Western Standard - The Cory Morgan Show, May 17 2021 with guests Drew Barnes & Todd Loewen

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00:02:00.000 Good morning, welcome to the Corey Morgan Show for May 17th on this beautiful Monday

00:02:29.700 morning we had a beautiful hot weekend it did finally feel like spring or summer this weekend

00:02:34.720 but of course we weren't really allowed to do anything but I hope you managed to enjoy what

00:02:39.120 you could out of it I see I started out with a bit of a hot mic there a couple of people warning

00:02:43.100 me on it with the sage advice from Cindy saying don't fart your mic is on well I don't know the

00:02:49.580 mic being on never stopped me from doing it before actually and most people don't realize

00:02:53.200 it's happening that's the nice things of being in a remote studio so you don't have to torment

00:02:57.380 guests after Taco Tuesday. But either way, I do appreciate those warnings. I could have been

00:03:02.580 saying something untoward or embarrassing, but again, I usually don't have much of a filter when

00:03:06.540 I'm on the show anyhow. And there's lots to cover. I do have some fantastic guests on today.

00:03:13.080 I am going to have, yes, the two expelled caucus members from the UCP. Drew Barnes is going to be

00:03:18.820 on in about 15 minutes, and we'll talk for a while and cover where he's sitting, where he's going,

00:03:24.820 how he ended up where he is. And we'll have a very similar conversation with Todd Lowen at the top

00:03:30.460 of the hour, the two new independent members of the legislature now, as things go crazy there.

00:03:39.040 I'm, yeah, I'm trying to find my screen here. So it's a painful day for me in a number of ways,

00:03:46.600 one of which is my whole body hurts. You know, if anything should be banned for safety reasons,

00:03:51.240 I don't think it has anything to do with COVID. It should be those bloody reality renovation

00:03:54.020 shows that inspire people to rip their places apart and take on projects that they can't manage

00:03:59.620 to finish so my wife is a beautiful lady brilliant i love her she's fantastic i'm lucky to have her

00:04:05.940 but my gosh she tore the basement apart we've been fighting with it all week i am in agony so

00:04:10.200 if we want to take on something for public safety to ban don't ban rodeos don't ban restaurants

00:04:14.680 ban those reality home renovation tv shows like i said put on cooking shows the worst will happen

00:04:20.500 somebody watches something that looks easy on tv they cook a meal it turns out like crap they order

00:04:24.180 a pizza but these reno things are killing me the other thing that's painting me this week so i'll 0.98

00:04:28.260 get on to the ranting now is hypocrisy and we're seeing it in spades we saw that all weekend you

00:04:35.780 know people wonder why people aren't taking the uh covid restrictions seriously why they're not

00:04:41.780 following the rules why they're they're moving all over the map well it's because the standards move

00:04:47.060 all over the map as well so over the weekend we had tens of thousands of people marching

00:04:53.220 all over the country in protests uh against israel you know so this happens periodically

00:04:59.380 every few years when hamas manages to get enough foreign aid together to start uh attacking and

00:05:06.100 sending missiles into israel and then israel finally defends itself and everybody goes running

00:05:10.820 and screaming and protesting across the country now that's not new but what is going on is

00:05:17.060 It's in violation of the COVID restrictions. Come on, I thought we had these warnings. I thought we had the premier talking to people saying we're going to arrest organizers. In fact, they do arrest organizers. They do ticket attendees of protests. Unless, unless they're running around, maskless, waving Palestine flags, screaming death to the Jews. In that case, we'll let it slide.

00:05:40.160 You know, the silence out of Ninchy was deafening with that.

00:05:43.680 Where are you, Ninchy?

00:05:44.680 Why aren't you condemning this?

00:05:45.940 Why aren't you demanding arrests, as you did with other protests, rallies, and people getting out there?

00:05:51.920 Or an example of one of Ninchy's extensions is Giancarlo Carra, because he was questioned on Twitter.

00:05:58.760 People were saying, you know, where's your comment?

00:06:00.280 So he said, my comment to this is the same as during the BLM protests. 0.81

00:06:03.220 So I'm glad he admits he was hypocritical when it came to the BLM protests as well.

00:06:06.500 He says, I'm a lot more sympathetic to people protesting actual political situations that demand attention to resolution than I am about bad people throwing temper tantrums about being members of a society.

00:06:16.500 Okay, fine. 1.00

00:06:18.100 So he's admitting that he's a bloody hypocrite. 1.00

00:06:20.800 I guess that's one step in the right direction. 1.00

00:06:24.360 But you know what?

00:06:24.860 It doesn't matter what your cause is.

00:06:26.780 If indeed COVID-19, if indeed this virus is the thing that's going to kill us all, if public gatherings are what are causing it,

00:06:33.920 It shouldn't matter what the rationale is of the people breaking the regulations.

00:06:39.260 It'll be just as likely to spread from a BLM protest as from an anti-lockdown rally,

00:06:45.580 as from a Christian group getting together at a church, as would with a bunch of people at a rodeo. 0.78

00:06:52.280 So spare me. Spare me. 0.99

00:06:54.660 You know, with BLM, you went up in the tens of thousands.

00:06:56.580 Guess what? They didn't turn into super spreader events.

00:06:58.460 So that gets back to really how dangerous is COVID-19.

00:07:02.960 And the double standard with these anti-Israel marchers is just something else.

00:07:08.780 So something else we had going on on the weekend, too.

00:07:10.780 So just before the weekend, there were a number of drive-ins that were going to open.

00:07:14.940 Drive-ins, you know, sit in your car, watch a movie, people smiling, having fun.

00:07:19.440 That is what the COVID crackdown people hate.

00:07:22.920 It has nothing to do with health.

00:07:24.380 I swear it's all about control and making people miserable.

00:07:27.240 So AHS swooped in hours before the one was going to open in Canyon Meadows, one was going to open on the Satina Reserve, one was going to open in High River.

00:07:36.060 The High River one was a non-profit thing.

00:07:38.180 These were just going to be drive-in movies for people to go out with their families, sit in their car, and watch a movie.

00:07:44.700 As they were saying with the High River one, I guess, you know, they were going to have food trucks that you would even text and they would bring the food to your car.

00:07:50.240 There's no evidence anywhere that a drive-in movie has ever harmed anybody, ever.

00:07:55.820 but AHS shut it down. No, no, no. People are going to have fun. They're going to smile.

00:08:01.020 They're going to enjoy themselves. We can't have that. That doesn't fit within our mandate,

00:08:05.100 but it gets better than that because then we find out that in Grand Prairie,

00:08:10.080 welcome to the internet guys, we find out about these things. They held a drive-in movie for AHS

00:08:15.640 employees. Yes, nurses. They held a drive-in movie in Grand Prairie, an area that was called a hotspot

00:08:20.880 at the beginning of this month. We're not talking an area with low infections. They're as heavily

00:08:24.380 infected as anywhere else. That was okay. That was a benefit for nurses. That's not a problem.

00:08:30.300 But one in High River apparently is a problem. AHS shut them down. One in Canyon Meadows and

00:08:35.160 South Calgary, AHS shut them down. And the Sutina Reserve by the casino, they shut them down.

00:08:41.260 But something that's delicious to watch. The organizers on the Sutina Reserve with their

00:08:46.520 drive-in have now said, we're holding it anyway. You have no authority here. We don't care what

00:08:53.020 you think? The chief and council have approved this. You watch Notley, for example, hysterically

00:09:00.460 screaming and hollering. She's saving the world, you know. She wanted to shut down the rodeo. She

00:09:04.800 wanted to shut down other things. She gets on her high horse. She talks about government swooping

00:09:09.540 in and arresting people. I can promise you the silence will be deafening now that the Soutina 0.98

00:09:15.560 are holding a drive-in movie. She's not going to demand that they go in and arrest the chief 0.88

00:09:20.220 or the organizers or ticket people attending that or blockade the roads or fence it in like

00:09:25.620 a church. No, she will hide and just sit and gripe and go on about other petty things because

00:09:30.700 that's what she does. As with Nenshi, as with others we see on the scene, the hypocrisy is 0.63

00:09:37.420 staggering. So keep that in mind. If you want to hold a rally, carry a Palestinian flag in the

00:09:45.540 front of it and yell just to the Jews. Then you can just go on with your rally with everything 1.00

00:09:48.160 else after that. They'll be silent. Don't worry about it. You're perfectly fine. So just make

00:09:54.340 sure to frame these things right. And then you can express yourself. I know it's not a nice way to go

00:09:59.820 out with things, but that is, seems to be where the rules are. And yeah, if you want to hold a

00:10:05.040 drive-in movie with friends and family, I guess you got to hold it on a native reserve. And you

00:10:09.620 know, I don't want to see people coming in and cracking down and shutting down the sutina drive-in.

00:10:13.400 I don't. Good on them. Good on them for pushing back and telling the AHS to go to hell because

00:10:18.120 they really need it. And they will set that example. What I see happening soon, I think 0.90

00:10:24.020 AHS will relent and allow all the drive-ins because they definitely don't have the balls 0.99

00:10:29.440 to take on the Sutina Reserve. So they will open the others. So that's a win. And I thank you guys

00:10:35.940 at the Sutina Reserve for pushing it. I think we should hold a rodeo on the Sutina Reserve and

00:10:40.400 they used to in the past, but let's hold them right away. Let's get Ty Northcott who went to

00:10:44.920 court or is going today, I believe for his first hearing. It's a virtual one. Get Ty Northcott to

00:10:49.660 organize another pop-up rodeo. We'll do it on the Soutina Reserve or Sun Child O'Chise or one of the

00:10:53.840 others. And let's see how quickly Notley and the others get up and demand arrests. You know, they

00:10:58.760 won't. They're cowards. They're cowards and they're hypocrites. We saw it with the marches. 1.00

00:11:04.800 We saw it with these rodeos. Now, what else do we got going on? So let's talk about COVID. You

00:11:10.040 the negative negative negative well it's not negative you know i was listening to the radio

00:11:14.360 i pained myself on the way and you don't need to listen to the radio download these podcasts listen

00:11:18.760 to that in your spare time the radio is just getting horrible so the announcing the weekend

00:11:22.280 covet counts it's funny it's no mistake they make it as miserable and scary and frightening as

00:11:28.840 humanly possible we used to get daily counts on covet cases when they switched to cases because

00:11:32.840 that was the scariest stat you know we got a number of measures and stats for covet 19.

00:11:36.920 they will always pick whatever one looks worst so now that cases have dropped by nearly half

00:11:42.760 nearly half and it has nothing to do with the lockdown by the way they were dropping already

00:11:45.960 before the lockdown as they always say two more weeks two more weeks two more weeks well two more

00:11:48.920 weeks applies when you lock down as well so we're going to see impacts from the lockdown and we

00:11:52.760 won't or at least you know we'll see things go down but won't have anything to do with the lockdown

00:11:56.680 all the lockdown does crush businesses but either way it's only been a week and the cases are down

00:12:02.360 by nearly half. So what does the media do? It reports the whole weekend worth of cases to

00:12:07.080 still make it sound scary. Oh my God, there were 2,300 cases. Yes. But a couple of weeks ago,

00:12:13.320 there were nearly 4,000 over the course of two days, you see. But they're announcing it daily.

00:12:17.480 Now they've gone to putting together two days at a time when they announced them. People are not

00:12:22.460 passing away from this, not much at all. I mean, yes, some do. It's tragic, you know, but let's

00:12:26.840 keep reporting on that. Three people the other day, three out of 4.4 million. One was 80 years old,

00:12:33.500 two were 70 in their 70s, and two of them had comorbidities that were known. I mean, again,

00:12:39.000 this is not the plague sweeping the common people and causing mass death, thankfully.

00:12:45.020 And it doesn't mean we can ignore it. That's still three people dead. They might have had

00:12:48.200 some more months left in them. We don't want to go prematurely. Our ICU beds, nowhere near capacity

00:12:54.620 yet. All the fear mongering, the triage, you know, stacking bodies like cordwood and everything they

00:12:58.380 warned us about, you know, didn't happen. Not going to happen. Numbers are kind of flat line.

00:13:03.040 There's a number of people in there. It's of concern, but it's not crushing the health system.

00:13:06.220 The nurses still have time to make TikTok videos and play crib. Don't worry. They'll be all right.

00:13:10.720 We need to start backing off though, because businesses are getting crushed. You know, I live

00:13:14.860 Prentiss area. I used to own the pub down there. They've been locked down. It's just destroying

00:13:20.840 them. I sold it to them. I feel awful almost. It's like a survivor's guilt. You know, I sold

00:13:24.680 the pub to them just before all this crap hit. And they did like everybody else. They built a 0.97

00:13:29.620 big wooden patio out in the parking lot and they rented tables and they spent money and they were

00:13:35.220 allowed to have it open for a week. And the one weekend that it was open, it was pouring rain

00:13:39.480 and miserable. This weekend was beautiful. The traffic, if anybody went west of Calgary, was

00:13:44.400 something else. It was just overwhelming. And of course, there's that empty patio sitting there.

