Western Standard - The Pipeline： All quiet on the Western front (AB Elections 2023)

00:00:00.000 G'day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline

00:00:17.020 for a special Alberta election edition. But don't worry, it's not all Alberta for those of you

00:00:23.520 outside of Wild Rose Country. We're going to be getting into a number of things. But we're going

00:00:27.800 be talking about the strange quiet that set over the Alberta election campaign. All quiet

00:00:33.020 on the Western Front, the phony war, whatever we want to call it. The campaigns went a bit

00:00:38.320 quiet today. Sorry, the last few days. We're going to get into that. But a little something

00:00:45.880 popped up today. Two UCB candidates, Brian Jean and Rebecca Schultz, say they've crunched

00:00:53.200 numbers on Rachel Notley's electric grid reform or replacement plan and say the price tag is $87

00:01:02.640 billion. We're going to have the Western standards business reporter Sean Polzer in

00:01:07.440 to fact check that and go through if that really is what the cost of the NDP's

00:01:13.520 electrification grid plan would be. We're going to get into the UCP strategy thus far and what

00:01:19.520 we're expecting we're going to talk about the NDP strategy thus far and what we're expecting

00:01:24.080 as well as a plan by the CRTC branch of the federal government to regulate newsroom ethics

00:01:31.280 in Canada yes more federal intrusion from the state into the bedrooms of the nation into the

00:01:37.440 newsrooms of the nation sorry telling reporters who well who deciding who's a reporter who is not

00:01:43.920 and how they should do their jobs before we get into it though I want to thank my favorite sponsor

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00:02:14.560 you absolutely need to be go to cssa-cila.org or just do what I do google them and become a

00:02:22.400 member today it's worth every single pay okay so we're going to get into it uh calling this segment

00:02:28.720 all quiet on the western front uh the campaign started with a bang but then it's just kind of

00:02:35.120 went quiet uh this morning in uh at our uh our meeting earlier today determining uh what we're

00:02:42.720 we're going to talk about on the pipeline. You called it the phony war. I call it the

00:02:45.560 Sitzkrieg. One way or another, kind of... Same idea. Same idea that the battle started

00:02:52.500 with a bang, and it's just gone kind of quiet, Nigel. You should tell people what the phony

00:02:56.680 war was. I mean, there's a lot of people under 30. Well, for those of you who didn't pay 0.87

00:02:59.940 attention in history class, the phony war was kind of the second phase of the Second

00:03:04.260 World War. The Second World War, at least in the European theater, opened with the German

00:03:08.400 invasion of Poland and France and Britain declared war, but then did nothing. They just kind of sat

00:03:15.080 behind the Maginot line, the big French fortifications, and did nothing for roughly six

00:03:20.160 months until things flared up in Norway and then waited for the war to come to them with the

00:03:25.540 invasion of the West, which didn't go too well for them. But it was this phony war where they

00:03:29.760 just kind of sat behind their lines and pretty much didn't even shoot at each other with rare

00:03:34.360 exceptions. And that kind of seems like what's happened for the last two days. You know, the

00:03:38.360 first weekend and first opening day of the Alberta election had some big punches, big promises,

00:03:44.360 feisty languages and rallies from the two leaders, the big campaigns, and then quiet.

00:03:50.280 Well, you know, Derek, I think one of the things that has affected this is that we've actually

00:03:54.040 been in campaign mode, at least since Christmas. And you can make the argument that ever since

00:03:59.720 Daniel Smith was the elected premier.

00:04:03.700 Everybody knew this was coming on May the 29th.

00:04:06.880 It's in the legislation.

00:04:08.020 So everybody has been positioning them.

00:04:10.640 So there's a lot been said already that contributes to the campaign.

00:04:16.060 You know, I'm not disputing the fact that it's gone very quiet in the last couple of days

00:04:20.580 after some good announcements.

00:04:22.840 You know, the allegation is that Daniel Smith is hiding from the media.

00:04:26.360 On the other hand, Rachel Notley has not come out with a lot of policy.

00:04:32.620 And she's hiding from any media that's not funded by the government.

00:04:35.580 Well, do we want to play the clip again?

00:04:38.840 You know what I mean.

00:04:40.620 You know, I'll tell you what's missing.

00:04:42.380 This is the thing that's missing.

00:04:44.240 In 2019, there was all kinds of buzz and excitement.

00:04:47.460 Why was that?

00:04:48.320 Because you had a new party that had been formed.

00:04:53.340 It was almost like a saga, you know.

00:04:55.220 it was one of those sort of great adventure stories you get this blue dodge pickup and you

00:04:59.620 drive it i don't think there was a community kind of built their merry band as you went along yeah

00:05:04.340 you know i mean it was buzz there was all sorts of stuff and of course there was huge dissatisfaction

00:05:10.900 with the uh with the ndp after four years of economic stagnation and actually not even

00:05:16.980 stagnation going backwards so here came the hero here came the the truck and everybody was up to

00:05:24.340 go out and and vote and to plant lawn signs and we don't have that this time we've got what we

00:05:32.180 actually have could be an amazing story of two women who have both had success in the past

00:05:39.700 fallen out of grace and then are now on the comeback trail but it just hasn't been reported

00:05:44.340 that way just hasn't been i know but i'm talking about the campaign period here it

00:05:50.020 was a flash bang open yep and then quiet uh cory nigel says that's because so much has already

00:05:56.900 been said because we've been in perpetual campaign mode for so long but you know i i think canadians

00:06:03.540 uh and i'll i'll include albertans here are very weird um even though we know when the fixed

00:06:09.540 election date is we're not like americans will pay attention you know for the whole year for

00:06:13.940 the primaries on up i think canadians largely only start paying attention when the formal writ

00:06:18.420 period has dropped even more so in the last two or three weeks when people are kind of forced to

00:06:23.040 make a decision but I I feel like a lot of a lot of Canadians just say I'm not really making up my

00:06:28.160 mind I'm not really paying any attention until I have to and there's a formal period uh what do

00:06:33.280 you think explains this kind of brief phony war where there's just been a lack of action for the

00:06:38.340 last few years I think it might be a couple of things I mean as Nigel did mention there's some

00:06:41.620 degree of fatigue I mean normally you'd want to kick it off with a big rally have a bunch of people

00:06:45.120 They purposely, like where Premier Smith picked her, two rallies were in residential and a weird little office area.

