Shaun Newman Podcast - #279 - Danielle Smith

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Former leader of the Wildrose Party & radio host, Danielle has put her name in for the UCP leadership race in Alberta. Mandates, QR codes, Net-Zero, how to strengthen Alberta & her proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here:⁠ https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast⁠

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Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Friday. Hope everybody's week is flying by this side of the mic. It is cruising along, and it's been fun. We've been hammering out some podcasts, as you all know, and certainly ramping up here for summer months and everything else's podcast. just seem to be flying left, right and center, and lining up some road trips and that type of thing.

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For more information, visit them at Hancock Petroleum. Dat.CA. She's a former director of Alberta Property Rights Initiative and the Canadian Property Rights Research Institute. Former Director for Provincial Affairs for Alberta with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business was a member of the Legislative Assembly for Highwood. In 2012, she was the leader of the official opposition and leader of the Wild Rose Party.

She has extensive experience in media. She was a radio host with chorus and entertainment for six plus years, a writer for the Calgary Herald and served as the host on Global Sunday. I'm talking about Danielle Smith. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Daniel Smith and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Daniel Smith. So first off, thank you for hopping on. You must be sick of me by now. We've seen each other so many times in the last year. I can't even remember now actually when our first interview was. But then I also went, You hosted us up in Lloyd Minster, which was amazing.

And I'm delighted to be back. Thanks for your continued interest. March 2021, if you should know. And then we talked the day Jason Kenney discussed it being a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And we've certainly ran into each other a couple times since there. So yes, I listened to them all because I was like, you know what? I recall a time where Danielle was media transitioning. not going to worry about politics. I mean, getting back into it. And now it's kind of come full

circle to where, you know, I mean, geez, since we last talked, Jason Kenney is stepping down. Now there's a leadership race. Ooh. If the SMP presents, Daniel says, if fast, I will run. And so you, you know, you just, as I fall along, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to listen to all of them again. So I have listened to them. And I draw it down some notes and everything else. But yeah, it's been an interesting little relationship developed here because as I said in the first one, years ago, I stumbled on to you from my brother's saying, you got to listen to this lady on 630 chat, right? And certainly, I have a brother who's more into politics, but other than that, yeah, it's come quite full circle, hasn't it? Well, look at you. You used to think that when you got

started, you're going to be interviewing Ron McLean and Don Cherry and hockey greats, and look at you got little old me. Well, here's the thing. Little old you could be Premier of Alberta. And I go, and that wouldn't be so little old you anymore. And I go, to me, one of the things that's changed since I, you know, started interviewing people like yourself is, you know, the temperature in not only Alberta, but the world has been rising and rising and rising. And I think me and you have discussed it lots, actually, in our last couple podcasts about how can you change things? Well, this is certainly going to be a new facelift for, for Alberta. and somebody who hasn't been a part of the party, the entire COVID, I mean, you get to walk in with fresh eyes if elected. And I mean, I don't know. What's your thoughts on this, Danielle? Like, I mean, where would you like to go from there?

Well, I've been a fellow traveler with the unity movement and the conservative movement and the UCV party in particular. ever since Brian, Gene, and Jason Kenney were bringing the two parties together. As you know, I had a failed attempt to try to bring unity way prematurely and way the wrong way. That caused a lot of consternation and anger. I got punished and kicked out of politics, as did Jim Prentice. And we ended up with four years of Rachel Notley. So that's a pretty clear repudiation that people didn't like the way we did it. However, I think people wanted unity. And so I I was cheering Jason and Brian along, and I thought it was a really good unification process. It got the endorsement of the members.

I've been to the UCP convention, and it looks to me like it's a real merger of the two cultures. There's some really fantastic MLAs. But I think that the leadership of the party was just offside with what the members wanted, with what the MLAs wanted, with what Albertans wanted. And so I don't believe that this entity is the wrong entity. I think it's the right vehicle. It's just a matter of trying to bring back some of those disaffected folks who gave up over the last year or two. And I hope because I have fought so hard and lost a lot of friends because of unity and being premature at it in the past.

I'm really hoping that I can keep people in the tent this time. Because if we don't keep this party together, which is one of the things I was very concerned about before is that we were becoming a more progressive province. And if we split the conservative movement, that was a recipe for one of the left-wing parties to win. I didn't know which one it would be. I think it's pretty clear who it's going to be now. Rachel Notley has maintained her strength all the way through the last three years. She's poised again to go into the new election continuing to be leader, although she's having some troubles in her own party right now. But I think we can't take for granted that if this party splits apart that that we will win, I think there's a real danger that will end up with another NDP government.

That's why I thought it was important to get back in. Okay, well, we're going to start with, I always dodge and dip and duck the wild rose walking the floor question. I put it out on Twitter. The way I've structured today's sit down with you is I threw it out to listeners, I didn't think I'd have the amount of questions come back. And certainly on Twitter compared to Instagram compared to email and text to the text line, as all the listeners know all about. the thing with the Wild Rose, a lot of people, Wild Rose Nation, people that fall along and were huge supporters of you way, way, way back when. One of them said, what do you have to say to the people who feel as though they never really

were given an honest answer about what happened? I'm not sure where to go with that. I've been very honest. That was a big mistake. And clearly from the outcome where it devastated both parties, I don't think there's any other way that you can interpret it. I have all kinds of factors that were going on at the time. But I think that just acknowledging that it was the wrong way to go about it with the right

intention. I mean, unity was the intention. Totally wrong way to go about it. I mean, I happen to have a lot of respect and admiration for Jim Prentice. A lot of people at the time thought that he was the guy. A lot of my caucus thought that he was the guy. The polling seemed to suggest that he was the guy. And so sometimes maybe I was too influenced.

by what I saw at the federal level because I've been following politics for a long time. And I'd seen that people who were leaders sometimes had to take a backseat to someone else who was better. I saw that with Stockwell Day. Stalkwell Day took a seat. When Stephen Harper came along, same with Peter McKay. Peter McKay took a back seat. And both of them were able to have, I think, long and important careers with new leadership. Peter McKay gave another stab at it, was not successful the second time around. But I've been accustomed to seeing that in politics, maybe because I've been watching it for so long that sometimes it's not always your time. And that if you take a little bit of a backseat, you can learn a few more things, you can be

mentored, you could find out the things that you're not doing well and maybe correct them, then maybe you get another stab at it. I always thought I was going to run for leader again. I thought I'd have a bit more time to be mentored under Jim Prentice and a little bit more. time to understand caucus dynamics because I think there's a few things that I failed as Wild Rose leader. I value so much the role of the individual MLA, but the media kind of didn't understand or expected there to be really strict party discipline. So I think I need to figure out that balance a bit better. I also need to figure out what to do when you have a controversial candidate that can tear down the entire team. I'm always deferential to grassroots being able to make

those decisions, but I think we still need to figure out a way for the grassroots to determine that somebody's not a good candidate so that they don't end up sinking the entire team. So there are a few things that I knew I needed to learn. And I thought I'd be able to learn that by taking a step back and watching others do it. As it's turned out, I did take a step back and I haven't been watching others do it. And I had six years on radio. I had a year in business advocacy. I started my own business. So I've had seven years of learning, which makes me seven years better and seven years more prepared to step into the role this time. So that was sort of my thinking at the time just by sometimes you have to have a little bit of humility and maybe recognize that you do have a

little bit more to learn. I don't think I could be any more prepared than I am right now. And I hope people will give me another chance. I find that in Alberta in particular, we always have the, I mean, maybe it's because of our entrepreneurial culture that we, we don't expect everyone to succeed, but we accept when they, when they fail, they acknowledge it. And they pick themselves up and they get back on with trying something new. That's what I've always done. It's part of the culture of this province. It's shaped who I am. And we'll, I'll have to leave it to members to determine if they think I'm ready for it. I think I'm ready for it. That's one put my name forward again.

