The Pipeline： Calgary's $87 billion climate crusade
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Summary
In this episode of The Pipeline, we're joined by Western Standard editor Dave Naylor, editor-in-chief Corey Morgan, and publisher Derek Fildebrandt to talk about the Oilers' loss to the Oilers, the Calgary City Council's $87 billion climate change crusade, and the crowded field of candidates in the United Conservative Party of Alberta's leadership race.
Transcript
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Hello, today is June 8th, 2022. I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard,
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And you're watching The Pipeline. Today I'm joined, as always, by my good friends, Western Standard News Editor Dave Naylor. How are you, Dave?
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Doing great, Derek. The Oilers have been eliminated. All is right in the world again.
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Good. Good. All right. Also joined by Western Standard Opinion and Broadcast Editor Corey Morgan. Corey, you don't really care at all, do you?
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Okay, well, we got a lot of hurt for you today.
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Today, we're going to be talking about Calgary City Council's $87 billion.
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$87 billion from a city with a little over a million people.
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we're not making that up holy hell okay we're gonna get into it uh you're gonna love it um
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speaking of other giant almost unbelievable numbers uh 600 000 plus are now eligible to vote
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uh expected to be able to vote in the federal conservative party of canada's leadership contest
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uh that is i think more than twice as much who have ever voted in a federal conservative party
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leadership race. It is an absolutely gargantuan figure that is either going to make predicting
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things much more complicated, or if Pierre Polliver is right, much more simple to call.
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Absolutely astounding numbers. So we're going to talk about that, what it means for the federal
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conservative leadership race. And speaking of, today's about big numbers. It's a big number day.
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But with the United Conservative Party leadership race in Alberta, the big number is the number of
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people running. We've got one, two, three, four, five, six, six confirmed. Is it just six so far?
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At least six confirmed and in the race formally. Two that we know about who are actively kicking
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the tires or maybe a bit more. And I wouldn't be surprised if we get near a dozen there. We're
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going to talk about the crowded field shaping up for the United Conservative Party of Alberta's
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leadership race and the different dimensions we're going to see there. Before we get started,
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though i want to thank all of our western standard members for your kick-ass support you guys have
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signed up in massive numbers and it is allowing us to reinvest that money into hiring more reporters
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uh more journalists more support staff to to provide quality uh independent bailout free
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journalism for you uh right across western canada we've now got our bureau set up not just uh with
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our headquarters in calgary but in edmonton at the legislature in vancouver regina parliament hill
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and freelancers sprinkled everywhere in between uh we're very grateful to you for that support
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if you're not yet a member go to westernstandard.news and click on membership it's only
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ten dollars a month or ninety nine dollars a year you're gonna love it uh let's start with
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our first sponsor though of the day Canadian Shooting Sports Association I love the Canadian
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Shooting Sports Association I've been a member for over a decade trusting them with my membership
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dues to protect my right as a gun owner in Canada. And boy, we've had some fun stuff around
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guns, actually, around here. As you all know, the federal liberal government has announced a freeze
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on handguns in Canada. You're not going to be able to buy them anymore.
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This is clearly leading up to an outright ban on handguns. I think there could be a massive
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nautical accident in Canada where about a million to two million handguns get lost
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But in the meantime, there's been a massive run on handguns in Canada.
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Everybody who's eligible to buy them is buying them up.
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No, I'm not buying any if you're watching RCMP, CSIS, whoever's watching this.
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But to support the other people around here, because there's a big rush on guns,
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I announced kind of whimsically that we're going to land,
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the Western Standard was going to lend all of our employees up to $500 to buy a handgun or other
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restricted licensed firearms. And I don't think this is going to be a big thing. I kind of put it
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on Twitter. Turned out to get in like the Toronto Star to kind of blew up, you know, people in
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Toronto are like, look at these wild rednecks buying guns. But it caught some news. And we had
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a firearms wholesaler south of Calgary contact me and saying, we love what you guys do. And we're
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going to give a discount on guns to everyone who works at the Western Standard. So, I mean,
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every job's got its perks, right? You get a loan for guns, and now you get discounts for guns.
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Dave, you got to get in the gun race. You got to get in the arms race. I'm just waiting to see the
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catalog. Yeah. Anyway, to defend your right to have those guns, the right to own guns in Canada
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has never been more perilously at risk than right now. So you should be a member of the Canadian
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Shooting Sports Association. These guys are where it's at. Without people like the Canadian
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Shooting Sports Association, we would have lost our rights to have firearms in Canada long ago
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and the Tang and by a thread. Corey, where can we find out more about them? They are at cssa-cila.org.
