Western Standard - The Pipeline, May 14, 2021

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00:03:30.000 Good day. Welcome to a special edition of The Pipeline. Today is May 14th, 2021. I am Derek

00:03:47.900 Fildebrandt, Western Standard Publisher. I'm joined today by Western Standard News Editor

00:03:53.120 and Alberta Bureau Chief, Dave Naylor. How are you doing, Dave?

00:03:56.420 I'm good, Derek. Thanks.

00:03:57.440 And making her debut appearance on the pipeline is Western Standard Field Correspondent Nadine

00:04:06.180 Wellwood. How are you doing, Nadine? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you. Thank you both for joining

00:04:12.640 me and thank all of you watching or listening for joining me right now. We want to thank all

00:04:18.740 of our members right now for their support. If you're not yet a member, go to westernstandardonline.com

00:04:23.940 slash membership. Try out a 15-day free trial and see if the Western Standard is something that

00:04:32.640 you think is worth your money. Bail out free media. Also, I should point out, maybe you want

00:04:39.080 to wait a few hours. We're having some technical difficulties with the membership registration.

00:04:43.280 Our team is working right now frantically to try and get that fixed. Let's jump straight into it

00:04:49.160 though. The Night of the Long Knives, The Great Purge, The Gong Show, The Cluster What, or FUBAR.

00:04:58.180 I don't know how to describe yesterday in one cheesy punchline. I think it's going to take a

00:05:04.380 lot of cheesy punchlines to sum up what the hell happened. We're going to get into kind of a blow

00:05:11.300 by blow of what happened. The Western Standard had a particular front row seat in the shenanigans

00:05:17.240 of yesterday in Alberta politics, but it all began with a letter from UCP MLA and Caucus

00:05:24.680 Chair Todd Lowen publishing a letter raking Kenny over the coals for what he says is his failed

00:05:31.560 leadership, wrong direction on policy, and calling on Kenny to resign, and also including in the

00:05:39.580 letter his resignation as Chair of the UCP Caucus. While that did not take long, a UCP Caucus meeting

00:05:45.620 was canceled. An emergency meeting was called for soon afterwards where both Todd Lowen and Drew

00:05:51.100 Barnes, who had nothing to do with this whole thing, it's just a general pain in the ass of 0.78

00:05:55.640 Kenny, but he had nothing to do with this. He seemed to be collateral damage in it, but I suppose 0.76

00:06:01.500 it's been a long time coming. Both of them punted from the United Conservative Party caucus. So the

00:06:06.900 United Conservative Party, not so united this morning. Dave, why don't you, I've kind of given

00:06:14.160 the very very high level uh we're going to kind of go in this kind of blow by blow but just uh give

00:06:20.480 us the high level of what happened uh overall first well derek i think your uh your opening

00:06:26.960 description uh kind of described it because i don't think there are any words it was a

00:06:31.920 day in a early evening of high political intrigue and drama the likes of which may not have been

00:06:37.840 seen in Alberta before. The day got off to a very early start just after midnight when MLA Todd

00:06:46.580 Lowen put a Facebook post up calling for Kenny to go. A very scathing letter saying he's lost the

00:06:54.020 faith of his caucus and of Albertans. So that's what Kenny woke up to Thursday morning. As you

00:07:00.780 mentioned, Derek, a caucus meeting was called and then abruptly cancelled. About 8 o'clock or so,

00:07:08.860 MLA David Hansen tweeted or put on Facebook his support for Todd Lowen. The meeting was

00:07:17.800 put back on again for the afternoon session, a mandatory meeting. And during that session,

00:07:25.560 A secret ballot was had, results still not made public, but we're working on it, and the secret ballot removed both Lowen and Drew Barnes from the caucus.

00:07:41.420 They're now sitting as independents, I guess, and I just got off the phone with Drew Barnes a couple of minutes ago.

00:07:48.600 I've got some interesting stuff to talk to you about what he said.

00:07:53.280 But those were sort of the highlights, a full afternoon of drama.

00:07:58.560 And if you were a Western Standard Twitter follower,

00:08:01.840 you certainly got your money's worth there.

00:08:04.840 You were along for the entire ride.

00:08:06.940 At one point, we had a story about the leaks that they were discussing

00:08:10.000 about having leaks, leaks upon their leaks.

00:08:13.240 Don't spoil us.

00:08:14.780 That's a segment we're going to get into.

00:08:16.420 Don't spoil it.

00:08:17.380 Exactly.

00:08:17.860 So, yeah, as you mentioned, we'll break down each one of those events, but high drama, high drama for the UCP.

00:08:27.980 Indeed.

00:08:28.720 Okay, well, we're going to, we'll begin with the beginning of the day.

00:08:32.680 I woke up to incredible news that Todd Lowen had published this.

