Western Standard - Initiative to change the UCP leadership

00:00:00.000 that initiative that's going on there with the wild and crazy world of the united conservative

00:00:04.800 party and the constant battles hey david how's it going hey cory good to see you i believe the last

00:00:12.080 time i was on your show wasn't quite as uh beautiful so things are really improving at

00:00:16.380 the western standard i see our technology has come a long way yeah it's going up and also i

00:00:22.280 want to say that the last time i was on your show i was a little bit inebriated and a little unkind

00:00:26.460 and i'd like to apologize for that and uh and i did say that um if aaron o'toole didn't win 10

00:00:33.680 seats my whole reputation was on the line so i have to eat crow on that and aaron o'toole was not

00:00:38.340 nearly as good as i thought he was but you were right on that so i just wanted to thank you for

00:00:42.760 that it was a good part of the early stages of the show to learn about everything i've been developing

00:00:47.680 as well so okay when we start getting a little because i got all worked up during that too i'm a

00:00:52.980 much better temper now i wait until after the show before i really start cursing and swearing

00:00:56.200 so it was all part of the building so it's great yeah absolutely so getting on a little more

00:01:02.580 contemporary though and no less uh contentious uh you guys i guess your group is take back alberta

00:01:08.660 and i the bottom line is you're organizing to make sure enough people go to red deer on april 9th

00:01:14.260 and register and vote to uh change out the the leader of the ucp i guess that's kind of it in a

00:01:18.840 nutshell right well take back alberta's more than just that we're we're very much an educational

00:01:24.220 organization that's trying to teach civic values to albertans because as you probably know canada's

00:01:30.240 the least civically engaged nation on earth less than one percent of canadians own memberships and

00:01:34.900 political parties and less than 0.15 of those people donate volunteer and sit on boards and i mean

00:01:42.340 ask the former uh political activist yourself to some degree i'm sure you know how little people

00:01:47.200 like to get involved in these things right oh yeah um so what i really see take back alberta

00:01:53.840 ass is a way of showing people how to get involved and how to how to actually make a difference because

00:01:58.960 there's a lot of people that are very angry with jason kenny i think we saw a poll recently that came

00:02:02.800 out the western standard saying that 60 over 60 percent of ucp members want jason kenny to uh resign so

00:02:10.720 i think i think a lot of albertans want this but a lot of them don't know how the process works

00:02:15.680 and things like special general meetings or annual general meetings that's not part of their regular

00:02:20.680 life so you got to kind of walk them through the process but we've been massively successful at

00:02:25.580 explaining it to people i think okay so while we've got the meeting coming up and there's some

00:02:30.200 deadlines there's some numbers there's some costs associated with it i mean whether people wants to

00:02:34.580 go there and support premier kenny or or to vote against maybe if you could walk us through what the

00:02:39.220 process is if they wanted to take part in that yeah so it's uh you have to be a member of the united

00:02:44.320 conservative party before april 9th and what sorry before march 19th and that's because there's a 21

00:02:51.680 day cool off period before an event just so like people can't find out what the numbers are and dump

00:02:56.560 a whole bunch of more people in so you can help plan the event things like that you also have to spend

00:03:01.360 99 on what's called an sgm ticket special general meeting ticket and that ticket is um a part of the

00:03:10.240 covering the costs of the event we think there's going to be a lot more people than the party had

00:03:14.480 planned for initially the party planned for 2 800 people to attend i believe this morning i heard

00:03:19.680 that it might be over 9 000 although that's not fully confirmed but uh you're here to hear first

00:03:24.560 that uh there are speculations that it could be over 9 000 already that will make uh for quite some

00:03:31.760 logistical challenges i mean a lot of people want to take part in this this is what was contentious and a

00:03:36.640 lot of people were upset about with the push for leadership review a lot wanted to give members

00:03:40.880 the ability to vote from home or you know remote vote or mail-in vote or something because getting

00:03:46.160 people physically to a location for that many on a vote is i mean the lineups and everything uh even if

00:03:52.320 it's half of that speculation are going to be quite something at that center yeah so i think well we know

00:03:58.240 for a fact that 4 900 people have signed up that was in don bray's article yesterday i believe but um i

00:04:05.520 believe it's a lot more than that uh there seems to be a some technical issues around registrations

00:04:11.520 right now their site seems to be going down quite frequently so they're not actually able to get the

00:04:16.400 exact number but i believe that we'll see somewhere between 12 and 15 000 people attend as for the

00:04:22.000 logistics my organization is providing parking and we are planning staging areas for members of our

00:04:29.360 organization which will have shuttle buses so you don't have to worry about parking um if you'd like to