00:06:51.640 You couldn't pack 200 people there if you wanted to.

00:06:55.420 I thought that was actually a good backdrop for the message that she was actually pushing.

00:06:59.660 Certainly.

00:07:00.100 It avoids the risk of having a great big park with only 100 people at it and room for 1,000.

00:07:05.440 Oh, but I mean, there was a suburban home, and she was talking about suburban values.

00:07:08.660 Yeah, but this was an election kickoff, not just a policy.

00:07:11.360 Yeah, the Saturday campaign kickoff.

00:07:13.040 release. Yeah. And you normally, you would expect some fanfare, but they're trying to control

00:07:17.640 tightly. I think part of it too, though, is they're trying to hold their cards tight. I mean,

00:07:22.740 I look at it more like two boxers, you know, that first couple of rounds, they're doing feints,

00:07:26.540 they're seeing what's going to work, they're seeing what's going to bite. And I got a feeling

00:07:30.020 they've, they're going to really start swinging though in the later part. As you said, most

00:07:33.200 people aren't paying attention to a little later too. So because it's so close right now, they can't

00:07:37.800 afford any big errors or they might swing that undecided. And we'll, we'll turn to the bigger

00:07:41.900 strategy stuff in a bit, but I suppose let's talk about some of the swings now. The silence

00:07:48.200 broken, I think this midday today. So Brian Jean, Fort McMurray MLA and minister and

00:07:57.200 Rebecca Schultz, one of the Calgary cabinet ministers and candidates here,

00:08:04.360 they held a press conference. And actually, what we need to do is bring in our business

00:08:08.600 reporter Sean Polzer here. So Sean, you've gone through this. So Brian Jean and Rebecca

00:08:16.900 Schultz came out and say that Rachel Notley's plan to essentially revamp the Alberta electricity

00:08:24.220 grid would cost $87 billion, which would make it by far the most expensive election promise

00:08:32.580 in Alberta history, probably in Canadian history. Although maybe if we don't include the city

00:08:37.100 of Calgary. This is the city of Calgary's big green nirvana plan. But I don't think they'll

00:08:44.600 actually end up spending that money. Sean, tell us, I mean, we always have to be cautious when

00:08:50.200 one party says, well, the other guys are going to cost this. You have to be cautious when a party

00:08:54.400 puts a price tag on their own things. I mean, these are all politicians spinning things for

00:08:58.600 their side against the other. But you understand this stuff extremely well with your background in

00:09:03.100 the energy industry and covering it as a reporter.

00:09:06.140 What's your, first, kind of give us a breakdown

00:09:08.840 of what Rachel Notley has promised

00:09:10.800 on the net zero electricity grid

00:09:13.540 and the UCP's allegations about

00:09:17.280 what they say it's gonna cost.

00:09:20.700 Well, I think it comes with a pretty big kicker.

00:09:25.080 I mean, they were tossing around 87 billion,

00:09:28.140 they were tossing around 100 billion.

00:09:30.420 There doesn't really seem to be a clear consensus

00:09:32.140 exactly how much it's going to cost so no first would you just tell us about what rachel notley

00:09:37.100 says she's going to do with the net zero electricity grid and then tell us about what the ucp's price

00:09:42.460 dig is they're attaching to it okay uh rachel notley has promised to uh get to net zero on the

00:09:48.460 electricity grid by 2035 which is in line with some of the commitments that uh ottawa has made

00:09:57.340 Now the kicker is that under the Paris Accord, the international agreements, Canada isn't required

00:10:04.060 to be net zero until 2050. So the two parties are not quibbling on reaching net zero. What they're

00:10:11.980 quibbling on is the amount of time that it's going to take to get there and how much more it's going

00:10:17.100 to cost by rushing it to 2035 as opposed to extending it out for another 15 years.

00:10:22.940 and that is going to involve a massive build in infrastructure and it's also going to mean

00:10:30.060 higher electricity prices for Albertans as we are forced to retire some of this fossil fuel

00:10:36.480 fired electricity in favor of renewables. All right so could you tell us now Brian G.

00:10:42.620 Rebecca Schultz on behalf of the UCP come out today and say well that's all fine and well but

00:10:49.260 Richard Notley's plan is going to cost the economy and rate payers $87 billion and see power bills for families and businesses go up 40% more than they otherwise would.

00:11:00.000 So why don't you talk about kind of their analysis and tell us if you think they're barking up the right tree or is this just a bit of spin?

00:11:09.100 Give us your take on it.

00:11:11.240 Well, those numbers come from the Alberta Electric System operator.

00:11:14.400 So I would say that they are fairly reliable.

00:11:17.620 The additional 40% that they're talking about is in the form of the carbon tax, which is going to

00:11:23.540 increase in that time period. I'm not exactly sure what it's going to be by 2035, but it's probably

00:11:28.660 going to be close to double, which will inevitably add higher costs to electricity bills. There's

00:11:34.900 absolutely no doubt about it. So in your analysis of this, you think they're barking up the right

00:11:41.860 tree here that this comes with an 87 billion dollar price tag i think it could be for sure

00:11:48.340 absolutely part of the problem today was is that they didn't provide any numbers on what their own

00:11:53.540 plans were going to cost and what the difference would be so when when they were pressed and they

00:11:57.940 were asked well how much less would we have to pay if we extended out to 2050 they couldn't do that

00:12:06.100 So it was a little bit of a lopsided comparison.

00:12:10.500 And in the reports that inspected the NDP's goals here, the econometrics from Navius Research and the Independent Alberta Electricity System Operator,

00:12:23.380 Did they have any analysis about the reliability of the power grids, risk of blackouts, brownouts, anything that would take place if this was followed through on the move towards a net zero grid by 2035?