00:08:40.320 Again, I'm going to use far too many adjectives, scathing, bloodletting, very hard-hitting

00:08:48.120 letter to Jason Kenney and his fellow UCP MLAs, but published openly and publicly, resigning

00:08:56.140 as chairman of the UCP caucus, but not from the caucus itself.

00:08:59.420 This was published at midnight, possibly about 12.01 or 12.02, roughly.

00:09:06.180 um very strange timing um you know i understand something about the media cycle here and if you

00:09:14.400 want something to get attention you normally publish it around uh 10 a.m or maybe very first

00:09:19.160 thing in the morning before uh the newsrooms are even full you want to you know you auto send

00:09:24.540 auto set something to send early in the morning on a weekday you don't send something at midnight

00:09:29.920 uh that's when you want to bury news so clearly something must have been going on in the background

00:09:36.100 to send it at this time. I don't think we actually know what was going on, but I

00:09:42.700 would call this known unknowns. We know something was happening for Todd Lowen

00:09:48.520 to publish this letter really in the middle of the night. We woke up to this

00:09:52.840 incredible news. Before we go to you, Nadine, Dave, why don't you just tell us

00:09:57.100 a bit about the letter first? It was not a short one by any stretch of the

00:10:02.860 imagination Derek has mentioned this went on shortly after 11 o'clock or sorry after midnight

00:10:09.940 it was basically a dam damning statement on on Kenny's leadership he says the Kenny response to

00:10:22.360 a hostile federal government has been weak and ineffective said Albertans have lost trust in

00:10:29.920 the government. And one of the quotes was, they're not willing to extend any benefits of the doubt to

00:10:37.120 us on most issues. He said Kenya was out of touch and arrogant. They expected their MLAs to represent

00:10:46.140 them, not to be told, not for the MLAs to tell the constituents what's going on, but the

00:10:52.360 other way around. He said the caucus never gets a fair hearing with Kenny, and basically his

00:11:00.340 supporters say they cannot tolerate Kenny's style of top-down leadership anymore.

00:11:06.660 So really a lengthy, scathing letter that touched on all points of perceived problems with Kenny's

00:11:16.180 leadership, Derek. Nadine, what did you make of this letter? You've had a chance to read it,

00:11:21.900 And obviously, you know, I don't know when this war began.

00:11:27.580 I don't know when the first shot was fired.

00:11:30.680 I think Drew Barnes has been firing some shots and Jason Kenney firing shots back,

00:11:36.220 essentially in a running battle for over a year.

00:11:38.580 But if today wasn't the opening shot, it was probably the first cannonball.

00:11:44.400 This was a senior member of the UCP caucus on his second term.

00:11:49.940 he was first elected with the Wild Rose in 2015. Downright calling for Jason Kenney to resign in

00:11:55.620 some pretty damning language. What do you make of this Nadine? Well I see this as you know Kenney

00:12:03.700 has been able to keep under wraps a lot of the dissent that's been going on and when we had those

00:12:09.940 17 19 MLAs that came out and spoke out against the end the lockdowns I think that really showed

00:12:16.820 a threat to his ability to lead this party and yesterday i think we're just seeing um things

00:12:23.780 kind of come to a front people have had enough and what we need to note here is i think the

00:12:29.380 division that's happening we're seeing it rural versus urban we're seeing it in you know left

00:12:35.300 and right we're seeing um these are elected officials these elected officials feel and

00:12:41.380 believe, correctly so, that they represent their constituents. And for me, what I'm seeing is a

00:12:47.460 growing concern of these political party leaders who seem to think that it's not about the

00:12:54.560 constituents, it's about them and the party. And so for me, I look at what's kind of going on

00:13:01.960 behind the scenes here, and I'm thinking, you know, there's a lot more MLAs that would like

00:13:07.500 to represent the voices and be the voices for the constituents, not for just the party leader.

00:13:12.700 And Kenney campaigned on that. He campaigned on that hard. This was a grassroots movement. It was

00:13:18.140 about the people of Alberta, and he has done everything exactly the opposite.

00:13:24.980 Well, that's, I suppose, how many would like the system to work, but I fear it hasn't for quite

00:13:31.140 some time. But Jason Kenney made a particular point when he was running to unite the Wild Rose

00:13:36.720 and progressive conservative parties, that this would be the case. He made the case when he was

00:13:41.240 running for the UCP leadership, especially knowing how particularly important this was for Wild Rose

00:13:48.120 members. But, you know, I think that we saw the grassroots guarantee went out the window almost

00:13:53.800 right away. We saw stack nominations. He wanted his people in. I mean, this has been a long time

00:14:00.580 coming. He's been able to paper over it without any great political price to be paid until now

00:14:07.180 though. But I don't think this should come as a shock to any of us that this has really finally

00:14:13.520 come to this point. Okay, so the letter is released in the morning. Dave Hansen, another guy first

00:14:22.960 elected with the Wild Roads in 2015. He's from Bonneville, Cold Lake, St. Paul, I believe.