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Okay, let's get into the first topic. We're not making this number up. I thought it was fake news
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When I first saw it, I said, no, no, no, no, this is clearly not real.
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Calgary City Council might be crazy, but, like, this is clearly a made-up number.
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Come back to me with some facts, and you're like, no, Derek, it's $87 billion.
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It's a huge, it's a staggering amount of money.
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it would break down to more than $3 billion a year.
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The entire operating budget for the city is only $4.5 billion.
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$87 billion has got to be more than the GNP of some small African nations, I'm sure.
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And the city council met today behind closed doors.
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I think Mayor Gondek wanted to deal with it today.
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Senior Voices have put it over to July 5th, which caused Mayor Gondek to say that, you know, investors watching this, they're going to take their money elsewhere.
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If any smart investor is thinking $87 billion.
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So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see exactly how the plans break down and where it goes from here.
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Corey, is this just a couple of nutters trying to send a virtue signal on the council that, you know,
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to show how much, like, I'm more climate change than anyone, like, I'm going to climate change the shit out of you kind of thing,
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and they're just trying to send a signal like this is like the Green New Deal in the States,
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it's not actually going to go anywhere, or is this a real thing?
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I wish it was just a couple of nutters, but I mean, this is a report commissioned from city
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administration that they put out. And the way that the city council, the mayor and the pair
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of Courtney's and, you know, Giancarlo Carras and the usual left cadre of city council are
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hard on with the push to embrace this thing in full. This is real. And they want this entrenched.
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I mean, Gondek was ticked off that they didn't just drop this on Calgarians and embrace it and
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have council vote to take it on, you know, with a couple of days notice, you know, as they're
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saying, we held a referendum over the Olympics that we're going to cost one or two billion,
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perhaps. And Gondek wanted this shoved through council and interest in city spending with two
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or three days debate. I mean, they're obsessed with this thing. So $87 billion, the Canadian,
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the Department of National Defense, Canada's military department, I would just Google in
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quickly here, I could be wrong, but it seems about right. Now, we don't spend a lot on the military
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in Canada, but it is still a lot of money that we spend, even if it's not a lot comparatively for a
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country our size. We spend about $20 billion a year. So the city of Calgary is proposing to spend
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about four and a half years worth of the Canadian Armed Forces military budget. Dave, instead of
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climate change? Should just Calgary create its own army? What about that big dome? I mean,
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if we do spend all this money on climate change, and Okotoks grows and doesn't do anything,
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we're going to get all their smog, aren't we? Okay, so we're having a new, this is a new
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segment called, what else can we spend the money on? So, okay, I'm voting, if we, we're not,
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you can't give it back to taxpayers, because that's just too good an answer, and it's not
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very fun. We have to spend the money. So I'm voting Calgary is going to create its own armed
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forces, but it's going to be heavy on the Navy. We're going to have an aircraft carrier and we
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can park it right in the Glenmore Reservoir. Right by the SS Moyer. Yeah, yeah. So the Calgary
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armed forces, we're going to be really big on the Navy, but the aircraft carrier is not going to
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have any money left over for planes. We're going to have an aircraft carrier. That's my vote. So
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I'm voting aircraft carrier slash Calgary Armed Forces, but heavy on the Navy.
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Like, we got some one-time, you got $87 billion.
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Okay, yeah, then we can dome the city in that case.
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Yeah, well, I mean, presuming then that means we leave climate change alone, which obviously,
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So the temperature is going to go up on average 10, 20 degrees.
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Dave solves climate change because it's going to be a climate-controlled dome.
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because one thing Alberta really lacks is lakes.
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You can look at the aircraft carrier off in the distance,
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if we don't spend that $87 billion on anything else.
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I'd recommend footwear when you're walking on the beach, though.
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Yeah, but then when we have beachfront property,
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we're going to have to defend it. We're going to need that aircraft carrier.
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We're going to need the Navy. We can use a combination of these things.
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Maybe we could buy every house in Airdrie and just demolish it.
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It's not yet confirmed by the party, but based on what we know,
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we pretty credibly believe that there's going to be at least 600,000, well over half a million
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people eligible to vote in the Conservative Party of Canada's leadership race. Dave, tell us what
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we know about this. As you said, $600,000. And think about 600,000 new members. You think about
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it, they each paid 10 bucks. And they got a significantly higher number than Trudeau and
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the Liberals did when they were giving away memberships for free. Pierre Polyev has announced
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he's got more than 300,000, and he's encouraged the party to be open about it and show who's got
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one. Apparently, Patrick Brown has laughably said he's got 150,000. No idea how or why. I think
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he's probably too busy figuring out whether he's going to run for mayor of Brampton again.
