Western Standard - The Pipeline - Smith’s apology tour

00:00:00.000 good evening i'm derek phil the brand publisher of the western standard and you're watching the

00:00:23.360 pipeline. Today is October 19th, 2022. I'm joined as usual by the always dapper Western Standard

00:00:32.520 opinion editor, Mr. Nigel Henniford. How are you, Nigel? I'm good. Looking forward to getting into

00:00:38.020 it. Yeah. I know you got a lot to get off your chest today. And a guy who's always got a lot

00:00:42.480 to get off his chest, Western Standard Senior Alberta Columnist, Corey Morgan. How are you,

00:00:46.880 Corey? Good. I'm still sweating those ribs a bit, but we'll see. I was saying before we got on the

00:00:53.500 air, you eat some bad pork. It might turn you kosher. We'll see if it brings me to it. Take a

00:01:00.600 lot. Take a lot. Okay. Well, we've got a lot to talk about today. Danielle Smith,

00:01:09.760 been premier now, sworn in as premier for about a week and a half or so now,

00:01:13.340 But making a lot of apologies. Should Danielle Smith be apologizing for her comments, some controversial older statements in some cases surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war, newer statements surrounding discrimination against the unvaccinated?

00:01:31.600 It seems like quite an apology to her. We're going to talk about why she's doing this. Should she be doing this or should she maybe be not?

00:01:38.940 uh but speaking of the new government here in alberta the uh premier smith is going to announce

00:01:46.420 her new cabinet on friday it'll be sworn in a few days after that uh not normally the way it's done

00:01:51.580 normally these things are announced and sworn in simultaneously but we're going to find out who the

00:01:55.800 new cabinet is we're going to talk we'll speculate about who we think will be in and who we think

00:02:00.420 will be out but also who should be in and who should be out what kind of message is she going 1.00

00:02:05.100 be sending here. And the National Inquiry going on in Ottawa, the big circus. Is Trudeau on trial

00:02:13.980 here for the appropriateness of invoking the Emergencies or War Measures Act? Or is the

00:02:20.500 Freedom Convoy on trial for its attempt to overthrow democracy and pledge us into a new 0.87

00:02:29.440 dark age? So we're going to deal with the three of those. Before we get going, though, 0.98

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00:04:21.860 All right, so let's get into it.

00:04:25.000 Right out of the gate, Danielle Smith sworn in as premier, and she gives a press conference afterwards.

00:04:32.020 And she says something to the effect of, you know, the unvaccinated are the most...

00:04:38.840 In all her short life.

00:04:40.380 Yes.

00:04:40.800 She had never seen a group of people.

00:04:42.640 More discriminated against than the unvaccinated. 0.63

00:04:48.220 Well, there has been certainly discrimination in her life.

00:04:51.600 I don't recall any other group that was not allowed to go to a restaurant, that was not allowed to travel,

00:04:58.420 that was not allowed to engage in very basic functions that people in a nominally free country are allowed to.

00:05:05.660 But I think as could probably be expected, some people took issue with this and it kind of blew up.

00:05:11.600 And they said, well, what about group X?

00:05:13.180 What about group Y?

00:05:14.660 And, you know, the unvaccinated don't deserve this sympathy.

00:05:19.360 She apologized.

00:05:21.200 Do you think she has anything to apologize for in those comments?

00:05:24.360 Not at all.

00:05:25.180 I was sitting right there when she said them.

00:05:26.900 And my first reaction was, thank goodness, somebody's out and said it.

00:05:30.400 They had a rough time, those of us who were unvaccinated.

00:05:33.400 It was a very clear case of discrimination.

00:05:37.280 That's not to say nobody else ever got discriminated against.

00:05:41.600 in the 50 or so years that she's talking about but this was us and this was last year and the

00:05:48.720 year before and in my view there was nothing in that to apologize for she spoke no more than the

00:05:56.000 truth what's going on here and watch how this plays out she's been a radio host for seven years 0.84

00:06:02.640 and she's been an opinion columnist in the calgary herald for six years and the ndp have got their

00:06:08.880 team of researchers going through everything she's ever said or everything she's ever done

00:06:14.400 and everything she's written and they will drop one of these out every week in order to contrive

00:06:22.800 a narrative that first of all she's been wrong wrong wrong all these years and secondly that

00:06:27.280 she's now apologizing um it's pretty obvious she needs to stop apologizing she needs to say

00:06:35.120 this is what she needs to say. She needs to say, once I was a writer for an editorial page,

00:06:41.040 once I was a columnist, I was a talk show host, and you know, I said things to get discussion going.

00:06:50.160 Now I'm the premier. I'm gonna be saying things in a different way. I'm not apologizing anymore.

00:06:55.840 Some of this is new, like her comments around the unvaccinated being discriminated against.

00:07:01.120 Some of this is older, some much, much older, but some are just a little bit old.

00:07:06.080 Smith in her newsletter wrote some comments around, really around the beginning of the

00:07:12.240 Russian invasion of Ukraine, that I think it's fair to say part from the party line that is

00:07:19.760 supposed to be accepted that this conflict, like every conflict Canada has ever had a side in,

00:07:24.880 is always black and white and there is always 100% good guys and 100% bad guys

00:07:30.880 And there's no, there's never any nuance to how these things start.

00:07:36.720 You know, I certainly didn't read her comments as anti-Ukraine or pro-Russian or pro-Putin, but certainly became spun that way.

00:07:45.820 And she apologized for that.

00:07:47.960 Now, I guess with the unvaccinated one, she issued a clarification, not technically an apology, but it came across as an apology.

00:07:54.920 Ukraine, I think it was outright pretty much more of an apology.

00:07:59.420 Some of these things that NDP are digging up are much, much older.

