Western Standard - The Pipeline. Breaking down Kenney's latest pandemic plan

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00:02:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

00:03:00.000 Good afternoon.

00:03:27.900 Today is May 26, 2021. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard. Thank you

00:03:34.180 very much for joining us today on The Pipeline. Today I'm joined to my right, back in Wildrose

00:03:42.480 Country, is Dave Naylor, news editor of the Western Standard. Welcome back, Dave. Thanks,

00:03:46.540 Derek. Good to be here. You always look better in person. There you go. And Corey Morgan,

00:03:52.580 And as always, crowd favorite, our columnist extraordinaire and host of the Cory Morgan

00:04:01.700 Show.

00:04:02.200 How you doing, Cory?

00:04:02.780 Very good.

00:04:03.480 Thanks. 0.99

00:04:04.260 And coming to us from, I don't know, she might be too paranoid to let people know where they 1.00

00:04:09.100 are.

00:04:09.440 I don't know.

00:04:10.420 We're not going to tell you where people are.

00:04:13.160 Yeah, we're not going to tell people where you're actually at.

00:04:15.120 From an undisclosed location somewhere in Wildrose Country, Nadine Wellwood.

00:04:19.700 How you doing, Nadine?

00:04:20.720 I'm doing great.

00:04:22.580 Well, first we want to begin by thanking all of our members for your generous support.

00:04:28.580 We're very grateful.

00:04:29.580 Again, we're just blown away by the huge increase in sign-ups we've had week over week.

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00:04:39.580 membership.

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00:04:47.580 Today's show is sponsored by the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.

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00:05:17.580 um okay we're going to jump straight into uh today's show uh we're actually holding today's

00:05:23.180 show a little bit later than usual because we wanted to hear uh what alberta premier jason

00:05:28.320 kenney had to say at his news conference on uh reopening alberta if we can call it that today

00:05:34.400 uh so let's just go straight to dave nailer dave you've just unplugged your head from the computer

00:05:40.080 listening to what he has to say i think he's actually still speaking but i think he is still

00:05:43.460 speaking, yes. Not normally too much interesting at this point. You're not allowed to ask questions.

00:05:48.740 They just take it from French CBC, things like that. Give us the brass tacks of the reopening

00:05:56.420 plan. Well, Jason Kenney said the end of this thing is near, and he announced a three-stage

00:06:02.180 reopening plan for Alberta that a lot of people will be very happy to see. Starts on this Friday.

00:06:09.740 Churches will be allowed to be open as of Friday to up to 15% of their fire code capacity.

00:06:16.420 But things really start to kick into action next Tuesday.

00:06:21.280 June 1st, outdoor activities will be allowed to have up to 10 people involved.

00:06:27.660 Retail outlets can have 15% capacity.

00:06:31.960 And hair salons and other personal services can open by appointment only.

00:06:37.180 So I'm sure there's going to be a big lineup there on Tuesday morning trying to get in.

00:06:41.640 I think you should be first.

00:06:42.480 I should be first, yes.

00:06:43.940 After John Tory.

00:06:44.860 After John Tory.

00:06:47.380 Good news for social people.

00:06:50.120 They're going to reopen patios for having a beer.

00:06:53.980 But it is going to be only limited to four people down from six before the recent closures.

00:07:00.020 And, of course, those four people have to be from your household or if you're single, your two best cohorts.

00:07:06.620 We all live together, so we can go to a beer, right?

00:07:09.180 Oh, yeah.

00:07:09.960 Yeah, Dad, we can.

00:07:11.620 Okay.

00:07:12.900 And outdoor sports, up to 10 people.

00:07:16.220 Kenny announced they're going to do the reopening in stages linked to the number of people in the province vaccinated.

00:07:24.940 So if we get, right now, we're at 50% of the population and less than 800 in hospital.

00:07:32.780 So we actually hit that total on May 18th.

00:07:36.280 So they're going to put a two-week grading period between all stage reopenings.

00:07:40.780 So that puts us to the June 1st date.

00:07:44.020 Two weeks from now, if 60% of the population is vaccinated with at least one dose

00:07:50.520 and there's less than 500 people in hospital, we move to stage two.

00:07:56.100 Stage two means you can go to the movie, you can go to the theater, and you can go to the library.

00:08:02.500 If that doesn't suit you, you can go to your gym.

00:08:04.700 is gyms will be reopening.

00:08:07.600 Churches will be allowed one-third of their fire capacity.

00:08:11.060 And restaurants can finally open for indoor service.

00:08:14.060 They can have service for tables of six.

00:08:17.520 And the work-from-home order will be lifted at that point.

00:08:22.180 Shouldn't affect us too much.

00:08:23.880 We've been working from home the whole time.

00:08:25.900 Right.

00:08:27.160 Outdoor gatherings can have up to 20 people.

00:08:30.640 And if we get to stage three in two weeks from there, which would be early July, as long as we have 70% of Albertans having a dose, stage three has no hospital requirements, but then it's all restrictions lifted.

00:08:47.120 So Jason Kenney says he's looking forward to a Calgary Stampede and Edmonton K-Days with full attendance and CFL games in the province will be allowed to have full attendance.

00:08:59.960 The only thing that really stays in is the mandatory isolation requirements.

00:09:07.080 You will be required to isolate for 14 days if you get tested positive.

00:09:13.940 So there's lots of other facts on weddings and funerals and whatnot.

