Western Standard reporter Nadine Wellwood makes her debut on The Pipeline. We discuss the night of the long knives, The Great Purge, The Cluster What, and The Night of the Long Knives!
00:03:57.440And making her debut appearance on the pipeline is Western Standard Field Correspondent Nadine
00:04:06.180Wellwood. How are you doing, Nadine? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you. Thank you both for joining
00:04:12.640me and thank all of you watching or listening for joining me right now. We want to thank all
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00:04:43.280Our team is working right now frantically to try and get that fixed. Let's jump straight into it
00:04:49.160though. The Night of the Long Knives, The Great Purge, The Gong Show, The Cluster What, or FUBAR.
00:04:58.180I don't know how to describe yesterday in one cheesy punchline. I think it's going to take a
00:05:04.380lot of cheesy punchlines to sum up what the hell happened. We're going to get into kind of a blow
00:05:11.300by blow of what happened. The Western Standard had a particular front row seat in the shenanigans
00:05:17.240of yesterday in Alberta politics, but it all began with a letter from UCP MLA and Caucus
00:05:24.680Chair Todd Lowen publishing a letter raking Kenny over the coals for what he says is his failed
00:05:31.560leadership, wrong direction on policy, and calling on Kenny to resign, and also including in the
00:05:39.580letter his resignation as Chair of the UCP Caucus. While that did not take long, a UCP Caucus meeting
00:05:45.620was canceled. An emergency meeting was called for soon afterwards where both Todd Lowen and Drew
00:05:51.100Barnes, who had nothing to do with this whole thing, it's just a general pain in the ass of0.78
00:05:55.640Kenny, but he had nothing to do with this. He seemed to be collateral damage in it, but I suppose0.76
00:06:01.500it's been a long time coming. Both of them punted from the United Conservative Party caucus. So the
00:06:06.900United Conservative Party, not so united this morning. Dave, why don't you, I've kind of given
00:06:14.160the very very high level uh we're going to kind of go in this kind of blow by blow but just uh give
00:06:20.480us the high level of what happened uh overall first well derek i think your uh your opening
00:06:26.960description uh kind of described it because i don't think there are any words it was a
00:06:31.920day in a early evening of high political intrigue and drama the likes of which may not have been
00:06:37.840seen in Alberta before. The day got off to a very early start just after midnight when MLA Todd
00:06:46.580Lowen put a Facebook post up calling for Kenny to go. A very scathing letter saying he's lost the
00:06:54.020faith of his caucus and of Albertans. So that's what Kenny woke up to Thursday morning. As you
00:07:00.780mentioned, Derek, a caucus meeting was called and then abruptly cancelled. About 8 o'clock or so,
00:07:08.860MLA David Hansen tweeted or put on Facebook his support for Todd Lowen. The meeting was
00:07:17.800put back on again for the afternoon session, a mandatory meeting. And during that session,
00:07:25.560A 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.
00:07:41.420They're now sitting as independents, I guess, and I just got off the phone with Drew Barnes a couple of minutes ago.
00:07:48.600I've got some interesting stuff to talk to you about what he said.
00:07:53.280But those were sort of the highlights, a full afternoon of drama.
00:07:58.560And if you were a Western Standard Twitter follower,
00:08:01.840you certainly got your money's worth there.
00:08:28.720Okay, well, we're going to, we'll begin with the beginning of the day.
00:08:32.680I woke up to incredible news that Todd Lowen had published this.
00:08:40.320Again, I'm going to use far too many adjectives, scathing, bloodletting, very hard-hitting
00:08:48.120letter to Jason Kenney and his fellow UCP MLAs, but published openly and publicly, resigning
00:08:56.140as chairman of the UCP caucus, but not from the caucus itself.
00:08:59.420This was published at midnight, possibly about 12.01 or 12.02, roughly.