00:12:37.320 The NDP, no, they didn't provide any of those numbers, but I have read those reports and I can tell you that coal is about 80% reliable, whereas wind is only about 35%.

00:12:47.180 percent and right now coal is only about seven percent of the electricity supply while wind is

00:12:54.700 about 17. and what we've seen is that electricity prices rose 60 percent last year in direct

00:13:00.860 correlation to the amount of wind capacity that was added to the grid and presumably we're going

00:13:06.380 to be expecting more and those prices have more than doubled since 2018 for the same reason uh

00:13:14.940 Corey, I mean, I always take with a grain of salt whenever, if a party makes a promise and say, well, it's only going to cost this, or when another party says the other guys are going to cost that, I mean, we always should be cautious of these kinds of things.

00:13:29.640 but Sean seems to have a reasonable degree of confidence

00:13:32.940 that it is gonna be 87 billion.

00:13:37.560 Do you think there's, how big a risk is there

00:13:39.860 for the NDP right now that this becomes a big issue,

00:13:42.600 this kind of promise that the NDP probably didn't feel

00:13:45.920 the need to put a price tag on because like I said,

00:13:48.680 well, rate payers are gonna pay for it.

00:13:51.180 How big a risk for the NDP is it

00:13:53.440 that this would become a major campaign issue?

00:13:56.120 It's a very big one because affordability,

00:13:58.080 everybody kind of agrees is a top issue right now. And everybody is getting sticker shock

00:14:02.100 looking at their energy bills. That's one of the things hitting them month after month

00:14:05.680 and is only going up. So to have to be called out like that, which I think was smart tactically,

00:14:10.840 I mean, you've got to put a price tag to these things. They love putting their aspirational

00:14:14.500 things out. Every party does it. And they don't like the rate payer to think about, you know,

00:14:19.520 have it translated to what it may or may not cost at the wallet. So I don't know if they expected

00:14:23.600 to be called out on that and have it, you know, perhaps, again, a biased pricing put on it by the

00:14:30.260 UCP in response, but it puts them on the spot, and people are starting to think, well, what is this

00:14:34.660 going to cost me? This comes home when it comes to your wallet. Nigel, they didn't have Smith

00:14:42.580 going out on the attack here, you know, going through the documents in front of the press saying,

00:14:47.960 you know, Notley's plan is going to bankrupt ratepayers, going to cost us $87 billion.

00:14:53.180 They sent out Brian Jean and Rebecca Scholz.

00:14:57.060 Why do you think they did that?

00:15:00.120 Probably saving Daniel for the promised big announcement tomorrow.

00:15:04.240 I don't know why they did that, to be honest with you.

00:15:07.620 But coming on this...

00:15:08.840 You don't think it's just better if you're going on the attack,

00:15:11.860 you put kind of your lieutenants up rather than have the leader dirty hands?

00:15:15.860 Because Notley has largely done that herself.

00:15:18.340 She'll put up Sarah Hoffman, Shannon Phillips, Joe Ceci. 0.76

00:15:22.040 she'll put her lieutenants out. And they do at least the hardest attack with the sharpest nails,

00:15:26.520 not least still throws a lot of barbs. But you know, do you think this is a strategy perhaps,

00:15:31.720 you're more premier like rather than down and dirty?

00:15:34.600 I've certainly seen it done that way. You know, you watch various conservative

00:15:38.600 politicians move up through the ranks and they pay their dues as attack dogs. And then when they

00:15:43.720 get to the top, then they, they're more statesmanlike. So you may have something there.

00:15:49.640 I was going to mention on this the thing that nobody seems to talk about explicitly is that

00:15:55.320 the whole push is to have us all driving electric cars and having all of our homes heated by

00:16:00.840 electricity so there's two things one is where's the generation coming from because if you unless

00:16:07.240 you've got a reliable base load you will have brownouts and the other is it is not just the

00:16:14.040 generating capacity it's not even just the major transmissions line all the wiring around

00:16:19.400 towns is going to have to be ripped out and replaced with something higher capacity you live

00:16:23.800 in a little subdivision i've seen it you've if you're the only one with an electric car and i'm

00:16:27.800 not accusing you of having an electric car as a dirty accusation that would have been low blow but

00:16:32.840 if you were the only one on the block who had one then you just go home plug it into the garage and

00:16:37.480 away you go no problem if everybody on the street has got one the local transformer is going to blow

00:16:43.000 so everything is going to have to be changed i don't even know i mean i haven't read the report

00:16:47.400 maybe Sean can can tell us but that 87 billion dollars does that even include all the local work

00:16:54.120 that has to be done and if it doesn't well there's going to be more yeah well there's uh certainly

00:16:59.480 more uh digging into this for uh Sean to do Sean thank you very much for uh joining us on the

00:17:03.960 pipeline today and uh look forward to further analysis from you uh on this one I think this

00:17:08.920 has the potential to become surprisingly one of the bigger election issues thank you very much

00:17:13.960 Okay. So let's kind of turn to the broader campaign strategy so far and what we're expecting. The UCP has been, I think, been employing a combination of trying to script Daniel Smith a bit more. I mean, Daniel Smith, Danielle, the radio host, you know, freewheeling, speaking, shooting from the lip, and speaking very frankly.

00:17:42.080 I think a lot of people like that, but it's inherently dangerous because you'll say things that are impolitic virtually every day.

00:17:49.880 And so I think they've tried to script her and control her more and limit her exposure.

00:17:56.200 I mean, no longer do they have two questions per reporter.

00:17:59.300 It's one question per reporter, but more reporters.

00:18:02.440 It worked for Biden.

00:18:04.400 Well, generally, I think he can only read from a teleprompter.

00:18:06.700 Otherwise, he doesn't understand the questions.

00:18:08.740 But trying to control it a bit more.

00:18:12.080 We'll start with you, Nigel. What are you expecting to see for UCP strategy going? I mean, they've been kind of sucking up to Calgary, obviously, in the center, making very non-ideological promises.

