Western Standard - The Pipeline： Special Coverage - UCP Premier Kenney's Leadership Review

00:00:00.000 G'day today. Oh, what's the date? It's May 18th. What a start. Today's May 18th, 2022.

00:00:25.160 to. Today is a special edition of the pipeline from the Western Standard here. I'm Western

00:00:31.940 Standard publisher, Derek Fildebrandt. We're going to be covering the historic leadership

00:00:37.700 review vote of United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney. I'm joined today, as usual, by the

00:00:44.540 always pleasant Dave Naylor. Are you doing, Dave? I'm doing well, even though you've messed up the

00:00:49.040 Feng Shui. That was the producer's fault. Yes. And he writes one column for us. Now he thinks

00:00:56.160 he can shuffle everything around. He's playing God around here. Also speaking of playing God,

00:01:01.040 uh, joining us is, uh, Western centered opinion of broadcast editor, Corey Morgan. How you feeling,

00:01:05.600 Corey? Oh, good. Good. Uh, it's, it's nice going into something when I honestly, something rare

00:01:09.920 you hear to me. I haven't a clue how this is going to turn out. Well, that's, yeah, that's

00:01:14.720 the thing. Everyone's got their bets. Well, we've got a great program. Just a few housekeeping notes.

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00:02:45.640 team of journalists we've got here right across the West and on Parliament Hill.

00:02:49.660 Okay, let's get started with the good stuff. We've got a long lineup of, we got

00:02:53.980 a lot of really good guests and experts coming in today, both before we get the

00:02:57.960 results and after. Dave, first, tell us what we can expect tonight in terms of

00:03:03.720 the timeline ballots are being counted now uh when do we expect results anytime between four

00:03:10.120 o'clock and six o'clock now unfortunately the ucp doesn't have a very good track record of doing

00:03:15.160 things on time but there's a flames game tonight so we're hoping they've got their fast counting

00:03:20.040 fingers so uh the safe betting is if it's a if it's a kenny victory it'll be early announced

00:03:26.360 so everybody can get to the hockey game and if it's a kenny loss it'll be uh closer to six

00:03:32.260 I think that's a fair bet.

00:03:35.940 But yeah, it's being overseen by Deloitte right now.

00:03:39.160 Deloitte will give the party the results,

00:03:40.680 but then the party determines, I think,

00:03:42.580 when the results are going to come.

00:03:44.980 So we're going to have Western Standards,

00:03:48.020 Alberta Legislative Bureau Chief Rachel Emanuel.

00:03:51.040 She's going to be one of very few journalists

00:03:52.740 who are going to be at the Kenny announcement event

00:03:57.640 where he will give a speech one way or another.

00:03:59.880 Rachel wrote in her piece today. She was the only Alberta journalist who followed

00:04:04.920 Jason Kitty down to Washington DC for his appearance before the Senate

00:04:07.800 Committee. She wrote today that he said he's having two speeches written,

00:04:13.200 depending on which way it goes. Yes, you know, stay or go. And she's gonna be one

00:04:18.960 of the one of the very few select journalists in the Alberta media who's

00:04:22.920 gonna be there tonight. We've also got a long lineup though of experts and

00:04:27.260 commentators in Alberta politics. Tell us about who we've got coming on the show, Corey. Sure.

00:04:31.100 I got to look at the list, though, to make sure to get them in the right order. We should have

00:04:33.580 Andrew Lawton coming in to join us. He's with True North Centre, but he's, of course, always

00:04:37.060 been well-tuned and dialed into Canadian politics in general and as well as Alberta One, so he'll

00:04:42.140 offer some perspectives on that. And then Janet Brown, who has Janet Brown opinion polling and

00:04:48.880 marketing and such, and she's been a regular commentator on a number of news outlets, so

00:04:54.600 she's going to discuss things. Then Danielle Smith's going to pop into the studio. If anybody 0.98

00:04:58.260 knows what leadership challenge is, it's certainly Danielle, and she will lend some thoughts there.

00:05:03.640 Later on, Paul Hinman's going to join us. I noticed one of the commenters was saying they

00:05:07.260 want to hear from Paul. Well, you will get to hear from him tonight. Peter Guthrie,

00:05:10.920 he's been an outspoken UCP MLA up in Cochrane area. He's going to come on for a little while

00:05:16.000 to talk to us. Josh Andrus with Project Confederation. I was going to say Project

00:05:22.420 Alberta but that's not the case so many projects on the go uh Drew Barnes of course he'll have to

00:05:28.260 lend his a few cents on this he always likes to talk about these things and David Parker uh will

00:05:33.380 come in from uh the take back Alberta take back Alberta boy how do I keep track of all of these

00:05:38.580 so yes we got lots of people plus we might have others pop in uh throughout the course of the

00:05:42.420 night and uh the schedule is going to be fluid because we don't know at what point when suddenly

00:05:46.340 we're going to break away and they're going to be releasing the results they've given us a two-hour

00:05:49.620 window to work. Yeah. Yeah. Just some programming note for our producer here. Let's get up on the

00:05:56.860 screen instead of SGM. No one knows what an SGM is. Let's just make sure people know that this is

00:06:01.600 Kenny leadership review votes expected. Okay. So four o'clock is the very earliest. That's eight

00:06:08.580 minutes from now. The earliest that we can expect any results. I'm not sure. No, I wouldn't mortgage

00:06:13.500 the house on it no i i i wouldn't bet on it um i mean the other thing is that this is going to be

00:06:19.740 all also a commercial for the ucp right uh they're going to want to promote you know i'm sure they're

00:06:24.780 going to run a few infomercials and stuff like that so this is a chance you know for them to get

00:06:29.980 some free advertising yeah well actually uh we're going to have a live stream of the event so uh

00:06:34.620 just a note for broadcast here uh once we've got the live stream of the ucp going we'll just get

00:06:39.900 that running uh off in the corner even if there's nothing happening uh what is that way we're able

00:06:44.780 to watch it uh in real time no no nothing yet uh but we're waiting on it uh okay well i guess the

00:06:54.060 the first order of business is uh i'm we need to place our best gentlemen we've been making our

00:07:00.140 guesses here and there uh no ranges give a number you have to give us you have to give an actual

00:07:06.700 number vote. What do you think Kenny is going to get? Unlikely any of us is going to be exactly

00:07:12.200 right. The big one is if you pick, he wins or loses and by big or by small. So we're going to

00:07:16.260 have pie on our face. I fully expect there's a strong chance of egg on my face today, but I'm

00:07:22.720 saying 45. Dave? 55. I'm kind of splitting the difference at 48. Actually, 48 was my actual one

00:07:33.820 beforehand. But I said 45 here, so I'm going to stick with it. As I said, though, I really don't 1.00

00:07:38.440 have a clue. This is a totally uninformed guess. Well, I mean, if this was going by the special

00:07:44.760 general meeting in Red Deer that was supposed to take place originally, based on the information

00:07:49.300 I had, I would have said Kenny would have struggled to stay above 30%. It was not even going to be

00:07:55.580 close. It was going to be a blowout. And that's why they changed the rules. They knew that this

00:07:59.580 was going very sideways for the premier. They changed the rules. There's been a lot of, let's

00:08:06.100 just say, questionable membership sales, mass membership purchases made on single credit cards,

00:08:11.720 largely in different ethnic communities where kind of bulk membership buying is kind of a

00:08:17.200 longstanding practice in all parties. So whatever the number is, nobody's going to believe it.

00:08:22.400 Bottom of the line. Well, no one's going to believe it's correctly as high as it is. I mean,

00:08:28.320 If it's 45, well, then it probably should have been 35.

00:08:32.500 But at that point, the difference is moot, he's gone.

00:08:35.440 It makes a difference if it's 50% plus one or more,

00:08:39.040 because then the lack of confidence many people have in the process.

00:08:43.620 I think there is good reason to have faith in the accounting here.

00:08:48.700 They've got Deloitte doing it.

00:08:50.500 From all accounts of the conversations I've had,

00:08:52.320 Deloitte has been very tough, very fair.

00:08:54.340 Deloitte is a respected accounting firm.

00:08:57.360 their reputations on the line. So they don't want at least the part that they're in charge of the

00:09:01.580 accounting and part of the process, the balloting to be called into question.

00:09:06.200 All of the questions, Dave, maybe you should run us through some of the controversies that

00:09:09.920 we've had so far around the process. Our Linda Slobodian wrote a column last week talking to

00:09:16.120 Rick Orman, who is basically running the party for the UCP. And he says, look, I have every

00:09:20.800 confidence in the integrity of the vote from Deloitte. But he admitted, and there is a big

00:09:25.940 but the integrity of it the vote went until it gets to uh deloitte and that's where the you know

00:09:32.580 the alleged shenanigans have taken place uh it's alleged uh jason kenny uh appeared at a

00:09:39.940 edmonton mosque and was urging people to sign up and and uh you know basically saying don't

00:09:45.060 worry about the 10 bucks there's allegations uh allegedly under investigation right now

00:09:50.420 by Elections Alberta on bulk membership buying that you mentioned, Derek, in ethnic communities

00:09:56.420 by thousands of memberships, just a small number of credit cards, which would be a little bit

00:10:03.700 naughty, as they say. And just, you know, the changing of the vote from in person to, you know,

00:10:11.460 all that sort of indecision over a few days, it was going to be held in Calgary and Edmonton at

00:10:16.340 the same time and then red deer and then decide mail-in the process is flawed the process is

00:10:23.140 is is has undone itself basically and and people have some good reason not to uh not to trust it

00:10:31.460 especially after you know what he's still under kenny's still under investigation for

00:10:35.940 the 2017 leadership uh election and that was five years ago so there's always going to be questions

00:10:42.820 when it comes to premier kenny unfortunately uh sylvia just so you know we uh well we're reading

00:10:47.780 some of the comments the ones we see we're we're busy we're watching a lot of things computers

00:10:51.780 results all sorts of stuff it is interactive though i mean i like seeing discussion even

00:10:55.700 between you guys some less tasteful than others i guess but uh and you know throw questions our way

00:11:00.820 we might catch stuff and pass it along by all means use the comment scroll but we we can't

00:11:04.580 necessarily address everyone as they come yeah um well we'll talk about some of the scenarios one of

00:11:12.820 the very possible scenarios is uh is a slim majority uh vote for kenny i mean i i've never

00:11:19.820 heard of any leader surviving in the 50s even the 60s leaders normally go either right away or

00:11:26.360 they're gone taken out by their own caucus or something a few uh within weeks or months after

00:11:31.000 uh but let's you know just for for the sake of argument here let's say 55 percent uh if kenny

00:11:37.540 gets 55% tonight, which is what Dave was predicting. How do you think it plays out?

00:11:44.560 I think it'll be terrible. He's got a lot of unity issues within caucus already. He needs

00:11:49.360 something decisive. He needs us to be dead wrong. He needs something well over 60. He's got to have

00:11:55.080 a mandate to say, look, the members have spoken. We need to go forward because there's clearly a

00:11:59.620 lot of discontent down there. And the only thing he can chasten them with is saying the members

00:12:03.580 have spoken and 55 is not saying they've spoken. So it's going to be just tumultuous. We could

00:12:09.140 possibly, not possibly, we will see more, more crossings going on. I mean, it's going to be a

00:12:14.360 mess. So he's going to have to get something strong. So we've got a question for Corey here

00:12:18.640 from, uh, from Dan asking what time we can expect the final numbers. I wish we knew, uh, you know,

00:12:24.520 they've given us a window of between four and six. And as we know too, with the UCP, everything seems

00:12:30.100 to be later than when they tell us, but I mean, we're coming up on a hockey game. Hopefully they

00:12:33.220 respect Albertans enough to just get the thing out

00:12:35.160 when they got it. If they have any respect

00:12:37.220 for Albertans, they will not make anyone

00:12:39.120 miss any of the game. Have they, has the

00:12:41.160 UCP ever started anything

00:12:42.880 ever on time? Well,

00:12:44.700 no.

00:12:46.440 No. And especially

00:12:48.060 Jason, especially Jason Kenny is the worst

00:12:50.660 defender. You can see the media

00:12:52.660 commenting, oh, Kenny

00:12:54.720 20 minutes late now, I guess his time's

00:12:56.620 more important than mine. So, yeah,

00:12:58.720 they have a very bad history

00:13:00.560 of getting things right.

00:13:03.220 on time okay uh well maybe uh corey um i'm gonna sub out here in a minute here but

00:13:11.060 maybe we'll uh we'll just get you talking um but maybe set up some of the scenarios if if

00:13:17.220 if kenny goes down tight he gets less than 50 percent um maybe run us through what do you think

00:13:24.020 we can expect what's the process and you know who are we likely to see run well the the unofficial

00:13:29.620 leadership race will begin within minutes. We know that. So, I mean, people are going to put

00:13:35.320 their names forward. We've had a couple of people that showed interest, assuming the job's open,

00:13:40.300 as with Daniel Smith, who said, you know, if the job opens, she'd certainly strongly consider

00:13:44.840 running for it. We've got Brian Jean, who's made it very clear he wants to not only run for it,

00:13:50.400 but to make sure the job is open and doing everything he can to make sure that Premier

00:13:55.420 Kenny is no longer the premier so that he can make a go of it. So there's a couple of the

00:14:01.040 scenarios that we might have some names that we hadn't anticipated popping up. It's hard to say,

00:14:05.160 but nobody's shown real interest in the job quite yet. The jockeying is going to happen fast. I mean,

00:14:10.100 the party will have to scramble and find an interim leader. That'll have to be somebody

00:14:15.220 who's definitely not going to run for the leadership. So there's a few names, I guess,

00:14:19.140 and cabinet that wouldn't be considered prime contenders for that role no like a dave hancock

00:14:26.020 when last time yeah exactly somebody solid and steady but you know who doesn't have ambitions

00:14:33.140 to try and take the leadership themselves so uh i mean they're going i don't know how fast they can

00:14:39.060 pivot you know then you've got to set up a committee for the leadership you've got to set

00:14:42.460 about what the rules are going to be for running for uh leadership moving forward from there and

00:14:46.820 they can't do a long one they can't do like the federal conservatives because they got a general

00:14:50.560 election a year from now but in in theory we could have a the leadership race underway

00:14:54.700 unofficially tomorrow morning oh yeah the unofficial will be beginning and the ucp uh

00:15:00.360 caucus is meeting in calgary tomorrow at 11 o'clock uh and that's going to be fun to be a fly on the

00:15:06.220 wall maybe we'll have an episode of uh twitter leaks or wiki leaks or whatever derek called it

00:15:11.360 back then. But yeah, so Kenny either goes in there and lays down the law and says, I've won.

00:15:19.220 If you can't support me, get out, get out now. Or he uses it to resign. So either way,

00:15:26.440 a couple of historic days ahead, Corey, for us in Alberta politics.

00:15:31.840 Yeah, well, and Kenny's had some strong language saying this is the last, we have to settle it

00:15:36.840 after this so he's not going to tolerate any more dissent uh anything going further at this point

00:15:42.120 he hasn't said what he would do but I imagine the only penalty left is expulsion from caucus he

00:15:47.180 can't sit and let like right now we have a number of MLAs who are very outspoken against the leader

00:15:52.060 and he can't afford to kick them out of caucus at this point he already lost two because of that

00:15:56.200 but can he maintain these guys in caucus now after the race even with a strong showing you know what

00:16:04.260 do you do with with people like Peter Guthrie or Jason Steffen who have been very outspoken

00:16:10.200 and questioning his his leadership and keep them within the caucus with you it's it's gonna be

00:16:15.200 uncomfortable to say yeah we're gonna be able to ask Peter tonight okay Peter here's the results

00:16:20.080 what are you going to do and you know could be uh breaking news on that one right then and there

00:16:25.600 yeah well we will have Peter at at five o'clock so we'll you know we'll ask where we can assuming

00:16:30.520 Assuming we've got results at that point.

00:16:33.280 So, last things.

00:16:35.640 Just to let you know, on the results page, they have taken down the stream, not available,

00:16:41.040 and they have put up a black screen.

00:16:43.580 So, we've made tremendous progress since 4 o'clock.

00:16:47.380 Moving behind the scenes there.

00:16:49.380 You know, I mean, something else to keep in mind is the other parties.

00:16:53.920 We'll be talking to Paul Hinman.

00:16:55.200 I mean, might he see this as an opportunity to build the Wildrose Independence Party

00:16:58.940 and turn it into the alternative he wants it to be.

00:17:02.100 I mean, if people are frustrated

00:17:03.220 turning away from the UCP,

00:17:04.980 they've been hanging on this long,

00:17:06.360 I'm certain Paul's going to want to say,

00:17:07.900 hey, I've got a home for you

00:17:09.640 as to how many of them he harvests and brings in.

00:17:13.500 It's hard to say.

00:17:14.140 I mean, there are different mandates.

00:17:15.240 There are different parties.

00:17:17.100 There's also, what do you need?

00:17:18.760 I think four seats in the legislature with MLAs

00:17:21.080 and you've got official party status.

00:17:22.340 There's already two malcontents

00:17:23.580 sitting over there with Drew and Todd. 0.98

00:17:25.800 You might end up with at least two more

00:17:28.540 after this there's so many variables right now of course that the first step though is just finding

00:17:33.080 out what the the numbers are on this thing and look we've got our first uh unexpected surprise

00:17:37.060 guest surprise hey we have melanie risen from the newsroom man how's it going mel good thank you

00:17:43.660 yeah we'll tell you a bit uh deer between the headlights or deer in the headlights

00:17:48.160 didn't what dirt just said get in there type thing yeah let people know uh what your thoughts are what

00:17:54.320 your predictions are. So here I am to chat with you guys. Well, we've already made our predictions.

00:17:59.840 I was the only one to predict he would survive with 55%. I think Derek picked 45% and Corey 48%.

00:18:07.260 What are your thoughts? Okay. So you guys are going under the 50%.

00:18:11.860 Yes. Except me. Interesting. I think I would

00:18:16.000 likely peg him

00:18:18.520 over your percentage

00:18:20.540 in support.

00:18:22.800 Why?

00:18:23.840 I think that he has,

00:18:26.720 you know, for lack of a better

00:18:28.240 way of explaining it, I think he's

00:18:30.100 had a lot of things well under

00:18:32.060 control.

00:18:34.780 Okay.

00:18:36.460 He has seemed very confident.

00:18:38.740 I think.

00:18:39.260 He was down in Washington the day before

00:18:41.380 results were announced and he was confident

00:18:43.820 down there when he was talking with our

00:18:45.680 rachel emmanuel he says he's sleeping at night so doesn't appear to be a man who's afraid of

00:18:51.860 losing his job well and credit where he's due he didn't you know at least set aside the business

00:18:56.740 of the office while this was all going on i mean it didn't do him any favors being as far as

00:19:01.740 leadership goes being in washington for that this last week but it was actually a very good meeting

00:19:06.280 it went well he promoted alberta and our energy products far better in that meeting than our

00:19:11.400 federal government has since they've been taking government probably. So I mean, you know, credit

00:19:16.480 where due and appreciated. It's just it's unfortunate he wasn't as effective two years

00:19:21.360 ago. He might not be facing a review today. Yeah, I think I think that's exactly it. I think even

00:19:26.420 just some of the traction he's got for, you know, promoting employment and promoting business to

00:19:34.540 come to Alberta, I think has been, you know, I think it has been affecting people's thoughts

00:19:41.320 about how productive he has been. I think that it is perhaps affecting people's view

00:19:48.900 on whether he can help lift our province out of a pandemic crisis, whether we're looking

00:19:56.160 at it financially, from the health sector. So I think a lot of the positioning that

00:20:02.980 he's done over the last couple of months now i think i've worked in his favor okay we're going

00:20:08.780 to pull andrew lawton in he's down in the lobby that's what i was being uh whispered the screen

00:20:13.300 wasn't to open well enough so he's been back there because we've been looking forward to

00:20:16.460 getting another perspective from somebody who's a strong political watcher and voice but it's

00:20:21.360 outside of our little cloistered alberta world so thanks for joining us andrew hey i know that

00:20:25.820 nothing more than easterner's opinions are what albertans want so thanks very much for having me

00:20:30.140 on. Oh, it's always appreciated. You've spent more than your share of time out here so far.

00:20:35.920 I don't imagine this is making a lot of news outside of the political wants out east, though.

00:20:40.340 I wouldn't say generally. I mean, certainly the Ottawa journalist class is talking about it

00:20:45.880 because of its effect on the more broad conservative movement. But I also think,

00:20:50.240 generally speaking, with the conservative leadership race going, that's where most of

00:20:54.700 the horse race attention is devoted. But I will say that there is a lot of soul searching right

00:21:01.360 now in the conservative movement because of the leadership race, the convoy, the ousting of Aaron

00:21:06.060 O'Toole. And I think a lot of that will really consume whatever happens tonight as part of that

00:21:12.200 bigger narrative. And I think in a lot of cases, it might be a lot broader. I mean, I talked to

00:21:17.000 Jason Kenney a couple of weeks back and he had said that, you know, the opposition to him is

00:21:21.200 just about COVID. And that was really it. He tried to narrow it down to a very single issue. And I'm

00:21:26.080 not sure that captures the complexity of a lot of the discontent around his leadership.

00:21:31.020 No, I have spoken to some frustrated individuals who said that they have a broader concerns with

00:21:37.000 Premier Kenney and things over the last few years or the Fair Deal panel and a number of things. And

00:21:40.880 they feel kind of insulted, actually, when they're accused of just being vaccine opponents or part of

00:21:48.220 truckers convoy and and he's taking that tact i'm not sure if that's gonna gonna help him in this

00:21:52.940 particular kind of race because this is an internal race yeah and generally speaking there's been

00:21:57.660 frustration about the leadership style and i think that goes far beyond policy people that don't feel

00:22:03.100 like they have a voice in caucus and i mean obviously compared to say ontario my province

00:22:08.380 there's a lot more discontent allowed in the ucp caucus and i think that's just part of the

00:22:13.340 the Alberta spirit, where there's a little bit less unanimity behind the leader. But I think

00:22:18.060 even then that there's not enough latitude that a lot of MLAs I've spoken to over the last couple

00:22:23.580 of years have said they feel under Kenny's leadership. And I was hearing this before

00:22:28.200 COVID. I was hearing this, like you mentioned, about Alberta independence. I was hearing it

00:22:32.460 about the equalization referendum. This is not just a product of COVID, although certainly COVID

00:22:37.220 didn't help. Yeah. And I mean, a lot of that as well, as you said, it's within caucus. It's his

00:22:42.580 leadership style because I mean there's been a lot of you know crabby conservatives that's what

00:22:46.620 we do in Saskatchewan their side parties have sprung out in Ontario there's the Derek Sloan

00:22:52.320 started his but there hasn't been the internal turmoil to that level going on in Premier Moe's

00:22:59.160 party or in Ford's party I mean there's been some individuals but not this kind of general revolt

00:23:04.000 that the Premier Kennedy's been facing. Well I mean the Ford situation though is quite interesting

00:23:09.080 And this is perhaps some perspective that I can bring from Ontario, because Ford has had no hesitation in getting rid of people he believes are problem MPPs, the Ontario version of MLAs.

00:23:21.720 He's turfed, I think by my count, it was about four MPPs from his caucus since he was elected four years ago.

00:23:27.700 And it might actually be five.

00:23:28.980 And that's not including a couple of behind the scenes situations that I know of where people didn't run again, but it was actually because they were pushed out.

00:23:36.100 So there's been a lot less of a flexibility in the Ontario PC environment.

00:23:41.260 And again, people would look at that.

00:23:42.760 I mean, that's what produced Roman Babber running for the leadership of the Conservatives, for example.

00:23:46.440 Here's a guy who was for speaking out against lockdowns and vaccine mandates and vaccine passports kicked out of the caucus.

00:23:52.680 So you have had, I think, genuinely among MLAs more of an ability to speak out.

00:23:58.920 But again, that hasn't been entirely there.

00:24:01.300 That's why Drew Barnes and Todd Lohan are sitting in the back benches as independents right now.

00:24:06.100 Yeah, so do you feel, I imagine that Premier Kenney, assuming if he does survive this review, he's going to perhaps take on more of an approach like Ford and just not put up with any dissent any longer.

00:24:17.780 It's going to be toe the line or you're off to the back bench.

00:24:20.960 Well, it's possible. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of a block form that's a little bit stronger.

00:24:27.160 I mean, you may remember, and you probably would better than most, that letter that came out a while ago of MLA's concerned about lockdowns.

00:24:33.340 And it wasn't explicitly an anti-Kenny letter, but you could start to see a potential block form that if there was a more serious challenge to Jason Kenney's leadership brewing, those would be the people who I would look at.

00:24:44.900 And I would also say that, you know, one of the things that's really interesting, Danielle Smith, for example, I had her on my show shortly after she announced she was going to get back in the game.

00:24:54.440 And I said, you know, if Jason Kenney is successful and you're successful at winning the nomination and winning the election, could you even work in that?

00:25:01.400 And she, despite all of the things she said about Jason Kenney's leadership, said, I plan to.

00:25:06.540 So Jason Kenney is going to have to deal with a caucus that could have a Brian Jean in it, that could have a Danielle Smith in it, and could have a number of the other dissidents in it.

00:25:15.080 And I don't know how you enact an agenda, let alone win an election, when you have that much that you need to hold on to, let alone gaining new support.

00:25:23.400 Well, our politics, if nothing else, are never boring.

00:25:27.220 Before we let you go, I appreciate you coming in from out east there.

00:25:31.000 We know you've got an event to get to.

00:25:33.180 Did you want to hazard a guess as to how you think things might turn out tonight?

00:25:36.640 Yeah, I mean, now I'm just copying Dave, but I have the 55% prediction as well.

00:25:41.440 I mean, if I want to change it, I'll say, you know, 56.2%. 0.93

00:25:44.280 That way, if I'm really, really close, you'll be very impressed by my Nostradamus-like Ontarian skills.

00:25:49.500 But I think it's going to be in that window where Jason Kenney claims it's a victory

00:25:54.160 because he said 50% plus one is a win, and other people are saying it's not a win.

00:25:58.920 And I think in a lot of cases, you're back to square one with that.

00:26:01.740 But I think it's going to be above 50 and lower than 60.

00:26:04.760 I'd say probably in that 55, 56 range.

00:26:08.320 Great. Okay. Well, thanks for coming in to join us tonight there, Andrew.

00:26:11.140 Have a good night there out in the evil east.

00:26:13.660 And it's always appreciated when you come on and talk to us.

00:26:15.900 Take me with you. All I can say is every time I talk to an Albert, take me with you.

00:26:19.040 I'm one of you at heart.

00:26:20.120 Right on. Thanks, Andrew.