You know, one of the things that I've come to admire about you on sitting and having these different chats is your willingness to talk about difficult subjects. One of the things that me and you have talked to extensive lengths about politicians, certainly are federal politicians, provincial as well for that matter, just not addressing, not admitting the wrong, not having the ability to backtrack a little bit and just. just go, oops, we got that one wrong, but we're going to adjust and we're going to, you know, get better and we're going to keep moving forward. I feel like six years of radio, you don't have a show if you don't have that ability to, and maybe that's what endured you to so many people was the ability to be like, ah, I just, oh, I didn't know that piece of information. And the thing is, is you do as many shows as you've done and you learn more and more,

you have to adjust. Otherwise, you're not learning anymore. You are so right. It's why I loved radio so much. I've often said, if only I had that six years on radio before I went into politics rather than doing it the other way. Because before I had been in media and it was print media columns and television media, which was our global talk, sorry, it was our current affairs talk show on Global, called Global Sunday. And both of those are very highly edited environments to be in.

So you can be careful. You can get lawyer. You have editors that can oversee what you're doing. You can make amendments before it goes to sprint. Radio's not like that. Radio, you go live and you're on a tight rope for three to three and a half hours. And you've got to be very quick on your feet. And sometimes you don't always get it right.

There's only so much research you can do. And you've got seven topics a day, five days a week, 35 topics a week. And you're doing it week after week. It is just impossible to know everything in advance. you sometimes you're just learning on the program. And I like that, that process and I like that medium. And that was part of the reason why it's very easy to be corrected because how people know in that environment, of course you're going to get things wrong. But what I loved about it is that when I got something wrong, boy, did I ever get corrected fast. And because I was monitoring my own

texts and I was had an open line show every day, now someone will come in and say, well, I think this is what you didn't consider. And that to me is a great practice to have in politics, too, is that you've got to be willing to state your view. And then if someone says, ho, ho, ho, ho, you got something wrong here. Let me just correct your thinking on this or you hear the other side. And then you have to make an assessment of, oh, well, maybe I did get that wrong, be honest about it. Or maybe you're still of the same view and you have to explain why. That kind of challenge should be what you see in politics. We don't unfortunately get very much of it. But that is what I loved about radio. And I think that you've got to be pretty humble to be a radio host because people don't pull their punches. They sure let you know. You get a blast of it. But I want to make sure that I've got that same kind of approach in politics. I don't want to go back to being the kind of politician that gets cloistered by staff and that there's no direct access. And you're not able to get that honest opinion because you do need to have that if you're going to stay in tune with what Alberton's want.

I learned so much and I'm so grateful for it. And hopefully people will agree that that does prepare me to be to be Premier better than I would have been if I even had one in 2012. Well, I'm hoping for my own sanity that if elected Premier, you don't change. Because I've followed along now for two years and listened to a lot of what you said, read a lot of your emails, and certainly gone back through. our chats now and been like, huh, here's what she was saying at this pivotal moment. Now, it's easier maybe when it's, but it's, when it's media and not actually enacting it on a population,

but at the same time to come out at certain hot topic moments and have a balanced approach, listen to different things. There wasn't many people back then that did that. And I know that firsthand because I had, I was one putting it on the show and taking the heat for talking like that openly and, you know, having some friends and family and colleagues and everything else come after you because, you know, they, no, that's not, I don't like that or that's stupid or whatever right at the time. Now, you know, a year later, as mandates have been pulled, you know, what are the temporarily or suspended, I think is the correct term, right? Like, it's hard to put yourself back in those situations. But when I listen to the one conversation,

in particular when it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. That was the exact day we were on together. And some of the things, you know, that I hold in high regard from what you said. And it's why I keep bringing you back on is honestly, is that day, there wasn't many people that were standing up in the Alberta politics and saying Jason Kenny's wrong. I'm sure there were, but there weren't as many as there needed to be to try and contradict or, you know, try and get back some of what had happened then.

Yeah. You mentioned on a podcast, you said, nothing can change until we decide where we want it to go. And I was thinking this morning, man, here's an opportunity over the next couple months for Alberta. I mean, it's only conservative party, but as they are, you know, the majority and the leader currently, here's an opportunity for Albertans to decide which direction we want to head. Completely. You brought up on Twitter is where I first saw it. and then I read about it in your article, the Alberta Sovereignty Act. Can you tell the listener

a little bit about your idea? So there's some good news and some bad news on this one because I had a chance to talk with Brian Peckford because I'm starting my podcast again because I want to walk the talk. I told you I want to continue to be accessible to people and show them how I'm making my decisions. And the best way I know how to do that is to bring them a part of the conversation. So Brian Peckford is right now fighting in court to end the vaccine mandates permanently and to restore our mobility rights. And so he was the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador from 1979 to 82, or sorry, 89, so 10 years. And he was also the last, he is the last living signatory to the Charter of Rights and Freedom. So we walked through on that.

So I asked him about the Sovereignty Act and whether or not we would have the power as a province if the federal government brings these restrictions back in the fall, what we could do about it. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But that is part of the impetus of it, is that we keep seeing the federal government invade our areas of jurisdiction, and we just keep on passively accepting it.

And so what the Alberta Sovereignty Act would do, it would say we are not going to enforce any federal legislation or judgment that interferes with our provincial rights in our area of jurisdiction. And it's caused a little bit of a, stir, which surprises me because it seems to me that's what other provinces have been doing all along. Look at Quebec. I mean, they're routinely saying, yeah, we don't follow the laws of Canada.

Look at Bill 96 as a, for instance, they have exempted themselves from all of the anti-discrimination laws that we have in the country, use the notwithstanding clause. When the Emergency Act was declared, what they do, they can be their National Assembly and said, yeah, it doesn't apply here. and they will continue to assert their own autonomy first. I doubt there is a single politician in Quebec cowering, worried that the federal government is going to step in and kibosh one of their projects. That just isn't happening there. So if they have that level of confidence, why don't we have that level of confidence?

And it's not just them, Saskatchewan declared themselves a nation within a nation. The Quebec did, too. They even acknowledged that Quebec was a nation within a nation. And in British Columbia, just in the last couple of weeks, they've said they're not going to be enforcing the criminal code laws about possession of hard drugs for heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, fentanyl. And that comes after they had a long period of time where they weren't enforcing the cannabis laws either. So if we've already established this precedent in other provinces, that things that aren't working for the culture of their province, they're not going to enforce, we should do the same thing too. If they declare the Emergencies Act again to say, no, we're not going to follow that. If they start dictating that bank accounts are going to get frozen, we can just say, sorry,

if your money's in a credit union, we're not going to be freezing bank accounts. We could also look at Bill C69, which is the bill that interferes in every single resource development project in our province and say, okay, we recognize that you get to choose pipelines, fair enough, but we get to decide if we're going to establish a power plant or build a highway or have a sagged. de-development, you don't get to decide that. So I would say that that is the approach I want to take is let's start by saying we are going to stand firm in protecting our areas of jurisdiction, get out of our lane, get back into your own lane. And then there's probably other things that we need to do to push back against some of the pending COVID policy that's coming. I note that

you noticed, as did I, that they didn't cancel these mandates. They suspended them. And they did so at the same time as now you've got Dr. Teresa Tam saying that she believes you should have three doses to be considered fully vaxed. So let's layer these things together. We know we're going to have another fall respiratory virus season. We probably are going to have another variant. Does that mean that they're just going to reignite all of these restrictions again and make people turn on and off their access to society if they don't have a third jab? At some point we have to say healthcare is provincial jurisdiction. We've looked around the world and we've seen that there are other ways to deal with pandemics or other ways to give focus protection and we're going to chart our own course.

