Western Standard - Question Period with Premier Danielle Smith

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Good day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and welcome to hopefully

00:01:25.840 the first of uh many question periods with alberta premier daniel smith uh joined by alberta's uh

00:01:34.160 newly elected premier daniel smith thank you very much for joining us my pleasure nice to be back

00:01:38.240 on the western standard again it's wonderful to have you um so this is a new program uh this is

00:01:45.120 the first we hope to make this a regular occurrence we'll see how it goes um it's question period for

00:01:51.920 a reason it's uh it's gonna be questions regularly put to alberta premier danielle smith

00:01:56.720 um after today if we're able to do this going forward uh we're going to get a call in line

00:02:01.840 set up so that you can verbally ask your questions of the premier um but today it's going to begin

00:02:08.320 with uh because we don't have that i get to ask more questions than is probably normally the plan

00:02:13.200 uh but i'm going to ask some questions of the premier and uh and when i'm done with those

00:02:17.920 then it's your turn. So in the comments section, post your questions, try to keep them respectful,

00:02:23.360 try to keep them family friendly if you can. Obviously, we're not going to be able to answer

00:02:27.840 every one, but I imagine many of them will be reoccurring. So if we see the same kind of

00:02:31.680 question coming up multiple times, there's a better chance we're going to ask it, but no guarantees

00:02:36.080 because we've only got an hour of the Premier's time here. But we're sitting here at the Enoch

00:02:41.520 Cree Nation Hotel and Casino, just immediately west of Edmonton. We can actually see right out

00:02:47.440 the window here down uh beautiful downtown edmonton uh we're here because uh this weekend

00:02:53.280 is the united conservative party's annual general meeting um it's only been about two weeks and maybe

00:03:00.800 change two weeks and a day i think since you were elected leader of the united conservative party

00:03:04.800 and therefore uh premier designate sworn in just days later but it's been roughly 13 years in the

00:03:12.800 making since you first left the canadian federation of independent businesses and ran

00:03:16.720 for the leadership of this little party very few people had heard of the wild rose 13 years later

00:03:23.040 you're now the premier of alberta um do you have to pinch yourself it it's been remarkable

00:03:30.080 especially since it's been so busy over the last couple of weeks i'm i'm really grateful that

00:03:36.080 albertans forgave me for um the blunder that i had back in in 2014 and in with the best of

00:03:43.280 intentions misreading the signs that people were wanting to bring this movement back together

00:03:47.760 clearly i was wrong but it's it took a long a long time seven years to make amends for that

00:03:55.280 and it was by no means a given that albertans would give me a chance to get back into politics

00:04:00.520 so i'm just grateful that our members did and now we have to broaden it out and i'm reintroducing

00:04:06.040 myself to albertans who might not have listened to me on my radio program for the last six years

00:04:10.280 But I'm feeling really encouraged by the feedback I've already gotten from our caucus.

00:04:16.040 We're coming together as a team, and it's fantastic.

00:04:19.000 We've got a unity in purpose, and I'm looking forward to moving forward in a bold way on a lot of different files.

00:04:26.420 So we're going to get to the cabinet in a second, which was announced just minutes ago.

00:04:29.860 But you've got – it's been less than two weeks since you were sworn in.

00:04:36.500 It's an unusual transition, I would say.

00:04:40.280 normally someone becomes leader or a new party wins an election over another party and there's

00:04:47.160 two or three weeks and the premier or the prime minister and the cabinet are sworn in at the same

00:04:52.200 time you were sworn in days after winning the leadership but not your cabinet now about 10-15

00:05:03.560 minutes ago your cabinet was announced but will not be sworn in until monday um so it's it's a

00:05:10.380 different kind of transition uh what you tell me what are the big challenges you faced in the

00:05:15.140 transition coming into the premier's office so quickly and obviously a lot of uh slings and 1.00

00:05:20.360 arrows shot your way from day one it's there's been a few challenges i think one was that coming

00:05:27.040 into this weekend for the agm there was a big discussion normally when you announce your

00:05:31.560 cabinet, you also swear them in on the same day. And we wanted to make sure that our members could

00:05:37.480 be introduced to our new cabinet, because this is going to be our election cabinet. When you think

00:05:42.000 about it, we're not getting together as a group again until next year. And so I wanted, I thought

00:05:47.340 it was respectful to our members so that they knew which direction we were going, what the faces were

00:05:52.720 going to be in each portfolio. So it is a bit awkward because there are unfortunately not room

00:05:58.980 for every cabinet member. But one of the things I would say, and it was one of the cabinet members

00:06:03.360 who I was unfortunately not able to offer a position to, and they said, you know what,

00:06:08.400 this is good. We need to have some new fresh faces in there so that we can put a new face

00:06:13.500 on the government. So I was grateful to even though somebody was disappointed at not being

00:06:17.980 able to be in that position, that they were so gracious. And that's what I've seen across all

00:06:23.800 of the meetings that I've had with our MLAs, I wanted to make sure that I didn't prejudge anything

00:06:29.780 because when leadership races are a little bit rough, you probably know that too, Derek. And

00:06:34.960 when you have the kind of challenge that happens and the frictions that happen, you need to do a

00:06:40.960 little bit of relationship repair. And so I wanted to make sure that I sat down for at least half an

00:06:46.120 hour with every MLA, wanted to find out what priorities were in their riding, what their

00:06:50.360 aspirations were in politics and then we had a fantastic three-day caucus meeting where i wanted

00:06:56.840 to do a couple of things in setting the tone for how we were going to come together as a group bring

00:07:02.120 family members out have a little bit of social time together we played paintball and i discovered

00:07:07.080 them actually a pretty good shot nate horner discovered that the hard way as well that was

00:07:10.680 probably one of my my best moments in capture the flag but it was it's it's important when you do

00:07:16.760 those kinds of things together it brings you together as a team so those were those were the

00:07:20.840 other considerations as we had to to bring together the um the caucus members and also

00:07:27.400 we have had some just stellar leadership candidates and i wanted to make room for as many of them as

00:07:31.880 possible in senior roles so that was the the other thing that i had to consider as we were putting

00:07:36.680 it together so let's talk about cabinet cabinet as i said was just announced minutes before we

00:07:42.120 started um there's a lot to take in um as there's with any new cabinet because it's not just a

00:07:48.440 shuffle the new cabinet but not exactly i i was trying to think you know what would be the column

00:07:54.120 of uh headline of my column i write about this i was thinking uh something new something new

00:07:58.600 something borrowed and something blue so let's start with the new uh brian gene uh minister of

00:08:04.680 jobs economy northern development peter guthrie and energy mike ellis in the new position of public

00:08:09.480 safety minister used uh ariana lagrange staying in education uh travis taves returning to finance

00:08:18.600 rajansani going to multiculturalism i should say it's a bigger rule it's trade immigration

00:08:24.360 and multiculturalism oh okay yes yes um multiculturalism gets attached to a lot

00:08:29.400 of different ministries and every different premiership uh borrowed um uh tyler shandro

00:08:36.840 stays in justice not returning to health though but staying in justice um minister copying staying

00:08:42.680 in health and something blue so that's where i put todd lowland uh you've got his minister of

00:08:49.480 forestry parks and tourism uh i think you should call the parks and recreation because he could be

