Western Standard - Nenshi's to lose： NDP vote this Saturday

00:00:00.000 Good day. Today is June 19th, 2024. I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard,

00:00:29.320 and you're watching The Pipeline. As usual I'm joined by Western Standard opinion editor

00:00:34.040 Nigel Hannaford. Hello again, as usual. As usual and Western Standard senior Alberta columnist

00:00:39.960 Corey Morgan. Always happy to be here. We've got a we have very little trouble coming up with our

00:00:47.400 topics for today's show today. Woke or broke Calgary's water crisis. We're going to talk about

00:00:54.040 Not all of you are in Calgary, obviously, but there is a real tale, a real lesson for other municipalities right across the West, right across Canada to learn from when a municipality focuses on everything except for the core functions of what it's supposed to.

00:01:13.000 And we can have all these little fun things, but we're not minding our P's and Q's, and we get a water break.

00:01:21.320 And now it takes me now an hour to drive to the damn office every morning, and I can't water my lawn.

00:01:27.340 And speaking of Calgary, Calgary is a group of conservatives today are formally launching Calgary's first municipal party.

00:01:34.140 And this would be, if what we're hearing is correct, this would kind of be the main center-right conservative party, the Aber Calgary.

00:01:43.000 ABC. I think they were really stretching to come up with an ABC on that one. I think they could have done better on the naming, but we'll get into it. And kind of flowing from the municipal to larger levels, Nenshi's to lose. This Saturday, the Alberta NDP members are going to vote on selecting a new leader of their party. And his name will be Nahid Nenshi. So we'll talk about that.

00:02:08.120 Saved by the bell, Calgary, the province of Alberta, has banned cell phones in most, not all, most circumstances, banned cell phones from the classrooms and schools.

00:02:23.660 Bold move that I don't think we've seen many other places in Canada yet at this point.

00:02:28.480 All right, well, let's get into it.

00:02:31.540 Calgary's water crisis.

00:02:34.900 I mean, it was just, I guess, a matter of time.

00:02:37.340 I mean, it's easy for me to say after the water mains broke.

00:02:40.580 I have to admit, I have never voted for a member of city council based on their water main maintenance platform.

00:02:49.780 In fact, I don't know if there's ever been a candidate I'm at least aware of who says, I'm going to make sure we got well monitored and maintained water mains.

00:02:58.160 I've never seen that in the platform.

00:03:00.180 But you'd vote for it now, wouldn't you?

00:03:01.720 Oh, I sure would now.

00:03:02.640 But, you know, I've generally always liked candidates for municipal office who are incredibly boring.

00:03:09.160 I'm going to make sure the potholes are filled, the dog poop is picked up, basic infrastructure taken care of.

00:03:15.920 If the three of us wanted to go and we're going to establish a new town in Alberta, we're going to just, I don't know, head out to somewhere in Wheatland County and we're going to establish the town of Corysville.

00:03:30.300 What's the first thing we would do? Find a source of water.

00:03:36.300 Your whole location of the town is dependent on having a source of water.

00:03:41.300 It's the very first thing you do. Before we even appoint a sheriff and a mayor, we made sure we got water to drink.

00:03:46.300 It is the single most fundamental role of municipal government going back to like burgermeisters in medieval years.

00:03:56.300 Roman aqueducts. I mean, boy, they did. And those are still standing. We can't get a pipe the last 50 years.

00:04:01.660 Yeah. So, you know, we have is the most fundamental role of government. And I think, you know, what's happened here with the Calgary feeder main crisis is it's really kind of allowed us to zoom out to the problem, not just in Calgary, but with municipal governments right across Canada.

00:04:19.600 Tristan Hopner in the National Post had a really good point that, I'm not going to do it justice how he wrote it,

00:04:25.240 but he said, you know, municipalities will pave, ironically pave rainbows on the sidewalks over top of water mains that don't work.

00:04:36.000 Corey, I know you wrote a column on exactly this, just about what happens when municipalities focus on, you know,

00:04:44.340 gross waste of money and public art that nobody, you know, big blue ring that we don't like or

00:04:49.340 anything like that, and all these little frills, but, but none of the actual fundamentals of what

00:04:54.020 they're supposed to do. Well, there's no romance to it, right? You know, every one of these,

00:04:59.200 I'm afraid a lot of municipal politicians are driven by vanity, and they want a legacy project.

00:05:03.800 And they're not gonna be able to go to their grandchildren and say, you know, that pipe under

00:05:06.920 the road over there, that road without potholes, mind you, that was me. No, they want a big,

00:05:12.420 striking public art project or the conversion of an office building into residential suites you know

00:05:19.300 that the ribbon cuttings that are on on big grandiose things that they feel that they're

00:05:24.100 going to be able to point to later on water means police forces garbage collection that's that's

00:05:30.820 dull to them unfortunately it's not very dull to citizens especially once we aren't getting it in a

00:05:35.300 proper manner. Yeah, nobody I don't think ever asked for bike lanes or those obstructions in

00:05:43.240 the road that just come out from the sidewalk like that to take your undercarriage out in January

00:05:47.900 when you don't see them. You mentioned potholes. You mentioned who voted for a climate change

00:05:55.040 agenda? 87 billion dollars. Was that not the very first thing that this mayor and council in Calgary

00:06:01.000 We did. $87 billion for some climate emergency.

00:06:05.040 Danielle Smith, our premier, is very good at scolding the federal government to stay in its lane. 1.00

00:06:10.920 I wish that she had gone to the Federation of Municipalities and said the same thing to our elected municipal leaders.

00:06:20.900 They are getting into areas that they have no business in, mostly know nothing about, probably for the reasons that you talked about, vanity.

00:06:30.100 But that's not what they're there for.

00:06:34.100 I think it's vanity. I also think it's just most municipal government is not sexy.

00:06:39.100 I mean, fixing the water mains, plowing the roads, fixing potholes, these are not sexy things.

00:06:46.100 But these are fundamental basic roles of government that even people who don't like much government at all would generally agree,

00:06:53.100 you know, short of no government, we agree, okay, that is what government should do, fix the potholes, plow the roads.

00:06:59.100 Something even less sexy is the sewage system, which really we have a lot of questions that are going to be coming now because if that starts erupting up into the streets, we're really going to see some problems going on.

