Western Standard - November 03, 2023


UCP 2023 AGM Update


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

154.17616

Word count

1,150

Sentence count

62


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hello, I'm Dave Naylor, the news editor of the Western Standard, and we're coming to
00:00:21.920 you tonight from the BMO Centre in Calgary, where the UCP Annual General Meeting has
00:00:27.680 kicked off and thousands of people are streaming in behind me for the opening ceremonies.
00:00:33.520 With me tonight is the Western Standard Opinion Editor, Nigel Hannaford. Great to be here.
00:00:38.960 And Western Standard Energy Business Expert, Sean Polzer. Thanks, Dave.
00:00:43.960 Sean, the event started this afternoon with a session between Environment Minister Rebecca
00:00:49.800 Schultz and Energy Minister Brian Jean. What came out of that?
00:00:53.760 Well, it was one part, good old-fashioned political revival rally, partisanship playing to the partisan crowd, but also outlining some, I would say, fairly substantive things that Minister Schultz, she did the technical briefing, which is kind of a response, written response to the clean energy regulations that was sent off to Environment Minister Jebeau yesterday.
00:01:19.760 yesterday. So we had the press release and story on it this morning. So there was a little bit of
00:01:25.580 style, a little bit of substance, I'd say, playing to a partisan crowd, trying to get the cheers.
00:01:31.900 Federal liberals bad, Alberta good. Yeah, we will not back down.
00:01:37.560 We will not back down. Nigel, there's more than 3,000 delegates registered for this convention,
00:01:42.720 making it the largest political convention in Canadian history. It's a big weekend for the UCP.
00:01:48.240 It certainly is. That's the claim, 3,000. And just looking around here, I believe it. They had to actually move it from the previous location that they had planned. So, yeah, it's a very successful turnout. And it speaks, I think, to the enthusiasm that is driving this party at the moment.
00:02:06.440 I don't want to sound like a show for the UCP, but you can't ignore the obvious.
00:02:11.740 People are pumped, they're excited, and they're here for a good time, but they're also here to do some serious business.
00:02:19.280 Right. At the last AGM, we were dealing with the leadership issues with Premier Kenney.
00:02:24.440 Yes.
00:02:24.600 Look how far we've come in just a year.
00:02:27.480 Well, I think that's a really good point, Dave.
00:02:29.700 i mean you say how far we've come that it's how far this party has has come uh that so much of
00:02:36.660 what was dividing them is now behind them as long as the premier here daniel smith keeps doing what
00:02:43.780 she's doing and winning then the people who don't like her and they're still out there but the people
00:02:48.980 who don't like her don't have anything really to go on and that's that's why i think it's so
00:02:54.500 important for her team that they present well at this at this convention the uh daniel smith
00:03:03.300 keynote address goes at 1 p.m mountain standard time tomorrow which we'll be showing live on the
00:03:08.740 western standard i think we're going to see a lot of ottawa bashing in that speech oh definitely you
00:03:13.220 will you know one of the things that those of us who do this for a living have noticed that there's
00:03:17.700 not usually much daylight between what environment minister rebecca schultz says and what the
00:03:24.660 premier herself says so what we heard this afternoon that sean was referring to that was
00:03:31.220 substantive was a comment from the minister saying look you know we've just put in this
00:03:38.340 in this uh schedule we'll see what they come back with but if it's like the last one we're
00:03:44.660 going to fight this all the way to the end and that is a winning strategy for the party but also
00:03:53.300 it's extremely important for ordinary old burdens who expect the lights to go on
00:03:59.540 and the heat to stay on during the winter at a time when all the renewals are not working because
00:04:05.780 the sun don't shine in the middle of the night and the wind don't blow when you just go like
00:04:11.460 that and you can see your breath goes straight up so it's uh you know it's a real serious issue
00:04:17.380 and i i think that what you'll hear tomorrow from uh premier almost certainly will be a steroid
00:04:25.700 version of what the minister had to say this evening and maybe something uh some new good
00:04:31.220 stuff hopefully the other big uh thing that we're going to be keeping an eye out on over the weekend
00:04:36.260 is the Take Back Alberta movement, led by David Parker.
00:04:40.680 He wants, I guess, the grassroots to take charge of the party.
00:04:44.160 And he is going to be, he's sold a lot of memberships, he says,
00:04:48.040 and he's going to be trying to get his people on the various boards.
00:04:53.260 If it works, do you think that will have much effect on the party?
00:04:58.060 So, you must remember that whatever the party board consists of,
00:05:04.420 It is the premier and the elected representatives that make policy and carry it out.
00:05:11.920 Where a ginger group like Take Back Alberta has influence is that they can make it more difficult for individual MLAs
00:05:20.700 who hang on to their seats with a slim majority to get elected the next time.
00:05:26.900 But at the same time, they're limited by the fact that are you really going to work against the sitting MLA
00:05:34.060 when the NDP are looking strong and powerful.
00:05:37.700 I don't know.
00:05:38.300 It's always, politics is like that.
00:05:40.840 There's always a lot of shoving and pushing and elbowing.
00:05:45.200 But in the end, it is the elected representatives
00:05:49.560 that will and must make policy.
00:05:52.980 Going on right now is a bear pit session
00:05:56.260 with Justice Minister Mo Amory
00:05:57.820 and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis.
00:06:01.120 Obviously, crime is a big issue with all Albertans.
00:06:03.260 and our Jonathan Bradley and Jen Hodgkins is over there now
00:06:07.460 and they'll be filing a report when that's wrapped up shortly.
00:06:11.460 The other big controversy here, Sean,
00:06:12.920 that I don't know if anybody has realized yet other than us,
00:06:16.300 you can only get Bud Light down here on the Stampede grounds.
00:06:19.480 They only sell Anheuser-Busch products.
00:06:21.780 I mean, come on. Don't they read the media?
00:06:23.280 Well, it's not Bud Light. It's a regular Budweiser.
00:06:26.720 But still, yeah, there's not a lot of selection down there.
00:06:30.880 Do you think we'll be allowed to bring our own in tomorrow?
00:06:33.480 And a brown paper bag.
00:06:36.180 So good old days when there was actually free beer for media during a political convention.
00:06:43.380 Come on, UCP, get your game together.
00:06:45.580 A big day tomorrow.
00:06:46.980 There's party voting for boards and the party president, Daniel Smith, keynote speech, as mentioned at 1 o'clock.
00:06:55.540 And then all afternoon, they're going to be voting on dozens of various resolutions from pronoun policies to, you know, other fights with Ottawa.
00:07:05.480 So it's going to be a fascinating day tomorrow.
00:07:07.800 And please check back, westernstandard.news.
00:07:10.640 Throughout the day, we'll have all the coverage.
00:07:12.660 So for Nigel and Sean, I'm Dave Naylor.
00:07:15.120 Thanks very much.
00:07:16.600 Thank you.
00:07:25.540 You