00:08:03.120 I think the one thing from the 90s where she talked about,

00:08:06.800 it was a rather curious comment that moderate smoking might actually be good for you.

00:08:10.520 I would be hard-pressed to think that she would believe that today.

00:08:15.300 I think it requires more research.

00:08:17.600 Yeah.

00:08:19.900 But, Corey, it's kind of become really from the first day now

00:08:24.560 where she's either said something and is apologizing

00:08:27.720 or something else has been dug up from the past, and she's apologizing.

00:08:33.480 Is this, do you think, the right way for her to move on from these things?

00:08:36.600 You know, say, I'm sorry, let's move on.

00:08:39.660 Or do you think she needs to dig in her heels a bit here? 1.00

00:08:41.820 You won't stop the wolves by throwing meat at them.

00:08:44.020 They've seen her reverse lights, and they're going to keep coming.

00:08:46.740 You only inflame them when you apologize to them.

00:08:49.780 These are people that despise her.

00:08:51.400 The ones who are most inflamed about her comments, nothing is going to pacify them.

00:08:55.080 And once they've beaten one to death, as Nigel said, they're going to have a long list.

00:08:58.840 They'll start the next one.

00:09:00.180 And maybe she's got to come out, I think, with a blanket statement just to clarify that.

00:09:04.780 Look, I'm in a new role.

00:09:06.900 She's got to learn a bit herself.

00:09:08.080 To be fair, that first statement, she spoke like a talk to a show host rather than a premier.

00:09:11.660 And that's why she got into the soup. 0.91

00:09:13.240 She's a premier now.

00:09:14.040 She's got to learn how to parse her own words to make sure they can't be taken out of context

00:09:18.300 or used against her.

00:09:19.200 She's in a different role, but she's smart.

00:09:20.700 She'll figure that out fast.

00:09:21.700 but she's got to stop this or they will bleed her a death of a thousand cuts all the way to the next 1.00

00:09:26.500 election. She's got to say, I'm not going to address those things any longer. That was stuff

00:09:31.040 in the context of exploring ideas, being a talk show host, being a columnist. Some of my views

00:09:36.620 might've changed. Some of them might've been just exploratory at the time, but I can't sit and

00:09:40.560 address every little one of these things. That discussion's closed. We're working on, and then

00:09:45.720 just say, that's it. We're working on AHS. We're working on the sovereignty act. We're working on

00:09:49.540 reducing the cost of living. I'm a premier now. I don't have time for that petty stuff. She's 1.00

00:09:53.960 got to stop it. This is only going to get worse every time they get another apology out of her. 1.00

00:09:57.340 So let's talk kind of apology strategy. Jason Kinney, I think, was on the other side where

00:10:02.440 he could run someone over and he would not apologize. He just generally,

00:10:07.740 with extraordinarily few exceptions, did not apologize, including cases where it was

00:10:11.680 pretty clearly warranted an apology was required. Smith seems to be now apologizing,

00:10:17.700 I think much too liberally. Perhaps this might be a symptom of the

00:10:24.120 seven-year apology tour she's been on for her actions with the floor crossing that were 0.94

00:10:31.360 so clearly warranting of an apology and groveling and sackcloth and ashes and anything she could

00:10:37.400 possibly do to show contrition. Nigel, do you think it's possible that, you know, her being

00:10:45.380 stuck in this apology limbo, which was probably necessary for seven years, has maybe just

00:10:51.380 preconditioned her to the point where anything goes wrong, she feels the need to just kind of

00:10:56.360 apologize? Well, I don't think so, no. I mean, when she was on the campaign trail in search of the

00:11:01.280 leadership, I didn't pick that up from her in anything she said. I mean, people would put her

00:11:06.340 on the spot, and she'd, yeah, well, that's what I did. Well, those were generally attacks on,

00:11:09.920 But other than, well, she did apologize during the leadership campaign on the, you know, her floor crossing ordeal, but on everything else she did, because those are generally, oh, no, well, she apologized on the kind of the cancer and things you can do to prevent cancer comments.

00:11:26.380 But she generally didn't apologize much, but there was some, but she certainly wasn't all over.

00:11:31.640 But now that she's premier, the attacks are different.

00:11:34.980 These are different kind of attacks, and it's a different tempo.

00:11:37.900 She's no longer just a candidate.

00:11:38.960 She's the premier.

00:11:39.920 So when one of these attacks come at her, it's front page of all the legacy media right away.

00:11:45.380 And it's a lot more heat.

00:11:47.700 So I guess I'll kind of just reframe the question that way,

00:11:50.520 that is the heat so great now that she's conditioned that when that heat comes on her

00:11:54.360 that she feels the need to just apologize?

00:11:56.640 Well, I don't think so, and I certainly hope not.

00:11:59.820 Things you apologize for are when it's like bad manners.

00:12:05.300 I remember a time back when Ralph Klein was premier.

00:12:07.900 He went out, probably had a little more to drink than he should.

00:12:12.260 He ended up outside a homeless center and was throwing money on the sidewalk to the people there.

00:12:19.980 That was not nice.

00:12:22.220 And he apologized for it.

00:12:25.000 And Rolf did a number of things during the time that he was premier, which were like that and worth apologizing for.

00:12:33.100 And he had that gift of saying, ah, gee, shucks, you know, there I go.

00:12:37.220 I did it again.

00:12:37.900 And people sort of smiled and said, oh, that's Ralph, you know, but at least he apologizes.

00:12:42.800 This kind of things that she's being taken to task for now are not of that nature.

00:12:49.100 They are ideological.

00:12:51.120 They are, do you apologize for what you think and who you are?

00:12:55.140 And she can't say, I apologize for those things because we voted for Daniel Smith on what we saw.

00:13:02.700 Well, used to be members that Albertans haven't had a chance.

