Western Standard - The Danielle Smith Show - May 13, 2022

00:00:00.000 Thank you.

00:00:30.000 well greetings my friends welcome to another edition of the danielle smith show i'm danielle

00:00:42.720 smith you know there's so many things to talk about today i'm not sure if i'm going to be able

00:00:46.160 to get to them all but i wanted to start off by just acknowledging the anger that is out there

00:00:53.120 about the federal debate that took place a couple of days ago in edmonton i was not able to attend

00:00:59.440 that because I was at another event in Fort McLeod as it turned out. But holy dinah, you guys

00:01:06.140 were pretty unimpressed with what you saw. And I don't know that it was that you were unimpressed

00:01:10.880 by the candidates, although I was a bit surprised to learn that you are cooling a bit on Leslyn

00:01:19.300 Lewis. If you look at my locals feed, the number one performer was Pierre Polyev. That doesn't

00:01:25.500 surprise me that you guys are interested in seeing Pierre be successful. Number two was

00:01:31.400 Robin Baber. So I'm looking forward to talking with him, which I will be doing for my long form

00:01:37.160 interview tomorrow. So the fact that he has risen to number two in your hearts, I think is something

00:01:42.660 worth talking about. And thank heavens, we all know what shows that they're binge watching,

00:01:48.580 and what books that they're reading, because at least I won't have to ask those pressing and vital

00:01:54.700 and important questions. We'll get to the trivial things, like what his position is on federal

00:01:59.820 intrusion into our areas of jurisdiction, on Bill C-69, and on what we do about ending the

00:02:06.380 Vax mandates. I know that that is very trivial from your point of view, and you probably aren't

00:02:11.760 as interested as you would have been in those other questions, but at least Tom Clark did us

00:02:16.540 the favor of getting those ones out of the way. So I thought you might be interested to know that

00:02:21.340 Rebel, Sheila Gunn-Reed has done a pretty good job on this. She did an analysis of the outrage

00:02:29.740 and also has started a petition, nomoreliberalmoderators.ca. So they want to try to get

00:02:36.700 10,000 signatures to send to those who are making these decisions on behalf of the party.

00:02:43.300 And you can feel free to join in on your comments on that as well if you want a different moderator

00:02:48.620 there. I think that's, uh, that's hilarious. All right. Let me tell you as well, what's happening

00:02:52.620 with the UCP leadership vote, because I've been talking to all kinds of people who are all kinds

00:02:58.060 of concern that there is going to be some, um, malfeasance. And I just want to put your mind

00:03:04.400 at ease, even though there's another story today of somebody who apparently is on the UCP

00:03:12.360 leadership, uh, vote and did not buy a membership. This is the, this is the real problem. Some of

00:03:18.140 are trying to figure out how this is working and what the 4,619, it turns out, purchased

00:03:28.340 memberships on eight credit cards, as it turns out, which elections Alberta is investigating.

00:03:35.600 You're trying to piece that together, that here's the allegation. How does that get its way through

00:03:42.640 the process to show up as a fraudulent vote? Because that's what we're worried about, right?

00:03:49.600 It's that we're worried about votes being cast by someone other than the caster and being cast

00:03:57.120 in the favor of one particular candidate, right? I think that what we're concerned about is if you

00:04:04.160 look at that show, 2000 Mules, is it the case that somebody is going around and picking up votes,

00:04:11.180 taking it back to an office so that they can be marked on the ballot in favor of a particular

00:04:16.860 candidate, and then returning it in to Deloitte so that it can be counted. And I'm just going to

00:04:23.020 color myself skeptical that that is happening based on what I've heard. It sounds like the

00:04:27.620 process is pretty darn good. I am very concerned that we're not going to have every single vote

00:04:34.620 counted. I registered my concern right at the beginning. And sure enough, I was at an event

00:04:40.540 last night for the Calgary Sports Hall of Fame, or Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, by the way,

00:04:44.960 it was really, it was excellent. Landy MacDonald was there. Everyone loves Landy MacDonald

00:04:48.580 and Sheldon Kennedy and various other Olympians. It was a fantastic event. But the table I was

00:04:54.960 sitting at was, I was told by the woman at the table that she has a whole long email string

00:05:02.700 of telling the party office that she hadn't received her membership. Now, keep in mind,

00:05:07.120 this was in calgary so i was concerned that we wouldn't be getting uh the ballots delivered in

00:05:12.400 time in some parts of rural alberta but this was calgary so there's really no excuse and because

00:05:18.480 she asked multiple times there's no reason why her ballot would have shown up the day after it

00:05:24.880 was supposed to be put into uh into the mail so she didn't get it until may the 12th i said well

00:05:31.280 do you have it so that i can kind of inquiry what occurred here she said no i rushed down and i put

00:05:36.240 it into the mailbox right away now i doubt very much that it's going to be counted sadly but i

00:05:41.360 want to at the end of all of this know how many people were disenfranchised that way because this

