Western Standard - May 27, 2022


EXCLUSIVE MLAs say Brian Jean challenged caucus member to fight


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

169.1539

Word count

835

Sentence count

50

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Brian Jean challenged his colleague Shane Getz into a fistfight as tensions rose during a caucus meeting in which MLAs decided who would lead the party and government, sources in the UCP caucus have told the Western Standard.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 UCP MLA and leadership hopeful Brian Jean challenged his colleague Shane Getz into a fistfight
00:00:04.900 as tensions rose during last week's caucus meeting in which MLA's decided who would lead the party
00:00:10.140 and government, sources in the UCP caucus have told the Western Standard. The UCP caucus met
00:00:15.700 for six hours on May 19 before deciding Premier Jason Kenney will stay on until a new leader and
00:00:21.480 premier is chosen. Kenney announced the previous night his intention to resign as leader. After a
00:00:27.080 leadership review revealed he has the support of just 51.4% of the UCP membership. According to
00:00:33.680 numerous sources, Jean interrupted the proceeding multiple times during the meeting. The events
00:00:38.960 were confirmed to the Western Standard by five MLAs who were in the room when the altercation occurred.
00:00:43.840 They are being granted anonymity since they are not authorized to speak about the matter publicly.
00:00:48.940 Sources said Jean intervened in the caucus meeting repeatedly until, quote, MLA's Jane Getzen said
00:00:54.840 something along the lines of, look, Brian, you got to stop talking because every time you open your
00:00:59.540 mouth, you lose support, end quote. Sources told the Western Standard Jean was visibly upset and moved
00:01:06.900 towards Getzen and said, quote, let's take this outside, end quote. At this point, MLA Devin Dreeshan put
00:01:13.960 his hand on Jean's left shoulder to push or hold Jean in his chair, according to the MLAs. The accounts of
00:01:20.520 MLAs who spoke with the Western Standard do not all confirm if Jean stood up and moved towards
00:01:24.860 Getzen. One MLA confirmed the details of the story, but could not say definitively if they saw Jean rise
00:01:30.740 from his chair. They confirmed Dreeshan intervened to restrain Jean. Quote, he definitely got out of his
00:01:36.900 chair and was moving in the direction of Mr. Getzen, said another who described Jean's movements as a
00:01:42.000 lunge towards Getzen. One MLA said Jean tried to get up, but was unable as he was being restrained by both
00:01:49.260 Dreeshan and MLA Jason Luan. Another source said Jean came into the meeting upset and was, quote,
00:01:55.860 looking for a fight, end quote. Getzen was beaking at Jean with comments like, you don't do yourself
00:02:01.860 any favors, the source said. One described the incident as very awkward, while another said it
00:02:07.660 was remarkably tense. Beyond Dreeshan's restraint, there was no physical contact between Jean or anyone
00:02:13.780 else, sources said. Jean told the Western Standard there was no altercation and refused to comment
00:02:20.040 further, citing caucus confidentiality. Nothing like that happened, Jean said. An altercation? That's
00:02:26.260 ridiculous. In a statement to the Western Standard, Shane Getzen said, quote, I respect caucus 0.83
00:02:32.180 confidentiality and as such have no comment to provide regarding conversations, debates, or interactions
00:02:38.460 between colleagues and caucus meetings. One MLA said they were unconcerned for their safety because
00:02:43.700 the men involved are, quote, old and out of shape, end quote. But another MLA said a lot of female
00:02:49.960 caucus members, quote, feel Brian's actions are unhinged, end quote. Jean was elected to represent
00:02:57.100 Fort Marie Lac La Biche after running in a March by-election to take Kenny's job. Prior to running,
00:03:03.100 Jean publicly criticized Kenny's COVID leadership and called for the Premier's resignation.
00:03:07.140 Just ahead of the caucus meeting, Jean told reporters Kenny must immediately resign to allow for a new
00:03:14.260 interim leader and Premier. Quote, the healing process can't start until Jason Kenney leaves.
00:03:20.340 He knows that. We know that. And we need to start the renewal process of the UCP, end quote.
00:03:26.700 Leading up to the altercation, sources said Jean used his interventions to slander people in the room
00:03:32.120 and call his colleagues' names. He also made crazy and inflammatory claims about the RCMP that didn't
00:03:38.760 reflect how the criminal justice system operates, several sources said. Jean told MLAs they were going
00:03:44.820 to jail soon, that he was smarter than all of them, and that he knows Kenny better than anyone else,
00:03:49.820 one MLA told the Western Standard. Quote, every time he opened his mouth, it was crazy and out there,
00:03:56.400 end quote. Another MLA said. MLAs in the room grew frustrated, multiple sources said. Quote,
00:04:04.120 Brian is just a difficult person to listen to, one MLA said. He's difficult to understand and follow,
00:04:10.720 end quote. Sources said Getson thought the whole thing was ridiculous and said after the meeting,
00:04:15.920 Jean showed his true colors. MLAs also said while UCP caucus meetings can be lively, nothing remotely
00:04:22.820 similar has ever occurred. Quote, for someone to be doing that to another person in their caucus,
00:04:28.620 it is totally insane, end quote, one MLA said. Jean has been clear about his intentions to run for
00:04:35.460 the UCP leadership. He's yet to officially launch his bid. After the Progressive Conservatives and the
00:04:41.200 Wild Rose Party merged to create the UCP in 2017, Jean came second to Kenny in the leadership contest.
00:04:46.860 But the race has been fraught with allegations of cheating, and an RCMP investigation is ongoing.
00:04:53.660 Rachel Emanuel for the Western Standard, reporting from Calgary.