00:08:54.280 like the ron swanson i have to tell you i when i was talking to him about it i i wanted him to look

00:08:59.400 up a picture because i was sure if i called it forestry parks and recreation which we were going

00:09:03.080 to someone would have put one of the ron swanson mustaches on him i don't know if he's a parks and

00:09:09.080 rec fan though if he's not he's he's got to study up quickly because that'd be the dream job as

00:09:13.960 minister to sit there and say my job is to make sure we do nothing the only problem with that is

00:09:19.000 that there's so much i want him to do in that portfolio we can talk about there's a i have a

00:09:23.000 hundred things i could say about each of those so tell me which one you want to get okay so there's

00:09:26.280 a lot of specifics i want to this question is less about the specifics of those individual ministers

00:09:30.920 I'm going to get to that. It's a change. It's a significant change, but it's not a massive

00:09:36.020 turnover that you would sometimes see, obviously not, within an intra-party change, with new

00:09:41.340 leadership within a party staying government. What's the big message you're trying to send

00:09:46.440 with this cabinet that has significant differences, but is not a radical overhaul from the outgoing

00:09:53.660 entrepreneurship? I think, especially in a couple of different roles, with Travis Taves being in

00:09:59.960 finance and treasury board again. I wanted to just express my confidence in him in that role. He

00:10:06.360 very clearly has won the esteem of Albertans and members of our party. And I wanted to

00:10:12.640 acknowledge that. I mean, it was a really close leadership race. And I think that the fact that

00:10:17.840 people were trying to, were struggling to make a choice between he and I in the end in that final

00:10:22.340 ballot shows that they want him in a senior role. And he's got some unfinished business to do,

00:10:27.340 even though he was out of the portfolio while he ran for this for a short time for the leadership,

00:10:33.020 there are some really big files that he wants to move on. I found it really interesting during

00:10:39.280 the campaign that he kept on saying that the Alberta pension plan is one of the areas that

00:10:45.980 he was most enthusiastic about looking at. And so I want to see what he can do on that file.

00:10:51.460 I want him to release the report and review that we have done on that. And I want to see what his

00:10:57.060 recommendations are. And I think he needs to move that file. So it's a couple of things. It's not

00:11:01.180 only stability, but it's also boldness. And I think he embodies both of that.

00:11:05.960 With the other leadership candidates that are in cabinet, clearly Brian Jean has also, he was

00:11:13.620 sort of a jockeying between the three of us as the front runners all the way through the campaign.

00:11:18.800 And once again, I wanted to give him a role that was going to be substantial. I know that he,

00:11:23.680 When you look at our northern territories, it strikes me that we think of the north as a region,

00:11:28.820 but anyone who travels to the north knows that you can't easily get from Grand Prairie to Fort McMurray

00:11:33.260 because we haven't built a darn road.

00:11:35.060 And you also have Cold Lake and Athabasca, which are huge economic drivers for our province

00:11:40.100 and generate a ton of revenue, and yet they don't have the same level of infrastructure support.

00:11:45.560 When you can drive on a road for two hours and not have wireless access,

00:11:50.480 you could even make a cell phone call those are the kind of things that i wanted brian gene to

00:11:54.320 be able to do is to give us an economic strategy that puts the north at its center and works in

00:12:00.480 all of the different infrastructure improvements we we need to make to make sure that the north

00:12:04.160 can truly thrive i do want to talk about some of the specifics of of the ins and outs with this

00:12:09.440 but i i i guess i'll rephrase my question as what's the theme that you're you're trying to

00:12:15.600 to project with this i know um i know i know communications people and they're sitting down

00:12:20.560 they're trying to come out what are the key messages we're trying to portray i think you

00:12:25.120 know one you talked about you know about change but projecting stability you know you get you

00:12:30.800 got to kind of get that with travis taves but what's kind of the overarching message you're

00:12:35.920 trying to send with the appointment of this cabinet it is stability but boldness really and

00:12:40.400 i think it's respect as well the fact that you can have a difference of opinion but you can come

00:12:45.360 together as a team and a family i think that that was really important in me assembling the cabinet

00:12:50.800 the way that i did is that people had some questions about because leadership races get a

00:12:55.360 little bit tense i think they had some questions about whether everybody would be prepared to serve

00:13:00.240 under my leadership and i think that this demonstrates that i respect the the role that

00:13:06.400 each of them played each of the the leadership candidates played in raising bold issues and i

00:13:11.200 I wanted to put them in a position where they had a meaningful role that they could execute on them

00:13:15.360 too. I only ran on a small number of things and so all of the the best ideas came from us as a

00:13:21.200 collective the group of candidates running and so by putting most of those those leadership

00:13:26.320 candidates in senior roles I think that that demonstrates I respect them and they respect me

00:13:30.400 and people are going to be able to see some boldness but also some some of the stability

00:13:34.640 that they've been looking for so um i'm gonna we're gonna talk about who's out in a bit but

00:13:42.160 let's come back to who's in because i know you're eager to talk about who's in here um so obviously

00:13:48.320 uh uh travis taves returning back in i more or less would consider the leadership candidates

00:13:54.560 who are back in it more or less i've never laughed yeah that was a kind of a temporary stepping

00:13:58.880 aside if i can be quick do you want to just go through each of them rapidly and i can tell you

00:14:02.400 with my thinking behind each one.

00:14:04.340 Okay.

00:14:05.620 Okay, well, we've already done Travis Taves.

00:14:06.980 Yes, I've already done Brian Jean.

00:14:08.180 Already done Brian Jean.

00:14:09.920 Coming back in, actually, Devin Dreeshan.

00:14:12.500 So Devin Dreeshan, we're actually not that far from his riding,

00:14:15.000 just a little south from here.

00:14:16.600 Devin Dreeshan had stepped aside from Cabinet.

00:14:18.860 Back in.

00:14:19.560 What's your thinking there?

00:14:20.260 A couple things.

00:14:21.320 I know that Devin had stepped back because he was dealing

00:14:25.280 with some personal issues, and we are a caucus that allows people

00:14:28.580 to be able to take a little bit of a break if they need

00:14:31.740 be able to deal with some of those personal issues but he is such a great talent such an amazing

00:14:35.580 communicator and he's going to dig into the issue of transportation and economic corridors i'm very

00:14:41.340 keen to have somebody who's bold to to push back against ottawa because we're going to have to 0.99

00:14:45.900 there's going to be a few conflicts there as we start developing those corridors out and i think

00:14:50.140 he's the perfect person for the job so i had loan on the list but we already talked low and um major

00:14:56.620 may i say something about that those two forestry um parks and tourism the reason i put those

00:15:01.340 together is we often feel i often have watched since it seems like forestry which is another

00:15:05.980 major economic driver for us a lot of it in northern alberta seems to always be stuffed into

00:15:11.380 another ministry i wanted to give it the prominence it deserves but remember as well forestry is also

00:15:16.660 the way that we open up our parks that's where you've got atvs able to use some of those forestry

00:15:21.680 back roads that's where you've got camping that's where you've got the those who want to use the

00:15:26.160 backcountry. And to me, it seems like we need to be getting into an attitude that our parks are for

00:15:32.360 use. They are for recreation. They are for having fun. And there are protected lands. Yes. But why

