The Pipeline： Big Bucks for Hinshaw
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Summary
The first United Conservative Party of Alberta leadership debate. Who won it? Who lost it. Who's up? Who's down? And, of course, the Western Standard debate that's coming up on Tuesday, August 3rd.
Transcript
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Good evening, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching
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the pipeline. Today is August 3rd, and as usual, I'm joined by Western Standard news editor
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Dave Naylor. Evening, Derek. Corey, how you doing? Good as ever. See you by my big smile.
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Yeah. Corey, happy day. We've got a good show today. We're going to be talking about the first
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UCP Alberta debate. Who won it? Who lost it? Who's up? Who's down? And of course,
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the Western Standard debate that's coming up just this coming Tuesday. Big bucks for Miss Hinshaw,
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Miss Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer, raking it in. Big, very controversial bonus
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payments going to her approved by the UCP cabinet. And Jason Kenney's long goodbye. He forced out by
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his party, leadership race taking place right now to replace him, and we'll sit around like
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nothing's happened. We're going to talk about really what's he up to, because these are not
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the actions of a leader of a party who's been shoved out. It's very unusual. Before we get
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started, though, we need to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
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to defend your gun rights. Okay, let's jump into it. Last, actually pretty much right around the
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time we did the pipeline last week. We didn't get a chance to actually comment on it because
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it was technically almost at the same time. The United Conservative Party of Alberta held
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a leadership debate in Medicine Hat at the, what's it called? The Halo? What's it? It's a big
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airplane hangar. No, no, it's a helicopter hangar. Rescue helicopter. Yeah, what are they called?
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Halo? I think the helicopter one. The helicopter got a lot of great reviews, whereas the sound
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but they couldn't even get an internet connection.
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Blame the government, stinking government.
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Not easy to really pick a winner or loser.
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because candidates were allowed to choose who they would like to debate,
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So it basically seemed to come down to Brian Jean and Danielle Smith
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So if you're the frontrunner, which I think she is,
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and you don't do anything to shoot yourself in the foot,
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uh cory um obviously all shots fired at uh at danielle smith uh who do you think came on top
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you wrote a column about this yeah no i thought smith came on top for sure and not only just
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the positions but strategically and i think the group figured it out a little later but they kind
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of blew it at first it wasn't shocking to see all guns trained on the leader okay that's fine
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but the way that format was set up there were seven candidates they really limited who could
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speak. They would say, okay, you've got this issue and then you pick a person to debate with
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and we get four more minutes with it. Well, the first two, it was Sonny and Shulls both picked
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Smith. Well, Daniel's a very good communicator. And I mean, it's one thing to attack her, but
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when you suddenly give her two minutes to enunciate at length about her policies and
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defend her policies, you're helping her. You're giving her more time and she's very effective
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with it. And so, I mean, I'd say the first half of the debate, because the other candidates
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constantly picking her and giving her responses. Smith was taking up over half of the speaking
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time. I think they figured it out in the later half because they weren't picking her that much
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anymore. But it allowed her, she remained unruffled and just kept carrying on with her messaging.
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And it just made her look solid while the others were clearly in attack mode. I think she definitely
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came out on top. Campaigns normally strategize about these things, depending on what the rules
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are. And you're going to operate within the rules and strategize to get maximum effect on these
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things in advance. It blows my mind that none of the campaigns seem to think that, well, everyone's
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going after her, and this is just going to make her look more like the leader by having everyone
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go at her. The sole exception to that, at least from what I said when the video wasn't cutting out,
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was Todd Lowen. He went after Travis Taves over a few missing billion dollars, as identified by
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the Auditor General, went after him on a few of these fronts. How well do you think, I guess maybe
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let's go through, we've been talking about Smith because all the attention was on her, but let's
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talk about, actually let's talk about Todd Lowen first, and then we're going to go into the other
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two front runners, if you can call them that. Todd Lowen was the only candidate, Dave, who didn't
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seem fixated on Smith. No, keep in mind he's probably fixated on being kicked out of the UCP
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caucus so he'd like to get back in there and uh and wreak havoc uh so to speak but he he quite
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you know he picked his targets at travis taves and he wanted to focus people on the fact that
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taves was a member around the inner cabinet he helped make all these decisions about lockdowns
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and everything that the province has been through in the last two years and he wanted people to know
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that hey taves had a big hand in it and that's pretty smart pretty smart way to go about it
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Corey, there's two other candidates who were there who conceivably could win.