00:09:19.240 Well, I'm mostly just excited for K-Days.

00:09:21.420 Yes, K-Days. 0.96

00:09:23.140 That's what Alberta's all about. 0.92

00:09:24.240 Exactly.

00:09:26.200 So the basic story is online now.

00:09:29.180 the westernstandardonline.com. And as soon as we're done here, I'll be updating it with all

00:09:34.020 the little facts and figures. Excellent. Corey, we've got something. Is it good enough?

00:09:48.820 Well, I mean, not good enough for me. It might be good enough for others, but it is finally

00:09:53.320 something. I mean, something that's been lacking has been a plan. So at least we have a timeline.

00:09:57.820 You know, that's one of the things I think has always made it the most agonizing.

00:10:01.120 Like last January, you know, restaurants were acting up and people were having enough and

00:10:05.960 they were pushing back.

00:10:06.780 So we finally put out a plan.

00:10:08.440 The question is, do we believe them?

00:10:10.580 Because they're really prone to moving goalposts.

00:10:12.640 So, you know, I got a feeling it's going to matter more on what their internal polls say

00:10:16.280 with the UCP than what the actual numbers say if they could decide to pick the next

00:10:21.900 phase and the next phase.

00:10:23.140 But either way, I'll maintain some optimism.

00:10:24.820 it's seeing some light at the end of what's been an agonizingly long tunnel 0.97

00:10:28.440 and hopefully this crap just all ends soon. 0.94

00:10:32.640 Nadine, you know, it's light at the end of the tunnel, as Corey said. 0.99

00:10:36.260 The problem is we keep seeing light at the end of the tunnel

00:10:38.220 and Jason Kenney keeps on caving in again.

00:10:42.300 We're on again, we're off again, we're on again, we're off again.

00:10:44.920 Depending on how you slice it, we're still in the third or fourth lockdown,

00:10:49.800 depending on how you're defining a lockdown here.

00:10:53.140 although the cbc has said we've never had a lockdown but they like to adamantly say that

00:10:57.860 we never actually welded doors shut yeah we didn't shoot people for stepping onto their front lawn

00:11:04.100 well that was probably the next step i suppose um but you know it's light at the end of the tunnel

00:11:09.380 uh but this has been on again off again uh over and over and over uh but i mean covid does appear

00:11:17.940 to be on its way out. Make sure you meet your devices, Nadine. It does appear to be on its way

00:11:26.740 out. Vaccination rates in Alberta are actually relatively high now compared to, you know, Texas

00:11:35.220 and Florida, which opened long before they had anything comparable to our vaccination rates,

00:11:41.620 and they're fine. But with COVID actually on the appearing to be on the way out, assuming we don't

00:11:48.020 have another crazy variant that, you know, isn't affected by vaccines or anything, based on current

00:11:54.340 trends, it looks like we're on our way out. Do you think this plan is believable or how concerned

00:12:00.900 are you that they're going to move the goalposts again? Well, I think this is really a result of

00:12:06.500 public pressure and i think the polls that we posted actually really clearly point to that

00:12:11.780 there is not a lot of support right now for lockdowns and we are getting into summer season

00:12:17.220 and albertans like their summer it's short and they want to be outside and they want to enjoy it

00:12:22.740 so i think kenny was under a lot of pressure to do this um one of the things i really found

00:12:28.020 interesting was he talked a lot about uh the positive results of say texas texas reopened

00:12:35.940 back in March when they only had 14% of the population with the first dose. He has a condition

00:12:42.740 of 50%, then 60%, and then 70% having a first dose. And Texas has had continual drops in numbers

00:12:52.780 and astronomical great results having opened up the door. So I think the goalpost is set

00:13:01.040 really high. There was a lot of what I perceived to be a lot of public pressure putting on people

00:13:07.820 to get their vaccine. And yeah, I'm really curious because he says this is the reopen for summer,

00:13:15.500 but he makes no mention of what happens again in flu season starts in the fall.

00:13:21.620 That is a big piece missed by a lot of the media. I mean, I think we should probably do something on

00:13:27.460 this is that COVID also went down this time last year because it's strongly correlated to flu

00:13:35.980 season. I'm not a virologist, but we pay attention to what smart people say. And people on both sides

00:13:47.160 of the general COVID debate do agree it is tied largely to flu season. When you would normally

00:13:52.060 have a flu, you have a better chance of getting COVID. In fact, are we still at zero flus in

00:13:57.200 two years in Alberta? As far as I know, yeah. Well, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. I think we've had one, just to clarify. Well, one? No, I think you might be right. I did hear something about one flu. Okay. Well, either way, we seem to have eradicated the flu miraculously. So, but this stuff is tied to it. I mean, COVID is not going to be gone by the fall and the winter next year. It's still going to be percolating out there. I think it will largely run its course, at least

00:14:27.180 mute your systems um we've got to let it uh it's gonna run its course here but it's it's uh it will

00:14:35.020 come back up when we hit flu season again uh so i i think that's something definitely worth taking

00:14:39.980 a look at uh well nadine you set us up for a good segue into polls uh the western standard

00:14:48.220 uh has commissioned uh main street research keto maggie to do uh some real number crunching

00:14:55.980 on what Albertans are feeling right now on a lot of topics.

00:15:01.440 We're going to break it up piece by piece,

00:15:03.800 not go through all of it at once.