00:18:25.220 You want an arena? You got an arena. Tax cuts, I think, was a fairly conservative promise, but certainly puts kind of a nail in the coffin of the flat tax if you're creating another lower income tax bracket.

00:18:38.760 You can't get rid of lower brackets and get rid of higher, maybe, but not lower.

00:18:42.680 What do you think we're going to see for their strategy for, say, the next week or two?

00:18:47.820 Well, probably for the next few days, at least, they'll carry on as they've done

00:18:54.160 because the public attention is not yet on this.

00:18:57.680 Our own internal information suggests that the people aren't really in an election mood at the moment.

00:19:05.180 But when they are, that's when you'll see the larger announcements coming up.

00:19:11.780 I mean, not only has hardly announced any policy at all yet.

00:19:15.760 I can't think of anything that she said, but she would say, well, I will do this, and this is what it's going to cost.

00:19:19.760 Well, she'd made some vague promises about hiring more doctors, everyone gets a doctor, things like that.

00:19:26.140 Everybody gets a lollipop as well, you know.

00:19:27.800 I mean, it's just a bit vague.

00:19:29.320 It's not really, like, it's not substantive.

00:19:31.980 When you come out and say, whether you like the 8% tax or not, it's a policy.

00:19:37.620 It's very specific.

00:19:38.940 When you say that we're going to hold the, what is it, the 13 cents a liter,

00:19:43.340 we're going to keep that going, not collect that, give people a break.

00:19:47.400 That's a very specific, costable policy.

00:19:51.680 So they're going to build their case on, and they've made no secret about it,

00:19:57.660 they're going to build their case, that they're there for prosperity, jobs, to help people do

00:20:04.000 better. I think the NDP is going to carry on with essentially a fear mongering. We're going to talk

00:20:09.320 about the NDP in a bit. We're talking just the UCP. That's what they're going to do. Yeah.

00:20:14.760 Corey, based on what we've seen for the first, well, I guess we're not even in the first week

00:20:19.760 of the campaign, but I mean, it unofficially started early. So roughly the first week of

00:20:23.460 the campaign. What are you expecting, say, for the short, medium term of the campaign, the next one

00:20:28.380 to two weeks from the UCP? Maybe more of the same. I mean, they've certainly got some planned policy

00:20:33.440 announcements, but I think they're going to be a bit tentative, and they really want to measure and

00:20:37.680 see how they're being responded to. I mean, that helps them model what they're going to do in the

00:20:41.580 second half of the campaign. I do believe that's part of why it's been a little quiet right now.

00:20:46.300 They're just being cautious and trying to keep Premier Smith under control because, yes, as you

00:20:51.760 said her greatest strength as a radio host is she'll talk and explore things and examine them

00:20:55.920 but now there's this this this large amount of of you know also imagine if cory ran for premier

00:21:02.620 all the crap they'd find on him in the first 10 seconds of a google search well that's it i mean

00:21:06.740 they've had to search through hours and hours of her show they don't need to download one of mine 0.98

00:21:10.440 they just stop there be like we got enough we got enough to hang them and we're going to see that

00:21:15.340 for a while though i'm sure she's going to be playing some degree of response to things that

00:21:19.800 keep dripping out that they'll bring out from past recordings. One thing I've been surprised by is so

00:21:25.380 far the lack of opposition research from the UCP against the NDP. The NDP have been meticulous in

00:21:32.840 opposition research. Anytime anyone has even sniffed around a UCP nomination, the NDP have

00:21:40.200 done a colonoscopy into everything they've ever done, said, whispered, or farted. They're on it.

00:21:48.100 And, you know, they certainly did it last time.

00:21:51.800 And then as soon as, you know, those candidates kind of get defeated, if, you know, say the three of us ran in a nomination and Najinai get defeated and Corey is for some reason the candidate here, then they'll release dirt on the two who lost to kind of smear the party overall.

00:22:08.800 The UCP, the NDP has been very strong on that.

00:22:10.560 You've seen very little from the UCP on it.

00:22:12.560 There's been a little, I mean, they, you know, they had a, I think about two weeks ago, they did kind of a release on some of the very anti-police and defund the police or police are all wife beaters kind of stuff from various NDP candidates, primarily in Calgary and Edmonton.

00:22:29.560 A little bit of that stuff, but that was all pretty public record already.

00:22:32.760 Let's start with you, Corey. Why do you think the UCP has been so light on opposition research so far? Or do you think they're just kind of sitting on a Fort Knox of dirt right now waiting until these guys are stuck on the ballot and can't be removed before the cutoff?

00:22:49.840 I don't know. I mean, it could be tactical that they're hanging on until a little later. But usually with that sort of stuff, you want to hit it as it's happening. I mean, as you said, the NDP have been effective. It's kept the UCP on their heels. They're having to apologize almost for half of their nominations.

00:23:02.940 One candidate just the other day pre-apologized for something and didn't say what they were apologizing for, just that they've done something offensive.

00:23:10.020 been the past. And we know it's out there. I mean, the NDP has no shortage of some flaky folks

00:23:15.040 attracted to the party as well on the far left that I'm sure have some great quotables out there

00:23:20.620 in social media that they're not nearly as hard to find things on candidates as it used to be 20

00:23:24.280 years ago. So all we can guess is either UCP hasn't been looking for some reason, didn't look at it as

00:23:29.300 a strategy, or they do have stuff. And as you said, they're sitting on it and waiting for the right

00:23:33.840 time to use it. Nigel, why do you think UCP has been so quiet on the opposition research? Or is

00:23:39.720 it just that the NDP have impeccably vetted candidates who have never done, said, or written

00:23:45.380 anything controversial? Impeccably vetted according to NDP principles, I would have to say. I mean,

00:23:50.660 you made reference to some anti-police statements made by, I think it was about

00:23:55.560 three NDP candidates. Three to five. And there was a few more that had sort of signed on to

00:24:02.180 things that you wouldn't want to vote for. But I think that's fine. I mean, that's virtue for them.

00:24:08.600 Well, I did take notice that most of the legacy media took virtually no notice of that.

