The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Who Is The Real Danielle Smith - Encore

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Kathleen Petty joins us from Calgary to talk about Alberta's Premier and Dr Isaac Bogoch calls in from his hospital job to talk about where things really stand on Covid.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday, that means our Encore edition. And this week we go back almost two full years to October of 2022 for today's episode. She is one of the best known premiers in the country. She's also one of the most controversial. Her name, Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta. Well, two years ago, we talked to my good friend Kathleen Petty, host of the podcast West of Centre, about Danielle Smith, who she is and what we should expect. It's interesting to go back a couple of years

and listen to what was said then. And welcome to another Monday on the bridge, as we did for, well, for a long time during the worst of COVID. We used to focus a lot on the stats, and we used to focus on Mondays in talking to epidemiologists in the country who were working on the COVID story. Well, last week we talked to Dr. Lisa Barrett from Halifax, Dalhousie University, and this week we're going to talk to another one of our favorites, Isaac Bogosh at the University of Toronto. The good doctor has agreed to have a chat with us for a few minutes and talk about kind of where we are on the COVID story. We're not going to dwell on this every Monday again,

but I did want to spend a couple of Mondays talking about it because clearly it's on a lot of your minds, and I can tell that from the letters you write. Before we talk to Dr. Bogosh, let me remind you of some statistics. Remember, statistics always played such a part of the story at the beginning. Well, this is an opportunity just as a reminder. COVID started about two years ago now. Well, about three years ago now.

Sorry, what am I saying? And since then, we've had 4.3 million cases in Canada. Those are recorded cases. I think you can probably appreciate if you're not one of the stats yourself that a lot of people who get COVID now don't report it. They just sort of deal with it. You know, they may talk to their GP. They may tell their doctor, hey, I've got it.

And what the doctor does with it at that point, I'm not sure whether they record it, whether it goes into the central data bank or not. I don't know. But I know some people who haven't talked to anybody. They just sort of have COVID. They stay at home three, four days and deal with it and move on with their lives. Anyway, what does that 4.3 million figure mean? Well, it means this, out of every 100,000 people in the population,

11,000, at least 11,000 have had COVID. The worst case scenario in COVID, of course, is death. And sadly, in Canada, since this pandemic started, 46,000 Canadians have died, just over 46,000. What does that mean? Well, it means out of every 100,000 Canadians have died, just over 46,000. What does that mean? Well, it means out of every 100,000 in the population, there have been 118 deaths. Okay? 118 deaths for every 100,000 in the population. All right.

There's your background as to where we are up to now, but it's a far different story today than it was a couple of years ago. When there weren't vaccines. When we weren't sure about masking. When we didn't have really a game plan to deal with this. The story is considerably different now. But we are going through a fall wave. Not totally unexpected, but we are going through one.

So let's bring in Dr. Isaac Bogosh once more because he's been a great help to us throughout this last couple of years and he will be again today. Here we go. Let's start with something somebody asked me last week on the podcast. One of the listeners wrote in, and it's not about us. It's not about Canada. It's not about Toronto. It's about third world countries, specifically, I guess, the situations in Africa. Now, I know you care a lot about this because you spent time dealing with some of these issues. And

the question was, I thought it was going to be, you know, terrible in countries like Africa, COVID. And yet I'm not reading anything about it. I'm not seeing anything about it. And when I see footage from that part of the world, I'm not seeing anybody in masks. So what happened? Did it not happen there? Or what's the story? That's a very good question. And obviously, it's a massive continent with lots of different countries. And they also experienced COVID in every one of those countries as well. And we take a step back and look at it with a more granular perspective. COVID ripped through most African settings. Sadly,

most African countries were left off of the vaccination list and were treated very unfairly and had very slow access to vaccines relative to most high-income countries. And I think there's a couple of things to consider. One is that, yeah, when you look at excess deaths, COVID does in African settings what it does in every other part of the world. It preys on the elderly and it preys on the vulnerable. And you can see that in snippets of data that have emerged from different regions. And of course, we totally appreciate that different countries have different capacities for reporting data, but every place