00:13:50.160 they're watching that traffic go by, you know, as their bills mount, as their fixed costs stay the

00:13:54.720 same, as their staff remain laid off. For what? For what? You know, you can't prove any infections

00:14:02.060 from people going to these patios. It's just ridiculous. So we've got to keep pushing back. 0.96

00:14:06.380 We've got to keep pressuring back. We can't take our foot off the gas with these guys. It's become

00:14:11.820 an obsession. They just don't want to lighten up on letting off on this control. It doesn't matter

00:14:17.320 where the numbers are so we have to keep pushing back and these hypocrites and they are hypocrites 0.99

00:14:23.620 will keep being hypocrites so keep reporting it keep protesting safely carefully but we can't let 0.98

00:14:31.500 them just keep taking this this wimpy path and locking everybody down it's bankrupting us debt 0.95

00:14:36.300 is exploding speaking of other things getting onto the federal front then for a minute uh oh

00:14:41.880 actually another side note so let's look at some good news i was talking about good news texas the

00:14:45.760 population nearly as much as all of Canada. It opened up two months ago, more than two months

00:14:49.500 ago. They were only 14% vaccinated. We're well beyond that already. Zero deaths to report the

00:14:56.040 other day. Their case counts are a fraction of what they were. They've been out. They're having

00:15:01.220 massive gatherings, sporting events, all sorts of things. No super spreaders. It puts lie to the

00:15:10.400 myth that government can somehow control this virus. You know, I mean, there's areas that are

00:15:17.540 locked down tight as a drum and they have the worst infections in North America. And then there's

00:15:20.520 other areas that are liberal and letting people loose like Texas, like Mississippi, like Florida,

00:15:24.880 and their numbers are no worse. In fact, they're much better than we are right now.

00:15:28.920 So let's get on with the realities here. I mean, this best summer ever that Jason Kenney keeps

00:15:34.620 talking about, we're getting into it already. And so far it sucks, Jason. It sucks. It's just 0.88

00:15:39.580 like last year. And I don't see a benefit from it. Lighten up, open up. It's your only hope of

00:15:45.700 getting reelected in two years anyways. It's not looking good. And I'm sure that Mr. Barnes and

00:15:52.500 Mr. Lowen will have a few things to say about that when they get on as well. Getting on to the other

00:15:57.220 alternative parties. So over the weekend, the Wilder's Independence Party did have their

00:16:02.300 leadership in a sense. Paul Heman was acclaimed. Nobody else did meet the bar and requisite for

00:16:09.960 entering in the race. So he was acclaimed. He is the official leader moving on going into

00:16:15.000 the next provincial election. So there's another, you know, well, there's a number of registered

00:16:20.520 parties out there. I guess, you know, among the alternative ones, that would be the biggest and

00:16:24.940 most well-organized at this point. Paul certainly, you know, he's been on the show before. He's got

00:16:29.620 no shortage of organizational experience. He knows how to get these things going off the ground,

00:16:33.660 and he's been underestimated many, many, many times. When he came in in Calgary Glenmore with

00:16:39.780 the first Wild Rose party and won it on an upset, nobody expected it. It shook things up and it set

00:16:45.920 the ball rolling for what turned into that long, arduous journey into the Wild Rose party that did

00:16:53.540 great, made inroads, had its ups and downs. And then, you know, for those of us with political

00:16:58.960 history, we had the brutal floor crossing with a number of MLAs, the terrible move that led to

00:17:07.340 massive distrust. Basically, in my view, it kind of collapsed the government. The opportunism on

00:17:11.720 the part of the late Jim Prentice was just too much for people to stomach. They couldn't vote

00:17:16.060 for the PCs. Trust was hurting for the remainder of the Wildrose Party. And we got four years of

00:17:22.460 an NDP government, which we're still very embarrassed about and hope not to repeat.

00:17:27.220 Now, one of those members who didn't cross, and there were only a few, some loyalists,

00:17:31.500 and who is still there is Drew Barnes. And I see him in the lobby there. So let's bring him in.

00:17:36.560 You guys have heard enough of me for the last 15 minutes, and I'm certain we have a lot to talk

00:17:41.060 about. So hey there, Drew. Good to see you. Good morning, Corey. Nice to talk to you again.

00:17:46.880 Yeah. So a lot has changed since the last time we chatted on here, or maybe not a lot has. I

00:17:52.880 mean, your views haven't changed. You're still pushing on the same principles and things going

00:17:57.040 forward, but you no longer are a representative of a party in the legislature. Yeah. What an

00:18:05.760 opportunity, I think. Tens of thousands of Albertans have been saying, hundreds of them

00:18:11.840 them have reached out to me saying that they feel their voice, their ideas, you know, their needs

00:18:18.060 haven't been, you know, listened to, haven't been brought to the floor of the legislature to be

00:18:23.360 debated. And this is a great opportunity for me to listen, you know, to learn from what they're

00:18:29.500 saying. And then from there to help get these ideas put forward. Yeah, you know, it, you know,

00:18:37.220 I'm honored to represent Cypress Medicine Hat, you know, you know, for 10 years now. And, you

00:18:43.180 know, it's going to be an opportunity to do those very things. I heard your introduction. And, you

00:18:49.560 know, I so, you know, always like to thank you for the work that you did to start the whole idea

00:18:55.300 of Wild Rose. You know, I think of you, Link Byfield, John Murdoch, you know, many others

00:19:00.960 that worked very, very hard to make things happen. And I think one of the things that hasn't been

00:19:06.640 talked about a whole bunch in the last little while is the fact that Albertans are demanding

00:19:12.500 and deserving of democratic reform. And that's really one of the main elements we were pushing

00:19:18.760 for in the wild rose way back in 2012. And maybe we just got delayed for a while. Let's see what

00:19:25.340 happens. Yeah, well, I'm glad you look at it with that outlook. And it's limiting, though,

00:19:30.540 I understand. But something I'm kind of enjoying these days, and I've said a number of times,

00:19:33.940 just since I've gone in with the Western Standard, I don't have a party membership in any party

00:19:38.220 anymore for the first time in my adult life. And it's quite empowering because I couldn't speak

00:19:43.440 critically of other parties necessarily and so on if I was a member. That's just at the member

00:19:47.960 level. I just don't think I could in good principle. I mean, when you're an elected

00:19:51.980 member and you're in a party, there's certain constraints. It's just a reality that you no

00:19:57.020 longer have. So I'm just guessing, I mean, you were very outspoken within the UCP. You're not

00:20:02.120 going to become any less so at this point now that you don't have any constraints in the partisan

00:20:06.200 sense. Yeah, I'm actually hoping to, you know, increase that. You know, I'm going to spend some

00:20:13.340 time initially, of course, talking to my family, talking to my constituents, you know, pulling my

00:20:18.640 constituents as to the direction they'd like to see. You know, I'm grateful and honoured to be 10

00:20:24.720 years and I believe that I still have a lot to offer, energy and ideas to serve public service

00:20:31.120 for Albertans. So that's where I'd like to remain and head. But, you know, Corey, it's

00:20:37.200 indicative of where we're at. You know, the premier publicly was saying that he welcomed

00:20:43.800 public debate. He welcomed public discussion. And of course, I wasn't in cabinet. I wasn't

00:20:50.200 a decision maker. But when push comes to shove, obviously he didn't appreciate or welcome

00:20:57.440 the public debate that we were bringing. And, you know, I look back at what happened on Thursday,

00:21:04.160 you know, Todd Lowen, you know, a solid, you know, constituency conservative, a very, you know,

00:21:13.540 you know, mannered person who heard so loud from his constituency that the premiers weren't,

00:21:19.780 that the premier was not on side, that he felt the need to publicly ask for the premier to resign.

00:21:26.200 and of course that kicked things off.

00:21:31.120 Yeah, well, you know, and something with that,

00:21:33.240 I mean, Todd's no fool.

00:21:35.300 He knew he was crossing the line of no return

00:21:37.040 when you come out right and demand the leader resign.

00:21:39.140 I mean, there's going to be one of two reactions.

00:21:41.820 The leader, which would be the long shot,

00:21:43.520 will throw up his hands and say,

00:21:44.540 okay, you know what, maybe I've had enough, I'm going to go.

00:21:47.280 Or the reality is that chances are

00:21:49.240 that you're going to get the boot.

00:21:50.760 That's just kind of a reality in partisan politics.

00:21:54.220 But in that case, they seem to, well, since we're going after Todd, we may as well get that rabble

00:21:59.060 rouser Drew out of there at the same time. I mean, you weren't a part of that, at least a call for

00:22:04.120 Jason Kennedy's resignation. You were just very critical of the party at many a time.

00:22:09.500 Do you think that perhaps, I mean, obviously, they were just taking advantage of that catalyst,

00:22:13.500 but given enough time, they probably would have found a reason to kind of set you aside as well?

00:22:17.760 Yeah, you know, again, Premier used to say he welcomed public debate. Clearly, he didn't. You know, maybe the other catalyst is, you know, I think there's some polling was released recently that showed that Premier Kenney's popularity level in Alberta was as low as Justin Trudeau's.

00:22:37.720 In Alberta, the Premier was polling as low as Justin Trudeau's.

00:22:42.400 You know, and I hear time and time again how Trudeau's values don't match Albertan values.

00:22:48.740 Yeah, I mean, it was a surprise, but again, now it's an opportunity.

00:22:54.160 We were supposed to have a caucus meeting on Thursday, which was cancelled Wednesday night.

00:22:58.320 I woke up to Todd's letter highlighting several of the concerns that I hear daily with the UCP

00:23:06.700 government and the premier off track, but ending with a call for the premier to resign.

00:23:11.500 And of course, there had been several constituencies and several members calling for a

00:23:16.240 leadership review anyway, and that became a bit of a public debate. And then they called a new

00:23:22.280 meeting for starting, I think it was a 1230 by the time it got going closer to one the first

00:23:28.920 agenda item brought up was the ejection of Todd and myself and I immediately knew that my UCP days

00:23:37.480 were in jeopardy and were over. Yeah, that was quite a chain of events. Again, it perhaps was

00:23:45.560 building. Boy, I'm sorry, his name is escaping me. There was another MLA Hanson, I believe his name

00:23:52.300 was. Dave Hanson, a great rural guy, St. Paul, Bonneville. He's in his second term, former Wild

00:23:58.880 Roser. Yeah, and he'd spoken up, but they didn't eject him. I imagine perhaps some good promises

00:24:05.980 behind closed doors if that's the last of your misbehaviors. Yeah, I would hope not and I would

00:24:14.500 believe not uh you know i i don't i can't explain how how it came to that uh it just uh yeah like

00:24:21.620 again because of my outspokenness which i thought was welcomed you know quite example i fall back to

00:24:28.020 when the premier and the cabinet had a regional approach way back you know seven or eight months

00:24:33.760 ago i was saying things like i think they basically got it right you know i think they

00:24:38.860 basically, you know, handled the COVID situation, you know, down here in Cypress Medicine had 300

00:24:45.260 miles by 300 miles, we had eight cases, you know, and we had, you know, no ICU and no hospitalization

00:24:52.540 overburden. And then of course, when they got off that approach, then I changed my tune.

00:24:58.380 You know, I think the first time that I spoke up was after the fair deal panel,

00:25:03.580 and it was clear to me that Albertans were stronger to me directly and at the Fair Deal

00:25:10.780 panel that they wanted to put Ottawa on notice that we demand and deserve a fairer deal.

00:25:17.580 So I felt it was my obligation and my role to make it stronger that Albertans were expecting

00:25:25.580 you know Ottawa to listen to us to give us a fairer deal financially,

00:25:29.660 pre-trade resource movement. Many Albertans even want to open the Constitution and do something

00:25:34.540 about the inequity in the Supreme Court justice selections, Canada's most useless Senate,

00:25:41.500 and other changes like that. And that didn't seem to be reflected in the tone of the Fair

00:25:46.700 Deal report. So I felt obligated to do that. The next time I spoke up, I believe it was when

00:25:52.620 Cabinet changed the age payments. They bumped the age payments back, remember, three or four days to

00:25:57.500 to try to put it into the next fiscal year,

00:25:59.800 you know, that might have cost the taxpayer,

00:26:01.860 I heard $10 million, I don't know the number.

00:26:04.900 And it certainly caused a lot of people that, 1.00

00:26:08.420 you know, deserve and reliant on Aish a lot of hardship. 1.00

00:26:11.620 It made no sense to me and I said that. 1.00

00:26:13.940 You know, that's what I should be doing, isn't it?

00:26:16.160 When I'm not a cabinet minister,

00:26:17.760 it's my duty and my obligation

00:26:19.300 to hold the government to account.

00:26:21.160 And I thought I was all right to do that.

00:26:25.020 Yeah, well, one of the things,

00:26:26.580 I despise the most and when we used to watch question period in the past is when a government

00:26:31.700 member would come up and lob a puffball question across uh you know to set up a minister to say

00:26:36.500 something fluffy and nice and every government's done it over the past but just loathe that you

00:26:40.820 know I mean it defeats your purpose it lets you know uh if you are in a constituency represented

00:26:46.580 by a back bench or in a government like that you will not be able to have any sort of voice going

00:26:51.780 into that government that's contrary to the centralized government line and we kind of thought

00:26:56.740 maybe we're getting something better we're getting something different with the UCP but I mean did it

00:27:01.700 begin with the crackdown on individual voices like that right off the bat upon forming government or

00:27:07.300 is this kind of evolved in this last year and a half? Well thank you for that question Corey you

00:27:12.920 know it's hard to say there was so much high hope that Jason Kenney would meet the expectations that

00:27:20.600 that he was elected on two years ago you know from doing something about the size and the cost

00:27:25.320 of government to to doing something about our unfair deal with ottawa free trade and resource

00:27:31.560 movement uh you know there was high hopes that a 25-year ottawa insider uh would be able to to

00:27:38.360 navigate that and get our resources moving uh you know and and i think the the frustration the

00:27:45.960 criticism just grew and the response instead of being more open and engaging and letting

00:27:53.160 backbenchers and members have more say, seemed like it got more top down. So again, I think it

00:28:02.120 was something that worsened, that grew and as expectations were not met and it was obvious that

00:28:11.160 that, you know, the track was wrong, that, you know, Albertans needed a venue and an avenue to speak up.