00:26:21.560 That's Andrew Lawton of the True North Centre that we bring in.

00:26:24.620 That's a wonderful, beautiful guy, eh?

00:26:26.900 He is.

00:26:27.380 55%. Yeah. Yeah. He's just taking the seafood. So if it goes, if it goes poorly, he could blame you.

00:26:35.100 You know, I was watching, uh, uh, Danielle Smith's show this morning and there was a sentiment she,

00:26:40.120 she put out that I, uh, agreed with this morning. And that was that, that, you know, I think a lot

00:26:45.240 of people, especially the people who are just wary from coming through two years of a pandemic,

00:26:50.480 just really would like to see a different face. Perhaps. Uh, I think, uh, there's a lot of people

00:26:56.340 who who have been feeling that way but i think again in in how i've been seeing things it feels

00:27:03.860 like he's been able to sort of shift gears away from that uh you know away from that topic uh uh

00:27:10.500 and he has you know opened things up quite nicely for albertans and now has gone on to this uh this

00:27:18.500 you know topic of of building albert's economy back and uh and i think that is kind of overshadowing

00:27:26.340 how i think a lot of people just really lost a lot of faith in him over the pandemic and his

00:27:31.220 flip-flopping backtracked on so many times the vaccine passport for example and mel what he's

00:27:36.260 doing now is his election campaign for the next for the next year alberta is back how many times

00:27:42.500 does he say at every press conference alberta is back alberta is back and you're quite right

00:27:46.820 they are doing quite well attracting uh you know literally billions and billions of dollars worth

00:27:52.340 projects to Alberta. And he's right, the economy is turning around. We're expected to lead the

00:27:58.600 nation in economic growth this year. So that's what he's got left. And he's hoping that, hey,

00:28:05.700 we may be trailing badly in the polls, but when people see a year of good economic activity,

00:28:12.820 are they going to want to risk that with another NDP government?

00:28:15.680 Well, and I think if this was happening any closer to the pandemic and some of the fallout,

00:28:22.160 I think the vote would look very different.

00:28:25.300 Well, lots of, I said, balls in the air and some of them are going to land tonight and we'll have a better idea.

00:28:31.120 So we're going to move on.

00:28:31.980 We've got another guest in the lobby with Janet Brown and Janet Brown's part of, what is it, Janet Brown opinion?

00:28:38.220 I'm going to get her to correct me right away when we bring her in. 0.98

00:28:40.680 She does opinion polling and very well tapped into the Alberta political scene.

00:28:44.880 Hi, Janet.

00:28:45.280 Thanks for joining us tonight.

00:28:46.620 Thanks for having me.

00:28:47.680 Thanks for having me.

00:28:49.040 Yeah, and it is Janet Brown opinion research.

00:28:50.940 I tried to make that as straightforward as possible.

00:28:53.940 I know, but I'm easily confused, as we can see.

00:28:56.600 So thank you.

00:28:58.100 And again, you know, as for us and as for yourself, it's very interesting political times going on right now.

00:29:07.640 Where do you think, like looking in the broader picture, how is this impacting the UCP in general with Albertans, that bigger thing?

00:29:13.320 Like we're looking at an internal party race, but of course it reflects and it's impacting the voters and Albertans at large.

00:29:18.920 And that's another big concern.

00:29:20.000 Well, the United Conservative brand is taking a huge hit. You know, I was listening to Andrew Lawton and his predictions and your predictions earlier. And, you know, let's go back to 2019 election. Jason Kenney won a huge majority. He had 55% support from the general public and won a huge majority government.

00:29:40.600 Here we are today, three years later, and we're wondering if he's going to get 55% with his base.

00:29:46.920 So, you know, the numbers have drastically changed for Jason Kenney.

00:29:50.980 His perception among Albertans has greatly changed.

00:29:55.680 And, you know, and the brand is taking a really, really hard hit.

00:29:59.720 So whatever happens to Jason Kenney tonight, whether he remains leader or the party has a chance to pick a new leader,

00:30:06.200 they really have to get back to the basics of this brand.

00:30:10.600 and growing this brand is something that Albertans can trust

00:30:14.780 and get excited about voting for them.

00:30:18.040 One of the rumors that's coming out today

00:30:20.520 is that voter turnout on this special general meeting

00:30:24.700 has been low, we're looking at maybe 32, 35,000 people

00:30:29.700 out of a possible 60,000 people who were sent ballots.

00:30:33.540 My gosh, if you spent money to become a member of this party,

00:30:36.920 if you care enough about politics

00:30:38.820 to become a member of the party,

00:30:40.260 but not enough to send your ballots in, you know, that's another big mark against this party and

00:30:48.300 then the strength of this party brand right now. Yeah, well, and mail-in ballots, I mean, are a

00:30:52.900 difficult thing, you know, I mean, unfortunately, voters to agree, only the motivated ones are going

00:30:58.040 to trouble themselves. But I mean, it's hard to read in whether the ones who were motivated to

00:31:02.320 get out there and get their ballots in were the ones that were discontent or the ones who really

00:31:06.020 want to keep uh premier kenny where he is right and it's you know in this final at these final

00:31:11.460 minutes as we wait for the vote it's it's you know all we can do is speculate we'll know in a little

00:31:16.100 while but that's you know when you're a pollster and you're trying to figure out voter turnout

00:31:20.180 and you're trying to predict elections well that's exactly what you're trying to figure out is what

00:31:25.220 motivates somebody to vote and what disincentivizes somebody not to vote so um i think it's clear to

00:31:32.500 think that the most engaged voters are the ones who are going to have taken the trouble to scan

00:31:37.060 their driver's license and all of that stuff but who's more motivated tonight the people

00:31:41.860 who support jason kenny are the ones who want him out hey jenet um yeah you're a pollster you're

00:31:48.420 you're driven by the hard data uh so i'm going to ask you the question i know you don't want

00:31:53.940 but we're we're all putting our money down on this uh i'm gonna i'm gonna ask danielle the

00:31:58.260 the same question in a minute. I bet 40, whoever wins tonight gets their beers bought for them by

00:32:05.360 everyone else, at least around the office part here. But I've bet 45, Dave Naylor bet 55. I know

00:32:13.700 you don't want to give a number, but if you had to give one, where do you put it? Well, so you said

00:32:18.320 I'm a data person. That's exactly right. And so I'm going to say I don't have a bet to make because

00:32:23.380 I don't have the kind of, I don't have the kind of data I need to make this decision.

00:32:28.140 I'm asking for a guess. I'm not asking for, uh, okay, well, let me, let me say this. I didn't

00:32:32.280 want to say a guess. I'm going to say that as I, I've talked to many people just like you have,

00:32:36.780 and I've asked them for their, their guesses, but I haven't just asked them for their guesses.

00:32:40.260 I've asked them for their logic behind their guesses. Right. So I want to see like,

00:32:44.320 who's just, you know, who's just kind of going with their gut and who's actually got some,

00:32:48.600 some real sort of logic behind their thinking. And so I'm just going to say this, people who

00:32:56.300 are predicting that this vote will be lower than 50% seem to be able to give me more logic for why

00:33:03.100 they feel that way than people who think that Kenny's going to get over 50%. So I think that

00:33:09.780 it sounds like the people who feel Kenny are going to get over 50% sometimes sound like they're

00:33:15.300 drinking their own bath water. They'll tell me things like, oh, well, Jason Kenney's never lost,

00:33:19.500 so he's not going to lose now. But the people who talk about a number under 50%, they're talking

00:33:24.560 about how many ballots are coming from rural Alberta, how many, what the response rate on

00:33:30.160 those ballots were, you know, they're giving me kind of more logic behind why they think

00:33:34.900 Kenney's going to lose. So that's my cop-out, Derek. No, I mean, if you're not going to give

00:33:41.120 me the guesstimate answer that I knew you really wouldn't. A good way around it. I found very much

00:33:47.840 the same thing. I've spoken to a lot of people on both sides. And yeah, one side, I don't know if

00:33:54.720 it's wizard math, but at least there's some logic and reasoning to it. And the other side very much

00:34:00.960 is, well, our guy's awesome. And how can he lose? One side seemed to have spreadsheets,

00:34:08.320 and the other one just seems to have ideas.

00:34:11.560 Yeah, well, I've

00:34:13.000 drank my own Kool-Aid before,

00:34:14.440 and I think

00:34:16.960 I know. Bath water is less

00:34:18.920 dangerous than Kool-Aid.

00:34:21.200 Okay, well, I mean,

00:34:22.700 so the next half that will be coming up, though, is going to be

00:34:25.040 analyzing. We're going to have you back

00:34:26.860 a little later in the show, too. Hopefully, at that point,

00:34:29.060 we'll have gotten some results, because that's,

00:34:31.080 I mean, right now, we're all on speculation,

00:34:33.120 and that is what makes it difficult. But

00:34:34.600 once we know where those numbers are,

00:34:36.980 we'll be able to have some at least closer informed speculation as to what the future brings,

00:34:40.680 which will still be pretty volatile and confusing, but a whole new road to go down.

00:34:45.660 Yeah. Just production again. Let's just change up the title here. UCPAGM. No one knows what that

00:34:51.800 is. Let's just make sure people know that this is the... No, but I'm talking about our main title

00:34:59.820 here. Let's just get it up. No one knows what an SGM is. Let's just make sure people know this is

00:35:04.100 the county leadership vote um all right uh so danielle let's um okay you're you're not a pollster

00:35:13.360 you have no excuse but uh but to give give a prediction and i know it's all got asterisks i'm

00:35:19.260 terrified i'm gonna have egg on my face tonight and everyone's gonna say i i told you so and

00:35:24.580 whatnot and there's always a risk that your predictions are more wishes than predictions

00:35:29.280 but what's your prediction tonight give me a number i'll give you a number because i know

00:35:32.480 others are going to be a little more circumspect on it. I say 43%. But I can see a way that he

00:35:40.020 could get above 50%. I know a lot of people are concerned, and as am I, about what appears to be

00:35:45.980 a number of ballots or memberships that were purchased on single credit cards. I think the

00:35:50.980 numbers were 4,691 on eight credit cards. So that appears to be under investigation by Elections

00:35:57.220 Alberta. But if I could think of the way that he might have been able to get that kind of support,

00:36:02.000 We all know with party membership lists, historically, there have been as many as 150,000 members in the combined UCP, Wild Rose and PC parties.

00:36:11.880 And as I understand it, those lists were getting called in the lead up to the membership cutoff.

00:36:16.840 So you can imagine a situation because we all know how this predictive dial technology works.

00:36:20.880 You call somebody up and say, hey, I'm calling on behalf of the UCP.

00:36:24.020 Do you support Jason Kenney? No. OK, thanks for your time.

00:36:26.740 Do you support Jason Kenney? Yes. Hey, can I get can I renew your membership?

00:36:29.520 And that would be the most credible way that I could see that he could win, because when you look at the votes in Vitro Marciano, who is on Brian Jean's team, has audited the list.

00:36:39.160 There's no real obvious surge in memberships anywhere in the province, except for the nominations that were open.

00:36:46.040 So Brian Jean's nomination, Joseph Scow's nomination down south in Cardson Siksika, and Jason Nixon's nomination in Ruby Rocky Mountain to House Sundry.

00:36:54.620 those ones were all over 2 000 memberships but everywhere else there seems to be a real enthusiasm

00:37:00.300 gap quite frankly and surprising to me this is the reason why i would go the other way um and say

00:37:05.660 that it's likely to be lower is because the the thing that i found most surprising is that you

00:37:10.460 would expect that the ministers would be the most motivate motivated to go out and sell memberships

00:37:16.300 so their boss could keep his job because if their boss keeps his job then they keep their job but

00:37:21.020 But the number of ridings that had used to have historically thousands of members in the riding are now some of the lowest in the province, even the premier's own riding.

00:37:29.160 His is 63rd out of 87.

00:37:30.920 Yeah, he's got, I might be wrong, but I think he's got like 300 and something members.

00:37:34.520 I mean, that's completely paltry.

00:37:35.880 Yep. The other one I saw, Josephine Pond, who is normally such a reliable membership seller. 0.95

00:37:41.120 She only, I think she had one of the lowest in the selection.

00:37:43.940 So the fact that it looks like the ministers were not motivated enough to go out and sell memberships or had a difficult time selling memberships, I think that's why it's more likely if you see that there is an enthusiasm deficit in Calgary, but there is an enthusiasm surplus in rural, rural is not coming out en masse to vote for the premier for a whole variety of reasons.

00:38:06.440 not just COVID policy, although that one has certainly caused him problems in central and

00:38:11.580 southern Alberta. But I think it's the lack of action on the equalization referendum. The

00:38:16.820 Premier got a very clear mandate to start working on some of that Alberta first agenda. And I think

00:38:21.860 because he's not appeared to be taking the lead on putting Alberta first and fighting Ottawa,

00:38:27.320 I think that's what's caused even greater problems for him. And that's certainly a big issue in rural

00:38:31.940 Alberta. So you were kind of getting into the numbers here. That's coming from, you know,

00:38:37.160 we had a story about a month and a half ago that had a riding by riding breakdown of where all the

00:38:43.040 members were at. I know CBC had their own version, I think about a week ago, but we've had that up

00:38:49.260 for about a month and a half of where, where are the members? And the membership is very heavily

00:38:54.580 concentrated in a few rural mostly formerly wild rose ridings um i think it's 25 of the membership

00:39:02.740 is in uh roughly 11 constituencies uh to you does that i don't think that bodes well for kenny if

00:39:11.220 they're if they're if that's really where it's focused no and especially when you look at what

00:39:14.580 happened in those riding so let me just took it look at three of them for instance so brian gene

00:39:18.500 brian gene clearly won his his nomination and then went on to win the riding and i would say

00:39:24.660 the lion's share of those members are probably going to be voting no to do you approve of the

00:39:29.460 leader question down in uh in carson siksika where joda gateman was disqualified again most of those

00:39:36.420 memberships are sold by her i suspect that those are pretty solid now same with tim hoven who was

00:39:41.780 challenging jason nixon in central alberta thousands of memberships i think over 2000 those would also

00:39:46.740 be voting. And both of these were nomination candidates who were disqualified, I think on

00:39:51.780 pretty flimsy grounds, almost certainly to protect the incumbents who were pro-Kenny MLAs or-

00:39:59.200 Yeah, and it's unfortunate he did that too. I mean, I can see why he would want to keep his

00:40:02.460 House leader and his deputy House leader. Those are the two key positions to help you navigate

00:40:06.920 legislation through the House. There's a lot he wants to get done, but there's a way he could

00:40:10.800 have done it. I think what happened, and this is, I think, really telling, is that my understanding

00:40:14.980 is that there were going to be a lot more nominations

00:40:17.000 that were supposed to open up prior to this leadership vote.

00:40:20.160 So he opens up two that were supposed to be safe ridings,

00:40:22.700 and then what the heck happened?

00:40:24.640 They weren't safe at all.

00:40:26.020 And so I think that there's been a stall

00:40:27.900 on the nomination process

00:40:29.780 until the leadership is sorted out.

00:40:31.600 But that's not what you want.

00:40:32.720 I mean, part of why we have a leadership contest

00:40:35.140 in a political party

00:40:36.140 is to affirm support for the leader,

00:40:38.820 affirm that he's got the backing

00:40:40.460 of the lion's share of his party

00:40:42.060 so that you can go in strong into the next election

00:40:44.420 to beat the other guys. And if he scrapes in with marginal support or less than, I mean,

00:40:51.240 if you look historically, you kind of want 80% or more in a leadership vote. And the fact that

00:40:56.380 he's lowered expectations down to 50%, I don't know that a leader can survive that. They can

00:41:01.160 say they're going to hang on, but in the end, caucus members have to have confidence that they

00:41:06.080 can win their seat under that leader. If they don't have confidence they can win that seat

00:41:09.780 under the leader, then anything is possible in caucus politics. And that's going to happen

00:41:14.380 tomorrow morning. So just to be quick here, actually, I know we've got to maybe let Janet

00:41:18.920 close out there because she does have an obligation. Oh, Janet's still here. Oh my God, sorry, I thought

00:41:22.680 Janet was gone. I thought she knocked out. And she's going to be with another one of those news 0.99

00:41:26.560 outlets in a little bit here as well. I have three more minutes, yeah. Okay, so just if you wanted to

00:41:32.180 add a little more before you take off and hopefully when we get you back in, we can talk about what

00:41:36.280 has occurred. Yeah, no, I don't have too much more to add. It's just, but I was listening to Danielle

00:41:41.280 and she was talking about where the votes are coming from and and as i said earlier um it's

00:41:45.840 just you know we just have to be patient at this point but as i said earlier um when you kind of

00:41:51.120 you know look just at the numbers take the emotion out of it you know look how heavily

00:41:55.840 weighted this is towards rural voters look at how brian gene's um by-election went um look at how

00:42:02.080 mad people were about the the change in the venue and everything um you know the numbers do not look

00:42:07.440 good for kenny but the thing is is we've all learned over these many many years not to

00:42:12.240 underestimate kenny so um we just have to be patient at this point the other thing i just

00:42:18.880 will add before i go and i think many of your guests will say the same thing um it doesn't

00:42:23.360 matter what the result is tonight there's still a lot of uncertainty there's still a lot to be

00:42:27.440 discovered so if he loses tonight we have the uncertainty of trying to figure out who the next

00:42:31.920 leader is going to be if he wins tonight we have the uncertainty of trying to figure out

00:42:36.320 how he keeps this caucus together until the next election well janet just uh i love speculation and

00:42:42.640 that's really all we can do until we have the results so let's go into some of that speculation

00:42:47.440 on uh what that leadership race uh looks like maybe you could speak specifically about what

00:42:52.880 candidates you think will be competitive for those who will run because you know not everybody runs

00:42:56.480 because they tend to really win there's all sorts of reasons you could run uh and then also maybe

00:43:00.640 what kind of candidate you think the party is going to be looking for uh i i know someone in

00:43:05.760 in close proximity to me probably has thoughts

00:43:07.920 about candidates who might be running

00:43:09.620 to replace Jason Kenney, but some of your thoughts.

00:43:12.680 Well, I'm gonna cop out of this question too.

00:43:14.640 It's hard to predict.

00:43:15.640 And also when we get tonight's number,

00:43:17.880 we're gonna be trying to sort of say,

00:43:19.240 well, what does this mean?

00:43:20.580 Where is Jason Kenney's discontent coming from?

00:43:23.580 And I don't think we're gonna be able to know

00:43:25.380 exactly where that's coming from.

00:43:27.580 We're gonna have people who describe themselves

00:43:29.620 as centrist and miss the old progressive side

00:43:32.240 of the progressive conservative party.

00:43:33.900 They're voting against Jason Kenney.

00:43:35.580 The people who are mad because he didn't do enough on the fair deal proposals, they're voting against Kenny.

00:43:40.480 The people who just think he's mean and is running a poor government, they're voting against him.

00:43:47.360 So we're going to have to take stock of where all this discontent is coming from.

00:43:51.360 And then we've got to figure out, you know, when this party comes together, what are they looking for in a leader?

00:43:56.280 Are they looking for somebody who's more left wing, more centrist, more right wing, more likable?

00:44:02.960 there was going to be so many things for this party to sort through if they're voting for a

00:44:08.200 new leader starting tomorrow. Well, Janet, we really appreciate your time for joining us here

00:44:14.900 today. I'm sorry, I thought we were already done with your time. It's okay. It's okay. And Corey

00:44:20.420 has me coming back at six. So I'll see you. Yeah. Very good. We've got some results by then. Thank

00:44:25.220 you. Okay, thanks. Bye-bye. Well, Danielle, other than yours truly, who do we, who do you think is

00:44:33.020 likely to take a stab at the leadership should Kenny go down tonight? You know, there's some

00:44:40.040 of the obvious ones and not everyone runs because they think they can win. A lot of people run to

00:44:43.440 raise their profile and there's a hundred different reasons to run for a leader. What do you think

00:44:48.200 that race looks like if Kenny's gone tonight? First, let me say that you can have a really

00:44:51.940 exciting leadership race with a small number of candidates. Look what's happening at the federal

00:44:56.040 level. I'm told that they now have at the federal level the largest number of memberships they've

00:45:00.540 ever had in their political history, which is pretty remarkable. And I think they only have

00:45:04.580 six candidates who made the final cut. So let's assume that we get, I would hope in Alberta that

00:45:10.120 if the job comes open, that there'd be six or a dozen candidates. So I've already said that I

00:45:16.080 would put my name forward. Brian Jean has already said he would put his name forward. I think it's

00:45:19.940 pretty clear that Todd Lowen is interested in finding a pathway back into the UCP. And I believe

00:45:26.280 he has demonstrated leadership over the last year or two. He was one of the first to come out

00:45:30.280 and say that and speak on behalf of the freedom movement. So I think he would put his name into

00:45:36.640 the race. I don't know if Drew Barnes could be persuaded to come back in. I know he's got

00:45:40.180 leadership aspirations, but he's got this idea of a rural party that would only run seats in 41

00:45:45.540 riding. So there's that. You've got Paul Hinman coming up. I don't know if Paul could be persuaded

00:45:49.740 to come back into the ucp well we'll watch paul in a few minutes i know i see him i see him there

00:45:54.460 in the waiting room so you're gonna have to ask him he's chuckling but wouldn't that be something

00:45:58.780 if paul hinman came back in because he did also support jason kenny initially when he first came

00:46:03.500 in and only recently became disaffected i think um then when you look at the cabinet side of things

00:46:08.060 even looking at don brade's column today he was speculating about who might be interim leader and

00:46:12.940 that's that's really quite an interesting tell is that there's a number of people now jockeying to

00:46:17.340 be interim leader rajansani and dimitri nikolaitis and nathan newdorf who was the caucus chair rick

00:46:25.740 mckiver was interim leader of the progressive conservatives uh after they were their 2015 defeat

00:46:31.660 uh he's very inoffensive uh no one like no he doesn't set anyone on fire but he doesn't really

00:46:37.820 get under anyone's skin either he's he's a nice guy he's reliable the reds like him the blues

00:46:42.540 you know what i like about rick mckiver because i interviewed him several times when i was on radio

00:46:46.780 he's just tells it like it is if he doesn't know the answer he says look i don't know the answer

00:46:50.140 to that who says that i know it's quite refreshing and amazing so those five names would be jockeying

00:46:56.620 for interim and if you can only be one interim leader which means the other four are potential

00:47:00.780 leadership candidates as well and then uh and then braid also said the reason that travis

00:47:06.140 tapes finance minister and doug schweitzer who's a jobs and economy minister not on that interim

00:47:10.380 list is because the they are are seen to be two candidates that would put their name forward for

00:47:15.580 leadership so like i think uh i've listed off pretty close to 10 candidates i think it would

00:47:20.460 be pretty exciting if you got 10 candidates all out there selling 20 000 memberships each now

00:47:25.340 you've got 200 000 strong party and that's the kind of strength that you need if you're going

00:47:29.900 to go into a contested race against rachel notley rachel notley's formidable i know that everyone 0.97

00:47:35.500 likes to downplay um her her chances but from what i've watched to the poll numbers she has been at 1.00

00:47:41.260 40 to 44 percent consistently from the moment that she lost the election all the way through 0.99

00:47:45.820 COVID and even still today. And so there needs to be a united conservative movement if she's going 0.99

00:47:52.100 to be defeated. And so I think that a robust leadership race with the names that I put

00:47:56.840 forward would be the way to do that. Well, let's bring in Michael Solberg here. Michael Solberg

00:48:01.900 is, well, he's, I don't want to use the bad term, but he's a lobbyist. Not that a lobbyist is such

00:48:08.240 bad guys. Sorry, the name of your firm again, Mike? Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Phil. I'm a partner

00:48:15.080 at New West Public Affairs, a government relations firm based here in Alberta.

00:48:18.480 That's it. So Mike is a longtime participant in Alberta politics, I would say. He is a man of

00:48:25.900 significance within the United Conservative Party. It comes from a storied family from

00:48:31.000 the Reform Party. Mike, I don't want to pigeonhole you, but if I can ask,

00:48:39.580 this has been obviously a very divisive time for Alberta Conservatives.

00:48:43.980 What side have you generally found yourself on? Yeah, no, and I hear you chat with Janet. If

00:48:49.780 you're looking for wild speculation, then today's your lucky day. I'm happy to weigh in on all of

00:48:55.860 this. But I will tell you, at this moment, I believe Jason Kenney is going to win. I'll differ

00:49:00.440 from probably most of your guests in saying that.

00:49:04.320 I suppose my bias is firmly rooted in the fact that Jason Kenney,

00:49:09.500 up until this point, and perhaps beyond tonight,

00:49:13.060 has so far had a blemish-free political career.

00:49:15.640 He's won everything he's ever set out to do,

00:49:18.040 including some highly aspirational and highly ambitious goals,

00:49:21.160 which he ultimately achieved, such as coming to Alberta

00:49:24.340 and uniting two warring political parties

00:49:26.980 and holding that coalition together long enough

00:49:29.740 to have a landslide victory in 2019.

00:49:34.140 And all of this has led me to believe

00:49:36.380 that you cannot underestimate the man.

00:49:39.140 His political mobilization is second to really none

00:49:41.800 in the conservative political establishment in the country.

00:49:46.020 And I think that he's pulling all the levers necessary

00:49:49.240 and I think we'll identify his vote

00:49:50.900 and ultimately come out with a victory today.

00:49:53.460 So, I mean, you are making one of the arguments

00:49:57.500 that Janet said that some of the folks who predict Kenny is going to survive make, which is,

00:50:02.520 well, he's never lost before. And the past often is an indicator of past patterns are often an

00:50:10.720 indicator of future actions. And he has never even come close to losing anything ever, which makes

00:50:17.720 it kind of astounding that the one thing that has been always the biggest question mark of if he

00:50:23.140 will survive is the thing that almost every politician does survive, which is leadership

00:50:27.820 races. Canadian leaders extremely seldom actually lose an outright majority in leadership race,

00:50:34.120 sorry, leadership review vote. I could be mistaken, but I think the only two in Canadian history who

00:50:38.140 have outright lost the majority were John Diefenbaker, for who this whole process was

00:50:42.520 literally created in the 1960s, and then Thomas Mulcair, former NDP leader, he lost. Maybe I'm

00:50:51.260 wrong, but I'm not aware of any other leadership review vote

00:50:54.780 where someone has lost outright this, these are normally the

00:50:57.420 easiest things for a leader. And the question is, are you going

00:50:59.620 to be in the 90s, 80s, your 70s? But you know, if he's an, I'm

00:51:04.380 not aware, if any leaders ever survived in Canada in the 50s.