00:13:05.100 Yeah, that's true. But I mean, you know, let's see. That's the party membership chose her for what she was, not what she's apologizing for.

00:13:15.400 What do you think the risk is if if this continues? Surely some of it is, you know, as you both said, she is the pundit premier.

00:13:27.380 She is still sort of working her way out of being a talk show host and a columnist.

00:13:32.940 um you know she went from talk radio to some business advocacy and then she was here for 0.93

00:13:40.400 about two months uh with a show and a bit of writing and then straight into a campaign

00:13:45.480 um and you know she kind of did get and step in a bit with her comments around cancer whatnot i

00:13:51.240 don't think she meant anything bad by it but came across very poorly during the campaign

00:13:55.500 um i don't think she was wrong at all with her comments about the unvaccinated being

00:14:01.040 discriminated against. But I could, as soon as she said it, I was like, oh, I know some people

00:14:05.700 who are going to lose their minds here. Do you think she has to be a lot more careful about what

00:14:11.320 she's saying? Or does she then risk losing that authenticity, that kind of aw shucksness that she

00:14:17.660 has that makes her charming and an attractive leader to many people? She has to change how 0.98

00:14:23.440 she's speaking because she's the premier now. It's different. It's not the same as when you're a radio

00:14:27.600 host speculating on something, or when you're a columnist speculating on something, now you are

00:14:31.420 in a position of authority, a position with some power. So you do have to watch what you're saying

00:14:36.240 now, because it holds a lot more weight to it. But she can't keep apologizing for the past. The

00:14:42.100 risk there is letting her opponents own the narrative for the next seven months. And the 0.57

00:14:46.700 biggest risk will be Premier Rachel Notley. She can't have that. She's got a big plan. She's got

00:14:51.960 a big agenda. And if she's constantly having to address things she said in the past over the next 0.81

00:14:57.120 few months. And hey, if I was a strategist at the NDP, that's exactly what I'd be getting ready to

00:15:00.900 do. Let's keep owning the agenda. Keep her reactive all the time. She'll lose. She will lose. So this

00:15:07.660 was a bad sign with this recent one. I understand the pressures are coming on. She's got a million

00:15:11.920 things to think of at once. She's probably got 10 voices in her ears, all have the best idea on

00:15:15.900 earth and how to win the next election. But she can't let them grab this and own her because they 0.99

00:15:20.780 will and it's a mob and you can't pacify them so uh hopefully she'll have no apologies to make

00:15:27.960 about her cabinet yeah uh if she's in office too just to add further yeah as nigel was saying if

00:15:32.840 she makes a big mistake a policy mistake or something while premier that's when i want to

00:15:36.920 see an apology if she's truly contrite and feels she did something wrong i know that's better to

00:15:41.440 see that than as you said with kenny's digging in his heels and just refusing it's just this going

00:15:45.300 over the past that can't be done anymore. Yeah. Okay, well, let's talk about Smith's new cabinet

00:15:50.740 coming in. We're going to see, she's taken some time. It was very unusual or unconventional

00:15:58.140 transition. She almost immediately was sworn in as premier. Normally, when a leader succeeds a

00:16:06.060 leader that's already in government, you're, you know, a prime minister succeeding prime minister

00:16:10.220 in the same party or premier succeeding premier in the same party um usually there's a fairly

00:16:16.780 cordial handing over of power and there's two at least you know two weeks or so that's that's

00:16:23.340 usual if it's a new party taking over sometimes up to even three you know there's a big transition

00:16:28.780 here smith more or less uh walked off the stage at the leadership convention and went straight to

00:16:35.020 to the lieutenant governor's house and said, swear me in. It was a matter of days. It was the fastest

00:16:40.040 I've ever seen. And very unusually, she did not swear in her cabinet at the same time. Normally,

00:16:44.920 the premier or the prime minister is sworn in at the same ceremony as the cabinet. She hadn't even,

00:16:50.260 I think, put a ton of thought into the cabinet at that time, other than her transition team's

00:16:54.840 general ideas. She'd just come through a caucus retreat where she sat down with every single

00:17:00.080 member, I think 60 or so members of their caucus, interviewed them all. And on Friday, she's going

00:17:06.360 to announce her cabinet. Also unusually, as she's then going to wait a few more days to swear them

00:17:11.520 in early in the next week, I think the Monday or the Tuesday. But we're finally going to get to see

00:17:18.760 it. What are the big things, Corey, that you want to see in this? Not what you think you're going to

00:17:27.880 see, but that you want to see in Smith's new cabinet? I want to see some ministers with an

00:17:34.460 appetite for reform. This is a new leader. I want to see a new flavor in this government.

00:17:39.980 At the same time, I know she has to juggle party unity. She doesn't want to shun the Kenny loyalists.

00:17:44.480 That's how you get a party rift. So some of the past cabinet ministers should remain in, but I do

00:17:49.080 want to see in those senior positions. I want to see somebody in health who is then willing to say,

00:17:53.360 yes, we're gonna shake up AHS,

00:17:55.620 we're gonna change some stuff.

00:17:58.000 Intergovernmental affairs,

00:17:58.900 I don't know if we have a provincial cabinet posting,

00:18:01.300 but I think people in that role

00:18:03.640 then have it reflect her platform and saying,

00:18:05.360 yes, we're not gonna take a soft stance

00:18:07.020 with Ottawa, justice, minister,

00:18:10.120 let's strongly look at the police.

00:18:13.000 You know, I guess not a rebellious cabinet,

00:18:15.420 but I wanna see ones that are reflecting the new leadership

00:18:18.140 and pushing that agenda,

00:18:19.160 not just built to pacify people within caucus.

00:18:23.360 Well, before I go to you, Nigel, is there any individuals you want to see in and want to see out?