00:28:19.740 Yeah, so again, for me, this is such an opportunity for tens of thousands of us

00:28:26.540 and, you know, the 50,000 people that I'm honoured to represent in Cypress Medicine Hat.

00:28:31.180 This is our opportunity to get those ideas to the floor of the legislature, to speak freer,

00:28:37.460 to listen, to learn and to lead, and I'm excited.

00:28:41.160 Yeah, well, you know, I mean, things change when it happened. It's hard to say or if it happened. I mean, a lot of people are wondering whether Jason Kenney pulled the wool over our eyes or if he'd bitten off more than he can chew. Some people have been, you know, reposting an article I wrote a couple of years ago endorsing Kenney for the leadership and saying this is the way to go. This is the great, you know, future here. This is how we'll get our province back and stand up to Ottawa. I was wrong. I'll admit that. I was dead wrong, obviously.

00:29:07.820 I, I, I, but I mean, was I snowed or did he just change? I don't know. That's still for speculation,

00:29:13.520 but part of what got to me, and you started talking about democratic reform was when the,

00:29:18.240 uh, recall and referenda, uh, bills were put out and they were written in such a way and purposely

00:29:24.580 so to make it completely impossible for those to ever actually be utilized. So that tells me

00:29:29.880 that somebody purposely pulled the wool over my eyes. They, uh, I mean, I, I was on policy with

00:29:35.440 the Wildrose Party, it's a difficult balance. You want it achievable, but not whimsical so

00:29:39.640 somebody can constantly enact, you know, referendums and recalls. But this set that bar at such a level

00:29:44.960 that it's saying, we just want to give you the appearance of direct democracy, but we never

00:29:48.700 actually want to empower you to go out and initiate a referendum. That's very distressing.

00:29:54.020 Yeah. And for me as well. And when you compare it to Switzerland as an example,

00:29:58.380 there are some differences between whether the issue is constitutional or not. But I think as

00:30:04.440 low as 50,000 people out of a population, I think Switzerland is eight or nine million people,

00:30:11.460 50,000 people can get a binding question on a referendum. I mean, I know there's a process

00:30:16.340 and those kinds of things. And of course, what was said here was in the hundreds of thousands

00:30:20.440 over a shorter period of time. Yeah. So there's lots of room for improvement there.

00:30:29.080 And yeah, and that's something, you know, that going forward, something that as an independent,

00:30:32.900 I'll be able to review and decide you know great to get it to get it on the on the books to start

00:30:38.180 with Corey is this something that's fought next election uh in a different way or is this something

00:30:43.320 we try to change now and and again I'm grateful that this gives us an opportunity to uh to look

00:30:48.820 at that in a different way yeah there's uh you know the the recall thing I mean that's a hallmark

00:30:54.120 of the wild rose members we we always wanted some accountability some way to to hold our people to

00:31:00.640 task. And yeah, I mean, we should never be scared of the chance to, you know, be responsible to

00:31:08.140 to our voters and our citizens. And so hopefully we'll have a chance to improve that as well.

00:31:13.720 Yeah, well, and I appreciate you talking about, you know, systemic change. And I love

00:31:18.000 Switzerland. I could do a whole show just talking about their system. I mean,

00:31:21.340 it's a small nation, yet so diverse and very decentralized, which is something we really need.

00:31:27.160 And it shows that, I mean, I believe Switzerland, I could be wrong, it's three or four official languages.

00:31:32.300 There's 26 little divisions, those cantons in there, and they function.

00:31:36.300 I mean, that's one of the oldest democracies on the planet.

00:31:38.340 And the reason it is, is because you can let the individual regions govern themselves and still have a collective sense of cohesion and being.

00:31:47.040 And we can't even do it on a provincial level.

00:31:49.520 As you said, you've been speaking up for Medicine Hat.

00:31:51.700 And perhaps that doesn't match what people in Edmonton want, but that's not your job to talk about what people in Edmonton want.

00:31:56.120 Your job is to speak for your constituents.

00:31:58.820 Exactly.

00:31:59.940 And for that, you know.

00:32:01.480 Yeah.

00:32:02.380 And, you know, out here in Cypress County where people live miles apart, the regionalization made a lot of sense.

00:32:09.600 You look at what Saskatchewan's done.

00:32:11.460 Saskatchewan locked Regina down tighter because of the density for the COVID restrictions because of that.

00:32:18.360 Saskatchewan kept large parts of their economy more open than Alberta did all through this.

00:32:23.740 I think it was the CFIB that put out five or six months ago that Alberta was actually fourth in

00:32:30.080 terms of how open the economy was Saskatchewan was first BC was was second or third and a maritime

00:32:36.840 province was in there as well and then we were fourth and and it you know Alberta is huge Alberta

00:32:42.980 is diverse and it makes lots of sense to do that and there's lots of challenges that way yeah so

00:32:49.220 uh thanks for that well well thank you for standing up for it i mean it's a frustration now

00:32:55.380 um you can still speak up for medicine hat now and you certainly will and you will outside of

00:32:59.460 the legislature and on the ground uh unfortunately now that you are an independent member it's very

00:33:06.180 difficult to get a voice within the legislature i remember that when uh paul himman was our own

00:33:10.260 member way back in the day and he'd get his one question i believe every two weeks or so and you'd

00:33:14.980 have to model it really carefully and then it was difficult to get traction so what sort of ways are

00:33:19.780 you going to try and stay i guess visible and vocal because you've lost you know you've lost

00:33:23.460 some research budget you've lost a number of the things that come with being within a political

00:33:27.140 party yeah well thanks for that corey but i think the opposite is true um in my two years with with

00:33:34.020 being a ucp member i think i had five or six different assistants it kept changing uh and

00:33:40.100 And caucus would take, the UCP caucus would take the money and direct it towards their research and their comms needs.

00:33:48.600 And yes, I did have some access to that.

00:33:50.960 But this comes with, being an independent does come with about $125,000 of taxpayers' money.

00:33:58.100 So I'm grateful for that.

00:33:59.180 That allows me to orchestrate, you know, some staff and some research and some comms that way.

00:34:06.040 And that will allow me to be more focused.

00:34:07.520 Of course, I'm very excited to work with Todd Lowen, and so we're having meetings later to work that out and that kind of thing, so I'm grateful for that.

00:34:17.740 Yeah, and again, instead of being expected to sell the government line back to my constituents, this is my complete opportunity to applaud the government when they do the right thing,

00:34:31.040 to offer suggestions when I think there's a better path, and to critique when that's necessary.

00:34:36.660 So I'm excited and optimistic. You know, I kind of compare it to my legislative career. In the first three years, you recall that Jim Prentice called the election a year early, and that was breaking a democratic covenant that cost the PCs dearly, I believe.

00:34:52.380 as a Wild Rose opposition member, I believe I did four reports about how we get more value out of

00:35:03.580 infrastructure building, twinning Highway 63 to Fort McMurray, having with a colleague named

00:35:08.500 Shane Saskue, and then about building on time and on budget and balancing the books. And so it was

00:35:16.000 an opportunity to present those things and have some influence on government policy. And I'll say

00:35:21.560 this, Corey, I, you know, it'll be up to the government to treat me with respect and listen

00:35:26.240 to my ideas. You know, a little shout out for, you know, our deceased friend, Manmeet Boulard.

00:35:33.820 When he was infrastructure critic, I did a report and Manmeet read it. Him and I sat and had a long

00:35:40.080 coffee and discussed all the ins and outs. He told me the two or three things he liked, the two or

00:35:44.380 three things he didn't like. And to me, that's a way for government to work. And so I'm looking

00:35:49.560 forward to that and bless them. Yeah, you can be congenial and productive. I mean, it does

00:35:57.100 sometimes happen in legislatures and even the parliament. People don't necessarily see it

00:36:01.840 sometimes. Actually, I'm wondering, will you be removed from committees that you served on at

00:36:07.000 this point now too? Yes, I believe I will be. That's the new situation. One thing I haven't

00:36:17.200 said, though, is about three months ago, the UCP whip and caucus did remove me from the two

00:36:23.500 committees I was on and put me on the no meet committee. And that committee, of course, only

00:36:29.540 meets at the direction of the legislature. So not 100% sure, but I believe I'll be removed from that

00:36:36.520 now. And but, you know, because of people like you, because of the Western Standard, because of

00:36:41.860 our media. I have the opportunity to get my messages out in a different way. And it's up to

00:36:48.960 all Albertans to speak up and have them tell the government, have them tell Premier Kenney what

00:36:55.280 their expectations are. Yeah, well, and we're getting a candid look at government and some of

00:37:00.700 the inner workings. It's kind of like learning how a sausage is made sometimes, but things have changed

00:37:06.220 and the means of communication. And it's much more difficult actually for a top-down controlling

00:37:12.380 government to maintain information and keep that tight. As we saw when hearings were going on,

00:37:18.580 there were a number of sources passing on some information to the Western Standard, which was

00:37:23.140 live reporting the incidents as they happen. And of course, fingers were all pointing at you and

00:37:27.420 no, is Derek being quite clear? No, this is a barrel with a whole number of leaks in it all

00:37:31.920 over the place don't you you might be plugging one spot but it's just yeah yeah it's an indication

00:37:39.600 though that there's a lot more disarray going on in that caucus like this hasn't been solved with

00:37:43.740 the ejection of two members by any means no no there's voices that need to be heard and you know

00:37:49.920 there's hundreds of Albertans have reached out to me and said here's the direction they're not happy

00:37:55.640 with. And it's usually around not striving for a better deal with Ottawa. It's usually around the

00:38:04.040 huge amounts of corporate welfare that this government has used and some cronyism with

00:38:09.620 some of the appointments. Certainly it's around the inequity, the hypocrisy, the lack of evidence

00:38:16.600 around COVID regulations and the debt. In just two years, we've added over $40 billion of debt

00:38:25.020 to the Alberta taxpayer, our kids and our economy. I guess it's sad that two or three

00:38:36.940 years ago, we were saying, oh, no, bad NDP is going to put us over $100 billion in debt.

00:38:42.160 And I think now we're past 110. So one's as bad as the other in many ways. And those are the

00:38:48.220 things that I'm hearing about every day from Albertans. And, you know, it was COVID, you know,

00:38:55.200 it's been tough for everybody. It's been a lot of fog. But I'll suggest that we missed an

00:39:00.220 opportunity to show that Alberta can be the beacon of free enterprise, self-reliance,

00:39:07.880 you know, prosperity, and the opportunity to, you know, by providing evidence, by providing,

00:39:13.800 you know, measures so Albertans know, you know, some of the more information about COVID. We missed

00:39:20.120 an opportunity to show that we can be the beacon of freedom and prosperity.

00:39:24.800 Yeah, well, I mean, all we can hope for now is hopefully we can be the first recovering or the

00:39:29.100 best recovering from this nightmare. But we got to start taking the foot off the brakes that have

00:39:33.640 been holding the economy back right now. And it's a horror story. So you did make it and it was

00:39:39.240 appreciated clear that you plan on representing Medicine Hat longer and you'll be running in the

00:39:43.640 next election. That's still a couple of years away though. And there's a, I mean, running as an

00:39:48.200 independent puts you at a tremendous disadvantage. I mean, that's just a reality. Independents become

00:39:53.000 very, very rarely elected in the Canadian system, which really is too bad. I think it would really 1.00

00:39:58.300 be great if every legislature of parliament had like a good number of independents sitting there

00:40:03.120 to really keep the debate lively and keep people honest. But I mean, I know it's early, it's only

00:40:08.400 been five days since this all changed and everything, but there's a number of potential

00:40:11.980 avenues ahead of you, partisan-wise, have you considered any of those? Well, yeah, I sure have,

00:40:18.440 and I'm so grateful to all the people that have reached out to me and expressed their ideas and

00:40:22.460 their thoughts and their concerns. First step is to talk to my family, my wife and my three adult

00:40:27.140 sons. Second step is to talk to my constituents and see the direction that they would like me

00:40:32.300 to take and start to gather information as to what is being offered, what the different

00:40:37.920 suggestions are. Corey, I understand Ontario just passed some new legislation that allows

00:40:43.820 independents to set up constituency associations, to raise money in between the election periods.

00:40:50.880 Of course, with oversight from, you know, in our case, it would be Elections Alberta,

00:40:55.000 their case, Elections Ontario. I've asked for a copy of that legislation to see what Ontario's

00:41:00.160 doing. Maybe that's reform that we could use here. And I'll be looking into that. You know,

00:41:05.800 there's tens of thousands of Albertans that feel their voice is not being heard. I mean, the NDP,

00:41:12.960 big government, big debt, you know, bureaucracy, you know, wasn't satisfactory. And that was shown

00:41:20.400 two years ago in the UCP victory. Now we're at a situation where Jason Kenney's popularity is

00:41:26.920 lower than Justin Trudeau's. People are feeling that expectations haven't been met. You know,

00:41:33.080 there's a there's a lot of work to do there's a lot of ideas and voices to to be put to to the

00:41:38.380 to the forefront and uh yeah and uh i i'm willing and and i'm excited about the opportunity to to

00:41:46.740 help out so uh yeah so so many of the groups of of the new some of the newer groups have reached out

00:41:51.780 with their ideas and i think it's going to be a very very interesting six or eight months

00:41:56.840 as either the UCP pivots or these groups start to form.