00:15:38.420 aren't we building more campgrounds? Why aren't we creating more opportunities for people to enjoy

00:15:41.940 our parks? I could never get a spot for my trailer. I talked to one of our former tourism ministers

00:15:45.400 and they said, we haven't built park, we haven't built campgrounds in 20 years. That's going to

00:15:48.740 change under Todd Law. And I'm looking forward to that. So out of the really big senior portfolios,

00:15:55.180 i think the biggest change you made was peter guthrie going into energy uh sonia savage moving

00:16:01.100 to environment and protected lands yeah so you know we were talking about how you readjusted

00:16:06.620 that ministry from environment and parks now environment and protected lands which is sort of

00:16:11.660 parks you know but you know it isn't right because my my view is that there are portions of our parks

00:16:17.100 that are protected and there's a portion that are for use and i i think the real problem that we've

00:16:21.020 had an environment is that they take an attitude of let's build a fence around things and let's

00:16:25.260 not use it it's why we don't have adequate uh boat launches if you're trying to use our river system

00:16:30.380 it's why we don't have adequate facilities when you're trying to park in canaanaskis you drive in

00:16:34.540 canaanaskis and you see people lined up on the roads because we don't have enough parking spaces

00:16:38.620 we clearly don't have enough campgrounds and it creates all of this tension so i think that

00:16:43.340 by making sure that we assert that there are certain areas where you're concerned about

00:16:48.460 endangered species and habitat protection, you absolutely want to have a different attitude

00:16:53.500 towards those than the areas that you want to encourage tourism. So we already do have different

00:16:58.220 categorizations for lands, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do. But there's a culture and

00:17:02.300 environment and protected lands that we need to preserve because they are our watchdogs. But there

00:17:06.780 is also a very strong desire to be able to use lands so that we can all be able to enjoy our

00:17:11.900 mountain parks and other areas. So that's the difference between the two. But also Sonja Savage

00:17:16.460 has such immense background in regulatory approvals. She did tremendous work on the energy

00:17:22.420 side, but oftentimes she was getting blocked in wanting to move things forward on the environment

00:17:27.100 side. So now she's in a position to be able to work some of those issues through as well. And

00:17:30.900 I'm looking forward to having that tag team. Pete Guthrie was the head of our energy committee.

00:17:35.420 That's where I first got to know him a couple of years ago. And he's already built a ton of those

00:17:40.040 relationships, especially with our small and mid-sized companies. We know that the economic

00:17:45.180 driver in our province is those small and medium oil and gas companies they've got some big big

00:17:50.460 issues with the regulating agencies and i think pete knows what those issues are so those two

00:17:54.860 are those two ministers are going to work collaboratively on moving a few things forward

00:17:58.860 in particular there was a royalty credit program that i was quite a big champion of in my former

00:18:04.380 life where it was called r star and i know that it will be a way that we can clean up some of

00:18:10.380 our legacy well sites we've got uh legacy well sites going back to the 50s and 60s that just

00:18:16.220 keep getting pushed forward it's creating a black eye for us internationally and i'm highly motivated

00:18:21.660 for us to figure out a process to reclaim those wells all the way through to the end so we can get

00:18:26.220 that land no one appears to have been able to fix that issue i'm i'm starting to throw up my hands

00:18:32.220 i think it might be one of those unfixable issues i can tell you pete guthrie and sonia and sonia

00:18:37.580 savage they'll fix it well i'll hold you to that because i i'm starting to not that i think we'd

00:18:43.820 have to be too hard on you because i'm starting to think it's an unfixable problem but if you

00:18:47.340 can fix it i mean there's a nobel prize in it i'm sure um so let's talk about your deputy premieres

00:18:54.140 um you've got uh the previous uh jason kenney had no deputy premier um there's sometimes been

00:19:02.620 Deputy Premier is Lukaszak for Redford, Sarah Hoffman for Notley. You now have two. One of them

00:19:12.060 I would say is promotion. You've got Casey Maddow. He's also Minister of Infrastructure.

00:19:16.300 Casey Maddow is our Minister for Skilled Trades and Professions.

00:19:21.260 Oh, I was reading. Yes, because your other Deputy Premier is Infrastructure. So you've got Casey

00:19:27.180 Madhu, the sole UCP MLA within Edmonton proper. You've also, you've got MLA surrounding Edmonton

00:19:33.100 proper in the, in the, in the metro region. But then also Nathan Newdorf out of Lethbridge

00:19:39.140 representing, I think Lethbridge East, NDP, Shannon Phillips holding the other one.

00:19:45.540 And also both carrying ministerial portfolios. Why did you choose two deputy premiers? Why these

00:19:52.980 guys and what role are they going to fill? Because very often, and maybe for good reason,

00:19:57.660 deputy premiers, deputy prime ministers, it's somewhat of an honorific office. Like a vice

00:20:03.440 president of the United States, the vice president doesn't have any power in and of himself

00:20:07.040 other than what the president gives them. So what roles do you see these deputy premiers playing and

00:20:14.440 why'd you pick two and why these guys? There's a couple of things. With Casey Maddow, one of the

00:20:20.280 things that is going to be important is to have the continuity from somebody who had been in

00:20:25.140 cabinet. Remember, I'm coming in from the outside and that can always be difficult if you don't

00:20:29.900 have, because I don't have the shared experience of everyone for the last three and a half years

00:20:33.540 and both Casey Maddou and Nathan Newdorf have very deep friendships and relationships that

00:20:39.440 they've built over these past three and a half years, which is really going to be important for

00:20:42.600 me as I make decisions. So with Casey being in Edmonton, it's not that unusual for when you have

00:20:47.840 a premier from the south to be able to have a premier a deputy premier from the north to make

00:20:52.500 sure that you're not missing anything and that's the one of the roles that that Casey Maddu will 1.00

00:20:56.240 play another role of course is going to be um our deputy house leader because we're we've got a new

00:21:02.400 house leader and the deputy house leader plays a role in helping to make sure that the legislative

00:21:06.700 agenda gets through if there are times that I'm not able to be in question period uh Casey will

00:21:12.220 take the lead on answering answering questions because he's he's very skilled at that having

00:21:16.420 done it for the last three and a half years as well um nathan newdorf is going to to uh he's gonna

00:21:22.740 come up the the learning curve on that as well to be able to take on any questions in southern

00:21:27.540 alberta if i happen not to be there as well the other thing that that really struck me when i

00:21:32.660 interviewed casey uh when we were uh going going through the crisis after george floyd was killed

00:21:40.500 we were talking about the ways in which we had to address issues of inclusivity and diversity

00:21:46.180 and one of the things he told me is that when he came to canada he was applying for jobs under his

00:21:50.980 nigerian name kalichi madu and he wasn't getting callbacks and then when he changed his name to

00:21:56.180 casey madu he started getting callbacks and that's the kind of thing that i think is a unconscious

00:22:01.700 bias if you don't have people who are in positions who come from a diverse community you just might

00:22:06.820 make different hiring decisions and you might end up overlooking real talent so this is what i have

00:22:11.700 have tasked him with is that we want to make sure that in all of our hiring decisions, in our

00:22:16.380 political office staff, in our deputy minister areas, as well as going down through various

00:22:22.800 layers in the bureaucracy, our agencies, boards and commissions, I want to make sure that we have

00:22:27.580 people in key hiring positions so that there isn't that unconscious bias, so that we always get the

00:22:32.860 best people for the job. And we're reaching out into our cultural communities to let them know

00:22:37.440 that we want their expertise and we want them to engage with our government in a meaningful way.