00:15:06.760 Let's start, even though there's a causal relationship,

00:15:09.580 we'll get into more of the causal stuff after.

00:15:12.120 I think what we should do is start with the high level numbers

00:15:15.140 just on where the parties stand.

00:15:18.280 So we asked a lot of different questions

00:15:20.340 and we've been releasing them.

00:15:22.600 We've actually got more to come probably tomorrow.

00:15:25.980 But in the series of questions we went through where the parties stand, how would people

00:15:30.980 vote if there was an election today?

00:15:32.940 How do they, do they approve or disapprove of the Kennedy government's handling of COVID?

00:15:37.860 And if they disapprove, why do they disapprove?

00:15:40.680 That's a key question that the media, the mainstream media tend not to ask with very

00:15:45.360 much enthusiasm.

00:15:46.360 So we're going to go through these.

00:15:47.580 Let's start with the Alberta numbers.

00:15:52.160 It's, you know, it's not necessarily good news for the NDP or the UCP.

00:15:56.800 The NDP and these numbers were not as high as other polls have shown them.

00:16:00.660 The UCP is still well back of the NDP, but with a definite emergence of a third party

00:16:07.620 in Wild Rose coming on.

00:16:08.860 Dave, why don't you walk us through the provincial horse race numbers?

00:16:12.300 Yeah, holy numbers, Batman.

00:16:14.920 Provincial race, according to the Main Street Research, 35% would vote for the

00:16:21.620 NDP party. 28% would vote for the UCP and 16% for the Wild Rose. Now, I think that's probably

00:16:30.600 the highest rate that they've ever polled at, Derek, which I think shows a lot of support that

00:16:37.300 has been traditionally UCP has gone to the right and the Wild Rose Independence Party. But yeah,

00:16:45.220 The numbers have been lower for the UCP.

00:16:48.920 They've been down in the low 20s.

00:16:52.180 So that's, you know, there's sort of good news and bad news for everybody in that part of the poll. 0.96

00:16:59.700 Good news mainly for the wild rovers.

00:17:02.820 Yeah, it definitely is the highest they've polled so far.

00:17:07.420 We polled, we had Main Street Research poll again back in January.

00:17:13.020 and they were around 9 or 10 percent then which is definitely on the cusp of you're going to

00:17:20.800 probably start to win at least one or two seats around that. 10 percent got the Liberals five

00:17:26.200 seats in 2012, 8 percent got the NDP four seats in 2012 but those parties had been around a long

00:17:33.280 time they knew where to concentrate their resources to try and still get seats even with a relatively

00:17:37.240 small amount of the vote. But at 16, they're definitely in a position to start winning some.

00:17:45.560 Corey, what do you think is driving these numbers? The NDP is not, in these numbers,

00:17:54.680 probably likely to win a majority government. Normally need minimum 38, normally 40% or more

00:17:59.800 to win a majority government in an election. 35 doesn't do it. They would probably win the most

00:18:04.520 seats but they probably don't get to be government regardless uh what do you think is driving the

00:18:08.520 numbers between both uh the ndp and the wild rose the ndp is going to stay flat there's only so many

00:18:15.720 albertans who embrace i mean the the progressive policies that they offer i mean they're frustrated

00:18:21.400 with the ucp uh there's people holding their noses perhaps still supporting the ucp but the ndp

00:18:28.200 that's that base they're going to have and it's going to fluctuate here and there by a few points

00:18:31.560 So what's really worth watching is what's happening on the right side, where the majority of Albertans are.

00:18:36.920 And the UCP has been a disappointment.

00:18:39.320 I mean, we've covered that a lot.

00:18:40.680 You know, when it came to standing up to Ottawa, it's almost universal.

00:18:43.600 People realize that Kenny's been extremely weak on that, which is a very strong area, of course, for the Wildrose Independence Party to grab that support.

00:18:51.740 Democratic reform, same thing.

00:18:53.700 You know, a useless recall bill and things such as that.

00:18:57.300 Paul Hinman, again, don't underestimate that guy.

00:18:59.520 He knows where these pockets of support, these wedge issues are, and he's harvesting them.

00:19:05.160 And, you know, the UCP has got to figure out who they are and where they're going, or they're going to really just see more of this bleeding.

00:19:13.080 And it's not just us predicting the wild rows will win seats.

00:19:16.960 Even the pollster, Kito Maggie, said they're in a position to take several of the rural seats.

00:19:23.140 Yeah.

00:19:24.920 Nadine, it's obviously an extraordinary poll.

00:19:27.740 Alberta has been very much a two-party system since the April 2019 election that saw only two

00:19:37.320 parties return to the Alberta legislature. Alberta's traditionally had one really big

00:19:42.060 party in the legislature. We've never had a minority government before. It's normally got a

00:19:46.740 medium opposition party at most, and then a smattering of very small, sometimes one,

00:19:54.780 two or three seat caucuses from smaller parties. This was very much not in keeping with at least

00:20:00.840 most of Alberta history with a strict two-party system. Poll we're seeing now shows that at least

00:20:08.000 if an election were held today, things could very well change in two years. Maybe Jason Kenney turns

00:20:12.200 it around and everybody's happy again while Rose disappears. But do you think we're, in your view,

00:20:19.520 are how stable is this are we headed towards a multi-party system in alberta again as we

00:20:25.920 traditionally have been or or do you think this is just kind of a flash in the pan of temporary