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I mean, I think it's fair to say Smith is in the lead, but I think it's far from a lock at this point.
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How do you think Brian Jean first fared from this?
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What was his objective going in, and do you think he met it?
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Smith came out outstandingly, just the way they basically gave it to her, gave her that time.
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But the other debate performances were fairly solid.
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He's in a hard place because he's giving a very – he's talking to the same crowd as Smith, and he's got a very similar message to her.
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And to try and distinguish himself from that was difficult.
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Though, again, he tried to speak over the moderator at one point just to fire in one quick shot about Daniel Smith's cancer statement.
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And it looked kind of petty towards the end of things.
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And, again, it gave Danielle an opportunity to apologize to people.
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she defended and, you know, offer sympathies because of Gene's son who passed away from
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him recently. So he was okay in it. Certainly better than he did in the general election
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debate of some years ago when he had a, what was the term that Ian Robinson had given to
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it? I just remember seeing that in his column when it said he called it a ghastly performance
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by Brian Gene and that just stuck, you don't see that word used often. So he's most improved
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as far as that went. Yeah. Dave, Smith was anticipating that her cancer comments were
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going to come up in this because it was just, I think, a few days before this debate. She was
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anticipating this. She tried to inoculate herself during her opening statements and whatnot. She
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was like, can I take a moment to address this? She kind of put it up front, tried to inoculate
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herself. But all of the candidates, I guess, had their kind of written down, kind of jabs at her
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already ready to go and they went anyway do you think any of those jabs landed or do you think
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uh maybe maybe they didn't come off so well because she had tried to inoculate herself and
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they just kept on talking about the same thing over and over and over as if no one had even
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spoken it kept giving her a chance to apologize again uh which she also did in the media scrum
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afterwards well it seems to me to be derek that was uh because of good communication it was it's
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basically being a one-day wonder scandal and uh i don't think there'll be much lasting damage
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done if at all let's talk about travis tapes uh one of the front runners he's got kind of the
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backing of most of the kenny establishment behind him um totally unknown though by most albertans
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like unless he's i'm not even convinced the majority of ucp members really know who he is
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but he's known in the inner circles, but not broadly by Albertans, and I think by many UCP members.
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I got to think going into there, his strategy or his goal in this debate is to make himself known
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and to stand out in some way and kind of get out of under the shadow of Smith.
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And do you think he, how close did he come to meeting him?
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And, you know, people did get to know him a little because they didn't know him at all before.
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So I think people watching the race closely at least realize they're looking into this man, you know, who is this guy?
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He's got a campaign against his own record, in a sense, as an establishment candidate without torpedoing his own party at the same time.
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And he used it like so many other candidates, though, rather to avoid it was to shoot out word at Smith, which you can understand strategically why.
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But I don't think that should be a priority of his.
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I said, tearing down Smith, let Sonny continue as she has with that
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and stick to explaining to people who you are, Mr. Taves,
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He's not full of flash and excitement, but he's well-spoken and intelligent,
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Dave, if Travis Taves' goal was to just be known,
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do you think he wasted his opportunity by maybe firing shots at Smith
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rather than maybe profiling himself considering it should have been well expected
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that everyone was going to be taking shots at Smith.
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Do you think it was a missed opportunity by him going in the offense
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Unless he realizes his candidacy is in a bit of trouble in trailing,
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But, you know, if I'm Daniel Smith, I'll just keep repeating the same three words,
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You know, and he cannot, he can't get rid of that picture.
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So, you know, I will link him forever to the adjacent Kenny government.
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Okay, well, let's shift gears just a tiny bit here.
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This coming Tuesday, so next week, we've got the UCP Frontrunners debate coming up,
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hosted by the Western Standard here in Calgary.
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You can get your tickets right on the Western Standard site.
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You'll see right along the top UCP tickets or UCP debate tickets.
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It's only $20 to cover the cost of the evening.
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We've got a big hall there set up at Rooftop Calgary.
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I don't think it was terribly useful because it was the questions when you've got that many candidates
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and it's official party debate, the question's very bland.
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You know, it's one question, if I can paraphrase, was after very long intros,
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what is, what will you do to ensure that the world knows how clean Alberta oil is?
