Shaun Newman Podcast - #738 - UCP AGM

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Live coverage of the 2024 UCP AGM. I am joined in my first sit down by Eva Chipiuk lawyer from Chipiuk Law. We discuss the first ever youth debate at the AGM. In the second part I am joined by Marty Up North who spent 30+ years as a petroleum engineer, Shawna Sundal the founder of the Irreplaceable Parent Project and 222 Minutes co-host of the Mashup. We discuss the 91.5% leadership review in favour of Danielle Smith as premier. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Clothing Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Chris Sims. This is Tom Romago. This is Chuck Pradnik. This is Alex Kraner. This is Daniel Smith. And welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Hey, welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday.

It has been a busy week. I may sound a little bit different today. I'm doing this out of a hotel room. But it has been a fun couple of days here as we went to the UCPA GM in Red Deer. Before I get to that, though, precious metals, they can be thought of as ultimate insurance policy against economic uncertainty and government incompetence with deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibility

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We're getting awfully close. And if you're looking for something to do with your employees, reach out, send me a text. would love to get you hooked up with that. This weekend, man, I've got a bug in my throat. This weekend, we had a couple of companies step up, AMC Electrical, that is Drew McKay at a Rocky Mountain House. He, him and his team supported not only our election coverage. We had SaaS collection coverage by AMC,

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So those two companies stepped up. We had a hospitality room. We got to meet so many of you. it was unreal like um super super cool and one you well no there was a whole bunch we had the the daniel smith the premier stopped into the room towards the end of the night we had uh i don't know i i'm i would love to say i remember everybody and i think i do but man alive there was so many of you that came in and talked to us just super proud and and pumped to meet all of you uh it was super cool now there was one in particular value for value okay you know if you

If we're going to start this, let's try it out. Tom Icurt, he gave me an envelope and said, you really need to start doing value for value. So here's my shout out to Time, Icurt, and if you're looking to do value for value, like what I'm doing here, maybe we can find something of a way to start to do a little value for value. So you listeners continue to be a part of what this podcast has become. So Time, Icurt, we had an interesting little conversation, and it brought around value for value. regardless of all that, not regardless, I had so much fun this weekend. I think I will be back at the next AGM and learned a lot.

Daniel Smith, 91.5% approval rating. You can listen to this and some of the guests we've had on. You can love, hate, indifferent to where she's at. But the majority spoke this weekend, 91.5%, pretty wild. And it was a zoo. It was 6,000 people there, just pretty incredible, I guess, of what I'm trying to spit out. And, well, this, today's podcast is what we did in the back room.

I'm learning a lot of things. I was talking to Shane Getson after it was done, and I'm going to make sure the next go around we set up for the entire weekend and we get some exclusive stuff from behind the scenes because there was, you know, the opportunity to talk to so many different people was there. And I didn't know what to expect. So I kind of went in like a little bit like tentative. Like, I don't know.

I should be setting up. And I've learned my lesson. But here's a couple that we did towards the end of the day. I'm first joined by Evichip. Obviously, a lawyer, they got lots going on there. She was helping lead the youth debate, which was interesting to watch. And then I'm also joined in the second part of it by Tews and Marty Up North and Shauna Sandell from the Air Placeable Parent Project.

So buckle up and enjoy the show today. Welcome to Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Eva Chippeak. We're sitting at the UCPA Jam, 2024. So, Eva, what do you thought so far? It's been super interesting. this is my only second AGM, 6,000 or so people here. It's amazing.

And I always encourage people to attend because this is where a lot of things happen. This is where there's a ton of policies that are debated. They're going to hear them here. They're debating right now. Yes. Yeah. So it's a really interesting way to get involved at a grassroots level and direct the party. Like that's the whole point of democracy.

So I'm keen to be here. Yeah. We're waiting, you know, as people listen to this, we're recording throughout the day. we're waiting on election or election results. The voter, you know, like, leadership for you. Thank you. Thank you. But one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you before we get there

because you got to be a part of something that's the first ever. Yeah. And I think it's a really cool idea and hopefully it continues to grow. And that was the youth debate. And you got to host it. Tell everybody about it. Yeah, it was so great. So I'm on a CA in Calgary, Calgary Acadia Board.

and they were involved with the next gen. There's a next gen room here, so trying to get the next generation of Alberton's involved in their democracy. So what we did is I came to the AGM last year and I learned a lot, including all these policies that were put forward and like we were saying, the membership is voting on.

And what we were able to do for the youth is we pick two, or they picked two policies out of here, so two of the policies that were in the book. And we had two teams of 10. and one group was for the policy and the other team had to be against it to get the contrast. And so one was about parental rights and the other one was about immigration. And it was so awesome to hear the youth talking about these issues. And also like these are issues that are going to affect them more.