00:18:31.720 You know, I don't see too many. I really want to see that. That's part of the problem we've had with with the Kennedy government. You haven't heard from anybody else. I'm not sure what rising stars are in that caucus and aren't. They've been so quiet. I'm sure there's some very talented people and I can't really write a good list of who would be better.

00:18:47.400 There's ones that carry a lot of past baggage, though.

00:18:50.420 Tyler Shandro is an example of it.

00:18:51.880 I don't know if he could sit there without Danielle having to wear some of Jason Kenney's past luggage, you know.

00:19:00.920 Taves, on the other hand, though, he didn't, you know, even though he was part of the inner circle, didn't seem to carry as much of that.

00:19:07.120 And maybe, again, for the sake of unity, giving him a senior position would be good.

00:19:10.120 He's got a lot to think about.

00:19:11.440 Well, he was not directly, well, he was a part of the inner cabinet that made a lot of these COVID lockdowns.

00:19:16.880 He was in the sky, pal.

00:19:18.220 Yeah, he was a part of these things, but it doesn't quite stick to him the same way he does with Chandra, or even Nixon.

00:19:24.400 Or Nixon, and that was interesting.

00:19:26.520 I saw an interview with him this morning, actually, outside of the caucus retreat,

00:19:30.680 and speaking very positively, anyways, but perhaps that's when you're on your way in to see if you can't save your cabinet position or not.

00:19:37.160 I don't know.

00:19:37.600 It's hard to tell how it's going within caucus, but Nixon, I mean, definitely is known to be closely tied with Kenny,

00:19:43.340 and he could be a problem for Smith if he's in cabinet.

00:19:47.720 So she's got to think very carefully on that.

00:19:49.280 But he could be a problem if she shuns him too.

00:19:53.040 So, Nigel, before we get to what we're expecting,

00:19:55.900 we're going to come to that in a bit.

00:19:58.140 What is it you want to see in this?

00:20:00.160 Who do you want in?

00:20:01.360 Who do you want out? 0.79

00:20:02.320 Who do you think should stay?

00:20:04.520 Who do you think should be some new additions? 0.99

00:20:06.740 If you're advising Danielle Smith and she says,

00:20:10.220 write me up a memo who you think should be in,

00:20:13.060 who should be out who should stay what are the big names that come to mind well first of all i'm a

00:20:17.860 great believer in that old saying that you keep your friends close but you keep your enemies

00:20:22.260 closer so if there is anybody that she feels maybe part of a kind of a shadow shadow group of people

00:20:30.340 within the party but who are not actually in government she'd be best to pull them out of

00:20:35.060 there give them an incentive to that's most of the current cabinet well it could be like most of that

00:20:40.900 I think she had only one cabinet minister, Casey Maddow, supporting her.

00:20:44.680 The rest of the cabinet either publicly or quietly opposed her.

00:20:51.920 The biggest problem, let's just say that she wins the next election, which we all hope and pray she does. 0.97

00:21:00.140 The time when this shadow group would come into their own would be after that.

00:21:05.220 I cannot believe and I dare not believe that those MLAs, cabinet ministers, members of the UCP

00:21:13.720 who presently sit there in the legislature would rather undermine her now to make a point 1.00

00:21:19.780 and get elected in May next year. So I think she can actually count on the overt support at least

00:21:28.380 of just about anybody that she's likely to pick. And the person that I would to address your point

00:21:35.000 The person that I would be looking for first is finance, whom I would pick Trevor Taves.

00:21:43.420 I, unlike Gorey, I would leave Tyler Shandro as attorney general because I don't know.

00:21:51.900 I had a quick look to see who else was available.

00:21:55.080 They have a fair number of lawyers.

00:21:56.800 They have seven. But of the seven, I think he is the preferred, he's the one I would prefer.

00:22:06.320 The Ariana Lagrange in education. And in health, I kind of like what Copping's doing.

00:22:16.340 So I think there's quite a lot to be said for not making major changes in the cabinet at this point.

00:22:21.820 What about Nixon? So Nixon is currently the finance minister. He also might be the environment

00:22:28.680 minister at the same time. I'm not sure if that was shoved off, but he stepped into finance when

00:22:32.100 tapes came out. And he was house leader under Kenny. He was really his right-hand man. I think

00:22:39.320 there'd also be incredible tensions. I cannot imagine Brian Jean, who we have not really talked

00:22:45.220 much about here, but Brian Jean sitting at the same cabinet table as Jason Nixon. It's not known

00:22:50.240 a lot of people, but Jason Nixon stabbed Gene straight in the back during the last UCP, the

00:22:56.160 previous UCP leadership race. He was part of Kenny's inner circle up until the very morning

00:23:00.680 that he sent out a news release endorsing Jason Kenney. So he was sitting around privy to all his

00:23:05.160 inside stuff. There is, it's beyond bad blood. In fact, I think the relationship between Gene and

00:23:11.160 Nixon is probably worse between Gene and Kenny. This was so personal, it was a betrayal.

00:23:15.420 um and you know and there's a lot of hard feelings in the ucp caucus currently surrounding nixon the

00:23:24.620 way he's kind of put the elbows up enforcing kenny's discipline on the caucus um do you think

00:23:31.280 it's do you think smith would be advised to keep him in you've generally advised keeping that team

00:23:36.380 there you think should be advised to keep him in or maybe show him the door i am not uh privy to

00:23:43.180 all of the things that you've just explained.

00:23:45.060 On the basis of what you just

00:23:47.320 said, probably not.

00:23:49.580 I don't know that story well enough

00:23:51.160 to offer

00:23:52.080 an erudite comment on it.

00:23:55.620 But as a general principle,

00:23:57.220 most of the

00:23:57.920 leadership contenders

00:24:00.340 come forward and either put out

00:24:03.080 a statement saying that they will

00:24:05.080 support Smith

00:24:06.400 and that they are working for party

00:24:09.040 unity and looking forward to the election.

