Shaun Newman Podcast - #552 - Premier Danielle Smith

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

She is the leader of the United Conservative Party and the Premier of Alberta. We discuss COP28, the Manning Report and safety in the big cities. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastE-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] [phone] – general sales line, ask for Grahame and be sure to let us know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Tanner Nadee. I'm Trish Wood. This is Tammy Peterson. This is Curtis Stone. This is Quick Dick McDick. This is Kerry the Don, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday.

Well, the premiere is on. And this was recorded a couple days ago. It was recorded on Monday. I wanted to make sure everybody knew that. Not that it really matters, but we live streamed it on Facebook, Twitter, Rumble. I wanted to make sure that it got out there, as it is the Premier. And just so everybody's, you know, if you haven't been paying attention to the social media, totally cool.

This is still, you know, like it's Premier of Alberta. We just wanted to make sure we got it out early because I'm like, when happens the things go on in the next two days and I've got to pre-record, you know? So it's like, okay, we're going to release this sucker early, get it out the door. And yeah, so here is the, today's interview is with the Premier from Monday. That being said, today's episode sponsors, Blaine and Joey Steffing, Guardian, plumbing and heating, home of the Guardian Power Station, bringing free electricity to everyone, as well as reliable off-grid solutions, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Beyond.

They're teaming up with the podcast in 2024 to bring you the Guardian plumbing and heating blue-collar roundtable. So we've been working on this idea of a blue-collar roundtable, sat down with Blaine and Joy, and Guardian is going to get involved in it. So this is happening. January, the first ever Guardian plumbing and heating blue-collar roundtable. is going to be a thing. I'm excited for it. Excite to have the Stefan Brothers helping push it forward,

and we'll look forward to that. So that's coming next year. If you want to get Guardian Plumbing and Heating, go to Guardian Plumbing and Heating.com. Where, of course, you can schedule your next appointment at any time. The Deer and Steer Butchery, it's a fast-growing, custom-cutting and wrapping butchery located near Lloyd Minster. They focus on high-quality, locally sourced meats, with unparalleled customer service who are proud to be from this community.

They're currently seeking a dedicated and experienced butcher to join them just not as an employee but as a partner. If that's you, reach out 780870-8700. I want to say thanks to Caleb Taves, Renegade Anchors. They've been a community spotlight. So this week, they're just wishing everybody. Merry Christmas. Hopefully everybody is safe and sound. Get to see some family and friends and appreciate Renegade Anchors doing that.

Erickson Agro Incorporated out of Irma, Alberta. That's Kent and Tosha Erickson. They're going to have Mr. Blair home here very soon for an extended break. Obviously, he's been living at the Newman residence and playing for the athletics here in town. And so that'll be back home awfully soon. And that's Kent and Tosh Erickson, raising four kids, a family farm, and growing food for their community in the great country that we all reside. Silver Gold Bull, North America's premier precious metals dealer with a state-of-the-art distribution centers in Calgary and Las Vegas, you may have noticed that silver gold bull is now in Costco.

Yeah, that's right. They're supplying Costco with silver and gold. So if you are walking through on one of your Costco runs and you see the boys there, feel free to say, hey, heard about you guys on the SNP. I'd appreciate that. If you're looking to buy gold, silver, or I don't know why I'm spacing here. I'm spacing. I'm like drawing a blank.

Go to the show notes. everything is down there the website the email to get in contact we got our own dedicated email smp at silver gold bull.com you can call them you can talk to graham you can let them know and so many of you have been reaching out to me which is super cool and to them which i've heard back already which is you know hats off to all of you it's it's cool uh that uh you know you've uh responded and i look forward to working with silver gold bull next year now let's get on that telot tape brought to you by Hancock Petroleum for the past 80 years. They've been an industry leader in bulk fuels, lubricants,

methadone, and chemicals delivering to your farm, commercial or oil fuel locations. For more information, visit them in Hancockpetroleum.ca. She's the leader of the United Conservative Party, the Premier of Alberta. Of course, I'm talking about Premier Danielle Smith. So buckle up, here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Today, I'm joined by Premier Daniel Smith. Ma'am, great to have you back on. Well, it's nice to talk to you. I can't remember that the last time we should. January 16th, you were in the middle of running to be premier again, well, or soon to be, I shouldn't say you were. But that's what the focus of the conversation was around. My goodness, things have changed a lot in the last year. They certainly have. You've been a busy woman. You've been all over the news.