00:07:09.000 And it's a legitimate concern. If they can't maintain the water, how bad is the outflow?

00:07:13.280 We're going to get to Nenshi in a bit here, but like you remember Nenshi would like speak up on, spend his time speaking on international issues like, you know, like someone on the other end of the planet would care about what the mayor of Calgary thinks about some, you know,

00:07:29.080 conflict between Group A and Group B somewhere else that has absolutely nothing to do with us

00:07:33.360 while neglecting the basic things that needs to get done here, Nigel.

00:07:38.960 Let it be said that they are certainly spending the money.

00:07:41.760 I just dropped down the budget breakdown here, and I see that utilities and environment,

00:07:46.920 which is, I guess, where this would belong, is $1.1 billion plus $386 billion in capital

00:07:54.920 expenditures for this year.

00:07:56.440 So, you know, there's one and a half billion dollars.

00:07:59.440 What does it cost to have somebody monitor this stuff?

00:08:04.440 I mean, even if it's just Cory Morgan with his Y stick seeing where, you know, there's a water leak there.

00:08:11.440 At least they can say they tried.

00:08:12.440 You know, but...

00:08:13.440 Well, they send robots through these things now.

00:08:15.440 Well, that's what they...

00:08:16.440 Yeah, but obviously the robots... 0.98

00:08:17.440 But they weren't doing it when we needed it.

00:08:18.440 You have to shut the pipe to do it.

00:08:19.440 Yeah.

00:08:20.440 And nobody had the courage to say, everybody, we're going to have water restrictions for three days while we pig the pipes.

00:08:25.440 but they don't want to do that.

00:08:27.460 So we'll just defer it and look how that turned out.

00:08:29.620 Yeah, so no, no, it's just, I think a total lack

00:08:34.160 of understanding of what we're there to do.

00:08:36.540 And they think that if they can just get elected,

00:08:38.700 they're not elected to do what they said

00:08:40.640 they were gonna do, they're elected to do

00:08:42.320 whatever they like.

00:08:43.400 And that's why they spend their time

00:08:45.300 and their resources on that.

00:08:47.140 Oh, do you want to talk about plastic bags

00:08:48.880 and plastic straws again, you know?

00:08:50.780 Yeah, stuff like that.

00:08:51.620 But you're coming back because you got to use

00:08:52.500 single use plastic items right now

00:08:54.520 you can't do dishes. So people have been buying those like crazy. It's a beautiful irony out of

00:08:58.840 this whole thing. Yes. Yes. You know, I want to come back to what you were saying, Nigel.

00:09:04.040 You know, we do talk a lot about the federal government not staying in its lane. The federal

00:09:07.080 government is supposed to do some very basic things like criminal code, national defense,

00:09:13.000 foreign representation. Yeah, and really not that much beyond it. But it's constantly in the

00:09:17.880 provinces lane. But municipalities are constant. They're also trying to, everyone wants to be a

00:09:22.840 province. The feds want to be a province and the municipalities want to be a

00:09:26.500 province too. They're not taking care of their PCQs. They're always

00:09:31.720 into the municipal area as well. They're trying to deal with even

00:09:37.040 healthcare and whatnot. Just why is it that no one really wants to do to deal

00:09:44.680 with the jurisdiction they were elected for in Canada? Everyone wants, gets

00:09:49.160 elected one level of government but they seem to really not have an interest in

00:09:52.820 doing anything about. I think you're actually on to something here, Derek. People who run for

00:09:59.460 election for municipalities tend to be activists, and they're not necessarily activists about

00:10:06.580 anything that's in the municipal field. Why do conservatives not run in municipalities?

00:10:14.920 Conservatives just want to be left alone. They just want somebody to take care of these things,

00:10:20.100 the police, the fire, the transport, the pipes, take care of it, don't charge us too much,

00:10:26.700 and that's all they're interested in. These people get in there and they want to use the city as a

00:10:32.400 platform to change the world. Well, I think it's because they're also trying to use it as a farm

00:10:35.940 cane. They see it as a, you know, they even see provinces as a junior level of government when

00:10:42.100 it's not. It's a co-equal, co-sovereign order of government, but they see it as a junior level of

00:10:48.360 government training for the bigger leagues, what, you know, not a lot of people, there are some,

00:10:53.640 there's some exceptions, and God bless them. There's not a lot of people who say, you know

00:10:57.020 what I want to do? I want to make sure that we have a good water infrastructure, that the streets

00:11:01.720 are plowed, and that the potholes are fixed. That's really all I want to do. And that's the

00:11:06.480 extent of my political ambitions. I got to say, there's reason I have never considered running

00:11:11.340 for municipal office. It's boring. It matters a lot. But it's just boring.

00:11:15.000 The ones that were willing to stay on the boring subjects, actually, stay there forever.

00:11:18.760 You know, Dale Hodges, Ray Jones, those are two councillor names.

00:11:22.640 They were both in for like 30 years each, and most Calgarians probably couldn't name them.

00:11:26.620 No.

00:11:26.780 Because they quietly just sat in the background and stuck to the basics.

00:11:29.620 They didn't bother, like, the Karas, the Ferals, the Naks, to have to jump into every social justice issue that has nothing to do with the city.

00:11:36.940 They just stuck to their basics.

00:11:38.520 But I think there's room for civic politics to, if they'll just stay in their bloody lane, they can have a security job at it. 0.99

00:11:44.860 Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:46.340 Well, we're going to be able to blend that topic really well with the next one.

00:11:49.900 So feel free to not even completely abandon it as we move in here.

00:11:54.580 Later this evening will be the launch of the ABC party, the A Better Calgary party.

00:12:02.560 I mean, I wish them luck.

00:12:03.920 Maybe they'll run some good candidates.

00:12:05.400 Maybe I'll even vote for them.

00:12:07.340 I think the name is a little lacking.

00:12:09.760 I think they really wanted ABC as their abbreviation.

00:12:12.860 The abbreviation also works for anything but conservative. I'm not sure how well that works, but this is coming from a new provincial legislation authorizing the creation of municipal parties in Alberta, sorry, in the two big cities of Alberta, Edmonton and Calgary.

00:12:29.940 So it billed 20, isn't it?