00:24:12.060 If that's the attitude, then keep them busy.

00:24:16.540 Give them some reason, a personal reason to stay loyal

00:24:19.720 and not be on the outside of the fence looking in and plotting, waiting for their chance.

00:24:25.360 Gene's an interesting one to continue.

00:24:27.340 Let's take a moment to talk about Gene.

00:24:29.600 Everyone kind of forgot about Gene.

00:24:30.940 If I could, and I could be wrong, I don't want to be too unfair to Brian on it,

00:24:35.460 but if I can think of one person who would potentially try to raise a caucus revolt

00:24:40.140 and cross the floor with a handful of members, I could think of Gene potentially doing it.

00:24:45.780 And I don't, maybe he wouldn't, I could be way off pace, but he's a person who's going to have

00:24:50.020 to be carefully managed within there. And he, it's not just Nixon he bristled with in caucus.

00:24:56.880 There's a few folks, but still the only way to quiet him perhaps is to bring him into cabinet.

00:25:00.920 Where do you put Gene? That's a, she's got some tough decisions. I mean, you can see why they 1.00

00:25:05.620 get that temptation just to make a giant cabinet there. We can just stick everybody in there.

00:25:08.820 Well, that's why, it's one of the reasons Canada has the largest cabinets on the planet. Our cabinet is something like three to four times the size of the American cabinet that runs the most powerful government on the planet. Little Canada has a cabinet four times the size. It's obviously for very political reasons, multifaceted political reasons, going back to Confederation and before.

00:25:29.960 um but brian gene i want to come i want to ask you nigel he i mean bringing them in giving them 0.99

00:25:38.080 mistaken something is one way to ensure loyalty but if it doesn't ensure loyalty it makes them

00:25:45.120 a bigger threat down the road if they do become uh problematic you think smith would be wise uh

00:25:51.920 i also have a feeling he's not going to take just any cabinet post he probably feels uh you know

00:25:58.600 Brian Jean has the deserves one of the big ones. Do you think she'd be smart to do that or to

00:26:05.880 more or less offer him something he might not necessarily take and quietly encourage his

00:26:12.640 third retirement? Well, if I were her, I would, as I say, keep the people who are likely to give

00:26:22.060 the most trouble close and he is certainly somebody who may not you know he put out again

00:26:29.500 he's one of the ones who put out a very conciliatory statement after it was after it was all done

00:26:36.700 you should do that don't make more than that than one should but you know there are there are

00:26:44.060 ministries where he could set out seven months and see how the voters think about it in May

00:26:49.260 I would say perhaps, you know, environment or even, even energy.

00:26:59.420 All right.

00:26:59.740 Fort McMurray, you know, he's got a, got an interest there. He knows a bit about it.

00:27:04.460 Well, we've talked about who should more or less, Gene's the only one we've talked about

00:27:09.100 potentially coming in. I do think Smith would be wise to make this her cabinet, not just

00:27:15.020 the kenny government plus smith i don't think that would send really the right message who

00:27:21.260 currently not in cabinet other than gene since we've talked about him now who currently not in

00:27:24.940 the cabinet but sitting in that caucus do you think she should consider promoting well tot

00:27:30.460 lowen for a start mm-hmm i uh just that uh well and i do count rachel schultz as part of the 0.85

00:27:41.500 No, no, I mean, everybody who was before they had to resign to run.

00:27:45.400 So I think Scholz effectively would consider still there, even though she's not technically there.

00:27:50.380 Scholz is definitely cabinet minister material.

00:27:53.780 She already was a cabinet minister for Children's Ministries.

00:27:57.540 She fought a very clean campaign. 0.96

00:27:59.880 That's been noticed.

00:28:01.660 It's also been publicly commented on.

00:28:04.240 She'd be a very easy one for Danielle to bring in and probably give a good job to her. 1.00

00:28:08.740 Better one than the one that she had before.

00:28:12.460 Corey, no one's talked about these two.

00:28:15.640 Sonny and Ahir.

00:28:17.220 Yeah, I was waiting for that.

00:28:18.620 The 1% club. 0.98

00:28:19.760 I think together they got rid of this.

00:28:21.980 I don't see how they serve any good purpose to keep them within.

00:28:26.560 They ran nasty negative campaigns.

00:28:28.700 They don't draw much support of the party membership whatsoever.

00:28:32.760 You know, since they get rid of them all together,

00:28:33.880 let the constituencies,

00:28:35.840 which Ahir already has quite a hornet's nest going on in her own. 1.00

00:28:39.600 I think Sonny's probably comfortable within hers, but they don't belong in cabinet.

00:28:43.080 There's no sense bringing them in.

00:28:44.280 Speaking of it here, we know she's on track to lose her nomination now. 1.00

00:28:48.460 It seems almost impossible that she keeps it unless she's protected for a third time.

00:28:53.680 You heard it here.

00:28:54.760 There is a movement afoot to move her to Calgary Elbow.

00:28:57.900 You heard it here.

00:28:59.300 That doesn't mean it's going to happen, but there are some players in the party who know she's going down.

00:29:05.140 She cannot get re-nominated.

00:29:06.600 didn't just miss draft more. And rather that because if she gets defeated, there should probably 0.80

00:29:11.120 cross the floor to the NDP or the Alberta Party or the Liberals or something to the left of the

00:29:16.960 UCP. It's the Alberta Party. They're the catchment of those discards. Yeah, they're due for another

00:29:22.320 floor crossing that survives a few months again. But a way to stop her from doing that would be 1.00

00:29:27.740 to put her an elbow where she might have a prayer of holding that seat for the UCP. It's currently 0.89

00:29:32.420 open. Doug Schweitzer's resigned. And they haven't held a by-election, which is very odd. This is

00:29:38.400 very odd because normally if there's vacant seats and you have a by-election, you have a by-election

00:29:43.440 for all of the vacant seats. And we talked about this last week. I don't think it looks good on

00:29:48.580 Smith to not hold the by-election in Elbow. It looks like they're afraid. And I know why they're

00:29:54.220 afraid. They might lose that seat to the NDP. It's a downtown urban seat. And there's a lot of,

00:29:58.480 There's some hoity-toity types in the area who might not like a populist party very much.