00:20:32.720 anger no i think we are definitely headed for a multi-party system um the ucp it's you know i

00:20:40.080 agree with corey the ndp is not going to go much higher it's uh it kind of caps itself out for you

00:20:45.680 know on its policies and it's progressive and it's it's moves to the left and the ucp is has just

00:20:52.400 continued to move further to the left i mean jason kenny came out with such strong language

00:20:57.280 on what he was going to do for alberta and challenging ottawa and he has been a very big

00:21:02.640 disappointment for those who just came out gung-ho and fully supported him and he's losing that

00:21:08.560 support so it's not so much that we've got you know the right and the left the ucp is leaving

00:21:14.400 people behind and they are omitting um the wild rose who are truly you know the more conservative

00:21:22.160 um of the ucp voters and you know i i think they're here to stay i don't think they're going

00:21:28.560 anywhere and i think that's good news for alberta because if you think about it um you know wild

00:21:33.600 rose tends to be a lot of rural um area uh residents as well and there is a real difference

00:21:39.680 that's between um urban and rural and this was the rural districts i think a much stronger

00:21:47.200 position in government to have an influence and a say in what happens in this province

00:21:54.400 all right well uh i want to talk about what's driving these numbers uh we've been trying to

00:21:58.880 dance around it to not step on our own toes here but uh dave why don't you walk us through some of

00:22:04.640 these numbers here uh we'll start with albertans opinions on lockdowns and continued restrictions

00:22:11.520 how uh you know where are they uh i know the media say well most albert the vast majority

00:22:18.160 of albertans kenny says the overwhelming majority of albertans support our common sense measures

00:22:22.960 we know you don't like it but they they support what we're doing only a tiny fringe oppose it

00:22:27.840 uh so let's talk about how many we won't get into why people are opposing it yet we're going to save

00:22:32.800 that for the next section here but let's get into uh uh are people supportive of lockdowns right now

00:22:39.520 if i want to comment on that quickly because i think kenny confuses compliance

00:22:44.800 with acceptance okay well let's just go through the numbers first and then we're going to discuss

00:22:49.680 them hold your horses nadine uh no derek is a quick answer not all not all albertans support

00:23:00.160 lockdowns in fact it's almost 50 50 split uh our poll shows uh 52 percent uh support the lockdowns

00:23:08.240 while 45 percent uh are against uh obviously a couple people didn't have an answer but yeah the

00:23:16.240 province is split um a problem mainly along party lines i would think too uh most ucp voters are

00:23:25.760 are against it while the overwhelming number of NDP voters are for it. Also a split in probably a

00:23:34.240 little bit of a split in the rural areas to cities but surprising surprising numbers all around.

00:23:42.240 Yeah okay so we'll break it down a bit more here. First off is yeah 52 percent of Albertans saying

00:23:52.560 they still they support the lockdowns and continued restrictions 45 against the big difference and you

00:23:58.800 can see this on the screen here is the intensity difference between the two sides so uh 52 say

00:24:06.000 they support continued lockdowns um but only 11 are the hardcore pro-lockdown i call them the super

00:24:14.720 karens they uh they're the one so that's 11 who said that uh we should remain locked down with

00:24:21.680 with all the restrictions in place until absolutely every single last person in Alberta is vaccinated.

00:24:28.300 Not something that's even technically possible.

00:24:31.600 That number is down significantly from when we pulled it just a few months ago.

00:24:38.780 You can see kind of the intensity differences there.

00:24:41.220 So on the left side, you're going to see January when we pulled it.

00:24:44.300 So the hardcore Cairns, they're about the same, nine, up a little bit to 11.

00:24:48.700 But the moderate lockdown people, if we can call them that, they're down from 48% to 41.

00:24:56.800 On the other side, though, people opposed to the lockdown, it was only 39% opposed in January.

00:25:04.000 And 12% of the total were people who said, and absolutely everything immediately right now, no restrictions whatsoever.

00:25:11.060 Those are the hardcore anti-lockdown side.

00:25:14.440 that hardcore anti-lockdown side has more than doubled from 12 to 25 percent uh so added together

00:25:21.940 with 20 that's up to 45 that's that's a significant increase in the number of Albertans who say

00:25:27.480 they're opposed to the lockdown over just a few months ago in January um but there's a few other

00:25:34.600 ways we can slice this too uh by party so you'll you'll see here we've got um support or opposition

00:25:43.440 to lockdowns broken out by people who say they're voting for different parties. Unsurprisingly,

00:25:50.400 85% of NDP supporters say they support lockdowns, just 12% opposed.

00:25:57.200 Unsurprisingly, again, actually, I'm surprised there are 12% of Wildrose voters who say they

00:26:01.840 support lockdowns. Their voters are actually the most uniform of any of the parties. Nadine,

00:26:08.400 you got to make sure you shut off your sounds. But they had 88% opposed among Wild Rose voters.