00:12:31.520 I think it was, yeah. And there was a number of other elements to it, too, but this is now here.

00:12:35.980 And of course, you've been calling for this for a long time. Calgary and I think to an extent Edmonton have had de facto political parties, at least on the left for two, possibly even three cycles.

00:12:46.980 Now, the way the unions are able to centralize money on the left allows them to be a de facto party by saying, well, only this candidate in this ward has money and only this candidate in this ward has money and this candidate for mayor has money.

00:12:59.980 has money. The same never existed on the right, because, you know, it's not like the Chamber of

00:13:05.040 Commerce sits down and centrally disposes all of the money to the different Conservative campaigns.

00:13:10.960 So your initial thoughts on, I guess Edmonton's Conservatives have already launched a party, but

00:13:15.300 your thought on Calgary's ABC? Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see what sort of a structure

00:13:21.140 they build when they do it. Like, one of the aspects of what would be an advantage of such

00:13:25.920 party to those, of course, you're going to select one theoretically conservative party per

00:13:30.600 constituency or one candidate, I should say, and mayoral candidate, which is a nomination process

00:13:36.940 of some sort or another. But it gives that first level of vetting. And that's where you can lose

00:13:41.480 those activists as well. Because again, the activists can come in, they can campaign on

00:13:46.080 anything. But in reality, once they get in, they go the other way. Once you go through a party

00:13:50.200 structure, theoretically, anyways, if it's done right, you've got a basic idea of where these

00:13:55.240 guys are going to be going. And we know from enough party politics, it's certainly not a

00:13:58.400 panacea by any means. But if they can get that structure together, as I said, the union thing

00:14:04.440 too was that they would settle on one candidate, and they would starve out the rest of them. But

00:14:10.680 that's it. This is the one. And if this group can turn into the dominant conservative representation

00:14:16.020 in there, because there's going to be other candidates, there's going to be nominees,

00:14:18.720 noses out of joint who didn't win. But if they've got all of the focus, the funds, the training,

00:14:23.400 the volunteers on one candidate for constituency, I think they're going to mop the floor with this

00:14:28.840 city if they can get those things right. But that's a big if at the point where they're just

00:14:32.120 having their founding come to convention tonight. Yeah. Nigel, one of the kind of, you know,

00:14:36.840 theories of many on the left and the right, but particularly on the right in Calgary and Edmonton

00:14:42.200 for some time has been that the only reason that the left has dominated city councils,

00:14:46.040 dominated the mayor's elections is because people didn't know they were electing a lefty.

00:14:51.760 There was no party.

00:14:52.940 Now, he eventually even called himself kind of a moderate fiscal conservative when his first election, what was that, 2010, 2011?

00:14:59.400 2010, 2011, yeah.

00:15:00.060 2010, 2011.

00:15:01.760 I mean, obviously, he was not, but he was able to say it, and it's not like there was any party that was conservative to say, no, he's not our guy.

00:15:09.700 But in this case, you know, the legislation, the provincial legislation forbids them from using names like conservative, new democratic party.

00:15:16.100 Although in this case, you know, they could have gone with like Cowder United or something, which would have given a bit more of a hint, but they just kind of went with this kind of generic ABC. ABC is the definition of a generic name.

00:15:29.560 Do you think that by having party systems, it's necessarily going to elect more conservatives by having, you know, just more of a clear partisan affiliation here or not?

00:15:41.460 First of all, yes, because it's clear if you're running for something that's called a conservative party and you want to vote for a conservative.

00:15:53.220 There is no conservative. There's no officially named conservative party in ideology.

00:15:56.760 In theory, that should work. And I hope the word gets around that ABC, whatever it's going to stand for, is not a left-wing party.

00:16:10.440 Well, the other thing is, who defines what's a conservative?

00:16:13.420 I am willing to make a small bet that if you looked at the first slate of candidates offered by ABC,

00:16:26.860 not too many of them are going to be able to tell you much about conservative classic economics.

00:16:32.340 Not too many of them will be able to quote the one or two, three words of Margaret Thatcher that everybody knows.

00:16:39.360 You know, what does it mean to say you're a conservative?

00:16:42.700 Well, I'm just not one of those guys.

00:16:44.420 But are you really a conservative?

00:16:46.160 Are you really committed, in the case of city council, to looking after the fundamentals?

00:16:52.060 Are you committed to saving money for the taxpayer?

00:16:54.820 Are you going to get rid of some of the areas where city councils waste a lot of money?

00:17:00.700 Do we really need a diversity office?

00:17:02.640 No, we don't.

00:17:03.520 Will you get rid of it, sir?

00:17:04.600 Oh, well, I'll rock the boat, you know.

00:17:07.980 So I'd be asking a lot of questions of the people who decide to run under that banner as to just what kind of conservatism they represent.

00:17:17.180 That would be my first thing.

00:17:18.200 And the other thing I'd be asking this party, maybe as soon as tomorrow or as soon as tonight,

00:17:23.260 what happens to the councillors that we have there who are not lefties?

00:17:28.940 Are they going to be just brought in and grandfathered in, or do they have to fight for a nomination?

00:17:36.120 Well, that's going to be one of the big questions, because there's some incumbents there who, and also, like, ideology is less important municipally than it would be federally or provincially, because theoretically there's no ideology behind how you maintain a water main.

00:17:51.120 Well, no, but there's a hell of a lot of ideology in having a diversity office and getting into all the book stuff that they do.

00:17:57.000 Yeah, in terms of priorities, are we going to, you know, paint the sidewalks today, or are we going to just...

00:18:03.120 Constitution. Yeah. You know, no, there's ideology. No, no, there is ideology in it,

00:18:08.760 but it's less of a decisive factor than I would say provincially and federally. They control less

00:18:14.380 of the economy. Their tax breach is less limited largely to property taxes. I am your conservative

00:18:21.560 candidate. I will build better water mains. That's my... Well, that's it. You've got a good

00:18:26.180 plank to start with. It's almost, you know, maybe this is a conceit of mine, but I feel like

00:18:31.140 municipally a conservative is the absence of ideology, just making the trains run on time,

00:18:36.960 just managing basic stuff, doing the basic rules of government, and not getting beyond what a

00:18:41.780 municipality should do. It's almost the absence of ideology in that case. Yeah, but when there's an

00:18:45.560 absence of ideology, something else sweeps in. It's like saying, keep your religion out of public 0.91

00:18:50.580 life. Well, all right, we'll keep religion out of it. Then you bring your lack of religion.

