Western Standard - May 18, 2023


The Pipelineļ¼š The Big Alberta Election Debate


Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

180.10538

Word count

7,896

Sentence count

544

Harmful content

Misogyny

19

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The big debate is finally here. On May 17th, two of Alberta s major parties will take on each other in a debate that could have a big impact on the outcome of the election. Who will come out on top?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 G'day, I'm Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of the Western Standard, and you're watching The Pipeline.
00:00:17.760 Today is May 17th, 2023. I'm joined, as always, by Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel Hannaford.
00:00:26.320 Good to be here.
00:00:27.320 Also got the Western Standards Senior Alberta Columnist, Corey Morgan, with us with a fresh haircut.
00:00:32.780 Yes. Good for another two months now.
00:00:35.020 Yeah, there you go.
00:00:36.160 Two for one, so.
00:00:36.960 Yes.
00:00:38.200 We're going to be talking about the big leaders debate in Alberta coming up tomorrow,
00:00:42.380 what we can expect, and the very high stakes that this debate holds for the campaign and Alberta's next government.
00:00:50.260 We're also going to switch it up.
00:00:51.540 You know, that's the two big leaders, and it's only two leaders.
00:00:54.660 That's a rare debate in Alberta with just two leaders.
00:00:56.860 But there are a lot of other parties in Alberta that are not getting much attention in this very clearly two-party race.
00:01:04.580 But, you know, they matter.
00:01:07.020 Well, maybe they don't.
00:01:08.180 But sometimes they think they should.
00:01:10.300 And I'm a sucker for lost causes like this.
00:01:12.860 We're going to talk about the little guys, the third, fourth, fifth, eighth, tenth parties in Alberta and the candidates that they're fielding.
00:01:22.260 We're also going to talk wildfire politics.
00:01:24.260 It's primarily what the impact it's having on the election, the ability of the parties to campaign, but also the ability of people to vote in these regions that are facing, obviously, a ton of upheaval.
00:01:38.000 It's going to be very difficult to get to the polls.
00:01:40.020 We'll talk about how that might affect the election.
00:01:42.180 As well, a new phenomenon I had seen before.
00:01:45.700 We've all seen attack ads on television, on the radio. 0.99
00:01:48.660 Party A says Party B sucks. 1.00
00:01:50.600 Party B says Party A sucks. 1.00
00:01:52.140 But we've never seen, at least I haven't seen, attack ads on lawn signs, lawn signs that say, Party B sucks, Party A is the man. 0.99
00:02:02.920 That's a new thing that we've seen here in Alberta.
00:02:05.200 So we're going to talk about that.
00:02:06.180 Before we get into it, though, I want to thank my favorite sponsor, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
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00:02:39.540 Okay.
00:02:40.600 At long last, it's almost here.
00:02:44.380 Tomorrow, UCP leader and Premier Daniel Smith will be facing off against NDP leader and former Premier Rachel Notley.
00:02:54.560 I feel like it's the double belt title match of Hulk Hogan versus the Ultimate Warrior.
00:02:59.500 This is the big one.
00:03:02.380 Nigel, the stakes are high.
00:03:05.020 The polls have been more or less deadlocked for months now, normally showing a slight UCP lead.
00:03:11.540 There's been some polls contradicting that lately, showing small NDP lead.
00:03:16.320 But on the same day, you'll get one showing still the UCP has got a slight lead.
00:03:19.540 Another one today showing a statistical tie.
00:03:23.240 The debate here, I think a lot of debates, the media always are looking for the debate.
00:03:29.320 Most of the time, I don't think they make a big difference, but sometimes they do.
00:03:33.120 How high are the stakes in tomorrow night's debate?
00:03:36.260 Oh, how high do you want to make them?
00:03:37.420 I mean, obviously, there's a lot on the line for each of the individual party leaders and
00:03:41.400 their followers, but two very, very different worldviews at war with each other here.
00:03:48.120 You have the NDP, which, let's face it, is a socialist, collectivist type of approach
00:03:52.800 to politics, very woke.
00:03:55.800 And you have the UCP, which is not any of those things, very committed to economic growth,
00:04:02.940 putting more money in the pockets of individual people.
00:04:05.900 and, importantly, letting them follow their own dreams to build the life they want to build.
00:04:11.980 I know there's differences between these parties, but I'm talking in an electoral sense for this election.
00:04:17.420 The debate sometimes makes a difference, sometimes doesn't, but the parties are deadlocked going into this.
00:04:23.080 Yeah, I think this time the debates actually are going to matter.
00:04:26.180 Just checking some numbers here, and it seems to me that the public has been somewhat disengaged
00:04:30.640 for the first couple of weeks of this election.
00:04:34.260 And the buzz that I get is that a lot of folks are just sitting on the sidelines until they see the debate.
00:04:40.340 They're all looking for the knockout blow or the very clear indication that this candidate rather than that candidate has got the royal jelly to carry on to the job.
00:04:50.660 Both of them are experienced.
00:04:51.800 Both of them have been there before into the premier's office.
00:04:56.740 So, yes, there's a huge amount riding on it.
00:04:59.820 Corey, I think it's not a stretch to say. The UCP and Danielle Smith have had a less than excellent campaign. I don't think it's time to, it's definitely not time to launch the boats yet, but the expectations of Danielle Smith, I think, are pretty low right now.
00:05:20.760 The NDP and a lot of surrogates in the media have painted her as very extreme, that she's crazy, she's not serious.
00:05:30.260 And so I think that that set the bar very low for Daniel Smith.
00:05:33.280 And a lot of this is the expectations game.
00:05:37.260 One of the problems for the conservatives in 2015 nationally was that the expectations of Justin Trudeau were so low.