Let's start with, how would we just start with the federal government? Can we just start there? because I think, you know, Albertans specifically would love to have a little bit of teeth in their government, and you've got to see that, you've got to be in different meetings, etc. And I'm curious, you know, from the outside looking in, it looks like you're always fighting. Is that the case with the federal government, or is there more to it? You know, I hate for that to be the perception,

because I've really oppressed the issue of cooperative federalism with a spirit, I think, of genuinely trying to find an agreement. It's why when I first talked to the prime minister, I said that how do we find ways to dramatically reduce emissions? Let's focus around 2050. We put a table together. We're talking about small modular nuclear, which I think there might be an opportunity for in Lloydminster, incidentally, because it's a cross-border city. We can talk more about that if you're interested. We've got hydrogen as another area where we can collaborate.

We're going to see net zero petrochemicals, net zero hydrogen, net zero cement. All of these are things that we're partnering with the federal government on. And so I thought we were making some real progress, but I have to be very frank with you. We're not going to be able to work with Environment Minister Stephen Gibo. And I'm beginning to see I'm not the only one who thinks so. He's obstinate and he's not practical. And for some reason, the federal government seems to have handed over all decision-making power on all industrial policy over to him with no oversight. So whether it's net zero electricity or whether it's emissions caps, methane caps, regulating cow burps.

or now regulating the number of cars that are allowed to be sold into various markets. Every stakeholder that I speak with who has had some kind of dealing with Gipo, so he's completely unreasonable and unmoved. And so I'm beginning to wonder what in the world, why this federal government has handed over all of the reins of decision making to somebody who is so clearly destructive, destructed national unity, destructive to our economies. I was on a show on the weekend.

And I said, you know, maybe the rest of the country doesn't have a lot of sympathy for Alberta because we, you know, we have been an major oil and natural gas producer. And it has caused tension because we are so wealthy. But if they allow Gibo to come and kill our principal industry, it'll be their industry next. And we're seeing it. They're about to set out on destroying the auto manufacturing industry with aggressive targets that everyone is going to have to buy electric vehicles as their new vehicle by 2035. And there's no way to force people to buy electric vehicles.

It just means what they're going to do is start ratcheting down the amount of production they do on regular cars. We're entering into a world where we're going to literally have to sign up at the beginning of the year because they're going to ration the number of vehicles that are sold into a given market. This is crazy that this is the direction that we're going to. we're going. So when I when I say yes I want to be oh I want to be open minded want to work collaboratively but there are that one particular minister is out of control and I don't want to mince words on it.

We've got to do something about it. Earlier this month he came back from COP 28. I'm curious, you know, because he said some interesting things there and I mean you would have been there to see it firsthand or at least been in the same vicinity. Why go to COP 28 and then as you're there and hearing the things coming from Minister Gobot, how did that change the conversations that you're trying to have there? Because I assume you were going to open up dialogue around what Alberta does because we like to try and put our best foot forward saying, we're the cleanest, we're the everything.

And yet at a COP28 where they're trying to phase out fossil fuels, interesting choice from my eyes, but maybe you have a different perspective on that. and of course then comments from the minister. I suppose it's subtlety in language. There's no question in my mind that Stephen Gibbo was advocating and wanted to have a complete phase-on of fossil fuels, which is treacherous.

There's no other way of describing it. To have our federal government go to an international conference and be campaigning to shut down our principal industry with our principal number of exports, it's bananas that we have allowed that. that to happen. But he was moderated by the other energy producing jurisdictions who said, okay, fair enough, we believe that we need to reduce emissions and even transition away from, as the language that they use. But they've also endorsed carbon capture utilization and storage

as one of the ways that we transition away from emissions. They've induced natural gas as a transition fuel, which is something we've been saying all along. So I think some of that got lost in the fine print and the enthusiasm by the extremists to try to shut this industry down. But I would say that that was the other side of the discussion that was going on. The energy producing nations of the world and jurisdictions of the world are all of a similar mind that the number one thing we have to do is alleviate energy poverty. We've got 2.2 billion people on this planet that don't have access to reliable supplies of energy. and in making sure that we're going to deal with this in an equitable way, we've got to bring people up as we're also reducing emissions.