00:18:55.020 Oh, no, no, we have religion in public life now. We've got, you know, BOM and all this stuff.

00:18:59.600 people to have a clear idea of who they are and what they're there for and what their values are

00:19:04.800 then i'm ready to vote and that's the main thing out of this too is who are these people because

00:19:08.960 they're coming out of nowhere prior to this and with a party system potentially they can again

00:19:14.240 have that vetting have that identity have a number of people look at it before they even get to the

00:19:18.400 ballot the bigger risk though too is the only ones conservatives like to take down more the liberals

00:19:23.120 are each other and uh these guys if they're in constantly embroiled and they've only got a year

00:19:29.120 and a half to get this together and if they're embroiled in infighting and messing around and

00:19:34.080 and mixed communications and things like that that unfortunately are hallmarks of conservative

00:19:39.520 movements uh you're right they could do more damage to themselves how do we handle incumbents

00:19:44.000 here i mean you know it was you know when we when the united conservative party was created in

00:19:49.120 alberta you have wild rose and pcs and uh most from both sides came because they were already

00:19:54.320 with a party and you're creating a new party out of two existing parties so something that

00:19:59.040 everyone had been elected on their own as independents and was joining in this is

00:20:03.280 essentially like how are you going to tackle the incumbents who have been elected in their own right

00:20:08.720 uh from from what i can understand of of this party it's not even going to have a i actually i

00:20:13.840 like that it actually won't have policies no platform be more of the american style because

00:20:18.880 No one runs on the Democratic platform or the Republican platform.

00:20:22.800 There, congressmen and senators, etc., they all actually decide how they vote.

00:20:29.400 There's a party whip, but it's a lot, lot weaker than in Canada.

00:20:34.060 They get elected on their own right because they have to go through a primary, which is largely just them.

00:20:39.640 So, you know, this party will have, it'll be kind of the brand of conservatives.

00:20:43.160 It'll have some broad principles, but it's not running a platform.

00:20:45.820 Each candidate will still have its own platform.

00:20:47.340 But what will be the incentives to get the incumbent conservatives or non-left?

00:20:54.340 You know, there's some members of council who probably didn't even consider themselves conservatives when they ran,

00:20:59.340 but they find themselves essentially all of a sudden aligned with conservatives

00:21:02.340 because they're more interested in paving the roads or maintaining the roads than paving them gay. 0.87

00:21:07.340 Yeah, well, the incumbents are going to have an advantage in winning a nomination if they decide to go the party route

00:21:12.340 because they're going to have some recognition, they'll have a bit of a track record showing.

00:21:16.340 I mean, those who look as if they may fit.

00:21:19.160 I mean, for those not familiar with Calvary,

00:21:20.780 Sonia Sharp's an interesting example.

00:21:22.660 I don't think she considered herself a conservative before.

00:21:25.020 That's who I figured you were sort of speaking about.

00:21:27.820 Yeah, and she's been a common sense person.

00:21:29.480 But would she be drawn necessarily

00:21:31.040 to this particular type of organization?

00:21:33.720 I don't know.

00:21:35.480 They would gain themselves more credibility

00:21:37.260 if they drew a couple of those

00:21:38.740 at least somewhat conservative-leaning councillors towards them.

00:21:43.100 I think they would win the nominations easily.

00:21:44.980 It's not like there's that many of them.

00:21:46.600 No, no, there aren't.

00:21:48.600 But again, that comes down to the organizations better.

00:21:51.260 If you want to draw these guys in on their political careers where they're already incumbent,

00:21:55.260 you better have a good looking organization to move towards it.

00:21:58.140 They already got elected all on their own.

00:21:59.240 That's right.

00:21:59.740 If you're all already cutting each other's throats and messing around,

00:22:02.500 they're going to say, you know, I'm just going to run again like I did last time and see how that goes,

00:22:06.180 which becomes terribly dangerous because then we can look at those vote splits

00:22:09.260 and that union candidate sliding in again.

00:22:11.600 Well, let's talk about the left here.

00:22:12.960 So we were already discussing how the left has had a de facto party in Calgary and Edmonton for some time because unions were able to more or less centralize the availability of money for leftist campaigns.

00:22:26.260 The left has opposed the creation of political parties here because it was a creation of the right.

00:22:31.760 It was the Daniel Smith UCP government.

00:22:34.000 So kind of by default they have to oppose it.

00:22:35.980 But it is now a reality. Political parties are here, and there will be a fundraising and organizational advantage to having political parties.

00:22:45.780 Do you think the left is just going to say, well, you know, we oppose its creation, but it's here, so we're going to play ball with the system?

00:22:53.860 Or do you think they resist the creation of a leftist political party municipally in Calgary and Edmonton for a few cycles?

00:23:00.220 doesn't really matter whether they resisted or not it exists or at least it exists on the

00:23:06.700 on the on the right and as you pointed out in your introduction it already exists in practice

00:23:12.760 on the left they will continue to do what they've always done make sure that they put their money on

00:23:20.360 one particular person send the fan send the email out through the system saying if you're one of us

00:23:27.340 and vote for this person in this ward and this person in that ward.

00:23:32.620 They just carry on.

00:23:34.180 They don't have to respond to it, but I think in the end they will.

00:23:38.440 And I think at this point, again, it's getting so near election time,

00:23:41.620 I don't think they'd have it in them to try and form something formally,

00:23:45.020 but this would be their chance to say, well, let's see how much of a disadvantage

00:23:48.120 this may or may not put us into if they really do get a spanking in the next municipal election 0.97

00:23:54.520 because the parties have managed to get it together, or the party candidates,

00:23:58.320 I suspect they'd be forming their own party for the fundraising and organizational advantages,

00:24:02.200 as you said, going into it after this election.

00:24:05.140 You know, one of the things, Corey, that has helped the union-slash-left-wing candidates

00:24:10.160 has been that so too many people on the right have split the vote.

00:24:16.260 Very much. Well, it was largely because fundraising on the right was not centralized

00:24:20.500 the way it's been with unions on the left.