00:14:28.800 He endorses the letter and says, good on you, Todd. You know, he didn't write in his own words,

00:14:35.840 Kenny should go, but he endorsed the letter that very clearly says Kenny should go.

00:14:40.220 The scheduled caucus meeting is canceled. All hell breaks loose in the Premier's office.

00:14:44.940 But then soon after, we, well, little birds start talking to the Western Standard, and we get word that a new caucus meeting has been scheduled for 12.30 that day, and they told us that they expect on the agenda would be the expulsion of four MLAs.

00:15:09.120 I won't name the other two. In the end, it turned out to be Barnes and Lohan. Actually, I will name

00:15:14.700 one. Obviously, Dave Hanson. I don't know how you kick out Todd for calling for the resignation of

00:15:20.500 the leader. You kick out Drew Barnes for not calling for the resignation of the leader, and

00:15:26.560 then you leave it another guy who did call for the resignation of the leader. Very strange. And one

00:15:30.180 more MLA who we're not going to mention. So all of a sudden, we had a pipeline straight into this

00:15:36.780 caucus meeting. The first item, there was no formal agenda presented because they were afraid of it

00:15:42.320 getting leaked to us, but we figured out what's going on the meeting soon enough. We had several

00:15:48.820 MLAs in that caucus who were telling us what was happening in real time. The first thing they were

00:15:56.720 discussing were leaks to the Western Standard. Dave, this story is very important and insightful,

00:16:03.820 but it's also kind of funny uh why don't you tell us about the leaks and the leaks of the leaks

00:16:10.620 and the leaks of the leaks of the leaks it's uh it's one hell of a leaky story there uh

00:16:17.820 derek the western standard has got several good sources within uh the ucp caucus that's what

00:16:25.340 journalists do we cultivate sources who will tell us things uh if i'm jason kenney this is a huge

00:16:33.980 problem because he cannot keep anything secret uh if you look at uh last week for example he told

00:16:41.100 the caucus uh all about the the rogue rodeo in bowden and how how terrible it was and he ended

00:16:47.020 up telling uh the caucus that if they're our base i want a new base then of course that shocked our

00:16:54.300 our sources we heard from at least three of them that day who was telling us what he said and uh

00:17:00.700 how horrified they were so of course that story gets out and then the other other stories get out

00:17:05.980 so it's got to be very very frustrating for for jason kenny to to realize that that these leaks

00:17:12.220 are happening uh as you said we were we were live tweeting the agenda yesterday uh basically as it

00:17:19.660 was happening we tweeted the fact that they were they were discussing our leaks we we leaked a

00:17:25.260 story saying they were discussing our leaks so it was a bit it was almost comedy in a way but it's

00:17:30.220 it's a deadly serious problem uh for any sort of government for any sort of organization when you've

00:17:36.780 got people that uh that are basically not happy with what's going on and they want the story to

00:17:42.140 to get out so it was yeah it it was almost downright comical uh what was happening i can tell

00:17:51.080 you you know from my time in politics caucus confidentiality is extremely important you need

00:17:55.640 to be able to say you need to be able to speak your mind around a caucus table and that be held

00:18:00.160 in confidence but uh when a caucus does become dysfunctional or extremely dysfunctional as it

00:18:06.680 certainly appears the UCP caucus has become. Leaks become essentially the only way for MLAs to speak

00:18:12.720 out if they're not, if they feel they're not being heard or listened to around the caucus table and

00:18:19.460 by the leader. And then you get situations like this. So, you know, so first they were starting

00:18:26.380 to, they were discussing leaks from the Western Standard and a bit from Rick Bell. And that gets

00:18:35.080 passed along to the Western Standard and so while they were discussing what was

00:18:40.900 described to us as a witch hunt for the leaks and demanding know who it was, I

00:18:46.300 guess all of a sudden the Premier's phone starts buzzing or someone

00:18:50.380 whispered in his ear off-camera, Mr. Premier, the Western Standard has

00:18:56.260 reported that we're currently discussing leaks right now and I I you know the

00:19:07.120 leaks were good but I really wish I could have they weren't in a room I

00:19:11.140 guess but I really wish I could have like seen the look on some people's 0.67

00:19:14.320 faces when that happened and then it just kept on coming Nadine I'd like your

00:19:21.460 take i've never seen anything like this where we've had a not just a caucus meeting but a

00:19:28.020 particularly hypersensitive caucus meeting dealing with politics of the highest order

00:19:33.620 in alberta uh in a government caucus coming out like this um the fact that the ucp caucus

00:19:40.820 is this leaky right now what what do you think it uh says about the state of that caucus and party

00:19:45.620 and the leadership of Jason Kenney. You know what happened with leaky ships.

