Western Standard - Uncensored： Canada Mandates, the PM's reactions, questioned.

00:00:00.000 Good evening, and welcome to Uncensored, a political panel where we get to the heart of

00:00:17.020 the issues that impact you, and we do so unapologetically and honestly, with no interest

00:00:22.920 in following the government narrative. In fact, we challenge the government narrative,

00:00:26.940 which is what good journalists should do.

00:00:29.380 I'm your host, Bruce McAllister, and let's meet our panelists as we have a lot to discuss this evening.

00:00:33.720 We'll start with Danielle Smith, the president of the Alberta Enterprise Group,

00:00:37.800 the former leader of the official opposition Wild Rose Party.

00:00:40.660 Good evening, Danielle.

00:00:41.740 Hi, Bruce.

00:00:42.680 And hello to Rob Anderson, a practicing litigator, two-time Airdrie MLA,

00:00:47.320 and also author of the Free Alberta Strategy.

00:00:49.760 Good to have a lawyer nearby.

00:00:50.880 Rob, how are you doing tonight?

00:00:52.380 Thanks, Bruce.

00:00:53.000 Good to be with you.

00:00:53.600 Yeah, we've got so much to discuss, guys.

00:00:56.100 nationally and provincially, and we're going to focus on Canada, but I think we'd be remiss if

00:01:01.380 we didn't at least mention the fact that the Ukraine, in Ukraine right now, there is an

00:01:06.020 Emergency Measures Act and a real reason for one with what's going on. Not sure you could say the

00:01:11.180 same with the reason for the Emergency Measures Act in Canada. Danielle, what a difference a day

00:01:16.340 or two makes? One day the Prime Minister speaks before a podium and says, hey, we need this act

00:01:21.340 and we've got to have it for all these reasons. And then one morning he wakes up and says, we don't.

00:01:25.420 what happened? Well, I can't wait for the tell-all book about it because he's looked foolish for the

00:01:31.220 last couple of weeks as we've watched international press coverage just ripping into him for how he's

00:01:37.620 handled the convoy in the first place and then how it managed to escalate. But I think that there

00:01:42.580 was no whole bards in the Senate over the last couple of days as well. I don't know if any of 1.00

00:01:48.440 these senators have seen quite so many views on their YouTube channels before. One of the ones I

00:01:52.280 was looking at was 23,000 views on one of our Quebec senators who said that this was absolutely

00:02:00.080 ludicrous. And he harkens back to when we've invoked this in the past, the 1970s. Remember

00:02:05.860 with the FLQ crisis, we had a terrorist group that was blowing up mailboxes and kidnapping and

00:02:11.260 murdering the members of parliament. And so when you look at by comparison, there was nothing even

00:02:16.340 close that was happening this time around. In addition, we also saw that the border cleared

00:02:21.480 in Alberta at Coutts without the benefit of the Emergencies Act. It got cleared on the Ambassador

00:02:26.140 Bridge, same way with the provincial efforts. So I would say that those were a couple of factors,

00:02:31.740 that there was an international embarrassment, a real crisis that emerged that requires the

00:02:37.700 global attention. The Senate was going to vote it down. Plus, I don't know if anyone's going to

00:02:42.720 speak honestly about this, but the anecdotal stories I'm hearing about the number of people

00:02:47.420 who are moving their accounts to credit unions from the banks who are asking about how to move

00:02:52.000 money offshore who are buying gold if you if you manufacture a run on the on the banks that

00:02:57.920 creates a massive amount of instability and the longer that persisted i think it would have been

00:03:02.640 a real danger so i think it was all those factors okay well you rob going second makes you have to

00:03:08.760 repeat some of that but i want to maybe phrase a second question to you in it uh jagmeet singh had

00:03:14.220 no hesitation whatsoever in supporting the need for the Emergency Measures Act. And then, of course,

00:03:18.520 a couple of days later, I think he probably has some egg on his face when it's revoked. So to

00:03:24.360 Danielle's point, would you agree with her assessment of the reasons why the Prime Minister

00:03:29.740 revoked it? And what do you think of the NDP's performance in that vote? Well, the NDP should be

00:03:36.940 ashamed of themselves. This used to be the party of the working class blue collar worker. And look

00:03:43.520 at the absolute national embarrassment that Jagmeet Singh has been to that brand

00:03:48.800 and in selling them out, essentially, on this protest.

00:03:53.760 But the real danger here is, you know, Jagmeet Singh,

00:03:56.800 as ridiculous as some of his statements on this have been,

00:04:02.880 he's never going to see the inside of the PMO.

