.
00:01:43.440 She used the moment to attack Daniel Smith on her proposed Sovereignty Act. 0.97
00:01:47.000 And then Sani, then, this is the interesting part,
00:01:49.420 chose Smith as the one to debate for the next four minutes.
00:01:52.980 Later on, Rebecca Schultz got her moment,
00:01:55.480 and she got a question on how Alberta could stand up to Ottawa. 1.00
00:01:59.200 Schultz spoke on how she was able to work collaboratively with Justin Trudeau's government
00:02:03.180 on the daycare policy that was implemented within Alberta.
00:02:06.780 And then she, as well, chose Smith as the one to debate for the next four minutes.
00:02:11.480 Now, Daniel Smith is arguably the most skilled orator in the entire field of candidates.
00:02:15.940 She has decades of media and political experience.
00:02:19.040 She relished every moment she could take the microphone.
00:02:21.660 And for the first half of the debate, she was on deck for 80% of the show 0.98
00:02:24.880 because the candidates kept pulling her into the mix.
00:02:28.180 Sani came across as rather weak and spent most of the entirety of the debate
00:02:31.340 trying to find ways to take shots at Smith.
00:02:34.020 Smith was unruffled and just kept taking advantage of the opportunities Sani gave her
00:02:37.580 to expand further on points of her platform that were considered contentious.
00:02:42.500 Schultz, though, she made the worst strategic mistake of all
00:02:45.540 when she gave Smith four minutes to debate on provincial-federal relations.
00:02:49.500 I mean, Schultz was a cabinet minister in a party establishment
00:02:52.380 that lost the support of its members, much of it due to their inaction in dealing with Ottawa.
00:02:58.300 The issue is the weakest spot for Schultz and the strongest spot for Smith.
00:03:02.520 It was the worst choice to debate Smith on this.
00:03:04.600 Smith mopped the floor with Schultz as she took advantage of the chance 0.96
00:03:07.380 to expand further on her Sovereignty Act while Schultz was on the defensive
00:03:10.720 for her own government's inaction. 0.98
00:03:13.720 Smith was tossed a softball by Schultz, softball, and she must have been thrilled with the gift.
00:03:18.940 Subsequent candidates, I think, realized the error in putting questions to Smith
00:03:22.420 and they finally started choosing others, such as Sani, as their debated opponents.
00:03:25.780 But it was too late.
00:03:26.480 Smith owned the first half of the debate.
00:03:28.660 And due to the crappy feed, the debate had probably lost half its viewers by the second half anyways.
00:03:33.060 And Brian Jean took a strong stance in saying we need constitutional change
00:03:37.020 and that Canada's broken, but of course that requires a crisis as a catalyst
00:03:40.760 and it plays right into Smith's proposed Sovereignty Act.
00:03:44.420 In her closing statement, Smith addressed every other candidate
00:03:47.420 and complimented them on their stances rather than speaking about herself.
00:03:51.600 She finished the night appearing to be on the high road
00:03:53.360 while a flustered pack of competing candidates made a little impression upon the viewers.
00:03:57.940 Smith didn't run away with the debate.
00:03:59.860 The candidates challenging Smith gave it to her.
00:04:02.140 There are still months left in the campaign and there's going to be other debates,
00:04:05.440 including the one held by the Western Standard on August 9th.
00:04:09.000 The candidates playing catch-up with Smith still have time to change tactics
00:04:12.600 and try to draw the interest of the members.
00:04:14.940 So far, though, they've been nothing but reactive and Smith is taking off with things.
00:04:19.720 While all of them say Smith's proposed Sovereignty Act isn't feasible,
00:04:22.360 none of them are presenting feasible alternatives to dealing with Ottawa
00:04:25.080 aside from doing more of the same.
00:04:26.780 That already failed.
00:04:27.500 Members are sick and tired of strongly worded letters
00:04:30.080 and panels that do nothing but talk about issues.
00:04:33.260 A Sovereignty Act might fail for Albertans,
00:04:35.120 but the current course of action from the UCP is guaranteed to fail.
00:04:38.280 We know that.
00:04:39.460 Establishment politicians and media members are aghast at Smith's momentum
00:04:43.060 and they're shooting at her from all sides, but it's not working.
00:04:45.700 She's found a populist niche and she's effectively filling it. 1.00
00:04:48.940 If the contenders for the UCP race can't propose effective alternatives to Smith's plan,
00:04:53.240 she's going to walk away with this race this fall. 1.00