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Jean Charest hasn't commented specifically, but he has said there is a path to victory.
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I didn't say for who, but most people assumed he was talking about himself.
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So that's a lot of processing that they still have to do down at CPC headquarters.
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And they'll be spending a lot of the summer doing that.
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Our staff, we've hired surge staff for the summer to deal with our memberships.
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Corey, the only two campaigns that really is hard numbers,
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I'm speaking softly when I say hard numbers, is Polliver and Brown.
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Polliver's number is insane, but it feels believable
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because we've seen the turnout at their rallies.
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campaigns inflate these things in general, but I don't think they could, it would be inflating too
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much. I don't want to be unfair to Patrick Brown, but there is a real feeling that his
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kind of braggadocious release about 150,000 is a bit suspect. How likely do you think it is that
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he's actually sold 150,000 memberships to his name? Word is that he'd been hitting the ground
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very hard, very quietly, because he was refusing pretty much all media as well, but that he'd been
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targeting ethnic communities and selling, you know, you could, you could presumably or ostensibly
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sell block memberships to large groups of people and numbers of people. So maybe it's possible.
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You know, the bigger question isn't just how many have been sold, but who can get them out?
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Yeah, because that's, that's the other half of the battle. You've got to galvanize. I mean,
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getting a bunch of names on memberships, that's great, but turnouts and leaderships can be
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terribly low. And it's not just what's spent, as you'd mentioned with the liberals,
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even when they were free, they couldn't get that many. And then the turnout for that
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leadership was terrible with an online vote at that. So it depends on who can get those. I mean,
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can Polyev get all of those out? He's always worked strategically. I mean, you know, off the
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start, as soon as the race announced he was in, constantly tweeting this petition, this petition,
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this petition. I'm going to let that political secret out. Guys, when you sign those, it's data
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mining. They're not tabling those positions in parliament. They're collecting email addresses.
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Yeah, and then they follow up and sell memberships on it.
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But the next step, they're not worth anything to you if they don't vote and vote.
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You know, we saw something, I think, similar potentially with Kenny's campaign to remain as UCP leader.
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And, you know, they did play a role in helping make them UCP leader.
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And obviously, it's, you know, campaigns should include minority communities.
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It's inclusive, including more people in democratic process. But the campaigns that focus mostly or exclusively on that tend to go a bit sideways. Kenny largely focused on those kind of ethnic and religious minority communities. And there is a voter motivation issue that, you know, with Kenny, the people against him were very motivated. They came out in big numbers. They voted against him.
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the voting in ethnic politics is a bit more transactional often it's less less motivational
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it's harder to turn them out they didn't turn out the numbers that the kenny campaign believed
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that it would to save them uh and i i gotta believe that you know someone who goes to a
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polliver rally and you know polliver says privatize the cbc and destroy the bank of canada
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that person who signed up is gonna be a bit more motivated than you know someone that signed up at
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some luncheon for some kind of ethnic transactional politics.
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Brown's campaign is just, I've never seen anything like it.
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You know, it's this Sound of Silence campaign, and it derailed a little bit.
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He's got the support of four MPs, two of them left this week, to join Pollywood.
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So he's only got two supporters, two MPs left, one of them being Calgary MP Michelle Rempel,
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who still really hasn't explained why she tied her horse to that wagon.
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I would be stunned if he really did sell $150,000,
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because that would probably put him in second place, even ahead of Charest.
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If he did, in fact, sell $150,000, he would be in contention to overtake Charest.
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I guess maybe we're being unfair to Lewis or something here in Bapper,
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But I think reasonably we can expect Charest has been treated as the major challenger to Polliver. Brown potentially could become the one who would take him to the final ballot if he actually did sell $150,000.
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But, you know, as we were saying, like, if that 150,000 is not including any ideologically motivated conservative voters, which doesn't really appear to be the case, and it's just purely kind of ethnic politics, I don't think there's going to be a particularly high voter turnout on that 150,000.
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now let's remember this is a point system it's not
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how many, 11,000 in Quebec or something like that.