00:22:41.700 in a meaningful way. And with Nathan Newdorf, he proposed something quite interesting to me.

00:22:45.860 Sometimes we end up with interdepartmental friction, and he wants to play a role in helping

00:22:51.440 to solve problems. If you end up with a problem that requires cross-ministry coordination,

00:22:57.980 that's the role he's going to play, is to make sure that those barriers end up coming down. He

00:23:01.560 has been caucus chair. He's got incredible interpersonal skills. And so we're going to

00:23:06.320 play two very different roles, but very important ones for me. So we've got a lot of questions,

00:23:10.620 So I don't want to go through every single cabinet minister because it's a fairly large cabinet.

00:23:14.260 And I think we spend the entire time going through every one.

00:23:17.580 So I want to focus on this is a tougher question on who's out.

00:23:22.420 OK, I should mention Rebecca Schultz is also in, though. 0.98

00:23:25.140 Yes, because she's also a leadership candidate. 1.00

00:23:29.160 And Rajan Sani is in, too.

00:23:30.640 Yeah, Rajan Sani is in as well.

00:23:32.100 And we've talked about the role that I want Rajan Sani to play is I have spent a lot of time with the Constitution, as you know,

00:23:39.560 and Section 95 says that the province really should be taking the lead on matters of agriculture

00:23:44.920 and matters of immigration. And one of the frustrations I have had going back to when I was

00:23:49.920 in 2006, when I was doing advocacy for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business,

00:23:55.380 is we have a structure where we go out into the world and we welcome people to Canada,

00:23:59.600 and they arrive in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. And then they look around and say,

00:24:02.900 well, where are all the jobs? And then they move to Alberta. But because we have a mismatch in

00:24:07.160 doing foreign credentials recognition, I think that they don't end up getting hired into the

00:24:11.880 positions they have expertise. So there's a combination of roles that are going to solve

00:24:16.200 that problem. And one of them is we want to establish our own robust streams for international

00:24:23.100 talent attraction, much along the lines of Quebec. I've been told Quebec chooses 55%

00:24:30.500 of their nominee of the new arrivals to their country to their country whoops their province

00:24:36.460 i think of themselves as a separate nation within a nation okay fair enough and then

00:24:42.040 manitoba as well they also um they also have a stream that attracts 20 000 people because they

00:24:48.580 have a robust plan to make sure that they're growing their agriculture communities and so

00:24:53.480 if they can do that we can too and that's that's going to be one of the tasks she's charged with

00:24:57.100 And then Rebecca Schultz has just got such a wonderful personality, incredible interpersonal skills, such a talent.

00:25:03.800 And we've got some thorny issues we've got to deal with with our municipalities, some big issues around homelessness that we've got to tackle in Calgary and Edmonton,

00:25:12.560 as well as the problem of unpaid property taxes on linear assessment in rural Alberta.

00:25:18.160 And I can't think of a better person because she comes from a rural background. 0.99

00:25:22.200 She moved to the city. I think she understands both those cultures really well.

00:25:25.740 And she's going to be doing some troubleshooting in that role. 0.99

00:25:29.500 So I'm looking forward to working with her.

00:25:31.440 So I understand a lot of this is confidential, where we're going now into out and some things you're not going to be able to speak about.

00:25:40.900 But I'm going to ask anyway.

00:25:43.540 Some of the names that are out, probably most prominently Jason Nixon.

00:25:46.860 He was house leader and minister of environment under Kenny and then temporarily minister of finance during the leadership race.

00:25:53.380 He's gone, although his brother, Jeremy Nixon, is in another role.

00:25:58.640 Prasad Panda out.

00:26:00.700 Rick McIver is out, although he's not running again, I believe.

00:26:04.300 He hasn't told me that.

00:26:05.260 Oh, okay.

00:26:06.520 I might be misinformed.

00:26:08.180 Okay, so maybe...

00:26:08.740 I'll follow up with him on that.

00:26:09.700 Okay.

00:26:10.340 Whitney Isaac, Ron Orr, tenure for a fan, and Jackie Armstrong.

00:26:17.640 Lelia here was not in it, but she had been a captain minister, 0.87

00:26:21.300 but so she's the only leadership contestant who's not running um sorry who's not not in the cabinet

00:26:27.060 although you know not a particularly strong placing in the in the in the leadership um

00:26:34.420 what was your reasoning for shuffling some of these people out or not adding them back in for

00:26:38.740 the there are some who quite frankly really have to be focused on their their riding because they've

00:26:45.220 got contested nominations. And so I didn't want anyone to be in a situation where they

00:26:52.000 were distracted by having cabinet responsibilities when they've got to resolve their issues at

00:26:57.460 home. So that would be one. The other factor is that there are a number of cabinet ministers

00:27:02.660 who seem to really be the hand of the former premier on a lot of files that caused our

00:27:09.180 party a lot of problems and we uh it's if people are out it's not out forever i've told them that

00:27:15.580 but it is take a back seat for a bit rebuild some relationships work on some files that

00:27:20.860 allow for people to see that you are are prepared to work with us on the on turning the channel on

00:27:26.380 how the um on the restrictions that we faced over the last couple of years and also taking a bolder

00:27:32.620 approach to how we deal with ottawa so some of that was that it's it's just a it's just a break

00:27:38.220 for now maybe not forever but we did need to make sure that the membership understood that i heard

00:27:44.220 them loud and clear that there are many of the people who had been in traditional cabinet roles

00:27:48.700 who i think have done a tremendous job of repairing some of those damaged relationships

00:27:53.340 and demonstrating that they're prepared to make a step forward but i think a couple need to have

00:27:57.500 a little bit more work done on that regard so i guess two follow-ups from that i was going to ask

00:28:02.060 about um some of the nominations going on um there's been some i'd say it's fair to say

00:28:08.860 contentious decisions by the party brass disqualifying candidates in some contested nominations

00:28:18.220 i won't get into the specific writings but i think a lot of people know who they which writings we're

00:28:22.540 talking about um during the leadership race actually during the debate we we had of the

00:28:28.300 front runners you said you would um i don't want to put words in your mouth but i'll tell you what

00:28:32.380 i did say because initially i had been told that there was an appetite to to open those ridings

00:28:37.260 again i i since i i in my opening meeting with the executive they said there really isn't an avenue

00:28:43.100 for the leader to do that that any decision on revisiting would have to be made by the the board

00:28:48.860 and so i'm going to the provincial board the provincial yes yes i'm only one member of it

00:28:54.700 And there's a we're going through nominations or new elections at the AGM this weekend.

00:28:59.520 So I'm not going to prejudge the outcome of that. But I think I want to be respectful of our grassroots members.

00:29:05.020 I want to be respectful as well of the fact that that they will make these decisions.

00:29:09.300 I think one of the issues that we had in the past is that the leader meddled in too many areas, too many ridings.

00:29:16.060 And I don't want to be accused of doing the same on the reverse side.

00:29:19.600 So it'll it'll really be a member decision on whether to revisit any of those.