00:05:48.400 has been um the problem if you it's been i'll tell you where this is going to be a real problem

00:05:53.680 is that if you end up with a significant number of votes that that arrived uh late in the case

00:06:01.360 that i just described two thousand three thousand four thousand whoever whatever it might be if it's

00:06:06.560 a razor thin result and those uncounted ballots would change the outcome that has serious

00:06:14.000 implications this is why i do not like mail-in ballots i believe that we we need to have a

00:06:19.120 better process to make sure everyone who wants to vote is enfranchised before the deadline and there

00:06:24.800 should have been some kind of process in place that would have allowed for a deadline but then

00:06:30.240 some judgment call on if you for example in the case of the person i was speaking with last night

00:06:35.520 if she has a clear stream of emails demonstrating she was trying to get her vote on time and it

00:06:40.480 didn't get get there on time there should be some way of having some discretion to include that but

00:06:46.320 or we try some other process besides mail-in ballots maybe in-person ballots next time around

00:06:52.320 or maybe a combination you do the mail-in ballot with the process that they're using but then

00:06:57.120 if you are late and not and know you're not going to be able to get it have have ballot stations in

00:07:01.840 each of our major eight centers so that people can go and do some grocery shopping and drop off

00:07:07.280 the uh the ballot we needed to have a i think a second um a second level of ability to participate

00:07:14.240 and we'll see whether or not my concern is valid because they have to keep track of all of these

00:07:18.800 numbers that's one of the issues is are we keeping track of the numbers appropriately i wonder if i

00:07:23.760 I can just share this little, I want to see if I can share my screen. I'm on my own today. So

00:07:27.940 any technical errors are 100% my fault. I just want you to be aware of it. So I want to share

00:07:35.300 this one with you because I know that some of you are concerned about some of these stories that are

00:07:40.220 appearing out there. And I just want to give you my interpretation of what is happening here. So

00:07:47.720 this one is what makes people extraordinarily suspicious. Calgary family who didn't purchase

00:07:56.460 UCP memberships speak out after names appear on leadership voting lists. So here's the lowdown on

00:08:03.320 what happened here. The United Conservative Party had a list of 59,404 members eligible to vote

00:08:10.140 in the leadership review as of March 31st, but CTV News has learned that some people who appear

00:08:16.800 on it, didn't purchase a membership. Isn't that interesting? They say as of March 31st,

00:08:20.900 the membership kind of was actually March the 19th was my understanding. I digress.

00:08:26.900 Burinder Malley says he and his wife were shocked to find their names on the list of voters. He

00:08:32.640 says, I never applied for anything like that. I never paid for any membership, so I don't know

00:08:37.200 how I got a membership. I was really surprised, said Malley. It's funny because I've been a liberal

00:08:42.800 all my life. It's kind of weird. It's also scary too, because people are making memberships you

00:08:48.860 don't even know about. Now, Mally was notified. He was on the membership list by family friend,

00:08:55.400 Jamie Lall, who gave him a call and asked who he was voting for in the upcoming leadership review.

00:09:00.220 Keep in mind, I mean, the way this works is that the Brian Jean team has been able to audit the

00:09:09.000 list and get access to the list. This is one of the things that they were able to do in auditing

00:09:14.320 the process. And so I guess Jamie Lall must have seen Berinder's name and said, he's always been

00:09:21.000 a liberal as far as I know. Give him a call and says, sure enough, he didn't end up buying a

00:09:25.980 membership. So why is on the list? Lally said he's working with a group close to the leadership

00:09:29.720 review, was given an official voting list from the party official. A partial copy of the list

00:09:34.420 was also obtained from CTV News with Malley and his wife's name on it. That is a big red flag. So

00:09:40.120 we asked Berinder, are you positive? It said the membership was purchased in February and he hadn't

00:09:45.880 paid anything, Mal said. There are a lot of people this is happening to, not just in Calgary, but all

00:09:52.200 across the province. And it's actually very disappointing, to be honest, because it's one

00:09:55.640 of those things mostly happening to members of the ethnic communities. This incident follows

00:10:00.580 allegations in Fort McMurray. Gene filed a complaint on Monday. And so here's the new

00:10:04.660 number. Eight credit cards used to purchase more than 4,900 or 619 members. Gene said in his

00:10:12.240 Facebook post, the investigation is real. Who paid for these memberships? And the people whose names

00:10:17.820 are on them don't even know that they are members. Now there is a statement here that the party has

00:10:22.060 said. Let me just give you the response. It says these individuals are not party members. So this

00:10:26.840 comes from the United Conservative Party responding officially. These individuals are not party

00:10:31.840 members and are not eligible to vote in the leadership review. The application was rejected

00:10:37.080 during the audit of our membership list as it did not satisfy the membership requirements.