00:42:02.680 Let's see what happens.

00:42:04.080 Yeah, no, interesting is something we definitely know

00:42:06.220 we're going to have in the coming days.

00:42:07.800 Hopefully it's a good interesting.

00:42:09.200 I guess, you know, there's been so much.

00:42:10.780 I mean, it's something that Todd had felt

00:42:14.720 that Jason Kenney's leadership is beyond the point of no return.

00:42:17.900 But I've just thrown out speculative situations.

00:42:19.960 As you said, maybe if the UCP pivots or whatever,

00:42:22.280 let's say, for example, the caucus,

00:42:24.300 this prairie fire going on in there keeps raging uh premier kenny finally does say you know what

00:42:29.440 maybe it is better if i just step aside it didn't work out and they move into a leadership sort of

00:42:34.920 situation would you consider going back to the ucp at that point if it's moving in a new direction

00:42:39.880 yeah you know never say say never uh don't want to get too much into the hypotheticals but you

00:42:47.020 know it's clear it's clear that premier kenny and i at this point uh are best not to work together

00:42:53.020 So let's see what the future brings.

00:42:54.920 And short of that, let's see what happens.

00:42:58.220 Sure.

00:42:58.740 So getting on it, you know, you started a bit with one of the biggest areas of the UCP's

00:43:03.100 head shortcomings.

00:43:03.780 Let's go into a little bit of policy here.

00:43:05.420 It was in standing up to Ottawa.

00:43:07.100 Like we're going to have, again, just such a period of challenge ahead of us, much more

00:43:11.540 than people realize, I think, as we're seeing inflation coming along.

00:43:13.980 We're seeing businesses just folding up and going broke.

00:43:17.080 We're going to see a lot of problems.

00:43:19.380 and it just seems that Ottawa is determined to hinder us with every possible step in getting

00:43:24.640 our resources to market and getting them out. What can we be doing? What the heck is left for

00:43:29.620 us to try and push this envelope right now? Yeah, well, it's one of the reasons that I

00:43:35.480 am a proponent of an independence referendum. Let's put Ottawa on notice that they've got two

00:43:40.600 years, three years to give Albertans a better deal and then let Albertans hold Ottawa to account.

00:43:46.300 Let Albertans say if they've done good enough to help us.

00:43:51.060 Now, we had a good court victory the other day where turning off the TAPS legislation looks like it's legal.

00:43:59.280 I think that did expire and has to be started again.

00:44:03.560 But the long and the short of that, that's a tool that must be in our tool chest, you know, must be used if absolutely necessary.

00:44:11.040 But that one has some unintended consequences, right?

00:44:13.680 So let's use that one when we have to, when it's the best.

00:44:17.500 But the nice thing about an independence referendum is Albertans, 80% of people at the fair deal panel and in the coffee shops tell me that they want a better deal.

00:44:27.000 This will allow them to be involved in making these things happen.

00:44:31.360 And, of course, we've talked about, you know, the famous autonomy ideas, you know, the so-called firewall ideas.

00:44:37.740 you know, so many of those things would give people the confidence and the idea that Alberta

00:44:43.360 can take care of our own issues. And absolutely we can. We're hardworking risk takers, intelligent

00:44:49.480 people. We should have that opportunity. One thing we haven't talked about, the area of concern that

00:44:55.900 I hear a lot is about the appointments, you know, the cronyism, the corporate welfare that people

00:45:04.140 are are upset with the ucp for you know the fact that alberta has the highest per capita deficit

00:45:10.700 in all canada right now you know is is alarming you know secondly there's been a number of of

00:45:16.240 committees set up and appointments for washington for houston you know for around the world where

00:45:22.500 we haven't seen uh the cost benefit analysis or or the effectiveness of the last stuff and and that

00:45:28.140 was stuff that I had been asking for. And let's look at the $1.6 billion that might have been

00:45:33.900 lost in the Keystone pipeline. You know, that's one that just still amazes me. You know, Premier

00:45:40.120 Kenney and the UCP comes in, $1.6 billion to TC Energy for the pipeline. Money's certainly in

00:45:47.540 jeopardy now. At the same time, cancelling all the NDP, Rachel Notley, taxpayer money redirected

00:45:57.600 to oil by rail. So I'm sitting here listening to UCP corporate welfare good, NDP corporate

00:46:04.880 welfare bad. Corey, what Albertans are telling me is both are bad. Let us keep more of our

00:46:10.520 own taxpayer dollars. Let's let free enterprise be free enterprise with as low as taxes as 0.99

00:46:16.380 possible. Let's get our regulation right. And let's make those things happen. The COVID 0.65

00:46:22.600 restrictions. You know, I saw you out about this drive-in, you know, crazy thing that looks like

00:46:30.840 it happened on the weekend. You know, the church example still blows my mind how, you know, you

00:46:36.640 could have, you know, 10 for a funeral, you know, 20 for a wedding, whatever it was, and then a

00:46:42.640 different amount for the, just based on the square footage. At the same time, retail was being opened

00:46:47.400 up to 25%. You know, people were looking for fairness and consistency that they didn't feel

00:46:52.560 was delivered. And so those are the things that have led to Albertans feeling that expectations

00:46:59.120 haven't been met. Yeah, well, consistency, I mean, that's the only way we're going to get confidence.

00:47:03.680 And we're certainly known. We're not seeing that at all, this shotgun approach. I mean,

00:47:07.400 if it's the emergency of the century, we want to be confident that our experts know what they're

00:47:11.280 talking about. When they're bouncing around like a ping pong ball with what is and isn't acceptable,

00:47:14.860 It makes it hard to believe what may be some good advice coming out of them at times.

00:47:18.760 It makes it difficult for people to comply, even if they want to.

00:47:22.040 And yeah, there's a lot of areas of critique outside of the pandemic and that's getting forgotten.

00:47:26.220 And I appreciate that.

00:47:27.160 You know, things like the corporate welfare.

00:47:28.680 I mean, if you want a kiss of death to any kind of enterprise or business, get a government to partner in on it and you're sure to destroy it.

00:47:36.620 I'd like to remind everybody whenever they drive south of Calgary, they see a big red brick behemoth just before High River on the right.

00:47:42.580 this giant building it's been sitting there for almost 30 years and that was the mag can plant

00:47:47.660 and that's when the progressive conservatives took half a billion alberta tax dollars and put

00:47:51.860 it into this magnesium plant it was only open for a month and is now sat there empty for that long

00:47:56.460 because it's so specialized we can't do anything with it and we haven't seemed to have learned from

00:47:59.640 that because we keep putting money in uh as you said like keystone um yeah it's it's uh the one

00:48:08.720 I did a Premier Kenny on my show last fall, actually, and the one area where he kind of got

00:48:13.020 his ackles up a bit, the guy I couldn't help but ask, I questioned, I said, is this a wise investment

00:48:17.520 at this time, you know, going into things like that? And he gave a long, rambling, kind of annoyed

00:48:23.500 answer that I even asked, but it sounds like maybe I kind of was on the right track, unfortunately,

00:48:28.200 not soon enough. Yeah. So what I'd like to see us do instead, Corey, is right now, small businesses

00:48:34.280 pay 2% corporate tax to the Alberta treasury on top of the 10% they pay to Ottawa. Manitoba's is

00:48:42.560 zero. There's provincial small tax. Saskatchewan temporarily reduced theirs to zero, I believe,

00:48:49.220 for a year and a half. I think that the Alberta government should do the same. If anybody has been

00:48:54.920 hardest hit by this pandemic and these COVID restrictions and lockdown, it's small business.

00:49:00.340 let's give them an opportunity to have some hope and get back on their feet a bit earlier.

00:49:05.920 The number I think it is, is that would cost the treasury about $450 million.

00:49:10.440 And when we're spending $55 billion, surely to goodness, we can find that saving somewhere in

00:49:14.940 there. And, you know, instead of adding more debt to our kids and our economy. And, you know,

00:49:20.380 that was one of the suggestions I've been making. Yeah, just deregulate, get out of our pockets and

00:49:25.200 let us go. We got a lot of smart, ambitious Albertans who want to work and get things rolling

00:49:29.780 again. There's no doubt about that. For now, it's going to be you and Todd over in the lonely

00:49:36.420 independent corner of the legislature. I know you can't say anything specific or you don't know,

00:49:41.940 but do you think there's a chance there's going to be some others joining you in the months to come?

00:49:47.140 You know, I don't know. I just hope that Premier Kenny and the UCP will pivot.

00:49:55.380 I hope that we can start to make Alberta, you know, free and prosperous.

00:50:00.260 I know that a lot of my great colleagues from the UCP past spoke up consistently about their ideas,

00:50:08.100 you know, and within caucus and that kind of thing. So I'd encourage them to continue to do

00:50:13.940 that. And I would also say this to them, Corey, like, since Thursday night at 735, I've had

00:50:20.500 thousands of Albertans reach out to me and support me and give me ideas and encourage me.

00:50:27.460 And so there's a lot of reward for, you know, being a bit more, always being focused on

00:50:36.740 Albertans. And I think that, you know, UCP colleagues, I think, will find a way to do

00:50:44.660 their best. And I'm optimistic that good things will happen for Alberta.

00:50:49.140 Yeah, well, that's good. And again, it's not like they're all bad. And there's some very good members in that caucus still. And, you know, just getting back to another fall thing, actually, just I preface the interview with Premier Kenney with saying that he tends to only get opposition from the left. And what I meant actually was literally in the legislature, because at that point, the only opposition members were NDP. But the media got all worked up over that in the interview, thinking I was talking about them. Well, come to think of it, yeah, them too.

00:51:15.140 But I mean, for a proper legislature to function, you do need critical voices on either side.

00:51:22.520 And even though this is kind of a painful way to go about it, we now have those voices building up.

00:51:27.160 So it's not just, you know, the leader of the opposition, Rachel Notley, speaking up and always pushing from.

00:51:32.520 Well, and fair enough, that's where she comes from, the left perspective.

00:51:36.280 We can have somebody critical on the conservative side of the spectrum,

00:51:39.500 representing that question on corporate welfare overspending over taxation things like that so

00:51:45.560 i do appreciate that you know you've always been critical anyways of that but you'll as you said

00:51:50.220 you'll you'll have a much more uh ability to do so without restraint now in coming months and uh

00:51:56.040 as will todd and perhaps some others so we might get just some more productive government out of

00:52:00.460 it for all of us hopefully yeah yeah thanks for that correct you're absolutely right like

00:52:04.720 like in the legislature the the opposition has been from the left when whenever premier kenny

00:52:11.680 and the ucp put in some regulations uh covid restrictions is an example or whenever they

00:52:16.580 went into debt it was never enough for rachel notley in the ndp it was always about more

00:52:20.660 government more regulations more lockdown less freedom for our families and our communities

00:52:25.520 uh so now with a couple of voices uh that are going to be focused on freedom going to be

00:52:32.840 focused on smaller government, going to be focused on local decision-making. I mean,

00:52:37.380 that could go a long way to help. I mean, just back to 2012, when I was first elected,

00:52:42.660 the makeup was something like 54 PCs, 17 wild rows. We were the official opposition.

00:52:49.780 We were a heck of a good opposition for the first two and a half years as well.

00:52:54.260 And, you know, there was a lot of opposition to move on the right, to move things to more

00:53:00.680 conservative. I believe there was five liberals and four NDP in those days. So things have changed

00:53:05.940 a lot. But to me, you know, that showed the heartbeat of conservatism in Alberta and showed

00:53:12.100 the value of opposition from the right, ideas from the right, criticism from the right. And when

00:53:18.640 things were, you know, the opportunity to reach out and work together was there as well. So let's

00:53:24.080 see what the future brings for that. Yeah, well, I've long said some of the best federal government

00:53:28.120 we ever actually had was Jean Chrétien with the Reform Party nipping on his heels from

00:53:32.960 the right over there. And Chrétien was actually one of the more, though he had many flaws,

00:53:37.540 one of the more responsible governments at his time in some ways. So before you go, then,

00:53:42.660 you want to lay out a bit where people can find what you're up to this summer and spring and

00:53:46.560 where you're going and how to reach out? Yeah, thank you, Corey. Well, for starting,

00:53:51.520 I'll be in Edmonton next Tuesday. The legislature is supposed to reconvene after the long weekend.

00:53:57.620 So so I will be there for that. I'm setting up an office, you know, close to Todd Lowen so we can, you know, come see how we can work together down here in Medicine Hat.

00:54:11.200 I can always be reached at my constituency office at 403-528-2191.

00:54:19.580 And another way is email me, and that is drew.barnes at assembly.ab.ca.

00:54:27.500 If you weren't able to write down, it's easy to find on the internet.

00:54:31.460 And thanks for this way to end, Corey, because that's my goal.

00:54:35.140 Talk to my family, talk to my constituents, talk to Albertans,

00:54:38.740 and give them a voice for the tens of thousands that have told me that their ideas, their

00:54:43.720 concerns haven't made it to government, haven't made it to the legislature, and that is going

00:54:49.380 to be my focus.

00:54:51.120 Well, and I appreciate it on your part.

00:54:53.220 You know, that's why I want to direct people at you.

00:54:54.700 I mean, as you said, you've got a few potential paths or choices ahead of you, and you've

00:54:58.140 got to consult with people.

00:54:59.780 So, and I appreciate that you are inviting them to let you know what they think.

00:55:04.300 I mean, that's how it all works.

00:55:05.660 and there's still some politicians out there willing to listen.

00:55:08.840 I'm sure not every email you get is a flattering one, but that's life.