00:19:51.760 That's my opinion. Jason Kenney has lost control of his caucus. There's no doubt about that. And

00:19:58.400 that's, I think, to me, just an example. And what we saw yesterday, poor leadership. Leadership is

00:20:05.120 not a dictatorship. It's, you know, you convince people, not force people. And they do feel like

00:20:11.520 they're not being heard. Again, they are elected officials. And even as a backbencher, you have a

00:20:17.520 voice, you have a responsibility to your constituents. And, you know, we do, we have

00:20:24.460 different regions throughout Alberta that will have different opinions, because they're affected

00:20:31.140 in different ways. And they are not feeling like they are being heard right now. And this is very

00:20:37.800 dangerous for jason kenny because it's his responsibility like every good leader to make

00:20:44.120 sure that everybody understands what the agenda is why they're doing what they're doing and to have

00:20:50.440 everybody move forward as a united front and that is the one thing that uh i think it's called the

00:20:57.000 disunited uh party right now not the united conservative party

00:21:02.840 Yeah, it's just bizarre. I will say this. I think that Premier Kenney and those around him

00:21:16.880 will probably be quite disappointed when they learn that throwing those two MLAs out of the

00:21:21.760 caucus does not stop the leaks. There were quite a few MLAs in regular contact with the Western

00:21:28.400 standard including uh one member in the cabinet so uh that's i think there's going to be some cold

00:21:35.200 sweat sleeps uh in the weeks ahead here uh well let's well let's move the story along um we got

00:21:43.360 into the strange point where we were just there were so many leaks coming that we couldn't even

00:21:48.800 stay on top of creating new stories we had to create a live updates page um essentially we

00:21:54.480 are already live tweeting it we decided to create a live updates page we updated it in real time you

00:22:00.000 can see on the screen there 12 25 there's an update with a leak 12 45 update with a leak and

00:22:07.840 that went all the way down till the very end of it and the meeting uh after the meeting was

00:22:13.360 reconvened and the results were read out and uh lowen and barns were expelled really a a blow by

00:22:20.640 blow uh incredible it was it was an incredible day around uh the newsroom here um dave uh have

00:22:29.600 you ever seen anything like this a live real-time update inside of a government caucus or opposition

00:22:37.440 caucus anything like this no uh never derrick it's respected uh mount royal university uh

00:22:46.000 professor of political science dwayne bratt tweeted it was uh unprecedented and uh and

00:22:52.800 obviously gave us kudos and uh when we were the first to break what the results were he said

00:22:58.240 of course western standard again so we uh we did a hell of a job uh and uh you know we certainly

00:23:07.280 own this story and we were given uh the proper credit uh for it but in terms of having seen it

00:23:13.440 before no i don't think i don't think there's ever been a provincial or federal caucus and nadine hit

00:23:20.720 the nail on the head it's he's lost control and i i don't think there's ever been a caucus on

00:23:26.400 any level of government that has had this number of leakers right you know if you could if it was

00:23:32.240 just one person and you could identify that one person then it would be fine but but as you know

00:23:36.800 Derek we've got multiple multiple sources on all levels and it's like a game of whack-a-mole if

00:23:43.760 you're gonna hit one on the head there's gonna be another one pop up and that is particularly apt 0.89

00:23:51.440 description if you know we call these sources people who don't like them call them moles but 1.00

00:23:57.680 if they are moles boy this is I think they're in for a serious game of whack-a-mole they are and 0.75

00:24:04.760 And it gets to the point where it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy in that somebody who has not leaked anything, 1.00

00:24:12.860 they all of a sudden say, hey, you know, I'm kind of missing the boat here, so they're going to tell us some stuff.

00:24:17.640 I think the interesting part with all of this is going to be, how does he fix it?

00:24:23.080 Because you just said it, Dave.

00:24:25.700 This is, it's one, that's a different story.

00:24:29.780 but when you have multiple people coming forward and people are this disenfranchised the solution

00:24:36.900 is a lot harder yeah and especially in the dean as we get close to an election and if kenny doesn't

00:24:45.540 turn this around quickly uh you know i was talking to drew barnes earlier this morning he points out

00:24:50.660 that kenny is polling at the same members as justin trudeau in alberta so if he doesn't turn

00:24:56.500 it around quickly all these people that are in the caucus are going to be faced

00:25:00.220 with losing their jobs and being out on in the unemployment line so if you

00:25:06.100 thought you had leaks now you ain't seen nothing yet

00:25:09.880 yeah let's discuss well in a moment here so Jason Kenny says that this was a

00:25:18.980 small and isolated group there will be no more of this won't be tolerated again