00:51:10.580 I think very few have survived in the 60s. I know in Ontario,

00:51:14.140 former PC leader, John Tory, he got 66, he tried to stay, but he

00:51:19.040 was gone within a few months from there. I'm not aware of any, surely someone's made it in the

00:51:24.780 60s before, but definitely not the 50s. Do you think that if he lands in the 50s, which is,

00:51:31.100 I think, a reasonable prediction, is this going to be somewhere between 45 and 55?

00:51:35.920 It's not too speculative to say he could be in the 50s. Can he survive if he can't break out

00:51:43.420 of the 50s, at least? Well, that depends on your definition of survival. If it simply means,

00:51:48.700 will he stay on, then yes, I think he absolutely could survive this vote tonight. And I think if

00:51:54.680 he does get anywhere in that range, well, a simple majority, 51% plus result, I think he'll accept

00:52:01.300 that as a reaffirmation of his leadership by the membership. And I think it's, you know,

00:52:06.980 you point to a lot of convention and other leadership, other leaders of other political

00:52:12.220 parties leaving after, you know, 60, 70% results. Sure, that's well understood. But it is, you know,

00:52:19.340 in a representative democracy, democracy in general, 51% represents the majority and the

00:52:24.780 will of people. And I think he has a leg to stand on saying that this is the will of the membership,

00:52:29.220 and he should be allowed to continue to move forward. However, I think the real narrative

00:52:33.880 and what we're all watching for is how the dust settles should he move forward in that fashion.

00:52:39.060 You know, how many MLAs rail against those results and ultimately leave, either under their own volition or because they're removed by the premier for open insubordination, something that he so far has tolerated to a complete degree.

00:52:52.740 He's allowed many of us.

00:52:54.120 I think Chad Lohan and Drew Barnes might disagree, but.

00:52:57.940 Well, in the premier's defense, at least the official narrative is that it was caucus calling, so ultimately voted him out behind closed doors.

00:53:06.200 I suppose.

00:53:09.060 Well, I mean, that's what occurred. And he's tolerated it to a complete degree in his defense. He's allowed a number of his caucus colleagues to openly campaign against him, Brian Jean included, but a number of his caucus mates as well.

00:53:25.200 And I think after tonight's result, should he be reaffirmed as leader of the party, that will be something he no longer tolerates.

00:53:31.540 He said as much. So I'd imagine we'll see Alberta legislature that looks a lot different today or tomorrow than it does, let's say, today or in the days to come.

00:53:42.300 I don't know if it'll be four MLAs, three MLAs. It could be 10 MLAs.

00:53:46.800 We'll have to wait and see. But the stakes are also high for them as well.

00:53:50.420 these so-called dissident MLAs and the folks who have been a source of malcontent to the Premier

00:53:56.140 and his leadership. They're not necessarily wanting to rush out the door and no longer be UCP

00:54:01.280 candidates or UCP MLAs. So they're really going to have to put their money where their mouth is

00:54:05.700 if they ultimately are going to take a principled stance against the continued leadership of the

00:54:09.640 Premier, should the membership reaffirm that tonight. So let's mix that up between you, Mike,

00:54:14.500 and uh danielle what that looks like i i think there are very few i've spoken to a few i few

00:54:22.800 supporters of the premier who i think are medicated to some degree who think that if

00:54:28.660 kenny gets 50 plus one then everyone's just going to say well that's it it's over uh everyone's

00:54:33.540 going to fall in line and everyone's going to be united and say goodbye i don't think any realistic

00:54:38.340 supporter of the premier or opponent of the premier believes that i think you're right mike

00:54:44.060 And I think that's a realistic appraisal, even from that side, that there's going to be a bloodletting, a reckoning of some kind, if the Premier survives this evening vote in some kind of not greatly large majority.

00:55:00.840 Daniel, what do you think that looks like, both in the legislature and in terms of the potential constellation of parties in Alberta?

00:55:06.520 Well, I think that's unfortunate that the Premier has already said that there's going to be a bloodletting.

00:55:11.380 Not sure who used that term.

00:55:12.460 That was my term.

00:55:13.020 That was your term. But I guess this is the real problem is that going into an election, the leader is supposed to bring the party up.

00:55:19.860 The leader is supposed to be the one who's everyone coattails, get ridden in on.

00:55:23.720 That's part of the reason why you have a leader is normally when it comes down to the final ballot, who am I going to vote for?

00:55:29.600 Jason Kenyon or Rachel Notley? People will vote for the person that they like the most.

00:55:32.820 If it's so thin, his victory, then he's going to be asking the rest of his party to pull him up in order to win.

00:55:38.680 And that is a very unusual state of affairs.

00:55:40.560 And the worry I have, and this is something I've been telling his team for over a year, is he's got to call people.

00:55:46.180 He's got to make amends. There's no reason why Drew Barnes should be on the outside.

00:55:49.700 There's no reason why Todd Lowen should be on the outside.

00:55:52.100 There's no reason why Brian Jean can't be persuaded to join the team.

00:55:56.260 I've heard that he doesn't talk to caucus members. He doesn't talk to cabinet ministers.

00:56:00.140 He doesn't talk to organizers. He doesn't talk to fundraisers.

00:56:02.820 And that, I think, is principally the reason why the premier has lost ground.

00:56:06.020 And from what I'm hearing, if he's just going to continue to go on a war path, then we don't have a united conservative movement anymore.

00:56:12.860 We are likely going to see at least six parties.

00:56:15.600 Brian Jean's party, Todd Lowen's party, Drew Barnes's party, Paul Hinman's party.

00:56:20.540 There's this new Buffalo party.

00:56:22.320 The Alberta Prosperity Project is supporting an independence party.

00:56:25.880 And now we have the UCP.

00:56:27.140 So seven parties on the right, one party representing the left wing vote.

00:56:31.200 That is not a pathway to win a majority government.

00:56:33.700 Mike, I really don't think that there actually really is reconciliation between the Premier and most of the dissidents that Danielle just mentioned. I think I would put those dissidents in the red category. I'd also put Angela Pitt in there, Peter Guthrie, Jason Stephan. I think there's a good, Dave Hansen, I think there's a good six, at least, who I'd put in the red category.

00:57:01.980 Those people, I don't think, have any interest in reconciling with Kenny, especially if he doesn't have a strong mandate.

00:57:09.100 But then there's probably those who are in more of a gray zone who have been critics and very unhappy, maybe even actively worked against the premier, but are not, maybe not as outspoken.

00:57:22.120 What do you think the chances are that the premier is going to be able to bring about some kind of reconciliation?

00:57:28.040 And you could, if you like, you could break down your answer between those who are maybe in the gray and those who are in the red.

00:57:33.760 Sure.

00:57:34.440 Well, I think to Daniel's point, that's been part of the challenges that have ultimately resulted in this leadership review.

00:57:41.140 And the premier, should he be reaffirmed as leader tonight, needs to reach across the aisle.

00:57:45.940 By that, I mean just to those independent MLAs, namely Drew and Todd.

00:57:51.180 I think that would do a lot to please the membership.

00:57:53.720 And also, it would do an enormous amount to please their caucus colleagues, many of whom remain friends and colleagues and sometimes collaborators with Todd and Drew.

00:58:03.520 I think that would do a lot to bridge the divide within the party.

00:58:07.720 And that's step one to the Premier win tonight is to start repairing the internal division within the party.

00:58:13.980 However, we can't remove the onus completely from these dissident MLAs and also playing ball with the Premier.

00:58:20.160 We cannot longer tolerate this type of open dissent, open insubordination of the leader.

00:58:26.580 It's fine to carry these types of gripes and grievances within an internal caucus setting, behind closed doors.

00:58:33.460 That happens in any part.

00:58:35.000 But one thing that the UCP is very uncharacteristically seen is open dissent, public dissent, leaking of information from cabinet and caucus meetings.

00:58:44.260 We haven't had any leaks around here.

00:58:46.980 Yeah, not that you're unfamiliar with this, I'm sure.

00:58:49.480 in caucus meetings being essentially live streamed

00:58:52.940 by certain media outlets that I won't name.

00:58:56.340 But they need to come to the table as well

00:59:01.100 and be willing to work with the premier as well.

00:59:03.620 There is a relationship that I think needs to go both ways

00:59:07.020 should there be healing within the party

00:59:09.900 that is so necessary if this party is going to compete

00:59:13.740 in a way that I think we all know it can in 2023

00:59:16.980 three against a very well-prepared and frankly united new democratic party that's pulling so

00:59:22.340 well right now and uh and continues to threaten to to gain ground and some of the battlegrounds

00:59:26.980 that the ucp i think right now are losing support namely calvary so uh it's important for i think

00:59:32.220 all these parties to come to the table with a willingness to unite and move forward should the

00:59:35.420 should the results indicate that that's what's necessary cory uh let's say the result's 55

00:59:42.000 for the sake of argument here uh you know daniel's made the case that he needs to reach out to the

00:59:48.420 dissidents and try and bring them in i'd put the dissidents kind of into there's a spectrum of them

00:59:52.780 and there's the red hot ones i i really don't think guys like brian he's the first mla ever

00:59:57.820 elected to a caucus on a platform of getting rid of the leader of some profits i'm highly suspect

01:00:03.380 that there is any common ground there whatsoever um you know the two who are outside of caucus

01:00:08.780 sitting as independent conservatives, Angela Pitts, Peter Guthrie, Jason Stevens, these guys.

01:00:13.780 I'm not sure if there's reconciliation there, but then there's the gray ones.

01:00:17.380 Do you think if we've got a result of 55, does Kenny then have any chance of succeeding at

01:00:24.600 reconciliation or does everything get worse? I guess if he's genuine, you know, I mean,

01:00:28.700 as we said, he's got to communicate. You've got to reach out, learn from it. And there's been a

01:00:32.860 problem. He's got to understand, I think he does, that it hasn't been done right. That's why we're

01:00:37.440 in the mess we're in right now I would imagine get on the phone as soon as this thing's over 1.00

01:00:41.900 pour some coffee and start reaching out one-on-one to every one of them start with the grays you 1.00

01:00:46.480 might as well start there and then see how you can ease on to the reds but that's his only hope is 1.00

01:00:51.400 get them in and talk to them I mean it's like running any business or any other thing just 1.00

01:00:55.740 sometimes it's amazing how just a listening ear and a five-minute exchange can can make so much

01:01:01.020 difference but is it because I've talked to caucus members who haven't heard from him in months and

01:01:05.000 And come on, I mean, I understand you can't talk to every backbencher every week,

01:01:09.120 but you've got to make them feel like that they're part of the process.

01:01:12.180 But is it too late for that?

01:01:13.880 Well, I don't know.

01:01:14.840 I see the time will tell, but as far as strategy goes, I think that's all he can do then.

01:01:18.780 If you come in with that low number is get in there and try and consolidate 1.00

01:01:21.380 so you aren't greeted next week by a hornet's nest with 10, 12 floor crossers or more fires to put out. 0.99

01:01:27.500 Well, let me put the same question to you, Mike. 1.00

01:01:28.960 Is it too late? If the Premier walks out of this in a scenario we're kind of painting here of 55%, is it too late for the Premier to be able to, at least with those grey dissidents, those who aren't, you know, every single day tweeting how the Premier needs to be catapulted outside the moat, is it too late? 0.98

01:01:50.100 And beyond just the caucus, you know, I think we're at risk in this conversation, maybe thinking of the caucus at the party. 0.96

01:01:56.400 I think he's got more support in the caucus than he does in the party at large.

01:02:01.500 I think it's very fair to say, you know, those who are upset with him, there's there's a spectrum of reasons.

01:02:07.860 You know, there are fair dealers and people who are believe in Alberta autonomy to or to independence.

01:02:14.900 There's a spectrum there. Those people are at them.

01:02:18.340 There's people who are upset with lockdowns, vaccine mandates.

01:02:22.460 Now, those people are broadly kind of to his right.

01:02:25.900 And Jason is not very comfortable, I think, ever defending on his bright flank.

01:02:30.840 I think it's an uncomfortable position for him to be in.

01:02:34.640 And, you know, he can make the argument, at least with, you know, the autonomy or independence

01:02:38.340 crowd that, well, I'm the best you've got and that kind of thing.

01:02:41.460 But I think he's got a tougher argument making that to people upset over lockdowns and vaccine

01:02:45.860 mandates, because they see him very much a little different than Justin Trudeau, because

01:02:50.700 the actual results have been very similar, although you'll make arguments that, well,

01:02:56.260 it's, you know, we ended the restrictions earlier and that kind of stuff. But those are very marginal

01:03:00.740 arguments. Those people, I have a hard time seeing how he can reconcile himself to those people.

01:03:08.300 Mike, is there really a plausible way for Kenny to bring those people back into the tent? Or at

01:03:14.520 some point, is he going to have to cut bait? A lot to unpack there, but I do, he better hope

01:03:21.220 it's not too late. Those red zone MLAs also better hope it's not too late. In the case of 0.98

01:03:26.980 almost all of them, like Tom Lowen, for example, I respect a great deal. He's a fantastic MLA,

01:03:32.380 he's a man of principle. At present, he's shivering out in the cold. And would he win

01:03:37.900 again running as an independent? Probably not. These are deeply held, UCP held ridings

01:03:42.000 where most of these so-called dissident MLAs are currently representing,

01:03:47.300 they better hope that they can stay in the party,

01:03:48.780 otherwise their political careers are at risk.

01:03:50.560 So I think there'll be a bit of a give and take,

01:03:52.660 at least as far as the MLAs are concerned.

01:03:55.420 But on the party writ large,

01:03:57.200 should there be a slim margin of victory tonight,

01:03:59.360 which I think most of us are treating it like a foregone conclusion,

01:04:02.740 it'll be slim at best,

01:04:04.860 I think the Premier's next move needs to be with his speech tonight.

01:04:08.260 I think he needs to be very hat in hand.

01:04:10.120 thank his supporters of course but also recognize that a lot of people didn't vote for him nearly

01:04:15.740 probably nearly 50 percent of the party membership would not have voted for them and he needs to have

01:04:21.180 a message for them too uh he needs to wear uh some egg on his face and i think approach this

01:04:26.660 with some humility and then in terms of actual action he needs to go out and do a summer tour

01:04:31.860 something that he's accustomed to doing but i think he needs to visit these areas and really

01:04:36.720 listen to the concerns that are there. And whether or not he can enact them into policy,

01:04:42.180 I think depends on the issue. It's the ultimate quagmire of governing this province is that,

01:04:48.840 you know, value sentiments differ in some cases, significantly between rural and urban. And that's

01:04:54.420 something that all governments have had to deal with over the years. There's a reason why the

01:04:58.300 Wilderness Party was formed in the first place. And the reason why the coalition is hard to keep

01:05:02.860 together at all, and that is why. But he needs to make that effort. We are in the election cycle

01:05:08.380 a year at most away from the next election. The Premier needs to do a lot of work, hit the

01:05:13.920 pavement, really listen, and really be humble, and enact that servant leadership that he claimed that

01:05:19.740 he wanted to implement at the beginning, and less of the top-down approach that we've seen,

01:05:23.920 which has ultimately been the impetus for this review in the first place.

01:05:27.220 Yeah, well, he's certainly got his work cut out for him, and as you said, the first thing we'll

01:05:30.800 find out and get a hint on where he's going. It's going to be the speech after the results come in,

01:05:35.360 presuming he does win it. So we'll watch with interest, of course, and hopefully those results

01:05:40.360 are coming in soon. So thanks for joining us, Michael. It was good to see you there.

01:05:43.800 Yeah. Thanks so much, Corey. Thanks, Phil. Thanks, Danielle. A big fan of all of you and

01:05:47.140 hope to come on again soon. Right on. Thanks. We'll talk again.

01:05:50.320 Cheers. So yes, that was Michael Solberg. And as I'm over there, we're changing our panel again.

01:05:57.840 near the live stuff is always fun. We've had Paul Hinman in the lobby for a bit here. Let's pull

01:06:02.060 him into the stream. Paul is the leader of the Wildrose Independence Party because we need to

01:06:07.640 talk about the options that are out there as well outside of the party altogether. What about people

01:06:12.600 who have soured themselves on the UCP itself looking for a new option? I would say arguably

01:06:19.900 that Paul's got the most viable right of center party as an alternative that's out there. So how

01:06:25.500 you doing tonight paul well doing very good corey how about yourself good i imagine knowing it's

01:06:32.060 it's ironic but it's the reality of politics this is a ucp function going on but it's it's

01:06:37.180 it impacts your plans your future and you're watching this quite closely as the as the head

01:06:41.660 of your party right now as well well i i i guess i'd say yes and no whether it impacts us the same

01:06:49.500 this is really a huge impact on albertans on knowing you know who's going to be the captain

01:06:53.660 of the ship and and where it's going and jason kenny you know for all practical um reasons has

01:07:00.880 has failed to be able to bring his crew together and it's going to be interesting tonight but

01:07:05.120 i i'm with michael i think he's going to squeak through with a win and again these dissidents um

01:07:11.680 all of a sudden they're going to find themselves on the outside when the vote's gone the other way

01:07:15.460 and again here in canada uh you know how many how many leaders actually have a a good majority going

01:07:23.100 forward and i know we're talking party politics but the fact of the matter is if he survives he's

01:07:28.140 going to go forward and those dissidents all of a sudden are going to say well you know

01:07:31.500 the people have spoken he's got their support and i see you know either jason kenney's out or you're

01:07:36.700 going to see a lot of people doing mea culpas and saying well you know he's the leader and the

01:07:41.820 people have spoke so we'll accept that yeah so and i mean again you've always campaigned as your

01:07:47.180 party's an individual unit what the other party will do will is what they'll do but as i said

01:07:51.980 they're tied together you know in reality and politics as well so let's say if there was a

01:07:57.260 circumstance where can any narrowly one you've got i guess i could say a number of political

01:08:01.340 refugees in caucus who are looking for a new political home would there be a consideration

01:08:06.220 then of bringing them under the wildrose independence party banner and what sort of

01:08:09.340 conditions would there be applied to that sort of crossing well absolutely our door is always open

01:08:14.460 for people who have seen the light and realized that the current system isn't working and that

01:08:18.540 that we need to go forward with a new one.

01:08:20.600 But I mean, you can't come in being a federalist

01:08:23.340 and want to join the Wildrose Independence Party.

01:08:25.860 And many of them, and I gotta say,

01:08:27.400 this has been the problem I wanna say

01:08:29.140 with the rural caucus and those people in there

01:08:32.120 is that they're paranoid of where the polls are.

01:08:36.840 And when they see, you know,

01:08:38.240 independence at 35 or 40% said,

01:08:40.540 oh, we can't be part of that, we can't be part of that.

01:08:42.940 And they're driven by the polls and the numbers.

01:08:45.620 uh i've spoken with uh i've spoken with the mlas and and again they're they're they're nervous

01:08:54.000 they're looking for a safe place and a safe ship to to sail on and at this point you know while

01:08:59.300 certainly is not a safe ship to see them to step over to but again if in fact they're being thrown

01:09:06.060 off the other one um it's amazing what people will do for survival and and actually come to

01:09:10.660 their senses and realize well we've got to do what we've got to do and and so it'll be interesting

01:09:15.600 but like i say we're certainly open we have the principled parties our our you know our policies

01:09:22.000 are are just rock solid and people who want better government and a future for alberta

01:09:28.000 and not to be subject to ottawa and their draconian policies that ultimately are going to 1.00

01:09:34.400 destroy alberta in our future we're excited to have some mlas that would look and think that 0.77

01:09:39.280 yeah this is the place to go so um i've got uh now we've shook up our panel here and i've got

01:09:46.400 josh from uh project confederation yeah okay yeah just uh have you uh been in talks with

01:09:53.280 any mlas about potentially joining and uh have they put any conditions on it at this point well

01:09:58.560 the condition on all of them has been we got to wait and see what the leadership review does

01:10:03.680 they're all waiting for the votes to be cast and right now they're staying on the ship where they

01:10:08.640 think you know that they have their best option do you think that they would maybe come and join you

01:10:14.640 if uh if the opportunity rose well you know i always look at politics for for what i call

01:10:21.600 politicians is your capital and it's no different than investments and you have those people that

01:10:27.520 are entrepreneurs and willing to start and to work from the ground level up but you have the other

01:10:32.880 ones that they're they're only worried about saving their capital and right now to join us

01:10:38.800 it is a risk i mean if you want to have a future in politics and and say that you know oh i i've

01:10:45.360 got to stay elected you look at the the numbers and we're not your first pick and that's where

01:10:51.760 these individuals are they want to keep their job they want to stay elected and i guess you can't

01:10:57.200 blame him for that but it until the vote comes out i mean it's anybody's um game who knows what's

01:11:03.920 going to happen until we know the vote and again i think he'll squeak through and i think most of

01:11:08.240 those mlas will then be running back and saying oh well you know the people have spoken so i can

01:11:13.200 support them yeah no and i i imagine i mean the three uh the thing is too you if anybody's going 0.89

01:11:18.720 to join you want them because they're ideologically along the same lines of what the wilder's

01:11:22.560 Independence Party offers, not just because it was a place of refuge if the UCP is in difficulty.

01:11:27.620 Not every person in the UCP who might want to leave the caucus would necessarily feel comfortable

01:11:32.480 with a wild-dose caucus either. So, I mean, there's a lot. Boy, it's so hard to keep speculating

01:11:38.440 on these things. Just an update to everybody, and I saw a comment or put it out. The results are now

01:11:43.120 that there's an update has finally come saying that they're expected around 5.30 p.m., so it

01:11:48.120 shouldn't be too, too much longer before we have a much better idea of what kind of monster we're

01:11:51.820 wrestling with here so uh around 5 30 so probably six that's very possibly with a

01:12:00.060 spring mckinney's record for being on time but we'll see uh we're seeing movement anyways which

01:12:05.040 is good all right but i i appreciate you coming in to talk to us paul like you know there's there's

01:12:09.700 so many people out there trying to build the options to represent alberta and you've been

01:12:14.180 hitting the ground hard and you're still at it as i said you know we're truly the viable option and

01:12:20.320 again Fort McMurray you know we didn't do as good as we thought but again that that really was an

01:12:24.840 election on Jason Kenney and you know 63 percent of Albertans are against him and that's what came

01:12:30.180 out and supported um the the winner there that was you know campaigning solely on getting rid of

01:12:35.620 Jason but the the fact of the matter is is that Alberta's in trouble that Ottawa is viciously

01:12:41.240 attacking us and is going to continue and we'd have to have a different route and that's what

01:12:46.000 The Wildrose Independence Party is theirs, is actually giving Albertans a way out and an opportunity to say no to Ottawa.

01:12:52.960 We're not going to have you making the decisions for our future anymore or shutting down our oil and gas operations to buy from Russia or Venezuela or some other rogue nation.

01:13:03.000 It's just preposterous to think that they want to carry on and continue to viciously attack Alberta.

01:13:09.220 And so we're excited to give Albertans that option and that choice in the next ballot.

01:13:13.060 Great. Well, you've always been consistent, Paul, and I really appreciate it. So thanks for coming

01:13:18.040 to talk to us tonight. I'll let you get back out there to watching, well, this race, and then I'm

01:13:22.540 sure we'll all be watching the hockey game as that comes out, the other battle of Alberta going on

01:13:26.980 tonight. Thanks, and see you again. Take care. Thanks, Paul. Okay, so we do have a packed lineup

01:13:33.380 of guests, which is good because these results, as we say, just keep, well, taking a while. We

01:13:38.020 didn't anticipate they would come right at four, but they warned us they could come at four, so

01:13:41.680 We've been ready for it.

01:13:42.620 And of course, we've got a lot of blowhards and bloviators, so we can talk at length.

01:13:46.300 We can't talk about Derek like that when he's not here.

01:13:49.300 I can see through the glass window here.

01:13:51.160 He's not listening.

01:13:51.980 So the show may be on in there.

01:13:53.840 Yeah, but he's not very happy.

01:13:56.520 All right.

01:13:56.960 Let's bring the MLA, UCP MLA for, is it Airdrie Cochran or Cochran Airdrie?

01:14:03.160 He'll correct me in a moment.

01:14:04.220 It's Pete Guthrie.

01:14:05.480 He's been very outspoken on these issues, and he's agreed to join us tonight to talk

01:14:10.740 about this race. How's it going, Mr. Rathry? Hi, it's going well. Thanks for having me on.

01:14:16.880 Great. I appreciate it. If you could correct me, I don't have my notes in front of me. You don't

01:14:21.620 imagine the scramble when we get things rolling. So it's Erdry Cochran?

01:14:25.500 Erdry Cochran, right. Okay, very good. So, I mean, you've been one of the more outspoken MLAs,

01:14:32.640 critical of Premier Kenny, I imagine, of course, because of that, you're watching these results

01:14:37.620 very closely. Maybe a question I can kind of put out though, is there still room for you to work

01:14:44.320 within a Kenny-led caucus? I think that my opinion of leadership is not going to change

01:14:54.060 because of the outcome of these results. The outcome of this review, my opinion is formed

01:15:03.540 and it's formed on three and a half years of being in this caucus and with the premier as leader.

01:15:13.000 Okay, I know it was a tough one to throw out at the start, but I mean, we might as well

01:15:17.480 because I mean, then otherwise you go down the lines, well, would 70% be enough or 55 or 48? So

01:15:24.580 I imagine you'll, you know, examine things like so many others once you have solid numbers and

01:15:29.220 Yeah. So does that mean, Peter, that if if Kenny survives at 50.1 percent, you'll take steps to become a independent MLA or where you where does your political future in the immediate area lie?

01:15:46.200 Yeah, you know, I'd have to give it some careful consideration. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. You know, depending upon the result, I will have some discussions that I'll have to have with my family as well as with my board and move forward from there. But, you know, you don't want to do anything rash. I think that you need to have a cool head when you make those kind of decisions. So I would have to wait it out a little bit.

01:16:16.200 it's a sorry cory so uh a winner lose you'll be at the ucp caucus meeting uh tomorrow morning

01:16:22.840 that's right yeah i'll be there uh 11 o'clock at mcdougall and you know i i think that this is

01:16:29.560 going to be a um a tight race uh you know i i think like many i've run these numbers uh every

01:16:36.600 which way you can think of and i think it's going to be close uh you know the premier has controlled

01:16:42.280 all the levers associated with this and, you know, organize the parameters in his favor. I think that

01:16:48.720 it would be difficult to see how he couldn't come through this, but I don't see him coming through

01:16:55.620 with a real strong mandate, perhaps something in the 50s. Yeah, let's talk about that process a

01:17:01.780 little bit. There's been a lot of concern about the legitimacy of the vote. I was wondering if

01:17:05.200 you could just comment on some of the tactics you've seen from the premier, whether it be use

01:17:09.620 of staff on the leadership campaign or changing the date or so on and so forth?