that reports data really shows a similar theme. Older individuals, individuals with underlying medical conditions are at greater risk for severe outcomes. And that's exactly what was seen in African settings. The other interesting thing that was seen, too, is that the prevalence of infection when you do studies looking at how many people have been infected, the rates are extraordinarily high in many African countries, just like they are now in just about every other part of the world. So I think that's the other important point. And lastly, you look at the median age in, let's just say,

a country like Sierra Leone. It's about 19 years old. You look at the median age in a place like Canada or a Western European country like France, it's about 40-something years old. That's a massive, massive difference. And many countries like Canada and other countries that have, in general, an older population, they had a bigger brunt. They felt the brunt more significantly because we know that probably the greatest risk factor for severe outcomes is age. Yes, there's other risk factors, but age is probably the most significant one. Older individuals fare poorly with COVID in general compared to younger individuals. And a country like Canada has a proportionally way more older individuals than many of the countries

in Southern Africa and Western Africa and Eastern Africa. Let me just ask one more question. We'll use the on this topic and we'll use the Sierra Leone example. When we finally got going on vaccines in this country and many, you know, Western countries, they came in by the boatload. It wasn't a shortage of vaccines. It was, you know, a question of who was going to take them and who was going to boycott vaccines. In a place like Sierra Leone, have they got the vaccines they need? Yeah, if we timestamp the conversation to right now, there's no shortage of vaccines from a global standpoint. The COVAX program, for example, which is the program with

big international groups, the WHO, Gavi, UNICEF, to really get vaccines equitably distributed through the world. It has no shortage of vaccines. Now it's a matter of distribution and uptake and community engagement. So those conversations were real. There was truly a shortage of vaccines earlier on in the pandemic, and Africa was truly left out and treated like a global second class citizen. It was unfair and not equitable. Now, there is really not a shortage of vaccines. It's a matter of distribution, uptake, and mechanisms to get people up. And if you look, you'll see, like, for example, Mozambique is doing a doing a remarkable job. Now they just, uh, there was a nice article I read yesterday about Mozambique, uh, vaccinating, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people.

So like it's happening, it is happening. Uh, it's just, unfortunately they were left out of the, uh, procurement and, uh, distribution plans early on, despite efforts from other global players to really create a more equitable global vaccine strategy. And sadly, that failed. All right, let's bring the story home. We're clearly in a new wave, not totally unexpected, you know, a fall wave. But I want to, how would you characterize it? Cause we hear stories about hospitals overloaded. We hear about people who, you know, a lot of people who are getting COVID in our country, but also a resistance to getting the latest booster.

Not that they're against them, not that they're being anti-vax. They're just saying, well, you know, being know being there done that i don't need it again yeah i mean uh i'm with you i think it's uh that's a big problem here like covid's not going away we know it's gonna wax and wane with with the seasons and tis the season we're seeing more covid now and with some variants that are brewing quietly in the background, we know that that's probably going to drive a bit of a larger wave in the wintertime. And, you know, there is a fair bit of COVID out there right now in Canada right now. And of course, nothing's new in the sense that we know what to do to protect ourselves and to protect those around us. We know who gets sick. We know who is more likely to have severe outcomes like land in the hospital and succumb to this illness. We have the tools widely available. We have vaccines and masks. I mean, there's no

shortage of vaccines. They're free. They're widely available. We have vaccines and masks. I mean, there's no shortage of vaccines. They're free. They're widely available. And they do a remarkable job reducing the risk of severe infection, such as hospitalization and death. They don't do the same degree as they used to in terms of protecting us against infection and onward transmission. They still do to a smaller extent, but not to the same that they did earlier on in the pandemic. But they do keep people out of hospital and do a remarkable job at that. It's tough because I think, like you point out, people are pandemic-ed out, right?

People who are not anti-vax or not anti-science are maybe a little bit, I'm not sure what the right word is, but they're not. The uptake for the vaccine, for example, is pretty weak. We have tremendous room for improvement on that front. Now, some of it you obviously can't blame people. You would never point fingers and blame individuals for not doing this. But I think we could do better on this front. And one of the things we could do is really take a page out of what we did with the initial vaccine rollout. Remember, dose one and dose two, we had tremendous uptake,

like tremendous uptake. And there was sort of a three component. Well, there's lots of components, but there was really three major parts to that. One was communications, sound communications. And that means age, language, and culturally appropriate communication. So that has to be targeted. It's not just a one-size-fits-all approach. So we can improve on the comms front. The second is community engagement. And that means outreach to various communities, different communities that are more impacted by the virus, racialized communities, communities of different languages, speak different languages, different cultures, like real meaningful community engagement involving community leadership and listening to the various communities to work with them to ensure that the vaccine program aligns with the community and their beliefs.