00:10:43.100 Our membership system is built to trust and verify. We made the correct decision to err on

00:10:48.620 the side of making sure ballots got in on time. That was the right approach since we built in a

00:10:53.220 careful and secure two-stage verification process. The first stage was to ensure that each member

00:10:59.520 satisfies the requirements. If it did not, it was canceled and their name was struck from the voters

00:11:06.400 list. Okay. And then it goes on to say, Deloitte's working with us to ensure the monitoring and

00:11:10.120 verification processes are in compliance with rules and processes while safeguarding the security of

00:11:14.580 the ballots. Okay. So I wanted to just give you that background so that you know that that's why

00:11:18.100 people are a little concerned and suspicious that things might not be on the up and up.

00:11:23.800 So how does this occur? So let me tell you my understanding of how things like this

00:11:29.520 might occur. And it was in the story, it suggested that this often, that ethnic communities are often

00:11:38.660 the victim of this. But it doesn't have to just be ethnic communities. It could be any large

00:11:44.040 congregation, any large church, any synagogue, any temple. It could be any group where you have

00:11:51.120 several hundred people who are on a list. The notion would be that the list gets turned over

00:11:59.060 to a party organizer who buys, who now has all of the names and all of the addresses,

00:12:06.300 and then just pays for the membership on behalf of those individuals. That would be how conceivably

00:12:13.060 it would work. And now that the changes have been made to Bill 81, that is legal up to a purchase

00:12:19.600 of $4,000, which would then be counted as a contribution to the party for tax purposes and

00:12:26.840 for audit purposes. So that means that you could, in theory, buy up to 400 memberships. Now, you do

00:12:32.680 ask the question, shouldn't somebody be verifying that they want to be a member? Dave Hanson tried

00:12:39.420 to put, he was an MLA who tried to put that amendment into Bill 81, and it was voted down.

00:12:43.500 So for some reason, those who were making the law decided that that was not important. So this is

00:12:49.640 the situation we find ourselves in. Now, it's a bit of a stretch, though, to think that somebody

00:12:54.960 who did not buy a membership, did not know that they had a membership, did not have a ballot that

00:13:00.180 they know of, did not return the ballot, that somehow that is going to get into the counting

00:13:04.760 process. And I'll tell you why I have confidence that what they are doing through Deloitte is

00:13:11.240 working. Now, what number one thing you need to know about Deloitte is that they're part of

00:13:15.880 Western Canada. They do the validation for Western Canadian lotteries. So they've got

00:13:22.540 massive vaults with motion detector cameras, and they have a process in place to make sure that

00:13:29.220 nobody can get in and can get out. And they're using that same process for the validation of

00:13:34.500 these ballots. So they are coming into the vault. Everything is videotaped and recorded. They bring,

00:13:40.740 I think, about 10 boxes up at a time into the counting room. And they have a whole pile of

00:13:46.380 volunteers who are opening the ballots, scanning them in. If there is some discrepancy, the big

00:13:52.180 discrepancy that they're finding is that people have stuffed everything into their privacy envelope.

00:13:57.860 You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to stuff your ballot into the privacy envelope

00:14:01.520 and do your declaration that you are, who you say you are, and your ID on the outside so that they

00:14:07.420 can't say, oh, look it, Bellwinder voted for so-and-so. They're supposed to be separate.

00:14:11.700 But that's the key, is that you'd have to go through quite an effort to get Bellwinder's vote

00:14:17.580 in there if he didn't know. You'd have to have his ID, you'd have to swear a declaration with

00:14:24.320 a signature, and you'd have to stuff it all in a ballot and put it in, having, I guess, what,

00:14:29.040 harvested it from his home. So I think that it is the case that there have been memberships that

00:14:35.600 were purchased on the hopes that they could be converted into supporters. And when that did not

00:14:41.800 occur, they didn't cast their ballots. So we will find out in the end, because it looks like

00:14:47.080 there's somewhere around 40,000 ballots that were returned. It looks like there were somewhere

00:14:52.160 around 58,000 that were sent out. And it looks like there were about 4,000 that had to be

00:14:58.580 replaced because of instances like my friend last night who didn't get them on time. So from

00:15:04.400 everything I am hearing, and there's lots of folks from different camps there. So you've got, it's

00:15:11.160 not just single support, it's multiple support. So everything I'm hearing is that Deloitte is

00:15:18.940 running the process well, and that any potential problems are being ferreted out. So just wanted

00:15:24.740 to make you feel some confidence. We will have a better idea when we get to things on Sunday or

00:15:30.760 Monday to understand where they're going to go. But they're also not counting them right now.

00:15:35.720 Interestingly, they're just doing the verification and then separating out the ballots that are going

00:15:41.880 to be counted versus the ones that need to be elevated to a higher level. No volunteer has the

00:15:47.100 ability to disenfranchise anyone. So if there is a questionable ballot because of the reason I just

00:15:52.640 described, it goes into a separate bin, and then there's an adjudication that happens on how or if

00:15:58.320 they're going to count in. And I'm hearing that number is around three to four percent. So it

00:16:03.020 doesn't mean that they're not going to be counted. It just means they need an extra level of scrutiny.