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Is there any path to victory for anyone besides
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As you kind of said, I mean, if somebody was really
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campaigning across the country and did a very good
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strategic campaign of membership sales, they could
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pull something off. I mean, as you pointed out with that,
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though, that is a death knell for Brown, even if he did sell
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150,000 memberships, those are concentrated in this
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community, this community, this community, they are not
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spread out. So I mean, he's not going to win that that
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variety of writings that he would have to to make an
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impact. If the numbers were interactive, I think all you might
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I think we have to point out that this is it you can't go out
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and sell any more membership. The deadline has passed. So I
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mean, God knows what they're going to do between now and
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September. But yeah, Sheree can't try and get back in it by
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So let's talk about the next stage then. There's no more new
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members. The list is locked in. If you're not on the list, you
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can't vote. So let's talk about next stages. Now the campaigns, there's two more stages. There's
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persuasion of the members, people who are already members of the Conservative Party of Canada. You
00:20:22.480
want to now, now you want to fight for them. And then after that, get out the vote, GoTV,
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mobilizing them to put in their ballots, get counted, turn them out. Corey, what do you expect
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to see in terms, now that we're in the persuasion phase, you know, what do you expect to see from
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the major campaigns it's gonna be hard because that's a real tough one you know people traditionally
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they vote very much they'll you know dance with the one that brought them when it comes to that
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so it takes a lot let's focus on the existing membership there are things you can do with the
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new members you could maybe try to flip them but most for the most part people who signed up oliver
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are probably going to vote for poliver people who signed up with sharae are probably going to vote
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for sharae but the existing i should say the pre-existing membership before uh the campaign
00:21:06.020
started. Maybe they'd move a little more on to more where Sheree was, I think, in saying,
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because he's always said, I'm the one who can win. Now it's, you know, the existing members,
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you got the members. Okay, well, I'm just guessing, but maybe they'll take a bit of a
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strategy. Okay, I'm the one who'll take us over the finish line in the general election when we
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get the chance. Not so much on individual policies. These are already conservatives. You got them in
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or they already came in. Now, why am I the person who's going to make us the party in power again?
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But that message hasn't been working. That's been his message since the very first day. His slogan
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I think Polyev is going to start embracing a bit more of that
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to be watching because that's the only other hope they've
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got. I mean, is he going to get into a scandal? Is there
00:22:05.080
know if constantly attacking him will work uh i'm interested uh and you as an ex-politician
00:22:10.660
derek may know what do you do between now and september i think generally i think people are
00:22:16.100
sick of politics and they look forward to the summer where they don't have to to deal with it
00:22:20.660
or listen to it i mean does pauliev does he go to the barbecue does he go on the barbecue circuit
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you know there's important conservative barbecues probably in every province certainly in calgary
00:22:34.100
Well, the traditional frontrunner strategy is when you're a frontrunner,
00:22:43.240
Doug Ford in Ontario was ahead, and he just didn't show up.
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If he had an event, the press may or may not have even been invited,
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and if they were invited, he didn't talk to them.
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He's like, otherwise, I'm going to build some roads and get it done, get it done.
00:23:01.900
That's a front-runner strategy, and that often works.
00:23:05.360
Now, what I saw, I think it was last night, Anthony Koch, he's the press secretary of Pierre Polivar.
00:23:11.660
I don't have the tweet in front of me, but maybe we'll pull it up here.
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But he more or less said, you know, someone was saying this, saying, like, why is Polivar still attacking?
00:23:22.880
If he's, I think someone from the Charae or Brown campaign said, if Polivar really has this so in the bag, why is he still attacking our candidates?
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and all the first press secretary said like that's the mistake front runners always often make and
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that's why the last two front runners of the conservative party actually didn't win we're
00:23:40.020
never going to stop attacking you we're going to continue to go for you and he was just like a
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jack russell terrier to say like i'm not going to stop until we got you like until they're done
00:23:48.000
i'm getting the distinct impression from the paul over campaign maybe they'll switch
00:23:51.740
but i'm getting the distinct impression they're going to campaign for the jugular to the very
00:23:57.620
very end. Now, remember, I think his attacks, though, are very targeted. He's not going after
00:24:03.420
some of the candidates who he's expecting to support on the down ballot, ones who are more
00:24:07.520
ideologically aligned. Lesley Lewis, Roman Babber. I don't think he said anything about Atchison,
00:24:13.280
but Atchison's not really got any drama. I haven't seen much in the way of distinctive policy from
00:24:16.780
him other than saying, let's get along. But he's gone hard at Brown, and he's gone hard at Charest,
00:24:23.260
And I don't think he's it doesn't appear right now like he's going to go into a traditional front runner, take it easy kind of campaign because it's a dangerous thing to do.
