Western Standard - Smith’s job on the line at UCP convention

00:00:00.000 Good day, today is October 2nd, 2024.

00:00:27.860 I am Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.

00:00:33.240 I'm joined by my usual lineup of co-hosts, Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:38.900 Hi there. Good to be back.

00:00:40.700 Of course, another week.

00:00:42.000 Yep. And Western Standard senior, Alberta columnist, Corey Morgan.

00:00:45.800 Always a pleasure.

00:00:47.680 So, actually, we were going to have our Saskatchewan reporter, Chris Oldcorn, join us,

00:00:53.800 and our BC reporter, Jared Yager join us. But they're busy because there's elections going on

00:01:02.200 on the ground. So we actually don't have them today. But you know, I really wanted also to

00:01:07.640 highlight these two individuals, because it's Saskatchewan. Chris Oldkorn is also in addition

00:01:13.320 to me, Western Center reporter is the managing editor of the brand new Saskatchewan standard,

00:01:18.040 which we're very excited to launch on Monday, Monday, Monday.

00:01:23.040 And then just Friday before we launched the West Coast Standard.

00:01:27.040 We've got Jared Yager, our reporter on the ground there, serving as managing editor.

00:01:33.040 And coming up, hopefully tomorrow, if the technology gods allow,

00:01:40.040 we're going to be launching, relaunching, returning for the first time to publication in 20 years, the Alberta Report.

00:01:47.040 Report. Oh, that makes me feel good. We are all just up in Edmonton actually, honoring the late

00:01:53.940 great Ted Byfield, first founding publisher of the Alberta Report on Wednesday. So it's

00:01:59.800 a suspicious time. That was actually one of the sort of the major events of the year.

00:02:04.420 Yeah. I don't know how many people there were there, but I've heard 500. 500. All right,

00:02:08.700 well, 500. A lot of really true blue Alberta conservatives there. They had a lot to celebrate.

00:02:15.480 Indeed. Unfortunately, we don't have our two guys on the ground with us today because we're going to be talking about the Saskatchewan election. We're going to be talking about the BC election. My apologies that we're not going to have the actual reporters that were covering it on the ground with us today, but we're watching things closely.

00:02:32.480 But you can still read their story.

00:02:34.440 This is a reminder. They're going to be publishing what they're seeing.

00:02:37.160 Yes. Westcoaststandard.news and Saskatchewanstandard.com.

00:02:41.980 They're on their bikes getting to the meetings.

00:02:45.480 Are they on bicycles?

00:02:46.920 B.C. is fashionable.

00:02:49.220 Still, we're West Coast standard.

00:02:50.660 We're the Western standard.

00:02:51.920 We're still West Coast standard, too.

00:02:54.100 Okay, so we're going to be talking about both the Saskatchewan and British Columbia elections, what's going on there.

00:02:59.020 And also, right here in Alberta, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's job is on the line as the time counts down to the November Annual General Meeting or Convention of the United Conservative Party,

00:03:12.760 where members are going to cast their vote on if she stays on as leader and therefore premier and

00:03:21.400 well she'll probably win but the question is by how much and is it safe enough for her to stay on

00:03:25.880 and wow there's quite a registration for it so it's definitely worth getting into all right

00:03:32.680 well let's start with our green brothers immediately to our east in Saskatchewan

00:03:39.800 Saskatchewanians go to the polls October 28th. And, you know, outside of Saskatchewan, most people don't care about Saskatchewan elections. It's not because we don't care about Saskatchewan, but it's because the SAS party is always going to win.

00:03:55.340 SASS party has been in power since, what, 90, sorry, 2000 and early 2000s, right?

00:04:02.280 It's been four elections in a row now.

00:04:04.160 It's been a while.

00:04:05.140 They've really been a powerhouse since they came to power under Brad Wall as the first Saskatchewan party premier.

00:04:12.560 Mo has one majority under his belt, and he's going for his own second majority now.

00:04:17.900 But polls are showing that this is very much a race.

00:04:21.240 This actually is something we should be paying attention to.

00:04:23.640 A CTV in Citrix, yeah, I know CTV, but the poll I think is credible. It seems to check out at least at first glance. A CTV in Citrix poll has them essentially tied within the margin of error, the NDP at 49%, Saskatchewan party at 48%, although I don't believe they were polling for the smaller insurgent right wing parties, and we'll come to them.

00:04:48.460 But regardless of the exact numbers, this is close. And it's been closing for some time. A poll, August 22nd, had the Saskatchewan party with only a seven point lead. And for the Saskatchewan party, that's a crushing defeat to only win by 7%. They're used to much, much larger margins of error than this.

00:05:12.300 Nigel, are you believing this? This is a real race? Is there a real possibility that Saskatchewan, which doesn't elect a single member of parliament federally, could flip over and actually elect a majority NDP government?

00:05:28.220 well there's a couple of things going on i mean you just said yourself that the

00:05:32.300 it's an old government so yeah there does come a point it doesn't matter how good a job you're doing

00:05:38.060 people just get bored with you because most people are not really paying attention to the

00:05:41.500 fine details they just pick up an image what does surprise me is that the ndp should be strong

00:05:50.860 in saskatchewan when federally i don't think there's a i don't think there's a lot of people

00:05:56.940 in saskatchewan who have admiringly looked at the alliance between the federal liberals and the

00:06:04.140 federal ndp and thought that's the ndp i want this is not a good look it's not been a good

00:06:10.700 look on jagmeet singh it's not been a good look on the ndp why would the why would the

00:06:19.020 the provincial ndp take any advantage it's hard to explain the only thing that makes it really

00:06:24.540 difficult for the for the uh conservatives is and you said you were going to come back to this but

00:06:30.300 those little right-wing parties you know the principled conservatives who get together in

00:06:35.740 groups of 100 and 200 and just chip away at the at the majorities of the regular

00:06:43.660 unprincipled conservatives that have been managing the province that's that's dangerous well

00:06:49.820 Well, there is, it is odd that the NDP can be so weak federally and NDP, but strong provincially.