00:04:06.100 The Prime Minister, however, of course, is in the PMO,

00:04:09.120 and he is a dangerous dude.

00:04:10.800 as we said here last week or week before and many times prior to that this is a guy that has very

00:04:16.880 tyrannical leadings and people would always say oh no he doesn't he can't be that bad uh you know

00:04:23.360 we can trust him and so forth uh but look at just look at his record he's he literally has been uh

00:04:30.240 the number you know exhibit a for i would say hate speech in this province in this country

00:04:35.200 uh the way that he demonized these canadians called them nazis misogynists racist bigots

00:04:42.640 just disgusting uh just absolute disgusting rhetoric by this prime minister and what he

00:04:49.360 did is he caused a crisis certainly a political crisis for himself and then he has the audacity

00:04:55.120 to implement an act that has only been used in world war one world war two and the flq crisis

00:05:01.520 And even during those times, that's when it was under those War Measures Act times that some of the greatest injustices in Canadian history occurred, the internment of Japanese and Italian Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians in World War I.

00:05:18.660 some of these things that have occurred here in the past, but those were actually during real

00:05:25.860 crises. This one, on the other hand, was nothing more than a tyrannical little man with, I would

00:05:33.460 say, certainly dictatorial leadings, having people that were speaking out against him. He didn't like

00:05:41.200 it. They were political opponents. And literally, there are today political opponents of our prime

00:05:46.880 minister in jail because they are political opponents of the prime minister it is a black

00:05:52.300 eye on this country he should step down he has not fit for the office and i sure hope that the

00:05:58.160 liberal caucus members will see that and get rid of him before he causes more damage to the to the

00:06:03.380 country well that's exactly where i was going to go next um danielle beginning with you there are

00:06:08.900 people in jail uh good people in jail uh family um family family members uh wondering when they're

00:06:15.800 going to see their loved ones again. I'm not sure what the, we'll save some of the legal analysis

00:06:21.980 for Rob, but I'm not sure what the reasons are and how they're able to keep these people in jail.

00:06:27.800 Any idea when some of these protest leaders are going to get out and how is this even possible

00:06:33.040 in Canada? It's so odd and it's so arbitrary. This is part of the problem when you allow for

00:06:38.400 that kind of unilateral rule and arbitrary enforcement is that one of the leaders, Tamara 0.98

00:06:43.260 Litch was in jail and not even able to get bail for heaven's sakes. And then there's another who 0.94

00:06:48.300 wasn't even arrested, BJ Dichter, and I'm not sure where he's gone to. Then another who went to jail,

00:06:54.560 got arrested, and then was released. And another who's been fighting it out in court. You have to

00:06:58.520 wonder now that the Emergencies Act has been rescinded, how they're going to be able to

00:07:03.080 continue to enforce that. The thing I think that the convoy leaders need to be aware of is that

00:07:10.520 they probably needed to have some kind of exit strategy. And that I think maybe was what caused

00:07:17.760 the escalation. We saw that the border crossings could have been dealt with, obviously, without the

00:07:23.340 need to implement these kinds of measures. I suspect Ottawa could have been cleared as well

00:07:27.800 without implementing these kinds of measures. But I don't know that they gave any indication of what

00:07:33.380 it was going to take to have them leave, other than a complete and full rescinding of all of

00:07:39.040 measures now so if you judge it by that success or that measure of success where do we go from here

00:07:44.720 because what i'm fearful of is now we've got a a leader who doesn't like to be challenged quite

00:07:51.040 obviously and he's not going to want to look like he's showing any sign of weakness so does this

00:07:56.400 mean that he doubles down and he continues with the path that he was on in mandating vaccines

00:08:02.560 not just for cross-border u.s truckers but across the country and then all of the other workers and

00:08:07.040 rail lines and ports. I mean, is he going to escalate the crisis that he created or is he

00:08:12.720 going to see that the writing is on the wall? That's what I'm really worried about with his

00:08:16.000 instability and his arrogance. I worry that he's taken the wrong message of this. The premiers,

00:08:22.880 to their great credit, have gone in the opposite direction and are starting to rescind the measures.