00:24:22.100 Well, plus everybody who thought he had a public duty to come forward and serve on city council is free to do so.

00:24:30.260 That's great.

00:24:31.000 I mean, in some ways, it's good that there are these people out there prepared to do it,

00:24:34.500 but it's going to look a lot different if they can actually just decide that this one will go in this ward,

00:24:42.380 that one will go in that ward, and then it'll be one-on-one against the unions. 0.97

00:24:46.400 Let's see how it looks then.

00:24:47.360 Well, the training will help too.

00:24:48.580 Like we've lost, I think, a lot of good candidates over the years because they might be brilliant managers or people with visions, but they weren't political.

00:24:54.620 They didn't have a clue how to campaign.

00:24:56.560 What's a GOTV?

00:24:57.660 How do you organize volunteers?

00:24:59.220 How do you effectively communicate?

00:25:01.240 That's what a party structure can give somebody, even if campaigning isn't their top skill.

00:25:05.520 If they got the team around them, they can learn and they can move ahead with it.

00:25:09.460 And there's been a lot of split votes or good candidates lost by the wayside because they didn't have that structure.

00:25:15.300 This could be provided.

00:25:16.380 Again, assuming they don't screw it up.

00:25:18.580 Yeah, so I want to circle back. This worked really well with our last topic around the Calgary's

00:25:25.140 water crisis. People have significantly reduced water usage. I know I have. I haven't watered

00:25:32.260 my lawn, but that's easy because it hasn't stopped really raining since the water main broke.

00:25:37.780 But you know, I'm taking very short showers, limiting dishwashers. People have reduced water

00:25:41.700 usage, but not as much as the administration and Gondak would like. And, you know, I think back to

00:25:49.220 the 2013 flood. I lived in Bowness, which was a particularly hard hit neighborhood there. My own

00:25:54.980 house was fine, but neighbor houses not far from mine were completely wrecked. And there was a very

00:26:01.460 strong sense of civic spirit, esprit de corps and civic duty there. And there was no sense of

00:26:08.980 anybody not doing their part. Everyone was doing their part. And this, you know,

00:26:12.880 they've gone back in the city and been implying that these people are not doing their part here.

00:26:15.760 And I just can't help but think that our, pardon the pun, our reservoir of goodwill,

00:26:25.960 of civic goodwill towards government to respond to calls for sacrifice is so completely drained

00:26:32.660 after COVID because these same politicians, these same governments cried wolf so many times,

00:26:39.780 abused our goodwill to sacrifice so badly that people now are very skeptical that even sacrifice

00:26:49.540 might even be required after what happened with COVID. I think, Derek, there's one other thing in

00:26:54.820 that analysis and that is that the flood of 2013 was not the consequence of human error or human

00:27:02.660 So who are you going to blame? So naturally, you helped your neighbor and you got on there.

00:27:08.200 Gondek is requesting disaster funding from the province as if this is a natural disaster for which no one is to blame.

00:27:15.040 She's a disaster. 1.00

00:27:16.320 Well, I mean, obviously, anyone who's followed the news knows it's not a natural disaster.

00:27:21.920 It's a disaster of negligence.

00:27:23.600 And that's what you would expect somebody with the record that Mayor Gondek has accumulated over the past 20 months to say.

00:27:33.260 There's no sense of personal responsibility.

00:27:37.080 Somebody did point, I think it was one of our columnists, Bill Marriott, pointed out one significant thing.

00:27:42.940 And it's not that I'm trying to defend Mayor Gondek or any other sitting alderman, but councillor.

00:27:50.700 but it's actually the city administration that is the dog in this picture and the council that is

00:27:58.200 the tail there's not much that happens in city council that is not initiated and put forward

00:28:04.520 by the administration so if we really want to look for a human rogue to uh to find out where

00:28:12.000 did this go wrong who made the decision that screwed this up then you're going to be looking

00:28:16.640 in the administration coming back to Derek's point though he's absolutely right of course

00:28:21.860 people are saying why bother all the cynicism is there absolutely and then Marriott's column

00:28:27.480 was it was fantastic people should go up to the standard and read that it does break it down well

00:28:32.480 and that's another you know kind of getting back to the whole thing parties and the disaster too

00:28:36.140 though is the relationship between administration and council I mean we've got a bloated administration

00:28:41.360 that's been happening a lot since the past mayor and the current mayor we just saw an exchange with

00:28:45.500 that. When councillors are questioning senior administration officials, the mayor pipes up and

00:28:50.040 says, hey, calm down. That's not your place to question them on that. No, actually, that's exactly

00:28:54.860 what your place is. And I remember those exchanges with Mayor Ninchy all the time when senior city

00:28:59.300 officials would be questioned by councillors. And Gondek did it with Jennifer Winas the other day,

00:29:04.520 saying, no, no, no, hush, you let them do their job. Well, wait a minute. No, your job is to

00:29:09.060 question these guys and hold them accountable. As you said, the tail is wagging the dog. And this

00:29:13.100 party, if they want to redefine that relationship, might not be the big seller at the doors, but it

00:29:17.200 sure would be an important thing to try and do that. All right. Well, I mean, we've just got a

00:29:22.740 great flow of topics today. Just moving from the flow nicely from one to another. So this Saturday,

00:29:32.600 Alberta NDP members are going to elect a new leader to replace Rachel Notley. They're going

00:29:38.920 to elect Nahidenshi, all indications are at this point.

00:29:44.220 The question is first ballot or not, and even then, probably first ballot.

00:29:49.240 Just a programming note, we're going to have live coverage of this beginning

00:29:53.020 at 1.30 Mountain Standard Time on Saturday.

00:29:56.520 We're going to be broadcasting live, covering the Alberta NDP results.

00:30:02.560 Myself and Nigel will be there.

00:30:03.780 Corey, I think you found something better to do.

00:30:05.300 I'm in Edmonton at a quilt show.

00:30:07.540 You're in Edmonton at a quilt show.

00:30:09.860 I'll explain that later.

00:30:11.100 Yes.

00:30:11.500 You know you just told the world.

00:30:13.880 I told it on my show as well.

00:30:16.280 Oh, yes.

00:30:16.740 It's sad.