00:25:26.020 it's over, it's failed, they're gone. Well, I'm not paid to give Jason Kenney advice,

00:25:34.080 but if he happens for some reason to be watching right now, let me give Premier Kenney a piece of

00:25:40.700 advice. I don't believe this is over. The troublemakers are not gone. In a best case

00:25:47.900 scenario, let's go through some of the scenarios going forward. In a best case scenario, for Jason

00:25:53.940 kenny's perspective at least is that uh because he i think he knows there's more than just these

00:25:58.580 two troublemakers his goal here was to uh make an example of them to cull them from the herd

00:26:06.820 hang them out to dry and display their corpse for the rest of the caucus to see um and the hope of 0.86

00:26:13.380 that is that it will it'll scare the rest in the line they'll say oh crap well i don't want to be

00:26:18.740 on the outside no one no one likes that uh you know can't get real elected like that so uh i'm

00:26:26.020 gonna shut up and uh just kind of go go with the flow now that's his best case scenario that i i

00:26:33.780 would not bet on that succeeding um i i the other the other path for he has is honey and that is to

00:26:43.060 uh well he's already tried to make an example of the two but now he could uh instead of just

00:26:47.540 offering the stick and fear he can try to address what these problems are and uh you know understand

00:26:54.660 that at least a very large proportion of the ucp caucus uh is unhappy with the direction of the

00:26:59.780 government both on uh fair deal issues vis-a-vis ottawa with uh physical policy running record

00:27:06.900 amounts of debt just kidding he's running far larger deficits than richard notley ever did

00:27:11.140 um and uh and of course lockdowns and current restrictions that are in place uh it doesn't

00:27:18.420 appear he's doing that uh because one of our leaks uh during yesterday's meeting kenny said

00:27:24.740 i don't know why you guys quote i don't know why you're also upset um he said he does not believe

00:27:29.980 the government is doing anything seriously wrong that they've stricken the the correct balance

00:27:34.760 here it doesn't sound like he's he's changing course and of course his third option as i see it

00:27:40.020 is to ignore this all, to hope that just time heals all and it goes away.

00:27:45.420 But, you know, history doesn't tend to show that when you've got a festering wound in caucus,

00:27:50.180 when you've got growing discontent, unless you address it and address it well,

00:27:54.660 it tends to fester and get worse rather than go away.

00:27:59.260 Nadine, what do you think is the best path forward for Kenny here?

00:28:03.300 Forget what is best from Alberta for the sake of this argument.

00:28:07.620 What is the best for Jason Kenney and his ability to salvage his leadership and premiership?

00:28:13.580 I'm going to be honest.

00:28:14.960 I don't know if he can.

00:28:17.260 And somebody has worked in aerospace and defense and has a little bit of a background in strategy

00:28:22.900 and leadership.

00:28:24.460 You know, even Colonel Redmond, when he talked about how this pandemic was being dealt with

00:28:30.060 by the UCP government, you know, he made it very clear that you do not lead from a place

00:28:36.620 of fear.

00:28:37.100 You have to lead from a place of confidence. And that is, I think, for me, where Jason Kenney has failed. And I don't believe that he has the trust of his caucus right now to be able to recover from this.

00:28:53.800 So his really, in my opinion, only strategy is to continue with the stick and to lead from a place of fear.

00:29:01.720 And that is not going to be effective. When Jason Kenney came to Alberta from Ottawa, they do things a little bit differently in Ottawa.

00:29:09.960 And conservatives have a very different mindset than that of liberals and NDP.

00:29:15.940 And, you know, all the things that he truly ran on, those were his pillars of strength.

00:29:21.320 That's where he got his show of support. People came out, you know, in droves to vote for smaller budgets, smaller government, more transparency, grassroots, all of these things that are so valued by the conservative voter.

00:29:37.700 And the distrust he has created, regrettably, I don't think he can recover.

00:29:44.300 And I think the UCP needs to address this very quickly if they want to be a contender in 2023.

00:29:52.320 I think, sorry, Derek, I think we also need to remember that Kenny's not only fighting the war on the caucus front, he's fighting it on the grassroots front.

00:30:02.380 There's been more than a dozen constituencies now that have gotten together and have got signatures and have said, we want a leadership review.

00:30:12.100 So I think they need to get a lot more than that to actually force it.

00:30:17.040 But he's also battling the grassroots, you know, the way the party started, the people that voted to merge the two parties.

00:30:25.320 so uh not only is members of the caucus not happy with them but the actual people

00:30:30.280 on the ground are very upset yeah well dave let's come back to uh what nadine was just saying um uh

00:30:39.800 well actually first yet nadine i'll get you maybe to elaborate on on dave's point uh kenny is

00:30:45.880 fighting this on a war on several fronts um the caucus front uh has exploded into a new major area

00:30:52.840 I mean, he's been kind of battling with Drew Barnes and to a lesser extent, some other dissident MLAs in the caucus.