We've got to be prepared to do those kind of things and to find other provinces that will do the same thing so we can push back against the government. That's what I was going to say about my conversation with Brian Peckford. That's what he said is that the only way we're going to win is if we can find an ally in the east, another provincial premier who's willing to be to stand strong with us and fight back. So that'll be, if I get elected on October 6th, that'll be the next step that I try to take is for us to work in partnership with other provinces to just tell Ottawa back off on so many fronts. And then it's possible? I think we have the power to do that more so than most other provinces. It's remarkable to me how much the federal government defers to Quebec. I may

have mentioned this to you before because it stuck with me for a long. time that one of the last interviews I did was with Gerard Belzeal from Montreal Economic Institute. And when I asked him why Quebec hated Alberta so much, his answer was, they don't hate you. They just don't think about you at all. They're too busy thinking about themselves, and it's time for you to think about yourself for a change. And so as I've been ruminating on that over the last year and a half, I think that we just have to assert ourselves more like the senior partner in Confederation that we are. We've been acting like a junior player. We let the federal government collect our income tax. We let them police our communities with the RCMP. We let them collect Canada

pension plan and they're not running that particularly well. They collect employment insurance and they treat our workers unfairly. There are other provinces like Manitoba and Quebec that have taken more control over immigration so they can bring in the workers that they need to match the needs of their economy. We need to do the same thing too. We've got shortages of farm workers, of laborers, of construction, as oil patch ends up accelerating. again. We need to bring in more skilled workers there too. So it does seem to me that we've been too deferential to Ottawa. And the way I've diagnosed this is that I think we got so beaten up over the National Energy Program. My dad, my parents lost a home during that whole period. They had

a rental property and accelerating interest rates. I'm sure it's a common story for a lot of people, people who lost their jobs, people who lost their companies, people who committed suicide. My dad remembers those days as well. And I think we were so traumatized by what Ottawa did to us. I think we just said, well, if we just keep our heads down, we work really, really hard. And we let them, sure, take a share of our wealth. But as long as we can take care of ourselves and don't cause too much attention, they'll just leave us alone. They're not leaving us alone. They're coming at us. And not only are they coming at us and preventing us for being able to develop our projects. But then when we do happen to have a measure of success like we do right now,

We're talking about a windfall profits tax. So at some point, we've just got to say, hardline, no. Like, we have been trying to be a constructive member of Confederation, playing the rules, the way the federal government has set. Now we're going to play the rules, the way the Constitution intended, which is for us to have sole discretion to develop our resources and for us to have our own autonomy over our own affairs. If we start acting that way, start acting like a senior partner,

we'll start being treated like a senior partner. I think it'll change the country for the better. You know, a lot of people have talked about a provincial police force, pension. These are, I would argue for myself for sure, and I would assume my listeners as well. These aren't new ideas. Do you think you can actually get them through? Yes, Alberta Sovereignty Act, that's Bill 1. So I'm already working on the language for that one, for how we would implement it.

The collection of our own personal income taxes, we already have a tax administration that collects all of our other taxes. So we collect our own corporate income tax. We collect our own royalties, which is a very complicated regime that we've managed to figure out. We collect fuel taxes. We've got a whole pile of gambling revenues and other sin taxes that come in. Why is it that we feel we're deficient in collecting income tax? And why are we allowing Ottawa to take so much away from our people, keep a huge portion of it, and then dribble back money to us as long as there's strings attached and they can control how we deliver our programs. Why are we agreeing to that? It makes no sense. Maybe it made sense at some point when they weren't taking so much, but they

are massively overtaxing us. And one of the graphs that I saw recently that really underscores why it is we need to act on this is that this transfer of wealth really began in the Lahi days. and it increased during the climb days. It accelerated massively during the Harper days when Harper was in Ottawa. I mean, Harper was the original signatory to the 2001 firewall letter that you were just talking about. So I think we thought, okay, well, we've got our guy there. He's going to decentralize. He's going to help bring some of that power back.

And instead, because we were doing so well and the way the system is set up, it just ended up being another massive transfer to the federal government. So I would say that what we have to do is we have to bring those income tax revenues back home. And then we have to end the transfers. We'll just say, hey, look, we'll transfer tax points. This is the other thing that Quebec has done is rather than having a 26% federal rate, they reduce it down to 16%. And then we bring ours up. It doesn't make any difference to the amount of tax coming off the bill, but it just means that we keep it.

But what I really want to make clear for people is that when they say, see the amount of money going to support the federal government, they should know that that is money that leaves here and never comes back again. And as that number starts getting larger and larger, we can have a conversation about whether we're getting value for services. Because I suspect what's going to happen in the not too distant future is Quebec is going to say, we are going to collect all of our taxes, and we're going to remit to Ottawa just the share of our, or just Quebec share of the services they provide to us. And when, Quebec does that, we have to be prepared to do the same. And we won't be prepared to do the same

unless we take that first step of collecting our income tax. So I think that can be day two. And then we also need to start establishing our own provincial police. I've talked to now a couple of officers, one from the Edmonton Police Service, one from the RCMP, who have been on leave or retired early because they didn't want to abide. They believed in vaccine choice. And they wanted to be able to make their own medical decisions. When I look at someone like that, who felt that principle and that strongly, isn't that the kind of person we want in our police service? Is somebody who's going to understand the charter of rights and freedoms, understand medical freedom, understand choice? So I think that we have a huge number of men and women in uniform who've been treated poorly by different services.

Let's begin by hiring them back. Let's train them, that their job is to take care of the interests of law-abiding Albertans, that we want them focused on. on going after criminals who are hurting others or damaging property. Let's make sure that we're training them in proper mental health support so that we don't have excessive use of force when they get called out to those kinds of calls. And let's correct some of the problems that we've seen in our traditional forces and set the tone for how the other forces should be trained and operated. So I see no problem with trying to sell that message.

And the main thing is we've got to make sure that our rural municipalities don't pay any more for their policing than they are right now. But to give the promise that they're going to get better policing, that we're going to make sure that that that police force is focused on the priorities of those communities. And I can't say that that's the case right now. Well, once again, as I always say, I feel like I say this a lot when you're on. That was a lot. It was a lot. Those are the three I think we can move on immediately because you're asked, how realistic is it? I appreciate that because I, and then I always laugh.

And you pretty much, we have like the same little conversation for 10 seconds. I don't mean it's a lot in that it wasn't good. It's just that, you know, that was a lot. That's a lot for a listener to digest. Like, it's like, holy crap, maybe some of this can actually happen. And I say that because for, you know, how long has it been now? Two and a half years just feels like the hope has been sucked out of the room. There's nowhere going forward.

None of this can ever change, blah, blah, blah. And I don't see you talk and I go, maybe it's possible, right? I don't want to put all my hope in one bag here and go like we're out of this in four months. Because once upon a time you told me, you know, freedom of speech, freedom association, freedom, freedom, it's not coming back at six months. And you alluded to 30 years. And so I want to be very careful that I don't get all my hope up that Daniel Smith selected. And all of a sudden in two months, everything is just peachy. But things can change, in your opinion, quite rapid.

if you were put in office. You know what? I was so gloomy on one of our interviews, wasn't I? And you know why I was so gloomy is that I felt a little alone myself because, as you know, I left the air because there was no way that I was going to just enforce the narrative and not give the platform to those alternative medical voices and alternative ideas. And that to me was important to do. But it did feel like there weren't very many voices of support out there. And I remember writing once in one of my newsletters about the need to create parallel societies. I had met with a woman who was of Hungarian descent and her dad in communism arranged little coffee parties and little private meetups and private homes and began to form the resistance against the totalitarian regime. And so I started

talking to people about, oh my gosh, you need to create these parallel societies. You need to find people who believe like you do so that you can get together and have potlucks and share fellowship and know that you're not alone. And I was talking about that. And then I got invited to one. I realized these places actually existed in these freedom groups. They really, they really existed. And they were meeting privately all through COVID. And they were parking down the street and bringing their potluck to sneaking in the back door just to make sure that they could be together. And so that forged some incredible relationships. And then when the Freedom Convoy hit, my goodness, like it just spilled over.