00:30:17.920 Sorry, little man.

00:30:19.020 I know.

00:30:19.620 It's going to be a four-day show.

00:30:20.880 It's the Quilt Canada annual due.

00:30:24.640 All right.

00:30:24.860 We have to have a talk off the air.

00:30:26.100 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:26.520 I need to know where the hell this is coming from.

00:30:28.900 But, yeah, we're going to have a lot of great guests covering the results live.

00:30:32.620 And that'll be beginning at 1.30 Mountain Standard Time.

00:30:39.280 I'll start with you, Corey.

00:30:41.940 Is there really any reasonable chance whatsoever that the result will be anything other than NAMCHI as the winner?

00:30:48.020 From all indicators, we can see at this point, he's got it in the bag.

00:30:51.140 Particularly when it showed the area breakdowns of the membership sales, that massive growth in Calgary and outside, even into the rural areas.

00:30:59.960 This is not the traditional NDP.

00:31:02.140 He's brought in new members and in large volumes.

00:31:07.780 He's dominated the news coverage.

00:31:09.360 He's dominated the attention.

00:31:11.500 And I believe the pragmatic, not the hardcore true NDP believers,

00:31:15.680 but the pragmatic members are also looking at it.

00:31:18.340 Who could potentially dethrone Premier Smith?

00:31:22.460 And they're going to put their money behind Nenshi.

00:31:24.500 So, yeah, it's going to be a coronation, I think, this Saturday.

00:31:26.980 Yeah, different NDP, though, isn't it?

00:31:28.680 Well, he's not done once that happens.

00:31:31.020 but at least as far as the leadership goes. Purple and orange, that's the colors of the Joker.

00:31:34.220 Yeah, that works well. Those are the Oilers, I believe.

00:31:38.620 No, blue. It's getting close. It's kind of getting close. I'm going with the Joker on this one.

00:31:46.620 Nigel, so what are you expecting to see? I expect to see Nenshi, but then what do you think

00:31:54.060 the first 48 hours of Nenshi's leadership are going to look like?

00:31:57.420 Well, about what the first 48 hours will look like, but I think fairly quickly we'll try

00:32:02.920 to lose the image of the NDP as a bunch of earnest wokesters.

00:32:09.200 Not that he isn't woke, but that's not what he's going to want to take to the electorate.

00:32:13.960 So he'll try to present himself as business friendly, as mayor of Calgary, you know, business

00:32:19.180 city.

00:32:20.180 He is going to ask the unions not to make too much noise, like don't keep drawing attention to the fact that the NDP is actually very firmly based upon its union membership.

00:32:36.580 So all of the things that tend to make people suspicious of the left, he will play down and try to come across like a sort of an Alberta version of Angela Merkel.

00:32:50.180 That's a scary thought.

00:32:51.540 Well, it is.

00:32:52.600 But yeah, it's actually perhaps not a bad analogy.

00:32:55.360 Although I think he's a bit more colorful than Merkel was.

00:32:59.940 She's one of the most dour, colorless politicians. 1.00

00:33:02.060 She started in Eastern Germany.

00:33:03.620 I think it's just a miracle on her personal life that she was able to do what she did.

00:33:08.260 But I sure wish some of the things she did she hadn't done.

00:33:10.860 And that's what I think we'll say.

00:33:11.940 Nearly everything she did.

00:33:12.520 I think we'll say that about Mr. Nenshi if we ever have four years of him.

00:33:18.660 Nenshi's an outsider within the NDP query. He has built some caucus support. I think largely just perception of front runner status, you're likely to get a better seat in the legislature.

00:33:38.080 We're going to come to him getting a seat in the legislature himself soon, so hold off on that. But how do you think he's going to have to address caucus?

00:33:46.380 You know, I think he wants to try and moderate, if not the substance, at least the image of the NDP.

00:33:52.380 But there's going to be some resistance to that from the hardcore further left base of the NDP's membership in its caucus.

00:34:03.380 Yeah, well, he's going to have to temper himself.

00:34:06.380 And I don't know if he's capable of that. That's going to be the interesting thing to watch, too.

00:34:10.380 He's never played in a partisan field.

00:34:12.380 field. It's a bit of a different ballgame than being a mayor where you're kind of a you've got

00:34:17.320 thrown to yourself. And we saw council was in disarray almost the whole time he was mayor

00:34:22.660 because he's not good actually at pulling people together. He tends to divide. And if he does his

00:34:28.060 classic nose in the air and eyes shut, ninchy patronizing sort of speech at his first caucus

00:34:33.820 meeting, they're going to not be getting terribly endeared to him. It's not like they'll throw him

00:34:38.760 like conservatives do but he needs to keep people marching in lockstep so it'll be interesting to

00:34:43.720 see i mean he's a smart guy he's he will flex and turn whatever he feels he has to to win

00:34:50.280 but can he change himself that'll be interesting to see because there really is a clash of

00:34:55.560 ideologies with him leading versus the hardcore in there and it's going to have to take some

00:34:59.880 leadership and compromise on his part to be able to pull that off and we'll see if he can how long

00:35:04.120 long do you think before the psychologists are brought in? Well, that's, I mean, yeah. And for

00:35:08.400 those who aren't familiar with it, that was in only his second year, I think, as mayor or something

00:35:13.000 like that, when, again, council was in so much fighting under his leadership that he actually

00:35:17.980 brought a psychologist in, and it showed his arrogance, too, because it was along the lines of,

00:35:23.020 obviously, these guys don't understand that they should just get in line beneath me, so they must

00:35:26.440 be crazy, so let's get a psychologist to put them together. We'll see, but he's presumably learned a

00:35:32.560 lot since then, too, though. So he is going to need a seat in the legislature. I mean, if it was a year

00:35:38.740 out, and you're in opposition, you can serve as leader outside. But the leader of the opposition,

00:35:45.340 you know, we're still more or less three years, actually, and actually maybe before since the

00:35:51.340 election's been pushed out to October. So we're three years plus out now from the next election,

00:35:56.360 He's going to need a seat. Now, complicating, normally he'd find a friendly member of the caucus in a safe seat, ideally in Calgary, because he wants to build the party in Calgary, and he'd run in Calgary.