01:17:16.500 Yeah. I mean, as you know, traditionally, these are done in person and that's what the party

01:17:24.180 wanted to run with. Leadership reviews of the past normally bring in about 23 to 2,500 people.

01:17:32.900 that sgm that was planned april 9th in red deer was going to have about 16 000 that showed a

01:17:40.500 massive amount of of interest there was and typically that kind of interest means change

01:17:47.300 let's face it there was polling being done by the party and by the premier's team and they felt that

01:17:54.980 the you know the best scenario for them was to change the format and uh going to a mail-in

01:18:01.860 ballot system a system in which uh the the president of the ucp said herself that uh was

01:18:08.100 one that was and couldn't be secure um but in order to uh to try to uh salvage this uh they

01:18:17.620 they altered all those parameters and um yeah and here we are tonight waiting for what looks

01:18:24.180 like another 25 minutes to find out what the result will be at least yeah so so trust in you

01:18:29.220 know the party itself i mean the system is one question then there's the party and there's been

01:18:32.900 a lot of lost trust but say presuming there's a a fresh i guess uh things refresh tomorrow and

01:18:39.380 we've got it looks like a new leadership on the way what lessons have we learned like how can the

01:18:43.140 party that you got a short period of time before the next election what does the party got to do

01:18:47.780 to regain that trust and what lessons, you know, how can we avoid repeating the gap in leadership

01:18:54.820 that sort of led to the mess that we're in today? Yeah, no, that's a good point. And the number one

01:19:01.540 word that I do here is trust. That is the number one word that I hear from constituents and that

01:19:08.660 what I hear we're talking with Albertans from border to border. So that is something that needs

01:19:14.580 to be re-established and it's hard to to get that back but I do think that it is doable but we do

01:19:24.020 have to change how we how we operate and so I think from the Premier one of the things you would

01:19:30.180 like to see is is him reaching out is in trying to acknowledge that some change in in his style

01:19:41.220 is something that he's comfortable with doing and with working within caucus but not only with

01:19:46.260 caucus with the boards as well as constituents and all albertans i think you may have just

01:19:55.140 answered the question i was going to ask peter but well if kenny does win and he'll be speaking

01:20:00.260 tonight what what what do you want to hear from him the dialogue thus far has been really one of

01:20:08.260 the status quo, that he plans on maintaining the current style. He doesn't see any errors in his

01:20:18.560 ways except for the possibility of being too soft. I don't think that that kind of approach

01:20:26.540 moving forward would be one that would help the future of caucus. So we need to see him

01:20:35.600 change on on that sort of dialogue and and that that remains to be seen but you know the proof

01:20:43.820 is in the pudding and I'm not sure whether or not he's going to be willing to do that thus far

01:20:48.740 he's shown and indicated that he's he's not going to do that. Now there's been a lot of chatter

01:20:56.400 through Don Braid or or even the Western Standard or Rick Bell that Kenny's feels that he's been

01:21:03.400 too tolerant of dissident views and that there's been speculation that moves might be made to,

01:21:12.600 for lack of a better term, execute dissident MLAs. Do you think that there's any advantage

01:21:18.040 in making a move before Kenny can make a move, if that makes sense?

01:21:22.360 Yeah, I don't see that as something that the Premier would want to do,

01:21:29.320 especially in a close vote, one where he's getting in the 50s. I think that that would

01:21:37.400 aggravate the situation. So I would more so see him reading caucus, the riot act and saying,

01:21:46.740 hey, look, if we're going to move forward, we're 12 months to an election. We have to be on the

01:21:51.920 same team. And we can't have MLAs out being in contravention of leadership. So let's get back

01:22:03.360 on board and let's go out and defeat the NDP in the next election. I think that would be more so

01:22:10.480 the messaging that we would see from him rather than coming out and pulling off the bandaid and

01:22:17.700 getting rid of a bunch of MLAs I think that would really hurt caucus and it would damage

01:22:26.040 the relationship with members and I don't think that the general public would would appreciate

01:22:31.740 it so it's not not a path that I that I think he will go down but I could be wrong well he's

01:22:37.840 shown a certain shamelessness up to this point so we'll see what happens there so so if the premier

01:22:43.120 though uh perhaps doesn't win or or it's a low number and he decides it's time to step back

01:22:47.740 we're going to move into a leadership race situation as you said though i mean the strategy

01:22:51.500 even if he wins would be we're getting ready for an election it's a year from now well that also

01:22:56.120 eats a big bite out of the year with a leadership race the you know i mean it would certainly

01:23:00.780 rejuvenate things and offer that opportunity but i can imagine it would have to be scheduled quite

01:23:05.520 quickly and that caucus will really have to unite to be able to pull off i think a fast definitive

01:23:09.700 leadership race and then start preparing for the next election yeah i think it would you know

01:23:14.720 probably take about four to five months um you know perhaps a month to get organized then take

01:23:21.480 in uh candidate applications and a couple of weeks to assess those and then open up to uh to a race

01:23:29.060 in order to to try to have it done by october let's say so yeah the the time frame is small

01:23:37.380 but it is still doable and you're right I mean it does a lot of things it really can reinvigorate

01:23:44.020 the party I get you know get a bunch of candidates out there and I think there would be a lot of

01:23:49.800 candidates that would that would come forward but it would get candidates out there promoting the

01:23:54.580 party generating interest bringing in new members and and attracting donations to the party this is

01:24:02.160 an area where we're being outraised by the opposition. And, you know, we're a year to an

01:24:09.600 election. I think we have less than a million and a half dollars in the bank. You probably want to

01:24:15.400 see that in the order of five to seven million. So there's a lot of work to be done over the course

01:24:20.800 of these 12 months. And a leadership contest would help to accomplish that. Yeah, Danielle was saying

01:24:28.020 something along those lines just uh with the federal party as well i mean a leadership race

01:24:32.200 i mean assuming it's not too insanely divisive like the top two contenders say in the federal

01:24:36.200 race but all the same a good solid leadership race can can really help build a party i mean that

01:24:41.420 motivates i mean constituencies are something we're not hearing a lot about but i i think a

01:24:45.980 lot of them are in pretty dire condition right now and you really need them set up and functional

01:24:50.200 in order to fight that election as well uh perhaps a leadership race could help spawn that because

01:24:55.000 again, volunteers are going to be out organizing, selling memberships and networking in a way that

01:24:59.360 they wouldn't otherwise when you get a status quo premier. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good

01:25:04.940 point, especially where there's no sitting MLA. I think that they, they would have a lot more

01:25:11.760 trouble raising funds. So on that local level to try to support that candidate. Generally,

01:25:19.320 you would have other MLAs out there supporting those stranded ridings but yeah this would be

01:25:29.640 certainly something that would help that when you have candidates traveling all across the province

01:25:34.520 trying to get the good word out for the party that's going to do nothing except for generate

01:25:39.240 interest and help out those those local constituency associations. Yeah I guess my

01:25:46.760 next question is more along the lines of the hypothetical situation if there is a potential

01:25:51.320 leadership race um given what we've just gone through with covet and everything like that

01:25:56.280 uh do you think that we would be going into an issues-based campaign or would it be more

01:26:00.680 of a personality-based campaign depending on i guess more depending on who's in it but

01:26:06.440 yeah that's uh that's an interesting question i you know generally there's a combination uh that

01:26:14.920 that would take place.

01:26:16.540 I mean, obviously you need to have a candidate

01:26:18.720 that is likable, one that's going to bridge that gap

01:26:23.360 between the urban and rural, which is very important.

01:26:28.140 And I think that, you know,

01:26:30.160 you can certainly traveling around the province

01:26:32.600 feel that maybe a little bit of a divide has occurred there

01:26:36.740 where rural Albertans maybe feel like

01:26:39.240 they're not being well represented

01:26:43.360 or at least not being heard,

01:26:45.240 I think would probably be a little bit more accurate.

01:26:49.260 So that's an important thing.

01:26:51.500 So you do have issues that are gonna be looming

01:26:54.880 and I think healthcare being one.

01:26:57.980 Tackling the healthcare system, it's a tough battle.

01:27:02.460 And for any political party to say

01:27:07.160 that they're going to go after healthcare

01:27:10.260 and they're gonna reform it,

01:27:12.180 It's a real tough animal, but I think that Albertans are ready for that.

01:27:16.880 And I think that it's got to be at the forefront of any campaign platform.

01:27:22.760 Great.

01:27:23.300 Well, we're all going to be watching very closely.

01:27:25.360 And as I've said with others, I just hope that they can get this out before the hockey game starts.

01:27:28.880 As much as this leadership review is very important on many, many levels, there's going to be a lot of distraction in Alberta as well.

01:27:36.540 There's more than one battle going on tonight.

01:27:38.980 Well, I don't want to worry you, Corey, but they've now removed the results expected at 5.30 thing on the website.

01:27:46.300 Yeah, it's become indeterminate again.

01:27:50.740 Well, we'll see.

01:27:52.500 But we appreciate you coming to talk to us.

01:27:54.400 I know, of course, you're watching very closely, as are a lot of our buttons tonight, Mr. Guthrie.

01:27:58.400 Anything else you'd like to add in closing before you get back to the waiting game with the rest of us here?

01:28:03.080 Well, no, thanks for having me on.

01:28:05.260 And, yeah, I think you guys are right.

01:28:07.080 If 7.30 comes along and the game starts, I will have to tune it to the game.

01:28:14.640 Well, I got tickets, so I'm leaving.

01:28:17.560 All right.

01:28:18.500 Well, thank you again for coming to talk to us, and we'll talk again soon.

01:28:21.700 All right.

01:28:22.180 Take care.

01:28:22.840 Thank you.

01:28:23.200 Bye.

01:28:23.860 So that was the UCP MLA for Airdrie Cochran, Pete Guthrie, who, again, yes,

01:28:28.600 has been very candid on his thoughts.

01:28:30.760 You got tickets.

01:28:31.680 I don't care.

01:28:33.320 I don't care.

01:28:34.180 I'm leaving.

01:28:36.200 I'm out of here.

01:28:37.080 Half the newsroom has tickets, except you and I.

01:28:39.620 I've been locked in this chair since this thing started.

01:28:43.500 You're more important than me to this organization, I think.

01:28:46.260 Yeah, I don't know about that, but we'll see.

01:28:48.280 So let's talk.

01:28:48.900 We've got some time without a guest for a bit.

01:28:51.340 You're a guest, in a sense, with Project Confederation.

01:28:54.500 So your organization is watching this pretty closely.

01:28:57.060 I mean, you're not a direct partisan organization,

01:28:59.120 but what do you want to see out of things tonight?

01:29:02.800 Well, I think there's a lot of people,

01:29:04.960 especially within our organization, that are frustrated with the status quo.

01:29:09.040 We've had a lot of promises.

01:29:10.600 We've had a lot of things that the Premier had indicated that he would be undertaking,

01:29:16.660 things like a provincial police force, pension plan.

01:29:20.980 Not necessarily committed to those things, but I thought that we would be a lot further along in the process.

01:29:25.960 um even regarding uh last year in march the supreme court uh when they ruled or their decision

01:29:34.840 that the carbon tax was in fact constitutional overruling the alberta court of appeals

01:29:39.960 um that was was another issue where kenny said that he would be consulting with albertans and

01:29:45.640 he would be getting back to them and uh that i don't know of any consultation i didn't hear

01:29:51.220 anything um and then uh even with the equalization resolution right uh since that's been passed

01:29:58.300 nothing's happened so we're in this kind of weird little position where yeah we've had a lot of

01:30:05.360 talk from the premier about things that he's going to do and he he's done a lot of good things like

01:30:11.540 he's done a lot of things that uh our organization can support but in terms of finish there hasn't

01:30:17.940 been a lot of finish there's been a lot of things that have been started the fair deal panel's been

01:30:21.540 started but not a lot of finish and that's something that it's made us frustrated um and

01:30:26.440 if he does survive which we'll see what happens tonight but uh i'd like to see some improvement

01:30:32.840 there but if he doesn't i would like to see an issues-based campaign where we can really get

01:30:37.380 uh play a role in defining what kind of a leader uh and what kind of a premier this uh province

01:30:44.440 wants. Yeah, well, and getting on to, I mean, the leadership race, if we have one, that's where,

01:30:51.620 again, where are we going to be going with some of these issues? We're looking at a big frustration

01:30:56.060 for a lot of us has been on the Ottawa front. It's been all talk, no action. There's Paul

01:31:01.280 Hinman who's offering the much more strong independence option on the outside. So within

01:31:06.140 the UCP, you know, we'd be looking for somebody to take a regionalist view and a stronger approach

01:31:14.360 that way. So, I mean, there's going to be so much to unfold. I mean, the party with the opportunity

01:31:18.680 to redefine itself in this race is going to be, it really depends on who runs. And there's the

01:31:25.240 thing a lot of people have said, you know, one of the strongest defenses for Jason Kenney so far,

01:31:29.660 I wouldn't say strong, but the one most common is saying, well, who would replace him? And I mean,

01:31:33.680 not, I guess everybody necessarily is keen on Daniel Smith, who said she would put her name

01:31:39.620 forward or Brian Jean, you can't assume that nobody would come out of the woodworks. Nobody

01:31:44.580 would show themselves to be a strong potential leader. I mean, we look at the federal race

01:31:48.500 and that's been interesting. You know, Babber came out, he's virtually unknown across the country,

01:31:53.540 known within Ontario though. And, you know, we think, oh boy, you know, I got to admit,

01:31:58.260 it was kind of a bit of an eye roll. Here's a guy who's been kicked out of his caucus. Maybe

01:32:01.440 he's a bit on the fringe and no, he's proven himself to be quite reasonable and a solid

01:32:06.100 candidate in that leadership, and nobody saw that coming. I don't know if he'll win it, but he's

01:32:10.040 establishing himself as a very credible person. Likewise, Atchison, he's a solid contender who's

01:32:17.780 sticking out ground on that race and establishing himself within the Conservative Party. So those

01:32:23.160 are names you never would have predicted a year ago that would run for the federal race. So you

01:32:27.700 can't presume you would know who might come forward on the provincial front too. There might

01:32:31.840 be federal politicians who decide to make the provincial hop if they think it would make them

01:32:35.420 put them into a premier's chair there's just so many things to guess on but who runs of course

01:32:40.940 it's going to depend on what their platform is and where they want to stick their ground and why they

01:32:45.180 would think they'd beat the others we're really at a turning point so we've rejigged our panel

01:32:49.660 yet again derek's back here in the middle dave's i heard you guys were talking about me yes

01:32:55.980 i don't actually know what yeah you guys for change for change if you want to know you'll

01:33:01.020 have to want to watch one of our shows after. I don't watch this crap. Yeah, I don't blame you. 0.99

01:33:05.900 And that wasn't too bad. No, no, we've said much worse things about them. When they're not in the

01:33:12.860 area. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. Well, so I've come back in because we're getting down pretty

01:33:21.500 close to what we when we're expecting the results. 10 minutes, according to the... Well, there's been

01:33:27.420 to change.

01:33:29.440 They've now taken down the 530

01:33:31.320 thing and it's just

01:33:32.940 up. It's just

01:33:34.340 generic again.

01:33:37.340 I just came back in.

01:33:39.180 I know he was doing it for no reason.

01:33:40.720 We do have a guest at you. You flipped my sheet on me here.

01:33:42.940 Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm not sure we have anyone in

01:33:44.880 the... No, we've got some open time

01:33:46.820 here where we can share our...

01:33:49.080 Well, we've got... Drew Barnes will be

01:33:50.500 coming out soon. Drew's going to be here in a bit.

01:33:53.820 We've certainly got lots

01:33:54.820 to talk about. Come on.

01:33:56.960 Yeah.

01:33:57.360 You know, I just go back today.

01:33:59.260 I made this comment, Corey, on your show this morning.

01:34:02.220 It's just so frustrating for the people of Alberta to have to go through this.

01:34:06.040 Every single thing the UCP does is late.

01:34:08.620 Yes.

01:34:08.920 Their time is more important than our time.

01:34:11.060 And it's just not, it's not just a whiny press.

01:34:12.940 And the press are whiny all the time.

01:34:14.360 Sure.

01:34:15.080 But I don't think it's too much to ask that one in 10 media events starts on time.

01:34:20.640 I think that's just showing professional courtesy.

01:34:23.560 And somewhere I heard that they pushed back the start of the counting from 9 o'clock, where they were supposed to start this morning, to 11 o'clock.

01:34:31.560 Well, why doesn't somebody say, hey, you know what?

01:34:33.660 There's a battle of Alberta tonight, so why don't we make everybody happy and keep the counting starting at 9 and actually get done so people can get to the bars, they can get to the game, they can get to the Red Mile.

01:34:45.840 But no, apparently there's not that kind of brain power.

01:34:48.400 Well, you know, and aside from our annoyance with it, it is actually a little more serious.

01:34:52.440 It's like, when you think about this, it's a sign of disrespect to the press.

01:34:55.740 It's a sign of disrespect to people.

01:34:57.360 Like, this has been ongoing.

01:34:58.220 When they're sitting watching at a conference something important, whether it was a COVID update, whether it was some other breaking news, and you are constantly late like that, like, these are the little things, but they add up.

01:35:09.980 These are the things that put impressions in people's head, and these are the things that sour voters.

01:35:14.720 And times like now, they just can't seem to get that.

01:35:17.220 You know, as you said, they've had means to get this on time, and it looks like they're going to bounce it around on us.

01:35:21.940 So I want to talk, you know, we just had Paul Hinman on, leader of the Wildrose Independence Party.

01:35:27.180 I think a lot of people are going to be watching tomorrow morning what happens with that party in the event that Kenny managed to scrape by.

01:35:37.280 You know, if Kenny gets something in the 50s, which is quite possible, I think he'll probably try to stay.

01:35:43.880 I mean, he said he'll stay, but we'll see.

01:35:46.500 I think he'll try to stay.

01:35:48.200 There will probably be an attempt by the rebels in the caucus to force him out because he doesn't have the clear confidence of the party.

01:35:55.300 It's ambiguous at that point.

01:35:57.020 It's hard to lead a party in the 50s if they fail, which I suspect there's a good chance they would to fail to push him out at that point.

01:36:06.660 I want to talk about where do those people go?

01:36:09.120 Are they going to go to the Wild Rose Independence Party as it is or in some reconfigured form?

01:36:16.040 or do they go to something else entirely?

01:36:19.540 We asked Paul him in that question a few minutes ago

01:36:22.280 and he said he would take time to consider it

01:36:24.500 and talk to his board.

01:36:25.760 And I think that's what all the dissenting MLAs

01:36:29.760 or MLAs will have to do.

01:36:32.760 We've heard for the last 18 months

01:36:34.780 about rebels in the caucus

01:36:36.360 and they're going to force this

01:36:37.740 and they're going to force Kennedy to do that.

01:36:39.500 And they always back down.

01:36:40.800 They never follow through with their threats.

01:36:42.540 um so yeah you know uh it's i think we're gonna have to be staking out the uh mcdougall center

01:36:50.000 tomorrow and getting these guys going in and getting them coming out no uh i i missed most

01:36:55.060 of the interview with paul but uh did he did he talk about the possibility of opening up the

01:37:00.400 leadership having a leadership race within the wild rose in the event that uh kenny stays on

01:37:05.080 i don't think we got to that no he didn't imply anything of the sort throwing that in he did i

01:37:10.400 I did get a hint that he has been in communication with some MLAs,

01:37:13.180 and it's more of a, we'll see what happens after tonight sort of approach.

01:37:17.140 Everybody's keeping their musket dry, right?

01:37:19.740 They don't want to say anything that's going to get them in trouble

01:37:21.880 before the results are announced.

01:37:24.320 Tomorrow's the interesting day.

01:37:26.140 When the results are out there, okay, now what are you going to do?

01:37:29.200 Well, in the event, Kenny gets over 50.

01:37:31.560 Yeah.

01:37:31.760 If he's below, then it's actually Alberta politics gets a bit more simple.

01:37:36.340 Yeah, but then the question remains, are you going to run for the leadership?

01:37:40.400 You know, there's questions for MLAs, either way, this goes.

01:37:44.560 So one of the key things I've heard from MLAs in discussing the what-if scenario,

01:37:49.680 Kenny scrapes by tonight, you know, he gets 55, whatever it is.

01:37:55.120 A large number of them do seem to view the Wild Roots Independence Party as the place

01:37:59.580 to try to build a new base from, particularly in rural and small-town Alberta.

01:38:04.240 But they have generally said that they want a leadership race if that happens.

01:38:10.400 And they all seem to generally like Paul, but believe that if they're going to go there, that party is going to kind of go to the next level.

01:38:18.500 They'll go from one of those small parties with no seats, not a lot of money.

01:38:22.200 If it's going to move into contention, if it's really going to move into center stage here, they're going to want a leadership race.

01:38:28.440 What do you think the chances are that Paul be willing to do that?

01:38:33.480 He did it once as a Wild Rose leader before the time the Daniel Smith ran.

01:38:37.380 He stepped aside when he thought it would be better for the party to have Danielle take over at that point.

01:38:42.360 He'd worked very hard to win that leadership at that time and won that by-election in an upset later on.

01:38:47.820 So I'm not, but I mean, it's a different environment now and it's a different time.

01:38:52.860 I mean, he's really held on.

01:38:54.260 This party isn't as much on the rise as the Wildrose was at that point.

01:38:58.600 Ironically, you know, Paul left while it was on the upward swing.

01:39:01.140 The Wildrose independence right now is kind of static.

01:39:03.900 Just look how much money they raised in the last quarter.

01:39:05.940 Not much.

01:39:06.440 It wasn't a lot.

01:39:07.380 A couple thousand dollars.

01:39:09.780 But, I mean, he's a pragmatist to understand.

01:39:11.940 If you've suddenly got a caucus, you're going to get more profile.

01:39:15.540 You're going to get a research budget.

01:39:16.720 You're going to get questions, you know, in the legislature, even if you're not the leader.

01:39:21.780 So that would bring the party up a level, potentially.

01:39:24.540 But then the other aspect is you only need four MLAs sitting in the legislature to form an official party,

01:39:29.620 and they could bypass, but then you have no constituency basis.

01:39:32.860 I think one guy where I'm going to ask a lot of these questions is our next guest, Drew Barnes.

01:39:36.620 Let's welcome Drew Barnes. He is the independent MLA for Cypress Medicine Hat, first elected as a

01:39:43.980 Wild Rose MLA in 2012, re-elected under the Wild Rose in 2015, and then re-elected a third time

01:39:52.940 under the United Conservative banner, possibly for the last time as a United Conservative member

01:39:59.420 in the 2019 provincial election. How are you doing, Drew?

01:40:03.100 Oh, Derek, I'm great. Thanks for talking to me. Nice to see you, Dave and Corey, guys.

01:40:08.860 So we don't have the results yet. We don't know when we're going to get them,

01:40:13.900 for God's sakes. So we're really just in speculation mode here, but there's so much

01:40:19.100 speculating to do. So I think that's where I want to start with you. I think obviously,

01:40:25.900 I know what result you're probably hoping for tonight, which is for United Conservative Party

01:40:31.580 members to vote to remove Jason Kenney, that would trigger a new leadership race. Do you see yourself

01:40:39.580 and Todd Lowen potentially returning to the United Conservative Party if that happens? Or

01:40:44.300 has that ship sailed and you guys looking towards greener pastures regardless of tonight's result?

01:40:50.620 Well, I certainly am hesitant to speak for Todd, but absolutely for myself, I will not return to

01:40:57.660 the UCP under Jason Kenney's leadership. I have some concerns about the UCP in general to be the

01:41:06.060 proper vehicle to really represent economic freedom, individual opportunity, conservatives.

01:41:13.580 You know, one of the failures of Jason Kenney's leadership that we almost never talk about

01:41:18.220 is how voices that wanted economic freedom, lower taxes, more choice in public programs

01:41:24.060 weren't hurt at all and uh he had zero empathy for for people that wanted to put those things

01:41:29.960 forward so uh yeah so uh what one step at a time but uh but i you know i i expect him to to survive

01:41:38.520 tonight and uh then i you know then i expect politics to get very interesting okay so you

01:41:44.520 expect him to survive and that's uh that's where i want to take this conversation that's that's

01:41:49.260 where all the really interesting what-ifs come. If he loses, well, we're going to have a race,

01:41:55.140 and the United Conservative Party's coalition probably stays more or less together. There

01:42:02.480 has been some significant fraying along the edges, but I think the chances of that party

01:42:07.180 remaining at least vaguely united goes up. If he stays, though, I think any reasonable observer

01:42:12.740 expects there to be a bloodletting, and that the United Conservative Party will become a bit of a

01:42:18.260 misnomer. The constituent parts that made up that party are no longer going to be a single piece.

01:42:24.900 I can't see them staying united behind Jason Kenney. In the event that happens, you know,

01:42:30.800 we were talking about some of the scenarios here. Do the rebels, you know, disproportionately,

01:42:36.480 although not exclusively from rural Alberta in the caucus, are they going to go to maybe some

01:42:42.900 reformed version of the Wild Rose Independence Party? Do you think they're likely to form

01:42:49.020 something completely new? What form do you think this is going to take? And I know you're only

01:42:54.680 speaking for yourself, so I won't ask you to name any others in it. I know you're clear you don't

01:43:00.520 want to speak for anyone else. But for yourself and in general for the other rebels still inside

01:43:06.220 that caucus what form do you think uh that movement is going to take well well thanks for

01:43:12.940 that well first of all absolutely ucp members that are not satisfied with with jason kenny's

01:43:19.600 leadership should leave and should start start a movement look at how uh you know they have uh

01:43:25.520 manipulated the two uh nomination contests where you know hundreds of local members try to hold

01:43:32.400 their MLA's accountable, get involved in the process, and they were unable to do that.

01:43:38.200 So, you know, anybody who thinks that a Jason Kenney-led UCP party isn't going to have its

01:43:45.100 fingers on so many of the things that should be exclusively for the members and exclusively for

01:43:49.580 Albertans is making a mistake. So they need to leave for that reason. A couple other things,

01:43:55.220 Derek, I know you guys hate to talk about Rachel Notley and the NDP on this show, but

01:44:01.300 if Jason Kenney wins, she'll be the happiest person in Alberta. Even way back to when the

01:44:07.160 five or six of them were caught on the Sky Palace patio drinking. The NDP went light on Jason Kenney

01:44:14.900 in the UCP because they want to run against Jason Kenney. You know, Janet Brown, I'm so glad you

01:44:20.340 have her. She's one of the best pollsters in all of Alberta. She has consistently shown that

01:44:25.920 But Jason Kenney has little chance of beating Rachel Notley and the NDP next time, if any chance.