00:06:57.540 But we have the same thing here in Alberta, where the NDP, they trail the Conservatives here.

00:07:03.400 They've lost two elections in a row to a united right.

00:07:06.740 But the NDP is almost non-existent federally here, you know, falls 10, 12%.

00:07:12.980 I mean, it has literally come within one percentage of losing, coming behind the rhinoceros party in a by-election, I remember.

00:07:23.560 Remember, I teased the NDP that they're the 1% because they got 1% of the vote.

00:07:28.780 But, I mean, here, you know, while they're not leading the polls in Alberta,

00:07:33.680 there's still a significant contender that, with the right moves, can be competitive to win power in Alberta.

00:07:39.040 Yet, they have, I think, just two seats in Edmonton, and that is the end of the federal NDP in Alberta.

00:07:46.300 So, you know, while the brand, you know, the new Democratic brand might be weak federally here, there is a decoupling.

00:07:54.740 And it seems to be in Saskatchewan as well, Corey, that while, you know, Jagmeet Singh and the federal NDP are wildly unpopular in that province.

00:08:03.700 you know, and a lot of people in Saskatchewan, nearly 50% see the provincial NDP quite differently.

00:08:13.060 How do you think they're doing that?

00:08:14.760 From the, I mean, there's been that separation they've been able to do, but

00:08:17.920 if Saskatchewan has been watching Alberta, one of the campaign planks that were kind of successful,

00:08:23.100 I think on the part of the UCP was constantly tying Alberta NDP leader, Rachel Notley,

00:08:27.140 to Jagmeet Singh, constantly reminding everybody that the NDP is a singular party,

00:08:32.340 actually with provincial branches. They haven't done that so much in Saskatchewan, but that might

00:08:37.460 be what's coming because Jagmeet Singh's NDP are wildly unpopular. The other thing to be remembered,

00:08:43.160 I mean, there was a very successful pragmatic provincial NDP in Saskatchewan under Roy Romano

00:08:48.940 for a number of years. Older voters remember that. Yeah. And these were, you know, not the

00:08:54.520 crazed woke NDP of today. They were more of a liberal style prairie socialist. So those new

00:09:01.400 Democrats were even against gay marriage. Yeah, so it's a different type of NDP support. And

00:09:07.280 Saskatchewan's morphed into essentially a two-party system. You have to have another half. Well, the

00:09:11.240 closest other contender, same with in Alberta, is the NDP. And in Saskatchewan, it's the NDP. So as

00:09:17.300 Nigel said, it's been 12 years. People get tired of parties. They get tired of, they start looking

00:09:22.700 for somebody different. And right now, that's the most organized option for them. Well, let's talk

00:09:28.120 about some people who might be tired because, you know, some voters who are, I mean, they've had

00:09:34.440 four majority governments, they're looking for a fifth year. That is, that is a long time for

00:09:39.640 anyone to be in power. If nothing else, I mean, I love vanilla ice cream. If I have vanilla ice

00:09:45.440 cream every night for 20 years, I'm going to get, I'm going to get pretty bored of it.

00:09:52.080 And so there, you know, there are a number of parties on the right of the Saskatchewan party

00:09:56.740 in Alberta there that are agitating trying to get some traction. Three of them have consolidated down to, it's called two and a half. So you have Saskatchewan United, which has some disaffected, was it two Saskatchewan party MLAs that came over to Sask United?

00:10:16.120 Yeah, at least one. Yeah, there's one, I think maybe two for the Saskatchewan United Party. They seem to have done about as well as BC United, but they started at zero and they've worked up to small status, whereas BC United used to be the government. They've fallen down to zero.

00:10:37.720 Then you've got the Saskatchewan PCs and the Saskatchewan Buffalo Party. Now they've tried to come together, but there was not enough time to formally conduct a merger into, I don't know, conservative Buffalo Party or whatever they want to actually be called, but they couldn't legally do it in time.

00:10:59.420 So they're essentially running a non-compete and sharing resources and helping one another out and then concluding the formal merger after the election.

00:11:06.600 What's interesting there, though, is the Progressive Conservative Party still has a very significant bank account because that used to be an active political party in Saskatchewan.

00:11:14.800 Because unlike Alberta, where you had Progressive Conservatives, the Wildrose formally.

00:11:20.980 Well, they didn't even actually technically get to create a whole new party out of it because you could merge.

00:11:24.720 There was an attempt to hold the corpse of the old PCs together in Alberta, but it fell apart.

00:11:29.420 No, no. But I mean, legally in Alberta, two parties could not merge. So what they did is they created a new corporate entity that had legal ownership over the two old parties, Wildrose and PC, and they created a third new one. They couldn't move money into it. But anyway, it was a workaround. I remember being in the discussions and negotiations creating it. And it was, there was more lawyers than you think should have had to been involved for something like that.