And so we're at a point where there's a complete cleavage, I would say, that there are the extremists who believe that the fossil fuel industry can be shut down tomorrow with no impact. And then there's those of us who understand that the hydrocarbon sector is being a very responsible provider. They're the only ones who can reduce emissions at a scale that's going to make a difference. and they have to be an integral part of the process. But I can tell you, we're getting no help from our federal counterparts. We've got to be there to get that message through. I've been curious sitting here watching all the videos come out of COP 28. You know, the way you talk, I go, yeah, that makes, you know, for the most part sense, I guess.

But when you look at all the videos coming out of there, I don't know if Minister Givot was that far out of line with everything else everyone else is saying there. You know, like 200, roughly, countries have basically said, formally agreed to move away. And I know it's subtle, subtle language, but move away from fossil fuels and rapidly ramp up renewable energy. And you go, like, from where he's standing, you know, if I'm going to take his side just for a second, which I don't want to do. But if I do, like the agreement that everybody's making and going COP 28 is basically

fossil fuels we need to get off them. So the only thing we're arguing about now is the duration to get off. And when we look at the world premier, to me it looks like it should be the opposite. And what you're talking about is like there's people living in poverty right now that we can help pull out in a real manageable, clean way that Alberta has been known for. We all know it here in Alberta. Am I wrong in that train of thought? Because that's what I see.

Well, let me put it to you this way. So I met with the prime minister of Qatar. And one of the things that they said is that they are amping up the amount of solar electricity that they're going to be generating. They want to have their people consuming 50% solar. And part of the reason they want to do that is that they can export more clean LNG to more nations in the world that are going to need it. So that's why I don't know that it's not inconsistent for us in Alberta to say, yeah, we're prepared to look at. ways in which we can use carbon capture utilization and storage. We're prepared to bring small modular nuclear onto the grid. We're prepared to have hydrogen vehicles on the road. Those are the things

that are going to reduce emissions for us in Alberta, but we're still going to be responsible in making sure these products are available to the world where they're needed. LNG is going to be the most significant way that emissions get reduced globally because the alternative fuels that people are using are, first of all, none. Second of all, wood, dung, coal. Those all have not only higher emissions profiles for greenhouse gas emissions, but also for pollutants. It's dangerous. We've got indoor air quality issues in every home that is using those kinds of fuels to be able to cook their food. So I would say that that's how I'm looking at it. I'm going to put the most positive perspective on it because I can tell you Norway's doing the same thing. Do you think Norway is

amping down their production? No, they're having it both ways. They're reducing the amount that they're using domestically, and then they're increasing the amount that they're making available to the rest of the world. And that's the model that we're going to use in Alberta. And I think we've got justification for it as well, because we've got a constitution that says we have the right to develop our resources and to determine the pace of production. And we'll be fighting it out with the federal government every step of the way. We're just simply not going to let them step in and shut our industry down. The other part, say is that there's a huge amount of use for hydrocarbon fuels that don't include burning them.

So I would say increasingly we're going to see those high value uses. So when we first started off developing hydrocarbon fuels, everybody wanted kerosene. And there was a whole bunch of muck and sludge left over. And some entrepreneur came along and said, hmm, what can I do with that? And now we have 6,000 different products that come out of a barrel of oil. We're still going to need lubricants. We're still going to need plastics. we're still going to need all the petrochemicals that go into making all the things that we need to use.

We still need asphalt. All the folks who want to drive electric vehicles, they're still going to need roads to drive them on. So we're going to need carbon nanofibers. We're going to develop alternative construction materials. So that's why I look at it, is that I see that our industry is looking for ways to reduce combustion uses, find other ways to use it for construction, and we'll end up with a lower and lower emissions profile. So I think that Alberta is still going to have the best barrels in the world, and we're going to have hydrocarbon fuels being used for a very long period of time.

