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 .

The UCP Annual General Meeting has kicked off in Calgary, and thousands of people are streaming in to the BMO Centre to attend the opening ceremonies. The Western Standard's Dave Naylor and Sean Polzer are here to talk all things UCP.

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