00:11:52.500 In Saskatchewan, you know, a lot of people think the Saskatchewan party was a merger of parties.

00:11:59.640 It was not. It was a merger of caucuses. It was not a merger of parties.

00:12:03.660 The PCs and the Liberals come together, moderate Liberals, and they created a new party.

00:12:08.540 But the old PCs were still there. The old Liberals were still there.

00:12:11.200 And that PC party still was sitting on a war chest with some money to spend.

00:12:15.220 I'll start with you, Corey. You're, like me, a veteran of shiza disturbing parties from the right. And we were pretty successful. But I mean, it's a long, hard slog. And you were in that slog before I was. 0.78

00:12:33.220 what effect do you think the Saskatchewan United or the BC Buffalo sorry PC Buffalo parties are

00:12:44.000 going to have here well you know I don't think they're going to have much in growing their own

00:12:48.520 parties because they are just something of the usual as we've seen the the mess that happens

00:12:53.580 with disenchanted conservatives when they get together to trend for a party but when you have

00:12:57.920 a neck and neck race with some urban writings that are going to be decided by one or two percent

00:13:03.220 These parties can very well hit spoiler status, and they could be the ones who make the turning point in this election.

00:13:09.620 And this is turning into a real urban-rural split, of course, too, like so many often are.

00:13:13.740 So the SAS party is very strong, rurally.

00:13:16.200 They've got nothing to worry about.

00:13:17.720 But they've got to wonder just how far they've got to move that progressive needle to try and maintain urban seats.

00:13:22.940 And if they move too much that way, then they start losing some of their conservatives to SAS United,

00:13:27.900 and then suddenly you get an NDP seat in there.

00:13:29.960 So it's going to be a delicate dance for them to deal with that over there.

00:13:34.500 So I know in Saskatchewan, some of the Saskatchewan party folks I talk to are very annoyed with these smaller parties on the right.

00:13:47.900 So, but is it, in your view, is it the obligation of these guys to fold their tents and come back home to the mothership, as it were?

00:13:56.780 Is it the obligation of Mo and the Saskatchewan party's leadership to bring them back in?

00:14:01.920 I mean, how do you slice this? Because, you know, if these guys hit 2%, even just 2%, which is not a lot.

00:14:08.700 Actually, the Buffalo party got more than that in the last provincial election in Saskatchewan, although concentrated in rural seats.

00:14:14.360 But even just 2% could be enough to, in a very close election, flip it to the NDP.

00:14:20.180 but I'm always skeptical when people say split the vote

00:14:23.860 because there's a certain arrogance in it.

00:14:27.180 A lot of presumption.

00:14:28.280 That someone's entitled to the party or a candidate's entitled to your vote

00:14:31.480 because you happen to be on one end of the spectrum.

00:14:33.740 Vote splitting is sort of a thing,

00:14:36.720 but you've got to be careful with how we say it

00:14:38.220 because there's a certain entitlement to someone's vote when you say it.

00:14:41.900 Well, you know, I do think we live on the prairies

00:14:44.740 where you get two conservatives, you'll get three parties.

00:14:48.400 Well, that's what they have. In Saskatchewan, it's four parties.

00:14:54.720 Well, there you go. The point is, you have one for each point of view, and then when they kind

00:15:00.320 of agree on something, it's a crazy system. Well, we've got three of us here who have started

00:15:05.280 parties on our own on the conservative end. Two of the three have already done it, literally.

00:15:09.200 Well, starting a conservative party. No, that's my two out of three. It's your

00:15:13.040 turn now. Derek and I have already... I helped to start two.

00:15:16.640 Yeah, we were the Freedom Conservatives and I had the Albert Independence Party in my time.

00:15:20.560 I was pretty thinking of the United Conservatives.

00:15:21.520 I think you're making my point here.

00:15:22.080 Yes, exactly.

00:15:23.440 Okay, so what happens?

00:15:25.280 Two of us and three parties.

00:15:26.320 Yeah. Thank you, gentlemen. I mean, I appreciate it. So the thing is,

00:15:34.960 when you say, well, it's a bit presumptuous to think about vote splitting,

00:15:38.960 you don't have a right to the vote. No, you don't.

00:15:41.040 On the other hand, the smart citizen realizes that if he's going to

00:15:45.840 get anything that he wants he probably better elect a government and you can be as principled

00:15:51.760 as you want you can be as principled as a an nd peer of the original casting but if you don't

00:16:00.560 get into government all your principles aren't going to do much for you so really the guys who

00:16:06.160 are out there at the edges i mean god bless you for having strong opinions god bless you for trying

00:16:12.640 to get involved what exactly are you trying to accomplish do you want to bring down mo just for

00:16:18.240 the sake of bringing down mo and something you say i showed him and then get a an ndp government

00:16:23.760 that is going to hose you or i mean is that what success looks like well uh we got to move on but

00:16:29.680 i would i would say especially from covid like there's some accounts that have not been settled

00:16:34.400 in alberta we settled the accounts the premier was overthrown then we had an election the accounts

00:16:39.040 were settled. In Saskatchewan, there's a lot of people who were screwed over by their own

00:16:43.440 government, and they have not had even an apology for it. And I, they, I can very much understand

00:16:50.720 why they might have a hard time keeping people in power who took their, giving people, renewing the

00:16:56.480 jobs of people who literally took away their jobs. So I would say I would have a, I would very much

00:17:02.160 understand the hard feelings of some people who could not bring themselves a vote for them.