00:29:23.820 how would that work if there if there's members in a given riding who were upset

00:29:27.980 that all the opponents to an incumbent mla were disqualified um you know and it's good practice 0.97

00:29:37.500 you know we've both been mlas it's good practice to have a friendly local constituency association

00:29:42.540 board you're not a good politician if you can't keep your own board on side generally um so these

00:29:49.020 people might not be controlling the local boards but they might make up a lot of the members and

00:29:52.060 and they haven't had a chance to vote.

00:29:54.320 So how are they going to have their voices expressed

00:29:56.800 if that's already been cut?

00:29:57.880 So this is going to be one of the big battles at this AGM.

00:30:01.540 Quite frankly, there's 28 candidates

00:30:03.720 who are running for the different positions,

00:30:05.520 and there's a number of them that want to revisit

00:30:07.720 exactly the issues that you're raising,

00:30:10.540 and there's others who want to respect the decisions that were made.

00:30:14.080 So I'm just watching it as an observer,

00:30:17.620 so maybe you can ask me that again once we see how those votes go

00:30:21.640 because that would be the first step is whether whether the provincial board has an appetite to

00:30:26.400 revisit any of that yeah I've been of the view that a clean slate is a clean slate and we we

00:30:32.960 have to we have to to perhaps look at how how we do our vetting process I think that there are some

00:30:41.080 people who are concerned that it's overly strict but look I I had a process in back in my day that

00:30:47.480 was underly strict and so where you find that probably not a perfect balance in there it's

00:30:52.440 very it's a these are really difficult decisions and whatever gets shared publicly about why a

00:30:57.620 candidate was disqualified there's always a dossier of things that go behind it you don't want to be

00:31:02.280 damaging people's reputations unnecessarily so i think i my my approach has been uh since there

00:31:09.040 isn't really a role for the leader to unilaterally make those decisions i just want to be respectful

00:31:13.260 of the board process now uh i have a last question on cabinet before we get into some

00:31:18.780 other matters however related um is this you know this cabinet coming in not that long before the

00:31:25.740 next provincial election um and i mean you were not the candidate who had the most support within

00:31:32.620 the existing caucus there's going to be new mlas coming in uh probably within some of the incumbent

00:31:38.860 seats from retirements or if if any incumbents are allowed to be defeated in nominations that

00:31:44.060 kind of thing um is this obviously you will make changes to cabinet if you are re-elected in the

00:31:51.180 spring but is this a cabinet that you're expecting to more or less keep intact through the election

00:31:58.200 like when that election's over and you have a new caucus are you expecting to make any significant

00:32:03.080 changes after when you've got that new caucus in front of you you know you always have to look at

00:32:07.700 new talent coming in and that's that was part of the hard decision that i had to make this time

00:32:11.700 around there there was an opportunity for me i suppose to just grandfather in everybody who was

00:32:17.220 there and then just add the ones that i wanted but then i would have ended up with 40 people in

00:32:20.820 cabinet and we don't want to do that because that makes it really difficult for the public for the

00:32:26.500 administration because they have already established the underpinning of how those different

00:32:32.260 departments work and you you don't want to to be bisecting them too much otherwise you could end

00:32:36.900 up creating silos so i will be keep an open mind with new recruits coming in because we're going

00:32:43.300 to be i think we don't have candidates right now in 27 ridings um we're uh because they're

00:32:49.780 held by the the uh the other party and we also have a number of retirements happening so i don't

00:32:55.380 want to prejudge there's a lot of talent as preston manning used to say you've got to make cabinet

00:32:59.300 out of the wood that you're given unfortunately he was paraphrasing so john mcdonald oh i see now

00:33:03.220 okay unfortunately we've been given some very good wood and i think that we're going to continue

00:33:07.860 attracting some really good people to run for us it makes my job really difficult because

00:33:13.620 i really wish i could give everybody a senior position but those are the tough choices we have

00:33:18.340 to make so we'll prejudge it we'll see what happens after the next election okay so let's uh

00:33:23.540 we've set a whole new world record we've gone 37 minutes and not talked about the sovereignty act

00:33:27.860 oh my gosh never happened that has never happened in any of the interviews i've done in six months

00:33:32.500 yeah well i suppose there's finally been some other things to talk about

00:33:37.060 um it was obviously very contentious during the the leadership race uh the only other candidate

00:33:42.740 besides yourself who supported it in principle was was todd lowen um sources we've spoken to

00:33:50.820 say that you've more or less been able to pacify this around caucus now i i've got a call on though

00:33:59.380 that, you know, you had issued sort of almost a mini white paper during the leadership race

00:34:07.060 on some of these pieces with the Sovereignty Act, particularly as it relates to the Supreme

00:34:11.580 Court of Canada rulings.

00:34:15.560 It's been, I think, probably fairly called somewhat of a walk back, obviously not a full

00:34:20.420 walk back, but it's definitely a break from as it was originally proposed, coming out

00:34:25.040 of the Alberta Free Strategy.

00:34:26.220 Understanding, I know you did not campaign on the Alberta Free Strategy.

00:34:28.720 you campaigned on a modified portion of it the sovereignty act um so i guess two questions one is

00:34:37.840 has this been more or less been pacified with caucus and with the leadership contenders uh

00:34:42.480 or former leadership contenders and um what what changes or give and take were needed to

00:34:49.120 to get caucus on side for that so so first of all i think it was it had to be made clear that i

00:34:54.320 I wasn't just lifting the ideas from the Free Alberta Strategy and saying,

00:34:58.100 holus, bolus, we would implement that.

00:35:00.500 Because as much as I think the Free Alberta Strategy has a number of excellent ideas,

00:35:05.280 I don't think all of them are constitutional, and I don't think all of them can be implemented.

00:35:09.780 But the notion behind the Sovereignty Act really appealed to me because,

00:35:13.220 and especially now that I have gone through some department briefings,

00:35:16.780 I had a suspicion this was going on, but now I know that it is going on.

00:35:20.300 link byfield and i years ago blesses god rest his soul he uh he passed on but when when he and i

00:35:27.500 were collaborating together he he and i did a calgary congress and one of the things that he

00:35:33.780 pointed out at the time that was a major invasion of the federal government into our areas of

00:35:39.100 jurisdiction was their use of the federal spending power what they do is they overtax and then they

00:35:44.100 dribble money back to us with a ton of conditions saying, if you do it our way, you'll get some

00:35:50.500 money. And if you don't, we're not going to transfer your money. And what I've discovered

00:35:54.880 in the departmental briefings is that the federal government is reaching into our jurisdiction

00:35:59.060 all the time at the departmental level, all of the time at the management level. So one of the

00:36:04.900 things I wanted the Sovereignty Act to do is to send a message to all people who work for us

00:36:09.020 that that's not going to be accepted anymore.

00:36:11.860 Anytime a federal government makes an entry into our jurisdiction,

00:36:16.100 it's going to come up to my office.

00:36:17.540 I'm intergovernmental affairs, and I want that to be reported.

00:36:21.560 I want the, because I suspect it's dozens, if not hundreds of times,

00:36:24.840 that they're trying to manipulate how we write our laws,

00:36:27.580 manipulate how we make our decisions,

00:36:29.060 manipulate how we structure our programs, and it's got to stop.

00:36:31.660 They don't do that in Quebec, and they're not going to do it here anymore.