Like if like if immigration is 10 million, Albertans at some point, who's that really going to affect is these young kids or are talking about parental rights? I was, it was so refreshing to hear their views about this. I've heard a lot of people like, you know, 50 and up talk about it. And I'm like, I was super interested to hear what they were at a table with, I laugh at. I'm like, it's all the dissidents sitting here, the dissident table. You know, very interesting conversation. But the one thing about hearing kids talk about it or younger, you know, because you had an age

range of what? So we use the UCP youth definition, which is 14 to 25. 14 and 25. So there's the age range. Interesting to hear their perspective. What stood out to you from the debate, having the two sides discussed those policies. What was amazing, and I think most people recognized it right away, is how well researched. And I've heard more like thoughtful debates from these 10 youths than I have from people. Adults. Yeah, right now because I think the adults are kind of like it's a lot quicker, because it's a lot quicker. we had a longer debate. It was three minutes each. They had researched it for a while. They came so well prepared and well researched and well argued. It was like I said, so refreshing to hear it. Yeah, it was awesome. Well, one of the things I hope to help with, I know a bunch of people through

the podcast and some of them being young or, you know, people still in high school, I'm like, oh man, they'd be fantastic. Two, I'm like, you know, like one of the things I was irritated about is like when you look at the actual schedule. Yeah. It doesn't even show it on there. I'm like, the UCP has to do better next time. Like, if you're going to, if you're going to do it, let's do it right. So people know, because there was people running around this place trying to find it and got

deflated and they're like, I don't even know if it's happening, right? And yet it's such a cool idea. I'm like, you know, like, do I want to hear about the annual reports? Yeah, I'm sure there's people that do. Yeah. But when you hear the youth are going to debate some things, you're like, well, that could be interesting, right? Like, and I don't know, it looked like when, from what I seen, it was a health,

healthy back and forth, which when you talk about them being well researched, is like super cool, right? These are the people that hopefully in time will start to go for maybe boards or local boards. I mean, little elections and maybe that eventually comes into provincial politics. Yeah. So we have to be better at giving them a platform. And that's what I was hoping we could do. And we did. Like you said, the schedule I think was a bit of a mix up. And I hope we can do better next time. but it seemed like everyone was keen on doing it next year, making it bigger. And so, you know, we started with this time. And I really do hope we can make it bigger and stronger and give them a voice because they

are the future. So we might as well hear what they have to say. And I guess my other question before I let you out of here is what have you thought about this, you know, like 6,000 people. It's been a zoo. Like I think of like going to an Emmington Oilers game or some sporting event and it being pretty crazy, maybe a big concert, you know, 6,000 people descending on. this spot in Red Deer or the casino last night.

Like, it's been a busy, busy spot. What have you thought? I think we need to do more of it. Like, maybe not 6,000, obviously, but clearly there's a desire for this. Like, I, you know, hockey is great, and we put a lot of time and energy into that. That's great.

The oilers or the flames, they're making millions of dollars. You know, there's only so much time and energy. Maybe should we, we should be, dedicating to them. I encourage people to dedicate more time to this stuff because this is so incredibly important. So I think we could make it fun. Clearly people want to be involved. It's great to get out there, meet people you haven't seen for a long time. I encourage us and I'm going to try my best to get more events going so that this could be more of a regular thing. So once a year, six thousand people is wonderful. But maybe we could do them more.

often more frequently, but maybe a little less intense. Well, May 10th in Calgary, Alberta, at the Winsport, the Cornerstone Forum is back. That's my main event that I do once a year. You'll have to come attend and we'll get you a ticket and get you sitting there because that'll be, well, that's hopefully close to a thousand people are going to be there, hopefully. Yeah. And that'll be an eclect group of people that I think you'll enjoy. And that's the type of debate and conversation.

Yeah. when you talk people are hungry for. That's what I've been having here now for like the last, I don't know, 24 hours. I'm starting to wear out. It's been so many people. I'm a people person, but there has been a ton of people here. But it is awesome. And I think people clearly, like I said, want it.

And I love that they want to get involved. And so let's try to get that going maybe more regularly. Yeah. Thanks, Hapel. Pleasure. Welcome to the Sean Newman Pocket. This is the second part. I had Evichipiak on before the results.

obviously now we've had the results. 91.5% approval rating for Daniel Smith at today's leadership review. I'm sitting with Martin Blanche, Marty Up North, Shauna Sundell, or Placeable Parent Project. Tews, everybody's thoughts. I mean, we're live here, and maybe we get 20 minutes here, maybe a couple others join us, maybe they don't. But you can hear it in the background.

There was a giant cheer that went up as 91.5% approval rating. Your thoughts? Yeah, no, it's, you know, Congratulations to Premier Smith. I mean, it's a big number. It's impressive. I was a little surprised. Everybody walking around had these buttons on, you know,

and I was sort of gauging the buttons. I kind of thought definitely everybody who had the button was pro-Dangelo. The ones who didn't were kind of maybe on the fence. So when I was just counting the numbers, I was expecting 80%, 70 to 80%. So the 90, statistically as an engineer, to me, it seems like a pretty big number. It's a big number. Well, 91.5 is a big number. Yeah, it's a big number.

I mean, I'm not an engineer, but it's nearly 100. It is. It kind of is, you know? And, you know, when you see a dictator somewhere in South America who gets like 98, you go, yeah, sure, you did, right? But it is what it is. I think the party is spoken. It's a clear mandate from the people that she's on the right track. So looking forward to continuing to working with a government that does say they want to listen to improve. I'm particularly interested in parental rights, of course,

but we hope to see good things from them moving forward also. I might push back a little bit on the right track. I would say that they're on an agreed track that everybody's united in it, but I don't know if it's the right track. I think it would be nice if we had a conservative premier that did some conservative things. Maybe a few tax cuts here and there. Obviously, it's not going to get to the cut and slash

that I would like to see in a perfect world. But, you know, even a little, you know, even a little tiny little Nixon and whatnot here and there on we've got the largest budget we would have ever seen. I mean, you could, as credible as the NDPR, the NEP could, in their narrow scope of that, could almost credibly say that they would be more conservative than what we've seen so far from Danielle Smith. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's great. But it does worry me in one way.