And then the third component is lowering barriers to vaccination. And you'll remember during the initial vaccine rollout, we had pop-up vaccine clinics in temples, pop-up vaccine clinics in community centers. We had 24-7 vaccine clinics for people that work jobs of different hours. We had free public transportation to vaccine clinics. We had home vaccination for homebound seniors that might have been at risk. We really pulled out all the stops to ensure that any possible barrier could have been lowered. So between communication, community engagement and lowering barriers to vaccinations, it really did a great job. I'm not saying that would solve all our problems. What I'm saying is we'd have a much higher uptake of booster vaccines.

And we need that. Like we need that. COVID isn't everything, but it's still something. We have influenza. We have just regular significant needs on our health care system, which is obviously completely stretched now. So if we can reduce the burden on our health care system through COVID vaccination, influenza vaccinations, you know, I think we'd be doing the Canadian health care system, health care systems, plural, a lot of good, especially as we move through the fall and the winter. And just to make that point on the flu vaccine, it's out now in most areas. You can take them both on the same day, right? The booster and the flu shot? You absolutely can. Over the age of five, you can get the COVID vaccine

and the influenza vaccine at the exact same time. You absolutely can. And again, that's there for people's convenience. You know, if you want high uptake, you want to get more bang for your buck. Some people might say, you know what, I'm going to separate them by a couple of weeks because I don't want a really sore arm. That's okay. Other people might say, I'm here, I'm just going to get them both at the same time, that's okay. The whole goal is to reduce barriers and encourage uptake of the vaccine. And that's one strategy. But, you know, obviously, I'm biased here. And I think COVID is extremely important. And it's going to be an ongoing problem. And it's a current problem. But I'm not blind to other pressures on the healthcare system as well.

And there's, you know, staffing issues, there's infrastructure issues, there's organizational issues, like there's big issues with the healthcare system. But if people can avoid getting sick and seeking healthcare, that's always a good idea, stating the obvious, but it's especially a good idea when you hear about long wait times in emergency departments, issues with accessing a family physician or an outpatient urgent care center, you know, people waiting in emergency departments for long periods of time before they're actually admitted to hospital. Like, you can avoid that. Yeah, of course you should avoid that. And I think COVID booster vaccines, especially, especially in those over the age of 60, and especially in those with risk

factors for severe infection, plus influenza vaccines that can, A, help individuals, B, really prevent healthcare needs. So prevent a need to go to a primary care provider or an emergency department, C, probably saves a ton of money as well. I mean, if we're just thinking of dollars and cents, which we're not, but it just alleviates so much pressure from an already burdened healthcare system. When you look at the situation now, when you see the stats that are coming in, you talk about the stress on the healthcare system right now. When you read the results of wastewater sampling or whatever is done to try and get a trace just how bad it is out there right now.

Do you see anything beyond ensuring you get your boosters, you know, considering masking in certain moments? Is there anything beyond it? Do you see a world where we could be facing lockdowns again? Oh, God. Thanks for dropping that one on me. I don't know. I don't think so. I really don't think so. At the end of the day, a lot of these end up being political decisions. But I think the I know this is a pure speculation here. But my my guess is that the era of, you know, those very heavy handed public health interventions is long gone.

That's my guess. You know, there's saber rattling about bringing back masking in various settings. But even before that, I mean, let's just have senior political leadership and senior public health leadership at the federal, at the provincial, at the municipal level. Just discuss, hey, you know what? There's a lot of COVID around. There's also a lot of other respiratory viruses around. Put a mask on in an indoor setting. It'll reduce your risk of getting infected.