00:09:06.180um very strange timing um you know i understand something about the media cycle here and if you
00:09:14.400want something to get attention you normally publish it around uh 10 a.m or maybe very first
00:09:19.160thing in the morning before uh the newsrooms are even full you want to you know you auto send
00:09:24.540auto set something to send early in the morning on a weekday you don't send something at midnight
00:09:29.920uh that's when you want to bury news so clearly something must have been going on in the background
00:09:36.100to send it at this time. I don't think we actually know what was going on, but I
00:09:42.700would call this known unknowns. We know something was happening for Todd Lowen
00:09:48.520to publish this letter really in the middle of the night. We woke up to this
00:09:52.840incredible news. Before we go to you, Nadine, Dave, why don't you just tell us
00:09:57.100a bit about the letter first? It was not a short one by any stretch of the
00:10:02.860imagination Derek has mentioned this went on shortly after 11 o'clock or sorry after midnight
00:10:09.940it was basically a dam damning statement on on Kenny's leadership he says the Kenny response to
00:10:22.360a hostile federal government has been weak and ineffective said Albertans have lost trust in
00:10:29.920the government. And one of the quotes was, they're not willing to extend any benefits of the doubt to
00:10:37.120us on most issues. He said Kenya was out of touch and arrogant. They expected their MLAs to represent
00:10:46.140them, not to be told, not for the MLAs to tell the constituents what's going on, but the
00:10:52.360other way around. He said the caucus never gets a fair hearing with Kenny, and basically his
00:11:00.340supporters say they cannot tolerate Kenny's style of top-down leadership anymore.
00:11:06.660So really a lengthy, scathing letter that touched on all points of perceived problems with Kenny's
00:11:16.180leadership, Derek. Nadine, what did you make of this letter? You've had a chance to read it,
00:11:21.900And obviously, you know, I don't know when this war began.
00:11:27.580I don't know when the first shot was fired.
00:11:30.680I think Drew Barnes has been firing some shots and Jason Kenney firing shots back,
00:11:36.220essentially in a running battle for over a year.
00:11:38.580But if today wasn't the opening shot, it was probably the first cannonball.
00:11:44.400This was a senior member of the UCP caucus on his second term.
00:11:49.940he was first elected with the Wild Rose in 2015. Downright calling for Jason Kenney to resign in
00:11:55.620some pretty damning language. What do you make of this Nadine? Well I see this as you know Kenney
00:12:03.700has been able to keep under wraps a lot of the dissent that's been going on and when we had those
00:12:09.94017 19 MLAs that came out and spoke out against the end the lockdowns I think that really showed
00:12:16.820a threat to his ability to lead this party and yesterday i think we're just seeing um things
00:12:23.780kind of come to a front people have had enough and what we need to note here is i think the
00:12:29.380division that's happening we're seeing it rural versus urban we're seeing it in you know left
00:12:35.300and right we're seeing um these are elected officials these elected officials feel and
00:12:41.380believe, correctly so, that they represent their constituents. And for me, what I'm seeing is a
00:12:47.460growing concern of these political party leaders who seem to think that it's not about the
00:12:54.560constituents, it's about them and the party. And so for me, I look at what's kind of going on
00:13:01.960behind the scenes here, and I'm thinking, you know, there's a lot more MLAs that would like
00:13:07.500to represent the voices and be the voices for the constituents, not for just the party leader.
00:13:12.700And Kenney campaigned on that. He campaigned on that hard. This was a grassroots movement. It was
00:13:18.140about the people of Alberta, and he has done everything exactly the opposite.
00:13:24.980Well, that's, I suppose, how many would like the system to work, but I fear it hasn't for quite
00:13:31.140some time. But Jason Kenney made a particular point when he was running to unite the Wild Rose
00:13:36.720and progressive conservative parties, that this would be the case. He made the case when he was
00:13:41.240running for the UCP leadership, especially knowing how particularly important this was for Wild Rose
00:13:48.120members. But, you know, I think that we saw the grassroots guarantee went out the window almost
00:13:53.800right away. We saw stack nominations. He wanted his people in. I mean, this has been a long time
00:14:00.580coming. He's been able to paper over it without any great political price to be paid until now
00:14:07.180though. But I don't think this should come as a shock to any of us that this has really finally
00:14:13.520come to this point. Okay, so the letter is released in the morning. Dave Hansen, another guy first
00:14:22.960elected with the Wild Roads in 2015. He's from Bonneville, Cold Lake, St. Paul, I believe.
00:14:28.800He endorses the letter and says, good on you, Todd. You know, he didn't write in his own words,
00:14:35.840Kenny should go, but he endorsed the letter that very clearly says Kenny should go.
00:14:40.220The scheduled caucus meeting is canceled. All hell breaks loose in the Premier's office.
00:14:44.940But 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.