00:31:00.420 But it hasn't been a real threat to his leadership until now.

00:31:04.480 But he has been fighting with a growing movement among the party's grassroots to call essentially a recall leadership vote.

00:31:14.260 He has been so far successful one way or another at putting that off.

00:31:19.180 He's facing, of course, the NDP to his left flank, and increasingly he's facing an insurgency

00:31:26.680 in the Wild Rose Independence Party on his right flank.

00:31:31.240 Why don't you, Nadine, how do you think, in addition to the caucus front here, do you

00:31:38.180 think the threat from the rank and file membership itself poses any existential threat to Kenny's

00:31:44.680 leadership right now? 0.60

00:31:46.680 absolutely absolutely it does um you know these mlas i mean think about it this is their jobs 0.97

00:31:54.120 i mean these are fantastic jobs well paid um pretty much guaranteed unless you do something

00:32:00.120 extravagant like what we saw yesterday you know you're not going to get thrown out

00:32:04.680 and if you consider the fact that you've got this much uh you know going on inside of caucus

00:32:13.080 and this has got the pressure is coming from the bottom up and it's actually kind of a beautiful

00:32:18.760 thing to see the fact that we do have uh grassroots uh movements and mlas that are listening to their

00:32:26.200 constituents i think this is a monumental time for alberta because i think politics here is is

00:32:32.280 going to change um significantly and monumentally after this you know jason kenny can ignore his

00:32:39.720 caucus for so long but when these individuals are feeling this strong that they have to speak up

00:32:45.880 and they're getting that much pressure from the grassroots the bottom up i mean their jobs were

00:32:50.760 at risk in not speaking up because it's the constituents in the end it's the you and i and

00:32:56.760 dave's that vote um in in an election it's i'm not sure i'm not sure that's that's necessarily

00:33:04.840 true nadine i mean uh we all like to talk like most people if you ask them do you want your mla

00:33:09.960 to represent the constituents of the party uh nine times out of ten they're going to say the

00:33:14.840 constituency but when it comes down to it uh alberta hasn't elected an independent mla since

00:33:21.000 the early 1980s uh alberta hasn't elected an independent mp since uh roughly the late 90s

00:33:30.200 early 2000s we don't elect independents uh i mean there are strong popular mlas uh within parties

00:33:38.040 who lose uh you know like when the pcs got wiped out in 2015 uh some popular mlas got re-elected

00:33:47.240 some unpopular mlas got re-elected uh the reality is most people while they say they want strong

00:33:54.520 local representation they actually don't vote for it um it's not like united states where we have

00:33:59.480 primary systems and the party can't stop you from uh stop you from running if you win the primary

00:34:05.720 here the leader is god he determines if you're a candidate or not and it's it's damn near impossible

00:34:11.880 in canada and alberta in particular to get elected uh independently uh it's it shouldn't be so but

00:34:19.880 i'm afraid i'm afraid that it is so look i think let's pivot the discussion now to what is next

00:34:26.040 for todd lowen and uh drew barnes uh do they sit as independent ucp mlas essentially and um hope

00:34:36.040 that there is a coup in the leadership that kenny is toppled and that they get to return

00:34:41.000 under a new leader uh do they simply serve out their terms and uh you know say their piece and

00:34:49.800 ride into the sunset in two years do they join another party and run under its banner or or do

00:34:55.240 they run as independents. There are several paths for them on the table right now. Let's go first

00:35:02.980 to you, Dave, before we get your take, Nadine. Well, I mean, certainly the Wildrose Independence

00:35:09.380 Party would love to have either of them. Their leadership candidate, Paul Hinman, put out a

00:35:15.660 statement saying, you know, praising Lohan for his courage and saying that anybody else who doesn't

00:35:23.320 follow him is going to have to live with that on their conscience and I understand you're exactly

00:35:28.360 right Derek people don't vote for individual candidates as much as they do the party leaders

00:35:33.080 I mean we we wouldn't vote for a for an MP we would vote for Stephen Harper or Justin Trudeau

00:35:39.660 whoever you're uh or Aaron O'Toole whoever your your your leader is now as I mentioned I talked

00:35:46.200 to drew barnes this morning and he is considering running as an independent in the 2023 election he

00:35:54.840 won the last election in 2019 by a huge purality uh he got 67 of the votes in the writing uh very

00:36:02.840 very popular mp sorry mla uh who has the support of his constituents so if he if he runs as an

00:36:10.120 independent he may have a good chance at doing it of course uh if kenny is still the leader of the

00:36:15.640 UCP he will throw everything into that Cypress Medicine hat riding to try and defeat Drew Barnes