00:05:44.060 Corey Tanike, a conservative strategist, famously said, if Justin Trudeau manages to show up with his pants on, it'll be a victory.
00:05:50.100 Problem is, he did show up with his pants on, and even though it wasn't a very good performance,
00:05:54.020 he exceeded everyone's expectations and got a big bounce from it.
00:05:58.880 So going into this, does Danielle Smith need to win, get that knockout blow, 1.00
00:06:04.840 or do you think, does she just really need to show up and seem reasonable and personable, 0.68
00:06:10.220 and that'll be enough for hesitant conservatives who think, you know,
00:06:14.340 maybe kind of bought some of the messaging that she's crazy?
00:06:17.280 Well, that's a lot of it.
00:06:18.280 I mean, they've made this about, it's not about the UCP and NDP now.
00:06:22.060 It's about Rachel Notley and Daniel Smith.
00:06:24.180 You can't listen to either leader start a sentence without mentioning their opponent now.
00:06:28.040 They've turned this into a very personal match.
00:06:30.760 And this will be the first real face-to-face opportunity for that.
00:06:34.400 And because of that, they've really tried to sow mistrust with each other.
00:06:37.060 I mean, that's the thing.
00:06:37.760 The NDP are really kind of going after UCP policies.
00:06:41.560 They're saying you just can't trust Daniel Smith.
00:06:44.720 So for, as you said, if she gets up though,
00:06:47.180 and as people say, she is a skilled communicator.
00:06:49.280 She ran that radio show for a long time.
00:06:51.660 I've never seen her really get ruffled on a public stage.
00:06:54.240 So I can't imagine a meltdown or a mess up.
00:06:58.220 So this will be an opportunity.
00:06:59.620 I imagine Rachel Notley will throw a lot of those accusations 1.00
00:07:03.740 of wanting to sell off hospitals
00:07:05.380 and all the rest of the stuff they've been doing.
00:07:07.520 But in this case, it won't be one-liners thrown out
00:07:09.620 in an ad that's going out.
00:07:11.680 Daniel Smith will have an opportunity
00:07:12.880 to explain the context of those statements or where they went. And if she can come across
00:07:16.800 sounding rational and reasonable, potentially a lot of that doubt people have about her
00:07:21.760 might start to wane. But we'll see. The other thing is, too, I mean, the debate made a big
00:07:26.740 difference, I think, when Notley got in before, because it appeared that Prentice was almost
00:07:31.120 bullying Notley and talking down to her. Well, this is two women on the stage. So I don't think
00:07:36.160 Daniel Smith has to be afraid of rolling her sleeves up if it gets into things. 1.00
00:07:39.060 It's, it's an interesting debate because you've got two veterans. This is a former premier who has been in two provincial leaders debates before Rachel Notley, and Danielle Smith, who has been in a leaders debate before when she led the Wildrose in 2012. And she's been around media for a long time.
00:08:03.100 It's a rare debate, I think, where you've only got one veteran, you've got one veteran and a bunch of newbies.
00:08:08.840 Or if it's the case federally, and whoever the NDP happens to be, they might be veterans, but they're not the big boy in the debate.
00:08:15.580 But you've got two veterans here.
00:08:21.340 What do you think their respective strategies are going to be going in?
00:08:25.460 Because I think Rachel Notley has to get a knockout blow. 1.00
00:08:29.280 That's an overused term.
00:08:30.740 And every pundit and reporter talks about it. It's a bit belabored. But the NDP needs to not, needs to significantly beat the UCP in Calgary. I think she has to get a smashing blow against Smith, whereas I think Smith just has to appear reasonable because she has the built-in advantage of being a conservative in Alberta.
00:08:50.480 David Rubenstein That's exactly right. And I'm sure Rachel
00:08:56.160 Notley is preparing for this. But the danger, given that she's on the attack, is that she can't
00:09:02.080 afford to sound shrill while Danielle Smith is being calm and reasonable and just fending off 0.97
00:09:09.440 the attacks. So it's going to require a degree of careful phrasing and modulation of the voice
00:09:18.400 to make sure that she doesn't overdo the attack because she certainly has to attack. Otherwise, 0.93
00:09:22.880 why are you there? But on the other hand, she has that disadvantage. She doesn't want to come on 1.00
00:09:28.160 too strong and just incite the sympathy factor for Daniel Smith, which is going to be there.
00:09:36.560 This is, in Canada, the first time I'll have at least seen in my lifetime,
00:09:42.400 a one-on-one leaders debate. We've never seen it before. Federally, you know, prior to 1993,
00:09:48.400 it was normally three leaders. You have the PC, the Liberal, and the New Democrat.
00:09:54.680 93, that blew up. You have reform in there. You have the block in there.
00:09:59.060 Eventually, reform goes away, but then we have green. We've gotten used to these big leaders
00:10:02.680 debates. In Alberta, we've had normally three, often four. But this time, it's just two. It is
00:10:13.000 one-on-one, mano-a-mano, however inappropriate that term is in the context with two women. 1.00
00:10:19.480 We've had the two frontrunners be women before. Danielle Smith's first debate in 2012 against 1.00
00:10:25.380 Alison Redford, but you still had Brian Mason, a man, as the NDP leader. You had Raj Sherman,
00:10:30.760 the liberal leader, who's now a UCP candidate, funny enough. I love Raj.