00:08:27.840 I think as of March 1st, Alberta is going to be completely restriction-free, but we still have

00:08:33.440 this unanswered question at the federal level and so yeah we saw this drama play out over the last

00:08:38.160 month but the reason it started is still not resolved there is still a trucker mandate and

00:08:43.760 we still have people getting fired from their jobs for not getting vaccinated and that's a problem

00:08:47.920 all right promise to come back to some of that you raised a lot of good points there rob but

00:08:51.280 legally there's some good people in uh in prison here seemingly with no with no justification i

00:08:56.800 mean what what what can they do and how do you see this legally well these are political prisoners

00:09:03.040 Let's not sugarcoat this. They're in jail because they opposed the mandates of Justin Trudeau. You're telling me that Tamarilich is some sort of national security threat? What a load of absolute garbage. That is ridiculous. And everybody knows it. She wasn't guiding some army of organizers. I mean, this is of troops on the ground threatening the Capitol. She was part of a protest. She was making sure some of the protesters got fed.

00:09:33.040 This is a joke. She's a political prisoner. And what is also unbelievable about this is what's 0.94

00:09:39.880 occurred within our justice system. The judge in the bail hearing for her was a former candidate

00:09:45.700 for the Liberal Party of Canada. Think about that for a second. What kind of banana republic are we

00:09:52.780 living in right now? So that judge decides that she's a national security. She denies bail. We 1.00

00:10:00.120 give bail to rapists like let's let's put this in perspective here and we deny bail to this this 0.94

00:10:07.420 woman who had the audacity to try to organize a convoy to ottawa and maybe they didn't have a

00:10:12.200 a great exit strategy but you know what that doesn't matter it's up to the the people in

00:10:18.020 charge there to do what they did down at coots to do what they did down at the at the uh ambassador

00:10:23.520 bridge to to talk with the people there to move them along it took a few days but they got it done 0.77

00:10:30.400 without having to bring these draconian measures in and uh in in ottawa's case this tyrant of a

00:10:36.400 prime minister has literally put tamara and others in jail uh because he doesn't agree with them and

00:10:42.240 they are political prisoners that's what we have here in canada right now so the next time i hear

00:10:46.040 the prime minister talk about political prisoners in china he can look in the mirror well we've got

00:10:51.560 keep talking about it then rob and i'm glad we are we are tonight um so we can remind people

00:10:56.520 what's going on how do you think history views this protest i mean on one hand it was a tremendous

00:11:02.840 gathering of course of uh of a lot of hard working uh working class people it was peaceful uh they

00:11:09.560 had a purpose they they made friends and and certainly were a likable group on the other hand

00:11:15.000 well they made a lot of enemies in ottawa uh they certainly weren't that popular uh with local

00:11:20.600 residents. And like you said, Danielle, probably not an exit strategy other than end the mandates.

00:11:26.840 What do you think at the end of the day this accomplishes? I mean, it's on the world stage,

00:11:32.740 and I'm sure there's no regrets there. But how is it viewed, Danielle, do you think, historically?

00:11:38.600 I think we need to see how it plays out over the next couple of months, because what I had hoped

00:11:42.960 it would do is spark similar movements across the world, which it did. I mean, I don't know that

00:11:47.780 Canada's ever been as inspirational as it has been over this last month. And it's remarkable to see

00:11:53.740 all of the other convoys that have taken place and people saying, gee, you really must have pushed

00:11:59.040 Canadians to the limit if they're going to come out in the numbers that they did, because Canadians

00:12:03.560 are law abiding. And we do defer to peace order and good government. And so I think that there

00:12:09.720 was a recognition that the politicians had simply pushed us too far. The fact remains, though,

00:12:16.200 that some jurisdictions are not getting the message. I was just looking, somebody posted on

00:12:20.900 one of my social media pages that France has just moved to the next step of turning off the vaccine

00:12:27.600 passports of 4 million citizens who didn't have the third jab. And I think there is no doubt that

00:12:34.220 that is the direction that this prime minister wants to go. He has signed terrible contracts

00:12:39.800 with all these pharmaceutical companies because he was last to the table. He's lined up nine jabs

00:12:44.740 per person. You can't return them. You have to pay for them. You can't re-gift them. And so I think

00:12:50.660 he would kind of want to follow the path that France is going down, where you turn on and off

00:12:55.200 citizens' access to basic services in society based on their jab status. And I don't think

00:13:00.960 jab number three is it. There'll be some new variant that comes up and some new reformulation

00:13:05.600 of the jab. We've even heard from our premier here that he anticipates it'd be very much like

00:13:10.620 flu shot where those who who need it will get it on an annual basis and that's quite different though

00:13:16.540 you need it and want it versus if you're forced to have it if your access to society your ability

00:13:21.740 to go to restaurants your ability to travel depends on your latest job status and so that's

00:13:26.540 what we've got to watch is i think we still have these two forces playing out in the world think

00:13:31.500 that the prime minister and quebec are very heavily influenced by france they're going in