I mean, I always worry when somebody gets a really strong mandate. Even when it's parties that I totally support, I just, you know, we're talking governments here, and we're giving them a lot of power. And so when a government gets like a 91%, that can go to the head of a lot of people and go, oh, hey, we're free to do what we want. So I hope it's checked, right? I hope it's checked. Because I agree, you know, I'd like to see things, conservative things.

which we haven't seen. So we're kind of giving her a mandate to keep doing what she's been doing, which isn't really conservative. So I'm, yeah. Shawna, you've been working on policies. What is your thoughts on? Well, I was very pleased that.

Can you do me one favor? Pull that mic just a smidge into it. Yes, yes. You have the quiet voice of the group. I was very pleased that policy number seven passed, which has a very strong representation that parental rights precede the government and so that they should be acknowledged.

not granted. We have been working with the government to expand in the Alberta Bill of Rights. Right now it currently says that education is the only thing that a parental right is specifically defined as having, which is insufficient. When I advocated for education, I was very happy to get that in. But now that's insufficient. Prential rights are not limited to education. Let me ask you a question because what a lot of the talk around some of the, well, some of the tables this weekend has been, is although it's a policy that's been submitted and okayed, that doesn't mean that they go forward with it as a government.

It could sit there for another year. Or forever, really. Right. How do people, you know, not just hear that, see all the yes cards go up because watching the yes cards was quite something this weekend, just seeing the flood of the ocean of green go up saying yes. And then those people walk out the door and go.

Okay, parental rights are back at the forefront. That isn't where the work stops. Were you here for the accountability session? I cut. They went through every policy and kind of gave a report card of where they were on the policies from, I think, not only last year, but maybe some from the year before. So I totally am focused on advancing parental rights and we have a very key opportunity to see them embedded in the Alberta Bill of Rights.

this is where the principle of parental rights needs to be embedded from that principle is where we should address issues. And so it's really important. I feel that the government listen right now when they can amend it. And parental rates should not be issued piecemeal. I have examples, but... Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, Sean, and I agree with you. I mean, a lot of people think that it got voted here and therefore it's going to be policy, even in even, or it's going to be law. not policy. Like even when debating resolutions, people use words like law, right? They equate a guaranteed fact.

And I also want to say another thing. There's no surprise that so many green cards went up because behind the scenes, the party, which is one of the good things. That's one of the things I really like is that democracy works, right? Behind the scenes, hundreds of policies were proposed. Like I think it was 237, and we all had the opportunity. I did it. you could go and look at all 237 policies and rank them.

So only the top 35 made it here. So the fact that they made it here, they've kind of been vetted already, right? They were approved by the general membership. So that's why you'd hear, you know, the MC saying, ooh, I kind of was surprised by that one because you almost shouldn't be surprised. If it makes it on the floor to be discussed, we're in the final bits of it. There was actually 800 initial policy proposals that got ranked. down to the 200 and some that the members got to rank.

Who did that and how did they do it? The PPGC is responsible for that. The PPGC, which is the party policy and governance. That's Ray Strom's area of responsibility. Okay. The party governance policy and governance committee. Elected committee? Volunteer.

Ray Strom is elected and he was just acclaimed because there was no challengers to his job. And then there's volunteers. You can see them listed in your program, I'm sure. But you don't have to be, I mean, it's a non-elected committee, but that's following a procedure set out by the party. I'm not besmirching it because I haven't even thought my way through it yet because I don't know how it gets done. I'm very new to this party.

I'm a grudging member of the UCP. Yeah, it's impressive. Yeah, 800 policies down to 237 down to 35. And of the 35, I would say probably six or seven will get seriously debated and make their way into some sort of bill. And the others will be rehashed and represented in one form or another in future years. Well, that's why people like me that advocate for a specific issue have to do our job. This is great that the people have spoken, but it is not the same thing as it being passed in legislature. And so there's still work to do.

we need to apply a significant amount of interest to parental rights. Well, we have this very small window while the Bill of Rights is in the committee of the whole. It's already passed two readings. This is the place where they can put amendments in. I have, you know, seen that there's interest in doing that and there's some movement, but language is that ways hard. And sometimes the lawyers competing views on things. the people are wanting Alberta to take a position where they can defend our rights.

And not just parental rights, but all of our rights. Property. And some of the things that are proposed, you know, some people say, well, that's a federal jurisdiction. And that's true. In some cases, we want the provincial government to draw a line in the sand that says, we're willing to stand up for our citizens and oppose federal overreach. And so we do need the government to be on board because it's not only costly to them, to take a position that they can't offend.

But there's also a ripple effect to all the other legislation. When it comes to parental rights, my question is, why wouldn't you put it in? And if you think it's a problem, doesn't that prove that parental rights needs to be upheld in a place like the Alberta Bill of Rights so that we can solve the problems in all the other areas of government?

The bill of rights was definitely one of the more interesting discussions today. The bill of rights was worth paying admission. I knew it would be, right? I mean, it's... Are you talking about the Black Hat's proposal for the Alberta Bill of rights? I think what they're talking about specifically is the two separate rounds of applause that I had in my 30-second window to speak. Yeah. No, no, yeah.