00:36:34.260 So that was one of the ways, I think, that I got people on board.

00:36:36.740 And the other thing, too, is I know that there was this conception that we were just going to ignore court decisions, and I'm not sure how that conception developed, because I always said that in the case of the carbon tax, the Supreme Court had ruled on that.

00:36:50.860 If we wanted to try to find a way to get them to revisit that decision, we'd have to re-challenge it, or we'd have to find some way to offset the amount of cost of the carbon tax.

00:36:59.980 So I always respected the Supreme Court decision.

00:37:02.680 But importantly, the way I see the Sovereignty Act working is it turns the tables on the federal government.

00:37:08.380 Right now, the federal government passes unconstitutional laws all the time and then make us go to court to try to fight to get our rights back.

00:37:15.700 What this would say is it would put up a shield.

00:37:17.700 I would say, no, we're not going to implement federal laws that violate our jurisdiction and they could take us to court instead.

00:37:23.580 So that has always been the way I framed this out, which, as you can see, puts the court in a central role as acting as the referee.

00:37:31.140 And it's up to us to make the best case possible.

00:37:33.580 And it's up to us to demonstrate that we're going to stay out of their lane, but they've got to stay out of ours as well.

00:37:38.700 And I'm prepared to have those court battles.

00:37:41.380 So following on this with the Sovereignty Act, we have seen, much to my surprise now,

00:37:48.200 five provinces and territories say that uh they're not uh they're not going to comply with

00:37:55.720 ottawa's orders to use their provincial police forces to go and confiscate guns that the federal

00:38:02.540 liberal government have just declared to be illegal uh it began with uh alberta uh shandro

00:38:08.340 announced that um soon before you were um elected leader of the ucp followed quickly by saskatchewan

00:38:15.300 and Manitoba, and then started really surprisingly when I think it was New Brunswick

00:38:19.820 and Yukon. And Yukon's not even a center-right government right now.

00:38:26.960 Do you think that this is going to kind of validate, does this provide a validation for

00:38:32.380 your plan with the Sovereignty Act? And what does this say for maybe the ability for you to build

00:38:37.420 alliances with other provinces to engage in Sovereignty Act style disregard of federal

00:38:43.780 orders in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Yeah. I think what happens when you put a bold

00:38:47.700 idea forward, initially everybody says, what? What are you talking about? You can't do that.

00:38:52.140 And then as they start thinking about it, they say, hmm, maybe we can do it. And then as they

00:38:55.860 start seeing ways in which it can be used, they say, darn it, we are going to do it. And I think

00:38:59.280 that that's been the transition that has happened over the past six months. And I've been delighted

00:39:02.700 to see it because we have been acting as provinces like a subordinate level of government to the

00:39:07.840 federal government. And we're not. We have exclusive jurisdiction in our own areas. And I

00:39:12.780 i think that i've already spoken with premier mo and i spoke with premier stefenson and i think

00:39:17.500 that we're going to develop an amazing partnership with with with those two provinces in particular

00:39:23.020 to act as a united front against federal intrusion but also attack collaboratively on building out

00:39:28.620 economic corridors and working to make sure that that manitoba's hydroelectric power comes across

00:39:34.220 the the prairies and that we're able to get our products to market as well so i i think that this

00:39:39.180 is going to be a really exciting stage in the development of inter-provincial relations and

00:39:44.620 putting Ottawa in its back in its proper role and as many allies as wants to work with beyond that

00:39:50.620 i am i'm delighted to work with them so uh i'm keenly aware of the time and that i have not left

00:39:57.100 a ton of time for questions from others yet i just think my questions are so great people might

00:40:01.340 disagree well you know the cabinet decisions are big changes really so i can understand why you

00:40:05.980 wanted to do that i should also mention one really important area um is uh two important areas so

00:40:11.900 you'll notice that mike ellis has been moved into the role of public safety and i should i should

00:40:17.660 point out that the rcmp contract and our fight with ottawa over how we're going to move forward

00:40:23.020 on an alberta provincial police that's going to stay with with tyler shandro because he is doing

00:40:26.700 such a tremendous job on that he's got another one he's got a fight today marco mendocino just

00:40:31.100 announced that we are going to end all of the sale of firearms or for handguns he thinks he thinks so

00:40:37.420 um i i asked the minister if he would put out a statement on that so i know that he's he's up for

00:40:43.180 a big fight on that but the these are really important issues because they're they go to our

00:40:47.660 different cultural values in alberta we are a different culture here and that is not in alignment

00:40:53.020 with how it is we want our policing resources to be used when our policing resources to be used to

00:40:57.740 fight real criminals to make sure that we're stopping smuggling of guns across the border

00:41:03.100 and to deal with some of the gang and organized crime problems that we see that are plaguing

00:41:06.860 cities so on the encounter side of that mike ellis has done tremendous work on mental health

00:41:13.740 and addictions and we are now world renowned in the approach that we're taking which is treatment

00:41:18.780 first because once you approach from a treatment point of view there's a certain percentage of

00:41:23.820 people who are going to be able to get clean from drugs permanently and go back to independent living

00:41:27.420 and we've had amazing success on that so mike ellis has a former history as a calgary police

00:41:33.020 officer and it seemed to me that in the new model of policing we've got to be mindful that a lot of

00:41:39.420 the calls more than half of them are mental health and addiction calls and so as we're building out

00:41:44.460 our alberta provincial police i think that mike is going to be the perfect person to be able to do

00:41:48.780 that so public safety becomes a new prominent role as when as the minister of justice resolves

00:41:55.580 our issues with the rcmp contract and we have to start building out app it's going to switch over

00:41:59.660 to mike ellis's role plus i also discovered that so the current police is under justice yeah but

00:42:07.020 when the app comes it's going to be as we start building out it's going to to go under mike ellis

00:42:12.380 because for for me i want the new policing culture to reflect the fact that it's not going to be a

00:42:17.980 paramilitary type of style of training as we have had historically what we need is some is to attract

00:42:23.980 new officers in who are sensitive to the fact that they may be doing more mental health and

00:42:28.780 addiction calls. And it requires a different approach. When I was on the air, one of the

00:42:33.300 things that really hurt my heart was when Anthony Heffernan was killed in his hotel room when four

00:42:39.980 officers arrived on the scene within 70 seconds, shot him four times because they thought he had

00:42:44.380 a gun in his hand and it was a syringe. He was struggling with addiction. And there were a couple

00:42:50.320 of other stories like that in Calgary. And I just thought, you know, we need a different approach

00:42:54.060 in these kinds of matters. And that's why I think Mike is going to be tremendous in leading that.