It was, I think, a validation that all these private groups who had been meeting that way and trying to keep their sanity together, they knew they weren't alone. And so you watched the alternative media and you saw the flags at the side of the road and people felt really proud. And that was a bit of a break. That I wasn't expecting that to happen. Normally that kind of movement for freedom can take decades. But I think that the freedom convoy galvanized people and it got them interconnected. And maybe social media helped in the way that social media clamped us down, it also helped to spread freedom when people realized that there were others out there.

So I'm not as gloomy today because I think a lot of the heart of that happened right here in Alberta. And I think that we have an appetite to look at this, this problem that we have of respiratory viruses differently. So we also have so many people who have now been infected with COVID and they have a personal experience with it. So it's brought the fear factor down. What we don't have yet is the balanced reporting that I'd like to see in the mainstream media. But I think that to get that balanced reporting, you need to have people's in official roles like the Premier as well as your chief medical officer who are prepared to say, it's okay for us to look at alternative information. It's okay for us to analyze what we did wrong in the past.

It's okay for us to develop new practices in the future. And that's sort of the next step that we have to get to. So I'm feeling a lot more optimistic now. Well, I enjoy having not only yourself, but other people who can smile a bit, have a little optimism and the world isn't going down the gutter for the next 30 years. I want to make sure I get to listeners questions. I got, I got And we can, you know, go this way, that way with all of them, certainly. I kind of tried to separate them into different parts or different segments if I could. I don't know if I did a good job, Danielle, we'll see. But the first good chunk of it, as you can imagine, is mandates, lockdowns, COVID.

Because people don't want to ask, what would you have done different? Because that's, in my opinion, a ridiculous question. You can't go back and change it anyways. If you get elected here this fall, people want to know where you stand on, a QR code, in the social credit system. Is it the first thing that came in? What's your thoughts on having the QR code to get in restaurants, federal, well, to travel in a city, that type of thing?

The whole system needs to be dismantled. It really does because the fact that we still haven't, that things are suspended, it means that it can be activated by governments again at any time. And so I'm trying to think through how we go about doing that, because here's the problem. If the federal government brings back a travel mandate, then if we don't have a system to be able to support those who do want to travel

and are vaccinated, then it traps 100% of Albertans within our province. So it's a real conundrum. So here's what I'd say. People would ask what I would have done before and what I would do in future. I can say with confidence because I bought my Anders Teignolreveh revolutionary T-shirt, which in he was the doctor, in Sweden who was charting the different course. And people know that Ron DeSantis was my hero.

I found out about Christy Noam second. To me, we have to look at what the red state governors are doing on these issues. And if we can't find allies in the rest of the province, then we've got to be having regular conference calls with the red state governors who are continuing to endorse freedom and openness and not have mandates and passports and learn from them. And so I could imagine doing regular conference calls, if they're open up before that.

I can imagine I've been working on tried again. I told you this last time I was on Ron DeSantis on my podcast because I want to know how he developed the backbone, how he had the courage and why he never blinked and why he never looked back. There's something about the approach that he has taken that is just so strong, he's so confident, and that's what we need to do here as well.

It'd be nice to have a few more allies in the provincial premiers. But barring that, we've got to look for our allies among federal state governors. So we shouldn't have QR codes for healthcare. We shouldn't have vaccine mandates. We shouldn't have vaccine passports. No one should lose her job because of their medical choice. I'd like to see us pass legislation that changes the Human Rights Act that says you cannot

discriminate on the basis of medical choice. We have all kinds of enumerations in there. That would be one. But even Ron DeSantis, I'm sad to report, wasn't able to pass state policy that impacted federal mandates. We've got to fight this and beat it at the federal level. We can do as much as we possibly can to give medical freedom within our own environment. We can say we will not fire anybody for being unvaccinated. We will not allow discrimination of provincially regulated businesses. If somebody is unvaccinated, we will try to, we will do some kind of public

reckoning, have some kind of forum where we can bring people forward, ask them questions to make sure that we get the best results, work with other state governors. But ultimately, we need to change of government at the federal level that we need someone like Pierre Polyev to get in there and make sure that this entire system gets dismantled at the federal level. Because as long as it stays at the federal level, we're always going to be at risk of being shut down in our own country. And that's a real problem. So I'm prepared to fight that with others who want to fight the fight and to find those allies so that we can push back against it. But we should never have to show a QR coat to enter a restaurant or a gym ever again.

Yeah. I mean, this goes back over so many conversations I've had about so many different things that have come into effect in Alberta all across Canada, heck, parts of the world. The ally thing is really interesting to me because certainly if you're a rock and stand up to the current, to the whatever the prevailing theme is, By other people, premieres in particular, seeing that and seeing that it's possible, allies will probably come. But since nobody could withstand what was going on from my eyes, then there was just nobody in Canada.

And we just, like, that's a hard hat to put on, so to speak, that you're going to be the person to stand there and withstand the brunt of the force of whatever comes your way. you know, for the past two years, it's been COVID and mandates and lockdowns and everything else. Who knows what the future will be? You're very right, which is why I think we have to look for allies where we find them. I think we now finally have some outspoken people within the Conservative Party of Canada, which is positive, not just pure, but others. We now have, I think, 18 maybe more red state governors who have also turned the page and said,

no, we're going in a different direction. even in European countries and certainly the Nordic countries, we're seeing that they have turned as well. And so I think that we have to make sure that we do next time because there will be some kind of next time. I don't know if it will be a variant of COVID that they try to use as some kind of pretext to have a shutdown or if it will be some new kind of virus that's in a totally different family. but I think that they've seen that they can use fear to create this kind of outcome.

And so powers that be that want to control our lives, we'll try to use it again. The second thing that I think we really need to do is we need to get to the bottom of who was most at risk and what would have been the best way to reduce the number of deaths. Because when I hear politicians call out Ron DeSantis and Christy Nome and say, oh, well, if we had taken their approach, blah, blah, blah, that is not. not the right way of looking at it. The right way of looking at it is how, what jurisdictions had the lowest rate of death and why? And I would, I would put it to you that it had nothing to do with lockdowns, otherwise Belgium and New York and Quebec would have had the best results rather than the worst results, had everything to do with focus protection of our most vulnerable citizens in long-term care. And so what kind of policies do we need to do to protect long-term care? We probably need

rapid testing. We probably need effective therapeutics so that anyone who gets diagnosed can get treated right away so that they don't end up getting hospitalized or having their condition deteriorate. We probably need to have air filters so that we can clean the microbes out of the air. We probably need to look at our staffing policy so that we don't have staff who are going between facilities. We probably need to look at if we do end up with a facility that ends up getting COVID positive, is there a way to create a transition long-term? term care space so that we can have facilities that are free of COVID and then those where we're giving the dedicated care within a long-term care environment. I don't think we've done any of that