I just want to be clear because so many people are confused. Yes. The whole floor was confused. I mean, the whole floor was confused, which is why I was interesting. But it was, you know, first time I've ever been doing AGM. So like other than like a smaller more of a constituency, you know, so like 6,000 people. This is a zoo. And in saying that, such wonderful people here, really interesting people where if you sat

and had a conversation for more than 30 seconds, you got into some really interesting discussions, which is really, really healthy. And one of them was on that debate, like just sitting there and watching it go back and forth. And some of the points that were made was really, really, really interesting. I don't know. People say, you know, you want to get people involved in politics. And they do the math and they go, why isn't there 50,000 people here? And I'm like, well, I don't know.

There was 6,000. And that is one heck of a showing for the UCP. It's the biggest in Canadian history. Yeah, there's still people that are going to try and put it down and saying where it was only 6,000 people. Right. But it was like. That's the biggest in Canadian history. Last year we passed the record for our AGM.

And this year, there's almost 2,000. Right. Yeah. Wayne Gretzky only scored. He didn't even score 10,000 goals in his career. That's really interesting. But it's funny because they're going to say that. Oh, only 6,000 people showed up. And then the rebuttal is that it's also the record. So, you know, you could be mad about it. But maybe NDP can try and break it. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.

Yeah. I don't know. Any other thoughts? You know, like I just, I don't want to have a four-hour conversation on it. To me, I was shocked at 91.5%.

I thought my number was 78 and I'm like, I might be bit low, right? I've talked to a ton of people. Very passionate about Danielle Smith and what she's been doing in the province, how she talks. You know,

then I've had the different conversations. I read the 1905 committee, I don't know, what was it, a pamphlet they had out. The pamphlet they had. I read it and I'm like, all, obviously they're fans of the mashup.

Right? I mean, there was so many things on there that we had talked about in various episodes. Yeah. Well, there's people that are looking at, you know, the, what makes this government conservative? What are they doing that makes? And we're staring at some of the glaring things that they're like, this needs to be addressed, right? That goes from, you know, the size of government to the no tax cut to all these little things that amount to big things. And so in talking to them, there was the number 91.5, I don't know.

I don't know if I heard one person say they were going to get 90%. I heard 87 was the highest was the guess. So I'm like, oh, yeah, 87. Geez, I don't think it's getting that. 91.5 is it, I don't know. That's the big number, I guess. I think there was a lot of people, and I don't know, you could call this sour grapes. I don't think it is.

I'm just trying to look at it and say, well, why was that number so high? I think there was a lot of people who were looking at it and saying, well, if we vote her out, what's the alternative? And I had a lot of people ask that this weekend. And I said, well, I would suggest that literally anybody in this. this room who's willing to cut one tax on one thing. It doesn't have to be anything I support or anything important. If you could just pick one tax that you would cut out of anybody in this room, that person would be a better choice. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I heard a lot in the last two days is a lot of people said we've had a lot of bad leaders in the last decade.

That is very true. That is very true. We had Rachel Notley and then we had Jason Kenny. We had Allison Redford and Jim Prentice before that. People right now are sort of just saying we like her. She's better than them. We don't know what else. Better the, what's the expression? Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

The devil you know than the one you don't. So like genuinely she, people just want some stability right now and I can I can appreciate that. I can understand that. I can understand that. I mean, me personally, yes. I would like to get back to being really conservative and smaller governments and moving forward on some other things, but I will accept that for the time being, people want a bit of stability

and moving forward on a few things that resonate with people. So yeah, I'm okay with that. I think that part of the issue is we need to manage expectations in order to have realistic views of what can happen and how fast. So people can complain, but we don't want to lose the next election to the NDP. We've already seen that happen once, and it's very costly to have four years with a government that's antagonistic to conservative principles. And so we should understand as sophisticated citizens in a democracy that there cycles to things, right? If you have a four-year term, the first two years are going to be your hard things and the next two years are going to be your friendly things, right? Because you want people feeling good going up to the next

election. So the tax break is going to come in the last two years of this. And they have reasonable answers. So I think Danielle had a very high rating this weekend because she worked really hard to communicate answers to the concerns that people had. There's been a lot of things. She's done a lot of town halls trying to get people to ask the questions and to give answers. She doesn't seem to be afraid to be put on the spot and to, you know, try to respond and to say that she'll get back to you if she doesn't know. So, yes, we have to keep working. I mean, obviously, I have my work cut out for me, too.

I want more. Yeah, yeah, no, and she's good. I'm going to be getting that better from them. The pushback I will give you is the three of us are in the private sector where we move fast. And so me personally, I don't buy. It's been explained over and over. This is government. It moves slowly.

If their political career was on the line, they would move quickly. It was very interesting because in some of the discussions with, MLAs, one in particular, kept referring to the fact that they were having difficulty undoing some things that Rachel Notley had done because Rachel moved so fast. So I'm like, okay, so you literally acknowledge that some governments can move very fast. And I'll bring that up. I think our opponents, when they, the NDP and the liberals, when they get in power, they move extremely fast. You know why they can, though? Is because our culture has changed so much. like the things that we have to undo, I agree,

conservatives actually fail to undo bad policy, they just don't act on it. And then when it changes again, they're already moving forward from their last position. Conservatives actually need to undo bad policy in order to regain ground that we used to have. Yeah, but undo it quickly. But we have to bring the populace with us.