00:13:35.340 one direction you look at the united kingdom denmark norway sweden and others uh they're going

00:13:40.540 in another direction i think that's the way the that english-speaking canada wants to go

00:13:44.460 so i still think we have to to watch and see whether or not we can we can declare victory

00:13:49.020 on this it's going to take a few more weeks or months before we can we can determine what history

00:13:53.100 will say good grief uh rob uh same question to you overall thoughts on the freedom convoy the

00:13:59.020 the freedom protest i think it was a remarkable protest i think it was very positive for the

00:14:04.780 the world and for liberty and freedom. And it made a lot of people feel that, you know, we're

00:14:10.460 not alone in this world, that there are millions of people around the world that aren't happy

00:14:14.880 with the curtailment of our freedoms during this time. There are going to be some brand

00:14:20.800 issues with regards to Canada moving forward, particularly with regards to our financial

00:14:26.700 institutions. Danielle was absolutely correct. One of the main reasons why there was the about

00:14:33.680 face over 24 hours from passing the Emergencies Act into law, or invoking it, I guess you could

00:14:40.280 say, and then abandoning it, was because there was a run on the banks. There were people,

00:14:46.420 and I'm not going to lie, including myself, who were in the process of getting out of the big five

00:14:51.540 banks in Canada, because there's just a trust factor. And if that's me in Canada, and if that's

00:14:57.040 people in Canada trying to, you know, if people in Canada have that concern, people internationally

00:15:02.580 you're going to go, why on earth would I put my money there? I mean, if that's the kind of banana

00:15:06.760 republic that they're running, there's no confidence. So there's a real, I would say,

00:15:12.020 a legacy of mistrust with our financial institutions that this prime minister has

00:15:17.560 caused with his irrational decision making. And it's going to take a long time. And that is

00:15:22.980 another reason, and I don't want to be far from me to plug the free Alberta strategy, but here I go

00:15:28.640 So, again, this is why Alberta absolutely must have, must implement, must establish an independent and expanded banking system for this province that is independent of the feds, that allows us to raise money here for our projects and our energy development here.

00:15:44.660 and also is a place where we can, I would say, shelter Albertans who choose to invest in those banks

00:15:51.760 from the dictates of, frankly, an irrational and dangerous federal leader like we have in power right now.

00:16:01.180 All right, guys, we're about halfway through the time we've got.

00:16:03.640 It just rolls when we get talking, and that was an important issue to cover,

00:16:08.100 and I wanted to spend some time on it, but it's also budget day in Alberta,

00:16:11.060 and to be completely forthcoming to you at home,

00:16:14.080 We're in studio and have been for quite some time,

00:16:16.500 so we haven't been able to go through the details of the budget.

00:16:19.820 However, we know some things about it.

00:16:23.140 For instance, Rob, maybe I'll start with you this time.

00:16:25.940 We know that the province is awash in cash because of oil revenues.

00:16:30.280 So obviously we expect to see that play out in the document.

00:16:35.380 Yeah, we've been really lucky.

00:16:38.300 I remember we had these discussions when we were all in the legislature,

00:16:41.800 when we were bugging then minister uh horner uh about uh deficit doug yeah deficit doug uh

00:16:49.160 why he was a good guy though i liked that yeah he was um but uh you know um the the idea that

00:16:54.680 we can only balance our books when we have oil at a hundred dollars a barrel and there's a uh

00:16:59.400 there's a war in the middle east or in uh in russia uh you know it causing oil spike prices

00:17:07.160 like it's oil prices to spike um we shouldn't have to have a hundred dollar barrel oil in order to

00:17:12.920 not be floating in red ink but we are lucky a lot of these projects went to pay out uh these these

00:17:18.440 big oil sands projects they're they're past the payback for the capital side of things uh their

00:17:23.560 startup capital costs and now it's it's a lot of money this is the regime that you recall that

00:17:28.360 ralph klein way back in the day had the foresight to say you know what guys let's give these guys

00:17:34.040 a one percent royalty until they've paid back all of their all their capital costs and then we will

00:17:39.560 hike it from there and albertans will be rich well ralph uh even though he's no longer with us his

00:17:45.080 his legacy uh continues to be felt because he's uh that that policy has um you know from from the

00:17:53.400 other side he's pulling our butts out of the fire here on uh on uh budget running so uh kudos to him

00:17:59.720 for doing that again d tough when we don't have all the details at this point but i i would assume

00:18:05.160 you'd mention health care uh as uh as one of the things that we we expect to see an improvement in