00:17:05.360 Totally, you can understand it.

00:17:07.060 But at the same time, if you don't like what you've got, you really won't like the alternative if COVID ever comes back or something like it.

00:17:16.160 Okay.

00:17:18.080 All right.

00:17:18.820 We're going to turn now to the election in British Columbia.

00:17:23.160 We're watching that one very closely.

00:17:25.600 As we've said on the show here before, kind of like Saskatchewan, we just never really watched because BC elections were boring.

00:17:33.080 Not because they weren't competitive, but because they were competitive among two parties that were just so damn similar.

00:17:39.500 The BC NDP and the BC Liberals slash United, they were different.

00:17:45.140 But the differences between them have diminished.

00:17:48.980 It got to be a pretty small amount of sunlight coming through between them in the last number of years.

00:17:55.000 And then all of a sudden, it just turns into a Mad Max film.

00:17:59.780 I mean, it's been wild.

00:18:02.140 bc god bless you you guys have made bc politics so interesting again uh it's really the first time

00:18:11.080 since i i've been a teenager it's been exciting and it's just great to watch our our man jared

00:18:16.800 yager on the ground there also now managing at our west coast standard um watching things closely

00:18:22.440 unfortunately not able to be with us because he's at a press conference right now but um

00:18:27.600 The polls are showing now the B.C. Conservatives, now that the now the B.C. United Liberals have formally just folded the tent.

00:18:37.600 They're out of the race. They're not running candidates other than a few independents who want to hang on and all the power to you.

00:18:45.040 You know, independents don't tend to do too well, but that's your right. But the party itself is out.

00:18:50.800 And since then, the B.C. Conservative Party has pulled into the lead. We'll start with you, Corey.

00:18:57.600 I mean, it's a hell of a long way for a party that came from practically zero to come towards being on the cusp of a majority government October 19th when they go to the polls.

00:19:15.560 But they started such a small party, and they're going through a lot of growing pains, and they're going through it quicker than any party I've ever seen.

00:19:22.300 Reform had a lot of cycles to go through, and then it transformed itself.

00:19:27.260 Wildrose had it, UCP had it. These guys went from fringe status to about to win a majority government, potentially in no time. And someone in the BC United headquarters, I guess it was not pleased about BC United dropping out, dropped the whole opposition research file that they had on the BC conservative candidates.

00:19:47.920 Funny enough, the top of that pile, the very first thing, because the BC NDP got a hold of this from someone there, the very first item of the dirt they've got is an interview of John Rostad, the leader, with the Western's tender, James Finkbeiner.

00:20:08.520 And what was he? He was saying, oh, he was attacking the sorry state of health care in BC and Canada.

00:20:15.560 I think he said, you know, like the only something to the effect of, you know, the only two countries in the world where private health care is illegal is Canada and North Korea.

00:20:27.620 He's actually wrong about that.

00:20:29.520 It's Canada, North Korea and Cuba.

00:20:31.480 So he left out another communist dictatorship.

00:20:36.160 But purely factual, nothing wrong about it.

00:20:39.320 But it's something that makes NDP ears bleed to hear that kind of thing.

00:20:44.320 But anyway, they're coming really under the microscope.

00:20:47.020 The NDP are all out against them.

00:20:51.600 Corey, how well do you think are the BC Conservatives holding up here?

00:20:55.240 Or do you think this stuff is going to start to chip away?

00:20:56.920 Because now they're really under the microscope.

00:21:00.020 Well, they're holding up surprisingly well.

00:21:02.000 But, I mean, if you look at the fact that that's what came at the top of the list from the BC United Party, 0.97

00:21:07.060 that's the sort of crap that put people off of the BC United Party. 0.98

00:21:12.200 They were shooting at Conservatives for being Conservatives. 0.99

00:21:15.600 Rustad's been unapologetically a Conservative, and it's working for their party.

00:21:19.420 But that's not their bigger issue.

00:21:21.360 Their bigger issue was the other 80-some candidates with all potential time bombs ready to go off.

00:21:27.100 I remember going into the 2012 election pretty confident we were going to make inroads with the Wildrose,

00:21:31.820 and then the Huntsberger thing happened.

00:21:33.740 I remember 2015, we were very confident going into that election again.

00:21:36.880 The polls were showing us, well, things changed dramatically in that last 10 days.

00:21:40.500 So if the B.C. conservatives, they've certainly got a good base, they've got no other alternative on the right.

00:21:46.880 So that really helps them. But there's still room to implode.

00:21:50.060 As you said, they're so new. There's there's it's quite striking that they've been able to hold it together so well.

00:21:55.560 If they can continue to hold it together, though, yeah, they might be the next government.

00:21:58.580 It's going to be really interesting to watch. Nigel, I want to talk about the kind of mahajadeen of conservatives flowing to B.C. right now.

00:22:07.440 You know, the mahajadeen were the Arab, Arab Islamic warriors who all fled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. And, you know, conservatives across Canada have really just not in big numbers, you know, kind of expert campaigners, that kind of thing, really haven't had too much interest in BC for a long time for reasons we've discussed.

00:22:26.340 But all of a sudden, it looks like the mahajadeen headed to Afghanistan, not to compare our friends to the Taliban in any way. But you know, you get the idea of people flooding in. There is federal, there is Alberta, there's Ontario. Saskatchewan's talent is currently occupied. But there are people flowing in from across the country in the conservative movement to help these guys out right now.