It'd be nice if we didn't in this area have to worry about 2035, all these different years coming down the pipe when it comes to combustion engines, specifically in vehicles, Danielle. I mean, like, what's going on here with EVs and everything else and trying to push us all there in the climate. You know, we're getting off pretty scot-free right now when it comes to our Alberta winter. We know this is a flash in the pan because we'll be back to minus 30 and I hate to even bring it up. I should knock on some wood because chances are that's coming for us. But, I mean, in our climate and everything else, it doesn't make any sense. From your angle, your end, what can the province do to make sure that doesn't come in here?

I have to tell you, I had a couple of conversations with manufacturers and with auto dealers. And I'm even more alarmed by the policy that's going to be announced around this. These groups have been trying for two years to get Stephen Gibo to see reason on this. And they told me the policy that is being announced is pretty much the same as when they started. So just to understand how we are going to be immediately impacted in Alberta by these regulations if they get adopted. The only way for a manufacturer to be in compliance with the 20% electric vehicle mandate by 2026 is to adjust the mix of vehicles that they're selling. So our market, so I want to see, there's a few numbers here, and if I'm speaking too fast,

then just, I just want to make sure that I'm clear that people understand just how serious this is going to be for us, and it'll be immediate. So we buy about 200,000 cars per year in Alberta. The number that we buy that are electric vehicle are a tiny, tiny fraction of it, just for ease of math. Let's say it's 2,000 vehicles. This mandate means that the federal government wants us to be buying 40,000 electric vehicles per year starting in 2026. So what happens if people don't want to buy an electric vehicle? What if they want to keep on buying only 2,000 electric vehicles a year?

Well, then the manufacturers are going to have to shrink the number of combustion engine vehicles are selling into our market so that they can meet those mandates. So there'll only be 8,000 vehicles out of 10,000 that are going to be sold in this market. And that's why I say they're going to start rationing. You're going to have to sign up at the beginning of January. If you want to buy a new vehicle and just cross your fingers and hope that your name gets drawn. And if not, you have to wait to the next year. And it's going to keep on shrinking.

So imagine this. If we get by 2035 and they haven't amped up the number of electric vehicles, that means no combustion engine vehicles are going to be. sold at all. I mean, then I guess become like Cuba. We're going to have to become very adept at doing the repairer on existing vehicles because we're not going to be able to get any new ones sold here. Do you see how insane this is? But we're going to start experiencing this reality as soon as 2026. This is not O-off in the future, just wait for a change of government. The manufacturers have time to be able to fight this. No, they're going to have to start putting these policies in place immediately.

That's why it's so damaging. And this is what the federal government does all the time. They announce the edicts. They're unconstitutional. They ignore the court, but they put such a chill on the private sector that then we have to go to court for years to try to fight to get our rights back. But the damage has already been done. And that is the nature of federalism in this country right now. It's shocking that we've come to this point.

And I continue to be shocked every single day that Gibo has so much latitude to be so destructive. When you say all that, insane is the correct word. But I'm curious, why use their terminology then, Daniel? Why continue, like, you know, you go to COP 28, you look for these deals, you look to put Alberta's best foot forward. I feel like we've been doing that for a long time. And they have their own agenda. And their agenda is to shut down the oil field and reduce emissions so that we don't go

up by 1.5 degrees Celsius. Oh, wait, we're not going to allow half the experts to talk on. such a matter, and on and on this goes. To the point you're going, you know, by 2026, we're going to feel this real impact. Well, I mean, you can see what's going on here in different facets. Why even adopt their terminology then? Why not just go full stop? Like, this cannot continue on the way it is. I guess, you know, part of what persuaded me was that we could, we could reach a carbon neutral target, was that I saw groups like pathways say, hey, look, we can, we can get to net zero by. 2050 I saw Dow petrochemical there they're going to be net zero as soon as they've got this

plant up and running like Heidelberg as well first net zero cement plant in the in the world hydrogen I think is is going to be we've all already been a major you're hopeful I agree I I'm I hear and I'm I don't mean to cut you off but I I hear you hopeful but now you're starting to see that they don't want to hear about the the different ways we can get there they have an agenda here it is this is what it's going to be. Everybody goes, this is insane. There's no way that we get to, like, we're going to kill people doing this. We're going to put people out of jobs and on and on and on. This goes all the way to 2035. Here's what I see, Sean. I have always said technology would solve our problems. And now the technology is emerging to solve our problems. That's why I'm enthusiastic