00:26:17.960 Now UCP voters were a bit more divided. You see 40% supporting lockdowns, 55% opposed. So a clear

00:26:25.520 majority of UCP voters are opposed, but they have a significant minority in favor. But it should be

00:26:31.680 kept in mind here. If you look at how people voted last time, then UCP voters in that group

00:26:37.460 voting last time as compared to people who are still with the UCP, they're even more overwhelmingly

00:26:43.480 against lockdowns. So Kito Maggi says that's a key factor in driving support away from the UCP

00:26:50.220 toward Wild Rose. They're bleeding support from both sides towards the NDP who want harder

00:26:57.520 lockdowns and towards Wild Rose, which want to end them. And unsurprisingly, we can add regional

00:27:04.560 dimensions into this uh edmonton broadly i'm sorry there is a good brave minority of you there

00:27:11.600 34 opposed in edmonton uh but 64 in edmonton uh supportive of lockdowns calgary a little more

00:27:20.080 balanced uh 59 in support of lockdowns 38 opposed and i hate the way pollsters do this this is not

00:27:27.840 my language just rest of alberta i think it's condescending i don't like the terminology but

00:27:33.200 i suppose it's the most correct way to come up with it that's just everything outside the two

00:27:36.640 big cities 59 opposed to lockdowns and just 38 uh in support so i think the the big takeaway from this

00:27:48.720 is that albertans are extremely divided over the issue slim majority still in favor but most seem

00:27:54.800 opposed ndp supporters loving lockdowns lock us down long lock us down hard wild rose voters

00:28:02.320 absolutely hate this stuff. They think it's terrible. It should end immediately. And UCP

00:28:08.940 voters, most but not all, think it's time to end the lockdown as well. You've got huge divisions

00:28:16.300 between urban and rural. And it's clearly driving political support to that earlier poll we saw.

00:28:24.380 Nadine, I know you're chomping at the bit.

00:28:26.920 But what's your take on how this is breaking down across parties and across region?

00:28:34.460 Well, again, I think you see a real differentiator between rural and urban.

00:28:38.960 Let's take Edmonton, for example, just out of that equation.

00:28:43.240 And you've got an overwhelming majority of Albertans that do not support lockdowns.

00:28:50.100 And, you know, let's take a look at Jason Kenney and his...

00:28:52.820 I don't know if we could just take Edmonton out of the equation.

00:28:56.920 I didn't know that option was on the test.

00:29:00.940 Wishful thinking, I guess, for some people.

00:29:04.800 You know, and the key here is, let's take a look at Jason Kenney's base.

00:29:08.620 He keeps claiming that his base supports the lockdowns.

00:29:11.800 But is that really what his base is saying?

00:29:14.320 It's not.

00:29:15.220 And he has to take a good hard look and realize that that is indeed not the case.

00:29:21.540 And so is he appealing?

00:29:22.860 Is he trying to appeal to the NDP voter?

00:29:26.000 You know, who's running the show here? That's the question I want to know right now. You know,

00:29:31.600 the people who voted him in don't support these lockdowns. And here we, you know, just coming out

00:29:36.880 of some of the harshest lockdowns we've seen in the country. Corey, how dangerous is this

00:29:47.520 politically for kenny and the ucp um i mean on any issue if albertans are roughly split 50 50

00:29:55.920 you can pick one of them the problem is the most of the people supporting lockdowns they're

00:30:02.560 overwhelmingly ndp the ndp supporters seem to love this uh his former base which is now increasingly

00:30:09.440 pushing wild rose they hate it with the fire of a thousand suns his own remaining voters of which is

00:30:16.880 He's only got 48% in this poll.

00:30:18.960 He's got about 48% of people who voted UCP last time.

00:30:23.080 So, like, slightly less than half of people who voted UCP still say they're there.

00:30:26.340 But even among those remaining UCP voters, a clear majority oppose lockdown, say it should end immediately.

00:30:33.460 How dangerous is this politically for the Premier?

00:30:35.780 It will vary if he keeps up the current course.

00:30:38.760 I mean, those patterns with the NDP, there's a couple of reasons for that.

00:30:41.840 85% support continued lockdowns.

00:30:43.820 Now, I bet you 85% of those NDP supporters have guaranteed income with union jobs.

00:30:48.120 This has been a year-long vacation for them.

00:30:50.580 They've been sitting at home.

00:30:51.500 They haven't missed a mortgage payment.

00:30:52.760 They haven't sweated their pensions.

00:30:54.460 They aren't worrying about losing their houses, their vehicles, their savings.

00:30:58.720 So they're okay with it.

00:31:00.060 They're perfectly fine with it.

00:31:00.960 The other thing is the mentality of progressive people is that government can and will solve

00:31:06.180 everything.

00:31:06.780 The solution to everything is government.

00:31:08.480 And if it's not good enough, get more government.

00:31:10.780 Now, Kenny trying to court those people is pissing in the wind.

00:31:13.820 There's no point. They're not going to support him. So look, you know, if you're looking just

00:31:18.460 on the cold political reality wise, he needs to look at the people. I mean, you saw how it changed

00:31:23.860 from people being virulently opposed to the lockdowns and how that's grown from nine to 25%,

00:31:28.100 I believe. That is probably people now who were hitting the end of their business rope. Like they

00:31:33.620 are, they were hurting before. Now they're on the brink of bankruptcy. That's why it's gotten that

00:31:37.640 much stronger. Like we have to open up now. So if these people go broke, these people get hurt like

00:31:43.600 this, they are never coming back to the UCP under Kenny. I mean, they can't, they won't be able to

00:31:47.960 stomach him. They're losing houses. They're losing businesses. They're losing life savings.

00:31:52.340 So he's got to figure out where his support is. As kind of Nadine was saying, find his base

00:31:56.920 and bloody well cater to it. Quit trying to win the NDP. You're never going to do it. Never.