00:10:36.200 Yeah, Raj against the machine. But it's just woman on woman. Corey, how do you think that's
00:10:42.620 going to change the dynamics of the debate? Well, as I said, it takes out the bullying
00:10:47.620 factor in a sense. I mean, there's sort of equals upon the stage. You can't say one's
00:10:51.520 taking advantage of the other. There is a risk whether it's unfair or not. As Nigel pointed
00:10:56.420 out, though, is a woman coming off too strongly can be considered to be shrill and can be labeled 1.00
00:11:01.620 as such. I know, you know, it's just an unfairness of gender life, but so they both have to take 0.95
00:11:07.920 care with that. And in looking for, I guess, the proverbial knockout blow, I don't expect it
00:11:13.140 because both of them are so experienced as they are. The only really one I can remember seeing
00:11:17.740 in Canada, they always talk about one, but Turner and Mulroney, we got to go that far back to really
00:11:22.600 see a debate where somebody was sweating and put right out of sorts. And that was the end of the
00:11:28.860 debate for them. But aside from that, you don't see them very often. And when you get two such
00:11:33.040 experienced operators, I think they're going to go at it hard. But I don't know if we're going
00:11:37.740 to see any big outstanding breakdowns. Okay, but I think, but Notley has to win solidly.
00:11:47.260 Now, it doesn't always have to take the form of the John Turner, Brian Mulroney, full-on
00:11:52.020 knockout, but you had 2015, where it was actually more of Prentice knocking himself out. Notley
00:11:59.160 came across as personable, smiling, knowledgeable-ish, kind of newer. He doesn't come across like
00:12:05.820 that anymore. So that's going to be harder. I don't know. I don't know. She's seasoned. She's
00:12:10.140 been practicing for it. I mean, they've probably glued a smile on her face for now. I mean,
00:12:15.220 she'll have like the Joker smile on her here. She might come across that way. But in 2015,
00:12:21.240 it was kind of Prentice more or less just stepping on rakes the whole time that made him lose it.
00:12:27.400 okay
00:12:29.860 I think one thing by the way
00:12:32.940 that is going to again be
00:12:35.080 to Rachel Naughty's disadvantage
00:12:37.240 is that she can't throw out those
00:12:39.360 patently false accusations
00:12:41.460 that you know they're going to take away
00:12:43.240 your pension or anything like that
00:12:45.200 because Danielle Smith is right that can
00:12:46.800 rebut it right there on the spot
00:12:48.820 well you can and
00:12:50.820 I mean these false
00:12:53.120 these false things you say
00:12:54.800 they're almost going to be based in some reality
00:12:57.100 No, Daniel Smith has not said she's going to take away your pensions.
00:13:00.600 She has said she wants to pull out of the CPP and replace it with an Alberta pension plan.
00:13:04.520 Now, they're not putting that in the front window of the shop right now, but they've said that that is something they intend to do.
00:13:11.540 So it's based on something and perverted into something that it is not.
00:13:15.700 But then you kind of get into what he said, she said.
00:13:18.900 And I don't know.
00:13:19.980 She has an opportunity to explain exactly what she means.
00:13:23.560 That's going to be helpful.
00:13:24.780 Mono a mono here, or whatever we call it when it's two ladies, but there are a lot of other parties here that we should talk about.
00:13:37.440 Well, let's start with the last, I don't know what was the last other big party, but let's start with the Liberals.
00:13:45.300 The Liberals used to be the government in Alberta. In fact, they were the first government in Alberta.
00:13:49.360 Liberal meant a very different thing in 1905 when Alberta was created as a province.
00:13:57.600 But until, let's see, in 2012, they won five seats. That was a big collapse. In 1993, they almost won
00:14:02.640 government. By 2012, they were down to five seats. By 2015, one seat, and then last time, zero. They're
00:14:11.760 not even in the debate. But this time, they've got 13 candidates. They opened up nominations for
00:14:18.160 for their leadership, and no one applied. No one even put their
00:14:22.240 name forward. So they've appointed an interim leader
00:14:24.700 who's taken them through here.
00:14:28.760 Corey, how, how the mighty have fallen?
00:14:32.200 Yeah, I mean, again, from Alberta's founding party, to
00:14:36.080 the point of being a embarrassingly can't even draw
00:14:39.220 somebody to apply for the job of leader. They're giving it more
00:14:42.880 of a go in this election than I would have thought after that
00:14:45.100 leadership kind of fiasco, but they're not going to go anywhere. Nobody takes them seriously
00:14:49.720 anymore. It's been a decline ever since decor in the 90s. Just every election, they've been
00:14:54.640 withering and withering and down to this. I guess they're holding that shell together and hoping
00:14:59.320 somebody will pick it up later. But this time, I don't expect much of them. Nigel, why are they
00:15:05.000 still a party? The NDP did more or less what the Wildrose and PCs had to formally do. They just
00:15:13.920 consolidated the left behind themselves. They didn't have to have a merger
00:15:17.860 to do it, but they just did it. They are the left.
00:15:22.020 They are the progressive side of politics in Alberta, and it's
00:15:25.880 undisputed. No one can challenge them for it.
00:15:30.600 Why are the liberals still here? Is it just that
00:15:33.760 the liberal brand has this attachment for some people where the liberals
00:15:38.200 dang nabbit, we're not going away? Should the liberals
00:15:42.000 just dissolve themselves in Alberta, or do you think there is a place for them at some point?