00:15:09.120I won't name the other two. In the end, it turned out to be Barnes and Lohan. Actually, I will name
00:15:14.700one. Obviously, Dave Hanson. I don't know how you kick out Todd for calling for the resignation of
00:15:20.500the leader. You kick out Drew Barnes for not calling for the resignation of the leader, and
00:15:26.560then you leave it another guy who did call for the resignation of the leader. Very strange. And one
00:15:30.180more MLA who we're not going to mention. So all of a sudden, we had a pipeline straight into this
00:15:36.780caucus meeting. The first item, there was no formal agenda presented because they were afraid of it
00:15:42.320getting leaked to us, but we figured out what's going on the meeting soon enough. We had several
00:15:48.820MLAs in that caucus who were telling us what was happening in real time. The first thing they were
00:15:56.720discussing were leaks to the Western Standard. Dave, this story is very important and insightful,
00:16:03.820but it's also kind of funny uh why don't you tell us about the leaks and the leaks of the leaks
00:16:10.620and the leaks of the leaks of the leaks it's uh it's one hell of a leaky story there uh
00:16:17.820derek the western standard has got several good sources within uh the ucp caucus that's what
00:16:25.340journalists do we cultivate sources who will tell us things uh if i'm jason kenney this is a huge
00:16:33.980problem because he cannot keep anything secret uh if you look at uh last week for example he told
00:16:41.100the caucus uh all about the the rogue rodeo in bowden and how how terrible it was and he ended
00:16:47.020up telling uh the caucus that if they're our base i want a new base then of course that shocked our
00:16:54.300our sources we heard from at least three of them that day who was telling us what he said and uh
00:17:00.700how horrified they were so of course that story gets out and then the other other stories get out
00:17:05.980so it's got to be very very frustrating for for jason kenny to to realize that that these leaks
00:17:12.220are happening uh as you said we were we were live tweeting the agenda yesterday uh basically as it
00:17:19.660was happening we tweeted the fact that they were they were discussing our leaks we we leaked a
00:17:25.260story saying they were discussing our leaks so it was a bit it was almost comedy in a way but it's
00:17:30.220it's a deadly serious problem uh for any sort of government for any sort of organization when you've
00:17:36.780got people that uh that are basically not happy with what's going on and they want the story to
00:17:42.140to get out so it was yeah it it was almost downright comical uh what was happening i can tell
00:17:51.080you you know from my time in politics caucus confidentiality is extremely important you need
00:17:55.640to be able to say you need to be able to speak your mind around a caucus table and that be held
00:18:00.160in confidence but uh when a caucus does become dysfunctional or extremely dysfunctional as it
00:18:06.680certainly appears the UCP caucus has become. Leaks become essentially the only way for MLAs to speak
00:18:12.720out if they're not, if they feel they're not being heard or listened to around the caucus table and
00:18:19.460by the leader. And then you get situations like this. So, you know, so first they were starting
00:18:26.380to, they were discussing leaks from the Western Standard and a bit from Rick Bell. And that gets
00:18:35.080passed along to the Western Standard and so while they were discussing what was
00:18:40.900described to us as a witch hunt for the leaks and demanding know who it was, I
00:18:46.300guess all of a sudden the Premier's phone starts buzzing or someone
00:18:50.380whispered in his ear off-camera, Mr. Premier, the Western Standard has
00:18:56.260reported that we're currently discussing leaks right now and I I you know the
00:19:07.120leaks were good but I really wish I could have they weren't in a room I
00:19:11.140guess but I really wish I could have like seen the look on some people's0.67
00:19:14.320faces when that happened and then it just kept on coming Nadine I'd like your
00:19:21.460take i've never seen anything like this where we've had a not just a caucus meeting but a
00:19:28.020particularly hypersensitive caucus meeting dealing with politics of the highest order
00:19:33.620in alberta uh in a government caucus coming out like this um the fact that the ucp caucus
00:19:40.820is this leaky right now what what do you think it uh says about the state of that caucus and party
00:19:45.620and the leadership of Jason Kenney. You know what happened with leaky ships.