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I mean, you've got seven candidates, you don't get a lot of good matchup.
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But now we're down, this debate's going to be just the top three
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who have a reasonable chance of making it to the final ballot.
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Well, it'll be a much better debate, no question about it.
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Well, of course it is, you know, and I'm sure you're working on your questions already.
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Less people equals better debating, better television, for lack of a better word.
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So, Corey, it's a big, you know, when you go into these things, the campaign's strategized, depending on who's on stage, what's the format, all of these things.
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It's going to have more pointed questions, but most importantly, far fewer people on stage.
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What do you think, you know, give me your idea of Taves and Gene.
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What's going to be their strategy in this debate coming up Tuesday?
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Well, in this case, I think they might, ironically, they'll go after Smith again and even more.
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because, again, it appears that they're trailing her
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You're not one voice trying to compete among seven.
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You're going to get a lot of minutes of talking
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because you're just three voices throughout the course of this.
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and take some swipes to try and knock down Smith.
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why he's more trustworthy then to get this done
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or why he might be more winnable in a general election.
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because their platforms aren't terribly different,
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I mean, they're both very focused on regional autonomy.
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but it shows that I'm experienced and I'm stable and I'm solid,
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His own non-memorable status works to his advantage there, though,
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Because if you ask people to list who was out in the Sky Palace,
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I've never seen anyone so lucky about where they sat down for dinner.
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Because if the camera is here, he was like facing over here.
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You had to really work hard to figure out who he actually was in the picture.
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Whereas you saw Kenny, you saw Nixon, you saw Shandro.
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And it was on the next to the house plant over there.
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Well, let's talk about decisions of the Kenny government.
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we're going to come to the long goodbye soon, but a lot of controversy around the bonus payments
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for Dr. Gina Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer. She was obviously a critical part in
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the Alberta government's decisions on lockdowns, on all sorts of restrictions, on vaccine passports,
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things that ultimately had the premier overthrown by his own party. Jason Kenney
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seems to disagree that she did a bad job, handed her a nice big fat bonus check, right?
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He did. This was a program set up, Derek, to pay people bonuses in times of emergencies,
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in times of disasters. But they thought it would be things like fires, wildfires and floods,
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things that maybe, you know, take a week of 24-7 work, and then they move on. They didn't really
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count on a pandemic lasting two years and two years with the bonuses. So last year alone,
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Dina Henshaw makes a pretty penny. She's got an important job, $363,000 a year. Her bonus...
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That is a very good base. It's bigger than my base. Her bonus was $227,000, more than
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a quarter million, bringing her total income for 2021 to $591,000. Now, she wasn't, in fairness,
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she wasn't the only one who got a bonus. There were scores and scores of provincial officials
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who did. The thing is, nobody knows, and Rick Bell did a very good column on this today in
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the Calgary Sun, nobody knows who signed off on them. Nobody knows how they came to be so large,
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And why didn't somebody say, excuse me, immediately, Canadian Taxpayers Federation attacked it, said that people who were getting, you know, base salaries of $363,000 shouldn't be getting any bonuses whatsoever.
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I mean, some documents would have surely been coming across his desk.
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You know, somebody should have brought up, hey, there's a quarter million dollars to Henshaw.
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He said, if he becomes premier, no bonuses without a ministerial sign-off.
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Actually, an interesting way to put it, because it's way indirectly for him to say, but I didn't sign off on it as minister.
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Should have been the health minister, maybe, or Tyler Shanda or Jason Copping.
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Jason Kenney has been silent, and Travis Davis has been silent, not taking media questions.
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So, yeah, it's a lot of anger from a lot of people.
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Dina Hinshaw put in a large amount of work over two years.
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So did a lot of other people who didn't get any bonuses.
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Well, Jason Kenney's been silent on that, but he's not been silent in general.
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So we're going to talk about his long goodbye now.
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He cheated through the wazoo by changing the rules constantly, changing the goalposts, trying to get a favorable outcome as possible.
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And after changing the rules, God knows how many times he comes out with like, what was it, less than 50% or 51%?
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A lot of people said, like, it's time for you to go.
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We need an interim premier, an interim leader of the party in the meantime.
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Kenny fought through to stay as the premier in the meantime.