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If it's not broke, you know, we don't need to fix it.
00:24:36.160
It's got record numbers of people signing up to more than 300,000.
00:24:47.380
I mean, the other part is, as you said, the final phase is to get out the vote.
00:24:50.160
And it means that you've got your existing supporters, but you do have to keep them excited.
00:24:53.800
I mean, they don't want to see the guy they signed up for go silent for three months on a strategic plan.
00:25:00.540
They still want to see him active, see him out there taking some of the jabs and getting some of those policy points out, I guess.
00:25:07.620
And I think maybe, I still have a suspicion that Brown is truly a stocking horse candidate.
00:25:13.460
And if there's a way you're going to try and derail Polyev,
00:25:16.920
that would be the one you're going to use to try and do it,
00:25:19.520
to try and knock him off his guard or invoke his candle
00:25:26.840
you get some desperation too, and you can see some, you know,
1.00
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it's politics, people get weird and stupid.
1.00
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More likely than anything changing from Polyvors,
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I think we could start seeing some real Hail Marys
00:25:38.760
I think they know that unless something radically changes,
00:25:42.540
Poliverr is going to walk right into this. Unless there's some kind of implosion on
00:25:49.100
Poliverr's part. I just can't see anyone beating him at this point.
00:25:53.580
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bitcoinwell.com. They're the place to start. Beauty. Beauty. It's all huge,
00:26:50.060
huge. And the UCP leadership race list is getting huge. Huge. So far, by my count,
00:26:58.300
we've got Brian Jean, Danielle Smith, Travis Taves, Todd Lowen, Lila here,
00:27:21.500
Those are the ones confirmed, either officially registered or have announced and are in.
00:27:27.120
Still question marks over Michelle Rempel-Garner and Drew Barnes and maybe a few others.
00:27:42.420
and I don't think it's anybody unexpected that's announced so far.
00:27:46.420
You could probably predict them a few months ago,
00:27:52.760
But, yeah, now the interesting thing is I think all attention is going to
00:27:55.580
focus right now on Michelle Rempel-Garner and what she's going to do.
00:28:00.260
So I personally think she realizes she's probably done in Ottawa now, aligning herself with Brown.
00:28:09.800
So if Paulyev wins, there's no hope for her to be in a cabinet position, I wouldn't think.
00:28:16.040
And then you've got Drew Barnes, who's, I think, desperate to lead something.
00:28:20.620
And we'll see if he throws his hat in the ring.
00:28:32.280
And then one other name, she's from Northeast Calgary.
0.99
00:28:46.120
I slaughtered her name on the last show, and you got on my case for it.
00:28:52.760
Okay, well, we're going to get that in a second.
00:28:54.680
So that'd be, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 at least, and then 8, 9, 10 maybe, and who knows, who knows who else.
00:29:09.340
Yeah, Rick Bell used to run for mayor. We must all run Corey for sure.
00:29:19.100
I was at the Sun at the time and I think he was in his drinking days.
00:29:47.100
to run let's get the dinger that'd be fun we'd endorse him if uh if you like the idea of rick
00:29:54.480
bell running uh put it in the comments uh if as if there's enough we're gonna send this to the
00:30:00.060
dinger draft rick bell draft rick bell uh yeah if you if you like the idea write write in the
00:30:05.420
comments and then a hashtag draft uh draft the dinger draft dinger and uh and if there's enough
00:30:11.000
we're gonna send this we're gonna send this to him and uh see if we can get the
00:30:14.660
why not why not indeed but my only condition for supporting rick bell is he has to start drinking
00:30:20.960
again i'm not sure that's good for his health it's good for alberta remember when ralph klein
0.60
00:30:27.200
stopped drinking that's when ralph klein started to suck rick's still good and crazy and goofy
0.98
00:30:31.880
enough sober i mean come on even i dried out look i'm still an asshole it doesn't have to change
0.99
00:30:36.940
with sobriety we can still have a good but ralph klein was better as a drinker right like everyone
0.95
00:30:41.100
agrees? That period of his time, he was more effective. He got really soft when he quit.
00:30:45.680
Yeah. No more $20 bills with homeless people. That wasn't very nice to do. It was pretty funny.
00:30:50.460
Yeah. It was pretty funny. It was kind of a mean thing. It was not very nice.