00:19:51.760That's my opinion. Jason Kenney has lost control of his caucus. There's no doubt about that. And
00:19:58.400that's, I think, to me, just an example. And what we saw yesterday, poor leadership. Leadership is
00:20:05.120not a dictatorship. It's, you know, you convince people, not force people. And they do feel like
00:20:11.520they're not being heard. Again, they are elected officials. And even as a backbencher, you have a
00:20:17.520voice, you have a responsibility to your constituents. And, you know, we do, we have
00:20:24.460different regions throughout Alberta that will have different opinions, because they're affected
00:20:31.140in different ways. And they are not feeling like they are being heard right now. And this is very
00:20:37.800dangerous for jason kenny because it's his responsibility like every good leader to make
00:20:44.120sure that everybody understands what the agenda is why they're doing what they're doing and to have
00:20:50.440everybody move forward as a united front and that is the one thing that uh i think it's called the
00:20:57.000disunited uh party right now not the united conservative party
00:21:02.840Yeah, it's just bizarre. I will say this. I think that Premier Kenney and those around him
00:21:16.880will probably be quite disappointed when they learn that throwing those two MLAs out of the
00:21:21.760caucus does not stop the leaks. There were quite a few MLAs in regular contact with the Western
00:21:28.400standard including uh one member in the cabinet so uh that's i think there's going to be some cold
00:21:35.200sweat sleeps uh in the weeks ahead here uh well let's well let's move the story along um we got
00:21:43.360into the strange point where we were just there were so many leaks coming that we couldn't even
00:21:48.800stay on top of creating new stories we had to create a live updates page um essentially we
00:21:54.480are already live tweeting it we decided to create a live updates page we updated it in real time you
00:22:00.000can see on the screen there 12 25 there's an update with a leak 12 45 update with a leak and
00:22:07.840that went all the way down till the very end of it and the meeting uh after the meeting was
00:22:13.360reconvened and the results were read out and uh lowen and barns were expelled really a a blow by
00:22:20.640blow uh incredible it was it was an incredible day around uh the newsroom here um dave uh have
00:22:29.600you ever seen anything like this a live real-time update inside of a government caucus or opposition
00:22:37.440caucus anything like this no uh never derrick it's respected uh mount royal university uh
00:22:46.000professor of political science dwayne bratt tweeted it was uh unprecedented and uh and
00:22:52.800obviously gave us kudos and uh when we were the first to break what the results were he said
00:22:58.240of course western standard again so we uh we did a hell of a job uh and uh you know we certainly
00:23:07.280own this story and we were given uh the proper credit uh for it but in terms of having seen it
00:23:13.440before no i don't think i don't think there's ever been a provincial or federal caucus and nadine hit
00:23:20.720the nail on the head it's he's lost control and i i don't think there's ever been a caucus on
00:23:26.400any level of government that has had this number of leakers right you know if you could if it was
00:23:32.240just one person and you could identify that one person then it would be fine but but as you know
00:23:36.800Derek we've got multiple multiple sources on all levels and it's like a game of whack-a-mole if
00:23:43.760you're gonna hit one on the head there's gonna be another one pop up and that is particularly apt0.89
00:23:51.440description if you know we call these sources people who don't like them call them moles but1.00
00:23:57.680if they are moles boy this is I think they're in for a serious game of whack-a-mole they are and0.75
00:24:04.760And it gets to the point where it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy in that somebody who has not leaked anything,1.00
00:24:12.860they 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.
00:24:17.640I think the interesting part with all of this is going to be, how does he fix it?
00:28:37.100You 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.
00:28:53.800So his really, in my opinion, only strategy is to continue with the stick and to lead from a place of fear.
00:29:01.720And that is not going to be effective. When Jason Kenney came to Alberta from Ottawa, they do things a little bit differently in Ottawa.
00:29:09.960And conservatives have a very different mindset than that of liberals and NDP.
00:29:15.940And, you know, all the things that he truly ran on, those were his pillars of strength.
00:29:21.320That'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.
00:29:37.700And the distrust he has created, regrettably, I don't think he can recover.
00:29:44.300And I think the UCP needs to address this very quickly if they want to be a contender in 2023.
00:29:52.320I 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.
00:30:02.380There's been more than a dozen constituencies now that have gotten together and have got signatures and have said, we want a leadership review.
00:30:12.100So I think they need to get a lot more than that to actually force it.
00:30:17.040But he's also battling the grassroots, you know, the way the party started, the people that voted to merge the two parties.
00:30:25.320so uh not only is members of the caucus not happy with them but the actual people
00:30:30.280on the ground are very upset yeah well dave let's come back to uh what nadine was just saying um uh
00:30:39.800well actually first yet nadine i'll get you maybe to elaborate on on dave's point uh kenny is
00:30:45.880fighting this on a war on several fronts um the caucus front uh has exploded into a new major area
00:30:52.840I mean, he's been kind of battling with Drew Barnes and to a lesser extent, some other dissident MLAs in the caucus.
00:31:00.420But it hasn't been a real threat to his leadership until now.
00:31:04.480But he has been fighting with a growing movement among the party's grassroots to call essentially a recall leadership vote.
00:31:14.260He has been so far successful one way or another at putting that off.
00:31:19.180He's facing, of course, the NDP to his left flank, and increasingly he's facing an insurgency
00:31:26.680in the Wild Rose Independence Party on his right flank.
00:31:31.240Why don't you, Nadine, how do you think, in addition to the caucus front here, do you
00:31:38.180think the threat from the rank and file membership itself poses any existential threat to Kenny's