Western Standard - June 01, 2023


What kind of premier will Smith be？

Mentioned
Danielle Smith Jen Gerson Wildrose Trudeau Corey Derek Dave
MPC Daily Market Update May 31, 2023 MPC Daily Market Update June 2, 2023

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

156.63

Word count

764

Sentence count

39

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On this week's show, we discuss the election of Alberta's new premier, Danielle Smith, and what to look forward to in the coming years under her leadership as premier of Alberta. We talk about her leadership style, what to expect from her in office, and whether or not she'll be a good premier.

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 .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 But let's talk about Smith for now. We've seen different kinds of Smith. I mean, there was, you know, the policy wonk Smith before she entered politics at all. Then there was kind of a charming populist right-wing rural Smith you saw when she was Wildrose leader.
00:00:19.380 You know, then there was radio show Smith, real gadfly, controversial, likes to stir the pot, have a conversation. And then UCP leadership candidate Smith, who was populist crusader, you know, pretty much dressed with a Viking helmet there to storm the gates.
00:00:38.720 And then UCP premier, an election Smith, which was trying to calm the waters and make sure everyone knows that she's not nuts. But election night, she kind of re-hinted about, remember guys, we're taking on Ottawa, we're doing this stuff.
00:00:55.460 In an interview she's given since, she has even hinted pretty strongly that if Ottawa tries to cap emissions that would be a de facto production cap on oil and gas in Alberta, she'd consider using the Sovereignty Act, the big nuke. And we didn't hear too much about that during the election.
00:01:12.980 Corey, which Danielle Smith do you think is going to show up over the next few years?
00:01:16.860 Yes, I think she can only suppress the ideological Danielle Smith for so long. I'm not so worried about that too, because I do believe a lot of her policies, if implemented properly, will show benefit if she brings them in. I mean, the healthcare savings account could be very interesting and beneficial.
00:01:32.560 Some of the treatment-based things for addicts, I mean, if those start showing results, it's going to look good for her. Fighting against Ottawa is always a win, even if you lose the battle.
00:01:41.300 Well, just kind of wonder, my bigger concern is how well the manager, Daniel Smith, is of the caucus of the others, and having, you know, worked with her to a degree with the Wild Rose when she was leading that, and I was in the executive.
00:01:54.980 I would hope in her time out from politics, she's humbled a bit and realized that, again, if you lose the support below you, it doesn't matter what you're doing. You could really, conservatives learn that all the time.
00:02:07.280 You can lose it all. So I'd be watching much more closely with how her internal management is going on than her policy right now.
00:02:13.740 Dave, I'm going to put the same question to you. I think Danielle Smith has generally always been herself, but she'll lean into different aspects of herself.
00:02:22.920 And, you know, where the NDP was trying to shape the ballot question to be Danielle Smith, can't be trusted. She's crazy. So obviously she leans strongly against that, kind of counter-attacking it, trying to demonstrate she's reasonable and clear-headed. 0.98
00:02:36.620 But do you think she's going to continue more in that personality of just like, don't really do much over four years, just try not to rock the boat and be kind of quiet?
00:02:47.740 Or do you think she'll be kind of one of those genuinely transformative premiers that, you know, you are likely to see an Alberta police force, an Alberta pension plan, an Alberta revenue agency, potential use of invocation of the Sovereignty Act?
00:03:05.780 I don't think it's in her nature to be quiet and just try it out four years. I think Jen Gerson said it best in her column this morning. She's either going to last 18 months or she'll be going to last eight years.
00:03:19.620 She's got a couple of big decisions ahead of her, including a cabinet she's lost. She needs to find a health minister because that'll be probably her most important nomination. She needs to find a finance minister with the retirement of Travis Taves.
00:03:33.680 But I think if she's the premier that she says she wants to be for all Albertans and has listened to people and will listen to the people, I think you may see the provincial police force fall away because I don't think the majority of Albertans want that.
00:03:52.040 Our own tax agency, maybe, sure. And certainly the fight against Ottawa and Trudeau, definitely. And she said she's, you know, girding for that fight already.
00:04:02.020 As you said, Derek, in her acceptance speech. So it's all to be determined. But, you know, hopefully we've got, you know, her not going off the reservation by herself, but listening to everybody around her and surrounding herself with smart people, which I don't think the last premier probably did to his best abilities.
00:04:22.680 Thank you very much.