Western Standard - August 08, 2024


‘Nothing got done under Nenshi’s management’


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

223.44861

Word Count

911

Sentence Count

58

Misogynist Sentences

1


Summary

Calgary s mayor, Naheed Nenshue, is a known quantity to Canadian voters. He s known for massive tax hikes, a failed Olympic bid, a massive commercial vacancy, and a Green Line that may prove to be the biggest municipal boondoggle in Canadian history. Instead of trying to explain his legacy, he s trying to lie about himself.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Ninchy has a history in Alberta, and much of it actually isn't very good.
00:00:04.460 He's trying to hide from his own political baggage as he chases the premiership,
00:00:08.540 and he's resorting to lies to do so.
00:00:11.320 Being disingenuous is not new for Ninchy.
00:00:14.400 He initially got elected as the mayor of Calgary on a platform of being business-friendly,
00:00:18.520 and he was anything but.
00:00:19.740 Ninchy's relentless tax increases on city businesses actually drove owners to an unprecedented protest
00:00:25.200 outside of Calgary's city hall where they had to beg for tax relief.
00:00:28.560 The city was driving them right out of business.
00:00:31.840 Ninchy's frequent departures from the truth have landed him in legal hot water as well.
00:00:36.400 I mean, when Ninchy implied that Calgary businessman and philanthropist Cal Wenzel was an organized crime figure,
00:00:42.240 the resulting lawsuit left Calgarian taxpayers with a legal bill of nearly $300,000
00:00:46.920 until Ninchy could convince enough friends to pitch in and cover it for him.
00:00:51.620 One of those friends got a good contract, actually.
00:00:53.740 He apologized and retracted the statement, of course,
00:00:56.280 but it was clear, you know, he waited until he was sure he was going to lose that lawsuit,
00:00:59.880 and he was obviously going to lose it.
00:01:01.660 Ninchy also shared a bunch of bizarre fabrications about Uber while he was riding in a Lyft car in Boston.
00:01:06.840 He lied and claimed the city of Calgary had tested the security screening of Uber
00:01:10.620 by getting sex offenders through the process.
00:01:12.900 I'm not even sure where he's going to say they came from,
00:01:14.720 what, sex offenders are us or something,
00:01:16.200 or maybe he just happens to know a few of them.
00:01:18.020 I don't know.
00:01:18.480 But it was utter BS, and when the video surfaced,
00:01:20.960 it looked like Ninchy was about to get his arse sued again.
00:01:23.440 Uber had been trying for years to get into the city of Calgary,
00:01:25.580 but they'd been getting strong resistance from Ninchy,
00:01:27.700 who appeared to be pretty beholden to the Calgary's taxi cartels.
00:01:31.740 But then when Uber was about to sue the mayor,
00:01:34.360 Uber was suddenly approved as a service in the city,
00:01:36.740 and the talk of the lawsuit dropped.
00:01:38.080 Money on negotiations change when you're about to be sued into oblivion.
00:01:41.960 Now, though, Ninchy's taken to lying about himself.
00:01:44.640 It's one of his favorite subjects, I guess.
00:01:46.580 Ninchy's biggest personal legacy and vanity project
00:01:49.320 during his time as mayor is the LRT expansion called the Green Line.
00:01:53.560 The problem is the Green Line has turned into another debacle.
00:01:56.260 The size of the project has shrunken to a small fraction
00:01:59.320 of what the original scope was,
00:02:00.700 but the price tag has risen from $4.5 billion to $6 billion,
00:02:04.040 and meanwhile, they've pissed away $1.5 billion into it.
00:02:06.520 Not an inch of track has been laid yet.
00:02:08.920 At this rate, it's going to be another decade
00:02:10.360 before the Green Line ever gets out of the city's downtown,
00:02:12.680 and the cost will probably double or triple by then.
00:02:14.320 It's an unmitigated disaster.
00:02:17.100 Ninchy's trying to distance himself from this mess
00:02:20.240 by making his own historical revisionism going on.
00:02:24.460 In 2015, Jason Kenney was a member of parliament,
00:02:26.980 and he announced $1.5 billion federal dollars for the Green Line.
00:02:30.160 Ninchy at that time said the construction would begin in 2017
00:02:32.640 and be completed by 2024.
00:02:34.600 Yeah, that's Ninchy's words.
00:02:36.700 Now Ninchy's claiming, you know, he didn't say anything like that,
00:02:38.760 and that the funding was unexpected in 2015,
00:02:41.260 and that's what led to the delays in the construction.
00:02:43.420 He was actually blaming the feds for the delays in the construction
00:02:45.920 because the feds gave him money.
00:02:47.500 There's some sweet logic for you, isn't it?
00:02:49.180 The province kicked in another $1.5 billion as well, by the way.
00:02:52.240 Despite having all that money to play with,
00:02:54.100 nothing got done under Ninchy's management.
00:02:56.540 While he's trying to blame other levels of government for the mess,
00:02:59.060 it's simply BS.
00:03:00.480 Jason Kenney didn't beat around the bush on Ninchy's claims.
00:03:02.880 He said this is a broader problem Ninchy has.
00:03:05.620 He just makes stuff up.
00:03:07.340 I think people call it gaslighting.
00:03:09.400 Ninchy'll say whatever he thinks he needs to say
00:03:10.980 and pretend to be whatever he thinks he needs to be
00:03:12.920 if he thinks it'll bring him closer to power.
00:03:14.660 He lies without hesitation
00:03:16.060 and refuses to take responsibility for anything that happened
00:03:19.020 or didn't happen during his decade as a Calgary's mayor.
00:03:22.480 Ninchy is a known quantity to Calgarian voters.
00:03:25.260 Unfortunately for him, he's known for massive tax hikes,
00:03:28.280 a dysfunctional city council,
00:03:29.640 millions spent on a failed vanity Olympic bid,
00:03:32.360 a downtown with massive commercial vacancy
00:03:34.340 that's overrun with addicts,
00:03:35.620 and a green line project
00:03:36.940 that may prove to be the biggest municipal boondoggle
00:03:39.260 in Canadian's history.
00:03:40.840 Instead of trying to explain or wear his legacy,
00:03:43.320 Ninchy's trying to lie his way out of it.
00:03:45.060 He's counting on the short memory of voters
00:03:46.960 to try and win his way into the premiership of Alberta.
00:03:49.900 Let's make sure we don't let Albertans forget
00:03:51.560 what Ninchy's tenure as mayor was like.
00:03:55.160 It reflects how well he would government
00:03:56.960 if he were to become the premier.
00:03:58.500 Thanks a lot.
00:03:59.500 See you next time to hear.
00:03:59.640 See you next time to hear.
00:03:59.680 See you later.
00:03:59.980 See you next time to hear.
00:04:00.300 See you next time for a useful concern to us,
00:04:01.460 and before it comes back to the Trans Hmmm,
00:04:01.540 see you next time for now.
00:04:02.520 See you next time for Matthew Michael