00:24:15.900 I mean, you know, NDP put out something saying some UCP candidate once said that he doesn't personally like to dress in drag.

00:24:24.280 Well, then all of a sudden that's a scandal.

00:24:25.480 He hates drag queens.

00:24:27.560 But this stuff on the NDP candidates, I saw remarkably little to anything in the legacy media on it.

00:24:33.840 Yeah, I mean, I think you just nailed it there.

00:24:36.040 The media doesn't see what the buzz is.

00:24:39.240 Gosh, we had some stories out of Edmonton, I do believe,

00:24:44.500 within the last couple of months about NDP candidates

00:24:47.160 who were actively supporting some Christian science church or something.

00:24:56.040 I can't remember exactly where it was, so don't pull me on the Christian science.

00:24:59.540 But at any rate, they were having their drag queen story hour for all the kids.

00:25:05.700 And one of the UCP MLA said, well, what's this?

00:25:10.380 He was the one who got attacked for it.

00:25:12.300 So when you're looking around, well, where's the dirt?

00:25:14.100 Where's the dirt?

00:25:15.460 What's dirt to the UCP and to the UCP voter, more particularly?

00:25:20.920 Passes, it seems, without comment in the NDP

00:25:23.880 and in so much of the legacy media.

00:25:27.540 I don't think they're all that.

00:25:29.000 No.

00:25:29.280 They're not all over the edge.

00:25:31.440 It's not a monologue.

00:25:32.200 But it's the sort of the common consensus, oh, well, you're used to their own whatever.

00:25:38.200 Yeah.

00:25:38.800 All right, let's talk about the NDP strategy so far and what we can expect.

00:25:43.320 They've been very punchy.

00:25:45.640 They've been very aggressive.

00:25:48.420 But that really hasn't changed.

00:25:50.060 They've been that way really since the last election.

00:25:53.720 You know, most other provinces, at least during early COVID, the government and the opposition held arms and sung Kumbaya.

00:25:59.300 And for most governments, it worked for the governments, not for the oppositions.

00:26:03.360 They got re-elected.

00:26:04.460 Alberto's pretty much the only exception where the Premier got turfed and the opposition played hardball.

00:26:10.720 NDP's been playing hardball the whole time.

00:26:13.520 Notley's big campaign kickoff rally Monday.

00:26:16.660 Very feisty. 0.57

00:26:18.220 Going for the jugular.

00:26:21.180 Start with you, Corey.

00:26:22.900 What do you make of the NDP strategy so far?

00:26:25.100 And what do you see coming for the next week or two?

00:26:27.140 I think they're going to stick to it for the next week or two, but I'm not sure if it's going to work that well.

00:26:31.020 I really am not.

00:26:31.820 I mean, everybody's been pummeling on Premier Smith since she won the leadership.

00:26:35.780 That's not new.

00:26:38.100 But, I mean, what won the NDP last time around was actually a positive face.

00:26:43.120 I remember the 2015 election well, and Rachel Notley presented what looked to be a bright vision, you know,

00:26:49.320 and an alternative to a messed up Wild Rose Party and an arrogant Jim Prentice.

00:26:54.720 Now, I mean, I looked at, you know, the imagery and the tone of each rally, for example, and it's just a matter of how they present themselves.

00:27:02.860 But Premier Notley is going to watch it.

00:27:04.660 If you push too far, you start looking.

00:27:06.540 Premier who?

00:27:06.960 Sorry.

00:27:07.560 Well, former Premier Notley.

00:27:11.220 Former Premier Notley.

00:27:12.520 It could be something you start to come across, though, as embittered and with a personal chip, which I don't think people necessarily respond to that well.

00:27:20.160 I mean, negative campaigning works.

00:27:21.440 That's why they do it.

00:27:22.240 But you can also overplay it if you're not careful with it. And they're really pushing the edges, I think, with this.

00:27:27.600 Nigel, do you think the NDP and Richard Notley have been overplaying how feisty they are?

00:27:34.300 Because, I don't know, they're pretty high in the fact that there's an NDP in Alberta, competitive in election in Alberta,

00:27:42.180 in a two-party system without any kind of significant split on the right at all.

00:27:46.660 That's never happened before.

00:27:47.960 So even if the NDP lose this election, historically, this would still be perhaps a high

00:27:54.300 watermark for them. It's entirely possible, I'd say perhaps even likely, the NDP will get more

00:28:00.080 votes and a higher percentage of the vote this time in 2023 than they did in 2015 when they won,

00:28:05.720 but because there's no vote split helping them, they get through. So I don't know. Seems to me

00:28:11.680 it's been working. You can go too far on the fear factor. You could even attract a sympathy factor

00:28:19.160 for Premier Smith if they overdid it. That could happen. I don't think they're that stupid,

00:28:26.280 but certainly what I have seen is that people vote with their feelings rather than with a list of 0.99

00:28:34.220 facts in front of them. You know, this idea that you research the positions of the candidates

00:28:39.360 happens in like 0.05% of households that ever do it.

00:28:45.740 So if they can invoke some kind of tribal feeling about NDP

00:28:50.920 and focus their fears on the person of Premier Smith,

00:29:00.060 that's a strategy and it's been used before and it can work,

00:29:03.200 but can be overdone.

00:29:04.660 I want to talk about the NDP's move. They're really zeroing in on Daniel Smith's position on private health care. And I think this is a smart move for them because Daniel Smith is on the record pretty clearly stating that, you know, this is a sacred cow that should be slayed, you know, like your auto insurance.

00:29:28.580 Perhaps you should pay something for it, a deductible when you have an accident.

00:29:32.000 There's still insurance and everyone's got it, but have a deductible of some kind, user fees.

00:29:36.400 She's been on the record talking about, or at the very least, the right of people, you know, my buddy, my choice stuff, to purchase your own health care.

00:29:46.420 Danielle Smith has, she said she hasn't flip-flopped.

00:29:49.380 I think she has flip-flopped, which I think is too bad.

00:29:52.300 I think her original policy position was a good one and sensible.