Like if you just appease your base and the government needs to look at getting reelected, we have to understand there's a bit of a negotiation happening there, which is why we need to be a little bit more sophisticated in our critiquing and in our expectations in order to help them bring not only us, but everybody else along. And that means that you're looking for a tempo that's sustainable, and you're trying to educate not only conservatives, but the broader population of Alberta as to why those things are important,

why they'll work. And that's why they do the hard things in the first two years. so they have a chance to prove that it's not going to break anything and that it is going to help them. You're trying to convince the people who aren't convinced. I think I would push back on that and say that I think you want to have things more basic and that moving quickly and going forward with things. First off, I think that the UCP spends a lot of time focusing on appeasing people

that will never vote for them regardless. And yes, they are paid to represent everybody. but the thing about it is, especially with things like this, there's so much empirical proof when it comes to conservative, libertarian, small government policy. And you can just go ahead and do it

and then three and a half years later, say, is life more expensive or less expensive? No, I agree. And the fact that you're, you know, when you say, we need to understand that they're worried about getting reelected, well, I don't care so much,

I don't care so much about whether somebody gets elected or reelected. I want someone who's going to do a good job if they're in there. And if their main concern is staying in power rather than doing a good job, you're already losing me. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying in work that I do, long-term relationships are helpful to moving the ball, right? If somebody's changing all the time, you have to keep starting over, right? If it's going to take time.

Like honestly, once you work with them a little bit, let's say you get elected as the MLA. Oh, no. What just happened? Oh, the light time. So for those of you listening right now, the lights just timed out.

Wow. Sean started dancing and we're all back. All right. That's a sign to get on. I'm disappointed that the emergency lights didn't go on or nothing. They're listening to the conversation. They're like, nope, we need to shut this down.

What happened for you? Like, does it reboot and everything's good? It's recording us. Oh, they're not plugged into the... That was funny. They're not plugged into... I guess every once in a while, I got to wave my arms. We're still here.

Hey, maybe that's what happened. We're just so standing still. Anyways, that's fantastic. We need some Italians in here. Hand talking and this light will never go off. I think, you know, if I sit from the side and I listen to the conversation, one of the things that we've been talking a lot about, and it comes up awful lot, pace of government.

Yeah. And for some reason, conservatives think we can't move faster what we are. I'm not saying we were and I hear some of the point Sean is saying and I'm like yeah you don't want to just ram everything through like we've done in the last month because then it's like holy crap this government they losing their mind or what right I'm not saying from our side right from other sides so pace is interesting because I don't think I hear we need to have everything next week but we also can't wait until the month before a leadership review or two years before an actual election to get the tax break so that they can win the next election and not

They've had plenty of time to do all this stuff. I really wish you were here for the whole weekend so that you could have heard the discussion and the finance minister talking about why there was a delay on the tax break, which I can't reiterate for you. But if you were here, they took the time to have these discussions. In fairness, though. I think that's why they got 91.5%. In fairness, I've been here the entire weekend.

Oh, did you hear that conversation? No, but it's like I was also listening to the youth debate and they put that over top. things and I'm like you had to make choices on where you were, what conversations you were listening to. And in fairness, that's why I bring people in to talk about it because I think it's important. If you went and heard something that people need to hear, then we talk about it, right? Like, I think that's important. I hope you have a guest that can explain that because that's not going to be neat, but I will say that I remember that they have an explanation. And I think when we're saying, how did she get 91.5? I think this weekend they tried to do the work of explaining their position and

their work on different things. And I think that the people responded with approval. They, they know that they're trying to do the work. And yes, there's more to do. But let's take the Bill of Rights for an example. It's really good. They paused it. They could have passed it this last week. But they heard from the people that it needs amendments. And it's a very positive thing that they paused it so that they can take some time. I was trying to get a couple of lawyers in here. I know I had Evan on before this and people, you know, What I was talking to this group of lawyers in a circle, they were like, well, we got to wait a week because there's amendments coming. And until the amendments come, I could sit there and I could try and talk about it.

But if the amendments change everything, we're talking about nothing. And so everybody seems to be waiting for this week coming up to see what amendments happen with this Bill of Rights. So once again, we're speculating on where it's at. I go back to the pace of government once again. And I understand they have their here we are. And this is why we're here. but we just I'm taking the UCP out of it for a second I'm just talking conservatives conservatives have an argument one is we're not moving fast enough the other is well it takes time and I'm like well I think

there's a bridge in the middle there because we look at the NDP we look at other governments and we go why is it when they get in they can move fast why is it when uh because you don't see the NDP one two three and four competing for the votes right the conservatives have an advance because we believe in freedom and difference of opinion, which leads to some diversity in party, but it also can result in some splitting, right, where you don't see that in the NDP. No, anybody who disagrees is ostrich size. Yeah, and they're very focused. They all are actually.

Well, Danielle said it best on her speech this morning that were, what did she say, an unruly family? She had like a nice line. And I'm like, actually, that's, that's a bit raucous. Yes, a bit raucous. I was like, actually, that's pretty much it, right? Like, anywhere you walked in this building, if you stumbled into the wrong conversation or the right conversation, you had people like this, you know, like having a healthy discussion on a lot of the things that conservatives are doing.

You know, we call ourselves conservative, but we could pick other names. If we called ourselves what we really are, we're... Anarchist? Almost, we're independent. We're critical thinking. We're... There's a lot of libertarians and self-reliant. It's a mixed bag.

And by definition of who we are, we are an unruly bunch. Yes. And I think because, we're not followers. We're not sheep. That's for sure. So, so, yeah. And yeah, I mean, we're an unruly bunch. Yes.