And if you are infected, it'll reduce your risk of infecting others. And if you have coordinated messaging, positive role modeling, that probably goes, I was going to say a long way, I don't know, but it probably does something. And I think that's important. And I hope we see better coordinated messaging on that front. Okay, I'm going to try one more on you. Let's put it this way. I asked this of your friend of mine lisa barrett last week oh yeah she is and i said to her you know i said you're pretty young just like you you're pretty young

you probably feel you've aged more than you should have in the last couple of years 44 going on 90 yeah but listen you're you know you're kind of, you know, at best halfway through your time in that field. The question was, do you think you're going to be answering questions about COVID for the rest of your career? Sure as hell hope not. No, I mean, I mean, we all hope not.

Right. But I mean, we thought i i mean i think it's fair to say we thought that we were looking at sort of like two to five years maybe at the worst when all this was in the middle of it all but now there's there's there's there's this feeling that you know it's it's going to be there forever, you know, in some form, and we just have to act accordingly. And so I guess that's the root of the question, that you're always going to find somebody asking you questions about COVID. Yeah, I think you're spot on, right? This isn't going away.

It's going to be around for a long, long, long time. And hopefully with time, you know, we're already seeing, you know, hopefully we build up enough community level protection through vaccination and through recovery from infection. Obviously, no one, we don't want people to get infected, but we still have to acknowledge that infection and recovery from infection plus vaccination at the community level, it changes the face of the virus. It does. And it has, I mean, at an individual level, it changes the face of the virus. It does and it has. I mean, at an individual level, it's become less lethal. That doesn't mean it isn't a public health threat. Of course it is. We see hospitalizations, we see impacts on the healthcare system, but through vaccination and

through recovery from infection and through a combination of both, it does become less of a lethal virus. You know, obviously there's anecdotes and then there's data. Data obviously suggests this. Anecdotes sort of highlight that point a little bit more significantly. I mean, I'm literally sitting on the 14th floor of the Toronto General Hospital with you right now having this conversation, I can tell you over the last few months, it's just been remarkable seeing people with COVID who have significant risk factors for severe disease, age, medical comorbidities, and they're vaccinated and they're updated on their vaccines. And these would be people in the pre-vaccine era who would have fared so poorly,

who would have been in the intensive care unit, who might have succumbed to this illness. And those same people are coming in now with their back, you know, they've been vaccinated. And you know what? Yeah, they're sick enough. They've crossed that path. They've crossed that threshold to be admitted to hospital. But it's a different illness, right? They don't have terrible COVID pneumonia requiring intubation. We're not having Zoom conversations with loved ones saying, you know, I'm sorry, your family member is not going to issue. It's still a problem. And it still causes stress on the health care system. And sadly, people are still getting sick, landing in hospital, and some people are dying. But it's certainly trending toward being in a much better place. And people who would have otherwise been extraordinarily sick in the ICU or dying, you know, in the hospital on a whiff of oxygen and are recovering and or coming into hospital with it, you know, COVID is there and it exacerbated one of their underlying medical

conditions like a heart rate issue or their COPD or they felt weak and fell down. And again, those are made, those are problems. We have to deal with those problems. They're medical problems, but we can deal with that. Whereas before, when we didn't have vaccines, those individuals, sadly, were the sickest of the sick. And we saw what happened. We saw the horrific deaths. I mean, there's been over 40,000 deaths in Canada. A lot of those were before vaccines were available. A lot of those were in the frail, old, vulnerable populations. They still are in the frail, old, and vulnerable populations. But we're just seeing the incredible work of the vaccine to markedly reduce this and actually transform this from a horrific disease in some individuals to a much more manageable condition.

I think we're going to leave it at that. I can't think of anybody who could have told us anecdotes like you just did there that make us feel closer to the story in the real world that continues to unfold. The lows, but I guess more so the highs of the differences between now and what it was like not that long ago when people were coming into your hospital wards. Dr. Bogoch, thank you so much for this. As always, we appreciate your time. My pleasure. Nice to chat. Dr. Isaac Bogoch, speaking to us from University of Toronto. He's at work today in the hospital, as you clearly heard. And, you know, he's, the thing I've,

one of the reasons that I've been doing these the last two weeks, Lisa Barrett last week and Isaac Bogosh this week are, I miss these people. You know, I believe in science. I respect science. I appreciate science. And I think they've been terrific with us over these last couple of years in, you know, telling us what they knew, what they didn't know,

what they suspected, what they were putting aside because they didn't respect it. So, you know, I've missed them. I'm glad we've had a chance these last couple of weeks to talk with them and get some sense from epidemiologists of their caliber as to what we're going through right now. When we come back in a moment, well, first of all, one last thing on COVID. I found this study.