01:44:32.940 And that is why, you know, Jason Kenney needs to go.

01:44:36.060 And that's why MLAs have to do something different.

01:44:40.180 Peter Guthrie mentioned, I think, that the UCP only has about a million, million and a half dollars.

01:44:45.120 And the NDP, I think, is north of five million.

01:44:47.680 You know, that's the other thing that's crazy about this situation.

01:44:50.180 You know, 17,000 or 20,000 Albertans were going to go to Red Deer.

01:44:55.720 The UCP party was going to generate $2 million.

01:44:59.200 They could have easily paid for more voting mechanisms to continue with the live voting.

01:45:05.000 But all that money was returned.

01:45:07.160 The Premier's leadership team has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on get out the vote and identifying votes in this process.

01:45:14.520 Money that should have been saved for our main battle, our real battle against the NDP come May 29th, 2023.

01:45:22.480 So that's what I'm focused on.

01:45:26.000 And, you know, Jason Kenney has clearly lost the trust and the confidence of Albertans.

01:45:31.140 And that's why change is necessary, however it has to come.

01:45:34.400 So I appreciate that, Drew.

01:45:35.740 But I guess I want to restate my question.

01:45:37.880 And I know you believe that, you know, Jason Kenney remains as leader that, you know, UCP members and voters should consider leaving towards alternative options.

01:45:49.260 But I want to ask you a bit, you know, what do you see as those alternative options?

01:45:52.900 Where, you know, what are the main options I think that you're looking at or that you see as, you know, plausible outcomes for what form the rebellion takes if Kenney holds on to the leadership of the party?

01:46:06.340 Okay. Let's start there. Thank you, Derek. Well, you notice that I was ejected from the UCP caucus.

01:46:17.420 You know, the premier spoke lots of that meeting about why I had to go the same day that Todd

01:46:23.100 Lowen was. Up to that point, I had never ever called for Premier Kenny's resignation. And when

01:46:29.560 he did have good policy, I'll give you an example. When the COVID restrictions were regional,

01:46:35.220 I said, I think he's got it about as right as he can. When he did some illogical things like

01:46:41.520 cost taxpayers $8 million, caused 70,000 recipients hardship by trying to move their

01:46:49.640 payments into another calendar year, which showed a low level of understanding. I said,

01:46:57.260 no, I think he's got it wrong. I don't see the logic in this. He always said at that point in

01:47:01.760 time he welcomed open disagreement and debate and my reward was was being ejected so so Derek you

01:47:08.040 notice since then you notice that six or eight maybe even ten other UCP MLAs have spoke up even

01:47:14.940 stronger than I used to before I was kicked out and three or four of them have called for his

01:47:19.180 resignation and they haven't been kicked out and that's because I believe he he is fearful of what

01:47:24.540 I think is the best way to go forward that's where the conservative movement that represents

01:47:29.460 you know all parts of Alberta I'm going to come back to that in a minute but a new conservative

01:47:34.960 party that is truly here to to get back to our 10 flat tax and the 2 small business tax

01:47:41.940 for rural people enshrine property rights you know those are the things that have to happen

01:47:47.020 and and you notice again that you know I think it's at least six MLAs have called for his

01:47:53.740 resignation and then criticized him loudly and haven't been ejected and that's because

01:47:57.700 as soon as there's three of us, Alberta Elections recognizes us as a new provincial party if we so

01:48:03.580 register and we can run in all 87 constituencies. If there's four of us, as Corey Morgan correctly

01:48:09.620 said a short time ago, all of a sudden our fundraising, our fundraising, I'm sorry, our

01:48:14.280 taxpayer support goes way up in the legislature. And I mean, Todd and I have a great team now and

01:48:21.200 great support, but it would be that much magnified and we could be that much, much better of an

01:48:26.480 opposition for Albertans. Danielle Smith, Derek alluded to it. One of the things that I've talked

01:48:32.500 to a lot of Albertans about is maybe it's time to look at things different. We should be the

01:48:38.340 freest and most prosperous place in all North America. By any estimates, our oil and gas

01:48:43.260 business is only at 15% of what it could be productivity-wise. We know that in exchange

01:48:49.960 for paying billions of dollars of equalization, we still don't get resource movement from our

01:48:55.280 Canadian partners. So maybe one of the things that we should look at is a coalition government,

01:48:59.840 a conservative party that represents Calgary and Edmonton, and a rural conservative party that

01:49:05.760 represents the rest of Alberta, and caucuses separately, caucuses jointly. You know, one of

01:49:12.500 the real, real good things about, you know, what the Western Standard's done, what people did

01:49:17.840 moving their money out of their bank accounts in response to Trudeau's, you know, Emergency Act,

01:49:23.520 is Albertans more than ever are telling me that they want to put in the time effort and take some

01:49:28.460 risk and push for change. And let's see where that goes. I'm just wondering, have you been

01:49:37.420 speaking then, I guess, directly with any of the people across? I mean, I know you still socialize.

01:49:41.640 It's always been the nature of MLAs, even between NDP and conservatives. It's not always as abrasive

01:49:46.920 as it is in a question period as we tend to see from outside. But I understand you can't break

01:49:52.720 confidences, but has there been some discussion on, again, theoretical scenarios with MLAs who

01:49:58.400 are currently sitting in the other side of the aisle from you? Oh, absolutely. I've talked to

01:50:04.000 lots of my former colleagues in the UCP. You got to give them so much credit. I mean, it's tough

01:50:10.560 to know the best way forward, but the conversations always center and start around what is the best

01:50:16.320 for my constituents? What's the best for Alberta? We're in that green zone now where we're only a

01:50:23.700 year away from the election and it's time to make those decisions. And then, yeah, I think it does

01:50:29.260 start tonight with the official results of the leadership review. But clearly, yeah, we've spent

01:50:38.300 a lot of time, you know, coffee, talking, going for walks. And a lot of us share the same values.

01:50:43.920 you know there's a lot of note passing that goes on in the legislature and when somebody has a

01:50:49.320 question or a member statement that I think really hits to the the heart of economic freedom or

01:50:54.280 individual opportunity for Albertans I will quite often pass them a note and say way to go I'm so

01:50:58.940 glad you you know taught me something or highlighted that so yeah there's been lots of discussions but

01:51:03.540 you know we'll see where it goes tonight and and hope you know we will keep we'll do everything we

01:51:11.300 can to keep Albertans' best interest in mind. Yeah, so looking ahead, let's, you know, again,

01:51:16.000 we're always, all we can do is speculate till they get around with sharing their results with us, but

01:51:19.980 presuming a leadership race does happen, the party rejuvenates, there's still some core issues that

01:51:26.420 are a problem. It's sort of, as you pointed out, maybe something of a coalition with other parties

01:51:31.240 or maybe changing the party structure so that there isn't the regional division going on within

01:51:36.480 the party, you know, rural versus urban MLAs, things like that, like, are there party reforms

01:51:40.800 you would like to see that perhaps could make it more functional if it was coming into a new

01:51:44.480 leadership? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, sure, it could be done within the UCP. But as long as the

01:51:51.280 leadership and the board of directors, you know, has that goal, and we have the mechanism to make

01:51:58.560 it happen. You know, Corey, one of the best examples is, I believe it was called the Reform

01:52:04.000 Act that the Federal Conservative Party of Canada had. Aaron O'Toole flip-flopped on the carbon tax,

01:52:10.160 flip-flopped, I think, on the gun registry. Turned out to be not the conservative that he

01:52:14.640 campaigned for. So I give the conservative MPs credit for saying, hey, you know, this isn't

01:52:20.240 what you sold us. So it's time to move on. So a rejuvenation of the UCP would have to include,

01:52:28.160 I think, something like the Reform Act. You know, I think one of the big mistakes that

01:52:32.000 that both Brian Jean and the Jason Kenney,

01:52:35.440 and the formation of the UCP

01:52:38.000 from the Conservative and the Wild Rose Party made

01:52:41.240 was not having a mechanism for a leadership review

01:52:43.560 in their right to start with.

01:52:45.120 Many, many of our good grassroots members

01:52:47.880 who share their time and their ideas,

01:52:50.520 you know, for the betterment of Alberta,

01:52:52.480 not, you know, not for pay,

01:52:55.900 at first realized there wasn't a mechanism

01:52:57.700 for a leadership review.

01:52:59.000 So when they felt that Jason Kenney

01:53:00.560 hadn't met expectations, you know, they spent six or eight months fighting just to get the idea of

01:53:05.620 a leadership review started. Let's not make those mistakes again. You know, let's put in a

01:53:10.980 grassroots driven process that, you know, that will allow members from all parts of Alberta to

01:53:17.700 have their say. And let's focus on the, you know, some of the things that Alberta really needs.

01:53:22.960 A written constitution is exactly the highest thing on my list because it will give us a way

01:53:29.480 to put our culture more in writing it will give us a way to limit the growth of government

01:53:34.160 you know heaven forbid we ever end up in a COVID situation again it'll give away

01:53:39.320 for MLAs and Albertans to have a greater say we got to have meaning meaningful recall we have to

01:53:47.360 have meaningful citizen initiative referendums the laws that Jason Kenney put in are the bars

01:53:54.240 are so high it'll never happen and as I mentioned something like the Conservative Party of Canada has

01:53:58.840 where we have to have meaningful checks and balances on the leadership of the party.

01:54:03.780 Otherwise, why would we go down this route again?

01:54:07.760 Drew, one quick question about yourself.

01:54:09.920 We're a year away from the election.

01:54:12.360 Are you going to run as an independent or what does your future party status hold?

01:54:18.060 Dave, thanks for that question.

01:54:19.740 Yeah, you know, I've had a lot of constituents, a lot of Albertans say, yeah, run as an independent.

01:54:24.100 Wouldn't a loose group of independents be good?

01:54:27.360 And of course, there's me and Todd, you know, the five or six other MLAs that have expressed concern, Danielle Smith, you know, it's an idea worth talking about.

01:54:38.960 And again, I believe Albertans, as much as I've seen them since the early formation of the reform days, are in the situation where they want to talk about this, they want to take risks, they want to drive for change.

01:54:50.340 So thanks, Dave, for your question. I believe I have the energy, the desire and the support to run as an independent. My preference is, though, to run in a way that ensures Alberta will be the freest and most prosperous place in North America. And I guess I've got probably the next three to six months to evaluate that.

01:55:11.700 you've got a number in mind tonight that uh you think the premier will hit

01:55:22.160 you know i i wanted to stay away from that but uh first of all i've i've long thought

01:55:30.680 that if he felt he was going to lose after all the uh the voter id and the outreach to

01:55:38.020 two Albertans he's done he'd have somehow twisted and turned again uh you know we were all supposed

01:55:43.700 to be in red deer on April 9th we were all willing to you know spend a day uh spend 110 bucks and get

01:55:50.340 there and do it and those rules changed so I believe that if he thought he was going to lose

01:55:55.540 tonight he he would change again so so my number my number Dave is 57 percent and and where it

01:56:01.620 comes from is this I believe he was going to lose in red deer 10 000 to 5 000 and that would have

01:56:07.300 have been the end of it. I understand that all of a sudden the membership went from 29,000 to about

01:56:13.540 60,000. So some side of 31,000 more members. A lot of rural people stopped selling memberships

01:56:22.240 because they honorably, if the person couldn't go to Red Deer on April 9th, they didn't ask them

01:56:29.980 overly hard to get involved in the process. So I believe those last 30,000 memberships

01:56:35.900 come from, you know, an area where, you know,

01:56:41.060 while they come from an area where the votes are going to come in,

01:56:44.020 15,000 of those people vote.

01:56:45.560 I'm giving 10,000 to yes and 5,000 to no.

01:56:50.020 And that's why I think he's going to get in the high 50s.

01:56:53.880 And the most important question tonight,

01:56:55.860 most important question, Flames or Oilers?

01:57:00.200 Well, it's a hard one.

01:57:02.080 My 22-year-old son goes to the U of C

01:57:04.960 and him and I go to the odd Calgary game together.

01:57:08.020 And that is a wonderful hockey team.

01:57:11.600 But I went to the U of A and I used to watch Wayne Gretzky and Glenn Anderson

01:57:15.540 and Boyk and that Paul Coffey he used to skate.

01:57:18.440 So slight preference for the Oilers.

01:57:21.880 Okay, Nico, can we cut him off at this particular motion?

01:57:26.560 All right, Derek, back to you.

01:57:29.300 So I was going to take a little long of a break from this,

01:57:32.220 but I've popped in our Rachel Emanuel on the ground,

01:57:36.700 our Alberta legislative reporter.

01:57:38.560 She is on the ground at the Kenny,

01:57:42.160 actually I'm not allowed to even say where it is.

01:57:44.020 In a bunker, undisclosed bunker in Southern Alberta somewhere.

01:57:49.160 She, party officials are telling her right now

01:57:52.400 that the vote is still expected any minute.

01:57:56.140 They're not publicly putting it up on the stream

01:57:58.280 but we need to be standing by.

01:58:00.140 the result is coming imminently.

01:58:03.260 Well, I'll believe that when I see it.

01:58:05.760 It could be ours.

01:58:07.820 It looks like Rachel in the lobby right now. 0.94

01:58:10.960 Actually, let's bring Rachel up right now for an update.

01:58:14.460 Nico, if we can also get just the mic in my ear brought down a bit.

01:58:18.160 But let's go to Rachel Emanuel at an undisclosed location in Calgary

01:58:23.900 where Jason Kenney and some of his supporters have gathered

01:58:27.860 to have the results come in.

01:58:30.840 Rachel, what are they telling you?

01:58:32.660 Yeah, they're still expecting the results at any minute.

01:58:34.980 As I said before, it was supposed to be at 5.30.

01:58:36.980 I just asked for another update.

01:58:38.520 They said any minute.

01:58:39.320 I think these things tend to usually run quite late,

01:58:41.820 so I won't be surprised if we're still waiting for a really long time.

01:58:44.760 But I'm hearing any minute, so I'm going to hold out.

01:58:46.960 Hope that that's the case.

01:58:48.920 Okay.

01:58:50.100 Actually, I'm getting word here.

01:58:52.840 I've got several solid sources saying the results are going to come at 6.15.

01:58:59.580 6.15, okay.

01:59:00.440 But we are the Western Standard.

01:59:02.760 I think we can beat it.

01:59:04.660 Well, you go work your sources.

01:59:06.280 Work your sources.

01:59:06.960 I think, personally, that James in the newsroom pool, he's got Thursday.

01:59:12.300 I think he might have the inside track.

01:59:14.620 So far, yeah, he's on track.

01:59:17.200 But we've got Dave Prisco, Communications Director of the Party, saying 6.15,

01:59:23.240 and that's apparently a media advisory.

01:59:25.680 But I would say that means something.

01:59:27.780 this is the ucp uh incompetent vocal so uh rachel what's uh what's the mood like there

01:59:34.060 uh everyone seems pretty excited i've asked a couple people if they've managed to hear anything

01:59:38.660 about the results uh no one everyone says they haven't or at least they're not willing to dispose

01:59:42.640 to me that they have uh there's pretty loud music playing um there's lots of food media is kind of

01:59:47.280 hidden in like a back corner so i can't actually go mingle with anyone or talk ask anyone any

01:59:51.060 questions which is quite unfortunate um but it just honestly seems like a pretty big party right

01:59:54.860 now this is obviously an invitation only event uh we were i was actually quite shocked that we were

02:00:01.900 able to to get you in there uh other is there much media there there's quite a bit of media here yeah

02:00:06.860 there's a lot of people here okay and uh what size crowd is it i know it's a hand-picked crowd for

02:00:13.420 the premier it's not a general party event with everyone allowed to come it's a hand-picked crowd

02:00:17.340 about how many people um i honestly couldn't say because basically when i came in they had

02:00:21.660 have you register at the media table and then quickly shuffled me into the back room.

02:00:25.380 Maybe like 100 or 200 people, but I'm notoriously bad at estimating crowd sizes.

02:00:29.420 So let's not hold me to that.

02:00:32.380 So you, if I'm not mistaken, I think in all likeliness, you had the last interview with

02:00:38.200 Jason Kenney, possibly as premier, but at the very least, the last interview with Jason

02:00:45.200 Kenney before he learns his fate in theoretically half an hour from now.

02:00:51.660 uh tell us about that interview how is he feeling is it uh i know he says he thinks he's going to

02:00:57.920 win but did you get the sense he's just kind of putting on a brave face or does he seem genuinely

02:01:02.100 confident yeah exactly i think it might have been the last interview i spoke to him in washington

02:01:06.860 dc yesterday just after he finished testifying at the u.s senate committee and then both him and i

02:01:11.720 rushed off to the airport we actually ended up being on the same plane all the way back from

02:01:15.800 washington to calgary so that was quite fun i'm sure he was very glad to see me

02:01:19.260 but he he seemed fairly optimistic but he kind of coded everything that he said with saying you

02:01:24.600 know maybe it won't be the results that I'm hoping for he said in politics and in elections there's

02:01:28.740 always surprises so I don't think someone would have kind of coded their phrase saying that if

02:01:33.720 they were 100% sure they had the win um so it's kind of just like a safe fail so if you end up

02:01:38.200 losing you know you said well you know I did acknowledge that there's always room there's

02:01:41.440 always space for things to go awry in these types of situations so maybe he is questioning it a

02:01:45.500 little bit you know maybe he's wondering he's doubting I wouldn't say he was 100% confident

02:01:48.540 when i spoke to him yesterday you can see some uh so you can see some cracks in the facade i would

02:01:53.100 say uh well uh rachel um sorry uh cory's chuckling at me he understands the technical error i just

02:02:01.900 bumbled my my way into uh i i think i'm i'm uh having to nominate myself for the starfish

02:02:09.580 it's the only award that i'm eligible for i think if you probably hit the power button

02:02:14.300 Yeah, there's a password.

02:02:16.220 Corey's going to save my, pull my chestnuts out of the fire in a second here.

02:02:20.580 So did Kenny give you an idea of what level of support he is realistically expecting?

02:02:28.360 He said he expects a strong mandate, but I mean, he's also said repeatedly that he's going to stay on even if he receives 50% plus from one of the vote.

02:02:35.000 So I think he's kind of setting himself up for expectation that he's going to stay on even if he does receive a small mandate while saying he expects yet a big one.

02:02:44.300 uh is he expecting did he talk a bit about the bloodletting that's expected in the event that he

02:02:51.880 uh you know he has a slim you know slim majority but but not enough did he talk about what he's

02:02:57.840 going to do to try and take back party control no we didn't mention anything about that he largely

02:03:03.040 just said you know if i get 50 plus one that's the majority i'm going to stay on as leader i'm

02:03:08.060 going to consider that a mandate to continue um staying on as leader of the ucp

02:03:11.940 uh rachel it's uh dave here while these two guys try and figure out a 20 year old computer

02:03:19.780 uh could you just give us a rundown on uh what exactly happened uh in washington who did kenny

02:03:25.060 speak to uh what exactly you did sure so on day one um i met up with kenny on monday at a media

02:03:32.820 round table in washington dc he had met with various officials from the state department that

02:03:37.220 day his whole reason for going there is basically to pitch over energy and oil apparently you know

02:03:44.440 in washington dc they don't understand that most of their energy does come from alberta and that

02:03:48.940 it's clean energy so currently in the u.s we're seeing energy prices and gasoline prices are

02:03:53.780 skyrocketing but the biden administration is going to opec looking for ways to fill that energy and

02:03:59.560 kenny is saying why don't you come here to alberta we want you to invest in alberton oil ultimately

02:04:03.800 with the hopes of getting another pipeline built. Not sure if that's something that we can expect to

02:04:07.280 see happen under the Biden administration. Remember, he did cancel the Keystone XL pipeline

02:04:11.200 as one of his very first acts after he took office. And then Tuesday, he actually went and

02:04:15.980 testified at the U.S. Senate committee. So that went quite well for him. There was also, you know,

02:04:21.240 Natural Resource Minister Jonathan Wilkinson was testifying, but U.S. senators didn't seem super

02:04:25.580 interested in asking him any follow-up questions. They primarily were interested in talking to

02:04:29.320 Kenny, who was specifically offering them a solution to their need of the energy crisis,

02:04:33.100 whereas the federal minister actually spoke a little bit more on the work their government's

02:04:36.920 doing on decarbonization and emissions reductions. Later I wrote a piece about that when I spoke to

02:04:41.700 Kenai Asim about that because on Monday he said every time the federal government talks about

02:04:45.640 energy we talk about emissions reductions they aren't a champion for Albertan oil. I think we

02:04:49.860 saw that again at the committee on Tuesday Jonathan Wilkinson did not champion Albertan oil. He did

02:04:54.960 not speak about the work that Alberta is doing on energy and the emissions reductions that they have

02:04:59.140 done but Kenny was definitely a champion for that I think it went really well for him I think it was

02:05:03.740 you know a good setup for him ahead of today's today's vote he also said to me that he thought

02:05:07.780 the fact even he went to Washington DC showed that he wasn't being distracted by his leadership

02:05:12.420 review he said he hasn't spent too much time on it that being said I'm sure he has quite a number

02:05:17.740 of staff working on it obviously a bunch of people have taken leave of absence from the

02:05:21.820 government of Alberta positions to work on the campaign so there's definitely people that have

02:05:25.280 been busy working on it. Well, we're going to talk to someone who has spent a lot of time on

02:05:29.960 Kenny's leadership review in one second here. Thank you very much, Rachel. Please keep us posted

02:05:35.760 with anything you hear. Just send us texts and whatnot. We're going to make sure we bring you in

02:05:39.920 as we get closer to expecting the results. So keep us in the loop. Stand by. We're obviously

02:05:44.820 going to come to you more than once tonight. Sure. Sounds good. Thank you. Okay. So one man who has

02:05:53.020 oh I got a rumor

02:05:57.240 what's the rumor

02:05:58.720 okay I'm not going to report this yet

02:06:06.640 it's just not solid enough

02:06:08.360 but let's just say

02:06:10.700 it would make you happy

02:06:12.120 that's all I can say

02:06:14.460 we're not taking that one to the bank yet

02:06:16.820 let's just hold on

02:06:18.740 to what I've got there

02:06:19.800 so David Parker

02:06:22.100 uh david parker has uh which camera am i looking at that one that one uh david parker has been a

02:06:30.080 leader in the take back alberta movement uh it's uh the largest of the different uh let's just say

02:06:37.500 get rid of kenny movements there's a there's the brian gene movement take back alberta i think it's

02:06:42.720 fair to say is disproportionately uh former kenny supporters yeah and uh and then kind of really

02:06:49.900 bringing in a lot of the anti-mandatory vaccination and lockdown movement, kind of bringing that into

02:06:54.160 it. You've really been working on the movement to replace Jason Kenney as leader of the United

02:07:00.380 Conservative Party for quite some time as one of the key organizers of it. What are you expecting

02:07:06.560 to see tonight? Both in general, give me your reasoning. As Jenna Brown said, people on both

02:07:11.980 sides give predictions, but people on the get rid of Kenney side tend to give a lot more reasoning

02:07:17.740 a logic around it. What's the prediction and how do you get to that prediction?

02:07:22.860 So I'm going to make a bold prediction, but I think he's going to get somewhere between 38 and

02:07:27.820 43%. And Jason Kenney will get somewhere between 38 and 43%. So the no vote will get somewhere in

02:07:37.740 the range of 62 to 57. And the reason that I believe that is if you look at the numbers,

02:07:45.740 is just the raw data, almost 70% of the list, I think it's something like 62, 62% of the list is

02:07:54.060 in rural Alberta. And most of that list is women all over this province. Even I heard a rumor,

02:08:02.440 this is just a rumor, but that Rick Orman was surprised by the number of women that were voting 0.96

02:08:07.180 in this leadership review. And like the truth of the matter is as conservatives, you and I've been

02:08:12.300 working in conservative politics or in the conservative ecosystem, let's call it for a while,

02:08:16.320 you don't see a lot of young mothers engaged, but they're really engaged right now. And I think

02:08:22.300 when you look at the numbers with such a high percentage in rural, then on top of the fact

02:08:27.480 that I believe Deloitte has disqualified, I can't confirm this, but I believe they disqualified

02:08:34.380 those 4,000 that were bought with the single credit cards, or at very least, I do not believe

02:08:38.540 that a lot of those votes came in from what I've heard from people who were there counting the

02:08:43.800 ballots like processing them they did not see a lot of ballots coming in in mass mass amounts so

02:08:51.520 I guess I would say that I believe pretty wholeheartedly Jason Kenney is going to lose

02:08:57.820 and I believe that it's going to be way more than people think I also think that a lot of his polling

02:09:03.280 data, the data that he's relying on to say, well, this is how much I'm going to win by.

02:09:09.240 I think there's people that are perhaps not telling him their real intentions when they're

02:09:14.100 being called. And I think that perhaps that data is a little bit skewed. And I just point

02:09:18.620 out mathematically that for every person who tells him they're supporting him, but actually

02:09:22.480 doesn't, that's a two-point swing, right? They're voting against him, not for him. So

02:09:27.340 it's not just one vote. When you're polling, that's actually quite askew.

02:09:30.980 So I'm just making sure the camera cannot see my phone here.

02:09:34.380 So when my secret sources light up, we're not ousting any.

02:09:39.420 So my source is watching at home right now.

02:09:41.860 I know some of you are.

02:09:43.920 If my phone lights up with your name on it, it's not going to show up on any camera angle that we have.

02:09:49.920 No.

02:09:51.800 All right.

02:09:52.340 So you're predicting a blowout.

02:09:54.420 I would have predicted a blowout if it went forward with a red deer based on the information I saw.

02:10:00.980 None of which came from you.

02:10:03.060 No, no.

02:10:04.300 It definitely looked like a blowout.

02:10:06.560 I think that, you know, choosing a whole new ball game as they did,

02:10:12.940 I think it's given Kenny much more of a chance.

02:10:15.680 I wouldn't be surprised if he makes it out tonight,

02:10:18.520 but I think on balance of probabilities, he doesn't.

02:10:21.120 What does your organization, what does your movement do in the event that,

02:10:25.700 you know, he squeaks by with something like 55?