00:15:46.720 Well, no, I don't think they should dissolve themselves. We always want a bad example out
00:15:51.840 there to push us in the direction of the better example. Let's face it, the Liberal Party is not
00:15:57.200 exactly a winning card in Alberta. We have a federal Liberal Party that has been toxic for
00:16:04.560 this province, and you've got a group of people saying, we're liberals and we want to be, we want
00:16:10.160 want to be elected in Alberta. That's crazy stuff. If you're a leftist in Alberta, if you're a liberal,
00:16:16.420 socialist, whatever flavor of progressive you are, doesn't it make sense to just dissolve yourself
00:16:21.860 and move on? Like you're running 13 paper candidates. I doubt they're running even a single
00:16:26.400 semi-serious campaign. They're just running because they're the liberals. It makes sense
00:16:33.260 because hope springs eternal. Don't forget there was a period of time when the federal liberal
00:16:36.600 party was down to 34 seats but it was above zero well it was above zero but when you're looking at
00:16:43.700 it in the context of a party that has spent most of this time running canada uh that was a deep and
00:16:51.100 humiliating defeat that uh that was delivered to them the the alberta liberals are going on
00:16:57.120 120 years plus out of power here yeah so they're so so there probably is within a few diehards
00:17:05.660 who continue to fund this thing. No, no, no one's even still funding it. It raises no money. It
00:17:10.940 raises no money. It's raising no money. There is nothing there. Well, then let's just say it's a
00:17:18.220 triumph of hope over experience. Okay. Let's talk about the hope springing eternal. You know who I'm
00:17:26.380 going to talk about next. Who am I going to talk about? Probably Paul Hinman. No? Okay. Well,
00:17:31.100 there's a few of these. Alberta party. Alberta party. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
00:17:34.540 Yeah, Alberta party. So once upon a time, this was actually like a pretty right wing independence party. But it was it was taken over. It is now a completely different thing. So it's you almost have to separate them. They're not the same party.
00:17:47.780 It's the very first party I was provincially a member of was the Alberta party in the 90s.
00:17:52.880 Before the Alberta independence party.
00:17:54.600 Yes.
00:17:55.220 Wow.
00:17:55.560 I founded the Alberta independence party by taking some board members from them. But that's a long story.
00:17:59.400 So the Alberta Party, in its modern form, was created circa 2010-ish, in its modern form.
00:18:05.900 In its modern form. Somewhere around there.
00:18:07.000 Yeah. And it billed itself as, you know, the big listen. We're going to listen to people. What do we stand for? Well, what do you want us to stand for?
00:18:15.780 And the idea was to be a centrist party. It didn't work when you had a so-called centrist party with Alice and Redford, 2012. They didn't make it in. No seats.
00:18:28.380 They managed to win one seat with Greg Clark.
00:18:30.920 They're smart.
00:18:31.600 They focused all their efforts on one riding Calgary elbow, managed to win a seat.
00:18:35.160 They lost that last time around as Alberta became a pretty clear two-party system. 0.99
00:18:41.940 But, you know, 2019, they had, I think, three to four MLAs through Greg Clark,
00:18:50.140 plus some floor crossings from both the MVP and the PCs.
00:18:54.200 they had Stephen Mandel former cabinet minister and Edmonton mayor as their
00:19:02.120 leader they had some significant money they had I think almost a full slate of
00:19:06.980 candidates they were in the leaders debate and they came up snake eyes
00:19:11.120 nothing this time they had their by-election there was the by-election
00:19:16.220 of Brooks Medicine Hat where the Alberta party leader was the mayor of Brooks
00:19:20.320 got trounced by Danielle Smith they I think have pretty well acknowledged
00:19:26.440 their toast and they're running only 19 candidates about I think a little less
00:19:32.620 than a quarter of of the seats so hope springs eternal is there a point I guess
00:19:42.280 let me talk more broadly is there a point to a centrist party in Alberta
00:19:46.600 right now or are they really just kind of Switzerland trying to figure out how
00:19:49.700 to get onto the Western front between the two big boys. Yeah, if you try to stand for everything,
00:19:53.040 you stand for nothing. And they've been trying that mushy middle approach now for, as you said,
00:19:57.360 12 years. I mean, it hasn't gained ground. I think they could cobble, not this time around for sure,
00:20:03.960 but they could cobble something together, but they need a solid leader and they need to make
00:20:08.720 some solid stances on some issues to position themselves. Not always, as you said, coming and
00:20:13.140 saying, well, what would you like me to be? Well, they take the median. They're like, if,
00:20:15.820 You know, if the NDP is 1 and the UCP is 10, well, we're 5.5, and that's kind of their default.
00:20:22.200 Yeah, and it's not working.
00:20:23.480 But you've got to stand for something to draw people in.
00:20:25.980 I mean, you don't have to go right to the edges, but you've got to.
00:20:29.640 Let's face it, Corey.
00:20:30.800 If you were going to have something to draw people in, would it be a provincial sales tax?
00:20:35.960 That's their big deal.
00:20:37.100 Yeah.
00:20:37.860 Well, actually, but that's actually maybe a smart move because at least it's distinctive from the two other parties.
00:20:42.720 Well, it's distinctive, and who wants it?
00:20:44.300 A surprisingly large minority. There is a minority of people who do it. And, you know, it's actually, if they would actually replicate that on more issues, they would maybe get traction because, you know, when you're an insurgency party, you're trying to break in, you have to be distinctive from all the other big options.
00:21:01.260 But normally you have to pry off of one side or the other. You can't be just distinctive and in the middle because then you just get washed out.
00:21:07.900 I don't know. I'm trying to run on. I understand the arguments why provincial sales tax might be beneficial. Nevertheless, I'm not debating the merits. I'm running on a running on a hey, we put a new tax for you. What a great start for a for a party that wants to wants to get elected.
00:21:25.360 Okay. Nigel, the Greens.
00:21:31.700 41 candidates.
00:21:33.540 Shockingly, at least by number of candidates, the Greens are the third party in Alberta.
00:21:38.820 Now, they're likely, actually, I'd say, to come in third in the popular vote because, say you prefer the Alberta Party or Wild Rose Independence Party or the Liberals or whatever it is, if there's no candidate you're running, you can't vote for them.
00:21:51.440 So the Greens have the most candidates available to vote for. So I'd say bold prediction, even though the Greens don't rate any heartbeat in Alberta, the polls, they'll probably come in third in the popular vote.