00:55:12.760 And sometimes those can still help remind you

00:55:14.800 that maybe you're on the wrong path on things too.

00:55:17.440 So thanks again for coming on.

00:55:20.340 I'm looking forward to seeing what you're going to be doing

00:55:23.680 in the legislature and outside of the legislature.

00:55:25.660 I mean, that's the thing.

00:55:26.140 People forget an MLA's job is actually 90% outside

00:55:29.440 when you're going around meeting constituents, doing other things.

00:55:31.920 and hopefully we can knock things back on track this summer.

00:55:36.880 Corey, thank you very much.

00:55:38.260 Let's make Alberta free and prosperous.

00:55:40.080 Thank you.

00:55:41.060 Thanks, Drew.

00:55:41.840 I'll talk to you later.

00:55:46.440 So there was Drew Barnes.

00:55:49.540 Oh, there was one.

00:55:50.500 Yeah.

00:55:50.780 So, you know, I didn't want to corner him on too many things.

00:55:53.440 It is difficult.

00:55:54.440 I mean, as was pointed out, this was just last Thursday.

00:55:58.120 So, you know, it's hard to,

00:56:00.000 and he's giving very honest and candid answers. You know, he's not ruling anything out. That's

00:56:04.900 the way you have to go in politics, that the never say never, right? Maybe Jason Kenney will

00:56:10.120 finally just give up, throw his hat, you know, get out of the race in a week or two where a bunch

00:56:15.820 of other MLAs will join. There's so many areas that Drew and Todd, who's going to be coming on

00:56:22.760 soon, could end up going. I do worry about, as I mentioned earlier, and at the lack of a party

00:56:28.300 structure like uh having worked in these these politics and opposition politics and you know

00:56:33.180 smaller parties for a long time it's just so darn tough to get uh viewed critically get your voice

00:56:41.260 out there when you don't have a party mechanism around you as todd said i mean it's todd as drew

00:56:47.500 said you know ontario they did something to give independence a means for constituency associations

00:56:51.340 and i'm surprised you know we really should have something like that it's just an organization

00:56:55.420 helps empower that individual mla we gotta you know government's supposed to be 87 individuals

00:57:02.140 and our system our parliamentary system just doesn't aid with that you know i mean it doesn't

00:57:09.500 let them speak up i mean one of the things that the american system is far from perfect

00:57:13.260 but you'll watch votes and often you'll see a number of senators will vote one way and another

00:57:17.820 with others you know sometimes a republican will vote with a democratic motion um

00:57:21.740 Sorry. There we go. Todd, messaging me during the show. That's cool. He's coming on. But I mean,

00:57:34.460 party options that could come along either way that could give them more voice. Now,

00:57:37.640 I believe if you have four members of the legislature who get together, they can actually

00:57:43.060 get a registered party immediately. There's other ways of forming parties. There's other existing

00:57:49.160 parties. I mean, would they consider joining Paul Hinman with the Wildrose Independence Party?

00:57:53.320 He's not ruling it out, but it's not necessarily in either. So I don't want to pin Drew or Todd

00:58:01.440 into a corner because, you know, this is just a time where they're making a lot of decisions. And

00:58:07.320 I did appreciate it, Drew. He's listening. So now's the time to email Drew. And he is good

00:58:11.600 and responsive and Todd always has been as well. You know, just sorry. Give you guys a break there

00:58:26.040 anyways. So we're gonna have Todd on soon. And if you got questions, fire them into the text area.

00:58:31.220 I try to bring them in, you know, when I can, but sometimes they go by too fast and try to make

00:58:36.740 them a little bit small, you know, so I can get them up on the screen like that one down below

00:58:40.460 there. And, uh, you know, I'll try and get, uh, uh, guests to address them or I'll address them

00:58:47.080 myself. The other thing is to try and keep the chat civil. You know, we can have some debate

00:58:52.640 in the chat. That's been part of the fun that having a live show is, uh, being able to interact

00:58:58.240 with each other, interact with the guests. But if you're going to just come on and insult and

00:59:02.100 then blasted people, uh, there was a gentleman who was doing that earlier. I blocked him. I will do

00:59:06.080 that. I support free speech, but it doesn't mean I have to give you a platform. So if you're going

00:59:10.120 to come on and call my guests names or call me names or we're calling people outside of that you 0.99

00:59:14.460 know just just being foolish then then i don't have time for you you're uh defeating that good

00:59:20.140 interactive purpose of this kind of show so but i mean again get those those questions in because 0.68

00:59:25.060 it's it's it's an opportunity uh these guys are going to be pretty busy in these coming months

00:59:30.580 as i said they're they're going to be the unofficial conservative opposition sitting over

00:59:34.380 in the corner of the legislature there. And they're going to need all the support and help

00:59:41.340 they can get. So I'm just waiting. I should have Todd on any moment now. You know, I'm going to do

00:59:47.400 a self-serving thing I want to mention. Let's talk about citizens standing up for themselves

00:59:51.440 and activity. It's not self-serving for myself so much, but it's a story that Derek Felderbrand,

00:59:56.660 our publisher, put out the other day over an affair he had over the course of the winter.

01:00:01.000 He had a Karen, as it's put quite often, down the road from him who was constantly reporting him for not shoveling his walk properly and his neighbors as well.

01:00:10.260 And it was over and over and bylaw officers would come out and they would find no wrongdoing, have a chat and leave.

01:00:16.740 But at one point, Derek wasn't home and he ended up getting an invoice for not clearing his walk.

01:00:23.460 An invoice, not a fine, just a bill.

01:00:25.820 So the city workers apparently had cleared his walk on his behalf.

01:00:31.000 and uh left him with the bill for it and instead of doing what most calgarians would

01:00:39.780 derek fought it you know they didn't expect that you see if you get a fine you can get your day in

01:00:45.040 court with an invoice you're kind of hooped so jonathan dennis actually helped derek out look

01:00:50.440 up the article on westernstandardonline.com where he laid it out because he includes the pictures

01:00:54.640 And those pictures came with the invoice, which was really outstanding because it showed a wet, dry, wet, unfrozen sidewalk.

01:01:06.280 And then the next picture showed the same thing.

01:01:08.040 So the before and after was exactly like it had been before.

01:01:10.740 And this is what they were using to justify in court that Derek needed to be invoiced for not clearing his walk properly.

01:01:16.900 It was just absurd.

01:01:18.440 But what I'm getting at in this long roundabout way is they didn't expect him to push back.

01:01:22.720 And when he finally did, it actually went to the Court of Queen's bench, and they did rule and say, no, you don't have to pay that bill.

01:01:28.780 I mean, for the amount of grief and everything over a few hundred bucks, people say, but you see, that's what the city counts on.

01:01:32.920 They'll say, I'll just write them a check.

01:01:34.680 I'll just give them a visa, and we'll deal with it.

01:01:38.660 No, you know, this was an absurd fee, and he pushed back, and he didn't have to pay it.

01:01:47.160 I'm just saying the moral of the story, you don't have to take it.

01:01:50.480 If people stand up for themselves, even if you get the big bad state, whether it's the city of Calgary,

01:01:54.760 provincially or anything else, they will back off quite often.

01:01:58.480 You know, you can make your case.

01:01:59.700 So don't just keep bending back on these sorts of things.

01:02:03.840 We are more powerful as citizens than we realize sometimes, and we forget that.

01:02:08.940 So give that story a read, though.

01:02:10.420 It's kind of comical, but it really has a solid basis.

01:02:13.380 It's something important.

01:02:14.480 So I see Todd waiting in here.

01:02:16.580 I'm going to pop him into the show there if he's all ready to roll.

01:02:20.840 Hello, Todd. How are you doing?

01:02:23.080 Hey, not too bad, Corey. How about yourself?

01:02:26.200 Good, good, good.

01:02:28.380 Can you hear me now?

01:02:29.280 Just back and forth as I've been telling you.

01:02:30.400 You're texting me as I do this show, but it gets the communications in there.

01:02:37.500 So Calvin Goulet-Jones just wanted to reach out there.

01:02:41.040 I've just got live commenters coming in just to say thank you

01:02:43.600 and that many folks have been waiting for someone to represent them.

01:02:46.000 And there was a wave of relief when he heard that he had you out there.

01:02:50.480 Um, you know, we haven't talked in quite a while, but I mean, we've interacted a lot

01:02:54.360 in the past.

01:02:55.360 I'll just give a bit of history.

01:02:56.360 I mean, one of my favorite memories of the year was that crazy, but it was a turning

01:02:59.880 point for Alberta in my view that that AGM we held at that community hall up in Bears

01:03:04.220 Paw, where, uh, we tried to feed, uh, I believe 400 attendees with burgers and salads and

01:03:09.420 everything.

01:03:10.420 We really didn't know what the heck we were doing and we were just running our butts off

01:03:12.680 all day.

01:03:13.680 Uh, we pulled it off and I think that was kind of our first big AGM, uh, before Daniel

01:03:19.140 Smith became the leader. But I just also want to give some background that you are one of the

01:03:25.560 original grassroots, you know, Wild Rose, Alberta Alliance up to UCP now, MLA's, and unfortunately

01:03:34.260 now you're in an independent circumstance. I guess, you know, everybody's kind of seen that

01:03:40.460 since last Thursday, but we'll start right off with getting you to reiterate your letter and

01:03:45.640 And what brought you to the conclusion to have to call for the resignation of Jason

01:03:49.220 Kenney?

01:03:50.220 Well, it's obviously something that's building for quite a while, you know, and when we were

01:03:55.140 elected, I think there were some times there were at the start where things seemed to be

01:03:58.560 going pretty good.

01:04:00.160 But as time went on, we realized that there was definitely some dysfunction within the

01:04:05.700 organization and that dysfunction was right at the top.

01:04:09.840 So you know, as times went on, of course, it's gotten worse and worse and we've seen

01:04:14.880 it's just a top-down approach there's only one person in charge of the whole

01:04:18.480 show and that is Jason Kenney he's got his fingers and absolutely everything

01:04:23.700 that goes on and so that I think that's been a frustration obviously the caucus

01:04:28.740 has spoken loud and clear on several issues that have been totally ignored I

01:04:33.480 believe the same thing happens in cabinet and you know so what happened

01:04:38.400 is kind of leading up to that as you know as caucus chair you know I share

01:04:43.140 the caucus meetings help organize caucus meetings and uh twice in a row caucus meetings were

01:04:48.020 cancelled members weren't told why they were cancelled they were just outright cancelled

01:04:52.660 and obviously caucus is a time where mlas get a chance to listen to ministers ask ministers

01:04:57.860 questions ask premier questions kind of get an idea what the direction the government is and

01:05:02.020 and be able to represent their constituents in in that setting and uh obviously cancelling caucus

01:05:07.780 twice was, uh, was something that was just, uh, you know, a bit too much in the end for me to

01:05:12.740 handle. And again, there's been multiple issues, uh, that have, that have been, you know, that we

01:05:17.780 went through and, uh, but that was just, uh, kind of the end. I just, you know, obviously the,

01:05:22.740 the thoughts were in my head already that, uh, that something needs to change, something needs

01:05:26.100 to be done, you know, dramatic to get the change because there was just nobody listening at the

01:05:31.140 talk. Yeah. Well, and I was, I guess it's mixed. I wasn't too surprised to finally, I think, see

01:05:38.180 an MLA come up and call for that. Cause I mean, we've, we've been in touch with a number of

01:05:43.060 elected representatives from the standard and others, and I know that there's some

01:05:45.940 some real tension boiling in there. But to be honest, I was kind of surprised when you were

01:05:49.700 the one who'd finally hit the tipping point and call cause cause you're not, and I want to frame

01:05:54.020 this probably, you're not one of the more hotheaded or impulsive types of MLAs. You tend to be

01:05:59.140 deliberate and you know you think your choice is through which does tell me this was a slow

01:06:03.940 building thing i imagine you made some efforts to rectify this before you came to the the point

01:06:07.540 of calling for a resignation then absolutely you know we i think many of us in caucus have

01:06:13.380 tried our best to uh to influence government decision and direction and uh and yes uh you

01:06:19.140 know i'm not one that's uh i don't want to you know i've done more interviews in the last few

01:06:24.340 days and i've done probably my entire political career and and that's just because i don't really

01:06:29.860 have that uh you know i don't always want to be in the front i just i just want to be making sure

01:06:35.460 that this government is is going the right direction it's representing the people and

01:06:39.860 and i just felt that uh you know obviously you know another major factor of course was the

01:06:44.900 overwhelming uh um feelings of my constituents telling me uh you know we won't we won't vote

01:06:52.420 uct again if jason kenny is the leader we won't and and that came loud and clear it's been uh

01:06:58.580 resounding and uh and as time went on the people have become more and more uh upset about things

01:07:05.860 and they're upset about the way things have been managed and it isn't all just about covid but

01:07:10.500 it's also about how we've handled our feelings with the federal government and so that's what

01:07:15.060 my constituents have been telling me and i you know i just realized that you know at some point

01:07:19.620 I as a as a person elected by those constituents I have to represent those constituents and

01:07:25.860 I've brought their concerns forward in the past and and it just hasn't been uh heard so I guess

01:07:31.700 you know I guess I've kind of used a bit of analogy you know you start off with a whisper you go to a

01:07:35.220 nudge you go to uh talking and maybe yell and sometimes you scream and then you send a real uh

01:07:41.700 bold letter to the premier and to all burdens uh saying how upset you are so it was like

01:07:47.060 say it's something that's been going over time and i finally had to do something about it