00:18:10.680 well let me let me uh go to the issue of revenues because and i'll look at the exact line item but i

00:18:15.800 think there was some projections that we'd be getting 18 billion dollars in resource revenues

00:18:20.120 this budget year and i think the last high watermark was 12 billion to give you some indication

00:18:25.320 but if we're still not running surpluses at this point that means that we've got a structural

00:18:30.680 shortfall because we are spending too darn much money and what i'm worried about is that when i

00:18:35.880 have heard the premier speak he's been talking about tax cuts well you know i love tax cuts as

00:18:41.480 much as the next person but when when klein did tax cuts he did it after we had already made

00:18:46.760 significant progress progress on putting aside money to pay down the debt we're for what 100

00:18:51.640 billion dollars in debt we can't continue doing this where um we're coming up to an election and

00:18:57.880 so the progressive conservative strategy was always well let's give a little bit to conservatives so

00:19:02.360 we can win their vote and then let's have massive pay increases for the uh union so that we can win

00:19:07.400 the progressive vote and then what happens is eventually the prices come down and then you're

00:19:12.760 left with an even bigger roller coaster problem and an even bigger deficit so i'm i'm hoping to

00:19:18.200 see that there's some strategy to get off of this i've proposed i gave a submission to the treasury

00:19:23.640 board i proposed that we need to start a structured savings plan just do it like the wealthy barber

00:19:29.240 take 10 across the top put it into a sovereign wealth fund grow that sucker with in with

00:19:35.080 investment income up to half a half a trillion dollars by the middle of the century and then

00:19:40.280 you're at a point where you can start eliminating your personal income tax or other other types of

00:19:44.840 taxes but you've got to start somewhere and this idea that we've had in the past that oh my goodness 0.99

00:19:49.800 we can't possibly save any money because that will make us a target of ottawa we are a target of

00:19:54.680 ottawa already so since we are a target of ottawa let's do something to protect ourselves as for

00:20:00.760 your question though on health care um the premier has been talking about changing health care ever

00:20:06.680 since he got elected he's been talking about these private surgical centers contracting out

00:20:11.000 saskatchewan has done it no one pays out of pocket it's money that goes directly to the

00:20:15.720 to the facility so you don't have to worry about that the worry i have is why hasn't he done it so

00:20:20.760 far there was such an opportunity during covid when it was quite clear ahs could not manage to

00:20:27.080 do two things at once they shut down all of our surgeries if i'd been there i would have said you

00:20:31.240 know what sorry ahs we recognize you've got the pressure of cova that you're dealing with

00:20:35.560 we will take all of the surgical surgical uh services off your hand we will contract out

00:20:41.080 hernias over here we will contract out knee and hips over there we will contract out delivering

00:20:45.160 babies over here and so on and so forth so i think he had an enormous opportunity to be able to do

00:20:50.840 that he didn't and so the question i have is is there the will there i know it sounds like a a

00:20:57.400 good way of trying to win back some of that that vote that he may have lost over the last few years

00:21:02.360 but i'll believe it when i see it let's do something uh something interesting here guys so

00:21:07.160 we we um you two certainly have been in the crosshairs of political scrutiny and i guess

00:21:13.720 we all have to that point and we kind of know what's going on behind the scenes uh so let's

00:21:18.120 let's give people at home an idea right now jason kenney is in the fight of his life to save his

00:21:23.000 leadership and he is out selling memberships and obviously the other side is selling memberships

00:21:28.680 to try and defeat him at his leadership review coming up in April.

00:21:31.700 Rob, let's give people a look at the other side.

00:21:35.860 What's going on right now in his world, and how is this playing out, do you think?

00:21:40.060 What are you hearing out there?

00:21:41.660 Well, I think you have to be human about this.

00:21:44.160 This isn't easy for the Premier.

00:21:46.260 I mean, he's invested a lot of time.

00:21:48.440 He's been a public servant for a long time, for decades.

00:21:52.680 You know, this is his career.

00:21:54.920 This is the high point, and it hasn't gone as planned.

00:21:58.680 and he's likely not going to survive April 9th.

00:22:01.700 He could.

00:22:02.340 There's still a chance,

00:22:03.720 but I think it's highly unlikely at this point.

00:22:07.980 But so I think Jason needs to,

00:22:11.500 the Premier needs to take that old walk in the snow

00:22:14.940 and really do what many people have to do

00:22:18.340 when they've maybe bit off more than they can chew

00:22:20.360 or things haven't gone the way that they had hoped

00:22:22.460 and do the right thing and step down.

00:22:25.260 He has to know that he cannot win the next election.