00:16:07.060 So my friends, it's quite a process. And so we will find out more next week because they'll

00:16:12.780 do all the validation. And then on May the 18th, they will count them all at once.

00:16:17.660 And from what I'm hearing, the counting will take place and be wrapped up sometime between 4 to 6 p.m.

00:16:25.080 And the decision will come out 6 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

00:16:28.500 All right.

00:16:29.140 Now, let's get to what I actually wanted to talk to you about today, which was the I want to do some follow up with you on the Bill C-69 legal judgment.

00:16:39.460 because I went through and gave you sort of my take on the majority decision, which I felt was

00:16:47.340 really positive for us. And it's good that you have a majority decision coming out of the Court

00:16:51.160 of Appeal, because when it gets elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada, it's going to be

00:16:55.920 influential. That four out of five judges said, no, no, no, this basically guts our constitution.

00:17:02.600 You cannot have the federal government interfering in areas and projects that are exclusively within

00:17:08.940 the boundaries of Alberta borders and within Alberta's areas of jurisdiction to develop

00:17:15.940 resources. So it looks to me to be pretty clear, but we always need to be mindful of what the other

00:17:21.260 side is saying. So I want to share with you where the federal government is likely going

00:17:26.100 to make its application that the decision should be overturned. So let me share a couple of things

00:17:33.180 with you here. I have this right. Okay. So first of all, one of the court justices had said that

00:17:39.180 she agreed with the majority decision with the exception of a couple of different clauses. And

00:17:48.120 she was quite precise in saying which those clauses were. So I wanted to go through that with

00:17:54.420 you just so that you know that it's not a very broad dissent that she had, but it is a significant

00:18:01.200 get one. Where is this? Okay. Let me go to the notes here. So the clauses that she said she

00:18:07.040 was not in favor of, oh, this is Joanne Stekhoff. That's what I was looking for is the name of the

00:18:12.340 justice who agreed with the majority of opinion with the exception of these clauses. And it's

00:18:17.000 this notion of a de facto expropriation. Look what the majority wrote. The Indian Resource

00:18:22.980 Council raised the issue of expropriations. Look who's raising it. First of all, it's the Indian 1.00

00:18:28.220 Resource Council. And I've heard this argument before that I think the environmentalists and

00:18:33.360 the federal government thought that the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights was going to

00:18:39.660 allow them to cancel projects. But the case being made by the Indian Resource Council

00:18:44.720 is that they also have the right to develop and it's a violation of their rights if the federal

00:18:50.540 government steps in and says no. Interestingly, hey? So it argues the right to use and the benefit

00:18:56.000 of minerals on Indian reserve lands is an aboriginal right protected by section 35 of

00:19:02.360 the constitution. While it recognizes the federal government has the jurisdiction to impact on

00:19:08.220 reserve resources, it contends that they can do so only in compliance with the spare test. That's

00:19:12.840 an earlier decision. In its view, if the federal government wishes to sterilize the development

00:19:17.840 of on-reserve natural resources, including oil and gas production, it must expropriate them

00:19:25.400 through a proper process and compensate the affected First Nations in the taking of those

00:19:31.440 resources. Given our conclusion that the Impact Assessment Act is unconstitutional, we need not

00:19:38.620 address whether Section 35 protects against a de facto expropriation of natural resources on

00:19:44.220 reserved land and whether First Nations must be compensated by the federal government that it is.

00:19:49.220 But were the legislative scheme upheld, it would arguably raise other issues relating to de facto

00:19:55.000 expropriation as well so they're trying to cover off their bases here saying we found all kinds

00:19:59.320 of reasons to strike this down and if for some reason the higher court doesn't accept that this

00:20:05.720 will be another one that that should be considered so there you have it but this is one of the

00:20:09.640 dissenting voices the other dissenting voice is uh justice sheila greckel and i i have to wonder

00:20:16.840 about whether the constitution even matters to this particular judge i'm beginning to understand

00:20:22.360 a little more in the U.S. about why everything centers around getting appointees to the court

00:20:30.120 that are constitutionalists, that believe in the constitution, because this is central to this

00:20:36.280 decision, is if you believe that the federal government can intervene and use its authority

00:20:42.080 and its supremacy to legislate in any area of provincial jurisdiction, why do we have a

00:20:46.380 constitution at all? And the reason I wanted to raise this is because that is kind of essentially

00:20:51.480 what she's arguing here. I want to read a couple of these paragraphs to you so that you get a sense

00:20:56.620 of the tone. She says that there's no exclusive right of any level of government to declare that

00:21:05.480 they have a monopoly on these decisions. So she goes through a couple of reasons why she says

00:21:09.820 this. But third, following up on the last point with respect to neither the majority nor Alberta

00:21:14.180 nor any other interested party has provided a clear explanation as to why it is constitutionally

00:21:20.180 impermissible for Canada to move from an environmental assessment process triggered by an