01:07:52.100 yeah well and i appreciate that in your letter again yeah covet is a separate thing it's kind

01:07:55.940 of unique and it's very debatable and it's worthy of entire shows of its own and how every premier

01:08:01.220 or leader reacts to it to be honest i don't envy any of them in dealing with this this ongoing

01:08:05.700 nightmare but getting to those bare this basic points this is where we're frustrated is the

01:08:10.260 people have been working on this so long the democratic reform the fair deal panel the corporate

01:08:15.780 welfare that, you know, the areas you listed, I mean, these were key things that people are kind

01:08:20.580 of forgetting due to COVID, but unfortunately the government's been doing terribly on almost

01:08:24.340 all of those files and that's what we elected them for. Yeah, I think you're exactly right,

01:08:28.500 Corey. You know, Jason Kenney campaign and leadership against, you know, against Ottawa,

01:08:34.020 or at least representing Alberta against Ottawa and standing up for Albertans. And that was

01:08:39.140 obviously one of the main things in the campaign platform. We were going to do all these different

01:08:42.900 reforms and get things started uh you know uh seems like cream mckinney's really good at

01:08:47.940 starting committees and uh and getting people to run around and ask questions but uh when it comes

01:08:54.100 to action i think that's where it's been failing and you know i was talking to one of my constituents

01:08:58.420 the other day and you know he's expressing the same concerns about the about the premier and

01:09:04.020 you know not voting ucp this is somebody i've known and worked with for almost 20 years

01:09:08.580 somebody i deeply respect and has a very good perspective on you know from the constituency

01:09:13.620 and and i asked okay what's the what's the problem and and uh he said he said you know

01:09:18.420 what covet's been a thing i don't like that but the really big thing is is we were promised that

01:09:24.340 we were that we that somebody would stand up to ottawa somebody would take their concerns forward

01:09:29.060 and and we would have somebody you know on our side there and and we haven't seen that it's two

01:09:35.220 years now that we haven't seen it we're sick and tired of this that isn't what we were promised

01:09:40.500 that isn't uh you know that isn't what we thought we were going to get so we're done yeah well and

01:09:47.220 top-down micromanaging i guess it'd be a little more acceptable if it was working but unfortunately

01:09:51.380 the ucp numbers are in the complete toilet i mean nobody's uh appreciating where the government's

01:09:55.940 going right now left right or center that they're just uh bailing which has got to be a huge

01:10:01.700 frustration i mean why doesn't he just something to be refreshing why don't you try doing the stuff

01:10:06.260 you campaign on to begin with and see if voters like that yeah yeah exactly and that's and that's

01:10:11.380 the thing i mean we you know this uh the premier's popularity is incredibly low and it's because

01:10:18.180 albertans have lost trust in the premier and that's that's very very clear that's i think

01:10:22.980 that's evident to people i speak to from all across alberta i mean there's people reaching

01:10:27.620 out from Calgary from there's actually people reaching out from my outside

01:10:31.460 Alberta even too but just if we just talk about Albertans and and the

01:10:35.540 widespread feelings that I've been expressed to me and actually the

01:10:39.440 support since I actually came forward it has been overwhelming and yes you know

01:10:45.320 that the party is in you know isn't looking good in the polls obviously I

01:10:49.400 mean and we need to change that and in order to change that I mean we've been

01:10:53.240 on a steady decline in the polls for the last two years since since we formed

01:10:59.460 government and there might have been a little bit of time there at the

01:11:02.000 beginning where things seem to be okay but definitely the last year and a half

01:11:05.600 things have been going downhill and and we need to change that and that's going

01:11:10.160 to take a dramatic change we're not going to be able to just tweak the way

01:11:12.860 out of this and and expect that we're going to get the people back we've lost

01:11:16.760 so many good people in the party you know constituents association board

01:11:21.440 members and members that have just you know given up on on this premier and uh we can't continue to

01:11:28.320 go down that road if we want to form government and bring forward good principles and good actions

01:11:34.080 in government have the ndp back that's that's not acceptable either so we need to to do uh what we

01:11:41.200 can get this party back on track and get things going so that we can we can get things done at

01:11:46.880 Albertans expect. Yeah, well, and it's, is there still time? I mean, I guess that's part of what's

01:11:53.880 going on now though. We're two years away about from, you know, when we would expect another

01:11:58.440 general election. I'm guessing that was part of the tipping point in your decision. I mean,

01:12:04.000 you know, people were talking about reviewing Jason Kenney's leadership and things like that,

01:12:07.700 and they kind of found a workaround and said, well, we'll do that, but we'll do it six months

01:12:10.100 before the next election. Well, you know that people don't want to just open that can of worms

01:12:15.380 before you're going into election time.

01:12:16.740 You don't have time for it.

01:12:17.740 So if we're going to reevaluate the leadership of a party,

01:12:20.860 the time would be about now to really realistically look at such a thing.

01:12:24.880 Absolutely.

01:12:25.600 We can't kick this can down the road any farther.

01:12:28.800 This has to be done soon.

01:12:31.740 You know, I think it was disingenuous to think that we could wait

01:12:34.640 for just a few months before the election to have a leadership review.

01:12:37.980 That was a political tactic, not what's best for the party

01:12:41.540 and what's best for Alberta.

01:12:42.880 and yes this issue needs to be taken care of and you know that the premier

01:12:48.700 needs to understand that people are upset I don't know he's been told that

01:12:53.320 I'm sure he's watching the polls too it's interesting in caucus we would

01:12:56.740 often get polling presentations but we haven't seen anything for probably five

01:13:03.520 or six months now on the polling into things it's been a while so yeah

01:13:09.160 obviously the writing's on the wall and you need to read that writing and get things back on track.

01:13:17.240 Yeah, well, so, I mean, you're obviously not the lone frustrated MLA, you're just the one who

01:13:22.360 hit the tipping point to move on out. I know it's pretty speculative, but at this point,

01:13:28.040 do you think there might be some others joining you and Drew kind of in the lonely independent

01:13:32.200 corner of the legislature sometime soon? You know, of course, I've gotten that

01:13:36.520 question a lot and and I've tried to keep consistent in saying that you know

01:13:41.620 that each MLA has to make their own decisions and obviously for myself this

01:13:46.420 was a big decision and I know it would be a big decision for any MLA to do

01:13:49.840 something like this be able to step out actually it was actually harder than I

01:13:55.060 thought as part of that decision process and actually coming to that final

01:13:58.360 decision and saying yes I'm gonna do it and so I didn't I know it's I know it's

01:14:03.480 not easy, but I know there's other MLAs and cabinet ministers that aren't happy with what's

01:14:08.480 happening and the leadership style of Jason Kenney, and I encourage them to make their

01:14:14.260 views known in the way that they feel appropriate, and I look forward to hearing more from them.

01:14:19.900 Yeah, no, it's a very difficult decision, and some people sometimes forget that.

01:14:24.120 There's a whole, it comes with floor crossings and other things as well.

01:14:27.880 I mean, there's a camaraderie.

01:14:28.960 I mean, you're a close-knit family sometimes in the party setting, and to step outside

01:14:33.300 the partisan lines with people who really are your friends and compatriots is not necessarily

01:14:38.020 an easy thing to do at all. So without having a party though behind you, I mean, as I was talking

01:14:45.200 to Drew earlier too, I mean, it's difficult to get that legislative voice. You know, I brought up

01:14:50.120 memories of when Paul Hemman was the lone guy over in the corner and he'd try and get his one

01:14:53.720 question a week in there and then he'd kind of stand in the foyer of the legislature all, you

01:14:58.000 know, forlornly almost because the media is all swarming around everybody else and he just couldn't

01:15:02.440 quite grab that spotlight what plans have you got to ensure though that your

01:15:06.900 voice is still gonna be you know resonating out there when now they got a

01:15:10.220 little more limitation to it well you know obviously I still have to you know

01:15:14.440 focus on my constituency and my constituents concerns and those concerns

01:15:18.280 are still there and I've committed to keep representing my constituents and

01:15:23.600 picking their concerns forward and I think there's still opportunities for

01:15:27.820 government to listen I would hate to think that we're in a situation where

01:15:31.420 a government would refuse to listen to somebody that's bringing valid concerns

01:15:35.140 forward. If that's an actual concern, an actual thing, then I would be even more

01:15:40.960 disappointed in the government. But I really believe that there's an

01:15:45.760 opportunity. I think there's some great MLAs in our caucus and cabinet

01:15:50.560 ministers too that I look forward to working with to represent my

01:15:54.700 constituents. And of course, as far as a voice, I think that's where I

01:16:01.040 have to do most of my work obviously is doing the job that I was elected to do.

01:16:05.480 And of course I think it's up to me to make a burdens aware of what's going on

01:16:11.120 within the caucus with Jason Kenney and so I'll continue to do that too.

01:16:17.600 Yeah.

01:16:17.960 So someone asked earlier too, so was this though a slow building thing that brought

01:16:23.520 to this point or was it like from the moment there was a majority government,

01:16:26.840 it just kind of snapped down.

01:16:28.320 it was a small circle leading the government,

01:16:30.720 running the government and the backbenchers were kind of just sidelined.

01:16:35.560 Has it evolved to this point or has it always been like this?

01:16:38.600 No, I think it's, you know, it might've been true right from the start,

01:16:42.720 but I think there was a lot of good things government was doing and it was,

01:16:46.400 it was pretty easy to be on board when the government's on the right track.

01:16:50.200 But once, you know, Albertans and my constituents started having serious

01:16:55.000 problems with the direction of this government and the directions of the

01:16:57.940 senior then it became harder to do and and I guess you know sometimes and maybe

01:17:02.980 it's that honeymoon stage at the beginning of something like that that

01:17:06.340 it's a little easier to accept what's going on and and work with it but it

01:17:11.380 became very apparent that as time went on that this was a this was a one-man

01:17:15.640 show and you know it was obviously again the opportunity to listen to and

01:17:21.840 uh opportunity to influence government direction was incredibly limited yeah just as cheryl was

01:17:29.200 asking was there one particular tipping point though just uh a final straw that kind of last

01:17:33.520 week you said i can't take it anymore you know uh again it was probably the caucus meetings

01:17:39.840 cancellations that were was probably the actual tipping point um but you know what it was building

01:17:45.120 in the constituency long before that of course with the the unrest within the constituency

01:17:49.760 and and again i just uh you know there has to be a time when i have to you know when i had to take

01:17:54.400 it take a stand and just say nobody you know enough is enough we have to you know i have to

01:18:00.400 be there for the reason i was elected which is representing my constituents and and uh obviously

01:18:05.440 again you know it seems like it's fairly widespread across alberta and i'm getting people from calgary

01:18:10.640 reaching out all the time now thanking me for doing what i did and uh it is it is humbling to

01:18:16.080 see the responses so far. Yeah. Well, and a lot of Albertans are terrified at the prospect of

01:18:23.520 another NDP government to be blunt about it. And we worry about fracturing the government that's

01:18:28.080 in power. And at the same time, we're seeing that we just can't tolerate that government any longer.

01:18:32.800 But let's say in a fictional scenario, Jason Kenney has finally said, okay, I blew it. I'm

01:18:38.400 going to step back. I'm going to retire on my member of parliament's pension. It's time for

01:18:42.240 somebody else to take the reins and you got back in with the government, whoever the leader maybe,

01:18:48.880 what would the UCP need to do in the next two years to turn this around? Because the numbers

01:18:54.400 are in the toilet. I mean, at best, you could have a minority government if something doesn't

01:18:58.160 change, even if the leader changes. Yeah. And you're exactly right that

01:19:03.840 right now the NDP would win the election. So we need to rest that out of their hands and we need

01:19:09.440 to get things back on track and and I think it's really all about building

01:19:13.960 trust with Albertans that's that's what was lost I think it's a it seems like a

01:19:18.020 simple phrase you know that you've lost trust but of course rebuilding trust is

01:19:23.720 extremely hard it's not that it's not as easy as losing it and that's that's the

01:19:27.500 problem is that the premier has lost trust of Albertans and trying to

01:19:31.460 rebuild that it's incredibly hard and I think at this point impossible but if we

01:19:35.840 can uh have a leadership change and get things back on track i think we can uh we can get that

01:19:41.180 trust back i think because it has been uh you know just virtually one person making all the

01:19:47.520 decisions i think we can get things back on track i can say there's many good people in the in the

01:19:51.620 party with many good people in uh as mlas and in government right now that uh it can help us get

01:19:57.580 that done yeah well i mean just you know having government do what they said they were going to

01:20:02.540 do would be a refreshing change, I think. I mean, something that would put me off other parties,

01:20:07.120 even if the NDP was saying, well, this is our policy here, here, and here, and then they don't

01:20:11.440 do any of it. Well, again, it gets back to that trust thing. So you're going to pay lip service

01:20:16.080 to whatever you want, but I am not going to get that in the end. So things like the fair deal

01:20:21.800 panel and such, I mean, that seems to have been just a listening exercise with no action. Did you

01:20:27.680 see any signs that it's ever going to happen or was that just a truly a bait and switch?

01:20:32.000 Well, you know, I mean, there's always lots of talk about that.

01:20:34.520 And that's something that gets talked about a lot.

01:20:36.220 I mean, we know where Albertans are on so many of these issues.

01:20:40.880 And, of course, it seems like the plan is always to have another group, another committee and study things some more.

01:20:48.240 And some of these decisions are big when it comes to the fair deal.

01:20:51.460 I mean, some of these issues are big and there does need to be some groundwork done before we make decisions on that.

01:20:57.440 But I think some of these things were pretty straightforward.