A person's personality can change naturally over time or deliberately with effort. It can also change collectively, apparently thanks to a global health crisis. Researchers analyzed data from over 7,000 adults aged 18 to 109. The participants took personality tests that assessed the traits in the widely accepted five-factor model of personality. I didn't know these five factors, but here they are. Neuroticism, that's managing stress. Extroversion, connecting with others.

Openness, creative thinking. Agreeableness, trusting others. And conscientiousness, being disciplined and responsible. I'll just give you a brief hint of the results. Researchers reported declines in extroversion, that's connecting with others, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness in the subjects, personality traits that help people navigate social situations, trust others, and act responsibly.

Particularly susceptible to these changes were young adults, who also showed an increase in neuroticism later in the pandemic. Younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible, the authors of the study told The Guardian. That's interesting. I guess it's not that surprising, seeing as we had a society that was so closed in, literally closed in, during the worst of the pandemic. And, you know, it clearly had an impact. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

When we come back, who really is Danielle Smith? We thought we'd go to Calgary to try and put some defining descriptions around the new premier of Alberta. That's right after this. and welcome back i'm peter mansbridge this is the bridge for a monday you're listening on sirius xm channel 167 canada talks or on your favorite podcast platform. Alberta has a new Premier, Danielle Smith, and we've heard all kinds of things about her in the last month, and flip-flops on positions, controversies surrounding her early days as Premier.

So what are we to make of all this? But more importantly, who is this person? What do we actually know about her? Is she the kind of person that's being painted by the opposition, by her critics, by the media to an extent? Well, to find out, we go to my trusted source in Alberta, and that's Kathleen Petty, my old colleague at the CBC, still at the CBC, host of the wildly popular West of Centre podcast.

If you live in Western Canada, you should listen to West of Centre. But more importantly, if you don't live in Western Canada, you should listen to West of Centre. That'll give you a truer sense of, for those of us outside of the West, what our Western neighbors are really like. Anyway, enough from me. Let's hear from Kathleen Petty. So, Kathleen, you've known Danielle Smith for, well, for a while,

both as covering her as a politician, but also, you know, a colleague of hers, if you wish, because she's been in the media. So leave politics aside for a minute and tell me, who is this person? What's she like? Danielle Smith, Peter, for anyone who has observed her for any length of time, I will start by saying is an exceptionally skilled communicator. She is, you know, has a definite appeal. She was very popular on radio. You know, I don't know what her exact ratings were, but I know that she had a big audience. And so she certainly had influence. And she's very comfortable in front of a camera, in front of a microphone, and very comfortable

also sharing her thoughts and opinions, whether it's on radio or in different social media channels. However, I would say that sort of comfort level with sharing her thoughts and musings, in a sense, has sort of come back to bite her in the butt. And I think she certainly recognized that that would likely be the case, because she went out of her way to make special note of it in her victory speech when she won the leadership, saying, oh, people are going to go back and they're going to, you know, dive into some of all my social media and they're going to try and use that to hurt me and the UCP. But as far as

I'm concerned, it's a clean slate. And we're, you know, we're starting now and going forward. And obviously that that isn't how it works. You and I both know that anything you've said on the record, you have to be able to defend and explain. But she took a slightly different tact over the weekend, which I found interesting, because she'd made comments, Peter, about she's really out to reform Alberta Health Services. She thinks they did a terrible job during the pandemic. And she made a reference in an interview to some partnership that they had, which wasn't nefarious in any way, but she talked about a partnership with the WVF.

And we know how politically charged that conversation is. And then when asked over the weekend, you know, when you say you want to explore or investigate that partnership, she sort of brushed it off and said, you know what? Essentially, I was in the entertainment industry and so are you. She's talking to journalists now. So she essentially said, you're in the entertainment industry. I get it. It's all about clicks and getting attention. But essentially, you know, I'm not going to play that game because I'm now the premier and I'm now going to talk as premier.