00:29:55.760 But if you're, I get it, might not be the most popular thing, but she's, you know, Rachel Notley's been saying, well, Daniel Smith says she wants some private health care. You can't trust her when she says that she doesn't. Daniel Smith is saying, well, kind of ignoring what she's said previously, saying, well, I don't say that right now.

00:30:15.760 And that struck me as an odd tactic. I think it would be much better to say, I have some views, privately, that are not very popular, and I know that Albertans don't have an appetite for this, so I'm not going to seek a mandate for it, just like Stephen Harper did with abortion.

00:30:34.220 I'm personally pro-life, but I know Canadians aren't there, the broad majority of Canadians aren't there, so I'm not going to seek a mandate for it, and I'm not going to legislate on it.

00:30:41.460 Nigel, why do you think she didn't go that route? Instead, she kind of just took kind of a meeker

00:30:47.600 route, trying to just pretend she didn't have some of these policy positions, which I don't think

00:30:52.080 are that radical, but she's kind of saying, I don't, just kind of pretending she never said it.

00:31:00.320 Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, we all know that she did. And one of the things about the NDP

00:31:05.280 me a hypocrisy on this is that we have private health care. Every time you go to the dentist,

00:31:10.520 that's health, you're paying for it. Well, they certainly love private abortion, 1.00

00:31:14.260 privately delivered, because it's much more efficient than it would be from the government.

00:31:17.660 Abortion in Alberta, I think, is almost universally privately delivered. But I don't

00:31:21.580 talk about the NDP there. I'm going to talk about just first Smith's, we're going to go back to the

00:31:25.160 NDP, but Smith's defensive strategy on this. Just, she's just kind of ignoring, pretending she 0.99

00:31:30.660 hadn't said it rather than have a story kind of like i said you know hey i've got like anyone i

00:31:36.260 hold some positions that not everybody else shares so i'm not seeking a mandate on it that simple

00:31:40.660 yeah she could have said that i guess and she figured the least said about it the quicker to

00:31:45.140 go away now discounts the ndp's initiative on this but uh it's no point in digging in on it and saying

00:31:51.460 yeah well actually i did used to i did used to think that but um obviously now you know don't

00:31:57.300 make it a complicated statement. That's all. So it's just a... Corey, it seems to be a very muddled

00:32:03.220 defense. When there is a very clear defense that, hey, just Albertans aren't there right now,

00:32:06.900 so I'm not seeking a mandate on it. Instead, it's been a very muddled defense, I think.

00:32:11.220 Premier Smith's been very muddled in general. That's been something of a trait coming up with

00:32:15.460 her, and it's challenging. But I mean, no matter what she says, the response from the NDP is going

00:32:20.260 to be the same. You can see where their tact is, is that you can't trust her. They're basically

00:32:24.020 saying she's going to lie about whatever. I think she's kind of playing into it by not taking a

00:32:27.800 clear position here. Take a clear position, they'll just say, well, look at all the pictures

00:32:31.400 saying, what will she do next and showing the weather vane? You know, so it doesn't really

00:32:35.500 matter what she says, they're going to do the same attack. What I'm wondering, it would be

00:32:39.840 refreshing, but I understand it's politically dangerous. It'd be nice to see somebody defend

00:32:43.320 it, just stand by it. We are seeing polling numbers for the first time in a long time,

00:32:47.840 federally, saying that Canadians are more receptive to health care reform than they've

00:32:51.360 ever been before. And we're having this problem in every province under every government. We need

00:32:57.680 to look at something new. But still, it doesn't seem any politicians are courageous enough yet

00:33:02.160 to say, yeah, I'm going to take that on. Yeah, the Supreme Court of Canada has actually,

00:33:05.720 it's ruled back in 2005 that... The Schiele decision, though, applies unfortunately only

00:33:12.500 to Quebec. Well, that's the way they've managed to make it stick. It actually applies across the

00:33:16.540 country, but they've managed to informally manipulate the... It's very weird the way that's...

00:33:21.000 Well, so the NDP, though, have been focusing on this with health care.

00:33:25.680 I mean, it kind of plays to an NDP strength.

00:33:27.540 It's a sword issue, as they say, for the NDP that they can attack with it.

00:33:30.780 Health care is traditionally a shield issue for parties on the right.

00:33:35.320 You want to minimize the damage against yourself, but you're probably not going to score too many points on health care.

00:33:39.740 So it's a defensive issue.

00:33:42.580 Corey, how successful do you think the NDP have been as an attack issue on this?

00:33:48.100 I think they've been, for my bias, but unfortunately quite successful. I go out and about

00:33:53.780 through the week. I talk to a lot of people and things, and that's, if I've heard anything where

00:33:57.700 there's conservative leaning people who feel uncomfortable, they're saying the same sort of

00:34:01.060 thing. Boy, I don't like the NDP, but oh, I don't want to have to take a credit card out to see my

00:34:05.940 doctor. That messaging is sinking home with some people, and I'm sure the NDP are starting to hear

00:34:10.980 a little more of that, and that means they're going to go harder on this. So the fear works

00:34:15.300 with this issue. Now, how does, pardon the pun, but how does Daniel Smith and the UCP inoculate

00:34:21.080 themselves, vaccinate themselves, if you will, from an NDP attack on this? Because so far,

00:34:27.480 I think it's just been muddled and not terribly effective. No, just do what you did. They did

00:34:31.980 the Jason Kenney-style big cardboard cutout, but, you know, I think that kind of got old with

00:34:36.120 Kenny. Just come right out and say it and keep saying it until it sticks. Well, that's what

00:34:41.800 they've been doing but like her explanation I think her policy position today does not jive

00:34:46.920 with her puzzle policy positions of a year ago when she was on the radio or at the western you

00:34:52.600 know show on the western standard it doesn't jive with it she hasn't had a story to explain that and

00:34:57.560 seems pretty lost right now so what can they do besides repeat what's not working currently

00:35:02.200 Well, that is sort of actually a big cardboard cutout, and even that would be dismissed as a, you know, just frivolous, you know.

00:35:14.680 So, no, she's going to have to simply point to the past, have we done it? No, we haven't. Will we do it? No, we won't.