discussion about how we're supposed to better manage the long-term care facilities to reduce the incidence of infection and death. And that's where I think we need to focus our effort. We were all sort of meant to believe that somehow going to a restaurant was infecting long-term care residents. And in fact, if you want to make sure we don't have infection in long-term care, you've got to take a direct approach and make sure that you're protecting those homes and the best way possible. And I also don't know that we've got the right balance right now either. The number of people who are in long-term care and families who say they still can't see their loved ones, I don't think it's a great quality of life for our long-term care residents to not be able to see

family or to die alone. So I think that that is where I would like to focus is that we recognize those are particularly vulnerable citizens, and we have to be able to respect their rights as well and keep them safe and find a better balance. And by having all these distractions of, are you allowed to get on a plane because you're vaccinated or not? Are you allowed to go to a restaurant because you're vaccinated or not? Are you allowed to go to a gym? That distracts attention away from what we should be laser focused on, which is protecting those who are most at risk. And I feel like that's where governments of all levels have failed. This one comes in from the text line. It said, will you conduct a full investigation audit into

expenditures, communication, government decisions relating to COVID? And if any politician or bureaucrat is found guilty of public misfeciance, would you support punishment on them? I like the idea of doing a full, a full, robust public examination. of anyone who had a decision-making role in COVID policy. The worry I have, we have to be pretty clear about what it is we're trying to achieve. For me, I want to achieve a public education as well so that we understand what decisions our politicians were making and why. Who was giving them the advice and who wasn't?

There's some of that going on right now in court, but it's not televised. And so I don't think people are seeing some of that. we're seeing some of that some great testimony in the House of Commons right now with the committees that are grilling the ministers about the Emergencies Act. That's what I want to see. I want to know what what type what kind of hearings those are called because that's the kind of of true accountability that I think people want. And then whatever testimony comes out of it, we'll we'll see if there's anything that rises to the level of criminal malfeasance. I'm not an expert in criminal justice,

but I think that we have to have a process where all of this gets on the table and then the law enforcement will make a decision on whether or not it crosses the line. But I really like the process that I'm seeing right now in grilling those ministers on the lies they told us about trying to justify the imposition of the Emergencies Act. That is a really healthy process.

First off, malfeasance. I think I tortured that word. And two, 100% on what they're doing right now. Freeland getting grilled was just like, I mean, as a person watching, you're like, this is, wow, this is something. Like, you don't see this very often. So I agree with it. That'd be from, you know, once again, just a commoner. It'd be great to see our politicians and people who had the power in directing the last two

have to answer for someone what's going on. I think that's what a lot of the questions coming in are focused on is like, how do we ensure this doesn't happen again? And how do we ensure that people with the power to enact things, understand their actions have, you know, there's consequences if you don't, you know, like I sat here with you last time and was like, how is it that I can, me and you can sit here and have a conversation about DeSantis and understanding what he's doing right, maybe a few things he might be doing wrong, can have these ideas of like putting an engineer,

a doctor, all these different people in a room, and let's just think about this, about, you know, early patient treatment and things like that. How is it we can have those conversations, but nobody's having them in the government? And there's no way to televise it so that we understand that it's going on, so we can see it and be like, let's hold some account, like I love the word accountability. And right now, or I shouldn't say right now, for the last two years, it doesn't feel like there's been any accountability. I think why you and I take a different approach is it's because we were professional interviewers. Our whole method, the way we do our work is to try to find the best minds

to educate us and educate our audience at the same time. Whereas people who haven't had the kind of experience that we've had, that may not be their natural default. There's a lot of people in politics who like to pretend they know everything. And because they pretend they know everything. You can't teach them anything. And so I think that that is a bit of a failure. It may be in our nomination process, as we probably should elect a few more people who have the humility to say, oh, gee, I got that wrong, or know that they're going to seek out the best minds and ideas to get it right. But that I think has been fundamentally the problem that we've had through this process, is that we've got politicians who never want to admit they're wrong and think they know everything.

We've got medical officials who think they, who never want to be questioned and data aren't curious to seek out alternative advice. We've got a media, sadly, that failed us as well because they weren't seeking out alternative opinions and weren't prepared to broadcast them. So if we give permission to have that full analysis and that that full public hearing so that we can get the information on the table, maybe next time we won't end up ending up but the same problem. Maybe we'll have a lot, a lot more inquisition while we're going through it so that we don't end up making such bad mistakes. Yeah, you know, I go back to once again, the listener will get

tired of me saying this, but I believe it was our last interview that I did with you, where you talked about getting involved at the, like the local level and that, that might be a failing of conservatives in general, is that they don't have that grass, you don't get involved. You don't get involved, on the school board or the just in the city council or whatever and start from and start to understand the issues and get the support from a local level and all the way up and you wonder as we sit here in chat if that is an almost something that should be focused on as well trying to get involved more early on one but at a local level to start before you start to move up you know like I laugh about you talking about having a media background and I almost go,

I wonder if it almost should be a prerequisite of being a politician. You got to go on and you got to be able to talk and you got to be able to understand different issues and be able to take some of the criticisms that comes with speaking so openly. That wouldn't be a terrible quality either, wouldn't. No, it wouldn't. I mean, media is one profession where I think you get that. I think the law is another profession where you get that where you have to listen to both sides and you have to be prepared to battle it out.

I think on your right, at local levels of office, you have that same robust exchange of ideas, whether it's the school board or the municipality. That I think is important, that people be in the kinds of professions where they have to share ideas. And I don't know if there's any other way that you can kind of cultivate that,

aside from the ones that we just mentioned there. But I must tell you, my brief experience on the school board was, it was foundational for me and so much of what else happened in my life because I learned of the governance model that was used in school boards. I learned about how policy is made. I learned about the administration and where the lines are and how much you can direct. And I learned the frustration of not having the true ability to represent constituents just because of the way those boards

are established. And so I've been able to see that over the years as I've been in a critic role saying, we've got to change that. And we've got to change that. And so I think, that there's there's all kinds of reasons why people need to come from backgrounds where they're prepared to listen to two different sides, not get their backup if they're told that they're wrong and be prepared to adjust their thinking if they need to to try to find some kind of consensus. I'm sure your audience will have a few other areas where they can where they can where they can suggest that that might also be helpful. You know where else is helpful is team sports. There's a real connection. Totally. There's a real connection with

with hockey in particular, and a lot of people who get involved in politics. And I think it's because there's a couple of things that you've got a coach that shows some team leadership. You've also got a captain who follows some team leadership. But you also know that there's different teams that if one guy wants to be the star of the show and can't play well with others, they may not be the best team. But you also may have teams that don't have a star of the show, but because they can work well together, they can get the puck in the net more often than they can end up being the champions.

So there are certain things about, I think, structured sports that help to teach those same kind of things about not only being able to assert yourself, but also to work collaboratively that I think lend themselves to politics too. You should probably do a whole podcast on that. I'm just sort of planting that seed because I know it's important from some of the men I've met in politics who have a deep history in hockey in particular. And so I know that there's a connection, but I bet you'd be able to flesh that out better than me. Well, certainly in hockey, I can speak to that. It's a team sport, right? You can have Connor McDavid, well, we have them. And you can't win a cup with one player.

You need the full team. And hockey compared to a lot of sports, especially team sports, is like on steroids, because you can have eight great players and still not win, because it takes a whole team to win championships, especially through the gauntlet that is the NHL playoffs. Now, to stray away from NHL playoffs, one of the things that just happened a few weeks ago, geez, I'm trying to remember the timeline on it is the world economic form. And I know this has come up a ton. But it's, I think to me, it's, well, I know my answer.