00:32:04.580 Well, okay. So this is the perfect way to move on to our next one. Is he at least trying to,

00:32:12.160 I mean, Kenny is not a dummy. He understands you can't, the people on screen can't see,

00:32:20.880 but some of our staff, some of our staff in the back just scratched his head and looked at me

00:32:24.320 curiously when I said that. But I do not believe he's a dummy. At least he hasn't, well, at least

00:32:30.820 he's always been a smart political operator until fairly recently. And it's been difficult to try

00:32:35.880 and explain and rationalize what he's doing. Even if you didn't agree with it, you could at least

00:32:40.620 see where he was going with things in his head. So the big thing is, you know, if you can't win

00:32:47.080 over everybody, at least make sure the people you need to win over, your voters or your potential

00:32:51.600 voters are on side. That's not really happening. So we're going to bring up our next poll here.

00:32:58.880 We had Main Street Research ask Albertans. Actually, let me just actually back up for a

00:33:04.860 second. I saw one comment say, I wasn't pulled. This isn't an election. This is not a referendum.

00:33:10.620 we are not bullying every single person because that would take roughly 10 million dollars to do

00:33:15.980 for a single question it's a little outside the western standards budget uh i mean if someone

00:33:22.940 sends us 10 million dollar check we'll hold a referendum on whatever question you want it'll be

00:33:27.020 fun uh no but this is a scientifically conducted poll this is not you know when the western standard

00:33:33.340 or ctv the calgary herald puts something up and says click here those are not scientific polls

00:33:38.140 those are just kind of for fun and for interest. This is you poll Albertans, you spread it out

00:33:44.020 regionally, and you weight it. You weight it by sex. You weight it by age. You weight it by geography

00:33:51.100 to try and get a scientific sampling of the population. They can sometimes be wrong, but

00:33:55.700 more often than not, they're quite right. As long as you're asking good, fair, upfront questions,

00:34:00.720 all of the methodology is on the Western Standards website right now. You can check it out for

00:34:04.600 yourself, download it, see the methodology, see the actual raw data, check it out for yourself.

00:34:10.920 It's pretty solid stuff. We don't always like the answers we get. I mean, 52% of Albertans still

00:34:16.100 support lockdowns. I'd like to see that number a hell of a lot lower. Doesn't mean I might not

00:34:20.720 agree with the number, but I think it's a credible number. So let's just jump into the next here.

00:34:26.060 We asked out, well, we had the pollster, Main Street Research asked Albertans if they approved

00:34:31.200 of the UCP government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. What you see in front here are the

00:34:38.700 results. Actually, there is a slight error on that. That's our fault. You see 66% of Albertans

00:34:46.580 disapproving. The approval actually is not 20. That segment of the soft approval of Kenny is 20%.

00:34:54.880 The dark green UC, that's the hard approval. Do they strongly approve of Kenny? That's

00:35:01.180 nine. So the total approval of the Kenney government's handling of COVID-19 is 29%.

00:35:07.740 The total disapproval is 66%. And of course, there's some people who say other or don't have

00:35:13.540 an answer. But a big part here is the intensity. Of the small number, just 29% that approve of the

00:35:22.000 government's handling, just 9%, single digits, strongly approve of the government's handling.

00:35:28.100 If you look at the disapprove, those who strongly disapprove, well, I don't actually have the number right here, but it is, I think, on its own about 45 to 50%.

00:35:39.480 So the number of people who strongly disapprove is massively larger than the people who strongly approve of the government's handling.

00:35:50.840 Dave, geez, actually, that's kind of the part where you should have given.

00:35:55.400 but why don't you flesh it out a bit more what's driving that well I think it's several things

00:36:05.640 Derek and I think it'll probably be the next slide that helps explain it they're not the people are

00:36:10.240 opposed by very different reasons some people are opposed because it it's too harsh on the economy

00:36:17.480 other people say it's not harsh enough so there's a real dichotomy and in why people are opposed

00:36:23.980 there why people are for it so but it i mean it's you know we've long known that jason kenny's had

00:36:31.420 the worst record of all the premiers for his handling of covet so we've known for a good

00:36:36.700 long time that albertans are very unhappy with the way things have been going and this poll just

00:36:41.900 hammers it home nadine i i was trying you for not meeting your computer again um dave why don't you

00:36:52.860 flesh out the numbers. So this, what you see here, we asked a follow-up question that I've not seen

00:37:01.240 any of the other media ask. They say, you know, they ask, do you approve of the way your premier

00:37:05.220 is handling COVID-19, stuff like that? And Albertans say, no, we don't. We're angry. We're

00:37:09.720 pissed off. And the CBC and the others will turn around and say, see, it's because Jason Kenney,

00:37:15.720 people are disapproving of Jason Kenney because he's not locking down hard enough. He cares too

00:37:20.020 much about the economy, not enough about saving people's lives. And they just kind of leave it

00:37:25.500 there. And there's this very small, tiny fringe over here that are angry because they're nuts 0.98

00:37:31.100 and oppose lockdowns. Well, we wanted to ask people why they are upset. We had a follow-up

00:37:37.080 question. So we asked people who said they approved. We asked why they approved. Most of

00:37:41.840 them were just, mostly UCP voters who said they found the right balance between the economy

00:37:45.400 and health.

00:37:47.700 The really interesting one was the follow-up question to those who said they disapprove.

00:37:52.260 So, Dave, why don't you break down the numbers?