00:35:25.260 New rule for elections. When one party says you will do something and you say you won't, but the other party keeps on insisting you will do it, you get to be allowed to do that thing if you win the election.

00:35:36.840 So when the liberals say Stephen Harper will put soldiers on the streets with guns, well, then Stephen Harper is allowed to put soldiers on the streets with guns.

00:35:44.940 Or the liberals say the conservatives are going to ban abortion. Well, then that gives the conservatives a mandate to, you know, limit abortion.

00:35:53.420 If you're going to be accused serially of doing something, you say you're not going to, I think it kind of gives you a backdoor mandate to do that thing.

00:36:01.500 All right.

00:36:03.020 So we'll return our attention a little further afield here.

00:36:05.700 So we have the Online News Act coming on now. And the Canadian Radio Television Commission, the CRTC, one of the most evil, evil conceptions ever to be brewed out of Ottawa, has now said that they've met with publishers.

00:36:28.680 And they've decided that under this new act, the CRTC, which is an arm of the federal government, gets to determine if a newsroom can show what's a credible news organization that would benefit from all the new the new round of free money coming.

00:36:45.180 So, you know, so we have Bill C-18. I'm actually flying out to Ottawa early next week to testify at the Senate to do my best to not kill the bill, at least try to minimize how terrible it will be for independent publishers like the Western Standard.

00:36:59.500 But this, you know, this bill is supposed to take money, confiscate money from Google and Facebook and give it to publishers because Google and Facebook helped us get our content in front of people.

00:37:09.360 I still can barely wrap my mind around the bizarre reasoning of the bill, but to determine who gets to have any of this money, for example, who's eligible for all the so-called free money?

00:37:22.400 Well, they're going to have to, again, get into further, the feds, they go deeper into the business of determining who's a newsroom.

00:37:29.160 And that means also dictating a journalism code of ethics that has to be met by otherwise independent news organizations.

00:37:37.820 Nigel, you've been around the news business for a long time.

00:37:41.280 Calgary Herald, a number of other regional, local publications in the West.

00:37:47.920 Goes back nearly 50 years, actually.

00:37:49.860 I was trying not to date you.

00:37:51.640 But, I don't know, what's your reaction?

00:37:54.780 Just as a journalist to the idea that the CRTC gets to define who's a credible newsroom

00:37:59.620 and what your code of ethics is going to be.

00:38:01.280 What? The basic thing is, does anybody have the right to report and comment? If you go downtown,

00:38:10.320 you go to and you see something, do you as a Canadian citizen, whether you work for a newspaper

00:38:15.920 or not, do you have the right to tell somebody else what just happened? The answer is yes,

00:38:20.160 of course you do. So the issue is now, yes, but because now it's money, this is the federal

00:38:26.800 government handing out dollars exactly and so the feds aren't going to say well uh joe blow with uh

00:38:33.280 a blog or a twitter account we're not stopping him from saying something but if he wants to get

00:38:37.920 free money from ottawa taken from google and facebook well he's going to have to do these

00:38:43.440 certain things that means we get to decide who's credible news organization and you have to comply

00:38:48.720 with the code of ethics well i i kind of doubt that the crtc is actually relishing doing this but

00:38:54.800 the law is going to be that in order to be eligible for the money, you have to have a code

00:39:00.640 of journalism standards and practices and ethics. And I suppose the CRTC feels the need to make

00:39:07.920 sure that everybody has the same set of rules. As long as the National Post isn't supposed to have

00:39:15.600 the same set of rules as the Toronto Star, you know, but that's actually the kind of dilemmas

00:39:20.960 that they are going to face in the absence

00:39:24.060 of a national organization setting those standards,

00:39:27.560 the CRTC will by default come up with them.

00:39:30.660 My problem with this, apart from just the whole principle of it,

00:39:37.260 is that this is about another, the government has been trying

00:39:41.500 to get into the news media and regulate it.

00:39:45.260 You said I've been in the business a long time.

00:39:47.160 I've been in before even the Kent Commission was called,

00:39:49.260 and that was 1980 and that was about newspaper concentration of ownership but somehow they made

00:39:53.820 it about content as well and trying to set standards and that's why we have press council

00:39:58.860 different subject but you know it's government control of the press they tried it then they keep

00:40:04.620 coming back trying to find different ways and their goal ultimately will be to say you are a

00:40:10.220 journalist and you are not you can have a public voice you can't that sounds like a certain person

00:40:16.860 running for the premier of Alberta. Well, since you mentioned it. Yeah. Okay, Corey. So, I mean,

00:40:25.180 it's an inescapable fact that journalism is now a highly regulated industry. You know,

00:40:36.380 when I decided to re-found the Western Standard back in December 2019, one of the biggest reasons

00:40:42.540 I picked journalism was that it was a virtually unregulated industry there was virtually nothing

00:40:50.220 three and a half years later and we're almost dairy farmers like we are this is

00:40:57.020 clearly they're they're cartelizing the industry it is being hyper regulated soon

00:41:02.460 they'll have us doing the equivalent of dumping out milk surplus milk here

00:41:06.220 but it keeps on going further and further and it's all about attaching dollars to things for them for

00:41:13.420 the most part it's all about attaching dollars and why do they attach dollars is for the sake of

00:41:18.160 control yeah it's because if you don't if you don't follow the line you don't get the money

00:41:23.020 because you know they can't outright come out and just ban inconvenient media that is critical of

00:41:29.320 the government and you know perhaps outside of the laurentian mainstream they can't ban it

00:41:35.020 constitutionally but what they can do is try to manipulate uh have the government manipulate

00:41:39.740 algorithms they'll see 11 to promote government friendly content downgrade government not friendly

00:41:46.140 content and even more powerfully fund and make economically prosperous pro-government media

00:41:53.820 and try to bankrupt anti-government media um but this always involves them getting into the sticky

00:42:00.540 stuff here. Do you think the CRTC, I will touch on what Nigel said, do you think the CRTC actually,

00:42:06.540 the guys there are very happy about doing this? No, I think they have enough to do, but there's

00:42:10.920 enough, I guess, busybody bureaucrats, there's someone who'd like to take that on. You know,

00:42:15.720 they'd like to convince themselves that they're on a moral crusade, I'm going to make the media

00:42:19.460 better for the populace and the citizens, and they'll set their codes. But I just can't accept

00:42:25.180 that sort of control on any level in any circumstance. I mean, if the industry were

00:42:30.420 to be controlled in any sort of way, it should be an industry organization. And I don't even think

00:42:35.240 there should be that but a government organization setting the rules. It's just exceedingly dangerous.