00:42:58.800 And that will, and I'll tell you why that's so important too, is that I've heard in our rural

00:43:03.020 areas, part of the reason why we have a real property crime is that it's an unaddressed

00:43:08.840 addiction problem in Calgary and Edmonton that are causing addicts to come into the rural areas

00:43:13.400 to steal big farm equipment so that they can feed their addiction. So if we can circle back and have 0.92

00:43:18.780 an integrated approach on policing so that we can address the problem in Calgary and Edmonton

00:43:22.640 and also have additional forces to be able to address rural property crime. That's something

00:43:26.860 that I think Mike Ellis is going to be instrumental in bringing through. The other part is Alberta

00:43:33.260 Emergency Management Agency. It's always bothered me that it's sort of tucked away in municipal

00:43:37.720 affairs. So that is also going to be in the public safety ministry so that when we have a forest fire

00:43:43.040 or we have a flood or we have a an ice storm that requires activation of the provincial emergency

00:43:49.200 management everybody knows where to go and they're already got the forces that are integrated under

00:43:53.280 one umbrella so it'll take a little bit of work to get there but the work that mike ellis did on

00:43:57.120 pulling all of the mental health and addiction supports into a single ministry so it could be

00:44:01.900 effective i i think he's exactly the right person to do that in this case too okay so we're going

00:44:07.520 to switch it up a bit um i know some of you in the comment section have been complaining that i've

00:44:11.180 been looking away from the premier and you think it's been very disrespectful of me i assure you

00:44:16.880 i'm actually looking you can't see it i'm looking at the comment section over here i'm looking at

00:44:21.760 you saying derek stop being mean to the premier and i assure you i'm not attempting to at least

00:44:26.980 intentionally to be mean to the premier uh i'm looking at your comments so i can actually

00:44:31.740 ask a few of them so it's not just my questions so um i've got a couple of uh questions from

00:44:38.960 But from people watching, we've already touched on a little bit with cabinet.

00:44:45.900 But it says so I think it was Bryce or Bryn Aaron says, how will you hold people accountable for the terrible decisions made over the last two years?

00:44:56.000 Now, I know you said on the night you were elected, it's a clean slate.

00:44:58.840 we're moving forward but i think there's still an expectation from from some that accountability is

00:45:04.360 going to be done for some of the things that have been i think less than ideal over the last three

00:45:10.440 two and a half years you know what i'm i hold alberta health services accountable i hold i

00:45:14.920 hold that um we we gave them a lump sum of money and said run health care for us and we were told

00:45:23.480 let the experts be in charge they've got it all figured out they've developed integrated

00:45:29.000 partnerships across the country with their uh public the medic chief medical officers of health

00:45:35.320 they also have their own coveted scientific committees that were giving advice to government

00:45:41.240 and i think that um to be fair to premier kenny he's a brand new government coming in brand new

00:45:47.480 leader he'd been focused on federal issues for most of his career he's brand new in health and

00:45:51.880 they were already beginning to see that they had problems in health but then 10 months into his

00:45:56.200 mandate he gets hit with a global pandemic and he's looking around seeing what the rest of the

00:46:00.440 world is doing and these guys are all saying we're the experts we know what we're doing and

00:46:04.360 so he trusted them um i think that when uh the government fired vernie you that was pretty clear

00:46:10.360 that we needed new leadership and a change of direction and i think that to the the fact that

00:46:15.640 the premier lost his position shows that it was an error when um when vaccine exemptions or vaccine

00:46:21.480 mandates came in so i think that there has already been that the ultimate accountability is the the

00:46:28.280 the leader at the top who was ultimately responsible for making that decision is not

00:46:32.120 there anymore a couple of his close allies and making that decision they're also taking a back

00:46:37.320 seat there are others who have been speaking openly about how they were fighting behind the

00:46:43.000 scenes and i appreciate the fact that they did do that but rank and file mlas really didn't have

00:46:48.280 a role in making these decisions and that's one of the problems that's one thing we're fixing is

00:46:53.240 that we're changing our policy making process so that mlas know our direction of government right 1.00

00:46:59.160 from the beginning and they get to tell us right from the beginning if we're going in the right

00:47:02.280 direction rather than announcing the policy and then bringing them in at the end so that's going

00:47:07.000 to i think solve a lot of problems but um i must tell you i i believe that alberta health services

00:47:13.400 is the source of a lot of the problems that we've had they signed a some kind of of a partnership

00:47:18.920 with the world economic forum right in the middle of um of the pandemic we've got to address that

00:47:24.120 why in the world do we have anything to do with the whole world economic forum that's got to end

00:47:28.600 we've they also have the scientific committee that quite frankly didn't look at the whole

00:47:33.160 broad science they want to make themselves permanent i saw that in one of your stories

00:47:36.600 i don't think so i don't want to have a scientific committee advising me that isn't prepared to look

00:47:42.040 at therapeutic options in the middle of a pandemic and throw out the pandemic planning plan and i

00:47:47.000 must point out that i've watched that event 201 which is a planned pandemic planning exercise

00:47:53.000 and the very first thing they say you should do is to find an effective therapeutic so that as

00:47:58.120 you're seeking a vaccine you're you're keeping people from dying so i think that the experts

00:48:03.720 let us down so i'm not interested in taking in any advice from them we will have new leadership on

00:48:09.160 the board and i don't mean this to disparage any of the board members when you put a board in place

00:48:13.480 you're really putting them in place as kind of a caretaker to maintain institutions this is not an

00:48:18.040 institution i want to maintain as is so there will be a removal of that board in the course of time

00:48:25.160 and probably sooner rather than later with the reinstatement after we've done our restructuring

00:48:29.640 so the restructuring is going to come and the uh the the issue around uh around who gets held

00:48:36.280 accountable is almost entirely going to be in alberta health services they told us to trust

00:48:41.720 them we did they let us down and there has to be accountability for that in addition i i'm waiting

00:48:47.640 for the opportunity to um to purge the qr code database that i have i'm trying to i've already

00:48:53.880 put the request in how do we go about doing that we are human beings we are not qr codes and i

00:48:59.160 never want to see a restaurant ask me ever again to uh to show my vaccine status as a point of

00:49:06.760 entry so do know that there'll be a number of steps that happen in that regard but i had to

00:49:11.560 make sure to get my cabinet in place first but um jason copping's up for the job he's been going

00:49:16.680 around the province talking to rural albertans um and rj segerson as you've seen his parliamentary

00:49:22.200 secretary for ems he's been going around the province as well talking about ems services

00:49:27.080 both of those are going to to have robust changes to them and i'm just asking the public

00:49:33.000 that if we're going to make these changes i know it's going to be a little bit bumpy for

00:49:37.560 for the next 90 days and we want to hear the feedback if we're making any mistakes along the

00:49:42.680 way but keeping things the way they are is not an option there has to be some accountability

00:49:47.960 for what happened over the past three and a half two and a half years and we also have to

00:49:53.000 make sure that we are putting in place the the resources at the local level so people can get

00:50:00.280 the health care that they need it's not acceptable to be waiting in the back of an ambulance for nine

00:50:04.040 hours it's not acceptable to be waiting in an emergency room for 29 hours that ends so we've

00:50:09.400 got just five minutes left i want to be respectful uh with your time i will take as much as time as

00:50:14.280 you will give but i i'll respect it here um so i just kind of a lightning question because you've

00:50:22.440 been giving very fulsome oh questions no they're no they're short they're good they're good but

00:50:27.560 they're fulsome and i'm so i want to get a couple more in so just following on that one uh you said

00:50:32.680 that you're not going to be taking advice further from from uh dina hinshaw uh chief medical officer

00:50:38.600 or the province uh but i read it as somewhat of an ambiguous uh statement maybe you can clarify it

00:50:44.440 is she going to be relieved of her is she going to be removed from the position or is she just

00:50:49.960 more or less being phased out from the decision making process i'm going to be working with my

00:50:54.760 health minister on that we'll make a joint decision okay um so mikey uh wants you to address uh what

00:51:03.240 What he says is woke indoctrination in schools.