We'll see what your answer is. But a listener asked, are you opposed to the Great Reset Plan? And if yes, how will you protect Albertans from the globalist agenda? Yeah, I actually read the great. reset because I had people saying it was just a conspiracy theory and so I went online and downloaded it from Amazon. And if he's actually that robust and forward about what he wants to do, I think we should probably take him seriously. The sense that I get from what it is they're trying to do is there's a group of politicians and well-heeled capitalists who just think they

know better than everyone else and that the world would be so much better run if big business and big government work together to plan all of our lives, which is a recipe for squeezing out with small guys, small and mid-sized businesses, which really are the lifeblood of our economy. And to me, that's nothing more than crony capitalism. I mean, where do we get the most vibrant and exciting things happening in business? It's the uberification of pretty well every industry. It's some smart guy with an idea, puts together some capital, finds some friends, puts a product out there.

Customers like it, and they end up buying it. seen it with Uber, we saw it with Airbnb, we saw it with Expedia, like you could probably come up with a dozen examples yourself. But that really disrupts the incumbent players, the incumbent players who are used to their connections with government and their regulations and their established protocols with bureaucracies and their ability to get government contracts. They don't like that kind of disruption. So what I see happening is that there's a group at large that wants to take more and more power out of the hands of the individual, out of the hands of individual communities. And there's a lot of national level politicians who seem to think that that's the way

economy should be run. It's kind of more the model of China's state directed capitalism. But China's generally seem to be a communist country. So I don't know why we would be wanting to model that form of capitalism. I kind of like free enterprise capitalism. And because I've seen what's happened in the U.S. I think we have the ability to chart our own course at the provincial level. There's not much I can do to change global government. There's not much I can do to change Canadian government. But there is a lot I can do to change how our Alberta government operates and our municipalities and our school boards as well. And so those would be the things that I would focus on. That's why I have a lot of confidence that we do have the ability to chart a different

course. And as we chart a different course, what happens is people vote with their feet. If you create an environment that supports entrepreneurship and innovation, makes it easy to start a business, makes it easy to do business, allow people to keep more of what they earn. That's just going to attract more businesses and people here. We will win by default, but we have to create that environment. And that's what I think we have 100% authority to do. We've got to start doing it. I have a police officer who listens to the show. And so he just says, as a police officer, I'm aware of units such as sensitive investigations units or anti-corruption units. The main purpose of these units is to look into matters involving corrupt officers.

They are supposed to deal with other corruption and varying levels of government as well, but they rarely do. Would you be willing to implement an anti-corruption unit that deals primarily with corrupt politicians or send the mandate of the already existing units so that it more broadly and clearly allows for the prosecution of corrupt city officials? You know, I'd be interested in talking to him a bit more to understand where he thinks the corruption is, because I think that if we kind of have a soft corruption, that it's not like people are getting bags of cash to approve decisions. Like that is the kind of robust corruption that you see in other countries. I think S&C. Lavlin got their hand slap for a few of the things that they were doing in Libya and other places around the world as a, for instance. I think what happens in our, in our

system is just a way too cozy relationship between companies that are seeking contracts and the politicians that are making the decisions around that. Does it rise to the level of a police investigation? I'm not sure it does. But I'd be interested in hearing what he thinks is going on, because I've been around the political world for a long time, and I've talked to a lot of bureaucrats, and I'll tell you one thing. I'll just give you an idea of what I would look at, and maybe he'd have some advice on this. What I'm worried about because we've got, what, $62.5 billion coming into government now, we have so many decisions that are made by central bureaucracy. What I'd be interested in looking at is, are the requests for proposals written with a nod and a wink? We'll write it this certain

way so that you're the only company who would be able to get the bid. Is that the kind of thing that's going on? That was the seed that was planted with me years ago, is that that's the kind of kind of thing where not everybody's got a fear chance of being able to win a government contract. But I haven't really seen any evidence that there is money-changing hands to have politicians make certain decisions. If I'm wrong on that. In Alberta. No, I haven't seen any evidence of that in Alberta. No. Because I certainly, we've, we've all seen the scandals federally over and over again. Ontario, I've seen them. I'm trying to rack my brain right now because I got listeners who are probably going to shoot me text. No, no. Let me give you a couple of examples. And maybe this is what your

audience is get or your officer is getting at. Like look at that former MP who sets up a shingle and says, oh, I can now create ventilators. And he gets a ventilator contract for over $100 million. And I don't think he built a single ventilator. There's probably some investigation that needs to be done into how COVID money was spent because there's enough great reporting being done by Blacklock's reporter about how decisions were made fast-tracked and it was how connected you were as a firm determined whether you got the contract. Totally agree that kind of stuff needs to be investigated. That's what your officer is talking about. I think there's definitely some value and looking into that. Yeah. Here's a here's a you know coming to the actual requirements of

getting in the race. Like, 175 grand. That's no small feat, Danielle. And then a thousand signatures over five different districts. If I read that correct. Correct. Like, do you look that and go,

welcome to the challenge? Are you looking at that going, holy dinah, they don't want it. Just like, they're trying to make it impossible for anybody to get in there. Well, I know I'll be able to make that fundraising target and to get, those signatures because I've done this before, remember. I did run for leader. And the first time

around, I think I ended up with 10,000 votes. And I think my campaign cost $400,000. So I know that what that was what I was able to do when I was trying to win the leadership of a party that at the time didn't even have any seats. So I know that there's a huge appetite to provide that kind of support. And so I think I'll be able to do that. But some of the other candidates who haven't done it before, I would be worried that they might not be able to raise that money in period of time. The signatures, I think, is a reasonable one to get. I probably just in the last week, I've seen a thousand people. We downloaded the nomination forms yesterday. So I think I'm I've got, I think, about 200 signatures already. And so I have a ton more events coming up.

So I think I'll be able to get it. I have to figure out where the northern zone is, though. I was saying, oh, if it's a light minister, I can go see Sean. But I think you're in central zone. So I don't know that I'll be able to get up to Lloyd Minster immediately. But I think that there is a, I think it is a bit high. The worry that I have, though, as well is that they're not making the emails available. So you have to put $50,000 in to do your entry fee and a $25,000 performance bond. And then you have to put another $50,000 in to be able to get the membership list. And then you have to put the final $50,000 in at the end when the membership sales close.

So there's a bit of a staged entry into the race. But why wouldn't they give people email? Everybody wants to communicate by email. It's not very environmentally friendly to make us, I don't know, go back and do direct mail and print off brochures and put them in the mail. And it just seems odd to me. That to me is the bigger barrier to communicating with members. I mean, I know members don't want to get bombarded with emails. And maybe there's some kind of rule that a campaign.

can only send out one email a week to the full list, but come on, going back to, I don't know, 1960-style campaigning, that just, that to me is a little bit ludicrous. So we've already put in a request to the party to reconsider that, as I know some of the other candidates have, because we don't have very much time to campaign. You get your own list and your own membership sales, but we won't get the full list of who all of the other members are until after the membership sales close in August. And then you've got to ask people to consider giving you their second place support. And so if we want to do that in an efficient way so that every candidate has a fair, has a fair chance to get their ideas forward to the membership, then to me,

that was the dumbest part of the rules. And I hope they change it. Let's switch to a couple thoughts on the economy. One of them is net zero. So people want to know whether or not you support net zero. and then further on that, is it even possible in Alberta? We can get to net zero faster than anyone else. And here's the vision that I put out there, because I have seen projections about how we can get to net zero by 2041. And then when you think about what that means, it means that we would be continuing to sequester CO2

and others would pay us to sequester it for them. So I just love this idea that we get there faster than Quebec, and then Quebec starts paying us $170 per time. to sequester their CO2. So just know that that's sort of why I think we can get there. But let me tell you how we can get there. And the reason why I have such confidence, it's because in the last few years, the level of innovation that has happened in this sector is extraordinary. One of the last interviews I did before, in the year before I left radio, was someone who told me about the Haber-Bosch process. And what it is is essentially a process

that allows us to take nitrogen out of the air and turn it into ammonia, which can be used for fertilizer. Now, when the guys came up with the two scientists came up with that 100 years ago, they probably didn't know that that would enable us to feed five billion additional people on the planet. We wouldn't be able to feed everybody if they hadn't come up with that process. But now what is happening is scientists are applying the same kind of thinking to how do we pull CO2 out of the air and capture it and turn it into useful products. And we're just at the cost of figuring some of that out. So let me tell you some of the early successes that we've seen.