00:22:49.140 And the NDP has historically been very good about this, having essentially a mobile campaign that moves around the country at different times. 0.74

00:22:58.140 How big of an effect do you think the conservative Mahajideen is going to have in B.C.?

00:23:05.140 I think it's actually got a lot of potential because one of the things that happens in conservative politics is if you've got a very safe seat, you forget how to campaign.

00:23:17.140 seriously you know if you're writings here in calgary where if you've got 60 000 you know you're

00:23:22.980 going to you know a bad year would be when you only got 55 000. so the basic skills are are

00:23:29.940 forgotten and in the case of the bc conservatives were frankly never really present like as an

00:23:38.020 organized entity there's a lot of people there who are first time out this is not unusual there is a

00:23:45.140 there's a group of people um they usually have business cards that call them consultants or

00:23:51.380 comms or something like that and they try and make a living between elections and then go and

00:23:57.540 sell themselves like a mercenary company in some byzantine intrigue to the people who with whom

00:24:05.300 they feel comfortable and feel comfortable with them and they will make a lot of difference

00:24:09.060 because there is not a lot of institutional knowledge.

00:24:13.820 I mean, no disrespects to John Rostad and some of the other people who are MLA's and have done it before.

00:24:21.360 It's a brand new party.

00:24:22.200 But it's a brand new party.

00:24:23.680 And as long as they've got one person at the top who knows what they want

00:24:27.740 and can allocate everybody a suitable role, it's a very positive thing for the party.

00:24:33.820 Not like the NDP does in the Liberals.

00:24:36.760 And what they do, they just put their people in friendly companies, of which there are several,

00:24:45.220 and just sort of wait until the next time that they're needed for a provincial campaign or a federal campaign.

00:24:50.740 And then they take a leave of absence, go work the campaign, come back, go back in.

00:24:56.520 It'll be a company like a public relations company where they calmly go and it's not really noticed that much.

00:25:05.980 So, yeah, you bet. All right. All right. Well, we're going to have more on B.C. and Saskatchewan as we roll along here.

00:25:13.000 B.C.'s election coming up first on October 19th, Saskatchewan, right after October 28th.

00:25:19.040 We're going to have our reporters from on the ground and they're joining us hopefully next week.

00:25:24.440 Let's bring it closer to home now, though.

00:25:28.580 Alberta Premier Danielle Smith won her first majority mandate, the second for the United Conservative Party.

00:25:35.980 last last last year last May or June.

00:25:40.980 I think it was the election and she became the leader in October.

00:25:43.980 Well she became the leader in October but then won her first majority mandate in May or June.

00:25:50.980 Now the United Conservative Party requires and this was not a requirement when Jason Kennedy became premier but the members as they started to get a little restive.

00:25:57.980 especially the old wild rosers. They changed the cut. Kenny had essentially had the right to write the constitution when the party was founded because it was kind of done backwards where they could have they elected a leader and then did a constitution. You generally should do it the other way around. But members kind of got restive and they amended the constitution to make it so that the premier, even if they win an election has to face a leadership review. And I think that's fair. No one should be allowed to automatically keep their job without an election here.

00:26:25.980 And you should tell the federal liberals that I'm glad they can't change their leader. Maybe they'll want to revisit that part of their consultation soon so that they can remove an unpopular leader. But Daniel Smith faces her leadership review with the November, but you have the actual date here.

00:26:48.980 November the second very early November. Yeah, it's like November 1st, the second or something. She's going to face leadership review here. Leaders generally don't outright flat out lose leadership reviews. I think there's only been two in Canadian history. I can recall. The first was John Diefenbaker for whom the process of leadership review was actually created in the early 1960s.

00:27:16.980 He had seemed by some to overstay his welcome, and there were people trying to bump him out, and there was no formal process to do it, because by then, they moved away from the traditional Westminster system of the caucus, picking the leader.

00:27:31.260 And there was no way.

00:27:32.420 So he lost one.

00:27:33.420 And then Thomas Mulcair lost one.

00:27:35.920 Those are the only two major leadership reviews where someone has outright lost.

00:27:40.240 But leaders of party, premiers, prime ministers have come close to losing them before.

00:27:45.040 Ralph Klein got roughly 54 or so in circa 2004, 5, circa 2005, 6, and that prompted him to announce his retirement.

00:27:57.940 Sure took his time doing it, but it did prompt his eventual exit.

00:28:04.320 Jason Kenney technically got 51% in his leadership review vote.

00:28:09.220 Now, there's different opinions on the matter, but there was a lot of manipulation to even get 51%.

00:28:14.920 They had to cancel in-person voting and go to multiple, and they changed the rules, they changed the dates.

00:28:20.420 He eked out 51%, but everybody knows 51%, 54%, there's no way you can stay on with only half, confidence of half of your own party's leaders.

00:28:29.440 It's hard to get the confidence of half of the voters overall if only half of your own members who show up to a convention support you.

00:28:37.080 So the general rule of thumb was set by Joe Clark, whatever else I might think about him. I think he was actually fairly principled in how he handled the leadership there. I don't know. I forget what bar he said for himself, but he got what?

00:28:52.360 61 or 62% something like that. Now, what's considered an acceptable mark to stay on as leader? Well, everybody says, well, 50% plus one, but we all know what's that's not the right number. So with you, Nigel, there's huge registration for this convention coming up. It's over 5,000 already, and we're a month away, like exactly a month away today.