So she didn't address it. But I was surprised to learn I was in the entertainment industry. I have to tell you, and I suspect every journalist there was as well. Yeah, that's one of those things that does come up about us as journalists, that the news is entertainment. Well, you know, it's not. If it is, then it's being done the wrong way. Let me just ask this point about her, because fairly or unfairly, some critics of the new premier have said she's not terribly bright, and that's why these stumbles have occurred

over the last few weeks and looking back to things she said earlier. Now, that's not the Danielle Smith that I recall in my few dealings with her. I would never have described her that way. That would be inaccurate, wouldn't it? Well, it's interesting you should raise that because it's actually been the topic of much debate among people that I've spoken to, people who've worked with her directly, who've told me what it was like to work with her, people who I will not name because they're journalists who worked with her and others who've covered her. And a recent column, it's a very good one, and I would recommend it by Jen Gerson in the line, talks about sort of who she is and how her brain works. Jen Gerson argues that she is smart, but lacks discernment. And that's where she makes questionable conclusions and sort of lines of logic that sort of break down as you go

and then says things that she, at least some of the time, feels that she needs to clean up after. So, but I would say, I can say for sure she has emotional intelligence because of her ability to communicate uh it's it's she's very skilled at it and anyone who's watched her i don't think can can take that away from her but it's uh i i found the argument about discernment being sort of separated from intelligence interesting and I think that you know different people might argue that if you don't have discernment that actually is a reflection of intelligence but I can tell you that to listen to her she certainly has a great handle on the information that she's consumed and she can recall things that she's read.

So the criticism is more about how she on that have received national attention over the last month or so since she became premier. What I would like to try and get at is how representative are they? But she's now having to backtrack on whether it was kind of identifying with, you know, Putin on Ukraine, whether it was backtracking on the decision about the Supreme Court that she was not going to necessarily accept Supreme Court decisions. And there have been other elements as well. The fact that she said those things, either just before the campaign or during the campaign. Were those to win votes or were those just simple mistakes? Well, certainly during the campaign, it was to win votes. I think she felt very clearly that that's what the membership wanted to hear, not just the existing membership. Let's remember that leadership campaigns are about selling memberships as well and bringing people into the fold. And so that's who she was talking to. And that is the great

sort of political question that I think all journalists are trying to sort out now that she's premier. What is the extent to which that message will resonate with 4.4 million people, as opposed to, you know, 123,000 members of the ECP, of which she won just a little over 53% on the sixth ballot? And that is the test. But it's interesting, you talk about the Sovereignty Act. I've never seen a discussion about a key piece of policy go back and forth more because she doubled down on it again over the weekend, saying, look, I didn't just talk about this to win the leadership. I'm not one for turning. I said I, you know, I would introduce this and all the things I said it would accomplish, I'm still committed to doing. She didn't bring up the Supreme Court again, but she made it very clear that she still maintains that whatever, you know, federal legislation that she feels approaches on Alberta might be introduced, that Alberta will decide when and if they're going to respect those laws. And, you know, she raised a few things, interestingly, as examples. And one was actually the child care deal, which I had not heard her mention before, saying she doesn't appreciate the conditions that were imposed in Alberta to get the money for the child care deal.

And, of course, it's, you know, very popular with parents with small children. So it's going to be interesting to see sort of the evolution. And ultimately, we have to see the legislation, don't we? And we have to see it. And then we have to see how it might be utilized. But, you know, she makes a lot of comparisons, as you know, with Quebec. We want to be like Quebec. But Quebec doesn't have a sovereignty act. And, you know, so they do all that they do without any such piece of legislation.

So, again, we'll just sort of watch and see what the, what it looks like when it's finally tabled, after which she hopes to win a by-election next month so that she can be the one to introduce it. You know, the originator of that phrase you used a moment ago, the I'm not for turning, was, of course, Margaret Thatcher. I think she would roll over in her grave to hear those who are using that phrase of hers again, Liz Truss. She admires Margaret Thatcher. She's a big Margaret Thatcher fan. I'm sure she does, but she has turned on some things already, just like Liz Truss did. And look what happened to her. And, you know, there are people making those comparisons, the situation that Truss found herself in and, you know, has since departed the scene, and the situation at times that Danielle Smith has found herself in

just in the last couple of weeks. The other point I wanted to get to was most of the country, whether they believe it or not, is faced with a kind of rural-urban split. You just have to look at the federal map, and you see where the Liberals are and where the Conservatives are, and you see the urban-urban split. You know, you just have to look at the federal map and you see where the Liberals are and where the Conservatives are, and you see the, you know, the urban-rural split. And the same is true to a degree, to a large degree in Alberta.