00:21:25.300 external statute rooted in a named federal and constitutional authority to a project-based

00:21:30.620 environmental assessment approach where the environmental assessment legislation itself

00:21:36.020 is rooted in the heads of constitutional power. And this is, I guess, sort of the heart of what

00:21:40.080 we're talking about, is that she seems to be making the case that there really is no difference

00:21:46.680 between something being cross-border versus something being within the border and project

00:21:51.800 specific. I'm thinking that there is a pretty clear, stark difference because it almost gets

00:21:58.920 a little bit absurd when you look at her argument on 448 here. This is the nut of why she thinks

00:22:06.140 the federal government should be able to intervene and stop us from developing a 75-kilometer highway

00:22:12.200 or stop us from developing a power plant that has 200 megawatts of power or more or stop us

00:22:19.080 from approving a SAG-D operation with 12,000 barrels a day. This is her argument. Within this

00:22:24.600 country, Canada geese will fly over tailings ponds north of Fort McMurray without heat of

00:22:30.520 jurisdiction. Fisheries will be disrupted by damming waterways or constructing pipelines

00:22:36.900 that transcend provincial boundaries.

00:22:39.580 Effluent from a potash mine in Saskatchewan

00:22:42.400 may affect the health of Quebecois

00:22:45.920 or indigenous people living downstream

00:22:49.040 across a river system

00:22:50.440 that has no regard for provincial borders.

00:22:54.180 Think about that for a minute.

00:22:55.980 Because there might be some residual potash revenue

00:22:59.620 from a river in Saskatchewan flowing to Quebec,

00:23:04.320 that is the reason why?

00:23:05.960 do, I'm trying to think of which river system that would be. Which rivers flow, someone will

00:23:11.560 have to explain this to me, which rivers flow from Saskatchewan all the way through to Quebec

00:23:16.780 without intervening and interfering with anybody in between? I mean, don't you think that if there

00:23:21.280 was some harm that the people living closest to that development would be the most impacted?

00:23:27.640 But if this is the argument that's going to hold is theoretically somewhere, someone in the rest

00:23:34.620 the country might theoretically be impacted by some future problem at some site therefore the

00:23:40.460 federal government has to step in then really we've just decided to throw out all of the all

00:23:47.500 of the fight that we've had on resource autonomy over the past hundred years let me just see if

00:23:52.780 there's a few more things here that that one was the most absurd example if you want the honest

00:23:56.540 truth um a proposed coal strip mining operation on the borders of bamford jasper park may affect

00:24:02.780 the roaming elk herds whose breeding grounds are deep within the parks or may contaminate

00:24:07.500 the headwater rivers meant to provide clean drinking water to alberta ranchers and indigenous

00:24:11.740 communities fair enough but this is i guess the point is that if a project is within our borders

00:24:19.100 and it has um and look no one's actually arguing against the the the authority over parks i think

00:24:26.460 what we're arguing is that in those areas that are completely within the border of alberta

00:24:31.980 it really is up to the alberta government to decide the impact on albertans that are going to

00:24:37.820 be impact affected and then make that decision we don't need the federal government coming in

00:24:42.620 and deciding this for us we can find we can we're actually grown up enough that we can

00:24:46.300 decide this ourselves so that is the nature of the argument and that is what has me

00:24:51.660 extraordinarily concerned let me just do one more segment because this is the other area where i

00:24:57.180 I think we're likely to see the federal government putting forward an argument that might overturn

00:25:04.080 this decision. So this is section 673. These judgments go on and on and on. This one is

00:25:10.160 on page 185. But listen to what she says here. She talks about in addition, well, section 7 has the

00:25:16.620 effect of tying up projects before a screening decision is made. The focus is still determining

00:25:22.740 whether a project has federal effects. The benefit of this kind of anticipatory approach

00:25:28.520 is that it clarifies early in the life of a project whether a federal authorization

00:25:32.900 is required or not. But I guess this is the, if you go down a little bit more, this is the thing

00:25:39.020 that I find remarkable in how narrow and myopic the court ruling is. Given the centrality of the

00:25:45.640 precautionary principle in modern environmental law, it is understandable that parliament would

00:25:52.200 want to focus on potential harm in areas of federal jurisdiction. Certain groups may not

00:25:58.820 like this approach as a matter of policy, but that does not make it a problem constitutionally.