00:22:04.440 I guess the conventional wisdom, Nigel, is that the Greens being on the ballot will be favorable to the UCP because Green votes, I think smart money says, would otherwise be more likely to go to the NDP.
00:22:18.440 I think the smart money is right on that one.
00:22:21.780 Yeah.
00:22:22.460 No, it's a party that owes a lot of its electoral success federally as well as provincially
00:22:31.080 to being a place to park your vote.
00:22:34.380 Can't abide these people over here.
00:22:36.740 I certainly wouldn't ever want to vote for these.
00:22:39.180 Green, they'll never get elected anyway. 0.98
00:22:41.120 I can do my civic duty.
00:22:42.980 I can put my vote there and I go home.
00:22:45.660 And that's the end of the matter.
00:22:46.980 somebody else can make the decision. You know, it's, again, here's a party that wants to run
00:22:53.240 on the just transition. And that's basically a way to turn good paying jobs into bad paying jobs,
00:23:00.000 not a vote winner. So, Corey, the, if, try to put yourself in the shoes of a pretty hardcore
00:23:08.900 greeny voter in Alberta. And there are some, they exist. What do you think you do? I mean, you got,
00:23:17.620 you know, Rachel Notley, as hardcore she is on some of this stuff, by the standards of
00:23:23.620 New Democrats nationally, a lot of national Democrats say West Coast New Democrats and
00:23:28.340 Ontario New Democrats, consider her a sellout to big oil. I mean, that's baffling to many here in
00:23:33.060 Alberta. But outside of Alberta, the fact that she doesn't believe in shutting down the industry 0.98
00:23:38.260 tomorrow night that she supported the Trans Mountain expansion. She opposed the construction
00:23:43.060 of other Alberta pipelines, but there was at least one that she supported the construction of.
00:23:49.220 What do you do? Would you vote green, which is like, I'm sending a message that I'm really
00:23:53.540 concerned about the environment, or are you going to say, okay, Rachel Notley is a bit weak sauce 0.99
00:23:59.700 for my green credentials, but I mean, it's Alberta for God's sakes, and she gave us a carbon tax. 1.00
00:24:04.580 you know, what do you do? Well, if somebody's that ideologically driven, the true absolute,
00:24:11.360 you know, shut in the... I'm not saying somebody who's like off the, you know, living in the woods
00:24:15.480 like... Well, no, that's the irony of those people. They're usually living in Kensington in a nice
00:24:20.300 house that they inherited, but they still somehow feel we can shut down the oil field and close those
00:24:25.260 things in. I think they would park their vote with the Greens, just on principle, rather knowing that
00:24:30.140 they're not going to win, but they're registering their message and their thoughts on it.
00:24:34.580 And as well as Nigel said, they're a safe place just to make your mark, you know, make your protest.
00:24:41.000 So they'll grab that bet. And as you said, they've got 41 candidates.
00:24:43.340 So, yeah, they'll probably check off that rank.
00:24:45.440 A third, who knows, that might give them the shell to start filling that void.
00:24:48.940 The Liberals in the Alberta Party just can't seem to find out there.
00:24:52.120 Maybe the Greens will carve a little corner, but it'll always be a little one.
00:24:55.800 You know, I can think of a lot of places where the NDP is the default choice.
00:24:59.260 And I think a lot of places where the UCP is the default choice.
00:25:02.260 I can't think of a single place where I say, oh, you know, the Greens, that just fits that community so well.
00:25:08.260 Outside of Salt Spring Island, yeah, there's nothing here in Alberta.
00:25:10.260 Okay, well, the next four parties we're going to deal with kind of together.
00:25:15.260 It's the constellation of the, call it the dissident right.
00:25:20.260 And, you know, some of us got a soft spot for it, but it's, I think it's not too controversial to say it's not their time.
00:25:27.260 So in here, we've got four parties. We've got the Wild Rose Independence Party. And boy, that has busted from, say, a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago, the Wild Rose Independence Party was running about 15% in the polls with Jason Kenney still as UCP leader.
00:25:46.300 With his resignation and Daniel Smith coming in, that support evaporated.
00:25:54.220 The party had massive internal turmoil, as small parties full of very individualist people tend to do.
00:26:02.060 They kicked out their leader, Paul Hinman.
00:26:05.320 And then I think post-Sovereignty Act, I think a lot of their own senior activists, they more or less said, okay, that's not our time.
00:26:14.420 Let's see how Daniel Smith does.
00:26:16.300 if she can win the election, and if she follows through on some of the Sovereignty Act stuff.
00:26:20.060 So they have more or less sitting out the election. Two candidates. And I think they're running in
00:26:24.300 areas where they're intentionally going to have no risk of siphoning votes that could elect the NDP.
00:26:30.180 But Paul Hinman, he's, well, as I mentioned, he was kicked out. Now, he was the first leader of
00:26:37.020 the original Wildrose Party, who was succeeded by Daniel Smith, going to the 2012 election.
00:26:42.540 But he, after being kicked out of the Wildrose Independence Party, started the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition.
00:26:48.580 No, that is not a points rewards card for when you buy something at Walmart.
00:26:53.820 That is the name of his new political party.
00:26:56.400 I think he promised to run 50 odd candidates or so.
00:26:58.840 He's running 16, I think, that are getting on the ballot.
00:27:02.660 There's the Independence Party.
00:27:05.640 It's changed its name a bunch of times, the variations of the same thing.
00:27:09.040 It's now TIP.
00:27:09.840 I call it just, it's just a TIP.