00:30:55.760
Okay. Well, let's get your tops. It's a big race. A lot of people run for all sorts of reasons. Not
00:31:02.520
everyone actually even thinks they have a chance of winning. Sometimes you just want to talk about
00:31:05.800
your policies, sometimes you want to talk about just a couple of issues. Let's talk about some
00:31:12.020
of the newer entrants. We've already talked about Gene, Smith, Tabes, but we haven't talked a lot
00:31:17.940
about the others. We talked a bit about Rempel before because we had a scoop last week that
00:31:22.260
she's actively considering running. We've got reporters who are still digging around that now.
00:31:26.980
Things might be closer to a decision, but we're still waiting on a confirmation there.
0.97
00:31:31.040
Lila here had an interesting launch, a very unconventional place for someone of a conservative party to launch a campaign.
00:31:41.340
Yeah, the Ryan Jesperson show, a left-wing leading NDP-type digital radio broadcast.
00:31:48.120
It seems strange if you're running for the leadership of a right-wing party.
00:31:52.120
Yeah, Gord, did that strike you as odd, or is this just some kind of, is it smart outreach maybe to go to kind of a left-wing broadcast show like that, or?
00:32:01.540
No, I don't think it is at all, particularly in a party race.
00:32:04.740
I mean, this is a guy who, you know, maybe if you're looking at a general election, you're trying to say we're trying to broaden the tent and win.
00:32:11.420
But I mean, for the segment of, and Jesperson's show is more than just a little left.
00:32:15.700
I mean, he's been beating the crap out of the UCP since that party's been founded.
00:32:19.620
and his audience are definitely people who don't like it.
00:32:22.760
I mean, at best, sure, you could round up some people
00:32:38.540
I mean, you want to stand out, you want to look unique,
00:32:46.040
It seemed like if Trump was launching his trade policy
00:32:49.020
from an announcement in china like it doesn't make sense go on his show by all means of course
00:32:54.240
as a kickoff i mean that's sort of setting your tone that's saying where we're looking to go and
00:32:59.400
i'm certain you know she was a former cabinet minister had enough profile there's a number of
00:33:03.180
media outlets well you should get her on a show that maybe has a few more conservative what
00:33:06.460
conservatives watching maybe you should try to get her on your show we'll see i mean i'll be
00:33:09.320
reaching out to every candidate of course and just to correct it was uh bill rock who is the
00:33:13.520
mayor of amasca i don't want to get the wrong name out for that gentleman so yeah he was on the show
00:33:17.160
the other day. Well, let's talk really quickly about Bill Rock. Who is he, Dave? He's the mayor
00:33:23.900
of Amisk, which is, I think, just a small town of a couple hundred people. Excuse me. He's been
00:33:32.300
involved in UCP's politics at a lower level, attempted to run, I think, in the last election.
00:33:38.500
No, no, he ran for Wild Rose in 2015, I think. 2015. So he's sort of been, he's sort of all
00:33:44.940
rural all the time. He wants more of a focus on rural issues. Corey, you talk to him.
00:33:52.260
That's a lot of what I got out of the interview on the show is his platform. He says he's still
00:33:55.940
filling it out. I mean, he didn't have a website up yet, but he has registered. I mean, there's
00:34:00.660
He launched the campaign without a website first?
00:34:10.260
That was one of his issues he was talking about. There was rural voice.
00:34:14.940
in there he's definitely a very long shot but maybe i'm sure he probably knows that too sometimes
00:34:20.620
people just get in just so they can get some of their messaging out though uh we'll see if he
00:34:24.640
makes the the deposit and all that well another rural voice in and actually the second grand
00:34:28.920
prairie voice we're very heavy on grand prairie candidates in this very funny uh todd lowen
00:34:34.000
todd lowen he's a fascinating guy i served with him when i was in the wild rose he uh he was famous
00:34:39.800
when we'd have late night sittings he'd make waffles for everyone that were really really
00:34:44.360
good waffles uh he has this bizarre number of waffle irons because he's uh he's an outfitter
00:34:49.040
he does like hunting he's like a hunting tour guide and so he's got this cabin with just like
00:34:53.080
100 waffle irons and so he brings like 100 waffle irons or something crazy the legislature he's a
00:34:57.680
very interesting guy uh uh kenny says it wasn't him but kenny kenny has had him and drew barnes
00:35:04.120
kicked out of the caucus uh about a year ago i guess it was uh for criticizing his leadership
00:35:10.440
saying that he should resign um but so you have an independent who's not a member of the party's
00:35:16.300
caucus who's running it'd be very funny because if he i don't think he can win but if he did be
00:35:20.900
funny because the caucus would have to vote on letting the leader back into caucus he uh
00:35:25.380
at his launch last night he actually took the mickey out of uh uh kenny and his blue truck
00:35:31.900
because i'm not here for that type of blue truck i'm here for blue truck albertans basically saying
00:35:37.700
I think Kenny had become an elitist and one part of the old Tory crowd.