about the technological options. One of the other things that I learned was the Haber-Bosch process takes nitrogen out of the air and it's created, it's created nitrogen. It's allowed us to feed 8 billion people. I have no idea what's going to happen with direct air capture of CO2 and all of the amazing products that are going to be developed out of it. But I fundamentally believe in entrepreneurship, innovation, I believe that our industry has been second to none in taking a waste stream and turning it into something that generates revenue. So that's the paradigm that I'm in, but I don't disagree with you. We're fighting a paradigm that hates fossil fuels, hates hydrocarbon fuels, and hates global capitalism. And we're beginning to see that there's a real divergence now.

So I really want to continue partnering with people who are going to be practical, realistic, work towards targets that are achievable, continue to invest in innovation and technology. But we are in the fight of our lives on this with the current federal government and their environment minister, who is not prepared to see reason. Switching to topics on you. The Manning Report, or I call it the Manning. It's the public health, I joked with Preston about this. The Public Health Emergency's Governance Review Panel, if I've ever heard a government title,

that right there is it. It was 90 roughly recommendations made back in November. I know no matter what side you fell on the COVID, there was a lot of people hoping for more, hoping for harsher, hoping for a lot of different things. In talking with Preston and a bunch of different people about it, just wondering, When are you, like, timeline on his recommendations?

And then what are your thoughts on if I assume you've read it and the recommendations as well? Well, a couple of things. I mean, we've already moved on one of the major ones. You probably saw that all of the health orders were rendered illegal, and so they were all located after the Ingram decision came down. And my justice minister has said any person who applies to have the fines they were levied, refunded, we'll have it refunded. But when you look at the reason for that, the reason for that is we had a health act that essentially gave the exclusive power to one person to shut down our entire economy.

And if there was any attempt stepped in to moderate those views, that was the part that was considered illegal, which makes no sense. What we've done is we've changed the Public Health Act. So now that the chief medical officer of health, he gives advice to cabinet, a cabinet becomes the ultimate decision maker, which is how it should be in an emergency. I mean, I just went through an emergency with fires. And the idea that we would just sit back and allow a single unelected bureaucrat to make all decisions without having any direction from the politicians, we would never run any other emergency that way. So that came out of some of the conversations. I knew that Preston was going in that direction to say, we've got to treat public health emergency. emergencies, or like any other emergency that we have.

We have a cabinet committee that comes together. It's time limited. If you want to extend it, it has to go to the legislature, it has to be debated if you're going to put restrictions in place. That you can't just be single focused on one issue. You've got to be thinking about the whole range of impacts on the economy, on people, on mental health, on kids, on undiagnosed ailments that happen if you shut down the system. So we have already changed the Public Health Act. We did that when we got back after the election to make sure that we restored a decision-making process that's closer to how we manage all other emergencies.

At the moment, I have my departments looking at how we might act on some of the other recommendations. I feel like the biggest recommendations he made were under the revisions to the Alberta Bill of Rights, which I was pleased to see. I was going to go in, I think, the wrong direction. I was going to just change the Human Rights Act. And that, my caucus quite wisely, I said, and I don't think that's the right way to do it. And it turns out that there's other pieces of legislation that we have to change.

And that's what Preston was looking at. But the Alberta Bill of Rights can be strengthened to make sure that people have the choice to make their own medical decisions for themselves so that we don't end up with freedom of speech being abridged during times of crisis so that we can. make sure that we don't have bank accounts frozen. So those are the kind of things that I'm really looking forward to is how we're going to amend the Bill of Rights to strengthen it and make sure that any future decisions of our government

would have to be done through that lens. We just can't go back to the same kind of approach that we did in the previous pandemic. Well, you know where I stand. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm looking for a couple of words to be kind of enshrined. I was never a VAC's pro, you know, up until, then, but in the middle of COVID, you know, pretty much ostracized from all of society for a choice. And I would certainly like to see our government put in, you know, you can't be, you know, a fundamental principle, I guess, is what I'm looking for, of being vaccination status.