00:37:54.640 You know what, Derek?

00:37:55.240 I'm going to leave it with you.

00:37:56.280 You know more about it than I do, and you're on a roll.

00:37:59.220 Okay.

00:37:59.580 Well, if media doesn't work out, I'm going to go into polling.

00:38:03.220 You're a numbers nerd.

00:38:04.580 You were geeked out about this the whole weekend.

00:38:06.780 Yeah, I do love this stuff.

00:38:08.460 You didn't leave your den the entire three days.

00:38:11.640 Yeah.

00:38:11.920 Okay.

00:38:12.140 So of those who said they disagreed with the government's handling, so this is a number that's going to break the CBC's hearts here.

00:38:23.880 So this is a subset already.

00:38:26.500 These are just people who say they disapprove of the government's handling of COVID-19.

00:38:31.400 Only 36% say that the government focused too much on the economy and not enough on public health.

00:38:38.220 That's essentially the NDP side of things.

00:38:41.640 they're angry at Jason Kenney because he is not locked down hard enough.

00:38:47.400 And then we had an almost equal number, 34 on the polar opposite side, that are upset and they

00:38:55.180 disapprove of the government because Kenney has shut down businesses, outlawed regular activities

00:38:59.320 and violated civil liberties. Another 14% say they are upset with the government for not

00:39:05.360 providing enough support for families and small businesses. I would kind of, I'd posit that those

00:39:12.420 are the soft anti-lockdown folks. They're not as hardcore as the 34% I mentioned before that are

00:39:20.160 angry about shutting everything down. There's another 14% that say the government didn't

00:39:24.400 provide enough support for families and small businesses. And then a fairly sizable 16% who say

00:39:30.300 other and uh i'd be interested to know what that 16 other is i think as i've said before when you

00:39:36.300 have a significant number of people saying other or something else it behooves a pollster trying

00:39:41.580 to figure out what that is but that would be in the next round of polling we should we should

00:39:45.260 try to discover what that is um nadine um as we said uh we're told all the time when people say

00:39:55.500 they disapprove of the government's handling of this that they're only upset because kenny hasn't

00:39:58.860 locked us down hard enough. Do you think that these kinds of numbers are going to be recognized

00:40:07.180 by the government? Do you think actually that numbers like this, that people are angry about

00:40:10.460 these lockdowns, that's dominantly why they're disapproving of the government? Do you think that

00:40:15.420 that is what's driving Kenny's kind of at least announcing some plan today?

00:40:21.820 Well, this actually in my opinion goes to the exact opposite. This is what's driving

00:40:28.460 kenny's numbers down all over the place um people are not supportive of the lockdowns because he's

00:40:34.540 been too harsh actually that's what the data no sorry my question was though uh because these

00:40:40.380 numbers are showing people do not support lockdowns uh tons of people disapprove of the government's

00:40:45.820 handling of this because they're angry about lockdowns do you think numbers like this because

00:40:50.540 surely they've they're pulling too they've got unlimited tax dollars to spend on polling on

00:40:54.300 these kinds of issues. Do you think that these kinds of polling numbers are what's driving

00:40:59.420 the sort of go slow reopening announcement today? Or do you think that's just completely

00:41:05.820 independent of the polls here? Oh, no, it certainly plays into it. They have to know,

00:41:11.740 the polls have been dropping and they have to know the narrative that they've been coming out

00:41:16.060 with has been incorrect. I mean, the polls are proving that. So I think the about face today is

00:41:21.420 about oh look at all the wonderful things we're doing and yes we're getting back to normal and

00:41:26.620 you know giving the power back to the people um i think it's definitely a direct result of what

00:41:33.260 we're seeing uh from this polling data they know it we know it they know it i think one of the

00:41:40.460 commentators just had a good point uh derek that keto maggie also brought up we're only halfway

00:41:46.460 through jason kenney's uh term it's got two years to go to the next election well you know hopefully

00:41:53.660 he's right and this covert thing is going to be all gone by by mid-july will two years from now

00:41:59.420 people have not forgotten what he's done but will they have forgiven him and will all these polls

00:42:05.420 turn around people remember what the ndp was like they decide well i'm not going to stick my vote

00:42:10.860 with a an independent minded party okay i'll give jason one more chance so these numbers are dismal

00:42:17.420 for him but there is there is they're not fatal well cory why don't you speak to that um i mean

00:42:24.860 yeah his overall polling numbers are crap you know we went through that at the top of the polling

00:42:29.500 section here we've seen uh you know the ndp lead but not necessarily headed for majority government 0.93

00:42:35.900 right now. The Wild Rose certainly eating their lunch. Rural Alberta, it's actually a three-way

00:42:40.880 race. It could be anybody's guess how it goes there. But then we've kind of gone through some

00:42:47.960 of the factors that are leading into this. But, you know, Todd Lowen's letter when he resigned

00:42:53.280 as caucus chair before Kenny booted him from caucus, he hardly even touched on COVID. He went

00:42:58.460 through a lot of other things like weakness or perceived weakness in dealing with Ottawa,

00:43:03.220 law, fair deal issues, balance budgets, things like that. If we do have, as Kenny says, the

00:43:10.360 best summer ever, and we get to enjoy a Calgary stampede, and things return to some kind of

00:43:18.160 normalcy this summer, do you think these numbers are going to change? And will people more or less

00:43:24.440 just kind of go back to the mothership? Well, they can change. I mean, that two years is

00:43:28.420 a virtual eternity in politics. A whole lot can change in that period of time. But exactly as you

00:43:34.000 said, there's the underlying issues. He's got to find out who he is and who he's catering to and

00:43:39.200 who his base really is. And the cracks were already forming before COVID hit. I mean, he was

00:43:45.040 kicking the can down the road on the fair deal panel. He was overspending. He was never even

00:43:50.320 talking about democratic reform. We were already getting impatient with what we elected him to do

00:43:55.760 before COVID hit, and that's the base that's fleeing now. As you said, Todd Lowen didn't

00:44:00.400 even mention COVID when it was initial letter. It was all of the other things. Those are what

00:44:04.720 he's going to have to get together and find himself and recover that loss within two years.