00:26:04.920 Parliament is under no obligation to structure its environmental laws in ways that developers

00:26:13.720 find optimal. Intervenor signing with Alberta expressed concerns and highlight aspects that

00:26:19.380 they found problematic. However, the efficacy of a law is not the concern of the courts in a

00:26:26.440 division of power analysis. Can you believe this? That is the very definition of ivory tower,

00:26:33.960 isn't it? Is that we're actually more interested in the theoretical world about a potential harm

00:26:40.220 that might apply at some future projects and some future date, no matter how minimal to the federal

00:26:46.120 government that's more important than the practical reality of how it's implemented

00:26:52.440 sometimes i do wish we had elected judges so that you could um render your decision on whether or

00:26:59.800 not you think a judge has the scope and is an appreciation of the full range of legislative

00:27:05.480 authority when they're making their decision or whether they are too myopic in order to

00:27:09.960 be effective in rendering a decision that's remarkable to me that somebody would be that

00:27:14.760 narrow in saying it doesn't really matter whether or not there's delay it doesn't really matter

00:27:21.000 whether or not it's an endless repeat cycle loop where you can never get approval it doesn't matter

00:27:26.280 if that chases away capital investment because of the uncertainty being created

00:27:31.240 we're just more interested in some sort of theoretical potash residue finding its way in

00:27:37.400 the water system that might impact the quebecois that's essentially where the where it comes down

00:27:42.600 to. I want to just share one more thing with you. Good thing I'm not a lawyer. I guess you're not

00:27:47.700 allowed to criticize the court, is what I've been told so much. So good thing I'm not a lawyer,

00:27:53.600 otherwise I'd probably be in trouble. One more I've got to say. The other area that I would think

00:27:58.400 that we've got to be mindful of, and this is the framework that I have for assessing federal

00:28:04.240 authority in any of our areas of jurisdiction. What I am concerned about is Parliament's general

00:28:10.960 trade and commerce power because what is this country for if it is not for the enhancement of

00:28:19.280 our relationship together so that we can enhance trade why is the general trade and commerce power

00:28:26.000 why is that applied to the federal government because i i'm going to try to do a little bit

00:28:32.180 of work on this in the past it's kind of a long decision but i think i think getting the background

00:28:36.160 background on what the general trade and commerce power was for in the first place, helps to put it

00:28:43.420 into context why we even exist as a country. One of the events I went to yesterday was Peter

00:28:48.440 McKinnon's book that he's just done a launch on. And we're talking about citizenship in Canada

00:28:53.760 and what it means and what is the ties that bind. We've talked so much about the ties that

00:28:58.820 keep us apart for the identity politics, dividing people into groups, creating in crowds and out

00:29:05.640 crowds creating division. We're not spending much time talking about the ties that bind. And

00:29:10.400 to me, one of the main reasons for us coming together as a nation was to facilitate trade.

00:29:20.180 That's one of the most important reasons why you say we are one contiguous country. It's so that

00:29:25.380 you can produce something in British Columbia, put it on a truck and have it go seamlessly across

00:29:31.240 the border to Quebec. So that, and the same thing in return, if Quebec is producing some

00:29:35.920 manufactured item that is needed in BC, it can come across the country to be used there. We give

00:29:41.360 each other a favored status in deciding to join together in a country. And the trade and commerce

00:29:48.320 power, in my view, is supposed to be used when provinces are trying to be protectionist about

00:29:55.560 their own areas and so they put up trade barriers and put up taxes so that you're not able to to

00:30:01.960 have goods move freely across the border that was what the free the beer the case was all about

00:30:06.200 even though there weren't tariffs on booze coming in from quebec it was pretty clear that by arresting

00:30:13.080 some como for bringing across some some beer and i think a bottle of hard liquor they were using

00:30:18.760 non-tariff barriers to prevent the free flow of good. The impetus for that was that it was the

00:30:25.860 federal government's job to make sure that there's a free flow of goods. Would we really, when we

00:30:30.740 think about the founding debates and we think about the founding rationale for why we came

00:30:37.000 together as a province or as a country, would we have ever said, yeah, we're going to give the

00:30:43.860 federal government, the power over trade and commerce, so they can kibosh projects taking

00:30:50.080 place in our territory? On what planet would any political leader have ever said that that was a

00:30:55.560 legitimate power to give to the federal government? It was always supposed to be permissive. It was

00:31:00.700 not supposed to be, Alberto wants to establish a new project, and so the federal government nanny

00:31:07.160 state has to come in and kibosh it. That was not the agreement in why that clause existed in the

00:31:14.080 Constitution, not in my reading of it. Maybe you guys can read it and tell me differently. But I

00:31:18.380 wanted to highlight those things for you, because that will be the argument that the federal

00:31:23.880 government makes about why it is they've got to intervene. There's also some argument there about

00:31:27.760 how progressive we are, and in the name of progressivism, that the federal government

00:31:32.760 should be stepping in and doing this sort of thing. I guess that's the living tree doctrine

00:31:36.400 that we have of the Constitution is that if it's not quite written that way or ever intended that

00:31:42.940 way, the courts can just pull it out of thin air and make it up. And that's what we've got to be

00:31:46.920 mindful of is that we don't necessarily have much control or any control over who our Supreme Court

00:31:53.800 justices are and how they're going to rule on this. I have to hope, I have to hope, as much as

00:31:59.980 I'm frustrated by our relationship with Quebec, and it's Quebec that doesn't want us to develop

00:32:04.480 of our own resources. As frustrated as I am by that, I am hopeful that the three judges from

00:32:09.660 Quebec realized just how much this would gut Quebec jurisdiction. And this may be where Quebec

00:32:14.580 and Alberta have some common cause. All right. There is one more that I wanted to raise with

00:32:20.680 you. And I think I'll probably have to do a little bit more on it. But you've probably seen a couple

00:32:25.320 of these very strange stories that have been coming out. Because as you know, I have been

00:32:29.400 a huge champion of trying to get therapeutics approved by the provincial government for use.