02:10:27.940 if he gets 55 i'm firmly uh firmly of the belief that that means that he somehow cheated i'm not

02:10:36.380 sure how we've looked at every different way in which he could have there's obviously cheating

02:10:40.740 in the fact that he changed the rules so like when you're playing a game like say you're playing

02:10:45.420 monopoly with emma right i want to play risk or yeah and you're like you flip the board over and

02:10:49.800 you say we're playing risk now she's gonna be like daddy why are you cheating right and any

02:10:54.760 child knows that when you change the game you're playing that's cheating so he's already admitted

02:10:59.960 that he's a cheater well he hasn't admitted it he's just admitted he changed the game oh yeah

02:11:04.440 yeah so he hasn't admitted it himself but i think it's it's fair to say he's um

02:11:11.480 he just he he did something that would be normally considered cheating but i will i will say this

02:11:16.600 i think he's going to have the dignity to resign i think a lot of what he's doing is

02:11:21.160 is just political right it's like i've got to go out there and i've got to rally the troops i've

02:11:24.760 got to give them morale but at the end of the day i think he knows that if less than 75 of

02:11:31.000 your own party doesn't think you should stay on there's a zero percent chance of that that's not

02:11:35.240 happening there's no way he's getting 75 or more i mean no i know and that's what i'm saying that's

02:11:39.960 what you need in any normal world in any place where you know where we lived in the past in

02:11:47.720 any context before that 77 was considered bad wasn't that the curse in alberta you know this

02:11:52.680 better than 75 75 was considered a terrible number you it means you got to be premier for one more

02:11:58.920 year yeah that's what that was it or not not even a year normally there was there was oh we got uh

02:12:04.120 the coming in well they said expected of 5 15. uh oh 6 15. yeah yeah okay so well they're

02:12:11.000 sticking to that number well they stick to 530 pretty good until i got to 529.

02:12:17.720 I do a cynic day.

02:12:19.820 Yes, very much so.

02:12:21.080 Thank you for regarding it.

02:12:22.300 I will give you a piece of advice. 1.00

02:12:23.520 Take Ukraine. 1.00

02:12:25.640 Take Ukraine.

02:12:26.560 On risk.

02:12:27.380 On risk, yeah.

02:12:29.320 It's a very valuable... 1.00

02:12:30.720 You can have Ukraine.

02:12:32.120 Ukraine is weak.

02:12:35.560 That's what you're supposed to say.

02:12:37.200 I'm from Ukraine.

02:12:38.100 Ukraine not weak.

02:12:39.140 Oh, I don't know that one.

02:12:40.800 There you go.

02:12:41.180 Sorry.

02:12:41.900 He doesn't know a Seinfeld.

02:12:42.580 I don't know a Seinfeld.

02:12:43.560 All right.

02:12:43.900 He doesn't know a Seinfeld.

02:12:44.980 If Josh was here, he would have had that.

02:12:46.720 I think, have we got someone else waiting in the stream to bring into it?

02:12:50.380 I don't know.

02:12:50.920 I think, yes?

02:12:52.940 Yes?

02:12:53.380 No?

02:12:54.040 No, no.

02:12:54.700 No.

02:12:55.060 Okay, no.

02:12:55.700 Well, I have a question for you, Derek.

02:12:57.660 Okay, so you're the host now.

02:12:58.840 Okay.

02:12:59.620 No, no, no.

02:13:00.420 Just a brief question.

02:13:01.780 How long do you think it's going to go beyond 6.15?

02:13:07.100 Well, that's a tougher question than picking if Kenny makes it or not.

02:13:10.960 You never know with the UCP.

02:13:12.380 an hour. I think Andrew, you go through a lot more press conferences than I do, Dave. What's

02:13:17.400 an average? Normally, Kenny's 20 minutes late. Normally 20. But this is a big thing. Yeah,

02:13:24.440 but this is not a normal press conference. Remember your prediction. If it was early,

02:13:29.760 that was a sign was probably good news. Kenny wants to get out. He wants to get the five o'clock

02:13:33.400 news, the six o'clock news. 75%. Send his people out, go enjoy the other Battle of Alberta.

02:13:39.860 If it's late, then bad news.

02:13:42.500 And we are now, they gave a window of 4 to 6.

02:13:45.900 We're 5, 59.

02:13:47.820 They're now saying it's going to be 6, 15 after the window.

02:13:52.080 That's disgraceful.

02:13:53.740 But in terms of, you know, what our voodoo predictions were,

02:13:57.960 that if it's late, on the later end, between 4 and 6, then it's bad news.

02:14:01.720 We are now 6 o'clock on the bill.

02:14:04.260 It's not coming until at least 6, 15.

02:14:06.760 So by at least the logic we're using of a late result, that bodes poorly for Kenny.

02:14:15.780 I kind of think of like a jury.

02:14:17.060 If the jury comes back right away, you're getting the chair.

02:14:20.880 If the jury takes a long time, you might be innocent.

02:14:24.440 I think it's kind of the reverse here.

02:14:26.180 If the jury takes a long time, Kenny gets the chair.

02:14:28.460 Yeah.

02:14:29.260 Well, I mean, he's certainly not excited about the news because I think we've all heard from a number of sources that he does know.

02:14:34.980 So I think there is one person at very least in the province who knows right now it's Jason Denny.

02:14:41.380 Maybe me. I don't know if I know.

02:14:44.480 Aren't you going to kick yourself in the ass? 1.00

02:14:46.780 If we don't break what I have right now, I don't know. 1.00

02:14:52.500 I might know. I don't know if I know. It's the known unknowns.

02:14:56.920 I will remind you that you were the very first to break Evernote Tool.

02:15:00.480 Yeah, we did.

02:15:01.400 in the country. You're also the first ever to live tweet a caucus meeting. That was true.

02:15:08.680 We need to do that tomorrow. That was almost a year ago. Did we break Andrew Scheer too?

02:15:11.800 Did we also break Andrew Scheer? I don't think so. No, I know we were Aaron O'Toole. Yeah,

02:15:17.480 we did break in the Aaron O'Toole. That was good. Okay, I think we might have someone else 0.84

02:15:24.280 in the lobby here. Okay, we're going to go to them in just a minute.

02:15:29.320 But our producer is going to set it up so that I can't move down there.

02:15:38.800 We're more high tech than we used to be, but not as high tech as we try to lead you to think at home.

02:15:44.080 We're doing our best, folks.

02:15:47.080 Okay, well, Nico is going to bring our next guest in the stream.

02:15:50.100 I don't know who it is, but he assures me it's a good guest.

02:15:53.060 Surprise guest.

02:15:53.560 Surprise guest.

02:15:54.520 The mystery pundit.

02:15:56.760 Let's bring him in.

02:15:57.980 Oh. 0.75

02:15:58.120 it's oh no everybody's favorite pollster we can do worse than janet brown

02:16:03.420 so janet i was just channeling you um uh you know david was giving uh his predictions and and i and

02:16:13.100 i was trying to paraphrase you earlier that the anti-kenny side tend to have uh at least some

02:16:19.120 reasoning and logic behind it whereas the supporters of kenny uh we had a supporter of

02:16:25.180 kenny on uh very very smart guy but the argument largely boils down to well he's never lost

02:16:30.040 and so he probably won't lose again and that was true of rome for a long time

02:16:34.940 it was a very good bet for a very long time but you know eventually people like me showed up

02:16:43.120 a lot of you uh so uh you know we are some of our reasoning tonight uh in terms of predicting

02:16:52.820 when this is going to come was if if it's an early result, it's probably good news for Jason

02:16:57.780 Kenny, sort of like a like a jury. You know, if the jury comes back right away, you're probably

02:17:01.620 getting the chair. If they take a long time, maybe you're good. I think it's sort of that in reverse

02:17:05.220 that if it takes a long time, then the premier might be trying to collect himself for what's

02:17:10.100 happening. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Well, I mean, the big reason I agreed to come

02:17:14.820 back at six o'clock was because I thought we'd get to be talking about results. Have you ever

02:17:19.220 tried to go attend to a ucp press conference on time oh no no no but this but this is different

02:17:24.660 right this is this is not a press conference this is the premier's future all of the six

02:17:29.620 o'clock news programs just started three minutes ago um if this guy was gonna win he had an

02:17:35.780 opportunity to start the six o'clock newscast you know with his arms in the air saying congratulations

02:17:41.460 so if jason kenney is going to pull off 50 i mean it's just these guys like um you know get your act

02:17:49.540 together and be ready to have that victory lap on the six o'clock news so um yeah i think reading

02:17:55.780 the tea leaves i think maybe they're they're postponing this because the news isn't good

02:18:00.340 if it is good it just speaks to incompetence that they weren't ready to go for six o'clock

02:18:06.800 So I've got sources who are giving me answers that would make guys like David Parker from Take Back Alberta here very happy tonight.

02:18:14.200 But I'm not going to tip my hand much beyond that because I really, it's not solid enough yet.

02:18:21.600 But I would, you know, if the Premier had a good result tonight, I expect he would have gone earlier.

02:18:29.520 So we had Paul Hinman on earlier, leader of the Wild Rose Independence Party.

02:18:34.100 We had Drew Barnes on.

02:18:35.600 he's talking vaguely. He more or less indicated that regardless of the result tonight, he's

02:18:42.540 actually not very interested in going back to the United Conservative Party, that there's

02:18:46.740 more fundamental problems with the party than just Jason Kenney. Where do you think this

02:18:52.940 goes tonight? If the scenario we're kind of using is a 55 percent, Jason Kenney gets

02:18:57.720 his bare majority and decides to stay and he's going to fight the rebels out. And there's,

02:19:03.460 you know i think conservatively speaking four to six out possibly more uh again i i'm very much in

02:19:11.620 the business of wild speculation uh so i'm asking you to a reasoning behind your speculation okay

02:19:17.540 i knew i'm going to restate something that i've said several times this week jason kenney won the

02:19:22.340 last election with 55 support from the general public we are sitting here wondering whether he

02:19:28.580 can get 55 percent support with his base so even if he gets a winning number this premier is in

02:19:34.740 such a weakened position going into the next election that i mean that's got a concern

02:19:39.060 conservatives even those who support him so now back to your question um why do i you know

02:19:45.700 how do i look at the prediction so i've talked to lots of people and i've asked them all what

02:19:49.620 they thought and then i asked them not just what number they think is we're going to hear tonight

02:19:53.700 but why and I just seen this pattern where people who are predicting a majority vote

02:19:59.860 don't really have a good logical reason for that and people who are predicting a loss do have a

02:20:05.460 logical reason people who are predicting a loss have a spreadsheet they talk to me about how many

02:20:10.180 people were going to go to red to red deer they talk about how many rural voters there were on

02:20:14.180 the voting list they talk about how disappointing the voter turnout has looked 60 000 members we're

02:20:20.340 we're talking about maybe, I think we're expecting 32,000 votes were counted. So the people who are

02:20:26.320 expecting, I'm not making a prediction whether he's going to get above or below 50%. I'm just

02:20:31.480 saying that the people I talk to who are making a losing prediction are giving me better logic

02:20:36.420 than the people expecting a winning vote. So I want to go to the day after tomorrow kind of

02:20:46.380 scenario. Kenny scrapes by. Do you see in this event, okay, we've got now Drew Barnes,

02:20:56.640 Todd Lowen, let's say roughly six others that's going to include a guy like Brian Jean. You might

02:21:03.280 have outside of the caucus someone like Danielle Smith. You know, you've got the Wild Rose 0.98

02:21:09.940 Independence Party, possibly just a totally other new party around. What do you think the chances

02:21:15.680 of success are of a party kind of launching an insurgency from the Tory's right flank.

02:21:22.180 Do you think there's enough anger at JC Kenney to sustain that with some kind of success? Maybe

02:21:27.180 not the government, but to at least a large showing? Or is, despite the anger at JC Kenney

02:21:33.460 out there, the fear of a vote split too great, that no matter how unpopular Kenney is, people

02:21:38.380 will hold their nose and vote for him? Well, it's going to be a very delicate balance. You know,

02:21:43.660 So, Derek, you'll remember this. When they were putting the PCs and the Wild Rose together, I was one of those analysts who said, this is never going to hold. And lo and behold, Jason Kenney put these two parties together, and he kept the piece for quite some time.

02:21:58.820 So my prediction ended up being right, but it took a long time for it to be right. My prediction that there's no way these people could get along. You know, it eventually became true, but it took longer than I thought. So whatever new leader we have, they're going to face the same challenge as Jason Kenney. This very delicate balance for this big ticket, this, you know, big tent party.

02:22:20.600 so if the winning candidate for the leadership review comes from the far right of the party

02:22:26.220 then it's going to be really hard to keep sort of the more traditional progressive conservatives in

02:22:31.700 the tent and you know we're in a different environment this year than we were in 2019

02:22:36.800 in 2019 when I was out there doing focus groups and polling people would tell me all the time

02:22:42.340 I like Rachel Notley but she's got a weak team around her now centrists are telling me I like 0.88

02:22:49.020 Rachel Notley, and man, she's attracting a lot of interesting candidates. So, you know, a candidate 0.97

02:22:55.920 from the far right wing may bring certain people back into the party, but they'll have to work

02:23:00.860 really hard to make sure that they don't lose those traditional progressive conservatives,

02:23:05.980 because the math you need, we found out in 2015, when the right is divided, there's the perfect

02:23:11.700 storm for the NDP to win. So the math will hold in the next election as well. If the right can't

02:23:18.860 come together, Rachel Notley and the left, they're too strong to be underestimated right now.

02:23:26.020 Okay. We're going to be bringing Corey Morgan back in in a minute, but I just got a last

02:23:31.740 question for David. We're going to bring David back in after we're expecting results.

02:23:36.460 Oh, geez. Sounds like Groundhog Day. But I mean, the second expected time for results is coming up

02:23:46.500 in just five minutes.

02:23:48.180 I expected these results on April 9th.

02:23:50.340 Play a tournament.

02:23:51.900 Play a tournament. 1.00

02:23:57.160 Janet wins the line on the night. 1.00

02:23:58.460 That was great. 0.87

02:23:59.060 That is the line on the night for sure. 1.00

02:24:01.420 Yeah, Janet wins so far for punditry wit.

02:24:04.180 I was watching The Edge of Tomorrow last night.

02:24:06.320 It's sort of like a futuristic war version

02:24:09.020 of Groundhog Day.

02:24:10.240 Tom Cruise is reliving the same day over and over

02:24:12.860 until he gets the battle exactly right.

02:24:15.720 I feel like that's been the Kenny leadership review vote now.

02:24:20.100 But I'll come back to you.

02:24:22.000 I had a question.

02:24:22.800 You didn't answer my question exactly.

02:24:24.580 What is next for Take Back Alberta if Kenny stays?

02:24:29.340 He gets 55.

02:24:31.040 Some guys are purged.

02:24:32.420 There's a bit of a bloodletting, but he doesn't go.

02:24:35.440 What are you guys going to do?

02:24:38.060 Well, we've contemplated this a lot,

02:24:40.700 and there are vehicles at our disposal,

02:24:42.760 including this new Buffalo party, the APP is looking into doing things.

02:24:47.000 I think if Jason Kenney somehow remains on after getting such a tiny fraction

02:24:52.240 of his own membership, right, which proves that he's not going to be able

02:24:56.000 to win a general election, we have to move to a new vehicle.

02:24:58.980 So that would be the only option after that would be to start a new party,

02:25:03.100 which there are parties there waiting. 0.98

02:25:05.420 And, you know, think back Alberta is all about civic engagement.

02:25:08.820 So basically we'd be teaching Albertans how to build a political party really fast.

02:25:13.180 Well, I know you guys certainly shocked the Kenny team.

02:25:18.580 They just didn't see you guys coming.

02:25:20.920 After the AGM, they thought that the half dozen people who ran against them on the executive were the resistance.

02:25:27.440 And that really let their guard down.

02:25:29.200 In the meantime, you guys were swimming through the water with a knife clenched between your teeth.

02:25:36.060 You guys popped up, and a week later, they changed the whole voting system.

02:25:40.560 You guys have really upset Alberta politics, and so we're going to want to come back into you.

02:25:46.280 Okay, yeah, well, let's get Corey on here.

02:25:48.060 But before we bring Corey in, we're going to go back to Janet.

02:25:52.280 Janet, do you see any way forward for Kenny?

02:25:55.000 If he scrapes by by the skin of his teeth here, do you see any real way for him to reconcile at least with enough of the rebels in the caucus

02:26:05.860 and enough of the rebels and the general membership, and I suppose those might be two

02:26:09.140 separate questions. Do you see a way for him to reconcile himself to pull this back together if

02:26:14.820 he slips by with something in the mid-50s? Well, I've given a few presentations to my

02:26:21.140 clients recently, and the message I'm trying to leave everybody with is that all scenarios

02:26:25.700 are on the table. Now, Jason Kenney, in my polling, I got him down at 19% approval at one point,

02:26:35.140 which is the low watermark in my 25-year history in doing polling in Alberta.

02:26:42.600 So if a guy can go from 19% to running in the next election, it will be miraculous.

02:26:49.660 But there is a scenario for Jason Kenney to come together.

02:26:53.280 And as I see it, the public is really just fed up with all of this infighting.

02:26:59.160 And that even if most members of the public would like to see Jason Kenney go tonight,

02:27:03.860 If he does survive tonight, I think the average Albertan is just going to say, let UK UCP get along. Let's move forward. So Jason Kenney can unite the party. If the economy stays strong, if we don't have any sort of surprise flare ups of, you know, of COVID, you know, new variations of COVID, I do see a path for victory for Jason Kenney.

02:27:26.740 It's a lot easier to play out Rachel Notley as the next Premier of Alberta than it is to play out Jason Kenney.

02:27:34.100 But I can play it out if the economy cooperates, you know, and if those centrist Albertans just say, you know what, the NDP is a step too far for me.

02:27:47.020 I just heard David Parker of Take Back Alberta say if Kenney stays, then he'll try and form another political party.

02:27:54.160 Is that realistic with less than a year to go before the next election?

02:27:59.580 Forming a political party is difficult at the best of times.

02:28:03.900 And the problem is, is I think there's going to be too many political parties and there's

02:28:09.040 not a lot of runway for somebody to get established.

02:28:11.620 So, you know, I think about my own tracking graphs and I remember, you know, when the

02:28:15.440 Wild Rose party sort of popped up and it would just sort of float down there in the single

02:28:20.060 digits.

02:28:20.480 And then Daniel Smith became the leader of that party.

02:28:22.720 and and and that's what it's going to take i mean we can't just put a new party together you got to

02:28:27.200 put a new party together and you've got to have that um amazingly strong leader that just makes

02:28:33.680 people um sit up and pay attention without that kind of lightning bolt moment where a really

02:28:39.120 strong leader comes in um no it is it's really hard to establish a party and and win seats in

02:28:46.160 in a short period of time and guess what it's 6 15 and there's no results and there's not even

02:28:53.040 a change on their live stream page no uh rachel uh emmanuel our alberta bureau chief is telling us

02:28:58.560 that uh she's being brought up uh in about three minutes from now but you if this was happening in

02:29:07.120 three minutes it probably would have been brought up a few minutes ago but i think it's the sign

02:29:11.600 maybe the end is insight the end is nigh the end is nigh uh one way or another we're gonna get

02:29:17.520 bloody results here as long as we get them before the game for god's sake no one win lose or draw

02:29:25.600 no one will forgive jason kenny if this runs into the game janet flames roilers oh well i i i'm here

02:29:33.360 in calgary i gotta say i gotta say flames but i have even less i have even less insight in who's

02:29:39.200 going to win this hockey game than I have in what's going to happen with this leadership.

02:29:42.720 You gave us a straight answer. Yes, thank you. I know you've asked me a lot of questions today

02:29:48.240 and that's the first straight answer I've given you. All right. Well, thank you very much for

02:29:52.880 coming in both times tonight, Janet. I know you've got a busy night and you've got to go

02:29:57.120 chat with those other people over there. So we appreciate your insights and your thoughts.

02:30:02.240 And I don't know your availability. We asked for you to come back at this time,

02:30:06.240 naively expecting the results by now uh so we don't know your availability but if uh if there's

02:30:11.280 any chance you're able to pop back i'm willing to say it's it's likely we're gonna have results in

02:30:17.760 the next uh 10 to 20 minutes but uh okay yeah just just just message me corey if you need me back

02:30:23.520 sure and we'll see you in the lobby if you pop in and we're still on the broadcast so yeah if you

02:30:27.040 want to come on you're welcome okay okay thank you for joining us very much yeah uh dave what are we

02:30:34.160 we hearing? My screen is blank. Yeah, just that frozen results coming soon, you know.

02:30:42.900 As I said, can they just get something right? Cat couldn't organize an orgy in ancient Rome. 0.99

02:30:49.560 You know, it does look like the game is already taking place. Those at home cannot see right now,

02:30:53.520 but outside the main window, we've got a whole newsroom full of staff and some of our guests,

02:30:57.760 And they're standing around a TV right now, like the game's on the flame.

02:31:04.920 Unfortunately, they're watching us.

02:31:06.980 Yeah, so it's kind of meta right now.

02:31:08.300 Yeah, okay, gotcha.

02:31:10.200 I'm getting some side eye from the newsroom right now.

02:31:15.460 So we were saying that, you know, if we had early results, that'd be like the jury coming back late.

02:31:20.900 That means a non-guilty verdict.

02:31:23.340 If the results drag out long, then that's like the jury coming back right away.

02:31:27.840 You're getting the chair.

02:31:30.580 I've been wrong before, but this late, we're now 17 minutes after the very last end of the window that they gave for the results.

02:31:41.080 That indicates to me that you're wrong.

02:31:43.000 It's not 55.

02:31:43.740 I think he loses.

02:31:44.680 Can I change my vote?

02:31:46.460 Well, what would be your vote if you could change it?

02:31:48.880 I'll stick with 55.

02:31:50.880 I'm sticking with mine.

02:31:51.920 but you know this is like that version of you know what happens if a press release comes on

02:31:55.860 a Friday before a long weekend. Bad news. You don't want people to pay attention to it. Well

02:32:00.820 let's put it right before the Flames Oilers Battle of Alberta for the first time in 31 years and

02:32:06.860 just other side news somebody commented for a distraction but the outdoor thing at the

02:32:12.020 Saddle Dome with 5,000 people I don't know if you guys mentioned that it's been cancelled tonight.

02:32:15.700 Was it? Yes. High winds. So 17th Avenue is going to have 5,000 wandering drunken ticked off

02:32:21.900 refugees wandering towards it. Holy hell, we better find the bar. So the red mile is going to be 1.00

02:32:27.360 something right now. Yeah. Oh, geez. Okay. Well, do we have Rachel Emanuel standing by?

02:32:35.520 Why don't we try to get Rachel Emanuel in right now? Okay. So Dave's going to contact Rachel 0.99

02:32:41.900 Emanuel, our Alberta legislative bureau chief. But before she goes in, Corey, what were your

02:32:49.360 prediction? 43? 48. 48? I was on the higher side. Oh, yeah, yeah. You stick into that? Yeah,

02:32:55.180 I'm sticking to it. It's close to a less than solid word I've got here. I am going to kick

02:33:02.860 myself if what I've got is real, and we could have broken the Kenny results like an hour ago. 0.99

02:33:08.100 I'm going to kill myself. We know the hazards of breaking. We're not doing it. I'm just going to

02:33:13.980 say I got something. I know what I will say. Do you want to write it on a piece of paper?

02:33:17.680 then that way you guys will know but we won't tell anybody uh rachel is unavailable at the

02:33:23.980 moment well i mean i imagine that means that events are underway though she's probably moving

02:33:29.180 around on the floor getting ready for an announcement i mean we can only speculate

02:33:32.780 because this party that thinks that we should be confident they can run the province can't run a

02:33:36.700 leadership announcement you know what actually i'm going to write on a clear piece of paper here

02:33:39.720 and we're gonna show later i'm really opening myself up to uh to a bad night here but this uh

02:33:48.820 this is what we got we're not going to show it until we have actual results 6 30 they say now

02:33:54.180 hey it looks like they're cheering for uh like calgary just got a goal in the newsroom here

02:34:01.200 holy hell okay well believable well i'm i'm getting more and more confident kenny is not

02:34:08.100 having a good night there's only two scenarios i see in this one one again is like i said they

02:34:13.300 lost and they're trying to figure out how to polish the turd or scrutineers are battling and

02:34:18.640 there's you know we've been through that and counts internal party races and that it's that

02:34:22.180 close that they're all fighting over oh that mark went outside the box and i don't agree with how

02:34:26.780 that envelope was opened and you know that sort of petty garbage but i mean they've had all day 0.90

02:34:31.220 damn they did all the the verifications they they could have started counting and here we go 0.93

02:34:36.080 So you're pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. 0.99

02:34:38.500 This is starting to remind me of the good old days of the Tory leadership.

02:34:43.180 Oh, my God.

02:34:44.000 Was that a 12-hour broadcast?

02:34:45.640 Well, that time Aaron O'Toole was elected federal conservative leader.

02:34:49.580 Here's a hint, UCB.

02:34:50.660 For every 15 minutes you put this off, you're probably giving Notley another 2% support because you're looking after.

02:34:56.580 And you're helping Western Standard ratings.

02:34:58.540 Well, yeah.

02:34:59.240 Because you guys can't go anywhere.

02:35:01.740 You need to know.

02:35:02.980 At least you can't go anywhere until the game starts.

02:35:04.260 Please don't leave us when the game starts.

02:35:06.080 But this is the end of the game.

02:35:09.280 You can't leave with the end of the game.

02:35:10.520 That's only the beginning of the game.

02:35:11.820 There are people around here that have tickets to the game.

02:35:14.680 So their hatred is growing even more than ours.

02:35:19.140 Yeah.

02:35:21.060 So there's no way for us to get Rachel in there? 1.00

02:35:22.620 No, she's being walked about.

02:35:24.640 Something, yes.

02:35:25.600 Okay.

02:35:28.300 So we are back to familiar territory and speculating.

02:35:32.580 Corey, run us through a couple of comments here.

02:35:34.920 comments. Well, let's see. Somebody complaining about the Maverick being Federalist Lights. I'm

02:35:39.760 not going to quote Dan Jerome there. That's our automatic bleeping. Basically, though, I mean,

02:35:45.640 they're reflecting us. People have been tuning in for a couple of hours now and expecting the

02:35:49.940 government for once to be competent and should have known better. And they're frustrated. They're

02:35:53.660 tired. We've been seeing speculation back and forth. Angela's saying, you know, get Danielle

02:35:58.420 back. I'm afraid Danielle had to go. Danielle was available, you know, for when we fought

02:36:04.540 the results might be released by now.

02:36:09.000 I know that from what I've seen on Twitter,

02:36:11.660 of course, they're just having a heyday and a mockery.

02:36:16.300 This is not a popular government.

02:36:19.160 Actually, let's just make sure, Nico on broadcast here,

02:36:23.280 let's make sure that the live stream we have,

02:36:25.840 I'm pretty sure this will be the case.

02:36:27.720 Let's make sure it's not just the results being announced.

02:36:30.840 Let's make sure it's actually going to have Kenny's expected statement

02:36:34.960 on the results afterwards.

02:36:36.980 I'd be surprised if they didn't make those two things the same.