Because, I mean, I literally, I was telling you before we started, I was in Bonneville for a hockey tournament over the weekend with my youngest, no, second youngest, I should say, and walked into a store and it had a sign, you know, we do not discriminate, list off a whole bunch of things, oh, that's nice. And at the bottom, I'm like, oh, this is why the signs there. We don't discriminate on your back's choice. And I would love to see that put it into place, because, I mean, it's been, since you've been put in,

in charge, Danielle, it's been a full on year now. And I go, this needs to happen. Like, this need to happen day one. But in fairness, I was joking with you before we started. you know, you're a busy lady and I get it. But this is an important thing after the years we experienced here. It doesn't matter which side it is. All businesses had to comply and on and on this affected families, communities, all the way up.

And I guess I just really impress upon you how important and how many people are watching for that to be done. And I agree with you. I wanted to get people focused on the Alberta Bill of Rights. Is our current Public Health Act, I think it's under Section 7. You might want to go have a look at it. It says that in all things, the Public Health Act takes precedence, except the Alberta Bill of Rights. So it's already in the act that decisions have to be made through the lens of the Alberta Bill of Rights. That's why amending the Alberta Bill of Rights is so important.

That's the right piece of legislation to amend. And that's what we'll be working on it to get the right language in there. So people's medical choice is preserved. So is that a goal then for 2024? If I were to put a timeline on it, like, you know, we're closing it on Christmas time, Merry Christmas, by the way. And we're getting close to the start of the new year. And a new year, you know, most people set goals and look to what can we accomplish. Is that one that I can hold you to for 2024?

I do need to do a bit of consultation on that because if we're going to open up the Alberta Bill of Rights, we have to make sure that we're not just amending it for one or two things. that if there are other areas that we have to add to the list, that we should be making those decisions and those changes right now. And I'll give you an example. I have a member of my constituency who got a policy passed at our AGM to make sure that the law-abiding firearm rights owners' rights are protected. We now just have a bill that's passed through the federal government,

which is going to, presumably, start confiscating the firearms from people who purchased them legally, who are using them for legal purposes. And is that something that we should also be putting into the Bill of Rights? So the discussion about opening the Bill of Rights began because of wanting to preserve medical choice. We're seeing the need to expand it on the free speech front because free speech rights are under attack. But we also think that there might be other things that we need to look at.

So I've already had a conversation with MLA, Jason Steffen, because he leads our legislative review committee and asked him if he'd be willing to take on a, consultation to make sure that when we do amend the Bill of Rights, which we will do, that we're not missing anything. So there might be, I'm hoping we can get that done by the fall, but if it isn't done by the fall, then certainly by spring of next year. But in the meantime, I must tell you that those are my values. And now that we have the framework for the Public Health Act allowing our cabinet to make final decisions, I can give you my commitment that no one is going

to be forced to make a medical choice that they don't want to. I just, I don't believe that that is the direction that Albertans want to go. I believe in freedom. One of the things I think that is probably the top conversation around the cooler every morning is it doesn't matter what city or what town you go to. Homelessness, et cetera, has been on the increase. It doesn't matter what town you go to. You see it now. And I know being an Eminton just a week or two ago, you know, you get this feeling a little bit of uneasiness about safety. And talking with Shane Getson a little earlier, we discussed it just briefly, but maybe you could just quickly go over, you know, because it sounds like a whole bunch of

cops are being hired to be basically dispersed amongst the big cities to begin with. Is there any other thoughts on how you tackle this issue? Because it isn't, like I say, It isn't just Calgary and Amiton. It's every city now. Everywhere you go to, you see it. I've just convened the first meeting of our public safety and emergency services cabinet committee to start making some of these decisions. Look, I've now been to several large cities where we don't have this problem.

I've been to Doha. It was in Dubai. I've been to Panama City. and these are big, sprawling, modern metropolis with more millions of people than either Calgary or Emonton. And you walk around and you do not see littered syringes. You don't see people creating public disorder. You don't see people living in tents.