00:36:24.260 and you know all about that yourself Derek and it's it is rare but you know especially in a rural

00:36:30.600 area that you know that Barnes is represented now for three terms he's not a rookie MLA by any stretch

00:36:37.800 of the imagination so there could be an independent path in his future I think well I mean

00:36:45.420 it is theoretically I should say it is legal to be elected as an MLA independent in Alberta

00:36:51.980 but it simply doesn't happen. So the last time we had elected an independent MLA in Alberta

00:36:59.740 let me tell you who he was. He was Ray Speaker who was essentially he was effectively deputy

00:37:05.700 prime minister and finance minister for decades under the social credit government of Ernest

00:37:10.840 Manning. He was there forever. And this was at a time when people valued party brands, I think,

00:37:17.520 a lot less than they do now. In fact, Alberta didn't even have televised leaders debates at

00:37:22.120 the time. So people weren't really necessarily voting for the leader nearly as much as they,

00:37:28.440 not anywhere close to what they do now. So it was a very different time and age in a very

00:37:34.420 extraordinary circumstance. Because even before race speaker, independents just don't do well 0.96

00:37:39.220 in Alberta. Albertans say we want independent MLAs who do their job, but they just don't elect

00:37:47.240 them. So even in the case of Ray Speaker, roughly 1982, if I'm getting that correct, that was an

00:37:53.000 extraordinarily rare circumstance. So, I mean, as popular as Drew Barnes is, if I'm a betting man,

00:38:00.060 I'd say that Jesus Christ couldn't get elected as an independent MLA in Alberta.

00:38:05.320 so follow that through though so if that is indeed the capes and you just said that people vote for

00:38:12.040 the leader the leader of this party jason kenney it has already been made very clear again not only

00:38:19.000 within his own caucus and mlas but at a grassroots level that he is not who they want so where does

00:38:28.440 that leave the ucp uh well certainly i mean it's unquestionable the data is clear the evidence on

00:38:38.360 the ground is clear that jason kenny is now an incredibly unpopular leader increasingly within

00:38:43.160 uh the party's rank and file uh and especially among the voter base of the ucp i know a poll that

00:38:49.160 uh the western standard commissioned uh main street research to do uh early in the new year

00:38:54.920 found that uh more than half of the people who voted for the ucp under jason kenny in the 2019

00:39:01.800 election no longer support him he's lost more than half of the people who have voted for him

00:39:07.800 uh so yes he's an unpopular leader but what are people going to do i mean i i have a hard time

00:39:13.800 picturing people uh in rural alberta in significant enough numbers voting for the ndp because rachel

00:39:19.640 Fortunately, the NDP might not be terribly popular, but she is a popular leader, and

00:39:26.140 the NDP is leading the UCP significantly in the polls.

00:39:28.900 I don't see them winning in rural Alberta.

00:39:30.980 In rural Alberta, the only game in town in most circumstances, with a few anomalies here

00:39:36.920 and there, is going to be between kind of the mainstream, center-to-center-right, mushy

00:39:42.560 Tories and other parties on the right.

00:39:46.420 uh more most recently wild rose before that federally the reform party or social credit

00:39:52.540 again provincially or federally uh those challenges happen there um so yes while kenny might be an

00:39:58.420 unpopular leader uh people also don't just vote for parties they vote for leaders they're also

00:40:03.980 voting for parties i'm going to disagree with you a little bit i think what's happening in

00:40:09.320 Alberta is that we are fracturing into a urban and rural electorate. And, you know, you talk

00:40:18.020 about the rural people voting for UCP. They're angry right now, Derek. They're really, really

00:40:24.000 angry. And they do not like Jason Kenney. So if Jason Kenney is still the leader of the party in

00:40:30.160 2023, I could see a good chunk of the rural vote go to the Wild Rose. And I could see Edmonton

00:40:39.020 obviously sweeping for uh uh for uh rachel notley and if some of the rural votes go to uh to whip

00:40:47.660 and and the ndp regain some of their strength in calgary you know i think that's a path to victory

00:40:53.260 for uh for the ndp again um and i think that that you've got it just showed in the divide yesterday

00:41:01.740 in the vote it basically from what we understand broke down into a rural urban uh break the rural

00:41:09.980 people were basically speaking up for todd lowen and drew barnes and the urban people one of them

00:41:16.140 them both booted so i think that that fracture in the party is going to be a huge problem going

00:41:21.420 forward in the next 18 months yeah let me just clarify for some of our listeners i did not say

00:41:27.340 that rural alberta is going to vote for the ndp i'm pretty clear they're not voting in significant

00:41:32.460 numbers at least for the ndp they didn't get many votes in rural alberta even when they won a

00:41:37.900 significant majority government 2015 outside of a few pockets mostly in the north uh northeast