00:30:02.700 They prefer the NDP.

00:30:04.880 But it's another sign that maybe that there's a game of foot here

00:30:07.580 because you couldn't have held that by-election if you were moving a sitting MLA to it

00:30:10.760 because it would look ridiculous for someone to resign a seat in one riding

00:30:15.240 to run in a by-election in another and then essentially have three by-elections.

00:30:19.200 That would look comical.

00:30:21.220 But you heard it here.

00:30:22.980 There's a movement of foot in the UCP as a way to keep her from crossing the floor 0.82

00:30:26.680 even though she's going to lose that riding?

00:30:29.120 I think that would be terrible.

00:30:30.340 I mean, you're parachuting one who just got rejected

00:30:33.580 from her rural constituency on the outside of the city

00:30:35.800 into a swing riding within Calgary.

00:30:38.360 And let's face it, I mean, I like Lila.

00:30:39.980 I really actually do.

00:30:40.960 But she's not a strong campaigner. 1.00

00:30:44.340 You need somebody who's a workhorse and personable and good

00:30:50.420 and preferably local if you're going to hope to win Elbow in May.

00:30:55.740 and here I think it would be an insult to a second insult to the voters of elbow if

00:31:01.080 you deferred their by-election already for seven months and then for just

00:31:04.500 political purely political partisan reasons you flip somebody like it here

00:31:07.680 over there to be the candidate the idea of that strategy and I'm not saying it's

00:31:12.240 happening there's a very good chance it's not in fact if they actually unless

00:31:16.020 she got appointed to that writing I don't think she'd win the nomination in

00:31:18.540 elbow either but it would be a way to get her to not cross the floor to the 0.99

00:31:24.020 NDP or the Alberta Party or the Liberals. Because she probably will end up with someone other than

00:31:29.340 the UCP if she loses the nomination there. Take your losses. What a mess. What a mess. Okay, now

00:31:35.840 quickly, start with you, Nigel. What are you expecting from the new cabinet? What are you

00:31:40.620 expecting to see when this is announced Friday? Well, I'm expecting to see what I pretty much

00:31:45.660 laid out there is a lot of people we know very well occupying very similar positions. So that's

00:31:52.740 not really that exciting.

00:31:56.020 Right?

00:31:56.780 Any big changes you're expecting in there?

00:31:58.940 Not big ones. Like I said, you know, with the back

00:32:00.940 bench, I don't see any names aside from, say, Todd

00:32:02.800 and some others who are standing out.

00:32:04.820 The only thing I'd expect from the cabin is I think they're

00:32:06.780 going to be tasked, though, to really hit the ground running.

00:32:08.980 I don't think she's going to want to move slowly. She's got 0.88

00:32:10.720 seven months to say, this is the new government

00:32:12.780 and we're going to get stuff done.

00:32:15.440 Not a lot of time to measure the drapes.

00:32:17.800 The one thing I would hope

00:32:19.040 is that Danielle, as she has

00:32:21.000 won her place on the basis of the Sovereignty Act that she would take the lead on intergovernmental

00:32:27.080 relations. She would be the obvious. She is the premier. First minister, right? You know, that's

00:32:33.060 what Kenny did. At first, I thought when Kenny did, it might be good. But the premier, if you're an

00:32:38.300 active premier, you're taking the lead in all the ministries. The idea of having a minister is

00:32:41.880 someone to mind that file while you're distracted with something else. So because Kenny was

00:32:46.440 intergovernmental affairs minister, well, intergovernmental affairs got completely forgot

00:32:50.140 as soon as covid happened there was no minister stick handling that now i think you could

00:32:53.820 consolidate a bunch of these ministries i don't think you need 30 cabinet ministers in the

00:32:57.660 legislature of 87 people you could have a not that i expect the cabinet to get significantly shrunk

00:33:03.180 but you could probably get away with a cabinet of 10. but i i don't know i think that portfolio

00:33:07.980 probably should get with another minister that's the idea of having ministers is so that when the

00:33:12.220 premier or the prime minister's attention is drawn elsewhere by events as inevitably happens

00:33:17.260 there's still someone moving that file forward and it doesn't get forgotten the way

00:33:21.180 intergovernmental failures has been completely forgotten over the last two years well that's a

00:33:25.260 pretty fair argument yet so she has invested so much in the relationship between alberta and 0.55

00:33:32.220 ottoman that it almost behooves her to go out and uh and show how it's done well she would

00:33:39.660 definitely take the lead on it but you know what she's going to be judged on ralph klein 0.99

00:33:42.700 ran in 93 it was about getting the budget under control but he wasn't also simultaneously

00:33:46.860 the finance minister still had a finance minister to do that even though that was the overwhelming

00:33:50.940 focus of the government stopping the debt crisis but yeah i think one way or another if she's the

00:33:55.740 intergovernmental affairs minister or not she's going to be the face of it she's going to be the

00:33:59.260 face no one's going to care about whatever minister they put in there as intergovernmental affairs

00:34:03.420 minister they'll probably do a lot of the work but it's it's the premier's face you're going

00:34:07.660 going to see on these things. And it needs to be. Yeah. Yeah. Other than Lohan going in,

00:34:15.580 I think Nixon's going in. I think she knows that there's just too much politics there. 0.99

00:34:23.980 I could be very wrong, but I'm giving a 51% chance Nixon's out. I'm giving a 99% chance

00:34:30.820 Lowen is in. And I look for a few other MLAs that supported Smith coming in. Jason Stephan,

00:34:38.560 he's a lawyer. I could see Savage being out. Well, actually, I think Savage said she's not

00:34:43.640 running again, right? I would bet every minister who's not running again is out.