00:29:17.680 So this could be a huge number of people voting.

00:29:22.680 That might be a bad sign for Smith.

00:29:24.680 Angry people are more motivated generally than happy people.

00:29:27.680 But UCP attracts a lot of people to its conventions now.

00:29:30.680 I guess two questions.

00:29:35.680 How do you think she's going to fare in the vote, your prediction?

00:29:38.680 But before that, what number do you think she needs to be able to stay on?

00:29:44.680 day on. Well, actually, I'm with the 50% plus one. But no, that's if she gets 50% plus one caucus will kill her the next day. Oh, like, so she will be gone, then the blood will be on their hands, won't it? You know, that's the Kenny does whatever else about him. He had the good grace to know at 51%. He had to go if Kenny had stayed, the party would have split the next day, he would have lost a large number of caucus and the United Conservative Party would have been back to Wildrose PC within 24 hours. 51% you

00:30:14.660 cannot stay on so then the lieutenant governor looks at the wrestling parties and says find

00:30:21.220 one person or you go to an election and then the ndp win maybe they maybe the threat of an election

00:30:28.340 is enough to get the but do you honestly think if she got i think she's gonna do well north of 51

00:30:34.660 but do you honestly think any premier of any party could stay on as the leader of that party at 51

00:30:40.260 Yeah, I do, actually. And otherwise, you end up in the, first of all, you end up with a debate, well, what is the right number? Is it 60% plus one? Is it, do you need to, do you need to get 80%? Is like 68% not good enough? How about 58%? You know, 50% plus one decides an electoral seat, or not 50%, but you know, a majority of one after endless recounts gives you the seat.

00:31:08.620 so one extra is enough to do it in my view now all the things that you um all the things that

00:31:19.140 you specified are risks real risks but in the end it is it is the leader is actually responsible

00:31:28.240 not to the members of the party but to the lieutenant governor who called them called

00:31:35.120 them to form a government and so if the uh part if the caucus revolts is not good enough we're

00:31:42.160 not going to work with you fine she resigns the lieutenant governor calls everybody together and

00:31:48.720 says you've got two choices i can call an election and you don't have half your term gone yet and the

00:31:57.040 ndp will do their best to eat you or you can find somebody else well okay so you've opened up a

00:32:04.880 whole can of worms. And it's nerdy enough, I'm just gonna have to take the bait. The and by the

00:32:11.780 way, I think she's I don't think this is gonna be an issue. No, I think we're in the we're in the

00:32:16.620 quite hypothetical here, but literally the last UCP leader got 51%. But I think he knew that all

00:32:22.340 of these scenarios all end in one thing, his head on a platter and a graceless exit, and the complete

00:32:29.600 disillusion of a United Conservative Party at that point. I mean, if a majority of caucus of the governing caucus have lost confidence in their leader and the premier, they don't have to leave the caucus, they can remove the leader of the caucus internally. So the lieutenant governor does not need to call an election, as long as someone can command the confidence of the house, right. And so if the majority of the caucus say, we don't like the leader, leaders gone.

00:32:56.840 The caucus can just select a new interim premier. That's what they did with Allison Redford. Allison Redford behind the scenes. A lot of the sources I talked to at that time said she threatened them with an election. Then they said, well, we'll just remove you as the premier right here. And so she knew that that was the end of her road.

00:33:13.840 But, you know, I have to take issue with something you said, you said the leader is not responsible member of the party, they're responsible to Albertans.

00:33:21.840 No, the leader is responsible to the members of the party, the premier is responsible to Albertans.

00:33:27.840 And that is a part of the dual roles that have evolved in Canada since we moved away from more strictly Westminster selection of leaders where, you know, if there's 10, if there's 20 members of caucus,

00:33:38.840 caucus, they elect who their leader is, and therefore the

00:33:42.280 Premier, or the Prime Minister, etc. So, you know, the Premier

00:33:46.760 Smith is also leader Smith, and they are one person with two

00:33:50.700 jobs, and they're responsible to two different groups.

00:33:53.300 Well, and to some degree is a distinction without a difference.

00:33:56.300 Because if you are, if you are called by the Lieutenant

00:34:00.400 Governor, to lead a government, because there is confidence in

00:34:05.060 you, you do that. And the reason there's confidence in you is

00:34:08.440 because you command the support of your caucus,

00:34:12.400 if you no longer command the support of the caucus,

00:34:15.780 you may be on one side, the left-

00:34:17.120 That's three groups.

00:34:18.280 So we can actually call an other person

00:34:22.420 to see if they will command the, and that will.

00:34:26.240 Well, Corey, I have to correct myself.

00:34:27.780 There's actually three groups.

00:34:30.200 There is the premier who is responsible to the people.

00:34:34.140 There is the leader of the party who is responsible

00:34:37.400 the members of that party and then there's the leader of the parliamentary party which is also

00:34:41.560 responsible to the caucus there's generally there's three and and all three groups can

00:34:46.360 remove someone from power the voters can remove you from power in election

00:34:50.120 the members can remove you from power in a leadership review depending on the party structure

00:34:54.120 which the UCP has and the caucus can remove you through a simple internal vote of confidence

00:35:01.800 which is always a threat and it's a way for members of caucus to exert some influence when

00:35:05.880 you get into a nasty spot. What level of support do you think? Please tell me you don't agree with

00:35:15.320 Nigel that 51% is enough. You know that means instant, it's not even civil war, it's a bloodbath.