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Generally, when someone is an interim premier or in this kind of lame duck phase,
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they keep a low profile. They try to let the leadership candidates who are running for the job
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take the spotlight. That's the future of the party. It's been anything but that now.
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Yeah, Jason Kenney seems to have reduced himself to the Twitter-in-chief, if that makes sense.
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He'll occasionally put out a tweet saying, this is good, and he may occasionally once a week
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attend a press conference. But other than that, he's kept, I think he's kept a fairly low profile.
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Interestingly, John Horgan in BC announced he's not running in the next election. And he's
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basically doing the same thing. Yeah, but he wasn't pushed out by his party or defeated in
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an election. He's got throat cancer. It's a very different circumstance. He didn't have his own
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party calling for his head. They're both leaned up premiers, basically. So I mean, Kenny, I thought
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But I think he's going to spend the rest of the summer
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a different take than I do on this one. I don't
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Do you think Kenny's keeping a low profile or not?
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I mean, he could have gone into complete hiding
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for, you know, the interim and just ride it out.
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He's making announcements and stuff on a few things,
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And I'm sure the new leader is probably going to want to do, put a new face on the party.
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But he's, I think he's trying to stamp some legacy stuff.
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I thought that was some nice high-level trolling.
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He picked the day that the NDP loves to celebrate Labor Day with their, I mean, shy of May Day.
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It was just him putting a finger into the eye on there.
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I mean, he's inviting some critique and stirring folks up.
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But again, it's not bringing in a large new policy or something that, well, you'd have to recall the legislature for.
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I mean, I guess the question is, what is expected?
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Because it's such a weird, unprecedented, long goodbye with a lame duck premier anyways.
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As you said, with Redford left, you had Hancock in there.
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Or with Horgan on the way out, he was on his own choice.
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Does anyone know who, what was his first name, Hancock?
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Dave. Dave Hancock. Does anyone know who Dave Hancock was? Or did you know who Dave Hancock was
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before I just mentioned that he was an interim premium? His portrait is hanging in the
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legislature. If you're premier for a day, you get up there. Absolutely. You just have to have one
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day because technically there is no such thing as an interim premium. There is one. He was one in
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the fact, but that's not an official thing. But I want to know in the comment section, do any of
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you know who Dave Hancock was? Made his mark and went to a few, I mean, he was education minister
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for a long time in political weenies knew about that but not many people would say that's in the
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list of portraits in the legislature at this point that's for sure well i don't know from
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either of you um do you think him sticking around is helping or hurting the party is it stopping it
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from maybe moving forward or renewing itself well without the shadow of the old leader sticking
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around or do you think him sticking around provides more stability that you're not having
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too much chaos and churn in the government while the leadership race takes place
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that's an interesting thought i never really thought of it but you can see he can keep that
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cabinet under a fair amount of control a lot more while he's in there i mean and it also kind of
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keeps them from really firing their guns at him so much during the leadership race as i said you're
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trying to distance yourself from the old administration while presenting yourself as
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new but without torpedoing yourself if kenny wasn't in there holding on to any remnant of
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power whatsoever they might be actually really shredding him a hell of a lot in this race right
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now and they're going to keep it a little quiet because hey he's still he's still in the room
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so and never mind just shredding kenny they may you know have a rush of blood to the head and do
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something stupid bring in some you know stupid program or something yeah there's always i think
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it also gives him at least a small degree of control over the leadership race it's no secret
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that kenny probably doesn't want either of the two front runners who called for his resignation
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uh daniel smith or bryant gene he probably doesn't want those people to succeed him he
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probably is looking for his former finance minister, Travis Taves. And you saw like an
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unprecedented intervention in the leadership race from Taves' interim replacement, Jason Nixon,
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who is finance minister in the meantime, blasting Smith and the Sovereignty Act in pretty harsh
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terms from a sitting minister in the government. I can't recall seeing that. If you have that kind
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of intervention into a leadership race, normally you have to leave the cabinet to do it.
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So I think Kenny sticking around gives him at least a few levers on it.
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It also means that the party machinery is a bit more responsive to him as leader.
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Whereas if he had left, he'd have no control over any of that.
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It means, you know, it's his last few months of power and he's going to try and hang on to it as long as he can, I guess.
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I want to thank all of you for joining us this evening.
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Thank you very much for joining us today, and God bless.