00:34:50.180 It's an easy out there. Because being a minister helps you get reelected. You've

00:34:54.100 got more profile, bigger office budget for communications. Being in cabinet helps you,

00:34:59.540 gives you a marginal edge if you're in a close race. So I don't think anyone, I think Savage

00:35:04.820 said she's not running. I don't expect Savage to be in that cabinet then. Definitely not if she 0.99

00:35:09.960 said she's not running. Prediction, 100% chance Jason Kenney's out of cabinet. I asked, I actually

00:35:16.300 asked Danielle about that when I had her on the show. Oh, what'd she say? She said it would be

00:35:21.260 very awkward and inappropriate. I even just asked what role he might have in the government, like

00:35:25.180 even in an associate minister or statesman sort of place.

00:35:28.600 And she made it pretty clear that he's not going to have much of anything.

00:35:32.520 So that would have been quite a surprise.

00:35:35.300 Jason Stephan, I think you can see in...

00:35:38.600 Guthrie.

00:35:40.320 Guthrie.

00:35:40.800 Actually, I think there's a good chance you could see Guthrie in.

00:35:43.960 And those are guys who are a bit rebellious too, though.

00:35:48.020 Well, they were rebels, but they were...

00:35:50.820 And this is an interesting thing.

00:35:52.080 They were on Smith's side of the rebellion against Kenny.

00:35:55.180 but they were rebels. Yes. And rebels are... They can get prickly on the next one just as easily.

00:36:00.200 Yeah, we'll see. Okay, so let's move on to the whole other end of the political mess here in

00:36:07.440 Ottawa. The national inquiry that's taking place into the federal government's invocation of the

00:36:15.080 Emergencies or War Measures Act. We're now a few days into this, or about a... How long are we

00:36:22.320 into this, at least a few days. Yeah, well, Thursday last week, wasn't it? Yeah, started last

00:36:26.120 week. Okay, so better part of a work week. They're starting, they seem to be starting with the small

00:36:33.000 fish and working their way up. They're starting with like municipal officials, and I saw on the

00:36:38.580 TV, it said Ottawa resident. I was like, oh, how did that guy get in there? Just Ottawa resident.

00:36:45.380 I don't know who elected him, but okay, sure, Ottawa resident. They're starting with small

00:36:48.920 fish and working their way up. It's kind of a mess right now, just different officials in the

00:36:53.180 municipal and policing level pointing the finger at each other saying, well, I did my job. This

00:36:57.600 guy screwed up. But we've got also sense of from the opening statements about where this is going

00:37:04.280 to go. And that's why we're calling this segment Trudeau or the convoy on trial. And I think that's

00:37:10.860 that is how the Canadian public is going to see this, how well that's borne out by the process

00:37:18.200 and the testimony is to be seen, but from the sense you're getting, even though we're still

00:37:24.440 pretty early days in this, Nigel, are we seeing this as more of a trial of Trudeau or of the

00:37:30.680 convoy? The intention will definitely be to show the convoy in a bad light. It's an interesting

00:37:39.120 thing that we've got something called an Emergencies Act. You could never have invoked

00:37:43.660 war measures act now that's old news the name of the change but calling it an emergencies act

00:37:49.820 yeah you could a lot of people would forgive you for thinking this was an emergency so who

00:37:54.460 are the emergency well there's all these trucks parked there uh and they they have a different

00:37:59.500 idea to the government so very much as the democrat party is trying to run a a narrative

00:38:06.940 around january the 6th so so i think this government is is using this inquiry as a

00:38:16.780 narrative building exercise to portray the truckers as who they say they are deplorable people

00:38:22.940 misogynistic racist unacceptable opinions we've all been through that list of all the ugly things

00:38:28.940 summarize it as unvaccinated on summarize it well yeah but then if you just say unvaccinated means

00:38:33.900 all of that's to be that is considered to be unacceptable and some people say well you know

00:38:38.860 actually i'm not vaccinated i'm happy with that the way you are i don't ask you to be unvaccinated

00:38:46.300 if that's your so what we've got is a is a very definite narrative building there and you bet

00:38:52.380 the whole idea is to present the truckers and everybody who supported them as being sinister

00:38:59.900 uneducated anti-establishment and on the basis of that they hope they get a

00:39:07.340 verdict that will enable them to get elected again sometime in the future

00:39:12.800 they have to win the public relations exercise that's why you're seeing you

00:39:18.200 know the sort of the humble people and then the slightly less humble people and

00:39:21.920 then the downright arrogant ones and then the ones who twist the truth I mean

00:39:26.460 what do we have Mendocino saying that Ottawa was ungovernable? Good Lord. When they were served

00:39:36.700 an injunction to stop honking their horns, they stopped honking their horns. Obviously,

00:39:40.900 there was some government going on there. And in actual fact, you were safer walking up and down

00:39:44.780 among the trucks than you were working, than you would have been walking two blocks down on Spark

00:39:49.680 Street, you know, this is a PR exercise from beginning to end.