00:27:11.880 um so tip the independence party and they put the in front of their name i think to distinguish that
00:27:17.800 they are the independence party not these wild rose independence party interlopers
00:27:22.440 um last time they ran nearly uh 60 odd candidates a bunch of them out yeah after the alberta party
00:27:29.320 they by far ran the most number of candidates uh but it was a pretty hodgepodge thing it very
00:27:35.800 quickly blew apart i think they've had something between four and six leaders since the last
00:27:40.520 election. It's been quite something. They're running just 14 candidates. And they're an
00:27:48.200 interesting bunch. They believe in independence, but they've been very hardcore that they are the
00:27:53.880 sole legitimate voice of sovereignty and everyone else is an interloper and should join them.
00:27:59.800 Their most recent leader was Arthur Pawlowski. He was kicked out as leader by that party,
00:28:06.600 or I don't know, depends who you believe. And he is channeling his inner Polish anti-communist 0.98
00:28:17.400 by founding the Solidarity Movement of Alberta. And they are running 38 candidates.
00:28:26.920 So there's four of these parties here, none of which have any hope whatsoever of
00:28:35.000 uh winning a seat here uh none of them are going to be in the debate none of them have any kind of
00:28:39.480 money i i don't think you're going to see much here uh we'll start with you nigel though what 0.90
00:28:44.760 do you think the chances are that they any of them could legitimately play spoiler in particular some
00:28:50.120 of the close calgary races edmonton donut races okay well first off any any party that is only
00:28:56.520 running two candidates is not going to be a spoiler well i'm talking it so i'm not i'm talking
00:29:00.680 combined you know there's two 16 14 38. no frankly uh i that 38 candidates for the solidarity movement
00:29:10.200 puzzles me they must be spread extremely thin as far as funding is concerned i would expect there
00:29:16.920 i would expect there'll be virtually no funding but they'll show up on the ballot and they'll go
00:29:21.560 to the local candidates debates yeah i i i can't see it but what i do see i and we talked about
00:29:28.200 this morning at the meeting we get frustrated with people who take no interest in politics
00:29:33.960 you know you people say oh i'm not interested in politics politics well politics is still
00:29:38.200 interested in you sir so are you going to be involved or are you going to sit on the sidelines
00:29:43.560 i don't know whether there is anybody in that group who a responsible person could vote for
00:29:51.080 but i tell you what i gotta hand it to them that they get out there say what they think start a
00:29:56.200 party, go through the process, satisfy Alberta elections that they are, in fact, legitimate,
00:30:01.400 follow the rules, and put themselves out there and say, this is what we think, this is what we would
00:30:06.360 do, and vote for us. I respect that. Corey, I'm a sucker for these lost causes. I'm no stranger
00:30:14.760 to fringe parties. We've both done it. But do you think they can make any impact? I mean,
00:30:20.280 none of them are getting in the debate, no one's even close to getting in the debate.
00:30:22.840 uh but do you think they uh depending on where they are they could end up playing spoiler in
00:30:28.960 some really close races it would have to be very very close ones I think most of these guys are
00:30:32.760 going to struggle to break one percent though in some instituencies it might be a one percent spread
00:30:38.760 that chooses them but you know it would be the outlying things and if it was that amount of
00:30:43.240 people who didn't like one candidate or the other chances are they would have stayed home or
00:30:46.100 not voted for the UCP or NDP candidate. Anyhow, they're, I guess, trying to keep oxygen within
00:30:54.100 those things. It's not like before. There's not room for a third party right now. This election
00:30:58.220 has become such a UCP, NDP thing. It's almost impossible for any of them to grab a little bit
00:31:04.980 of air and form a base. Because, I mean, they're all hoping they were, you know, the whole
00:31:09.180 progression, the Alberta Alliance turned to the Wildrose Alliance, turned to the Wildrose Party,
00:31:12.520 They turned to the UCP and in a convoluted way, that little seed kind of came to power, but it took 14 years and a lot of elections.
00:31:20.580 And it almost broke up again.
00:31:21.820 Yeah. So these guys have to kind of hope for a bit of that.
00:31:24.500 But this election is the best they can hope for is just to hold it together and not really do anything further to to blow themselves up.
00:31:32.180 Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not just what they say is the credibility that if they were elected, what could they do with it?
00:31:38.560 Because sometimes you get somebody say, yeah, I agree with that, that, and that. Straight ticket.
00:31:43.680 Okay. I'm not voting for you. Well, we've had lots of wild rows, two parties named wild rows
00:31:47.760 on the ballot here, in addition to UCP, which was built largely by wild, half by wild rows.
00:31:54.560 Let's move it to wildfires, wildfire politics. We're not going to get into the fires themselves.
00:32:01.440 They're obviously terrible and they're destructive, but they've been there at least by a number of
00:32:06.160 of evacuees. It's less evacuees than say the 2016 fires that saw for McMurray devastated. I was talking to one, I guess, wasn't MLA until the election was called. He's a candidate again in northern Alberta. I was talking to him today. His campaign has been suspended for something like 10 days because his constituency is on fire and he's just dealing with that. We've discussed previously on this. I think your only play in a disaster is not to politicize it.
00:32:36.160 by trying to politicize it, I think, no pun intended, you'll get burned. So the best you
00:32:40.640 can do is just try to be a community leader, coordinate things. But I guess let's just talk,
00:32:46.480 Nigel, how do you think, how much do you think the wildfire has affected the election by
00:32:51.920 requiring Danielle Smith, and to a lesser extent, Rachel Notley to take time away from campaigning 0.70
00:32:57.200 to deal with a disaster? Well, I'm not sure that it's such a bad thing as a leader to be placed
00:33:03.360 in the middle of a disaster and show some leadership it's worked for others it is easier
00:33:09.520 when the disaster has already been completed and you are there to show leadership and picking up
00:33:16.800 the pieces when it is ongoing as this one is it's well what are you going to do for me next
00:33:22.640 madam in this case uh that's a slightly different thing but nevertheless um you know when it comes 1.00
00:33:30.640 down to a contest of character we've already established that it's rachel notley versus
00:33:36.800 danielle smith who do you like most it's not about policy so maybe if you can demonstrate
00:33:44.240 that quality of compassion empathy and above all leadership by stepping into the fire zone
00:33:50.960 being there encouraging the the workers and the people who've been and making suitable provision
00:33:56.240 for those who've been made homeless, then that's actually a bit positive.