00:22:28.680 He has done way too much damage to himself, his brand, and to the brand overall.

00:22:35.420 He's not a bad person, but he's made a lot of mistakes and on key critical issues.

00:22:42.020 And you can sense the panic.

00:22:43.780 I mean, I just saw, you know, we're just talking off air about a story that just surfaced where he was asked,

00:22:49.900 where he was expressing concern about all of these new angry Albertans that were buying UCP memberships

00:22:57.160 and coming to the conference or the AGM,

00:23:01.520 the special AGM to vote probably against them

00:23:05.540 to get them out and have a new leader selected.

00:23:09.540 And he started, you know, he's saying, you know,

00:23:11.380 these are angry people that just want to voice

00:23:13.320 their displeasure with COVID policies, et cetera.

00:23:16.080 You know, it almost sounded like he was saying

00:23:17.900 this is a small fringe minority with unacceptable views.

00:23:21.680 You know, and that's the thing is that

00:23:24.160 when you start attacking your own,

00:23:26.240 because I guarantee the people coming to this special AGM are conservatives.

00:23:30.300 These are conservative Albertans.

00:23:32.360 They've probably been members of the party at some time in the past.

00:23:35.840 And if they're not, it's because they're discussed with the direction

00:23:38.640 of the party was going, but they want to get back in and have a say.

00:23:41.820 So he needs to take a look at this.

00:23:44.420 And I would say do the right thing before April 9th and step down with honor.

00:23:50.060 But if he continues forward, I don't think he's going to make it.

00:23:53.480 okay well that's that's highly unlikely uh to happen but uh take your point danielle do you

00:23:59.840 want to pick up on that uh what what do you think's happening out there i have a regular

00:24:04.380 a listener and um she listened to me when i was the radio and she would and she reads my weekly

00:24:09.680 newsletter so i use her as a bit of a gauge because she's been back and forth and so angry

00:24:14.100 at the direction that has been taken so angry at being forced to be vaxxed or face losing her job

00:24:20.640 and she just sent me a note saying, oh, Jason Kenney just heard him speak and he's talking

00:24:25.040 about liberty and he's talking about the things that I care about again. Where's he been for the

00:24:28.840 last couple of years? I could vote for this guy. And so that I think is the factor that's at play.

00:24:34.180 And I'm greatly distressed that the premier didn't understand that taking the liberty position all

00:24:40.140 the way through was a winning strategy. The fact that he's come to now realize it's a winning

00:24:45.320 strategy, great. But I think that there's a trust aspect. Is this going to stick when the next

00:24:49.880 variant comes around, is it going to stick? If the prime minister says we're going to go to a

00:24:54.720 mandatory third dose, is it going to stick in the next respiratory virus season? There's going to

00:24:58.960 always be that kind of concern. His best move, quite frankly, might be to say, look, I was here

00:25:04.980 through the tough times and made the tough decisions, and I'm going to leap to the federal

00:25:08.980 level and I'm going to run for the federal leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:25:13.240 because it's now open. And I, you know, if I'm looking this through and thinking of the type

00:25:19.100 of leader he was and the type of minister he was back before he came to Alberta, we might actually

00:25:26.180 have Prime Minister Jason Kenney now if he had stepped forward and run it at either of those

00:25:30.860 other two times. Justin Trudeau has been beatable the last two elections, but nobody knew who the

00:25:36.460 person was and they flip-flopped a little bit and they didn't know exactly what kind of leader

00:25:41.300 they were going to be and they weren't able to ultimately take it over to the finish line jason

00:25:44.580 kenny is one of the most formidable campaigners he has spent a lot of time in vancouver and toronto

00:25:51.380 in the in the large uh new canadian and cultural communities which is vitally important for the

00:25:56.980 the the conservative party federally if they're going to be able to rally support his positioning

00:26:02.420 on covet is actually perceived better outside of alberta than in alberta because he's perceived to

00:26:08.420 have delivered more freedom than some of the other premiers so maybe it's not too crazy maybe uh he

00:26:13.860 always there's always been this rumor that he wanted to use the premiership as a stepping stone

00:26:18.180 to be prime minister well maybe now's the perfect exit time maybe now's the time to throw in i do

00:26:23.060 i do enjoy playing devil's advocate with the two of you i must say um um those are both bold

00:26:28.260 predictions and and suggestions okay so here here is the uh the fly in the ointment um

00:26:35.380 We're a year and a half from an election.

00:26:38.260 People have very, very short memories.

00:26:40.960 We're about to have a budget that's, well, again, we can't see it yet.