00:35:42.160
So, yeah, he's going to liven up the campaign, obviously, because he's not afraid to speak his mind.
00:35:53.920
But, I mean, he's definitely built some profile for himself.
00:35:57.480
He's more known now since he kind of started, became kind of a leader in that fight against Kenny internally.
00:36:03.420
What kind of impact do you think he can have on the race?
00:36:07.100
I mean, he speaks very directly and much to the, I guess you could say, the Wildrose faction of the party, of the merged party.
00:36:15.240
Him and Drew were kind of the two stalwarts, you know, from those older party days being back there.
00:36:20.980
And that could be a number of people on the ground who'll stand up for it, saying we want to push back and see that progressive conservative feel or that establishment feel of the other candidates.
00:36:29.880
And Lohan can pull that together around himself.
00:36:37.100
So that's a good chunk of population that may appeal to, that Todd may appeal to them because, oh, look, we didn't like Kenny.
00:36:45.820
This guy stood up to Kenny and Kenny kicked him out.
00:36:48.480
So I think he could have a fairly significant role.
00:36:53.580
So his seatmate in the legislature out in Siberia, where I've been sitting for a time, is Drew Barnes kicked out at the same time.
00:37:01.880
Drew Barnes didn't even call for Kenny's resignation.
0.98
00:37:03.340
He was just a general pain in the ass and they were getting rid of Todd.
0.98
00:37:08.400
While we're at it, let's just get rid of Drew.
1.00
00:37:17.160
but he's been kicking a lot of tires for a very long time
00:37:30.420
what kind of reaction Todd Lowen gets, I would think.
00:37:54.220
She did alright if that's the one, because that's usually
1.00
00:37:56.600
where you really... Yeah, either way, it's a problem
00:37:58.580
if we don't know what ministry she is, and she's a minister
00:38:01.900
That's more indicative of the problem of the county government, to be honest.
00:38:04.760
I mean, we had a lot of ministers you'd never even heard from because everything was Kenny, Kenny, Kenny.
00:38:08.560
So that's an additional issue while we're at it, right?
00:38:12.420
We do have ministers who've sat and we don't look the heck out.
00:38:14.940
So Rajan, I don't know how much impact she's going to have.
00:38:19.400
But, you know, let's get her on your show and hear from her directly.
00:38:21.760
But we haven't heard much in terms of what her campaign's about.
00:38:25.960
I mean, you've got a list of 12, 13, but, you know, in reality, it's probably only four or five people that have a chance.
00:38:32.280
Well, we've got to wait for them to release what is the requirement for entry going to be.
00:38:42.040
They haven't got it all figured out yet, but it'll be next week.
00:38:45.960
They set it at a reasonable amount, a lot of people wouldn't enter.
00:38:48.660
But if it's really, really high, well, it's going to keep it back.
00:38:50.960
So I want to quickly talk about Rajan Sani, now that we got her name right.
00:38:55.680
I don't know her, but she's kept a pretty low profile during all of this.
00:39:00.720
She has been somewhat critical of Kenny, even though she was a cabinet minister, which is quite interesting.
00:39:08.700
Cabinet ministers do not get publicly critical of their leaders.
00:39:12.420
It's rare enough for an MLA or MP, but especially for a cabinet minister.
00:39:16.400
But I think she represents a constituency in northeast Calgary, you know, a lot of ethnic and religious minorities.
00:39:23.780
But I've heard, you know, a lot of old-time Wild Rosers actually speak fairly highly of her, at least as a very competent minister.
00:39:31.560
Corey, do you think she's going to have any kind of serious impact on the race?
00:39:34.380
I don't know. I'm kind of with you. I don't know her.
0.92
00:39:38.820
But I mean, when we talk about some of the political play,
0.99
00:39:41.760
she's got a constituency that has a lot of motivated voters you can target.
00:39:46.000
I mean, Northeast Calgary, that's the hornet's nest of party politics.
00:39:49.440
A lot of engaged members up there, as you said, of religious and ethnic minorities.
00:39:55.040
I mean, they don't all vote necessarily the same way.
00:39:57.500
Of course not, but there's definite defined blocks that can be campaigned to and brought out.
00:40:04.160
So I imagine that's where a strategy is going to be in, and it could pay off.