You barely see any homeless people, even in Panama City. You say, why is it that they're able to do these things and address the underlying concerns? and we're not. I mean, we have, I think, unfortunately, developed too much level of a, of tolerance for the gangs that are essentially running these 10 cities. We've failed to put this in the proper context for people. This is not about people just wanting to live rough.

These gangs are victimizing these vulnerable populations. They're charging access for people to live in the town city. They're threatening to burn them out if they don't pay the protection money. They're victimizing them with their addictions. They're creating an unsafe environment with weapons with sexual assaults. We have to put this in the right context. This is a policing issue. So we convened our first meeting and we're going to be working on going after the bad guys who are victimizing these populations. But we have to also be prepared to address where do people go if you end up dismantling a tent city and people are fearful of going into

the shelters. That's what they're telling us. How do you address? Maybe you have some women only shelters. Maybe you have some indigenous-run shelters. Maybe we have to have a sheriff's presence in some new shelters that are created that are mandated and run by the province. We also have to make sure that there's a pathway to get people connected with the services that they need. So I can tell you that that is the active discussion that we're having now with our cabinet committee. We are going to do whatever we can to support the police services as they start moving on clearing some of these gang-run drug markets. which is essentially what they are. People need to understand that's what they are.

And as soon as we get some clarity from the courts, that they understand that that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to address a public safety and a crime issue, then we'll be moving on it. We're going to move fairly quickly. Are we going to see, you know, it's one thing to have, you know, cops be able to do their duty. It's the next thing for the judicial system

to actually charge them, convict them, hold them. Because, I mean, you know, it would be, I'd be remiss if I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up, you know, here in Alberta, we still have the Coots 4, still in remand. It's been 673 days. They seem to not get any chance of getting out. Yet if you'd go and, you know, murder someone, have a pedophile, etc., it seems like bail is just around the corner and then they're back out doing it. So is there anything? And I don't know how I can pull you into the judicial system, Danielle.

I don't mean to yank you into maybe. But to me, like, okay, so they pull them off the street. But if it's only for a day or two, they're right back there doing the same thing anyways. Yeah, and I do have to, as you know, from the experience I had in the last year, that I have to be cautious because there's some things that a premier can't do. And there's some measures that fall into the federal government that are not in my purview. However, administration of justice and policing are in our purview. So we've already taken the approach of what we're going to do on the policing front,

hire more officers, Calgary and Eminton, build up the policing functions within our sheriff's unit, embed them so that they can be working cooperatively on the things that the RCB, quite frankly, have not been doing for us. But on top of them, we're also hiring more prosecutors so that we can clear backlogs in the court. We're hiring more justices of the peace. Justice of the peace, who we appoint can also do those bail hearings. And so that's another aspect. We worked very hard with our fellow premiers to get past legislation that would roll back some of the problems. at the federal level that created this situation in the first place.

The problem is the federal government passed policy a few years ago that essentially directed the judges to put a consideration, not around the severity of the crime, but the personal characteristics and the upbringing of the person committing the crime as the paramount concern. And we want to address those issues, yes. But we have to make sure that dangerous people are staying behind bars. So we were able to make that case after a couple of tragedies in Ontario in particular,

officers being targeted and murdered by somebody who should have been behind bars and would have been under the old bail requirements. And so the federal government did pass policy, I believe has passed through the Senate. So we should start seeing some of the implications of that as well. Sometimes I know that's not satisfactory to people that it takes so long to do that. But Unfortunately, there are some things that we really do have to lobby our federal counterparts. And on this one, we got a victory. And I hope we're going to be able to start seeing some impact of that. Well, I appreciate you giving me some time today.

I know your schedule, you know, I was teasing you when you came in. I know Twitter and a couple other places were like, she's late. I'm like, well, she is the premier. But I appreciate you giving me some time today, Danielle. I hope that we can get you, we don't have to wait a year to get you back on. I'll do my best to harass your team and get you back. on but I do appreciate you coming on and answering the questions and I hope the next time when you're in Lloydminster January 27th so if people want to come see Danielle and Lloyd

Minster she's going to be here January 27th I hope then I can somehow get you in the in the studio to do it in person because that would be a ton of fun as well either way Merry Christmas appreciate you coming on this side and answering some questions you bet Merry Christmas to you as well Shuttle them will hopefully see you in the new year