And because they have to take that into consideration and kind of take the time to keep that cohesiveness, it does, I think, slow things sometimes while they're looking to maintain that unity. So I'm not trying to be an apologist. I've got my work cut out for them. But I really hope that they will be willing to listen on the amendment thing because as much as people say we can come around to this again and do further amendments, that is very hard. And we don't want the Bill of a Bill of Rights open all the time. One of the things we want on this side I want is I want people that are for Daniel, against Daniel, don't care.

Because I think it adds to a very interesting discussion. You guys don't agree. I probably don't agree with all of you. I'm like, I don't know, and I want to talk about that. I mean, if Shawna wasn't here, this would be a pretty boring discussion. No, thanks guys. I'm here to like just talk about parental rights, and I have to work with whoever's in power. Yes.

Right? And that makes my job tough. It's easier, though, with a conservative group that believes in parental rights and that children are the responsibility of their parents, how that looks in legislation needs to get fixed. But if I'm talking to people who believe that children belong to the community, that is a whole other ball game, right? And so there's a definite advantage to having more in common on that topic than less. To having a leader who talks openly about parents having involvement in their kids' lives, how we're not going to transition things. Even if it's not in policy yet, having a leader that's saying that is big to do because you look across, you know, I'll be the first to admit when I why isn't Pierre or or I don't know not Justin Trudeau but other leaders not saying some of the things that Danielle said on stage today right and you go why is that?

Well, because they were worried about catering to the urban vote. Sure. And, I mean, they're worried about catering to the urban vote as well. I think they're holding out hope that they can, I don't know, maybe gerrymand Calgary to include some outlying areas. But I don't know. It's got to be something that's at the top of their mind. I mean, we met Danielle for like one minute and that was the thing she talked about. I'm really glad you mentioned that, though, because parental rates are much different than a

gender policy, parental rights are a foundational basis from which we have a principle that we can address issues. Prential rights can't be seen through the lens of gender or any other issue. They're a standalone position that needs to be acknowledged. And in my dream world, that's something that can be appreciated by all Albertan parents, right? Not just conservative parents. And so I think that all parents care about their kids. When I traveled around and talked about how made is in the offing for minors because, you know, there's already been a committee that's tabled that. That's serious. And I don't think any parent wants to say, I'm fine with my child being offered made without

my knowledge and being able to make a decision for that if they're considered a mature minor. And I wouldn't know. Like, no parent is going to say that. So we need to understand there's some things, I hope, like parental rights, that we can have some consensus on. And to me, that's what should be in the Alberta Bill of Rights is things that we all agree on like freedom of speech and expression. Do the people on the other side really want to lose their freedom of speech and expression? Apparently they do in some cases. In some cases,

like the liberals are setting a horrible example. It's not that they want to lose their freedom of expression. They want to quiet us. And so they have a hard time seeing that in quieting us, they are quieting themselves. The potential. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Any final thoughts? I would go ahead and say that I've been quite impressed by how well thought out your

thoughts and your perspectives on these things are. It's obvious that you put in a lot of prep work into this. If you've seen Shauna present. I've not. Well, I have. And one of the things you're very detail-oriented, right? So you're very involved in the policy, right? And you have a direct, like we're working on this issue.

Not the rest. We're not worried about 15. We're worried about parental rights, right? Involvement. I've tried to. And I know my presentation, which you can see on my website, the irreplaceable parent project.ca. I recorded it after I was a guest of Sean in Lloyd.

And it was really great to be out there. But it has to be detailed because people don't believe how much things have changed over decades. And that was a long talk. It was an hour and a half, I'll warn you, if you go and listen to it. But without laying that groundwork of how things have changed in education, law, and medicine or health, parents don't understand how they need to negotiate their role differently because they're thinking about it like they were brought up. And so we had to lay that groundwork in order to establish what needs to be changed now. So I'm just going to give you one example that I think really resonates with the MLAs I talked to.

Some of them are being told we can't put parental rights in the Alberta Bill of Rights because it might affect other things that we're trying to do. So if we give parents this right, it might say, well, parents have the right to choose and that undercuts our view on something else. I would say it's like religious freedom. We don't want the government to take away religious freedom, but if they have a specific issue, they can address it. Like female genital mutilation, right? We don't take away people's right to have a religious view, but on that specific thing, they addressed it. So I would say we need to have the government establish parental rights because it is a

principle that is preexisting. It needs to be acknowledged, not granted. And then when it comes to other things, the government is well within its rights to say, we're not going to offer that service until this age. Just because a parent thinks my child can drive, I want them to have a license at 14, doesn't mean the government's going to give it to them. There's lots of things we say we're not going to do for minors. So they don't need to withhold parental rights, treating us like children.

Instead, they need to acknowledge parental rights and then use their responsible power to say what they will or will not do for people that are minors and make sure that the parents are involved in that choice because it's their choice, not government choice. Well put. Thank you. Final thoughts? It doesn't change what I'm going to do, which is I'm, you know, I took a lot of flack and I'm probably going to take flack when I leave here tomorrow or online. But my job is to hold politicians accountable.

I mean, I am fundamentally non-trusting of governments. I don't like giving that much power to governments. And that's that I think when I sit on this one, that's one of the things that's going to worry me tomorrow is that 91.5% approval can be. seen as a carte launch as a carte launch to do a lot of things and our governments have a lot of power and so it could backfire so I'm going to keep trying to make sure that they don't abuse that power can I push back a little on what you're saying Marty sure we have had people traumatized over the last number of years especially over COVID we have to be careful that we're not now trigger happy or constantly in that state of fight or flight if we believe in democracy there is an

inherent position of placing trust in government to do something. No, I disagree on that. I will never go there. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying blind trust. No, I don't, I don't use the word government. I would prefer to use, government represents us. So you're putting, you're elevating government to a separate entity from us. And I'm, that makes me nervous. That's very. Well, then you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. They are the servant leaders, right, that we have put to do a job in a place. And I'm, where they have responsibilities that we all can't do. Just like my job. I'm representing parents.