00:32:37.600 And there are a broad range of therapeutics. If you go to c19early.com, and I will go through

00:32:46.360 that some of the time, there is a whole list, somewhere around 20 different drugs that different

00:32:52.040 doctors have tried, and they have had some success in reducing the level of hospitalization.

00:32:57.780 So I'm very alarmed now that we finally have one that we can say out loud without getting

00:33:06.240 deplatformed, Paxlovid. That is the Pfizer medication. I'm very alarmed that we keep

00:33:12.660 seeing stories like this. 30,000 COVID treatment courses unused amid BC doctor shortage. What in

00:33:20.740 world is going on. There are 30,000 rounds of the COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid in pharmacies and

00:33:28.340 storage locations in British Columbia with only 2,500 ever dispensed in the province. The situation

00:33:34.940 has been blamed in part on the shortage of doctors. Now I'd be interested in knowing for many of you

00:33:40.340 if you've had some success in navigating through this process of getting Paxlovid because it's a

00:33:46.720 bit cockamamie, if you want the truth. And that may be one of the reasons why it is difficult to

00:33:52.100 get it. So first of all, let me begin with telling you what Paxlovid is. It's taken orally in pill

00:33:57.440 form, and it's a two-part drug. One dose is a combination of the two. Nirmatrelvir, which are

00:34:06.640 pink tablets, and Rotinavir, which is a white tablet taken twice a day for five days. Patients

00:34:13.420 with reduced kidney function may have their dose reduced to two pills twice a day for five days.

00:34:17.740 It gives you an idea that there might be some additional concern that you would have of side

00:34:22.320 effects there. And so they're, they're, they're being mindful not to just give it out to everyone.

00:34:27.940 So how is it, uh, how, oh, let's forget about remdesivir for now. I'll leave a story for

00:34:33.600 another day, but who is eligible for Paxlovid? This is where it gets to be really problematic

00:34:39.020 because Paxlovid is supposed to be an antiviral treatment,

00:34:44.080 which means you have to get it in the period of time

00:34:47.200 where the virus is still active in your body.

00:34:49.520 So the way it should work is that you should be able to go to your doctor,

00:34:54.880 get a test.

00:34:55.800 The doctor calls you with the results and says, here you go.

00:34:58.620 Here's a prescription.

00:35:00.240 Make sure you take it so that we can reduce the viral load 0.58

00:35:03.020 so that you reduce your chance of going to hospital.

00:35:05.260 What happens in practice?

00:35:07.360 Good question.

00:35:08.680 So here, if you test positive for COVID and one or more of the following scenarios apply to you,

00:35:15.300 you may be eligible for treatment to prevent your symptoms from getting worse.

00:35:18.800 So if you are immunocompromised, you can be unvaccinated or vaccinated at any other dose,

00:35:26.360 at any number of doses, and you would be able to get Paxilovid. So there's all kinds of people

00:35:31.540 who have immune deficiencies that you would be able to get it whether you're vaccinated or

00:35:35.700 unvaccinated. Now, the other one is if you're living in a long-term care designated living

00:35:39.980 support, whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated, any number of doses, you're able to get it. Fair

00:35:44.960 enough. So we're taking care of our most vulnerable. Glad to hear it. If you're over age 18 with more

00:35:50.980 than one pre-existing conditions or you're pregnant, you will only be able to get it if

00:35:57.820 you're unvaccinated or you have one dose. What in the world are they saying there? Continuing on,

00:36:04.680 just look at that. So vaccinated individuals over the age of 18 are

00:36:11.160 not eligible to this unless they've got one or more

00:36:14.220 pre existing. No, no, no, no. If you're 18 or older with one or

00:36:17.720 more pre existing conditions, you have to be unvaccinated in

00:36:21.960 order to be able to get Paxlovid. Same thing age 55 or

00:36:24.840 older First Nations, Métis Inuit, or age 45, you have to be 0.95

00:36:29.640 unvaccinated in order to be able to get Paxlovid. Age 60

00:36:33.240 year older as well, you with one or more pre existing health conditions, you have to be

00:36:37.600 unvaccinated to be able to get access. And in 70 year older First Nations, Métis, and so on,

00:36:43.940 with two or more pre exist existing health conditions. So these are probably what some

00:36:48.100 of the most acute outside of the long term care facility, unvaccinated or one or two or three

00:36:54.000 doses. So it's a little bit more broad. Here's what I don't so and here are the pre existing

00:36:58.020 conditions, diabetes, obese, chronic kidney disease, congestive heart failure, chronic