00:41:43.820 of the province sorry northwest of the province uh i i don't see that happening uh but within so

00:41:50.700 within outside the two big cities uh the game is going to be ucp uh or ucp probably versus wild

00:41:58.380 rose depending on how that party continues to develop or not uh i think that's what we're

00:42:03.820 gonna see i disagree with you a little bit dave i think that i think there are three increasingly

00:42:08.860 three tribes in alberta instead of two it's not just urban rural calgary and edmonton are pretty

00:42:14.380 distinctive uh especially outside the downtown of calgary uh you know downtown calgary is elected

00:42:20.540 federal liberals it's elected provincial new democrats uh downtown calgary can at times vote

00:42:25.980 similarly to uh to edmonton but outside of outside of the downtown core of calgary uh you know it

00:42:32.940 tends to be a moderate center-right electorate edmonton at least provincially votes dominantly

00:42:39.180 for leftist parties now uh but rural albert and again even really have to split between the north

00:42:44.540 the central and the south they've got their own distinctive political uh political cultures but

00:42:49.500 we've got three general political cultures and tribes in Alberta and I think what we're seeing

00:42:56.220 is that perhaps the United Conservative Party is simply too big a tent to hold together in the

00:43:01.660 long term. The NDP has built a solid base in Edmonton and they've got a significant beachhead

00:43:09.180 in the inner parts of downtown Calgary. Their path is to build outwards from there but you know the

00:43:16.380 the United Conservative Party essentially took rural Alberta wild rows and slapped it together

00:43:20.620 with Calgary and kind of the outer parts of Edmonton progressive conservatives, two different

00:43:26.940 tribes, united mostly just by their hatred of the NDP. And that did work in opposition to keep them

00:43:32.660 together, the shared goal of getting rid of the NDP. But now in government, actually having to

00:43:38.420 govern and make the tough decisions, I think we're seeing that they're increasingly incompatible,

00:43:44.900 that they they're very difficult to work together um nadine do you think we're is this a problem do

00:43:52.180 you think mostly with kenny's leadership or or is it more deep than that that it it goes to

00:43:57.620 the potential that uh perhaps this ucp coalition party might just be breaking under uh the weight

00:44:06.980 of its own size you know i i don't think the ucp tent necessarily was too big um i do agree there

00:44:13.860 was a lot of people that came together under the banner of let's get rid of the NDP but a strong

00:44:20.760 leader I think could have held that together. Kenny's leadership style has been very lacking

00:44:27.480 and it you know conservatives don't like to be told what to do they want to be asked informed

00:44:34.140 they'll make the decision themselves and I think that's the key here is he again he ran under very

00:44:40.560 strong conservative principles and everybody rallied behind that i think people it doesn't

00:44:47.460 matter left right um you know whatever camp you happen to be in i think anybody right now that

00:44:53.780 came to the table and said this is alberta and we are albertans and this is how we do things here

00:45:01.320 i think he could rally the troops that way he himself i think has just uh weakened his own

00:45:08.640 position by moving the tent constantly it's kind of like covid you know this week the restrictions

00:45:14.720 this the next week the restriction something else and yet he fails to back it up with evidence with

00:45:19.920 with proof with confidence and i think that's what albertans are looking for is is you know

00:45:25.360 he made a lot of promises that he has not delivered on and you know once the trust is broken

00:45:31.680 i don't uh i don't think it's the i don't think blaming the the people who voted for him or the

00:45:37.440 is the answer i mean i think you have to look at the lack of leadership

00:45:42.960 all right well uh thank you very much both of you for joining me today

00:45:46.960 we're going to wrap it up there uh thank you all

00:45:49.840 uh to our our viewers and our listeners uh for joining us today your questions

00:45:54.640 your comments uh and your support of course as western

00:45:58.160 standard members if you're not yet a member of the western standard go to

00:46:00.800 westernstandardonline.com membership become a member uh we really appreciate

00:46:06.880 what you do the western standard refuses to accept government bailouts

00:46:10.800 from the federal government uh so we we really need people to continue to

00:46:16.480 step up in the numbers that you are and become members of the western

00:46:20.080 standard support the work uh that we're doing here uh hey if we can

00:46:25.040 raise enough money maybe we're just going to put a live

00:46:28.000 television feed straight to the ucp caucus room

00:46:31.760 i think you have to you already have one well i want hd

00:46:36.880 uh right now it's essentially uh telegram uh and text uh i i i want to get an hd connection get

00:46:44.480 some get some hi-fi in there good lighting on our cameras so we can we can really bring you what's

00:46:50.240 going on uh thank you both for joining me again today and of course all our viewers uh have a

00:46:56.400 great weekend and God bless.

Western Standard - May 15, 2021

The Pipeline, May 14, 2021

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