Every parent cares, but they can't all do what I'm doing, right? And so we extend a little bit of trust when we elect someone. And then when it comes time for re-election, we either take it back and give it to someone else or not. Right? So I understand skepticism and we want to hold them accountable. I totally agree. We'll say this for another debate because. Yeah, I mean, we're about to open up.

No, I'm a father. I have four kids. Yeah, I've got kids too. So. I think of parental rights. Yeah, but I, you're almost, you literally almost said that you are better than me at being a parent. That's literally what you were saying. How did I say that?

I mean, we'll, I didn't say that at all. That's how you came across then. Could anybody else speak to that? Well, I guess I, what I, what I'm hearing, but I don't know, I'm like, I miss something because I'm like, what I, what I heard was what a irreplaceable parent project does is it advocates for all the parents that have a shared value set, but they can't go out and advocate for it. So they advocate and through Shauna. And Shauna goes and advocates for all of our parental rights. That's what I heard. That's sure. That's what I took from it. Okay. But I don't want your job. I want you to be able

to do your job. That's why I fight for your right to parent your children as you see fit. And it doesn't mean that I agree with how all the parents do think. It'll be different than me. But I believe that if we don't extend that, just like free speech, if we don't protect that, then we're doing ourselves a disservice because we're affecting our freedoms. I would say, though, to Marty's point about trust, I absolutely do not feel like there's any place for trust in government. I think that the best laws are the ones that are set up so that regardless of who's in charge, they can't do bad things. And so, for example, the charter, right?

I mean, the first thing in the clause, and I'm paraphrasing in a cynical way, but that's kind of my dig, is we are the government and we recognize that the people have certain inalienable rights, unless, of course, we as the government decide to take those rights away, in which case we will take those rights away. Absolutely. The charter has a problem. And Brian Peckford would say that too. And so, yeah, but this is, yes, I think. without over having meeting the man, I think he would probably agree with that as well. Whereas I want to see. Yeah, yeah.

Brian's got a lot to say. But he wrote it. He helped with it. He helped with it. And he says his intent isn't what happened. Yes. Yes. You're both absolutely right.

But to my point, though, is that now that sets the government up as gatekeepers. Absolutely. And I don't want, I don't see, the UCP, I would argue, likes this because Now they can say, vote for us because we're the only people you can trust is the gatekeeper with this new Alberta charter, right? And I don't want that kind of a law in place. I want one where it says that regardless of who the gatekeeper is or who the person in that position is, they can't open that door.

I agree. I think the charter has a problem that's been abused and we're all aware of that because of what happened in COVID, like it did not protect our rights and freedoms. And I think that there's some concern about what was tabled on Monday. I was there in the gallery. Very interesting. And she was sitting directly across for me in the gallery. And I'm like, it bears remembering that we have concern and work to do, but we also have to keep our eye on the competition so that we can achieve both things, right? Not falling into a trap. And, not doing the work we need to do.

And so when that was tabled, of course, there's things that haven't turned out. Like parental rights wasn't changed at all. That's a problem for me. I'm working on getting that amended. But the clause that they put in that, what does it say exactly? We've all been talking about it this week. It puts limits. It's just a limit.

No, but there's a specific phrase. It says, notwithstanding government rules or something like that. Defined limits? Yeah. Absolute within their defined limits? No, no. You'd have to read the actual, you'd have to look at the act. Bill's not in there.

But you know what I'm talking? No, no, never mind. Now I'm confused and I'm thinking back. Not that one. Yeah, so the government has worked to do to take that out so that there isn't the same clause that's in the Canadian charter that's kind of that opt out. We can do it. And I agree. And I think that they have heard that loud and clear, which is why it didn't finish getting passed.

But now we have to always wait until the ink is dry until we see what it actually says. says, it's difficult. We have to hold our breath, can keep working, and then see what they actually come out with before we can comment totally. Well, I mean, we can comment on the way it started off, though. Absolutely. And I would say that, you know, that the way it originally was is them saying, you have to trust us.

And I'm not interested in trusting any of those people. And I don't just mean the UCP. I mean any of them. I wouldn't trust me in that situation, although I know me pretty well and I definitely wouldn't trust me. But the point is, is that if you set it up so that trust becomes completely irrelevant, it becomes a much better document. That clause is going to remain in one way, shape, or another.

Well, talking with Mickey Amory, he made it pretty clear. He made it pretty clear that it has to stay in there in some form because there has to be limits. Because the courts will impose the limit no matter what. Everybody's uncomfortable with no limits. But then the argument is that you could have, and this was Mickey's, and hopefully he comes on. and better addresses this. I got his car.

One of the interesting things about being here is getting to run into a bunch of these people, getting their contact information, and hopefully getting them to come on and explain more. And so, you know, you can like... You've got to ask that question and put their feet to the fire. Yes. And I agree, we need that out. They are making a case for how the courts have changed.