00:37:02.500 obstructive pulmonary disease and so on and then one more thing that you need to know how do you

00:37:08.020 access it so you're in one of these categories if you've tested positive and your symptoms began

00:37:14.260 less than four days ago and you believe you meet the eligibility criteria you have to contact your

00:37:19.780 family physician if you don't have one and your family physician isn't prescribing so some doctors

00:37:25.060 aren't prescribing it yet then you have to call a dedicated line to find out if you qualify to

00:37:31.620 receive treatment would you even know this would you even know that you can't call 811

00:37:36.340 that you've got to call 1-844-343-0971 and then you call and you don't even get a live person

00:37:44.340 you have to be asked to leave a message staff will call you back and then refer you to a health

00:37:50.420 professional once they've screened through here's what i don't understand with any of that if you

00:37:55.060 want the truth is what i don't understand is if you look at the statistics in hospital right now

00:38:01.380 the majority of people in hospital are those with two or three doses and so what you're doing is

00:38:09.620 you're denying the group that is now most likely to be hospitalized the ability to get this

00:38:15.540 treatment to keep them out of hospital because you're clinging to what some earlier ideology

00:38:21.540 that only unvaccinated people could get sick that only unvaccinated people could transmit

00:38:27.780 like don't we have an obligation to make sure that anybody who's at risk would be able to get

00:38:33.860 an antiviral treatment to make sure that they don't go into hospital i'm scratching my head

00:38:38.340 over this but if you're wondering if you're reading these stories about why it is that

00:38:42.820 you've got all of these doses that are not being used then it's because of that it's because they

00:38:48.180 seem have seemingly arbitrary rules what have you ever heard of that for any other drug treatment

00:38:53.140 why is it the doctors are being infantilized this way and not able to prescribe based on their own

00:38:59.220 judgment so that they can have an efficient process to make sure that their patients get

00:39:03.620 the medication that they need in a period where it's actually going to help them out

00:39:08.180 it's almost like they don't even really want to treat people isn't it and if you want my

00:39:14.340 assessment of this the only way we can move to endemic i've said this many times before but let

00:39:19.380 let me say it again because it bears saying again. If we want to move to endemic, here's what needs

00:39:24.120 to happen. You need to have those who are most at risk, vaccinated or unvaccinated, doesn't matter.

00:39:30.720 Those most at risk, when they test positive, able to efficiently go to a doctor, efficiently get a

00:39:36.100 prescription so that they can reduce their chance of being hospitalized. And I'm not quite sure why

00:39:41.140 it is we put all these barriers in the way. I know it's an expensive drug, something like $530

00:39:46.120 dollars per treatment course. But even still, this arbitrary distinction that we're making,

00:39:51.560 continuing to divide people along these lines of vaccinated or unvaccinated, that's what's causing

00:39:57.060 the division in our society. We should be interested in making sure we're protecting

00:40:00.980 everyone regardless of their status. And we certainly shouldn't be denying those who've

00:40:05.740 gone through and got doses. We shouldn't be denying them treatment. Give me the argument for why it is

00:40:12.280 would be denying them treatment if it is indeed the fact that they're at risk because of pre-existing

00:40:17.400 conditions the only reason you do that is if somehow you believe the news stories that people

00:40:24.920 who are vaccinated can't get sick that's what they were trying to tell us a year ago i'm sorry

00:40:30.360 but if you if the majority of people in hospital are now those who have been vaccinated and reality

00:40:36.200 doesn't match your theory, you've got to default to reality. I know that's really difficult for

00:40:42.200 all of us who like to live in the virtual world and everybody who's thinking that computer models

00:40:46.320 are the real world. They're not. You've got to look at the real world. When the real world says

00:40:51.020 we've got a crisis now of people who are in acute care who are double and triple dosed,

00:40:56.280 we've got to be expanding out and making sure that they have access to all the care that they need

00:41:00.400 so that we can reduce the level of hospitalizations. Because if we don't, once we get

00:41:04.240 into respiratory virus season, what do you think is going to happen? If we get into respiratory

00:41:08.020 virus season again in the fall and we don't have a broad access to the most vulnerable for these

00:41:14.440 kinds of medications, what are we going to be told? By the new replacement for Verna Yu at Alberta

00:41:18.920 Health Services, oh my goodness, we're putting too much pressure on the hospital system. This is like

00:41:22.940 one of those facepalm moments. So let me leave it there. We're out of time for today. You still have

00:41:28.000 lots more to talk about. If you've got something on your mind, then just send me an email,

00:41:32.120 Danielle at DanielleSmith.ca. We'll be back at it again tomorrow. Do tune in because we'll be

00:41:36.900 speaking with Conservative Party of Canada, leadership candidate Roman Weber, and we'll

00:41:41.540 talk to you again. I'm Danielle Smith. This has been The Danielle Smith Show.

Western Standard - May 14, 2022

The Danielle Smith Show - May 13, 2022

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