00:26:45.040 So when this airs, you'll know.

00:26:46.740 But I suspect it will be balanced, and if not close, and this could be the case going forward.

00:26:51.740 Mandates will be gone.

00:26:52.920 Our freedoms will come back.

00:26:55.840 And we'll have been the first province to take us there.

00:26:58.900 I mean, don't you think there's a chance that the man is a master organizer?

00:27:03.000 He has proven that.

00:27:03.820 he put two parties together to create the UCB. Don't you think there's a chance he could pull

00:27:07.980 this off in April? Well, let me take that first. And I'll say that the problem, there's absolutely

00:27:14.620 a chance that he could win the leadership review in April. When you think about the barriers that

00:27:20.200 are put in the way, you have to pay $10 for a membership. You have to buy that membership three

00:27:26.400 weeks in advance of the vote. So March 19th is the cutoff date. If you want the early birth fee,

00:27:30.920 you have to pay 99 you've got to drive up to or down from depending on where you're coming from

00:27:36.040 red deer vote turn around come back i mean there's a lot of barriers in the way and only very highly

00:27:41.000 motivated people are going to do that so there's a chance that he could get his people out more than

00:27:47.480 than those on the other side as i understand it i think there's something like 30 different

00:27:50.840 constituencies that have opened up for nominations with the marching orders go out and win your

00:27:57.320 nomination and get a hundred members to come to the agm to vote for me and so you get 30 people

00:28:04.040 you know 100 people in each in each riding doing that and now you've got 3 000 votes and so you

00:28:08.680 could definitely win so i think there's a great possibility that he could win on april 9th however

00:28:14.680 is there anything that will happen that will bring brian gene back into the fold i don't think so or

00:28:20.280 drew barnes back into the fold or or todd lowen or paul hinman and daniel smith well you know i've

00:28:27.480 tried to be the i've tried to be a uniter i've tried to stay with ucp and say we should all

00:28:32.040 sort of come on board and stay under one roof because that's what i worry about when you get

00:28:36.520 the conservative vote split four five different ways and you've got a unified progressive party

00:28:41.160 the numbers don't look good going into 2023 i can't see how he'd be able to pull that all

00:28:46.120 all together to beat Rachel Notley. She just, she's going to sweep Edmonton. If you have enough

00:28:50.600 of a vote split in Calgary, she'll sweep Calgary. Doesn't matter if she doesn't win rural, if she 1.00

00:28:55.280 has both of those two regions. So I think we'd be looking at Rachel Notley for 2023 if he does win

00:28:59.920 in April. Challenge my challenge to you there, Rob. I mean, I'm all about second chances, but

00:29:09.860 you don't see it, eh? No, I just don't, I don't see it. I don't see him winning on April the 9th.

00:29:16.880 I've never seen such a determined effort of people who are generally not interested in politics,

00:29:24.660 or certainly in coming to a meeting in Red Deer of all places and paying a hundred bucks to be

00:29:29.000 there. There are people organizing and get, they're going to be, there's going to be a huge

00:29:32.520 vote there. I guarantee it. And there's just a, there's just a point where, you know, the problem

00:29:39.000 right now is he's got a bunch of uh people that he thinks are supporting him that aren't going

00:29:43.080 to support him in a in a private vote and uh and i just i i don't see it happening and i

00:29:49.720 definitely don't see him winning uh or the ucp winning as with him at the head the only way to

00:29:56.360 stave off the vote splitting that daniel danielle is rightfully talking about there with um with the

00:30:01.720 wild rose uh independence party is you need new leadership that can restore trust with uh obviously

00:30:08.840 with with a lot of Albertans who have lost trust in in Jason Kenney's leadership and so forth but

00:30:14.840 importantly you need someone that's going to cut that vote block off at the pass these are the

00:30:21.020 people that are very anti-mandate very anti having their their rights trampled on during the pandemic

00:30:28.960 people that believe in provincial sovereignty that mostly want to stay within Canada but are

00:30:34.600 are not going to tolerate the type of uh attacks from ottawa that we've seen and whoever the leader

00:30:40.200 is is going to have to is going to absolutely have to uh appeal to that type of voter if they're

00:30:47.160 going to have a chance to keep the ucp coalition united and win the next election so that will be

00:30:53.720 the reason he doesn't survive and it'll also be the big question for for the leadership vote that

00:30:57.880 follows just watching the time guys i want to finish where we started with this okay and um

00:31:03.320 and rob we'll start with you um there are still mandates in national uh in this country