00:35:21.160 I think we're getting really deep into the weeds because I'll be shocked if she gets below 80.

00:35:25.560 And as a point of principle. Are you setting that as your number 80?

00:35:29.720 No, I think the number is going to be closer to 90. I think when you're getting under 80 is when

00:35:33.880 she's going to start reconsidering her role 60 would be the hard line i think where you don't

00:35:40.040 really have a mandate in your 60 and under i think you resigned that night yeah i i think we're

00:35:44.840 creating a tempest in a teapot and almost playing into some of the left activists who are trying to

00:35:50.120 claim there's some sort of groundswell of opposition within the party to her leadership

00:35:55.240 and i don't think it's there we've got the usual chronic malcontents who are always loud on social

00:35:59.960 media and they'll probably show up for once it's not us in the dozens yet but i mean the dozens

00:36:05.320 among the thousands don't have that strong an influence we've got to remember this is a convention

00:36:11.960 of the loyal and i mean it's a few hundred bucks now that the early birds passed a left-wing

00:36:17.480 activist isn't whimsically going to say i'm going to spend 300 dedicate a weekend go to red deer

00:36:22.440 just because they're talking about that too being some left activists coming in and spoiling it

00:36:27.000 the numbers aren't there people are going there to talk about policy they're going there to rub

00:36:30.520 shoulders with each other they're going there for the the seminars and the uh the the hospitality

00:36:36.200 they're there for the booze and uh this can't be compared to the jason kenney circumstance where

00:36:42.200 there was a large organized movement to to move him along there's no such movement

00:36:47.960 right now well let's talk about i just don't think she's at risk yeah so there's a group that's

00:36:52.600 aspiring to maybe be that movement group calls itself the 1905 committee name you know 1905 is

00:36:59.720 when Alberta became was granted by Ottawa the status of provincehood along with Saskatchewan

00:37:07.400 its executive director I think is the way executive director or president is a woman named Nadine

00:37:12.600 Wellwood they've been agitating from the right I'm not sure how effective it's been or not

00:37:22.600 I just don't see the same, to Corey's point, I'm just not seeing the anywhere in different orders of magnitude, any kind of groundswell against Daniel Smith, the way there was with Jason Kenney coming out of his at least perceived, if not real failures around sovereignty and certainly very real errors made in COVID.

00:37:44.560 Whereas, you know, the criticism of Smith is generally issue moving hard and fast enough.

00:37:50.560 Members seem to like the direction she's going where she's going.

00:37:54.560 But is it is it speedy enough? I mean, I know that might be a fair criticism.

00:37:58.560 But, you know, how much money do you think she should pay to something like the 1905 committee trying to agitate from the right to move her out of the leadership?

00:38:05.560 I don't know what these people want that she isn't already doing for them. 0.91

00:38:10.560 them they want a balanced budget you got a balanced budget your money into the into the

00:38:16.160 heritage fund money is going into the heritage fund you want to a break on gasoline taxes when

00:38:23.120 oil goes to a certain level that's there it kicks back in if i mean oil gets too expensive you know

00:38:29.760 you can go go through all those things as well with the with the vaccine and with the transgender

00:38:34.640 stuff. She has taken a very reasonable position on transgender operations on people under the age 0.99

00:38:44.160 of 18. She's taken a very reasonable position on parental authority within the school system.

00:38:52.800 So exactly what is it that these people want that she is not doing for them? Is it just that

00:39:02.000 they were left out for various reasons when the new the government jobs are

00:39:07.640 being distributed I don't know but it their position fundamentally no it makes

00:39:13.500 no sense why would you interrupt the work of somebody who's fundamentally

00:39:17.960 doing what you want them to do yeah all right well that's fair enough

00:39:24.380 Well, let's close out with our parting shots here.

00:39:31.340 This is our news segment where we get to fling some arrows and there's not enough time for you to actually have to defend it.

00:39:37.980 Oh, actually, no, somebody I am going to make you have to defend.

00:39:42.420 You said 51% is good enough.

00:39:44.920 I've said my piece.

00:39:46.240 But what's your prediction?

00:39:47.060 What's she going to get?

00:39:48.280 Well, I wish I was quite as optimistic as Corey, because there's an ornery streak within the conservative party.

00:39:56.120 And even if they like you, they vote against you just on principle.

00:39:59.520 But no, we know that she's going to get 70 plus 70 plus.

00:40:04.980 I think 70 itself would be she could stay on, but she's going to face some daggers in the caucus.

00:40:10.600 If she's at 70, that would be considered, I think, fairly weak. 0.71

00:40:13.380 But it's enough to it's enough to fight on.

00:40:14.940 But it means you're in the danger zone.

00:40:15.980 It's kind of 17% more than she had when she took the job.

00:40:19.400 Yeah, but it's different once you're the leader.

00:40:20.840 People rally behind.

00:40:22.300 I'm going to say she's going to be two points plus or minus 80.

00:40:27.420 And if she can crack 80, I think that's a magical psychological number.

00:40:31.880 You're not quite in Rachel Notley and Kim Jong-un territory yet,

00:40:36.040 but you're pretty unassailable once you're at 80.

00:40:39.700 And let's remember, both Alison Redford and Ed Stelmeck got,

00:40:43.660 what was the magic number?