And this is what I mean when we see our society has changed so much. I mean, what wasn't a possibility in 1972 when this was tabled in the first? place is now something that's seen as do we really have to put in something. So some people are saying it would be better not to change it at all because it actually weakens our position. That's why I love the American Constitution. Those was drafted in 1776 and they had people that were like, did they time travel to our era and see what we're going to do? What if everybody was an idiot? How could we ensure the things still didn't screw? I guess that's what they did. Yeah. And then, I mean, you know, the other side of

that coin is that if it is, as Americans like to say, the greatest document ever written, why did you have to amend it two dozen times? But that's just me being difficult. But yeah, without Mickey being able to be here to defend himself right now in this argument, but he had said, he said that, you know, you run the risk of having an activist judge who imputes his own definition of what a reasonable limitation is. And so if the government says we have our reasonable limitation that they can't go above, then we don't have to worry about the judge. I'm like, but now we have to worry about you. Yes.

And Mickey, I'll give it one thing. He was very interested in carrying that conversation on because we were sitting there and like there's a group around. I'm like, this is wild. One of the things I hope to do next year at the AGM is I hope to talk to it because, you know, like if it was, the NEP was leading our government, I'd probably try and approach to them about the same thing. But I'm sitting here and I'm like, man, we should have had these

conversations going on all weekend to get all of us in the same spot at the same time arguing about all these wonderful things that people want to hear about that couldn't get here and to hear disagreements, which I love. I'm like, this is healthy. This is what we need to do more of so we can get to the answers that we need to hear because right now, I don't trust the government. I just don't. Like recent history told me I ain't put in any faith in anyone politician anytime soon because we've seen what has happened. Henceforth, why everybody saw the clock. and went, what the do you? It's cut and paste from the current Bill of Rights.

I literally cut and paste it and put them side by side and went, Alberta, Canada. It's like that office mean. They're like, this is the same picture. Yeah. Yeah. And so we got to find a way, I guess, to keep people engaged like this. Because as soon as people saw it, they lost their shit.

And, you know, all of us look at that. Some look at that as bad. Some look as that's good. Some of them look at whatever. I'm like, it doesn't matter. People are paying attention. Six thousand people showed up. Like, think about that.

That is wild. And the conversations aren't like, oh, we're doing a great job. This is such a great thing. We're so great. Awesome. Pat on the back. It's like, no, there's some things to work on. We've got to pay attention to these things.

And they just gave Daniel Smith and the UCP government, 91.5% approval rating, which I think shocked, I think, everybody in the building. I don't think anybody thought it was going to be that high. Dominion voting. David, Debbie. Manually counted that. And quickly, early. And she made a joke about that, right?

I'm like, oh, man. Well, I imagine everybody has made a joke about that this weekend. I know, but you know, give Daniel Smith some credit here. I'm not trying to take that away from her. The woman on stage is just like fantastic. When she gets in her ring, which is talking, right? She gets up there. There's very few that are better than are in her realm.

And that's what you have leading Alberta. Now it's just like, but there's things we want to see changed or see implemented and we have to keep talking about it and keep getting the right people on to discuss it and disagree on it so that the conversation can be moved further instead of just stagnating and going to war at each other, right? Because we're all here for relatively the same reason, I think. Maybe I'm wrong a bit on that, but I see us all. I was just the free drinks.

Yeah. I just want to go to Princess Otto. I really liked your comment about the U.S. Constitution because there's so many admirable things that it has. But someone told me that Canada, of course, is different because we have the Westminster tradition coming out of England, right? And we've never separated from that. And in that tradition, God gave the rights to the king, and the king gave the to the people. And so when I have the opinion that parental rights are God-given or natural, and they precede government, that is a problem in law,

because the law does not really allow for that train of thought. So we're kind of hooped, right? There are deep fundamental differences between America and Canada. I mean, they need to They fought the king and they kicked the king out of the country. The king saw what happened and he kind of like, I better appease these Canadians and I'll give them something. So we started off very differently and yes. It's true. But it impacts us today because now I have to have conversations with lawyers going, well, how can we implement that mentality into our legal system so that you can defend it? And when there's a conflict that that's that's so fundamental, we have a problem that it's not even.

Oh, my Lord, again, do we go, are you? Is it because we're not waving our arms? Jump, Sean. John, are you up? Okay. I think that's what it is. So are you suggesting that we should perhaps start a war with the Britons? Well, you know, we're not having enough kids to go to war with anybody.

Good grief. Our reproductive rate is so low. That would be like a life for death option. I feel like we could go to Zelensky and be like it's our turn for a few handouts. We could use some of that money back if you're not using it. That's awesome.

Thanks guys for giving me a few moments at the end of this. I wanted to do something. I don't know if there's, you know, I threw it out to a lot of people. There might be a lineup outside. We don't know. But it's funny, you get done this.

And I just see the brush for the door. It's been a long, you know, 24 plus hours, right? and lots of conversation. My brain is kind of mush on talking to so many people and running into so many people. Shout out to everyone who came and talked to me this week, and there was a ton. And lots of great people here in Red Deer,

and thanks again for you three hopping on. We didn't want to rush out into the traffic anyways. That's true. Let the part allow empty right. It's like going to a hockey game. You have two choices, right? Leave early or leave late. Yeah.

Thanks for having me. Thanks again. Yes. Well, I mean, a little fortuitous encounter, right? You're sitting right there. Yeah, come on in, right? So appreciate it. All three of you have been on the podcast before,

and I greatly appreciate all your perspectives in hopping here after the show. But thanks again. Cheers. Thanks.