Western Standard - May 14, 2021


Expelled MLA Drew Barnes Speaks Out


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

150.15816

Word count

1,614

Sentence count

109

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Western Standard reporter Nadine Wellwoodwoodwood is joined by Cypress-Medicine Hat Independent Member of the Legislative Assembly Drew Barnes to discuss Todd Loewen's letter calling for Premier Jason Kenney to resign.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's my duty to speak up on behalf of my constituents, to speak up with their ideas, their concerns, and the direction that they'd like to see Alberta go.
00:00:09.260 And that's what I was doing.
00:00:30.000 Hi everyone, Nadine Wellwood, correspondent for the Western Standard.
00:00:35.060 And I am joined today by MLA Drew Barnes for Cypress Medicine Hat.
00:00:41.480 And Drew Barnes yesterday had, I think, maybe a little bit surprising about the timing of things, but maybe not necessarily the outcome.
00:00:52.380 So welcome, MLA Barnes.
00:00:55.080 Nadine, thanks for talking to me.
00:00:57.380 My pleasure.
00:00:58.580 I'm going to jump right in.
00:00:59.720 And I know your time is limited.
00:01:00.900 And I wanted to get your take on why you felt or why you think MLA Loewen, Todd Loewen, put that letter out on that Facebook post.
00:01:13.940 Yeah, well, thank you for that.
00:01:15.880 You know, let's start there.
00:01:17.260 You know, Todd Loewen, in the time I've worked with him, is a solid, solid conservative, hard worker, very respectful, excellent representative of his constituents.
00:01:28.880 So think of the frustration, the desire for change, you know, how he must have felt when he actually went public calling for Premier Kenney to resign.
00:01:39.980 It's a reflection, you know, it's a reflection, you know, it's a reflection, you know, in his letter, he said of what his constituents were saying.
00:01:45.280 It's a reflection of what I'm hearing around Alberta every day.
00:01:48.760 And yeah, so I mean, so when Todd Loewen, you know, a respectful, solid conservative got to the point where he felt the need to go public, you know, asking for a resignation, it kind of says where Albertans are at.
00:02:02.980 You know, Albertans, you know, asking for Premier Kenney to pivot, to be more transparent.
00:02:10.820 And, you know, I'd like to sum it up this way.
00:02:14.400 You know, polling right now in Alberta shows that in Alberta, that Premier Kenney's popularity is the same as Justin Trudeau's.
00:02:23.740 You know, that should be a signal, shouldn't it?
00:02:26.340 Absolutely, it should.
00:02:30.020 What has the reaction from your constituents been?
00:02:34.860 Oh, thanks for that.
00:02:36.120 I'm so grateful.
00:02:37.120 I'm so honoured to represent Cypress Medicine Hat and Albertans.
00:02:41.280 In less than 24 hours, we've had hundreds of people phone, email, text, direct message.
00:02:48.460 And the response has been, first of all, overwhelming in support of myself, my position and my statement.
00:02:56.800 We did have a statement saying this is an opportunity to speak even louder for, as an independent member of the MLA, to speak even louder for grassroots conservatives, for all Albertans.
00:03:08.660 Albertans who right now, Nadine, are feeling very, very strongly that their ideas are not getting to the cabinet or not being debated on the floor of the legislature.
00:03:17.420 So this is my opportunity to even do better for that.
00:03:21.620 And so I'm very, very honoured and grateful that so many of the representatives reached out and said they're pleased with this and are behind me.
00:03:29.320 Thank you.
00:03:30.500 So you have been typically quite critical and outspoken regarding Jason Kenney's decisions, especially around these no more lockdowns and whatnot.
00:03:39.580 But even before that, he was a fair deal panel.
00:03:43.460 But yet yesterday, you were surprisingly silent, quiet on this, and you didn't come out in support or in opposition of Todd Lowen's letter.
00:03:54.980 And yet there was another MLA who did so.
00:03:57.720 And yet you were the one who was expelled from caucus.
00:04:02.100 Yeah.
00:04:03.440 Yeah.
00:04:04.040 I, you know, to me, I guess it means, you know, even though Premier Kenney had been saying that he welcomed dissenting public discussion of government ideas and direction for this to have got to that level.
00:04:17.520 I, I guess he, I guess he didn't, you know, I, I'll say it again, you know, we were in a situation where when I'm not in cabinet, I'm a, I'm a, not a member of the government.
00:04:31.560 It's my duty to speak up on behalf of my constituents, to speak up with their ideas, their concerns, and the direction that they'd like to see Alberta go.
00:04:41.360 And that's what I was doing.
00:04:43.060 You know, at times I said, yeah, the, the government's on the right track.
00:04:47.080 I think back to when they came out with the regional approach to the COVID restrictions and lockdowns initially, when it was regionally based and in Cyprus Medicine had, I think we had eight cases.
00:04:58.000 You know, that's what I was saying at that point.
00:04:59.940 Then when the lockdown tightened and changed and became, you know, more, more, more complete across Alberta, I changed what I was saying, because that's what my constituents were saying to me.
00:05:10.760 So, so yeah, you know, again, it, you know, MLA Lowen got to the point where he felt he needed to do something.