00:04:35.760 get involved with that or help us in any way you can sign up at www.tba2022.ca and you will receive

00:04:44.400 a phone call within 24 to 48 hours asking how you'd like to be involved um so encouraging people to

00:04:51.680 get involved on that because we are going to need a lot of help for the logistics of this yeah and and

00:04:56.800 uh you know i've got a commenter tammy lucas saying you know i can't afford that sadly i'd be all over it

00:05:01.680 and and that's part of okay it's about there's a balance a live event costs a lot of money you

00:05:06.560 you've got to have a fee if you're going to recover it it is a political party uh but i mean it cuts

00:05:12.400 both ways too i mean again there's some people who might support premier kenny but they are they don't

00:05:16.640 have the means and the ability to get out and do that the other part is though just to remind

00:05:20.080 everybody who might want to take part that price goes up if you wait too long right like it that's the

00:05:23.760 early bird rate yeah so march 19th it so you can register up until the day of the event up until

00:05:30.800 11 o'clock on the day of but if you register after march 19th which you must be a member for i got to

00:05:37.600 reiterate that you have to be a member before march 19th after march 19th you can still register but

00:05:42.960 it's 149 and at the door it's 249 so i recommend people register before the 19th just to save themselves a

00:05:51.440 little money now in terms of cost in terms of cost and there's people who you know genuinely suffered

00:05:59.440 through uh government mandates and things like that no longer have jobs um no longer have the same kind

00:06:06.000 of means that perhaps they did before we are more than happy to help with busing uh getting you gas cards

00:06:12.800 for your trip and we can't buy the the sgm ticket for you that's against the rules but we have it under

00:06:19.200 legal advisement that we can afterwards give you a gift of a grocery card or a gas card right um and

00:06:27.600 so whether whoever you vote for we want this to be a democratic process if you really would like your

00:06:34.960 sgm tickets covered and you have no and you have to have a means for it right i tell all the crowds when

00:06:41.920 i go to our meetings i say if you can't afford a hundred dollars for your freedom but you can go and

00:06:46.960 drink three times a week at the bar then you have bad priorities however if you really are struggling

00:06:52.400 financially we're more than happy to help you yeah with transportation and things such as that

00:06:58.160 exactly and i mean it's a fair enough rule we don't want a larger group to be able to just you

00:07:02.080 know pay the full freight for somebody they have to be committed to get in and exactly whatever way

00:07:06.240 they're gonna i think it's important yeah to have some skin in the game right the truckers had a

00:07:09.360 lot of skin in the game when they went to ottawa it cost them a lot they risked a lot i was talking to

00:07:14.960 one uh that's a friend of mine last night even and he told me that they've taken away his license

00:07:20.080 to drive a truck so now he's losing a lot of money right um i might put him in touch with you and maybe

00:07:24.640 you can have him on to talk about that but absolutely i think i think they had a lot of skin in the game

00:07:29.840 and and we should put some skin in the game too because this is about sending a message to our

00:07:34.160 government about how we feel about what's happened so getting to a more local level and this is

00:07:39.680 something you've commented on recently and it's another part of the democratic exercise this isn't

00:07:44.880 new with the the ucp or any party but it's getting pretty bad and pretty ugly is the nomination process

00:07:49.440 this is where people get to if they're members they can take out a membership and choose their local

00:07:53.680 representative and there have been some challenges against incumbents and now uh two out of two of those

00:07:58.960 have been disqualified for uh yeah i agree i i think some very shaky grounds on past social media uh postings

00:08:05.520 well i just sorry one sec uh yep i think it's very odd because jody gateman was on the board of the

00:08:12.640 united conservative party and jason kenney asked her to be on the board of the united conservative party

00:08:18.640 so to disqualify her for posts she made before he asked her to be on the board means a couple of

00:08:24.880 things one would probably be that uh he didn't do his due diligence before if this is what he truly

00:08:32.240 believes now or maybe it just means that he's now disqualifying people on trumped up charges because

00:08:38.560 he doesn't want to have to deal with people who don't agree with his leadership and actually i'm

00:08:42.160 going to be honest i find it pretty sad that jason kenney is calling the people that helped get him

00:08:47.360 elected racist to hold on to power it's just it's really pathetic really and i hope that uh i hope that

00:08:54.400 people see through just the blatant lies that a desperate man is making yeah well and the character

00:09:02.240 assassination of miss gateman on this i mean i've known her for a long time as well we served on the

00:09:06.480 provincial executive together with the wild rose party and i i'm sorry i saw no indications of craze

00:09:12.480 racism or anything like that i mean i understand a degree of vetting uh that that makes sense but come