00:36:08.160 If not, then maybe Edmonton. But complicating this is that Shannon Phillips, one of the major star MLAs and former ministers from the NDP, representing Lethbridge, one of the very few seats, the NDP won outside of the two big cities, very, very few.

00:36:24.440 Um, she's resigning, I think effective July 1st. And that means it'll be a by-election down there. Now, no one, the leader of the party is not compelled to run in the first by-election that opens up. Danielle Smith did not run in Calgary Elbow, because that would have been a stupid political decision. 0.99

00:36:41.360 And he ended up winning that in the general election.

00:36:44.300 It's got kind of an urban lefty mix with noblesse, oblige, red Tory bent to it.

00:36:53.560 It's not a natural spot for any Volvos.

00:36:55.960 You can tell that you can tell that Volvos and Teslas.

00:36:59.800 It's not a not an ideal place for a Wild Rose style populist rural conservative to run.

00:37:06.500 So she was smart not to run there.

00:37:08.040 The NEP egged her on, but they knew she would not run there.

00:37:11.360 um now lethbridge is not as hostile um i think it'd be winnable by nenshi but it would be far

00:37:19.360 from a certain thing he'd be very much an outsider coming down to a small town a small city being a

00:37:24.320 big city mayor um so be very much seen as an outsider and the conservatives are going to put

00:37:29.600 up a stiff fight for it uh at the end of the day i don't think he's gonna run there i think he's

00:37:34.320 gonna he's gonna have to find someone in calgary will and resign and then he'll put them on staff

00:37:39.280 you know, make it worth their time to give up their seat. So with you, Nigel, you think he's

00:37:46.880 going to take the shot? It would be a big gamble. If he wanted Lethbridge, it would energize the

00:37:51.520 party, especially outside the two big cities where they're going to need to win at least a

00:37:55.760 half dozen seats to be able to form government, I think. Well, I wouldn't presume to advise Mr.

00:38:00.560 Nenshi, but going to a city where you're not really that well known, and saying, well, here

00:38:06.560 I am. I'm your new leader. Vote for me. Maybe not. We like Shannon, but who are you? And even if he

00:38:16.820 pulled it off, is he going to pull it off the next time? As you say, it's not a safe NDP seat. It is

00:38:22.840 a winnable NDP seat, but you don't want to be throwing the dice every time that you go to a

00:38:28.260 provincial election. So I agree with you. I think Lethbridge is off the, I mean, it'd be kind of

00:38:33.000 cute in some ways if the premier said,

00:38:34.920 ah, the by-election will be

00:38:36.740 on July the 2nd. You'll be in two weeks.

00:38:39.240 Both party leaders

00:38:41.200 would actually be representing small

00:38:42.860 Alberta towns. Medicine Hat and Lethbridge

00:38:44.780 and Brooks. How cute would that be? You know, but I

00:38:46.720 honestly don't think she'll do that. No. Just because

00:38:49.120 she's a decent person

00:38:50.920 and doesn't play those kinds of games.

00:38:53.900 But it's interesting

00:38:54.900 to fantasize about it.

00:38:57.380 As for the,

00:38:59.220 as for Calgary

00:39:00.920 or Edmonton, well, you know,

00:39:02.060 Who would he dump in Edmonton? I don't know. It's probably going to be Calgary. And I'd just pick the, what was the seat?

00:39:12.020 It's Lethbridge.

00:39:12.960 Well, right here would be Mountain View, I would say.

00:39:15.640 Okay, well, that's Kathleen Ganley.

00:39:17.680 Yeah, she's not going to, I think Cece, to be honest.

00:39:20.060 Kathleen Ganley, I think, still wants to stick around. She's young. She's had a pretty decent leadership campaign. 0.99

00:39:24.500 She's not going to win, but I think she wants to continue to serve.

00:39:27.140 Sisi had a pretty, let's say, less than successful time as the NDP finance minister under Notley.

00:39:34.760 He's been very, I haven't heard a word from this guy since the NDP lost power in 2019.

00:39:40.360 He's been riding the back benches.

00:39:42.340 Downtown, very NDP seat.

00:39:45.520 I mean, that's got to be prime real estate for Nenshi right there.

00:39:49.120 Yeah, it would be.

00:39:49.860 Give him a decent job, not a decent job, give him a decent salary.

00:39:55.120 Special advisor to the

00:39:58.260 Premier, to the leader

00:39:59.960 Let's be honest about how these things are done

00:40:01.920 With a promise that if they

00:40:03.480 ever form government, there'll be something else

00:40:06.260 And

00:40:07.640 just push them out of the way

00:40:09.840 I think that's the one to watch

00:40:12.280 Cece

00:40:12.800 I think that's where it's going to go

00:40:15.020 I'm with Nigel, Lethbridge West

00:40:16.680 with where they're sitting

00:40:18.480 to lose the by-election would be catastrophic

00:40:21.960 It kills your leadership off

00:40:23.600 Complete embarrassment

00:40:24.600 You just can't take that chance.

00:40:26.640 And Leftbridge West is a left-leaning seat, but it was liberal.

00:40:30.060 It's potentially a swing seat.

00:40:32.340 I give Nenshi a 60% shot of winning it.

00:40:34.960 And that's not very good for your leader.

00:40:36.580 That's not a safe one.

00:40:37.100 You want to be 80% plus.

00:40:38.680 Sean Phillips isn't a Nenshi cheerleader.

00:40:41.080 So it's not like she's leaving an organization behind that's going to necessarily embrace him

00:40:46.420 and the constituency association or anything like that.

00:40:48.520 I just can't see Nenshi making that leap.

00:40:51.600 So it will put pressure on him.

00:40:53.120 I think he's already got an escape hatch built.

00:40:55.000 I think it's going to be CC and they'll just have parallel by-elections.

00:40:59.200 I think he's already figured out who's going to fall on their sword for him.

00:41:02.480 You know, Corey, I know we already got a column from you, but I want another one.

00:41:04.700 I want you to write.

00:41:08.020 I'm re-watching the X-Files right now, so I've got a lot of theories going through my head.

00:41:12.020 But I think that's a column you need to write before Saturday.

00:41:17.720 Before Saturday.

00:41:19.120 Pardon?

00:41:19.640 I've got a lot of quilting set up to do.