00:05:18.160 That's indicative of where Albertans are at and Albertans feeling that the Premier Kenney hasn't met their expectations.
00:05:24.860 And yeah, I, I guess, I guess I have to be focused on speaking out in a different way as an independent MLA.
00:05:35.660 And I am absolutely prepared and happy and optimistic to do that.
00:05:40.140 So obviously you're going to be moving forward as an independent, but you're remaining.
00:05:45.440 Yep.
00:05:45.900 Yeah, that's my plan.
00:05:49.000 I spent some time last night talking to my wife and my family.
00:05:52.800 I have three adult boys and then I'll be talking to my constituents to get some support and direction and some feedback from them.
00:06:00.940 And, and then at that point in time, I will make the best decisions at this point in time.
00:06:07.800 It looks like for the foreseeable future, I will be happy and honored to be an independent member of the Alberta legislature for 50,000 people of Cypress Medicine Hat.
00:06:18.640 One of 87 people paid to speak on behalf of 4.4 million of us.
00:06:24.140 It's a, it's an opportunity as well.
00:06:25.640 Now, Emily Barnes, how did we get here?
00:06:29.780 You know, what has Jason Kenney done or not done, or what could he have done differently to have avoided much of this?
00:06:39.120 Yeah.
00:06:39.480 Well, thank you for that.
00:06:40.580 I just think yesterday in what was a seven or eight hour meeting and voting and time, if at the premier at some point would have acknowledged that, that he's part of the problem.
00:06:51.540 You know, Albertans are saying to me daily that the Philly hasn't met expectations, that democratic reform hasn't happened, that there's been too much, you know, government's gotten too big.
00:07:05.040 There's been too much cronyism, too much, you know, insiders getting opportunities, you know, and those are the things that instead we could have spent some time team building, building unity, talking about, working on, understanding each other better.
00:07:18.500 Instead, we spent the day ejecting myself and MLA Lohan from caucus.
00:07:26.620 And, you know, again, it was a surprise.
00:07:31.120 How we got here over two years, you know, we've seen a steady and consistent drop in the UCP polls since election.
00:07:39.520 We've seen a steady and a consistent drop in Premier Kenney's popularity.
00:07:43.720 To me, that only suggests that you need to pivot, you need to change.
00:07:51.360 Maybe the best change, maybe one of the easiest would be to start giving caucus more involvement and more direction and those kind of things.
00:07:58.660 Those of us that weren't in cabinet, of course, different now with me as an independent.
00:08:03.220 And again, I thought some acknowledgement that some pivoting would be beneficial for Albertans would have went a long way, but didn't happen.
00:08:14.880 And on that note, you know, this has got to feel a little bit like a betrayal of some of your colleagues.
00:08:24.800 There's, you know, they voted in a majority majority to have yourself and MLA Lohan removed.
00:08:33.560 You know, where are they at with that?
00:08:35.400 Because you had 17 people who stood up against no more lockdowns.
00:08:39.900 And, you know, where were they yesterday?
00:08:41.660 Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Nadine.
00:08:44.240 A lot of my colleagues spoke very, very strongly in support of me and MLA Lohan.
00:08:50.420 And I'm very, very grateful for that.
00:08:53.820 Of course, and even the ones that spoke against me, I get it.
00:08:57.540 We have different perspectives.
00:08:58.980 We see things different.
00:09:00.840 We hear things different.
00:09:02.300 We make different decisions.
00:09:03.700 So I have zero hard feelings against anybody in caucus.
00:09:09.280 I, you know, we're all here.
00:09:12.160 You know, I'm here for the betterment of Alberta families, communities, free enterprise and prosperity.
00:09:17.420 And they are too.
00:09:18.660 And let's just put this behind us.
00:09:20.880 Let's focus on the future.
00:09:22.240 And let's focus on that.
00:09:23.880 You know, again, it's unfortunate that seven or eight hours was spent on that rather than Alberta families and free enterprise and communities.
00:09:33.980 But that is what it is now.
00:09:35.400 And again, my goal going forward will be to be the voice of grassroots, conservative Albertans that care about a brighter future for our kids and our grandkids, our economy, our communities, our relationship with our Canadian provinces.
00:09:54.500 You know, COVID sometimes feels like it's overwhelming everything.
00:09:59.780 And we've got so many challenges with COVID, mental health, spiritual health, physical health.
00:10:05.480 But there's a lot of Cypress Medicine Hatters that still speak strongly about the need to really push stronger against Ottawa with other Canadian partners like Saskatchewan for a better deal for Alberta families. 0.84
00:10:19.740 And, you know, so I look forward for the chance to do that.
00:10:23.800 Well, MLA Barnes, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.
00:10:27.380 And hopefully we can do this again.
00:10:30.420 Yes, we sure can.
00:10:32.360 Nadine, I appreciate the time and thank you very much.
00:10:35.480 Wonderful.
00:10:36.600 Nadine Walwood, Western Standard correspondent, speaking with MLA, Drew Barnes, Cypress Medicine Hat.
00:10:42.420 Thank you again.
00:10:43.800 Thank you.
00:10:44.540 Bye for now.