01:21:00.600 And I think when you look at how we dealt with Ottawa, it just seems like, you know, it seems like a strongly worded letter is what we do when really we should be doing so much more.

01:21:14.280 We should be pushing harder.

01:21:15.660 We should be more aggressive.

01:21:18.040 And we've got to be able to make that point.

01:21:20.840 And that just hasn't been done in Alberta.

01:21:23.540 Yeah.

01:21:23.880 Yeah. Well, and to be honest, again, when the trust is broken, even if Premier Kennedy started talking tougher on those issues, well, we've been down this road. I mean, are you just leading us along again? But let's say that Premier Kennedy maintains a spot, the course continues, they continue to sink further in the polls and into disarray. What can we do in two years? I mean, if we can't vote UCP, are you looking at, you know, other

01:21:53.860 alternatives out there for Albertans to pick in an election? You know, not right now. I guess I

01:21:58.980 still have confidence in Albertans and in the party and that we can, that Albertans will be

01:22:04.860 able to get their message across through people like myself and others and get this, you know,

01:22:12.500 get the change in leadership that we need so we can get this party back on track. And, you know,

01:22:17.800 so I still have confidence in that. I don't want to give up on that yet. You and I both know how

01:22:22.260 hard it is to start a new party and work up from that ground up but obviously I

01:22:27.300 started in 2008 that's when I ran the first time and I think we met shortly

01:22:31.800 after that at the first AGM with the Wild Rose Alliance at the time and so I

01:22:36.880 know I've been in those trenches a long time and I know it's hard to start a new

01:22:40.660 party but but it's you know we have to say I think we owe it to ourselves to do

01:22:47.200 everything we can to get this the UCP party back on track and get a new leader

01:22:52.140 and then get ourselves set to go into the next election.

01:22:55.800 Yeah, well, I mean, the most immediately effective way to fix this,

01:23:00.100 I mean, would be to fix that party.

01:23:01.800 I mean, yeah, starting from ground up is just a long, arduous process.

01:23:06.460 We see that Paul's back at it, and man, that guy works hard,

01:23:10.260 and he's not a person to be underestimated.

01:23:13.520 He is getting those organizations going,

01:23:16.220 and that's what gets people sweating as well,

01:23:18.280 though, of course, with the dreaded vote split potential.

01:23:20.540 So, uh, you know, somewhere something has to, to change course for us.

01:23:25.660 Um, what about if you were, uh, I mean, are you committed to run in a Valley View area

01:23:31.180 again in the next election, uh, regardless or.

01:23:34.300 You know, I haven't made any decisions on that yet.

01:23:36.300 I think, uh, you know, that's a decision I'll make a lot closer to the time with my family

01:23:40.540 and everything, but, but obviously there's, uh, you know, there's lots of options out there,

01:23:44.940 of course, but I, I really do want to stay focused on the task at hand.

01:23:48.460 and i think the past at hand is getting leadership change in the ucp and uh and getting that getting

01:23:54.140 that party back going again back on track at the fundraising back i mean obviously our fundraising

01:23:59.340 right now is dismal and i think that's how a lot of members uh express their concerns is by

01:24:05.580 by refusing to donate to some some organization that they feel is not doing that that's not

01:24:10.700 representing no it's hard to get someone to open your wallet when when you've broken promises to

01:24:16.060 them already it's hard even you know at the best of times and yeah that is very indicative and

01:24:23.020 again that the big red machine is ramping up strongly uh you know with their fundraising

01:24:28.300 numbers and their support numbers so i mean we've really got to think carefully in this

01:24:31.740 next couple of years on what we're doing with ourselves um so as an independent mla though

01:24:37.180 there's ongoing issues uh there's ones in your local constituency of course which are very

01:24:41.740 important like what what do you plan on focusing on just as yourself as the mla for your region in

01:24:46.460 the next couple of months you know we have lots of issues uh of course uh one of the main things

01:24:52.140 is uh is our rural health care um you know we've been chronically uh have you know fewer doctors

01:24:58.860 than we need um if some of my communities are saying it takes two or three months to get a

01:25:04.940 doctor's appointment and and so a lot of people are forced to go into go to emergency and of

01:25:09.580 of course that costs the system more than it's necessary this has been a

01:25:12.820 problem for a while and and I know it's not an easy fix but I think I need to

01:25:16.660 continue working on that and and we've had a couple communities just in the

01:25:20.800 last month here that haven't had enough doctors to keep their emergency rooms

01:25:25.960 open every day so when we have emergency rooms being shut down and that sort of

01:25:31.540 thing you know we have problems we've got the shortage of nurses in some

01:25:34.420 hospitals so I really want to be focused on that and I would like to see that

01:25:38.680 problem solved i've even reached out to the minister's office even this morning on that

01:25:42.040 issue and and uh working with them and seeing if we can get those uh those issues uh corrected

01:25:48.760 well i guess in in some senses now that you are an independent mla for now you're more empowered

01:25:54.040 in a lot of ways to speak to those i mean uh you can speak unapologetically with with your

01:25:59.160 constituency in mind i mean that that was the point of having uh 87 you know divisions within

01:26:04.200 our province to have 87 voices but realistically it turns out it's all getting kind of stuck under

01:26:09.480 one voice uh i mean i'm just kind of i'm looking forward to it with a bit of optimism to you and

01:26:16.040 drew uh being able to at least speak up on those things now completely you know not in a destructive

01:26:20.840 way or undercutting way but acting as mlas are supposed to i mean if the interest of your

01:26:26.280 constituency is contrary to the interest of the head of the party well that's unfortunate but

01:26:30.520 your your priority are the people who put you there and we don't see nearly enough of that

01:26:36.600 yeah yeah exactly and you know i you know i want to keep the the dialogue respectful i think

01:26:41.800 everybody should keep their you know their comments respectful and dealing with uh with

01:26:45.320 their mlas and others and the frustration that's going on uh we need to be constructive and and

01:26:51.560 yeah and not destructive as far as trying to tear things apart i think we can we can work together

01:26:56.520 and build things, and I think we can work together constructively, and that's what needs

01:27:00.740 to happen as we move forward, and that's what Albertans want to see.

01:27:04.380 They don't want to see this infighting.

01:27:07.100 I didn't want to send that letter.

01:27:08.280 That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I felt at the point I was at that I had no

01:27:13.700 choice.

01:27:15.940 Eventually, one has to put the foot down.

01:27:18.200 So in coming weeks, months, so on, how can constituents interact with you, reach out?

01:27:24.420 like as I speak with Drew earlier too I mean basically though you guys have you're out where

01:27:28.180 you are but you've got a whole number of potential paths or things to do and a lot of it sounds like

01:27:32.760 both you want to listen to your constituents first and foremost so where are you going to be

01:27:37.220 available in the next while? Sorry you kind of broke up there a little bit but yeah you know

01:27:43.640 that obviously I still have my two offices in my constituency that I'll be working with and

01:27:48.740 representing and you know there's a lot of different you know Drew's right there's a lot

01:27:52.720 different paths a person could take but i just i want to stay focused on the task at hand and that

01:27:56.720 is to uh again represent my constituents uh listen to people from all across alberta there's a lot of

01:28:03.040 good people out there and a lot of good ideas and you know there's always frustration with government

01:28:08.400 and that's that's going to you know be there for for a while yet obviously but uh but we need to

01:28:14.560 fix those things and we can move forward on those things and i'm going to stay focused on that and

01:28:18.880 And I want to make sure that we don't have an NDP government in the next

01:28:23.740 election. And it's, it's not about retaining power,

01:28:26.440 but it's about bringing forward good government and,

01:28:29.680 and representing the people of Alberta the best we can.

01:28:33.720 Well, so as you're doing kind of your outreach,

01:28:36.760 how can constituents best reach you or contact you to

01:28:42.000 communicate with you?

01:28:43.440 Yeah, obviously, I have the two offices and that's the best is to reach out to

01:28:48.120 them either by email or by phone.

01:28:50.220 And that's, that's always the best, you know, I do get some people to reach out

01:28:54.180 on social media, but it's sometimes it's hard to, to connect with everybody with

01:28:58.620 the different venues and different messages that you can get through, through

01:29:01.920 social media, but, but that's the best is to go straight to the office.

01:29:06.280 And so that's obviously happy to hear those concerns and they're still, still

01:29:11.860 coming in and we're still working.

01:29:13.680 All right. Well, it's been an interesting week and I'm certain we're in for, again, an interesting couple of years ahead of us here. Just, you know, speaking for myself and I see from the commenters, though, I mean, we are, you know, the people who follow my show tend to have their slant as well, but they're very supportive of what you've done.

01:29:32.620 and hopefully it's a catalyst for positive, you know, reform and change and changing the tone

01:29:38.620 of what's going on in there. So is there anything else you'd like to add before I let you get back

01:29:43.500 to work on what I'm sure has been a very tiring week already? Yes, yes, it has been busy and,

01:29:48.540 but no, Corey, I think that sums it up. I mean, we've got to get a change happening. We've got to,

01:29:53.340 we have to, you know, have a new leader in the party, the UCC party. We've got to stay focused

01:29:59.020 on that. And again, we can, we can do that respectfully. And, and it's obviously something

01:30:04.780 that has to be done to get things back on track and appreciate you having me here and everything.

01:30:10.060 I think it's a great opportunity and it's always interesting to hear the comments that people have.

01:30:16.540 Great. Thanks. Well, I'm certain we'll be talking again soon as things develop and unfold and well,

01:30:22.140 I look forward to hearing what you have to say in the new reconfigured legislature.

01:30:26.620 Hey, sounds great, Corey. Thanks again. And have a good day.

01:30:36.620 So there we go. And yeah, it was nice seeing Todd again. I'm out of touch with the grassroots

01:30:42.060 organizational world, I guess you could say there. It's difficult chatting with Todd and

01:30:47.900 Andrew in some senses, because yes, this is all just broken recently. And what I like is that

01:30:52.140 they're being reasoned they're being rational with this you know there's no sense saying i'm running

01:30:56.700 off and starting a new party or joining this one or tearing this down they're just frustrated and

01:31:03.820 they've run out of mechanisms in order to do what they're supposed to do and that's represent their

01:31:07.820 constituents i'm an ideologue or an idealist in some ways i mean i our system theoretically you

01:31:13.820 know works so well right we have all these 87 areas and all these 87 voices but realistically

01:31:20.460 it gets whipped all the way down i was talking a bit about that before todd came on i mean you see

01:31:23.980 that in the english system as well and more the american ones they don't necessarily toe the party

01:31:28.300 line like they do here uh in canada it's just you know they put out these token free votes now and

01:31:35.580 then but if it's ever anything of substance or matter they will be told how to vote and behind

01:31:40.780 closed doors they're going to be told what to say what to go public on what not to go public onto

01:31:45.660 so to see them breaking out like this i i do believe can turn into positive change you know

01:31:51.340 not just uh you know case of adding some anarchy and uh stirring things up or just trying to

01:31:57.980 undercut a leader they're trying to make better government i mean it's a thankless tough job

01:32:02.780 being an mla whether people believe it or not it's it's a lot of work and uh it'd be easy to

01:32:08.620 just hide in the back bench and do as you're told uh it's more stress-free and you can just carry on

01:32:13.580 But Drew and Todd have chosen to step out on their own and speak for their constituents.

01:32:21.220 And it's not the easier path, but it's a principal one.

01:32:24.280 And yes, hey there, Mr. Winslow.

01:32:27.780 I'm still working on that name change.

01:32:29.420 It'll be coming right away.

01:32:31.500 So as I was saying, let's see, Sloan is speaking for the grassroots of all of Canada.

01:32:37.460 Somebody's saying disagree.

01:32:39.220 All his beliefs and policies are common sense.

01:32:41.320 he's never advised people to leave the PCs, but CPC, which remain within the party. Okay. I'm not

01:32:48.900 sure it was disagreed with there, but it's a statement about Sloan. You know, that gets back

01:32:53.060 to what conservatives are. And I've talked about that before, and I've written about that. We're

01:32:57.020 a real pain in the butt to lead. I mean, we're independent minded people. We don't like being 0.98

01:33:02.180 told what to do. We are, you know, individualists by our very nature. It makes it hard to make us

01:33:09.780 walk in a row. And it's very rare to see a conservative leader who can hold it together.

01:33:15.640 You know, Ralph Klein was one of those rare ones. He had a broad tent and he kept it together.