00:40:09.180
Well, I don't think we'll get into her because we've already discussed her on a previous show,
00:40:12.900
but Michelle Rempelgarner, I think, is still the big wild card in this race.
00:40:17.880
Our Edmonton-based Alberta Legislative Bureau chief, Rachel Emanuel,
00:40:23.660
confirmed an exclusive story last week that she is actively kicking the tires, actively considering
00:40:30.180
a run. I think she's probably closer to a decision now, but we're going to have to wait on some news
00:40:35.900
on that front. But if she runs, she's definitely a big name. I'm not sure how competitive do you
00:40:45.160
think she'll be? I'll start with you, Dave. Well, I think she'll be competitive. She hasn't done
00:40:51.220
badly down in ottawa she's uh you know wins her elections by huge huge amounts but you know the
00:40:56.900
critics will say look we've brought in high profile uh tories from ottawa before and look how it's
00:41:02.340
worked out a failure with kenny a failure with prentice you know why do we need another ottawa
00:41:09.220
person ottawa based person to uh to lead the party but you know what she'll attract interest no doubt
00:41:14.100
about it uh you know she'll be right in there amongst the leaders correct she's got automatic
00:41:20.020
profile, but I mean, we kind of, you know, we were talking a little bit about that before.
00:41:22.620
She's taken some really way out there stances recently, which some people say, oh, that's
00:41:28.000
good. It's, it's your own person. And it spreads out. But in reality, you alienate a whole lot
00:41:31.880
of people. Every time you take a fringe stance on anything, I wouldn't call fringe, but a defined
00:41:37.100
one, you know, as many as you gain. So, I mean, she was part of the Buffalo Declaration, which
00:41:40.740
was almost quasi secessionist for the West. And then she went on that bizarre thing about
00:41:46.340
apologizing for being white. She kind of bounces back and forth. And it's not that she gained a
00:41:52.420
bunch of supporters on each side in those things. When she did that, she lost a bunch over here and
00:41:56.300
lost a bunch over there. So she's really going to have to define who the hell she is to build a base
1.00
00:42:01.440
of support. And it can be done, but she's going to have to get on that because nobody quite knows
00:42:04.860
where Michelle lands these days. But it is, she's got the name recognition, right? All three of us
00:42:09.380
couldn't pick out the cabinet ministry we're talking about in the police lineup, which she's
00:42:15.100
that's a huge problem that she's going to have to overcome, which Michelle Rumpel doesn't.
0.99
00:42:20.980
And she is razor sharp. She is smart, and she is a legendary organizer. And that,
1.00
00:42:27.600
in internal party races, matters a hell of a lot. The ability to sign up members,
00:42:32.120
mobilize them, and get them to vote. And she is incredible at that. I mean, I think it is a bit
00:42:38.000
strange. I still can't really figure out why she's won the Patrick Brown campaign. But it
00:42:43.400
was a huge win for the Patrick Brown campaign and everyone recognized that I'm not sure really her
00:42:51.060
talents are going to be put to good use in that kind of campaign because it's just you know it's
00:42:54.540
a purely ethnic targeted campaign it's not trying to actually win over people who you know are
00:42:58.920
ideological or partisan conservatives in any sense but she's smart she's a good organizer
0.69
00:43:04.040
I think that you know she'll definitely have some political branding issues to work out like where
1.00
00:43:08.760
does she stand in the party? These issues you've talked about, but I wouldn't underestimate her.
1.00
00:43:15.140
Her organizational abilities and her wit is going to make her challenging, I think, if she gets in.
00:43:21.880
Okay, well, before we go, I want to thank all of our Western Standard members.
00:43:26.120
If you want independent and bailout-free media that doesn't get funded by the government,
00:43:32.040
you got to pay for it. That means we have sponsors, and that means we need people to
00:43:35.960
become members of the Western Standard. It's only $10 a month or $99 a year. Give you unlimited
00:43:41.620
access to all Western Standard content. We've got a very large and growing team of reporters
00:43:47.580
right across the West and on Parliament Hill that I know you want to support. I know you want
00:43:52.780
access to. If you want to follow things like the UCP leadership race, the Conservative Party of
00:43:56.780
Canada leadership race, a lot of the biggest scoops are coming from Western Standard reporters
00:44:00.660
and you need access to it. So go to westernstandard.news, click on membership and become a
00:44:05.020
member, you're going to thank me for it later. I guarantee you, you're going to love it. All right.
00:44:11.080
That's it. That's all. Thank you all for watching. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Corey.