We already are expert at catching CO2 at site and then burying it underground. We use enhanced oil recovery right now, but we can also just bury it in some of the deep caverns that we have and sequester it forever. Those are two different ways it can be used. The third thing that we know we can do is do LNG export so that we can displace coal. as a fuel in China, India, and elsewhere around the world. We can do that and get credit for it back here because we're displacing CO2. There's a mechanism in the Paris Accord to be able to do that. So that's a third way that we'd be able to reduce, to get to NANZero.

The fourth way is that we can capture the CO2, and as I mentioned, turned it into useful products. So I've seen, for instance, the carbon nanofiber, which is a construction material, they're turning CO2 into cement, embedding it in cement to create harder concrete. Lehi Hansen, among others, carbon upcycling are doing that. There's a way that you can capture the CO2 with a membrane and you harvest it for industrial minerals. There's a company in Calgary doing that with industrial boilers and turning it into soap. You can take it and turn it back into plastics. You can take it and turn it into alcohol.

There's a company called Airco, which makes a vodka out of a pure stream of CO2. I think I'm up to number five now. In addition to that, you have got the Pathways project, which is all the big oil sands projects, saying that they can be net zero by 2050, and I've had a presentation on that project. Part of it is building this carbon trunk line and going down to cold light, capturing the CO2, burying it,

but also having the ability to turn it into the products I just discussed. But they're also intending to implement small modular nuclear, which would allow them to develop the resource with less reliance on natural gas, and still be able to get a useful product. So that's number six. In addition to that, small modular nuclear is being rolled out in Darlington in 2008. There's other smaller micro-nuclear reactors that they intend to be rolling out

sort of in the two to 10 megawatt range in smaller communities. They intend to do that by 2026. I mean, the possibilities of that, especially in serving our rural and remote communities, are immense. And so we can essentially with these smaller units, they can just plug into our existing power plants. So at some point when we are wanting to retire out the natural gas combustion, we can switch to nuclear. So that's, I think, number seven that we're on. And in addition to that, there's another company, two other companies that I want to tell you about,

that are looking at ways that we can use bitumen in a post-combestion way or a non-combustion way. So rather than converting it into fuels that then get burned in our tanks, we can turn it into carbon nanotubes, which become a replacement for steel. So we don't have to import steel from China anymore. And think of all the jobs that would come out of that if we developed a local construction material out of that. The other one is Wapaki. They have a plan for using hydroelectric power to take the fines out of the bitumen and then using the bitumen for asphalt. And when you think about where we're going in the world, we're going to, even if we do have net zero vehicles for electric or hydrogen, then we still need roads to drive them on. So we can do that in a net zero way. I think I'm on number nine. Number 10, we can talk about hydrogen. We have a whole, our basin in the West is built on natural gas. And natural gas is just CH4. So there's four hydrogen molecules that become the foundation or atoms that become the foundation. for us to build out a hydrogen economy. So our net zero vehicle strategy or our zero emissions vehicle

strategy centers around hydrogen. So let's build up the hydrogen economy here. Let's get hydrogen fueling stations and all of our major centers and help our long haul trucks and all of our municipal vehicles to convert over. And on top of that, let's talk about nature-based solutions, capturing CO2 in all of our grains, capturing in our soil and fescues. So I think I'm up to 13 ways. Now, do I have you convinced? We just haven't been, we just haven't been selling it enough. We've got terrible negotiators whenever we've gone internationally. We got this. And when we solve this problem, then it's just going to create so many new industries. I do not look at it as a barrier at all. I think we've outmaneuvered them. I think they thought we couldn't do it.

And entrepreneurs didn't let me down. Our innovators did not let us down. Oh, and I've got 14th. direct air capture. There's a company, Kevin Crossard, he has created a company called Avatar Innovations, and he has partnered with the Elon Musk Foundation to support 10 different projects with an X-Price of $100 million for whoever has the best idea to pull CO2 out of the air just in the way that I talked about at the beginning that we've learned how to do with nitrogen. So why would we stand in the way of any of this innovation? This is what conservatism is about. It's about support. entrepreneurs and markets to develop solutions to problems. And so I think we are well underway. We just need somebody who can talk about it in a way that we'll make the rest of the country realize

that we can do this. We can have the very best environmental standards. We can have energy security. We can deliver affordability. We can partner with First Nations. We can really have it all. I know after you rattle off 15 on me, I think for a lot of people, and I hope I do this justice, they equate net zero in this area to, I mean, we live in rural Alberta, Saskatchewan, so gas vehicles, diesel vehicles, driving lots, cold winters, heating houses, all these different things that is life here. and what you're suggesting or saying is we can take care of that and still be net zero. We certainly can because here's the thing with natural gas as well. We're already seeing ACCO investigate how they would be able to embed more hydrogen into that natural gas stream to reduce greenhouse gas footprint there.

And presumably at some point, someone will develop one of these membranes to put on residential furnaces so that you can harvest industrial. chemicals there as well. And I do believe as well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a fueling stations all over the province, then all of a sudden it becomes practical to, for, for people to buy these, these, these Toyota hydrogen vehicles. And so why don't we talk to Toyota or Honda or Hyundai who also have hydrogen vehicles and get them to establish a plant here. Let's say, hey, this, everybody, the environmentalists say that this is, everybody, a climate emergency? Great. We will fast track anyone who wants to come here with a permit approval process so they can start producing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell trucks, hydrogen fuel cell agricultural equipment, hydrogen fuel fuel cell machinery. Because I do not believe that we're going

to have the traditional vehicles they have in Eastern Canada. Eastern Canada has hydro. We've got to build on what our basis of support is and what our natural basis in our economy is and that is hydrogen. So I'm feeling really optimistic that we'll be able to do that. I like your optimism because I know when net zero carbon emissions, all this always comes up. Lots of different things come up. One of them being we're Canada, we're a cold spot, we're dark half the year. We don't need intermittent power with solar and wind. And one of the things I didn't hear out of the 15, I think, was wind and solar.

And I'll tell you why. I mean, when you look at wind, wind isn't going to be net zero until steel is net zero and fiberglass is net zero and concrete is net zero. And all of the transportation to take it to the site is net zero. And they find a way to recycle those those turbines. And they find a way to stop killing birds and and bats. I mean, nothing is is truly green and has no impact on the environment. Solar panels too. You can't make solar panels without. coal. And right now, we ship coal over to China so that they can create solar panels and then we ship the solar panels back here and we act as they didn't use fossil fuels to create them. So I would say I'm more interested in how do we create new industries out of these new component parts. How do we do a transition that actually makes sense for us? And I'm not going to support intermittent power because that doesn't work, as you mentioned in our climate. One of my favorite Tweeters that I used to often quote whenever we got to a polar vortex at minus 30 was reliable AB because I always wanted to know, well, how's that wind and solar doing when we're

at minus 30? And almost always it was either zero production or very small percentages. And that persuaded me that that is the, that's the wrong track. But if we're talking about hydrogen, I think it changes everything. Why are those the two that get pushed so hard that? You know, like literally you rattled off 15. And I know there's people that are going to be gung-ho to stick it to you about a bunch of problems out of the 15 and everything else. I'd love to sit here and get in that debate. I'm watching the clock very closely. But I don't know.