02:36:40.980 But let's just make sure.

02:36:42.820 But here's a question from Blaise Bomer.

02:36:44.680 You know, he's been kind of critical online.

02:36:46.020 But he's a former senior member of Kenny's staff.

02:36:48.500 Yeah.

02:36:48.960 Not anymore.

02:36:49.700 Not a big Kenny fan now.

02:36:50.940 And he put a joking tweet out a while back saying,

02:36:52.960 did the leader demand a recount?

02:36:54.580 And now he's saying, this doesn't seem so ridiculous right now.

02:36:57.900 Are we so close that we're in recount territory?

02:37:00.500 But again, if you're so close to 50% you're in recount territory, resign.

02:37:04.920 Well, at that point, you still do want the accurate result because, I mean, it's slightly more face-saving to, you know, you got 51 and you say, for the good of the party, I'm resigning.

02:37:15.520 I don't think he would do that.

02:37:17.300 But I think, you know, if 51, you obviously can't remain the leader of 51.

02:37:21.480 No one can do that.

02:37:23.000 But he, you know, it's probably better for Legacy to resign at 51 rather than be removed at 49.

02:37:31.540 As my old colleague Rob Ferguson says on Twitter, perhaps they're saving it for the first intermission.

02:37:38.680 Don't joke like that, Dave.

02:37:40.480 Don't joke.

02:37:42.380 There will be lynch mobs.

02:37:44.800 But, you know, I just keep driving that home and rubbing it in.

02:37:48.960 I mean, it's not just Kenny's popularity is the problem.

02:37:50.860 It's the whole party.

02:37:52.420 And every opportunity they have,

02:37:53.920 they seem to be going out of their way to pass Albertans off even tonight.

02:37:58.360 You know, I mean, if we've got a new leader on the way, 0.98

02:38:00.140 they're already getting a soured well to start with. 1.00

02:38:02.680 Like even, uh, uh, Rick Bell UCP really does have this uncanny ability

02:38:09.080 to piss people off and it's not just us complaining, go on Twitter.

02:38:14.500 It is just, they're being pillier, uh, left, right and center. 0.98

02:38:18.460 It's, uh, it's subtly ridiculous.

02:38:20.560 Uh, somebody says, uh, we're not on MST, we're on Kenny's standard time.

02:38:25.840 KST, yeah.

02:38:27.000 Well, this might be the end of Kenny's standard time at the way things are going at this week.

02:38:31.080 And, you know, it's also, I remember this from way back organizing a Wild Rose, uh, EGM once,

02:38:36.800 and we had too small a media room and we didn't provide them good enough sandwiches.

02:38:40.460 Media are petty, crabby people.

02:38:42.660 And, uh, you know, I don't expect sandwiches, but, uh, I mean, I, I'm not above giving you

02:38:48.220 a better story to give me sandwiches.

02:38:49.500 the reality is you shouldn't be in there shining their shoes don't provoke media particularly when

02:38:54.060 they already don't like you that much just some basic professionalism worse you're not helping on

02:38:58.860 time yes because it it's it's just they don't do themselves any favors we we've we've got an 0.97

02:39:05.660 italian in the office and italians you know they're you know they're not uh so punctual and you know

02:39:12.300 i don't i don't like that i i like i like punctuality oh you understand me how many times have you seen 0.84

02:39:17.900 me late here i mean you see me slacking off but you're not italian you've seen me destroy the

02:39:22.140 office bathroom i've done all sorts of untoward things here at the western standard offices

02:39:27.420 but i am never late never late no no you're you're on time even if you don't do anything

02:39:32.220 even if you'd rather i wasn't here yeah yeah uh i mean it's just basic professionalism but i mean

02:39:38.140 this this is nothing new this this is just the way uh way the ucp under kenny works apparently uh

02:39:44.620 from Emma Graney, a Globe and Mail columnist

02:39:48.880 who's at Spruce Meadows.

02:39:50.400 She's saying she's at Spruce Meadows.

02:39:52.360 Apparently they have a peppy band playing,

02:39:54.640 Western Jazz.

02:39:57.340 So the party at Kenny's still seems to be going.

02:40:00.920 You think we're invited?

02:40:02.300 Well, Rachel is.

02:40:03.520 Rachel's there.

02:40:04.020 Only because she went to Washington.

02:40:05.960 Yeah.

02:40:07.540 Rick Bell just tweeted,

02:40:08.740 it's official, the delay is no longer funny.

02:40:11.580 No, I mean, there's the reality.

02:40:13.060 There's a lot of people who are just getting upset.

02:40:14.620 Well, we're going to have Mike Solberg joining us in a minute here from New West Public Affairs.

02:40:23.020 You know, he's been supportive of the Premier. 0.98

02:40:26.100 I say this without trying to be a jerk, as difficult as that is. 0.93

02:40:32.320 You know, we've had a difficult time getting defenders of the Premier on. 0.95

02:40:36.100 There are defenders of the Premier, but there's just not a lot of them.

02:40:39.640 I reached out.

02:40:40.260 I honestly did as I was setting up this guest list for a week.

02:40:43.140 And there are some where defenders just don't want to come on.

02:40:46.540 Most of them don't have the guts to do it.

02:40:48.940 And, you know, I know it's not the most popular thing to be defending.

02:40:52.540 I think we've got them.

02:40:54.100 Do you want to scroll down?

02:40:54.700 I think we're going to bring Mike Solberg.

02:40:56.280 Okay, yeah.

02:40:56.860 And see that commenter, Jane Morgan.

02:40:58.700 Yeah, see, this is the trouble I'm getting.

02:41:00.100 And I was supposed to be going to a movie with Jane tonight.

02:41:04.020 Yeah, Jane, I might be a little late.

02:41:05.980 Don't hate him, Jane.

02:41:07.420 Don't hate him.

02:41:08.280 Jane, I'm going to feed him.

02:41:09.580 Don't worry.

02:41:10.400 Oh, she's not worried about how I get fed.

02:41:12.580 No?

02:41:13.140 All right. Let's bring Michael in. So Mike Silbert.

02:41:17.200 We got Mike Silbert here. How are you doing?

02:41:20.080 Good. Reporting for duty. Just got off with the state broadcaster, but happy to be back.

02:41:24.040 Oh, well, you can see our tax dollars well spent. Yeah. Mike, we're,

02:41:30.000 okay. Oh, I just got a text from someone who says, everyone we have is anti-Kenny. And then

02:41:37.580 And then they saw you.

02:41:40.400 Yeah, I appreciate it.

02:41:42.360 It takes some guts.

02:41:43.900 Corey has a daily show, and it's actually been difficult getting supporters of the Premier on.

02:41:50.660 His critics have been fairly outspoken, but I think it's fair to say his defenders have been less outspoken.

02:41:58.200 So it takes some guts.

02:41:59.460 So I really appreciate you coming on.

02:42:01.760 What we were saying kind of early on, right when we started, we started at a quarter to four.

02:42:06.420 We were saying if the results are early, you know, that's like the jury taking a week to decide.

02:42:13.820 It means you're probably innocent, that it's going to be good for Kenny.

02:42:18.220 It's good news.

02:42:18.860 They want to want to get it out, hit the news cycle, hit the six o'clock news. 0.79

02:42:21.800 But if it's a late announcement towards the later half of six o'clock, then that's like the jury coming back after five minutes, probably ready to hang you.

02:42:31.560 And we are now, well, it was a window of four to six o'clock.

02:42:36.880 We're now at 6.30.

02:42:40.660 Do you read anything into that?

02:42:42.440 Do you think this is not a good sign for the Premier?

02:42:46.160 You know, I would normally put some stock into that.

02:42:48.600 But, you know, this government, I think all governments, well, I should call it party.

02:42:54.380 I should actually clarify.

02:42:55.460 It's a party process.

02:42:57.020 I think I predicted that it would be late anyways.

02:42:59.980 I have no idea what's going into actually getting this result ready to present to the public.

02:43:05.600 But I'm not sure I would read too much into it other way at this point.

02:43:08.520 I think it's likely logistical.

02:43:10.280 But who knows?

02:43:11.260 But I'm sure people are unhappy, just as I am, that we're still waiting.

02:43:16.120 I find it curious as well that it was set up in such a way, the ballots were counted

02:43:20.300 so late in the day, you know, that they're missing the regular news cycle as well.

02:43:23.960 I think it would probably be to their advantage to try and capture some of that 4 p.m.

02:43:28.220 news cycle, the deadlines of certain journalists, and try and get some news coverage prior to the

02:43:33.920 Battle of Alberta, which is going to happen in, what, an hour or so?

02:43:36.800 We are really worried about, you know, as wonderful as, oh, I would say as wonderful as I look.

02:43:44.940 Here's someone else. Oh, okay, this is, well, I guess I think we know your prediction. Do you

02:43:50.940 stand by your prediction that you think the premier comes out on top?

02:43:53.980 Yeah, I do. One thing I did do a couple of days ago was tweet my prediction on the actual vote percentage. I wanted to keep it up for posterity. A number of Twitter followers and others joined in the fund. I said 68%. At this point, I think that's probably ludicrous. I think it's going to be much lower. But I do think he's going to stay on. I think it'll be a net positive 51% or more support reaffirming as leader of the party. I do.

02:44:22.980 Okay. Well, if it's around 6.30, we're now 6.30.

02:44:29.640 It's not coming at 6.30.

02:44:31.020 Well, you know, an issue that the party's had a lot too, or at least is clear, concise communication.

02:44:35.960 If you don't have the results, I saw somebody else saying, why don't you blame Deloitte?

02:44:39.400 Well, because Deloitte is working for the party.

02:44:41.580 I want to hear from the boss.

02:44:43.280 Like, communicate it.

02:44:44.220 Say there's an issue.

02:44:45.400 Why hasn't somebody gone to a microphone and said, we've had a delay in counting.

02:44:49.060 We've had a discrepancy.

02:44:51.340 We want to iron something out.

02:44:52.980 Like when you leave us all here in silence, that just feeds speculation that that speculation is usually not going to be in the party's favor.

02:45:00.460 Yeah, for sure. And and, you know, Deloitte would have been an easy scapegoat.

02:45:05.560 Obviously, to your point, Corey, they are working on on the behalf of the party, you know, and without knowing being behind that partition and behind the kind of closed doors of this process, I have no clue.

02:45:17.760 But I'm frustrated, along with everyone else. But I'm sure we'll find out soon. And, you know, I would never speculate that the Premier has anything to do with this. I think it's lifted out of his hands. But there's obviously an issue, and it's a frustrating one.

02:45:30.980 Well, I don't know. I think it's within the realm of possibility that the results are known right now because Deloitte is not, unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe Deloitte is announcing the results.

02:45:45.200 Rick Orman, the chief returning officer, is announcing it. So the counting, the actual results, is in the hands of Deloitte. Announcing the results is in the hands of the party, and I don't think it's a stretch to think that if it was a less than enthusiastic result for the...

02:46:02.460 Oh, here we go.

02:46:03.520 Oh, here we go.

02:46:04.540 Let's do it.

02:46:05.020 President of the United Conservative Party of Alberta.

02:46:07.060 Let's bring up the volume, Miko.

02:46:07.920 And the chair of this special general meeting.

02:46:10.480 We can't hear it.

02:46:11.000 to thank all of you for tuning in today to this live stream and the continuation of our 2022

02:46:17.240 united conservative association special general meeting as i mentioned when we gathered in april

02:46:23.720 this meeting is being held according to the rules and procedures established by the elected board

02:46:29.720 of directors pursuant to article 13.1 of our united conservative conservative association bylaw

02:46:37.400 those rules set out the agenda for the meeting and there will be no amendments to the agenda

02:46:43.660 the only item of business today that remains to be carried out is the announcement of the

02:46:50.100 leadership review results this has been an extraordinary effort on behalf of the members

02:46:55.620 of our party i would suggest that no process in alberta's history has had more discussion

02:47:02.000 more input or more scrutiny than this review of our leader. There has been much conversation about

02:47:07.760 the integrity of this process. Our members and in fact Albertans wanted us to have a credible

02:47:14.640 process and we delivered. We are bringing civility back to the political process.

02:47:22.480 Before we get to the results it's important to talk about what was involved. Tens of thousands

02:47:28.640 of Albertans signed up to take part. Our UCP membership more than doubled. The mail-in

02:47:34.240 ballot allowed every eligible member to choose to have their say. Members were given the

02:47:39.220 opportunity to make sure that their information was accurate. We had an internal process to

02:47:44.820 ensure that all membership applications received met the requirements outlined in our by-laws,

02:47:51.060 which were created by our UCP members at a general meeting. Ballots were sent from a

02:47:56.640 third party mailing house to all those eligible. We worked with Canada Post from the beginning to

02:48:02.480 ensure their timely delivery. Our party staff spent thousands of hours responding to calls

02:48:07.760 and emails assisting our members. Videos were posted on our website explaining the process

02:48:13.920 in detail. We were open and transparent and answered all queries from our membership and

02:48:20.240 the media. We sat down with some of our harshest critics and shared information to address their

02:48:26.240 concerns as a result record numbers of our members have participated in this leadership review

02:48:33.680 more than any other party in canada the engagement of our members has been extraordinary

02:48:40.080 thank you to everyone who participated it's through your commitment that we have such a strong

02:48:45.520 process the ucp along with our amazing incredibly engaged volunteers has worked diligently to

02:48:54.240 maintain the security of this vote. Each ballot package was received in Deloitte's secure facility.

02:49:01.680 ID was verified and checked against our membership list. We can attest that only one ballot per

02:49:07.840 eligible member was counted. The ballots have been kept in secure sealed ballot boxes until

02:49:13.600 the count today. Both the verification process and the count were observed by our many constituency

02:49:20.960 Association scrutineers, returning officers and Deloitte. Over 14,000

02:49:27.740 Albertans tuned into our live stream to observe the process. I would like to

02:49:33.920 thank Doreen Hume and her team from Deloitte LLP for stepping forward to

02:49:38.780 advise us and be an independent observer of our processes. Deloitte was appointed

02:49:44.460 to monitor the mail-in voting process and verify the leadership review

02:49:49.400 results. They have done a tremendous job. Our Chief Returning Officer Rick Orman

02:49:56.360 and his Deputy Returning Officers worked every step of the way to ensure a secure process.

02:50:02.440 Thank you to them for their wisdom, experience and civility.

02:50:07.560 Over 200 party volunteers gave of their time to carry out the ID verification and the count.

02:50:15.560 scrutineers from constituencies across the province and from both sides of this issue

02:50:21.000 were in the room at all times to observe we couldn't have done it without these remarkable

02:50:26.760 folks thank you to all whatever the results we need to focus on being the united conservative

02:50:34.360 party tomorrow is the start of the 2023 election campaign we have a lot a lot of work to do and

02:50:41.480 we need to do that together as a team i will now ask rick ormond our chief returning officer

02:50:48.360 to give you the results

02:50:57.640 thank you cynthia

02:51:01.560 good evening everybody uh our party's leadership review and selection rules set out that the

02:51:07.720 question in a leadership review shall be quote do you approve of the current leader unquote

02:51:15.960 members were given the option to vote yes or no those same rules require we announce the number

02:51:24.680 of votes cast for and against the question as well as the total numbers for the vote

02:51:30.360 So here are those numbers. I can advise that there were 34,298 votes cast. There were 17,638 yes votes and 16,660 no votes.

02:51:50.360 These numbers represent 51.4% yes, and 48.6% no.

02:52:06.400 Thank you, Rick.

02:52:08.220 Because the leader received more than 50% of the votes cast in support of his leadership,

02:52:13.660 a leadership election will not be automatically triggered by the leadership review vote.

02:52:17.860 that completes our business for today thank you again for attending i now declare the 2022

02:52:24.980 united conservative association special general meeting officially adjourned

02:52:29.160 before we hear from premier kenny i'd like to speak about our leader's commitment to the

02:52:35.060 leadership review process over the last several weeks premier kenny has crisscrossed the province

02:52:41.040 to meet with many of our nearly 60,000 members.

02:52:45.300 Since January, he has done more than 100 events,

02:52:48.940 telephone town halls, coffee meetings, fundraisers,

02:52:52.320 and phone calls with members from as far north as La Crete

02:52:55.660 all the way down to Medicine Hat.

02:52:58.680 At every turn, he has reinforced the vision

02:53:01.320 upon which our party was founded,

02:53:03.680 a broad-based, mainstream political party

02:53:06.500 where Conservatives of all persuasions can come together

02:53:09.860 to build a stronger movement and a better province.

02:53:13.540 He has seen this leadership review process as an opportunity to reinvigorate our party

02:53:19.040 and to assert how UCP policies have helped create the huge momentum we are seeing in Alberta today.

02:53:26.040 I'm confident we will ride that momentum into the next election,

02:53:30.200 where Albertans will reward us for a job well done and once again put the trust in our party.

02:53:35.380 And now I'd like to go to Calgary where we will hear from our leader, Jason Kenney.

02:54:05.380 Thank you so much.

02:54:29.420 Thank you all for being here and to thousands of folks joining us right across the province

02:54:33.900 online.

02:54:34.900 Friends, tonight the members of our party completed a democratic exercise in accountability.

02:54:41.140 The result is not what I hoped for, or frankly what I expected.

02:54:45.460 But I've been clear from day one that I will respect the decision of the members in this

02:54:50.260 leadership review. And I expect all members of our party to do just that.

02:55:04.900 Friends, while 51% of the vote passes the constitutional threshold of a majority, it clearly is not adequate support to continue on as leader.

02:55:19.180 And that is why tonight I have informed the president of the party of my intention to step down as leader of the United Conservative Party.

02:55:28.920 I'm sorry, but friends, I truly believe that we need to move forward united.

02:55:34.000 we need to put the past behind us and our members a large number of our members have asked for an

02:55:39.120 opportunity to clear the air through a leadership election and I recommended therefore that the

02:55:45.600 provincial board schedule a leadership election in a timely fashion. I want to thank all members

02:55:51.000 who participated in this process and the hundreds of volunteers who have pitched in. I also want to

02:55:57.200 thank so many of you here and right across the province for your support and the tireless efforts

02:56:02.780 of those who have had confidence in my continued leadership friends it's clear that the past two

02:56:10.220 years were deeply divisive for our province our party and our caucus but it is my fervent hope

02:56:18.780 that in the months to come we all move on past the division of covet and disappointing as this

02:56:26.220 result is for me i am incredibly proud of the work that this team has done together we reunited the

02:56:33.420 free enterprise movement in alberta politics and we won the largest electoral mandate in our

02:56:38.220 province's history we inherited profound fiscal and economic challenges and then we went through

02:56:44.300 three once in a century crisis the largest public health crisis in a century the largest collapse

02:56:50.140 of the world economy in nearly a century and the first time ever we experienced negative oil prices

02:56:56.220 And yet, despite all of that, we got the job done, delivering on nearly 90% of our election commitments.

02:57:07.180 While turning around our economy, while turning around the economy, so we're leading Canada in economic job growth, balancing the budget for the first time in 14 years.

02:57:18.040 and paving the path towards a new era of diversification putting parents back in

02:57:27.120 charge of education passing the choice in education act and so much more by the way

02:57:32.520 did you hear last week we won an historic victory against justin trudeau's no more pipelines law

02:57:37.600 and just yesterday just yesterday i was with members of our team in washington fighting for

02:57:49.420 alberta energy jobs and winning the support of some of america's key leaders we continue

02:57:54.680 to get the job done as a team but clearly a large number of our members want to clear the air

02:58:01.140 with a leadership election and i fully respect their decision and i encourage all members to

02:58:06.980 do the same while we have our internal differences we must remember remember the shared values that

02:58:14.580 unite us as conservatives and we must always remember the promise of Alberta this great

02:58:21.580 land of opportunity where dreams come true and anyone can achieve their god-given potential

02:58:27.560 so thank you so much for your presence now let's get on with the real show tonight the battle of

02:58:33.680 Alberta. As Daryl Sutter said yesterday, it's bringing our province together. It's the best

02:58:41.300 thing ever. I couldn't agree more. God bless you all, and God bless the province of Alberta.

02:58:48.740 Thank you so much.

02:59:03.680 All right. Well, we just saw, we were just mistaken history there. Jason Kenney resigning as leader of the United Conservative Party and the Premier of Alberta.

02:59:18.300 He scraped by with just 51% of the vote, and an absolute nightmare scenario.

02:59:29.920 A leader with 51%, no way any leader can lead a party who had less percentage of the vote from his own party than he got from Albertans at large last time.

02:59:42.180 he surprised me. He gave every indication that he would take 50% plus one. He indicated that

02:59:50.140 that is the rules and that is technically true. But he surprised me and I think did the right

02:59:57.380 thing for his party today. He did. He did. David, you have done more than almost anyone

03:00:03.400 in the province to make tonight happen. How are you feeling? You know what? I'm proud of Jason

03:00:10.220 Kenny because he did the right thing. So thank you, sir. Shoot. It's emotional. Thank you.

03:00:21.080 Yeah. This is the conclusion of a long road for you and Take Back Alberta. They just didn't see

03:00:28.300 what you guys had coming. Corey, how surprised are you by the results tonight?

03:00:34.180 Well, I mean, it was close to where I was predicting, but as I said, that was a spitball.

03:00:37.140 I could have just as easily been wronged by 10%.

03:00:40.100 I am, I guess, happy that, as we've said in this scenario,

03:00:46.540 I'm sticking with sadness because I was enthusiastic with Kenny going in,

03:00:49.180 but I'd made up my mind some time ago that he just couldn't seem to put it together

03:00:52.320 and that it was time to move on.

03:00:54.480 The worst possible thing, we were fearful of when we heard the results in us,

03:00:57.440 was 51%, but he was going to stay there because then we would just have more fighting and division.

03:01:02.040 To be honest, I had my mental plan is if he did come in at 70,

03:01:04.520 that's where I'd come and say, okay, maybe guys get together and make this one.

03:01:07.680 Well, I would have said they're cheating.

03:01:08.660 Because, well, whatever, there's that aspect too.

03:01:10.900 But as it is, you know, he said he was going to stay on with 50% plus one.

03:01:14.360 Potentially, he didn't.

03:01:16.340 He clearly was not happy.

03:01:17.960 I mean, this is the end of this.

03:01:19.000 Oh, that's a very hard thing.

03:01:20.300 But to do the right thing in that moment.

03:01:22.160 So one second, we're going to bring Mike Solberg back into the stream here.

03:01:27.660 We're going to go to Paul Hinman in a little bit.

03:01:29.900 But first, let's pull Mike Solberg back in.

03:01:32.540 And Mike, I'm really interested for your take here, not the results you were hoping for tonight.

03:01:40.300 Well, you know, hope is the wrong connotation, Derek.

03:01:45.140 I mean, absolutely, I supported Jason Kenney.

03:01:47.560 I supported, but I more so supported the United Party, and I support the will of the membership.

03:01:51.960 I'm proud of my friend David for the work that he did, and I'm equally as proud of Jason Kenney and his campaign and ultimately his resignation.

03:02:00.580 He clearly didn't have the result that he wanted and clearly not the result that I think was remotely adequate to remain as leader of this party.

03:02:10.420 It's certainly a governing party on the eve of an election.

03:02:14.120 So my jaw is dropped.

03:02:16.280 I'm flabbergasted.

03:02:17.920 I expected a different result, and I certainly didn't expect him to resign tonight.

03:02:22.080 But here we are.

03:02:22.960 And now the whole world will be asking, what is next?

03:02:26.160 I think we kind of know what's next.

03:02:27.440 It'll be a leadership race.

03:02:29.080 But as the dust settles, things are about to get very interesting.

03:02:34.100 Yeah, this was, well, I suppose the scenario will play out more as if he didn't win.

03:02:41.420 And I don't think anyone would consider 51% a win.

03:02:46.520 But he did surprise me.

03:02:49.020 And I think handled this with a bit more grace than myself and maybe some others who are critical of him.

03:02:56.580 I did just look at David.

03:02:58.360 He had to be more grace than some of us expected.

03:03:02.300 Some of us expected that he would take 50% plus a single vote

03:03:07.080 and would rather burn this party down than give up control.

03:03:13.060 That assumption, my own assumption, was wrong.

03:03:18.600 How do you think he handled tonight?

03:03:22.540 I think a lot of what I saw was he was trying to be magnanimous,

03:03:26.880 But clearly with an eye towards his legacy, I think this is clearly why the results were delayed this long.

03:03:34.180 They had the results and he had to make a decision.

03:03:37.180 You could write a stay speech and you could write a leave speech.

03:03:42.140 And I guess this was a third speech.

03:03:43.900 You technically get a majority, but it's not enough to stay.

03:03:48.100 And so he has to make that decision and probably, you know, mark up a speech and stuff.

03:03:52.360 I think that explains why it was taking so long.

03:03:54.560 So, but I think what we saw tonight was him trying to, he was being humble, I think.

03:04:01.160 And that's not something we've seen from him since he was running for, you know, that was

03:04:04.800 kind of the Jason Kenney we liked when he was running for UCP leader, back when the

03:04:08.840 Big Blue Trap was more of a believable routine.

03:04:13.320 Do you think tonight he was trying to set legacy or what was he trying to achieve tonight?

03:04:17.280 And what did you make of his speech overall?

03:04:19.500 Yeah, no, it's short, short speech and brief, which I think is good.

03:04:22.900 You know, what's left to say.

03:04:24.560 It's all been tabled. It's all been said. What we witnessed was the end of a brilliant 30 year political career. You could see himself that the premier was emotional in his remarks. And I think anybody could understand why this is not a result he expected, but one he's accepted and is now stepping down for the future of the party and is willing to accept, you know, what is I think we all agree is the right path forward, but certainly emotional.

03:04:51.320 And I'm sorry, I'm still flabbergasted, you know, Jason Kenney, the political juggernaut that we've seen as such an important part of the conservative coalition, the conservative establishment in the country and bridging the gap and the divide between the PCs and the Wild Rose and delivering on that 2019 victory.

03:05:09.200 We've seen it come to an end even before the next election. I don't think anybody predicted it would end this way, but he did it with some grace.

03:05:16.660 And I think he did it for the benefit of the party. And now we move on. We have to.