00:31:10.920 that don't we don't see any any sign of being lifted you can't fly i saw a tweet the other

00:31:16.600 day whether it was true or not what did dieffen baker say trust but verify three countries in

00:31:20.760 the world that you can't that you can't leave cuba north korea and canada if you're unvaxxed

00:31:26.440 you literally cannot leave the country i mean when does this madness end and what can we do

00:31:31.960 to put more pressure on the federal government well i mean i think that uh you know that the

00:31:38.600 main pressure on this has to come from uh the provincial leaders and i still even though

00:31:44.680 there's improvement in that area i still think it's been very weak doug ford's been a complete

00:31:50.520 failure um you know you can go down the list uh scott moe is scott moe he's been quite strong on

00:31:56.440 this but uh especially lately uh but you know that's one that's saskatchewan which is an

00:32:02.040 important province but it's it's one province and it's one of the smaller ones uh premier kenny has

00:32:06.440 not been an effective advocate on this issue obviously because he's been flip-flopping all

00:32:09.960 over the place so until we have a group of i would say provincial leaders uh that um are um

00:32:18.120 not asking but demanding that these restrictions be lifted uh then i think it's going to be slow

00:32:24.360 to happen i do think it'll happen i mean it has to happen at some point you can't just keep these

00:32:28.120 things on indefinitely i would think but uh you know until there's strong leadership at the

00:32:33.000 provincial level on this on this issue i don't think you're going to see much change federally

00:32:37.160 danielle well and rob's he's nailed it because this is the fundamental problem for the premier

00:32:42.200 is that he's not been strong enough against ottawa all the way through this we had such a

00:32:46.440 great plan in alberta we were going to roll out rapid testing at the edmonton international airport

00:32:52.120 and then they were going to start it in calgary so it would be very much like what happens in

00:32:55.720 other jurisdictions you arrive you have your rapid test you're negative and you go on your merry way

00:33:01.160 and then you don't have to worry about who's vaccinated who's not and don't have to worry

00:33:05.320 about having qr codes and who doesn't and so that's the the real problem is that what why didn't he

00:33:10.680 press to say hey look we have this pilot project we're going to keep on doing it why hasn't it come

00:33:14.920 back we should be able to be in that position now and to your point i uh i have a friend who tried

00:33:20.680 to drive across the border thinking you know what if we just have our negative covet test maybe

00:33:24.280 they'll let us across it's a no-go and they have made the airline ticket takers be the enforcers

00:33:30.600 on the front line i've flown out of the country twice now and the second time coming back they

00:33:35.560 won't issue your boarding passes if you don't upload into the arrive can app all the documentation

00:33:40.360 that you need so it's kind it's kind of terrifying to think that if you weren't if you aren't

00:33:45.560 vaccinated that you are trapped in your country there isn't a way to leave across the border you

00:33:49.800 you can't take a ferry anywhere, you can't fly in a plane, you can't drive across the border.

00:33:54.640 It's bananas that we're still in this position when so many of the countries in the world

00:33:58.700 are reducing their mandates. They never should have had an all or nothing. This is one of the

00:34:04.720 things that Kenny did do well, is he always allowed for a rapid testing option. So even

00:34:10.260 though it was darn inconvenient for those who did it, it still at least allowed for people to

00:34:16.060 to be a part of regular society and still participate.

00:34:19.660 The my way or the highway approach

00:34:22.060 that the federal government is taking

00:34:23.860 with no end in sight

00:34:25.220 and the fact that they still want to expand it,

00:34:26.860 that's alarming.

00:34:27.700 And if it is the case that we're in the company 0.97

00:34:29.780 of Cuba and North Korea, shame on us, 0.98

00:34:31.780 that's got to change. 1.00

00:34:33.180 Yep, 100%.

00:34:34.100 And that's where we've got to leave it tonight, guys.

00:34:35.580 We're fresh out of time.

00:34:36.480 Thank you, as always, for your insight and analysis.

00:34:39.300 Great to chat with you.

00:34:40.780 Thanks, guys.

00:34:41.660 Good to be with you. Thanks.

00:34:42.980 Rob Anderson and Danielle Smith,

00:34:45.380 right here with Uncensored on the Western Standard.

00:34:48.020 If you have any show ideas or topics

00:34:49.880 that you'd like to see us cover,

00:34:51.320 send us an email to the Western Standard.

00:34:53.420 We'll do our best to get to them.

00:34:54.500 And until next time, thanks for joining us.

00:34:57.220 Good night.

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Western Standard - February 25, 2022

Uncensored： Canada Mandates, the PM's reactions, questioned.

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