00:51:06.240 I've got a young daughter in kindergarten.

00:51:08.440 I do not send her to a public school very much for this kind of thing. 0.87

00:51:14.220 I suppose pretty quick, what would you do around the concern of parents that particularly in public schools,

00:51:22.480 that it's just a lot of woke indoctrination, that they're just having the values of the ATA pushed on kids rather than focusing on the basis of education?

00:51:30.560 That's being debated at our AGM this weekend.

00:51:32.520 there's going to be a motion put forward on that i will monitor the debate and i'll take

00:51:36.360 the direction from our members once i see what what the issues are and what some of their solutions

00:51:40.280 are that was quick um so it was really quick okay um i've got ryan i cannot really pronounce his

00:51:49.000 last name i sympathize ryan people can't pronounce mine sometimes um he asks if you're going to

00:51:54.520 withdraw what are you going to do you go to potentially would you order your justice

00:51:59.080 minister or solicitor general to withdraw charges or fines against people who got in trouble during

00:52:05.560 uh coveted restrictions i mean we're actually extremely close to grace life church that was

00:52:11.320 raided the province raided the church order police to raid the church they put up barricades around

00:52:16.680 it they charge pastor uh pastor coats um i mean just that's one of many many examples would you

00:52:24.040 you be willing to consider a um if i could rephrase ryan's question a sort of a pardon program

00:52:29.740 to have people reimburse for these charges and their legal costs and this kind of thing i love

00:52:34.660 the sounds of that there's there's sort of two categories though there there are instances that

00:52:39.180 rose to a level of criminal prosecution and i i have to let that process play out i think it'd

00:52:44.600 be inappropriate for me to step in if there's a criminal prosecution in the case of firearms for

00:52:48.880 instance or if there was an assault that those kind of processes have to play out yeah yeah but

00:52:53.000 when it comes to fines for a pastor, I mean, I have to tell you, the criminal code gives

00:52:57.300 protection for pastors. You are not allowed to interrupt a sermon. That's how seriously we take

00:53:03.460 the role of our men and women who wear the cloth. And so I think that there was an error made in

00:53:10.180 that regard. I'm trying to figure out where that lies. I don't think it lies in the Justice

00:53:14.260 Department. I think that lies in the Health Department. And so there was a whole crew of

00:53:19.180 enforcement officers led by teams of AHS inspectors. And I will, I will, as soon as I can find out

00:53:25.980 the status of those, my intention would be to, would be to deliver a blanket amnesty that was

00:53:32.560 inappropriate political decisions that led to that, that inappropriate enforcement. And so it

00:53:39.280 seems to me it's a political decision to say, we made a mistake, we're sorry, won't happen again.

00:53:44.260 Very interesting. Okay, so I'm going to take the last question just for myself.

00:53:48.000 You're running in the Brooks Medicine Hat by-election.

00:53:52.060 It's an area I know well.

00:53:53.000 I represent half of my constituency before it was dissolved before the last election.

00:53:56.860 It was Strathmore Brooks.

00:53:57.900 Now it's Brooks Medicine Hat.

00:54:00.260 It's a very interesting pocket of the province.

00:54:04.940 There's an ADP candidate, Alberta party leader, Barry Morishita, who I know from my time there,

00:54:11.400 and then a few other smaller parties potentially running.

00:54:15.820 How much time are you going to be?

00:54:17.040 I mean, you just came into the premier's office.

00:54:20.040 It's a lot on your plate.

00:54:22.740 How much time are you going to be able to spend campaigning there,

00:54:25.580 earning the support of people in Brooks Medicine Hat?

00:54:29.020 And what kind of results are you looking for?

00:54:31.680 Because it's considered, I think, quite fairly to be a pretty dark blue constituency.

00:54:37.360 It was, you know, from old wild rose country.

00:54:41.760 What's your expectation for a result other than win?

00:54:44.960 I know you're going to say you're going to win, but I don't know, I'm going to try and get a

00:54:48.280 little more information out of you. Well, a couple things. I'm grateful for the teams that

00:54:52.340 are down there working in door knocking because they know how busy I've been in the first couple

00:54:57.480 of weeks on the job. I got sworn in on the 11th, met with 60 MLAs in six days. We had our caucus

00:55:03.520 retreat. I had to make all of my cabinet decisions and cabinet calls. I had to get briefings on

00:55:07.900 deputy minister portfolio, deputy ministers from various portfolios. And now we have our AGM this

00:55:14.460 weekend and then we'll have caucus swearing in on our cabinet swearing in on the 24th so

00:55:18.780 i'm grateful that people are understanding that these first couple of weeks were we're pretty

00:55:23.640 busy but i'll be spending most of the next couple of weeks in the in the riding i want to make sure

00:55:28.760 that i do some door knocking we're going to have rallies i believe we're working on a debate down

00:55:33.680 there and i i the nice part about having been a leader before as well as gone through this

00:55:39.420 leadership race is I've been in the in the communities several times met with many many

00:55:44.580 people have an understanding of what some of the local issues are already and I'll I'll be able to

00:55:50.100 elevate those issues the way I the reason I wanted to represent a rural riding and it is a mirror

00:55:54.140 image of the riding I'd initially wanted to run in which was Livingston McLeod which is my home

00:55:58.000 riding is because I love that combination of sort of a mid-sized city and small cities I like the

00:56:04.740 the combination of having some rural towns, the agriculture, not only the primary production,

00:56:10.680 but also the value added. We've got the canes down there. We've got issues around transportation

00:56:14.480 infrastructure. We have proposals that have been on the table for new irrigation infrastructure,

00:56:19.360 not only to deal with flood mitigation, but also to deal with food production, maybe also

00:56:23.580 hydroelectric production, developing new reservoirs. We have new areas for campgrounds

00:56:29.220 and recreation. And to me, this riding has it all. It's got all of the most wonderful issues

00:56:34.140 around our primary production on forestry and agriculture and oil and gas, as well as the really

00:56:39.880 important issues that we're facing in rural Alberta and mid-sized cities. I feel like rural Alberta

00:56:45.620 was perhaps not hurt enough in the last two and a half years. And as you know, and I know,

00:56:54.040 when rural Alberta is ignored, they go and create a new political party. So I wanted them to know

00:56:58.000 that even though I grew up in Calgary and I understand Calgary issues well, and I was on

00:57:02.640 for six years in Calgary, my heart is in rural Alberta and they will not, will not be forgotten

00:57:09.060 again. And their, their issues are very much front and center for me. Well, pro tip, when you're in

00:57:13.500 Brooks, go to the Brooks hotel and you get the corned beef sandwich with sauerkraut. It's the

00:57:17.180 best sandwich in town. I love it. I didn't intend to do that. Thanks for the tip. Okay. Well,

00:57:23.260 we're all out of time. I'm very grateful for you sharing your time with us, Madam Premier.

00:57:27.820 I hope we can do this again and good luck this weekend. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Derek.

00:57:31.860 And thank all of you for joining us on what is the first of what I hope many question periods with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:57:41.860 Thank you. God bless.

00:58:01.860 You

Western Standard - October 21, 2022

Question Period with Premier Danielle Smith

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