00:09:17.440 on it it's very flimsy and not only that but to uh disqualify and then shoot at her after the

00:09:23.920 disqualification uh i don't think he's doing himself any favors here i mean these are established

00:09:29.280 grassroots uh operators with wide networks of people and uh you're upsetting them further

00:09:35.920 when you take this sort of tact i don't know i'm some of a democratic purist to a degree that these

00:09:39.920 nominations and it's always been a challenge i mean unless there's something outstandingly odious with a

00:09:45.120 candidate which is fair enough this is the process of vetting let them get in on the race and that's

00:09:50.000 the time you know if they're in and running and you say hey this person's got a really questionable

00:09:53.680 history and i trust the members to say oh yeah you know what i don't want that person representing yeah

00:09:58.320 exactly isn't that exactly isn't that democracy right where we say to people hey here's the truth

00:10:03.680 about these people when you run for office fundamentally what you're doing is you're putting your past

00:10:08.560 on display and saying you know what maybe i made mistakes here's how i've tried to fix them

00:10:14.400 that's what it should be right or you know if they're hiding mistakes they made those things

00:10:20.400 need to be revealed you know shine light on these things i think if anyone looked into jason nixon's

00:10:26.400 past it would be quite astounding astonishing that he's having a candidate with an upstanding moral

00:10:33.680 character like i would just i i put my i'll put my reputation on the line here hopefully better than

00:10:40.160 i did last time i was on your show but i will say there are very few people i believe have more

00:10:46.080 of an upright character than tim hoven my mom has known his family for years um i didn't know him

00:10:51.440 until he decided to run i've only seen him from you know the news articles and talked to him but the

00:10:56.560 community support that he has i'm sure you heard of the over 200 letters that were sent to derek uh testifying

00:11:03.120 to his character after the slanderous emails were sent by the lmc uh which is the local nomination

00:11:10.320 committee so it's just it's become a bit of absurd to be honest right like this is a genuinely good man

00:11:16.080 and now they're trying to slander him as a white supremacist it's just it's sad yeah we're seeing a

00:11:22.080 lot of ugly political playing and then uh i i guess part of it though was he did let a nomination go up in

00:11:27.920 uh fort mcmurray and uh his preferred candidate got got the the the floor wiped with him uh by by brian

00:11:34.560 gene so now i mean jason kenny's in a very difficult position he's got a person who very probably is

00:11:41.040 going to be elected to be in part of his caucus this tuesday who is running essentially against his own

00:11:47.520 leader yeah i i think i understand uh the reaction of someone who's cornered right these are the act not

00:11:55.360 of the actions of a rational man they're the act they're not this is strategically silly right even

00:12:00.960 if he was you know a maniacal genius or a great organizer you don't create enemies right before a

00:12:08.960 vote for your future right and yet somehow and i don't really understand it he's decided to slander a

00:12:15.840 good man who who's riding is less than an hour away from the vote that will determine his future it's

00:12:24.400 you know sometimes when people are cornered they start to act irrationally and that seems to be

00:12:29.360 what's going on here i think of course this is an almost impossible situation for him right if he lets

00:12:35.360 uh jason nixon get taken out by a challenger that's pretty humiliating i mean jason nixon is his as jason

00:12:41.840 nixon was going around the legislator saying his prize pony right his uh his favorite son so in fact

00:12:49.840 i know that jason kenny and jason nixon have been going around telling everyone that he would be

00:12:53.440 the premier after jason kenny was gone right so to lose a nomination for the guy that you've been

00:12:59.680 going around telling everyone is amazing well i think that's a dangerous spot to be so i think

00:13:05.040 that's why maybe they made the calculation i just think it's very foolish so a valid question i've heard

00:13:10.960 from a number of people and i saw commander say though i mean it is who would lead uh you know

00:13:16.160 i mean again that would come out down to a race but there's no real well aside from brian gene who

00:13:20.240 really is putting his name forward not a lot of clear contenders to replace uh jason kenny if he

00:13:24.880 were moved aside i mean the timeline starts getting really tight we're a year away from a general election

00:13:29.840 and uh you know that's something people really have to think about too if frustrated with with premier

00:13:34.160 kenny or not are you going to replace him with somebody winnable if you pull him out at this point

00:13:38.960 well i think the that's actually an irrelevant question i get asked it a lot and this is my

00:13:44.800 answer to it always is if jason kenny remains the leader of the united conservative party rachel

00:13:50.160 notley will be the next premier of alberta so the only way we have a chance of that not happening is

00:13:57.120 if we get someone new and here's the thing about politics that you know as well as i do people really