00:39:54.400 Corey, from what you've seen of the testimony and the way the

00:39:58.020 inquiries been conducted so far, do you expect the government to, I

00:40:03.000 think there's two kind of two broad strategies, not necessarily

00:40:05.640 mutually exclusive, but in terms of the way they're going to try

00:40:11.760 and tee this up, is it primarily to defend their use, make the

00:40:16.320 case that well uh here was a problem and this was the way the only way to address it or do you expect

00:40:24.880 it to be less of a focus on defending its use uh or actually i should say defend its use

00:40:32.640 by purely talking about the freedom convoy and the the great danger to civilization it 0.97

00:40:40.000 the lazy way is just to keep shooting at the convoy and talk about how crazy they are what

00:40:43.760 what was wrong. And, you know, even if you concluded that they were dead wrong and that

00:40:48.400 you conclude they overstate their welcome and they should be removed, that still doesn't mean

00:40:53.180 you needed the emergencies act. No, but that's the point they should be trying to make. But the

00:40:58.200 lazy, easier point to make is just to keep throwing mud and demonizing the convoy and hoping people

00:41:03.440 don't even pay attention to what the basis of this inquiry is. But will they get away with that

00:41:06.640 is the question is do you know to convince a majority of left and center-left voters in

00:41:13.520 canada that um that they were in the right on this issue do they need to convince the public

00:41:21.520 that the emergencies act was necessary or do they just need to make the case that these were bad

00:41:28.160 people and we did tough things to bad people uh similar to what pierre trudeau did with using the

00:41:35.040 the war measures act uh during the flq crisis i mean it was obviously a bad thing but uh people

00:41:41.140 were getting killed i mean not that if two people were killed murdering people i would support the

00:41:46.240 emergencies act against them too well i i don't know uh like we've kind of we kind of at least

00:41:51.120 in english kind of we've just kind of accepted that over time like it was much more serious

00:41:55.780 two people were assassinated and there was some minor bombings that didn't have people killed but

00:42:00.960 it was bad, but sending the troops in, warrantless searches of homes and arrests without habeas

00:42:07.740 corpus, it probably was a giant overreaction. But Pierre Trudeau didn't need to convince people that

00:42:14.660 the War Measures Act was necessary. He just needed to convince people that the Quebec separatists

00:42:20.340 were really bad guys. And then people more or less didn't care about was the War Measures Act

00:42:26.360 an appropriate tool, the necessary, needed tool to deal with it. People didn't care about it after

00:42:34.340 there because the argument was made. It was a pretty easy argument to make that the FLQ and

00:42:38.860 anyone who supported them were just bad guys. So what I'm getting at now is, is this the same

00:42:44.780 strategy? Does Trudeau not need to make the case that the Emergencies Act was necessary and required

00:42:51.420 and instead just has to make the argument that the Freedom Convoy were a threat to democracy?

00:42:55.900 Well, that's what I'm, that's what I'm arguing.

00:42:58.500 I agree.

00:42:59.340 I think that's what they get away with it.

00:43:00.860 Yeah, I think the public doesn't think that nuanced.

00:43:03.700 Unfortunately, there's policy weenies and people like ourselves who look at historical

00:43:07.980 authoritarian regimes and see the tools they use and understand the, the significance of

00:43:12.960 suspending civil rights to deal with an emergency.

00:43:17.380 They're talking about press gangs, essentially to force truckers into forced labor.

00:43:21.360 But your average citizen doesn't.

00:43:22.940 That's exactly what that was.

00:43:23.900 I hate to, you know, but unfortunately the Kardashians dominate the news.

00:43:28.520 They're not going to think that deeply on the policy.

00:43:30.480 And that's part of the reason you're going to see,

00:43:32.260 you want to see one of the biggest things that would be covered is when King

00:43:35.140 takes the stand, Pat King, because he's one of the ones on the list.

00:43:39.260 He sort of personifies a lot of the fringe aspect that was a part of the movie.

00:43:43.860 He will help the liberals' case in that.

00:43:47.780 I think they will try to prod the crazy out of him.

00:43:50.040 He is amongst the least sympathetic figures involved.

00:43:52.980 Tamera Leach probably went on and off to stand fast. 1.00

00:43:55.420 She's sympathetic, she's smart, she's controlled.

00:43:58.100 Pat King could potentially go off on that tangent.

00:44:01.420 You see, you see, you see, did you want that man taking over Ottawa?

00:44:04.360 Again, it's irrational, but that's how you win the points.

00:44:06.880 We've got a very complicit legacy media who will more than happily feed that pablum to the masses as this comes up.

00:44:13.140 You know, there's an awful lot of people who say they value freedom,

00:44:15.940 but when somebody actually does something a little unusual to stand for freedom,

00:44:21.680 well oh well I don't know that I would go that far and they back off and they're the ones who

00:44:28.500 will probably find this whole theater to support their view that the truckers were

00:44:34.640 kind of a little bit working class for their tastes and therefore they don't back them well 1.00

00:44:39.700 everyone's on the right side of history when you're reading it in the books oh yeah well and

00:44:42.960 I like to keep mentioning and I like to keep mentioning to the war measures act because that

00:44:46.340 really drove home how serious this act is and the sort of circumstances where something like

00:44:51.480 this should be imposed. An emergencies act could mean any flutter or a heat wave. And this should

00:44:57.560 be of the most serious of last resorts. The aliens should be landing before you think about it.

00:45:02.380 Outside of the first and second world wars, the war measures or its successor, the emergencies

00:45:07.700 act has only been used twice. And it's been used by the same family. That should say something.

00:45:15.860 outside of world wars.

00:45:18.580 It's only been used by two guys with the same last name.

00:45:23.160 All right.

00:45:24.260 Well, let's wrap it up there.

00:45:25.560 Thank you very much, gentlemen.

00:45:26.740 And thank you all for joining us today.

00:45:29.400 If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard,

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00:45:44.180 Cory, Nigel

00:45:46.600 Always a pleasure

00:45:48.240 I love it, thank you very much

00:45:50.440 and thank all of you and God bless

00:45:52.320 Alberta Prosperity Project is dedicated to protecting Alberta's world-class energy sector

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Western Standard - October 20, 2022

The Pipeline - Smith’s apology tour

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