00:40:44.360 was like 77 they're both except around 77 78 because you can remember where the bar was set

00:40:52.520 to prior though ralph klein used to get 95 95 yeah but there's a much more member driven system now

00:40:57.800 too so you can't quit and it's much less like you're number better but yeah but uh yeah uh just

00:41:03.160 both remember both uh stelmac and redford got in the fairly high 70s and within a year both of them

00:41:10.040 them were gone. Okay, so we're gonna turn to our parting shots. You don't have to really defend

00:41:15.180 much here. You can say whatever you like as long as you don't get a suit. All right, Nigel,

00:41:20.020 your parting shot. Well, alone among the intelligentsia here, I actually watched the

00:41:23.880 vice presidential debate. Oh, that was that was off the record and off the camera. That's a shot

00:41:28.040 of us. You're gonna have to defend it now. So I'm here to say that the wrong people who are running

00:41:35.960 for president, there'd be a lot more interest in that election, and everybody would feel

00:41:40.080 much better about the outcome if it was Vance and Waltz who were actually occupying the

00:41:46.380 main slots.

00:41:48.540 So let me draw the attention of our readers to Linda Slobodian's thoughts on this.

00:41:55.120 They're worth reading in the Western Standard today.

00:41:59.680 And you think Waltz, too, should be at the top of the Democratic ticket?

00:42:02.580 i think he's the best they've got okay well that's a sorry state of affairs which is

00:42:11.700 my condemnation of the entire democrat party of the united states all right cory i have a feeling

00:42:18.600 i'm going to enjoy yours just don't get us sued no it'd be ironic if you didn't get sued we're

00:42:22.480 talking about somebody who was successfully sued duncan kinney and that we got viewers across the

00:42:26.860 country so not everybody's familiar with him but he's a very abrasive left activist self-styled

00:42:32.180 journalist union funded. These are all facts, you know, through Broadbent Institute, who went on

00:42:38.900 quite a vendetta against Kalen Ford in Alberta with a character assassination. And he should just

00:42:44.880 background, she was a UCP candidate in 2019. To potentially be in 2019 until that campaign of

00:42:50.120 just right, well, as it's been showing very untrue allegations against who were made. He has settled

00:42:56.300 for a humbling $250,000 towards Ms. Ford's legal efforts, and this is just the first

00:43:04.620 of what I hope to be many of them. She's also after the Broadband Institute. I noticed Legacy

00:43:09.760 Media didn't cover this humbling. Well, there's Press Progress, which is different, although I

00:43:13.040 confuse it all the time. There's Progress and Progress Alberta. So this was Progress Alberta?

00:43:16.920 I think it was Progress Alberta. They're all kind of tied together. They're confusing. They love

00:43:20.900 sticking the word progress and everything, but the progress now has been draining of Mr. Kinney's

00:43:24.940 bank accounts, or at least his insurance companies. And hopefully, it sets a good example.

00:43:30.280 And I just, again, since legacy media didn't find it worth reporting, I just want to remind everybody,

00:43:34.920 Mr. Kinney got a humbling. And I think it sets a very good precedent, too. When you're going to

00:43:39.000 go after somebody, you can't do that. You just can't. Yeah. And you know what? In media, even,

00:43:43.880 you know, even a far left one, or one on the right, mistakes are going to happen. You're

00:43:49.160 get something wrong when you do fess up own it and it sucks we've got a story right and oh it's a

00:43:56.840 bitter pie to taste but you eat that humble pie you move on to fight another day these guys did

00:44:03.000 not and now their insurance premiums are going to be pretty high uh okay oh i'm almost out of time

00:44:09.800 here so my parting shot um this was a great story uh it's the daily hive it's it's a left-wing kind

00:44:17.720 of BuzzFeed-ish style site and they ran a story uh National News Watch put it front page top it

00:44:26.120 was the main story of National News Watch from uh Daily Hive uh that there was this insane

00:44:32.200 thing about Justin Trudeau Alberta these crazy Albertans who hate him and it was

00:44:35.720 someone made a sort of a mannequin slash uh effigy although they're not killing the effigy but 0.90

00:44:43.160 An effigy of Justin Trudeau. And it portrays Justin Trudeau in blackface and with a turban. And Daily Hive says, this is racist. To show Justin Trudeau in blackface and a turban is racist.

00:44:57.460 Well, I mean, we just need to stop for a second, take a deep breath, and ask, who's committing the racist act here?

00:45:06.180 Is it the rich white guy who wears blackface and a turban?

00:45:12.340 By the way, Aladdin wasn't black. 0.87

00:45:14.700 But anyway, so he does blackface Aladdin.

00:45:18.520 Is that the racist?

00:45:19.980 Or is it the guy who's making fun of the guy who does the racist act?

00:45:23.940 And so anyway, I just, I don't think Daily Hive would be fairly considered mainstream media,

00:45:29.300 but it's definitely left media, and a lot of the legacy media picked up on it saying, 0.81

00:45:32.920 ah, look at that, these crazy Albertans are racist for showing this guy, 0.98

00:45:39.800 whoever this guy is, in blackface and with a turban. 0.99

00:45:43.460 So anyway, you know, it's not enough for a whole segment.

00:45:46.540 I wanted to because it's just so funny, but that's my parting shot today.

00:45:50.580 All right. Gentlemen, Nigel, Corey, thank you for joining the show today.

00:45:58.640 Always fun.

00:45:59.940 And thank all of you for joining us on the pipeline of the Western Standard.

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Western Standard - October 03, 2024

Smith’s job on the line at UCP convention

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