00:14:01.920 want to be premier and whoever wins this leadership race will immediately be premier so i think there's

00:14:08.400 going to be a lot of people that will come out of the woodwork i believe it's been reported on the

00:14:11.520 western standard that danielle smith would run if the job was open i know of at least eight others

00:14:16.800 who approached me asking to help me to help them in their leaderships i've told them all the same thing

00:14:21.840 that i'll say right now i will never support a politician again i'm only going to support the people

00:14:26.960 so my job i see going forward is organizing the people teaching them how to be civically engaged and

00:14:35.520 then having them hold politicians feet to the fire because that's really what democracy is about

00:14:39.840 and we seem to have lost that and i think that's you know ironically um jason kenny's strongest skill

00:14:47.920 i mean he's always been a very skilled political operator he's he's been born and raised almost into

00:14:52.880 politics he knows the game he knows it federally and and you know from the ground up with reform but

00:14:58.880 people are tired of the political play you know they want policy they want leadership i mean just because

00:15:04.400 you know how to uh stack nominations and and deal with these sorts of internal races it's great that

00:15:10.640 you have that talent but in watching that operation that's what sours people on the entire process

00:15:15.760 and the people managing it i mean we really it's in alberta we've always valued grassroots democracy and

00:15:20.880 we've really seen it erode this last couple years yeah and i think a big part of that is actually

00:15:26.560 and i say this to all of the rooms that i speak in every night i say this is the people's fault right

00:15:32.560 it's our lack of engagement our lack of we haven't been paying attention to what our politicians have

00:15:37.280 been doing we've mostly been comfortable rich and comfortable and i like to say canada canadians and

00:15:45.520 albertans even more so to a degree because of how wealthy we are we didn't think we had to care

00:15:50.560 about politics but politics never stopped caring about us and now people like yourself and i we we were

00:15:56.480 involved most of that time but we we both know most people weren't right and one of the most encouraging

00:16:03.520 things i've seen through this whole process with take back alberta is a number of mothers that are

00:16:08.080 getting involved they're they're very excited about realizing that they can be civically engaged and that

00:16:14.560 it isn't an impossible task or the scary thing and they're doing amazing they're putting together more

00:16:19.920 events than i i've ever seen a political organizers that are professionals do right so i'm very excited

00:16:26.480 about the future of civic engagement in this province and honestly the only way that corruption

00:16:32.800 prospers is when there's not uh civically engaged population so we can stop this we can make things

00:16:39.040 better and i think we will fair enough and the means are in our hands and that's something i always you

00:16:43.760 know political wieners like us okay we always bought memberships we didn't need our arms twisted but

00:16:48.560 i mean if people wonder why the tail so often politically wags the dog it's because when you've

00:16:53.200 got one to two percent of the population are the only ones taking part in partisan politics in any

00:16:57.920 party they have a disproportionately strong influence upon where that party's gonna go so i mean if you

00:17:04.880 want to make sure your voice is a lot more heard than just when you go to the polls join a party and

00:17:10.640 take yeah get involved like i got involved at 14 cory and at 23 i got to work and i'm from a town

00:17:17.200 just so everyone knows there's eight houses where i grew up like and there's not a gas station for 30

00:17:22.480 kilometers right and from 14 to 23 i got i was working for the prime minister at 23 years old

00:17:28.880 because i got involved when i was 14. canadian politics is great for that you get to do some

00:17:34.400 awesome things if you just show up so people just my request to people would be like get involved like

00:17:40.560 our system isn't as broken as people think it's that we're just not involved in it

00:17:44.960 well i appreciate your coming on to talk to us about what you guys are up to maybe i'll let you

00:17:50.240 close out just with a final statement and where we can find information on your organization and uh

00:17:55.440 you know getting involved if they choose to absolutely okay so i just thanks again cory for

00:18:01.040 having me on sorry about that first time but i think we both uh enjoyed it and uh let's wait about

00:18:06.080 something else down the road of course um yeah so the organization is called take back alberta you can find

00:18:13.200 it at www.tba2022.ca um in terms of what's happening right now in our province and there's a lot of

00:18:23.680 fear and like anger at at what's happening i say don't get angry people don't get angry with with

00:18:28.320 corrupt people just deal with them and the best way to deal with these corrupt people is to show up on

00:18:33.440 april 9th by a membership before march 19th and vote out jason kenney on april 9th so thanks for having

00:18:41.760 me on thank you the clock's ticking and uh we're gonna have some answers soon one way or another

00:18:46.480 so i'm sure we'll talk again soon david okay thank you

Western Standard - March 10, 2022

Initiative to change the UCP leadership - David Parker ｜ Take Back Alberta

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