When you look at the 15, you know, what are the problems? There has to be something that sticks out. You're like, yeah, we got 15 that are up and coming. But I don't know, Daniel. It's cost. That's the real. It's cost. It is cost.

Yeah, because as you know, every time you do something brand new for the first time, it costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of money to make the first iPhone and the first iPad. But look at how cheap they are now, now that everybody uses them. And so it's the initial investment that costs a lot of money. Same with oil sands. Oil sands costs a lot of money for us to figure out how to do it. And now look at the dividends that it's paying today.

There's a potential for $22 billion with a resource revenue this year. But here's what I would say is if we don't know. not enable our oil sands companies to take some of that profit and use their own money to invest in the things that we're talking about, the federal government's just going to come along and steal it. We already have Jugmeet saying, saying he wants a windfall profits tax on our industry. So if that's the alternative is that they're just going to steal the money so that they can buy votes in the rest of the country, why don't we enable our companies to be able to invest in these things with the money that they're earning so that we can accelerate the adoption

of these kinds of proposals. So the way I look at it too is I've seen historically, because I've followed the environmental movement for some time, is there will always be some new environmental problem that's put forward. But we can make these problems less severe by solving them. We solve the problem of acid rain by figuring out sulfur dioxide scrubbers. We solve the problem of the ozone layer by figuring out an alternative to CFCs. We solved the problem of DDT, killing bird.

eggs by finding a different way to deal with mosquitoes. So this to me is just the latest challenge. And I think our industry is rising to it. So I'm more than happy to be a champion for it. The nice part about what happened over the last couple of years is that with the Planet of the Humans documentary and with the Big Green Lies documentary, you had environmentalists look at wind and solar and say, wait a minute, you need a whole lot of fossil fuels to make these work. these aren't as green as we thought they were. And so I think that that's what's broken the spell, because now you look at Europe.

Europe has said that nuclear qualifies for green bonds. They've said natural gas investment qualifies for green bonds. Why don't we do the same thing in Alberta and say these are legitimate ways to invest in a green energy future? And let's chart the course on that. We wouldn't be offside with what they're doing in Europe, but we've got a federal government that's standing in our way, which is part of the reason why we have to assert ourselves even more.

Parents have reached out. They're concerned about schools, education, some of the things that kids are being taught. Thoughts on our education system. I'm watching the time closely here. So you got to keep, how many more do we have? So I better figure out how to keep my question,

my answer shorter? Two. Two. Okay. So as you know, I mean, I'm so used to talking to you for a long period of time. I never think I have to worry about times.

Well, normally you don't. It's your schedule. that's really messing us out. I know. I've got another one coming up with medical doctors. The couple things I'd say, one, I've met with the ATA this week because I wanted to identify some of the ways that we can do testing to make sure that we diagnose early problems that that kids are having and struggling with because the last two years of COVID. We have to make sure that kids are reading at grade level, doing math at grade level, that if there's an undiagnosed

learning disability that we diagnose that so we can get them the treatment. If kids are having problems with the speech therapy, because they haven't been able to see adults move their mouths for the last two years, we've got to address those two. So I'm hoping that we can do that through the school system. If not, we have to find a way for parents who think that their little one is struggling to give them access to testing so that we can get early diagnosis. The other thing I was asking them about was whether we can have teacher-led micro-microids. schools because we're seeing this movement in the U.S. where teachers are essentially going back to setting up a one-room schoolhouse. And I'm very supportive of charter schools and independent schools

and homeschooling. I'm very supportive of all of that. But there's a lot of parents who don't have the time or feel they have the competence to teach their kids at home. So homeschooling isn't an option for everyone. But they want to be able to have a little bit more of a direct relationship with the teacher and have a little bit more control over the environment their kids are in. So what if we allowed microschools and we allowed for a teacher to set up a shop and attract students on the basis of giving those students a $10,000 voucher and they can attract as many students as they want to be able to build out their school? That would be the kind of thing I'd like to see if we can do a pilot project on. And if that creates a little bit of a safety valve or a

letting off steam valve so that so that we can solve some of the conflict that we're seeing in the school system. I believe that progressive parents should have right to have progressive education for their kids. Conservative parents should have right to have a more conservative education for their kids. And there's a way for us to be able to accommodate both. But I don't think we've developed those options out as well as we could have. And that's what I'd like to see. A voucher system, I literally just heard about this not too long ago, this idea of giving parents a voucher.

And as listeners probably know, right, your kid going to a school, they get money for said kid being in that school. And instead of going that way, giving the parent the power of having the voucher in their hand and wherever your child, sorry, in rolls, then you hand in your voucher and that's where the money is directed. Essentially, I mean, that's a very simplistic. They do that in Sweden.

They have a system like that in Sweden. Yeah. And so this would be a similar. be a bit of a smaller scale pilot project to even see if there's an appetite for it and to see if there's enough teachers who'd be willing to do it and there's enough students that parents want to put into a program like that. But I think we've got to try some of these things because I'm hearing the same frustrations that you are that the parents, a lot of parents just want the kids focused on the basics. They want to make sure they can read, write, and do math well,

maybe do some programming, have access to learn how to do science and lab work and really focus on some of those academic basics, and we should be able to accommodate that. Your final one before the final one. A ton of people talk about independence, and I know we've talked about autonomy and different things that way, a nation within a nation, that type of thing.

I had the question asked, if people fear change and the unknown, which I think we both agree with, would you support a team, similar to what I did with the SMP presents, actually, an economist, lawyers, politicians, business specialists, etc. to plan out together a separation plan.

But with just pluses and minuses of what it would look like, that would make people comfortable with even considering it. Did that make sense? Like just an education on the idea. You know who's doing that is Dr. Dennis Modry with the Alberta Prosperity Project. Yeah, if you go to any of his seminars, he's kind of, he's mapping out what a future might look like.

And so anyone who's interested in pursuing, that I think should go to his meetings. I personally have not given up on Canada yet. I understand why so many have, but I don't think we've worked hard enough to try to fix Canada. And I don't think we've worked hard enough to try to assert our rights under the Constitution and assert ourselves as a senior partner. So I think there's a track that I'm walking along in parallel the Alberta Prosperity Project. But I'm still, I'm still, I'm still trying to give Canada one more chance. Okay, your final one then. And this is the final five brought to you by Crude Master Transport. Heath says, if you're going to stand behind a cause that you think is right, then stand behind

it absolutely. What's one thing Danielle will stand behind as Premier? I have sort of three things. They're all sort of related. I launched with the with the stance of economic freedom, personal liberty and community. Because to me, that is foundational. That's That's what being a libertarian is all about, is that you begin with wanting to make sure every single individual has the ability to do whatever they can aspire to do, whatever they can achieve and support them in that. But then you have family to make sure that they have that social safety net where they're supported. And you also make sure that there's a broader community that they can tap into so that you can build out that common set of values. And when you have those three things,

That's when businesses flourish. That's when communities flourish. It's when churches and social community groups flourish. So I'm very much about starting with at the small level. I know everybody wants to fix all of these big international institutions that keep trying to interfere in our lives. But I would flip that around. I'd say the way you make the change is closer to home. And if you can start building out those networks, then that's the way that we restore liberty.

So that's what I think is the most important. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you giving me some of your time, Danielle, and best of luck here in the coming months as you take a run for it. My pleasure. We'll do this again. I know it. Sounds good. Thanks again.