00:41:21.060 Yeah, because you're going to be on Quilton. So before you get up Quilton, is that a thing? Quilton?

00:41:27.560 I've seen it on the coffee mugs of the ladies. I've gone to a lot of these.

00:41:31.520 This is where you go to pick up chicks. 1.00

00:41:33.440 You are doing this to save your marriage, right?

00:41:35.980 Well, it's not in crisis, but if I don't, it could be, yes.

00:41:41.460 The truth is out there.

00:41:44.860 Yes, let me see where I can get up, because that's certainly in my turf, though, Alberta, partisan politics.

00:41:49.200 Yeah, it's going to be Calgary, but I think it's a pretty good one to go in.

00:41:56.560 If not C.C. Seaton, Calgary, Calgary, Buffalo, then it'll probably be a Northeast seat.

00:42:04.360 He hails from the Northeast.

00:42:05.560 The Northeast, that's a cauldron as well.

00:42:07.760 Yeah, but he's always proven to be pretty good at Northeast ethnic politics.

00:42:11.640 He's pretty good at navigating that stuff, which is hard.

00:42:15.500 The little bit I touched that, I was like, I have no idea.

00:42:19.200 All right, we're going to wrap it up with a move made.

00:42:25.600 Alberta Education Minister Dimitrios Nikolaitis bringing forward new regulations, taking cell phones out of the school.

00:42:37.020 I think they'll have them in their classroom, sorry, in their lockers and stuff, so after school, you know, they'll coordinate rides and things like that.

00:42:42.440 But more or less, no more phones in the classroom.

00:42:44.760 I mean, I can't imagine. I'm easy enough to distract. I can't imagine if I was a student in high school with one of these things in my hands. I've never gotten anything done.

00:42:57.700 I think it's being held by parents pretty broadly as a common sense move. I know the NDP have tried to do their, you know, have their cake and eat it too kind of thing, not directly criticizing it, but saying, well, we're not sure.

00:43:15.160 Who did they consult with us? Were the unions happy? And the unions have more or less tried to do the same thing, saying, well, we're not opposed to this, but who are they expecting to enforce this? You know, nuts.

00:43:28.180 Well, we're paying about $110,000 a year.

00:43:30.500 To work for six months, you know, like, yeah, like, of course you, of course you're supposed to. So I think the critics of this, Corey, have been, they know that it's not a winning argument for them, but they're trying to make the argument anyway without making it too hard because they know they're not going to win it.

00:43:49.900 I don't know. It's just that that's showing some of that chronic oppositional disorder going on.

00:43:54.080 This is just, most of us, I didn't know, my kids haven't been in school in a long time,

00:43:58.960 that it had gotten so absurd that this is even a question.

00:44:01.620 I used to get a, you know, I'd get a yardstick across the knuckles for passing a note to the kid in the desk across from me

00:44:06.620 to imagine the kids would have been allowed this, and it's controversial to say,

00:44:09.880 no, you can't sit there and stare at your phone and social media through class.

00:44:13.640 It's an absurdity. I can't believe this was even a discussion.

00:44:18.080 So I hope it's a trendsetter for the rest of the provinces.

00:44:21.120 They've let it go too far, obviously, already.

00:44:22.760 I mean, it's just outrageous, frankly, that it had to go all the way up to the minister.

00:44:27.960 This should have been something that every school principal dealt with on his own turf.

00:44:33.280 But you know what? You've got some parents out there who are just kind of stupid.

00:44:36.280 I've heard there's helicopter parents who want access to their kids all the time.

00:44:39.600 Well, then get them homeschooled because this is ridiculous.

00:44:42.280 Well, do it like when I was a kid in school.

00:44:44.440 You need to get a hold of yours. It's an emergency.

00:44:46.000 You've got to call the frigging office.

00:44:48.140 Yeah, that's right.

00:44:48.580 I've got a little kid.

00:44:49.760 I have a daughter in the first grade.

00:44:51.820 If there's something going on, I call the office.

00:44:54.120 I don't need to.

00:44:54.840 She doesn't have a cell phone.

00:44:55.740 I don't need to text her.

00:44:57.600 Yes.

00:44:58.680 The other argument is, oh, well, the cell phone's got a calculator in it.

00:45:02.640 But she does.

00:45:03.440 Well, then we can buy some of these.

00:45:05.920 Well, I'm sure, you know, Indiana Jones can go find some calculators for us somewhere.

00:45:11.400 I was looking on the website the other day and, you know, starting with the very basic stuff.

00:45:16.000 10 bucks in walmart i'm told by people who know more than i do that if you want a scientific

00:45:21.120 calculator you're not going to get it for ten dollars how many people need it how many what

00:45:25.760 grade are you at before you need a scientific calculator and if you do it's probably not on

00:45:29.840 your cell phone so you know it's all i gotta say to my grade 10 math teacher is that when you told

00:45:35.920 me that i needed to know algebra because we're not all gonna have a calculator in our pockets

00:45:41.600 for the rest of our lives who's laughing now yeah but i i used to tell that to my math teacher about

00:45:48.960 trig and boy he laughing from the grave now when i spent 20 years as a surveyor well there's a

00:45:55.920 reason i've i've gone to the jobs i suppose i was a finance critic i i did have a bit of math to do

00:46:02.560 but but i didn't have to sit around doing algebra myself i did have a calculator in my pocket

00:46:06.880 Every kid coming out of grade 12 should be able to calculate 5% GST on a purchase of $100, says I.

00:46:16.080 Well, if you can't do that, I mean.

00:46:18.000 That's a good baseline.

00:46:19.240 That's a good baseline.

00:46:20.440 If we're drawing the line there, I don't think.

00:46:23.220 Okay.

00:46:23.940 All right, well, gentlemen, thank you.

00:46:25.660 I think we had a very good show today.

00:46:27.460 Remember, we're going to be here live 1.30 p.m. Mountain Standard Time this Saturday covering the Alberta NDP leadership vote.

00:46:39.040 Love them or not, it matters. These guys have been in charge of Alberta before. They could be again.

00:46:44.440 This is an important political event that's important to watch. So tune in then.

00:46:49.240 A reminder, if you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, you should be.

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Western Standard - June 20, 2024

Nenshi's to lose： NDP vote this Saturday

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