00:44:10.880 Can it be done? Sure, it can be, but will he? That's a whole separate question altogether. I don't know.

00:44:18.000 Nadine, any final thoughts from you? I don't think he's going to do it.

00:44:21.600 i think the best thing the ucp can do is find a new leader somebody who can walk like walk the talk

00:44:28.800 and i think kenny has disappointed far too many conservatives in this province and it's not just

00:44:34.560 covid i mean it was happening long before covid like uh corey pointed out and uh you know you've

00:44:40.560 got just way too much i think to recover from and i'll know that keto actually talks about the polls

00:44:47.280 and it's very unlikely when you see this kind of shift happen in the polls that it shifts

00:44:54.160 back so you know from a polling standpoint highly unlikely and just from a personal standpoint the

00:45:02.720 lockdowns have been harsh and i think people will remember how harsh kenny has treated pastors how

00:45:10.400 harsh she has treated business people um those who have legitimate exemptions i don't think

00:45:16.480 people are going to forget this anytime soon. All right. Yeah, no, Kitamegi did say that

00:45:24.000 when you have a move like this, it's quite sticky. Historically in Alberta, the progressive

00:45:29.120 conservatives were able to recover from catastrophically unpopular premiers

00:45:34.240 by dumping the premier. That's how you did it. Ed Stelmack got elected on a big,

00:45:40.400 huge majority government, got unpopular, they whacked him. And they were put in Alison Redford,

00:45:46.400 And she gets in, wins a pretty decent-sized majority government. 0.87

00:45:50.420 She gets unpopular.

00:45:51.860 They whacked her.

00:45:53.520 So they just keep on turning them over.

00:45:55.680 Don Getty, it happened with him, too.

00:45:57.900 Ralph Klein they whacked, but he wasn't unpopular.

00:46:00.080 He kind of stayed too long.

00:46:01.360 Tired of him.

00:46:02.080 The party tired of him internally.

00:46:04.460 But Don Getty was headed for defeat, and they whacked him.

00:46:08.800 I'm watching too much Sopranos lately.

00:46:10.180 It sounds like a Sopranos.

00:46:11.540 Actually, I was just watching The Godfather.

00:46:12.880 I watched one and two over the long weekend.

00:46:14.720 so uh you know you gotta bear with me um so that does seem to be the way that the old progressive

00:46:22.100 conservatives could re rejuvenate themselves in the polls you know then they put prentice in and

00:46:26.680 then well they they i think they played every card by the time they put prentice in so um but

00:46:32.700 that does seem to be the way to rejuvenate it's a big question can they do it with jc kenny there

00:46:37.500 because i know a lot of people are saying leadership review or the caucus caucus if i'm

00:46:42.740 wrong that the time though is is going to be soon because probably by the next month probably by the

00:46:48.960 mid of july he won't have have to take his marching orders from dr dina hinshaw anymore he'll have to

00:46:54.480 take his marching orders just from the cabinet and you know we know where he is with his cabinet at

00:46:58.940 the moment so yeah yeah no i know a lot of uh a lot of viewers say it's time to dump him as leader

00:47:04.240 and replace him as head of the ucp but um if i know him he's not going anywhere no matter what

00:47:09.400 no matter how bad the polls get for the party. I don't see him stepping down. I don't know. I'll

00:47:18.120 bet in a small group, I'll give you odds that he's not going anywhere. But my bet is he's going to

00:47:23.740 lead the UCP into the next provincial election. And I'm not sure that that's a particularly good

00:47:28.360 thing if you're a UCP MLA fighting for your seat against either the NDP or the Wild Rose right now.

00:47:34.940 Okay, well, we're going to wrap it up there. We want to thank all of our members for your

00:47:41.560 generous support. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, go to westernstandardonline.com

00:47:45.940 slash membership. Try it free for 15 days. Western Standard refuses to accept a penny

00:47:51.340 of the federal government's media bailout. And we're proud to be here as an independently

00:47:56.600 Western-owned and Western-focused media outlet here for you guys. And don't forget that today's

00:48:03.660 show is sponsored by the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights. Nobody fights harder for your

00:48:09.800 firearms rights, other than maybe Corey, than the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights. They're

00:48:17.100 a fantastic organization. Go to firearmsrights.ca and click Y. Join us to find out more about why

00:48:24.380 you should become a member and supporter of the CCFRA. Thank you all very much for joining me.

00:48:30.000 Nadine, Dave, Corey. It's been a slice as usual. Stay safe. Have a good day.

00:49:00.000 You

Western Standard - May 27, 2021

The Pipeline. Breaking down Kenney's latest pandemic plan

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