00:34:00.400 I'm not sure there's much advantage in it, though, because, you know,
00:34:02.700 Rachel Notley did fine with the 2016 wildfires.
00:34:05.900 As we've said on the show previously, the politicians follow a script.
00:34:09.820 They're not actually really doing very much.
00:34:12.080 They might have to make a call.
00:34:14.100 But they can blow it, and that hasn't happened, so that could be considered.
00:34:19.840 There might not be too much to gain, but you can lose a lot.
00:34:22.740 Yeah, Bush with Katrina was perceived to have blown it.
00:34:25.400 But I'm not. Maybe. Maybe. I don't remember. It was a long time ago.
00:34:30.260 But generally, the politician, they put on that windbreaker that they all seem to wear.
00:34:35.820 There's a windbreaker encased in glass somewhere.
00:34:40.920 And every mayor and every premier and prime minister smashes that, brings the windbreaker out.
00:34:45.700 They go and they take some pictures as they're nodding, listening to a firefighter or a soldier or policeman or whatever.
00:34:52.620 They follow a script.
00:34:53.680 Better than doing that than standing downtown, making it another announcement while the house of province is in place.
00:34:58.860 Sure.
00:35:00.440 Any thoughts about how this might affect some of those northern races, though?
00:35:03.220 Because it's hard to vote or even to make it a priority to vote when your community is on fire.
00:35:09.540 Yeah, and it'll distract people if they're evacuated and living in a fifth wheel or a hotel or a family or friends.
00:35:14.820 If they're really committed to voting, though, Alberta is kind of unique.
00:35:18.040 They can go to any advanced poll, no matter where.
00:35:20.040 If you came out of Valley View and you're staying with friends at Edmonton,
00:35:23.180 you can go to an Edmonton advance poll with ID and cast your ballot,
00:35:26.920 and it will be applied in your home constituency.
00:35:28.700 I like that Alberta is making a lot of accommodations. 0.96
00:35:30.720 So, I mean, it's not like they'll be prevented.
00:35:32.580 You'll always be within six blocks of a polling station.
00:35:35.020 Though, again, it might not be the first thing in your mind when you're in the midst of an evacuation.
00:35:37.960 And in the North, there's only one competitive riding anyway.
00:35:40.460 And that's the next thing I was going to say.
00:35:41.980 There's not really many for grabs over there.
00:35:43.280 They're all solid UCP.
00:35:44.580 The only one that NDP have any shot at would be Lesser Slave Lake.
00:35:48.780 Like I think Danielle Larby, she was the NDP MLA minister until 2019.
00:35:54.780 She was defeated in 2019.
00:35:55.980 I think she's running again.
00:35:57.200 It's a low population riding because it's so big.
00:35:59.120 It's under a special formula.
00:36:00.340 It's got a lot of First Nations in it.
00:36:02.320 And because it's a low population riding, your margin of victory does not necessarily need to be that many votes.
00:36:07.900 It can be a couple hundred votes can make a big swing.
00:36:10.520 So I think that's the only riding affected by the wildfires that is at all competitive here.
00:36:16.560 And again, people have the opportunity to vote outside of there.
00:36:21.160 So, yeah, I don't think it'll have a huge...
00:36:24.240 Some people talk about postponing the election or even postponing just those constituencies,
00:36:28.560 but I don't see it being in the cards.
00:36:30.280 I don't know.
00:36:31.760 Okay, let's move on to this one.
00:36:34.200 This one's fun.
00:36:36.140 Our last segment here.
00:36:38.240 NDP attack ad signs.
00:36:40.320 So we've all seen attack ads on television.
00:36:42.300 It's been around, I don't know, since probably the 70s, probably when attack ads really started.
00:36:49.940 We've all seen that.
00:36:50.840 We know we hear it on the radio.
00:36:53.160 You know, hear lots of NDP attack ads.
00:36:55.500 Daniel Smith is going to take your pension and sell your hospital.
00:37:00.700 But we have seen positive campaign signs before beyond just like, you know, Corey Morgan, crazy French party.
00:37:08.480 You know, beyond that, you know, Wildrose would put out signs saying fight equalization or something like it was more your party slogans.
00:37:17.740 But I've never seen attack ads up. There's a number of I think there's a few of them.
00:37:23.420 But this is the most common one of these signs where it's Danielle Smith put on on a weather vane where the rooster normally goes saying, what will she do next?
00:37:31.000 And I was talking to a lot of UCPers and I'd say, well, this is nasty.
00:37:39.000 We've got to do something about it.
00:37:40.000 And we'll talk about what the UCP is now doing about it, which is a tricky way to do it.
00:37:44.000 But, Corey, do you think this is, do you think it might be effective?
00:37:49.000 I don't know.
00:37:50.000 I mean, it's trying to spread that same doubt and everything.
00:37:54.000 But, you know, it's not the worst picture.
00:37:55.000 I mean, I've been kind of cruel with columns and pictures I've used for them with people.
00:37:59.000 and she doesn't look, you know, terrible in it,
00:38:01.160 even though she is mounted on a weather vane.
00:38:03.220 I guess they realize they don't want to push it too far.
00:38:05.680 Although it does look like a sloppy Photoshop job.