01:33:21.320 But others over and over, I mean, whether it was Danielle Smith, whether it was Prentice,

01:33:25.600 I mean, it's fractured. We go all over the place and it's showing clearly that whatever that innate

01:33:30.560 ability is to hold it together, Jason Kenney just doesn't have it. I'd hoped he would,

01:33:35.820 but you know, and not just the ability to take it and tell everybody what to do. I'm not talking

01:33:39.420 about that. But to find that balance between allowing those individual voices and still

01:33:43.080 having enough control to get stuff done. I mean, you can't have anarchy and elected officials

01:33:48.260 running around all over the place randomly as well. It's a tough, tough task. But we are in

01:33:54.560 for an interesting summer, you know, and I tried asking, you know, I don't want to corner them. I

01:34:00.760 don't want to play entrapment. I suspect there's a number of MLAs who are pretty close to having

01:34:07.260 one foot out the door right now. And it won't take much. So I think a lot is going to depend

01:34:12.760 on how well received Drew and Todd are, how much support they see. If you're interested in seeing

01:34:17.380 more, maybe let your MLAs know that you'd like to see them take some stands. You know, this

01:34:20.800 government can be shaken a little more to its core, perhaps. But we're going to watch this

01:34:27.200 develop as time goes on. Cheryl's pointing out that apparently Kenny and Hinshaw are coming on

01:34:31.980 at 1 p.m. uh wondering if there's new restrictions yeah i don't know when kenny comes out though

01:34:37.520 it's particularly when it's unexpected um something's coming along i would hope that

01:34:43.420 it's less maybe they're actually going to say we're allowing drive-ins uh you know that's

01:34:49.440 some positive for a change but i mean uh henshaw did take those bangs back quite a bit so she's

01:34:54.660 not anticipating hairstyles to be open for quite some period of time yet but maybe some things

01:34:59.720 are changing uh yeah somebody else was saying you know we're not sheep and so on as conservatives

01:35:04.920 uh and uh that's true and that's one of the things that again it's the strength that notley has

01:35:10.760 you know that some of her mlas are not happy with their leadership and they are discontent

01:35:15.880 but lefties toe the line lefties want to be led lefties want to be told what to do that's their

01:35:22.520 nature they want big government they want central government they want someone on top to control

01:35:27.160 all their life. It's actually a form of inherent personal irresponsibility. Because if you've got

01:35:31.680 somebody else in charge of everything, you're not responsible for anything. It's a lazy way to go

01:35:36.140 through life in my point of view, but that's fodder for a whole other discussion. But it's that whole

01:35:40.780 mindset, which again, which brings that unique challenge for conservative-minded organizations,

01:35:46.020 parties, and people to try and hold it together, get it together, and make positive change. Because

01:35:50.280 nobody rubs their hands together harder and faster more than Trudeau or Notley when we start

01:35:56.300 splitting and fracturing. But at the same time, how long can we sit and accept crappy government, 0.51

01:36:02.200 which is what we're getting out of the UCP these days? I mean, let's face it, it's crappy. The 0.98

01:36:06.200 taxes are high, the deficits are high, the corporate welfare is unacceptable, the flip-flopping. I mean,

01:36:12.520 this is just not a government that's being well-run. It's in disarray. And that's not

01:36:17.040 going to hold anybody together. So, and of course, if people keep coming back to, yes,

01:36:22.760 the separatist question. So, you know, there's a lot to it. I mean, yes, I led the Alberta

01:36:29.820 Independence Party in the year 2000 into an election. I still think Canada won't be fixed

01:36:37.180 until a province pulls out. I am a secessionist. It's time to get out. But we're not there yet.

01:36:43.400 We got a whole lot of work to do before we get there. I mean, look right now. Would you like

01:36:49.320 the prospect of having President Notley? I mean, we haven't even cleaned up our own backyard,

01:36:54.180 so we can't guarantee ourselves that we'd be any better on our own. We might be just a smaller

01:36:58.520 version of the same thing. We got to get our crap together here. Or do you want to say President 0.99

01:37:04.160 Kenny? Like, even if we get out, we have to have a good plan and make sure we're not just making a

01:37:10.380 smaller version of what we used to have. So these things that Drew talked about, Todd talked about,

01:37:16.300 Stephen Arbor talked about,

01:37:17.760 we got to stop talking about some of these things

01:37:19.540 and bloody well get them done.

01:37:20.680 So yeah, the Alberta agenda,

01:37:22.740 you know, the firewall letter, they used to call it.

01:37:25.320 Nothing controversial.

01:37:26.700 This thing was not an unacceptable document.

01:37:30.640 Our own provincial police force.

01:37:32.620 Hey, Ontario's got one, why not?

01:37:34.340 And people say, oh, it's not necessarily

01:37:35.400 more cost-effective.

01:37:36.360 That's not the point.

01:37:38.200 It's a point of distancing ourselves from Ottawa.

01:37:40.720 That's the point and that's the reality.

01:37:42.460 We shouldn't even apologize for it anymore.

01:37:44.560 That's why we're doing it.

01:37:45.880 Our own pension plan, same thing. It's a step out the door. Let's start inching our way towards the door. So people are saying we should hold a referendum tomorrow. Well, that would be the worst thing we could possibly do. Because realistically, I mean, I understand that secessionism is often pulling quite high, especially after a particular incident. But I have learned as running as somebody on that platform twice, when push comes to shove and actually putting that mark on the box, people change their minds. We need a lot more support before we're

01:38:15.860 ready for a referendum. It's not saying we won't get there. We just aren't there yet. So let's not

01:38:21.180 jump the gun. If you held a referendum and only 20% voted to go, you're not going to get another

01:38:26.900 chance for at least a decade. I guarantee you. So let's get our ducks in a row first before we

01:38:32.520 even think about that. And I've talked about that before too. I'm looking forward to the

01:38:38.600 equalization referendum. And I'll explain why. Because I mean, some people are saying, you know,

01:38:44.180 Oh, it's pointless. It's useless. It's not going to change anything. And there's some truth to that. Absolutely. Because it's constitutionally entrenched. Plus, Ottawa doesn't care what we think. That's nothing new. But it's valuable in a number of sentences. Because it's going to be turned into a proxy independence vote. That's the reality. The people who want us to vote saying we love equalization, we love interprovincial welfare, which is what it is, are going to say anybody voting against this is a separatist, is looking for independence. And it won't be true. No, people are voting against the program. 0.94

01:39:13.320 but it will bring it to that point and it will bring those regional discussions to the forefront

01:39:18.480 there'll be months of campaigning on those issues what for it's pointless Heather saying well what

01:39:24.800 do you want to do go straight to an independence one and lose that's what I'm talking about we've

01:39:29.000 got to go in steps you know what you also have during a three-month campaign period on an

01:39:34.480 equalization referendum you have tens of thousands of Albertans getting a practice run on how to

01:39:39.540 campaign in a referendum. That is of value. These are the people when we do get the independence

01:39:45.300 referendum, and we will, but we need to know how to do it. How do you campaign? How do you organize?

01:39:51.580 How do you get people out to vote? How do you get the winning referendum, not just a referendum?

01:39:57.940 We aren't there yet, but we can work towards it. Fair Deal panel points out a whole lot of those

01:40:03.900 steps in getting us towards it. Fixing our own provincial bloody government is definitely one

01:40:09.260 of the steps towards it. We have to sit, you know, secessionism made so much sense when our budget

01:40:13.880 was balanced, when we were moving towards things of more freedoms. We had a flat tax, things like

01:40:19.640 that, because we could say we're so much better than Ottawa. We would be so much better on our

01:40:23.920 own. But right now we aren't. So let's fix that. But the equalization referendum, that gives us a

01:40:30.500 goal for this year. That gives us something to work on. I mean, we've got a million other things

01:40:33.440 to work on. But I'm looking forward to this ramping up as we go towards this fall. Let's talk about

01:40:39.060 all those things because this is going to be a top-notch issue on regionalism on how the west

01:40:45.220 has been getting screwed for decades you know and you listen to the academics and the economists oh

01:40:49.380 people don't understand how equalization works you know it's not just a check gets written ottawa i

01:40:54.420 know and you know what if we don't understand it properly what better opportunity than to have a

01:40:59.380 whole campaign on it and a vote on it let's talk about it then explain it to us talk to us lowly

01:41:05.620 Albertans and explain why we should happily have a large chunk of our money sucked out of our

01:41:11.220 pockets and given to Quebec because that's the reality of it. While we're hurting, while we're

01:41:15.560 trying to rebuild, you're shutting in our pipelines and you're stealing our money.

01:41:20.360 That's the discussion I want to have all summer. That's the real discussion and it's going to be

01:41:24.460 hard to defend. And yes, it's a step towards the bigger referendum. So when probably majority

01:41:32.480 prime minister justin trudeau this fall tells us to take our referendum results roll them up and

01:41:39.360 stuff them up our collective butts okay that's when we start working towards the next referendum

01:41:45.760 we've had our practice run we know how to do it now we do have the clarity act it does give us

01:41:52.160 the path to get out that's the real hammer that's the real tool but we've got to work towards it

01:41:58.240 carefully not just inflamed right now it has to be progressive it has to be step by step and we

01:42:05.040 aren't getting that from the ucp he's he's pandered to that he talked about the fair deal panel he

01:42:10.640 talked about talking tough to ottawa and he hasn't even talked up to ottawa so yeah we're not going

01:42:15.320 to go anywhere as well until we either fix or replace the ucp so we got our work cut out for us

01:42:19.800 but it's not all negative you know we just got to look big picture look long run we can do this we've

01:42:26.820 got some good representatives. I'm hoping, and here's for a second, Teresa is saying,

01:42:31.840 can we use the notwithstanding clause on equalization? No, I don't believe we can.

01:42:36.460 The notwithstanding clause is something that's misinterpreted quite a bit. It applies to charter

01:42:42.300 issues. So if we lost something on a charter challenge, we could exempt ourselves using the

01:42:47.880 notwithstanding clause, such as language, things with Quebec and things like that.

01:42:50.760 but it's actually constitutional, which is the issue with the equalization. So the notwithstanding

01:42:57.720 won't apply. It won't make a difference. The only way to fully end equalization would be with

01:43:03.600 constitutional reform, which is impossible. It's not going to happen. Those of us old enough to

01:43:08.240 remember Meach Lake and Charlottetown, which were in my view, relatively modest constitutional

01:43:12.200 reforms, and they failed dismally. So to try and package up what we need, and that's what I'm

01:43:17.440 saying Canada is broken and our constitution is out of date. It's centralized. It's no good.

01:43:22.560 And only for ripping a province out of this confederation will we ever have the opportunity

01:43:26.680 to try and rebuild it because otherwise we won't get the will to get into that constitution. The

01:43:31.320 best we can hope for the equalization is they changed the formula. So the equalization is still

01:43:34.780 there, but they really wouldn't move as much money as they ever did to begin with. You could change

01:43:39.140 the formula, but to actually change the constitution itself, that, that I just don't

01:43:44.720 see it happening in canada ever until the province is out until you get a real crisis of unity and uh

01:43:50.880 i think it's coming let's keep uh let's keep feeding it let's keep moving it uh we got angela

01:43:56.800 coming in saying first time watcher yes another rodeo please last one was super uh you know just

01:44:02.640 bouncing off to the side here but that's fine uh ty northcott again you're showing albertans

01:44:07.600 will stand up and tell government to go to hell and he's done a great job and he's still doing it

01:44:12.000 he's uh uh been talking about having another pop-up rodeo coming soon i've heard a rumor of

01:44:18.000 and as i was saying we should stick one on one of the reserves let's uh see if not leo call for all

01:44:22.720 those natives to get arrested because they're holding that drive in with impunity and the

01:44:25.840 silence is still deafening uh heather asking how can quebec use the notwithstanding clause if they

01:44:32.800 never signed on to the constitution well despite not having signed in there's still a part of it

01:44:38.160 and I know it's a Quebec keeps one foot on one side and one foot on the other side you know what

01:44:44.160 instead of complaining about Quebec we gotta learn from Quebec emulate them stand up for ourselves

01:44:49.200 quit whining about them they know where it's at don't apologize for being Quebec first well we

01:44:54.880 shouldn't apologize for being Alberta first that's enough Saskatchewan first non lower mainland BC

01:45:01.520 first. Yukon first. Let's do it. You know, Quebec, why do they get their way? Because they stand up

01:45:09.400 for themselves. Because they push for it. We're dishrags. We got to stop it. It's us. It's up to

01:45:17.400 us. But we do have the ability to do it. We've got to take it on. But again, as I said, we got to do

01:45:22.700 it carefully. We've got to work at it progressively. And we've got some good people. We've got some

01:45:28.360 elected officials we saw that with todd we saw that withdrew we know there's more of them in

01:45:32.760 that caucus there's more of them in the legislation or the legislature i should say uh let's get them

01:45:41.000 over let's shake this thing up let's change it either way there's lots to work on this summer

01:45:46.920 lots of issues are breaking and you know i i didn't get the plug in to begin with so please

01:45:51.160 remember we you know as we saw it breaking last week the western standard had the exclusive we

01:45:56.680 We were live reporting as the vote was going on to eject Drew Barnes and Todd Lowen from the caucus.

01:46:05.280 We get great breaking news.

01:46:07.440 Dave Naylor writes some fantastic stuff.

01:46:10.460 Phil DeBrand even writes about his sidewalks, which is interesting, and it's inspiring in some ways.

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01:47:11.340 i think people who are already watching this already know that you wouldn't be watching this 0.73

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01:47:30.740 positive change. This is Alberta. We don't give up as easily as some people think. So I think

01:47:35.380 that's enough ranting and rambling today. That was a great chat with those two MLAs.

01:47:40.420 I'll be back on Wednesday for the pipeline, which we usually do with Derek and myself and quite

01:47:45.580 often Dave Naylor. Tomorrow we're going to, you know, we got Nathan Gita. He's doing a fantastic

01:47:50.780 job. He has his show out of BC and Prince George there called Mountain Standard Time. Goes from

01:47:57.260 10 till noon. He gets some great guests. Just brilliant. We're developing this whole new

01:48:02.340 platform and basis. And I know people send some critical content, even on the glare on my glasses

01:48:07.960 and things like that. Yeah, we're getting better and better as we go, though. If you guys seen our

01:48:11.360 first live broadcast way back in the conservative leadership, you really would have seen something

01:48:15.500 interesting. We're getting better. And it's thanks to you guys. And we're learning as we

01:48:20.760 go. So thank you again. I will see you all next Wednesday and have a fantastic day.

Western Standard - May 18, 2021

The Cory Morgan Show, May 17 2021 with guests Drew Barnes & Todd Loewen

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