00:42:41.020 And it's it's going to end very poorly for all of us. So I want to quote here from Senator Pam,

00:42:46.540 Paula Simons. So as I mentioned, on Monday morning, some point Monday, I'm flying out on

00:42:53.660 I'm testifying before the Senate on Tuesday on Bill C-18, this bill exactly, and Senator Paul Simons, she was appointed by Justin Trudeau representing Alberta, although I'm not sure how you can represent something appointed to it, but it's neither here nor there.

00:43:08.720 Now, she's a veteran of the Edmonton Journal, and she's definitely on the left side, but she was a good journalist.

00:43:16.060 She dug into a lot of things and brought a lot of issues to light.

00:43:20.780 She was a quality journalist, even if I don't really agree on many of her conclusions on these things.

00:43:25.140 But here's what she said.

00:43:26.360 She called this bill, and now the CRTC having to come up with a code of ethics, defining newsrooms, et cetera,

00:43:35.760 She called it anathema to a lot of print journalists who do not believe the government, the state, the crown, should in any way be regulating the ethics of newspapers.

00:43:44.000 I'm wondering how you square that.

00:43:46.060 We'll have to get precise on that.

00:43:47.880 There should be clear definitions.

00:43:49.300 They should be neutral in how they apply.

00:43:51.000 They should not be written in such a way as to include or exclude a particular kind of news organization as long as that organization can show it's a credible news organization.

00:44:01.580 Okay.

00:44:02.620 I agree.

00:44:03.060 But the problem is, we all have very different definitions of what is a credible news organization.

00:44:11.080 There are people on the left who will insist, despite the scale, scope, and code of ethics our journalists work with at the Western Standard,

00:44:19.060 they'll say, well, you're not credible, therefore you can't be here.

00:44:22.460 And equally on the right, there'll be many conservatives who look at the other side and say, you're not a credible news organization.

00:44:29.800 So I don't know how you can, I don't think there is such a thing as a neutral definition that would not be playing political favorites here, Nigel.

00:44:39.280 Well, that's why the way we've done things from the past, you know, since Confederation has been one of the strengths of journalism in Canada that anybody with a point of view can get up and express it.

00:44:51.280 now it all became complicated when there was money attached to it but it is through money

00:44:57.840 that governments will try to control the dissemination of information very powerful

00:45:03.040 we knew it we talked about it when it came in we all knew what the game was and it's unfolding

00:45:08.560 before us because once there's money involved well then it's got to be fair they're going to define

00:45:12.800 what fair is and i i you know we live in dark times i'm going to close with this

00:45:18.640 Pablo Rodriguez, the Minister of Heritage, which oversees the CRTC, says, he said, the Online News Act is one piece of a large and complex puzzle that aims to build a safer, more inclusive, and more competitive internet for all Canadians.

00:45:36.340 I've spoken to my G7 colleagues about all of this, and I can say one thing, the whole world is watching Canada right now.

00:45:43.860 On that last part, at least, I think we agree.

00:45:46.980 I think we do.

00:45:47.840 I think if this is allowed to pass and then eventually take root here, I think we're going to see a lot of other wannabe tyrants in the developed and undeveloped developing world.

00:46:00.800 Take notice that if you can do this in Canada, you'll probably do it anywhere.

00:46:05.640 All right, Nigel, Corey, thank you for joining.

00:46:08.100 I thank all of you for joining us today.

00:46:09.920 I appreciate your time.

00:46:11.060 If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, please go to westernstandard.news, click on membership.

00:46:14.660 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited access.

00:46:18.580 It will be supporting Western Canada's leading independent news organization, 100% government bailout free.

00:46:27.620 Thank you very much for joining us today.

00:46:29.720 I hope you'll join us tomorrow for the Alberta Report.

00:46:32.500 Thank you and God bless.

00:46:34.640 Well, after a bunch of red days in the market over the last couple of weeks, we finally have a pretty solid green today.

00:46:40.740 and that just shows to go you that there's nothing permanent out there let's take a look at some of

00:46:46.180 these prices cash barley is holding steady at 410 a metric feed wheat's unchanged at 406 a metric

00:46:52.080 and corn is up two dollars to 398 a metric moving to the milling wheat markets for july minneapolis

00:46:59.280 futures bounced up 21 cents to 794 per bushel with local hard red spring bid for may movement at 1020

00:47:07.200 per bushel delivered. In the oil seeds, nearby canola futures are up $7.20 to $7.1660 per tonne,

00:47:16.160 with delivered values for May movement at $16 per bushel. Continuing on to the Paulson markets,

00:47:22.320 nearby red lentil prices remain at $0.35 a pound, with yellow peas trading at $11.50 per bushel.

00:47:30.200 Finishing up with the cattle markets, June live cattle are down 77.5 cents to 162.130 per 100 weight.

00:47:38.720 For more information on pricing and picked up on farm options, give me a call at 403-394-1711.

00:47:45.820 I'm Mike Van Dyke at Marketplace Commodities, accurate real-time marketing information and pricing options.

00:47:51.080 Canadian Shooting Sports Association, without the CSSA, our gun rights would have been taken long, long ago.

00:47:57.420 these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and

00:48:03.660 legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns

00:48:08.860 out of the hands of the wrong people to become a member it's absolutely worth every penny

00:48:15.660 you can become a western center member for just ten dollars a month or 99

Western Standard - May 04, 2023

The Pipeline： All quiet on the Western front (AB Elections 2023)

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