00:38:07.920 Kind of.
00:38:09.500 For people, again, already mistrustful or falling for the ads, not so much.
00:38:13.600 But, I mean, I've seen people having fun with the, you know, other ones
00:38:16.460 and trying to turn it around.
00:38:18.020 I mean, Notley, I saw somebody was sticking googly eyes on the picture
00:38:20.900 because the other side shows a picture of Notley and saying real leadership.
00:38:24.720 They have two sides to all of those.
00:38:26.600 And, you know, I don't think vandalizing signs is a good idea, but it was kind of at least a chuckle.
00:38:31.620 My number one rule for election signs is don't put your picture on it.
00:38:35.440 You're going to get a Hitler mustache, you're going to get googly eyes. 0.92
00:38:37.920 I got puckers across mine when mine was out.
00:38:40.320 There is a 100% chance you're going to get another word for the rooster drawn towards your mouth.
00:38:47.260 That happened to me.
00:38:47.900 I still think it was my little brother who did it, but I'll just say there's a risk in putting your own face out there.
00:38:52.920 He'll put your face on the sign. Keep it to your party name and your name. He'll put your face on it. It's going to get mad.
00:38:59.400 Yes, yes. I don't think it's a brilliant tactic. We'll see what happens. It's unprecedented, though, to have the other person's face on the sign.
00:39:06.640 Nigel, I got a chuckle today. You sent me an email, because, you know, we've seen these signs all around Calgary.
00:39:13.000 And you sent me an email with, I guess, the UCP's response to these signs.
00:39:18.880 Because I've had, you know, a lot of, you know, some conservatives have been saying, oh, I hate these signs.
00:39:23.640 We've got to get our own up, slim and notly.
00:39:26.160 And I was thinking, I don't know.
00:39:27.440 Do you do it?
00:39:28.060 I mean, you've got to fight fire with fire.
00:39:30.420 But at the same time, does it maybe turn people off? 1.00
00:39:33.500 People say, oh, look at all these assholes. 0.99
00:39:35.120 You know, maybe you look a little more statesmanlike if you're not kind of getting down in the muck here. 0.99
00:39:41.900 I think they came up with, you know, so let's show again here the UCP response to it.
00:39:46.900 the UCP has been attaching their own little signs to the NDP signs. Effective?
00:39:55.660 I think that just a little touch of humor there is clearly an official sign.
00:40:01.180 So what would you do next and then UCP attach it to their sign say cut taxes.
00:40:07.240 And I bet they've got a number of others there are things that they're that they're going to do
00:40:11.560 And every one of those attack hats then gets morphed into some kind of a UCP signed by that.
00:40:18.680 And the NDP are going to be sending people around, take these things off and put up a new one.
00:40:22.540 That makes more work.
00:40:24.480 So I think there's a ā€“ but somebody obviously had their tongue in their cheek.
00:40:29.220 And this is one of the things I've noticed with the UCP, especially with the stuff that they put out from the black ops room. 0.63
00:40:36.900 They actually have a sense of humor.
00:40:40.020 People like that.
00:40:41.560 People will pass around their little video clips, and they will pass around, I mean, I thought that the person who sent this picture that we're looking at now, to me, had taken it himself.
00:40:54.280 Well, it turns out the thing's going viral on the internet, you know, so it's just, they're quite clever like that, and I have to say, I have to admire that.
00:41:03.500 People don't want to be yelled at and screamed at all of a sudden, sometimes.
00:41:07.400 Yeah, it was definitely a better response. I mean, it's not as epic. You know, we'll actually end the show with this. But it reminded me as a much more localized provincial version of the 1988 presidential debate. Reagan and Mondale, or they're going at him for his age. And Reagan made it a joke.
00:41:30.900 and that's just so much more
00:41:33.480 effective sometimes than
00:41:34.740 they're coming at you, they're nailing you
00:41:37.260 and you just growl and drool
00:41:39.360 back at them and it just leaves a sour taste
00:41:41.340 in everyone's mouth. If you could just make it
00:41:43.200 a joke.
00:41:45.000 You're laughing off.
00:41:46.140 If the knock on Danielle Smith is her character
00:41:48.860 well you diffuse that with humor.
00:41:51.480 Yeah.
00:41:51.920 That is so obvious.
00:41:54.520 Alright.
00:41:56.240 We're going to leave you with that video
00:41:58.200 and thank you very much for joining us
00:42:00.780 today. If you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, go to westernstandard.news right now
00:42:04.160 and click on membership to get full access to all Western Standard content. Thank you very much for
00:42:09.760 joining us today. We'll see you tomorrow actually at 540 for our live coverage of the Alberta
00:42:19.480 leadership debate. Thank you very much and God bless. Here's an update on commodity prices in
00:42:24.700 Lethbridge for today. Cash barley is steady at $4.07, feed wheat remains at $4.08, and corn is
00:42:31.080 down $2 at $3.88 per metric tonne. In the milling wheat markets, July Minneapolis futures are lower
00:42:36.740 $0.1075 at $8.68 per bushel, with local hardwood spring bid for May movement at $10.30 per bushel.
00:42:44.920 Looking at canola, nearby futures slip $10.20 at $7.19 per tonne, with delivered buys for May
00:42:51.100 movement at $16.08 per bushel. In the pulse markets, nearby red lentil prices are trading
00:42:56.520 at $0.34 per pound and yellow peas are lower $0.25 at $11.25 per bushel. And in the cattle
00:43:03.380 markets, June live cattle are up $0.85 at $1.64.73 per hundredweight. For more information
00:43:09.640 on pricing or picked up options, give me a call at 403-394-1711. I'm Matt Busiekum at
00:43:17.140 marketplace commodities, accurate real-time marketing information, and pricing options.
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