03:05:20.580 so I I'm not allowed to throw anything about you're right you're wrong in your face because

03:05:26.240 I was wrong because I said 45 so I'm technically wrong too wrong by methodology correct and result

03:05:33.260 but just to I'm only going to throw something back in your face because it's going to make

03:05:38.220 an analogy it's going to make a transition to my next analogy you know your case for why he

03:05:42.800 is likely to survive was that he has always won he has never lost therefore he probably will never

03:05:48.640 lose. And it is not without a deep sense of irony that, you know, he has never come close to losing

03:05:57.260 any electoral contest before, both in general elections and leaderships, nominations. The one

03:06:03.060 he did lose was the membership of the party that he is the father of. It is, you know, I said

03:06:12.260 something uh the day i left politics revolutions devour their young and uh i i think that uh the

03:06:21.620 revolution has now devoured kenny and uh you know he he very much helped to mainstream a lot of the

03:06:28.580 grassroots populist movement and you know built that helped to build that anger against ottawa and

03:06:34.660 channel it if any i think by most measures failed to deliver on that anger against ottawa and and so

03:06:41.060 that anger came back to bite him and he would use strong language against things like vaccine

03:06:47.220 passports and lockdowns and then he would do it himself and so i i think there's there is uh

03:06:54.900 there is a real pattern of him jumping on a populist wave only to fall off the surfboard

03:07:01.700 and hit the rocks and and and today uh i think what was the end of that did do you think that's

03:07:08.420 a fair i think uh maybe summation of the kind of overall macro reasons for the why he's lost the

03:07:14.180 premiership now or or is it something else no for sure i think you hit it derek uh you know premier

03:07:19.860 himself would i think i admit to some of these missteps and i'll certainly take it even a step

03:07:23.780 further uh you know regardless of what you think about these issues taking one stance and then

03:07:28.980 doing the exact opposite and you know the weeks to follow doesn't sit well with any membership

03:07:34.580 particularly one that's so grassroots driven uh and conservative as the obviously the united

03:07:39.300 conservative party uh and they lost faith in him over a slow period of time uh i think beginning

03:07:46.100 with with covet which to be clear heavy is the head that wears the crown nobody would would wear

03:07:51.540 relish governing during every government every province of this country has had enormous

03:07:57.700 challenges uh with their population and popularity over their handling of of covet and kenny more so

03:08:04.100 than i think perhaps anyone well i think the big difference between kenny and the other premiers

03:08:07.700 is he was dealing with albertans yeah and albert are fundamentally different and he kept on pointing

03:08:12.740 out you know hey uh you know we are our lockdowns have been shorter than others we got rid of

03:08:18.420 vaccine passports before other provinces the problem is alberta is a very different province

03:08:24.740 we it has a fundamentally different political culture yeah uh so we're to come back to you

03:08:30.740 Mike and David, but I want to bring in Rachel Emanuel, our Alberta legislative reporter and

03:08:36.980 Edmonton bureau chief. She is on the ground. It's Bruce Meadows where Jason Kenney has just announced

03:08:43.380 his resignation. Can we bring in Rachel right now? Rachel, thank you for joining us. What's it like

03:08:52.020 there right now? It's pretty crazy. Everyone is super surprised. I'm not sure anyone really knows

03:08:57.380 what to make of the situation right now as soon as they announced the results the crowd started

03:09:01.300 cheering everyone was very excited um and then the premier came out and he immediately says you know

03:09:05.620 it's not the results that i was hoping for which caught my attention because of course this entire

03:09:09.620 time he's been saying 50 plus one is a mandate for me to continue so everyone assumed he was

03:09:14.260 going to stay on as long as he had over 50 percent um and then he continues on to say it's not a

03:09:19.060 mandate it's not enough for me to stay on the members have made it clear that they want a

03:09:23.220 leadership review um and it's time to put the division behind us and unite and he announced

03:09:27.540 that he was resigning and everyone in the crowd just gaffed no one could really believe it i just

03:09:31.860 spoke with a couple of his staffers they didn't even know that this was coming so everyone's

03:09:35.620 pretty surprised no one really knows what to make of things um no one has really any answers right

03:09:39.540 now at all um have you managed to speak with uh any of your staff because i know it's a fairly

03:09:48.420 hand-picked crowd they have there tonight. It's not open to general admission from the

03:09:53.560 membership or the public. It's hand-picked Kenny people. Have you managed to speak with anyone on

03:09:57.720 the ground? Yeah I was just speaking with his press secretary and again like people are just

03:10:01.860 pretty confused. No one saw this coming and no one has any answers about what's happening next so

03:10:06.600 I'm not sure who all knew that this decision that Kenny was going to be resigning just now

03:10:11.280 but like even as early as yesterday he said if I get 50% plus one I'm going to continue

03:10:15.380 you. So I would just be curious to know what changed in the last day, you know, if he just

03:10:19.500 thought about it more, if he made a last minute decision to resign. I'm not really sure what

03:10:23.400 happened there. And it seems like his staff don't have any answers either.

03:10:29.060 Yeah, I think I'll get your your feedback, Corey. He's been saying 50% plus one is a mandate.

03:10:38.160 I mean, if I was a press secretary to a premier or a leader of any political party,

03:10:42.300 I would set the bar there, because if you set the bar

03:10:44.460 at something reasonable like 75%,

03:10:46.880 you really can't stay the leader of the party without

03:10:48.500 75%.

03:10:49.820 But he got 74%. I mean,

03:10:52.340 if I was the leader and I got 74%, I'd say,

03:10:54.540 screw it, I'm going to hack through, I'm going to try

03:10:56.540 and survive. So you don't 0.98

03:10:58.220 really want to start playing that

03:11:00.460 expectations game that's bitten many leaders

03:11:02.440 in the past. So setting the bar

03:11:04.440 at 50% plus one, I think, makes sense rhetorically.

03:11:06.780 The difference is, most

03:11:08.440 of us seem to believe it, that he would

03:11:10.440 try.

03:11:10.760 Well, I mean, they really pulled out all the stops, everything they could,

03:11:14.980 partisan-wise, leadership-wise, to try and make sure they won this.

03:11:18.880 So it did seem that this was a person determined to cling with the fingernails

03:11:23.380 right to the bitter end.

03:11:24.280 But, again, as you said, you have to say that.

03:11:26.500 You can't set a number for yourself.

03:11:28.660 So when he was saying 50% plus one, I imagine there was a number in his own head

03:11:32.040 that he'd set for himself, and obviously it didn't reach that number tonight,

03:11:36.420 and he decided.

03:11:37.900 But, you know, it took so long for that announcement too.

03:11:39.940 I think he had to do some soul-switching.

03:11:41.380 I don't think it was an instant decision.

03:11:43.820 Personally, I think that's why it was delayed.

03:11:45.340 They knew it.

03:11:45.820 So what are we going to do?

03:11:46.640 What am I going to do?

03:11:47.880 And he made up his mind and said, okay, let's go.

03:11:50.300 That's where we're at.

03:11:51.620 David, 51% was the nightmare scenario.

03:11:55.960 Yeah, it was.

03:11:57.460 I mean, he is technically –

03:11:59.360 It felt pretty devastating in the moment.

03:12:01.340 It was like, how?

03:12:03.020 But I will say, you know, he is a great campaigner.

03:12:05.540 And you know what?

03:12:06.260 He overestimated.

03:12:07.240 I underestimated him, right?

03:12:08.900 Like, I was at him at 38, but he got 13 above that.

03:12:13.260 Yeah.

03:12:15.560 So he – we'll kind of come back to something much earlier in the program,

03:12:19.500 but I think we've all been doing this since.

03:12:22.440 You know, back at the UCPA GM in November,

03:12:25.680 there were roughly a half dozen people who challenged –

03:12:28.640 there were anti-Kenny people challenging for spots in the party's executive.

03:12:31.660 They were all beat back.

03:12:33.560 The Kenny campaign – the Kenny team – actually, there was no campaign time,

03:12:37.720 But his team around him believed that, well, that was the anti-Kenny forces.

03:12:42.920 This is a paper tiger.

03:12:44.260 Don't worry about them.

03:12:45.340 And they kind of ignored it.

03:12:46.560 And in the meantime, you would take back Alberta and then separately, 0.72

03:12:50.820 but really working with, you know, there's the Brownian Jean guys. 0.90

03:12:53.880 You guys were mobilizing an army. 0.99

03:12:56.880 Well, yeah.

03:12:57.540 And honestly, the biggest thing.

03:12:59.180 They didn't seem to see it coming until about a week before they completely

03:13:02.840 changed the rules, got rid of the Red Deer vote,

03:13:05.160 and went to a mail-in vote in all of this.

03:13:07.720 Do you think that if they had taken the threat of Take Back Alberta

03:13:14.840 and the other groups around you guys more seriously

03:13:17.700 that Kenny could have survived this?

03:13:20.640 I think ultimately the premier or the former premier, I guess now.

03:13:25.680 Oh, he hasn't resigned as premier.

03:13:27.300 But I guess ultimately I think the big mistake was not sticking with his base

03:13:33.900 when he needed to and losing their trust.

03:13:35.420 right and so even if you know they'd campaigned hard people were very disappointed in his

03:13:42.300 performance particularly around the vaccine mandates so i think if he hadn't said there'll

03:13:49.140 be no vaccine passports and then there were vaccine passports i don't think we would have

03:13:54.760 had the anger i think he would have been able to get through this that was his i think that was

03:13:57.640 the fatal flaw, to be honest.

03:14:01.880 Okay, well, we're going to bring 1.00

03:14:03.700 Janet Brown in. 1.00

03:14:06.160 Janet Brown is

03:14:07.520 I think everyone

03:14:09.180 in a moment. So we're going to bring Janet Brown in a moment,

03:14:12.380 I'm told.

03:14:13.740 Actually, very quickly, we're going to go to

03:14:15.560 Paul Hinman. Paul Hinman

03:14:17.360 is the leader of the

03:14:19.480 Wild Rose Independence Party.

03:14:22.120 He was the first leader

03:14:23.600 of the original Wild Rose Party of

03:14:25.560 Alberta, succeeded by Danielle Smith.

03:14:27.640 And, wow, this is really just one very incestuous group of people all involved in politics here.

03:14:36.560 And Corey was involved way back then.

03:14:37.700 I can think of better ways to put it.

03:14:40.140 Corey, you have nothing to say to me about keeping it clean.

03:14:43.940 Paul, you know, I imagine you're probably happy in one sense to see Jason Kenney gone tonight.

03:14:51.720 But in a sense, I have to ask if you're disappointed.

03:14:54.160 in just a purely pragmatic political sense

03:14:58.760 as the leader of an opposing political party.

03:15:02.360 Jason Kenney was a source of great discontent

03:15:05.320 for people who were both conservatives, libertarians,

03:15:08.880 autonomists, sovereigntists,

03:15:11.140 the kind of people attracted

03:15:12.380 to the Wild Rose Independence Party.

03:15:14.980 You've got to be feeling tonight

03:15:16.780 that you've lost your greatest weapon

03:15:20.020 for attracting people to your party.

03:15:24.720 oh sorry i can't i can't hear paul sorry we can't hear you paul i don't know there we go now it

03:15:32.720 should be there we got it yeah go ahead paul okay well first he also lost the constitutionalists

03:15:38.720 and you have to realize you know how long ago did he say you know that you know that i'm going to

03:15:44.800 get a new base he he walked away from the conservatives who were supporting him i like

03:15:50.880 cory i i actually thought you know three years ago i'd never be in politics again we had somebody

03:15:56.240 who got it you know was going to be servant the leadership was going to do keep the conservative

03:16:01.120 values and and he betrayed us he didn't he started chasing polls he looked and he flip-flopped and he

03:16:06.960 didn't do those things that he needed to do and again he wasn't approachable and so all those

03:16:12.080 things happened but i'm grateful that he stepped down uh for the good of alberta to me it's always

03:16:18.000 about the province and the good of the province first and he's done the right thing um i grateful

03:16:24.480 for the time and the effort that he put in and has been mentioned you know being a leader through

03:16:29.120 covid couldn't be a worse scenario than to say i want to be there but yet he flip-flopped and again

03:16:36.880 he didn't stay true to the principles and the constitution that makes our our province great

03:16:41.920 and our future great and those things all undermined I think his leadership and ultimately

03:16:48.140 I'm gratefully did the right thing and stepped down but yes it's always you know saying better

03:16:53.180 the devil you know than what's not there but it's up to the UCP now to see whether they're going to

03:16:57.540 pick somebody that's more to the left and and you know wanted to go with the lockdowns we have a

03:17:03.980 very divided caucus it'll be very interesting to see rural versus city again on where they go

03:17:10.040 But really what Albertans need is a government that's going to stand up to Ottawa.

03:17:15.140 Ottawa's policies are disastrous to our future.

03:17:18.400 They want to destroy Alberta.

03:17:20.000 And I haven't seen anybody in the UCP party who's actually going to stand up and stop

03:17:24.400 Ottawa's intrusion and say no.

03:17:26.980 You know, they went around, they listened to Albertans, but they've done nothing in

03:17:31.280 years since the...

03:17:32.440 Yeah, Paul.

03:17:34.240 So I remember, you know, I wasn't a member of the Wild Rose at the time, but I would

03:17:38.940 It's safe to say I was Wild Rose adjacent while Alison Redford was the premier.

03:17:44.340 I was very much looking forward to a Wild Rose victory at that time

03:17:49.000 with Danielle Smith as the leader of the party.

03:17:51.680 You were a key member of the party at that time as well.

03:17:55.180 And I remember, you know, she was under a lot of fire,

03:17:58.100 and we kind of thought to ourselves, my God, we have to save her.

03:18:02.940 You know, as terrible as Alison Redford, what we believe she was,

03:18:06.240 we saw her as our meal ticket to defeat the progressive conservatives and have a wild rose

03:18:11.840 government. I have to believe it's not much of a stretch to think that both you and Rachel

03:18:19.520 Notley, the one thing you have in common is that you're the two people in Alberta who really

03:18:23.860 dislike Jason Kenney as premier, but don't want him to resign because he was the meal ticket,

03:18:29.820 I think, for the wild rose independence party, attracting disaffected people and potentially

03:18:36.000 you know, if the nightmare scenario for the UCP played out today, 51% and Kenny stayed,

03:18:43.860 I mean, I think it's not terribly beyond the pale to think that you'd probably have a couple of

03:18:49.960 MLAs showing up on your door in the morning looking to join. Do you think this is politically,

03:18:59.500 I know you believe it's a good thing for Alberta, you've made that clear, but do you think this is

03:19:03.760 potentially a setback for your party absolutely i mean as you mentioned the animosity towards him

03:19:11.240 and the fact that there would have been dissident mlas had he stayed on tonight uh would accelerate

03:19:17.580 that and again this is always the problem in dysfunctional toxic relationships they say oh

03:19:22.720 i'm sorry or they do this and so now many albertans are going to run back to the ucp party

03:19:27.240 saying oh we've got a leadership review and and you get that honeymoon effect and so yes

03:19:32.000 this idea that we're going to give them another chance is there but again i'm going to go back

03:19:36.800 and say the most important thing is who's making the decisions for alberta are we going to have

03:19:41.140 federalists that let ottawa decide or are we going to vote for someone like myself in the wild rose

03:19:45.860 who's going to stand up and have a mandate to say no to ottawa and all their destructive policies

03:19:50.860 and so that will still be the same ballot question but yes they're going to get a honeymoon because

03:19:55.960 they're having a leadership race which isn't going to serve albertans best interest i don't think

03:20:00.620 So I've got one last question for you before we go back to Janet Brown. And forgive me if I've got my history wrong here, because this is going back a ways to the last time you were the leader of a Wild Rose party.

03:20:12.840 If I'm not mistaken, you know, when Ted Morton was running for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives the first time, not the second, but the first time, and you were in Alberta Alliance MLA, predating even the Wild Rose, you really are the godfather of Alberta's insurgent right.

03:20:29.260 You, and I say insurgent in the most positive way possible, but, you know, if I'm not, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you did tell the members of the Alberta Alliance at the time that Ted Morton is fundamentally different.

03:20:46.100 he represents a total change of the progressive conservatives and that you you did encourage

03:20:51.200 members of the alberta alliance precursor to the original wilders at the time to vote for ted

03:20:56.120 morton because he was that different and you could see yourself becoming a part of the party

03:20:59.520 if it had a leader like him i'm not asking you to identify the only thing the only thing that

03:21:07.320 you're wrong there was is that i always told ted that if he was successful that the most important

03:21:11.720 thing he needed was a conservative opposition and he says well paul the first thing i'm going to do

03:21:16.000 is call you in the morning to join and says, no, Ted, you're going to need a conservative

03:21:19.420 opposition. That's when a conservative government does best. But again, I absolutely told our

03:21:25.320 members back then, buy a membership, vote for Ted Morton. This is the person we need as the

03:21:30.080 premier. And again, for me, it's always, what's the right thing to do?

03:21:34.540 Again, and forget the current candidates who are on offer. I know there's Brian Jean and

03:21:38.520 Danielle Smith, and there'll be a bunch of others. Forget any of the individuals. But if

03:21:44.120 if that kind of figure emerged again, someone who shared your values, they were really conservative,

03:21:50.420 really libertarian, perhaps even supported independence for Alberta even. Could you see

03:21:56.500 yourself encouraging your party members, members of the Wildrose Independence Party, to join the

03:22:01.120 UCP just to vote for that candidate? Not this time. The problem, and you said that last one,

03:22:06.580 if they're an independence, that they won't stay part of the UCP, I don't believe. Those people

03:22:11.500 that are running in there are all federalists. They also are climate alarmists. They all want

03:22:16.840 to meet the Paris Accord. Carbon net zero is wrong. We can't be part of Paris. We can't be part of a

03:22:22.560 Canada that wants to meet carbon net zero. We have to take a different route, and we have to be able

03:22:27.620 to stand up for our resources, our future, and the taxation and the debt that's federally is just

03:22:34.140 insurmountable, and we need to be out on our own, and that's what the Wild Roads Independence Party

03:22:38.820 is about. It's about standing up and protecting Alberta and our future. And I just don't see

03:22:43.080 that happening in the UCP party. And again, anybody who wants to be there, it'd be interesting

03:22:47.340 to see, but I don't see that happening, Derek. Well, thank you very much for joining us. Always

03:22:52.100 a pleasure as usual, Paul. Have a good evening. And let's go cheer on some Alberta teams here

03:22:58.920 for a victory. The executive politician, tell us which one. Oh, I have to confess, I was born in

03:23:05.040 Edmonton, went to U of A, knew, you know, was up there with Gretzky and all of that.

03:23:09.080 So sorry, Western standards in Calgary, but I'm an oiler.

03:23:12.700 Wow.

03:23:13.020 That's really going to help you get elected and back down to your own kind of favor.

03:23:16.540 Oh boy.

03:23:18.300 Okay.

03:23:19.060 Well, you never, Paul might not be the most pragmatic man, but he never lies.

03:23:24.320 He is an honest, he is one of the rare honest ones.

03:23:26.620 It's true.

03:23:27.540 Even when it's probably not a good idea to be.

03:23:29.840 Okay.

03:23:30.460 I have to agree.

03:23:31.940 Thank you very much, Paul.

03:23:32.960 God bless.

03:23:33.860 Thank you.

03:23:35.040 Okay. Well, we're going to go to bring back Janet Brown, who has very generously agreed to give us her time again. Janet, many of you will know, is the leading pollster in Alberta. Wow. No more speculation. No more wild speculation. We have wild reality, Janet. I'm not even going to ask a question. Just talk.

03:23:55.900 You know, you asked me about the the Flames versus Oilers.

03:24:00.900 You just asked Paul Hinman.

03:24:01.900 But you know what?

03:24:02.900 You're asking the right question.

03:24:03.900 It's Calgary versus Edmonton, right?

03:24:06.900 So everything has changed today.

03:24:08.900 But what hasn't changed is the electoral map.

03:24:11.900 The NDP has got Edmonton wrapped up.

03:24:15.900 Rural Alberta, Alberta outside of the two major cities, they're going to be looking for the right conservative choice for them to vote for.

03:24:23.900 The next election is going to be determined by voters in Calgary.

03:24:27.140 So that's just kind of what I'm thinking now is like Calgary is going to become sort of, you know, so fundamental.

03:24:35.140 And, you know, we're such a divided province.

03:24:38.000 I, you know, I'm always asked to do interviews outside of Alberta and people don't understand how diverse this province is.

03:24:47.060 People in Ontario call me all the time. Oh, you live in Edmonton.

03:24:50.200 No, actually, I live in Calgary. And they're like, same difference. Right.

03:24:53.040 think calgary and edmonton or kitchener and waterloo but they could not be um more different

03:24:58.560 and our very complicated political map just got so much more complicated and you know our divisions

03:25:07.120 and hockey is just the tip of the iceberg well the hockey analogy i think sort of holds but uh

03:25:14.640 there's no team for everyone else in alberta i always find it funny in polls i'm not sure if you

03:25:20.640 do it, but a lot of polls just say Edmonton, Calgary, rural, and rural includes Red Deer

03:25:25.600 and Medicine Hat. Yeah, there's a lot of things in small towns. I think a lot of the ones I like

03:25:33.200 to say, everyone else. And then there might be regional breakdowns, North, South, Central,

03:25:36.960 that kind of thing. And it really, you know, from a technical point of view, Derek, it really comes

03:25:43.120 down to just how big a sample you do. Because, you know, if you talk to 900, 1000 people,

03:25:48.320 you know it's hard to get statistically relevant data outside the two big cities um sometimes i

03:25:53.520 make the mistake of saying that's rural really it's other because as i said calgary and edmonton

03:25:58.640 are so different and then we have this huge rest of the province that is so different and so um

03:26:07.760 i i get like i moved from ontario 22 years ago i was the consummate downtown toronto party girl

03:26:14.400 my friends couldn't believe I was coming to Alberta. But I just said, it is just so fascinating

03:26:20.320 out there. And here I am just like, I mean, my jaw dropped, right? Like, I, you know, I believe

03:26:30.960 the premier when he said 50.1 was enough. So I, my jaw dropped when he resigned.

03:26:38.560 Yeah. Now, I think, you know, you're the pollster. So I know, I don't have quite the moral

03:26:44.080 authority on these issues as you. But I do pride myself on having probably a better insight than

03:26:50.960 most people in media into understanding Alberta conservatives, particularly rural conservatives,

03:26:57.040 populists, that movement. And you have said that, yes, you know, the Battle of Edmonton

03:27:03.840 versus Calgary is still there. But in my view, what has changed overnight, and you probably

03:27:10.320 heard me into this somewhat with paul hinman is that um the serious risk likely of a of a major

03:27:17.640 breakaway uh with something wild rose style is uh well it's no it's not impossible it now becomes

03:27:25.200 much much less likely okay uh we're not we're not likely to see six 12 mlas bolt join maybe

03:27:34.440 some rebranded wild rose party and and lead some kind of insurrection there um that while it's

03:27:41.780 technically because nothing changes um i think that is a big story i mean i maybe want you to

03:27:48.300 weigh in on this that um the fact that nothing is going to change i think is the big one of the big

03:27:53.940 stories for the electoral map that we're unlikely to see that kind of big revolt that i expected

03:27:58.660 tonight if kenny stuck around well one of the things i was saying in the lead up to this vote

03:28:02.880 is actually if he steps down that's the least chaotic outcome of all of the outcomes so as

03:28:09.120 shocking as all of this is um nobody's going to be kicked out of caucus tomorrow and probably

03:28:14.320 nobody's going to resign and um everyone just got to wait and see who wins the the leadership race

03:28:20.960 um maybe the new leader won't be acceptable to some of these dissident um mlas maybe a new leader

03:28:27.520 will be perfectly suitable to the dissident mlas but not like to like by another group of mlas who

03:28:33.440 are perfectly content with jason kenny so um so funny enough i think uh tomorrow's caucus meeting

03:28:40.560 is going to be a lot more civil because kenny has stepped down than it would have been if he got 51.4

03:28:49.920 and hung on and wagged his fingers and said democracy has spoken fall in line so we're

03:28:57.120 moving into essentially what's going to be a a snap leadership election and we've got the clock

03:29:02.160 ticking on a general election coming next may uh the parties i mean it for the sake of democracy

03:29:08.240 gonna have to leave the door open for a number of names and and potential contenders come in

03:29:11.920 and get in but at the same time they can't hesitate on this either like they've got to

03:29:16.160 get somebody on the ground to try and win back albertans that's gonna be tough well it particularly

03:29:21.440 because the leader of the opposition is Rachel Notley. And, you know, whether you like her or

03:29:27.500 not, she's very popular within her base, right? She had a leadership review not long ago and got

03:29:32.640 something like, you know, 95, 97%. So Rachel Notley has got the left and a big part of the

03:29:39.220 centre locked up. She's probably very close to her ceiling in terms of vote. But, you know, 0.94

03:29:46.820 this is why the UCP must get themselves organized if they have any chance of winning the next

03:29:51.940 election because you know unlike elections of the past um you know this UCP is looking at a very

03:29:58.900 strong and united um NDP. Great all right well uh Janet thank you very much for joining us tonight

03:30:05.780 but extremely generous with your time uh I think I think joining us uh three times if I'm not

03:30:10.580 mistaken. So I lost count. Everyone was fun. Yeah, we owe you a beer. Thank you very much for joining

03:30:17.460 us. And God bless. Thank you. Well, and thank all of you for joining us. We're not going to abuse

03:30:24.100 your time. We are up against as great as I think we are. We're not. The battle, this battle of

03:30:31.140 Alberta is over. There'll be another battle of Alberta starting as we fight to see who the next

03:30:35.700 leader of the ucp and premier is uh but tonight uh you all want to watch the flames versus the

03:30:42.180 oilers uh so thank you all very much for for joining if you're not yet a member of the western

03:30:46.180 standard to go to western standard on westernstandard.news become a member for only ten dollars

03:30:50.900 a month or 99 a year uh to get unlimited access to bailout free independent western media

03:30:57.780 we also want to thank our sponsor the canadian shooting sports association i've been a member

03:31:04.020 of the CSSA for well over a decade. These guys kick ass, defending your right to own, use,

03:31:09.780 and purchase firearms in Canada safely and responsibly. These are people who without 0.96

03:31:16.660 having, we'd probably have next to no guns left for law-abiding gun owners in Canada.

03:31:21.860 You need to become a member, support what they do. They are your voice as gun owners.

03:31:28.100 Corey, what's their website?

03:31:29.380 C-S-S-A dash C-I-L-A dot org.

03:31:32.380 But it's easier just to Google them.

03:31:33.860 That's it.

03:31:34.740 I can, every time I say it, I still don't remember it.

03:31:37.640 Check them out.

03:31:38.380 I support them.

03:31:39.460 Western Standard supports them.

03:31:40.720 They support the Western Standard.

03:31:42.240 You should support the Canadian Shooting Sports Association as well.

03:31:45.100 Thank you all very much.

03:31:46.540 Love you all.

03:31:47.960 God bless.

03:31:48.800 Go Flames, go.

03:31:59.380 We'll be right back.

03:32:29.380 Thank you.

Western Standard - May 19, 2022

The Pipeline： Special Coverage - UCP Premier Kenney's Leadership Review

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