So where is she fitting in on that story? I mean, I see she said there needs to be more power for rural communities, more power in cabinet from rural members. Is that a winning hand? Can that be a winning hand? Well, it's interesting. She actually offers her own analysis of how that would work for her. And it was in a Rick Bell column very recently. And so her strategy is this.

I think she knows that Edmonton is essentially lost to her, the UCPF one seat. What she would describe, and we have to be careful about what we call rural, because I think we capture too much when we use that phrase. However, her definition of rural is 41 seats of which the UCP won 39 in 2019. And so she is essentially saying we have to hold those and then we only have to win a handful more. So that's not sort of looking for, based on her analysis at that point, and you know, that was a few weeks ago. But she's not looking for a crushing victory, it sounds like when you use that kind of language and dissect it that way. Unlike Jason Kenney, who wanted a blowout

and in fact got one in 2019. But it very clearly shows that Calgary is the battleground. We always knew it would be. Now, the NDP only got three seats in 2019 in Calgary. But the polling shows, and I saw a seat projection attached to one poll, believe it or not. This was last month, however, and things can change. But I've learned of a seat projection for one poll that has the UCP at zero seats in Calgary. Now, look, you know what polls are, right? Moment in time, whatever the mood might have been that day when people were answering. So, I mean, I wouldn't take that to the bank. But what I would say is it's a pretty clear indication that the battle is going to be in the city that I'm in. And the way an NDP strategist put it to me, which I found kind of fascinating, is that rural Alberta, you know, leans right.

Edmonton leans left. And then in Calgary, there's sort of progressive conservatives in Calgary, right? There's a lot of conservatives in Calgary. And so Calgary is one person is Switzerland, but they're kind of neutral. And they have to decide sort of which way to go. And I do think that Daniel Smith UCP is a different entity than a Jason Kenney UCP. So for conservatives, there's a decision to make. Like they're closer to the PCs than the UCP is to, you know, what Calgary traditionally supports. You know, Alberta politics used to be, it used to be in a way boring because, you know, through the Lawhi years and the Getty years and the Klein years, it was kind of like cleanup time for the conservatives. Now it is more than just a little bit interesting on a lot of levels. So we should be watching this carefully, and we will, and we'll rely on you every

once in a while to fill us in on how it's unfolding there. When's the election? When's the earliest the election can be? The end of May. So it's a fixed election date, May 29th. So it's not far away. It's not very far away. And so, like, I'm now rushing to make sure I've got that date right. Can you imagine if I got that wrong? But it's, yeah.

I think it's May 29th. We're good at corrections on this program. Oh, are you? That's good to know. It fills time. That's good to know. It fills time. That's good to know. Here's today's corrections. Yeah.

No, it's May 29th. But, you know, you get to the point where you have so much stuff jumbled in your head. Oh, and by the way, I know you're in Scotland. Yes. So have you ever been to the Isle of Mull? I have not been to the Isle of Mull, but I would. I mean, there's fantastic. That's where Calgary is. Calgary.

Calgary, Scotland is on the Isle of Mull. And you're not too far away from Banff either, Peter, because I know you were in Banff. I can't believe it. The more I've driven around Scotland, the more I think, my gosh, they name a lot of communities after the ones in Canada. Hey, yeah, I know. You know what's interesting? I went to Banff many years ago, and believe it or not, when I arrived, they were actually constructing a Banff Springs hotel just outside of the town.

It was more like a holiday inn, to be honest. It was nothing like that. I kind of loved that they were sort of copying us a littlem. to be honest it was nothing like but I I kind of loved that they were sort of copying us a little bit you know that I was in the Vans Springs Hotel uh as I think you know a week or 10 days ago because I had a speech there and it is you know I I've been lucky enough to travel the world I know you've done a lot of traveling and of my kind of top five favorite hotels in the world Vans Springs Hotel is right up there near the top. It is just a spectacular place. Not hurt by the scenery.

It's pretty incredible. And that golf course is great too. Kathleen, it's always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for doing this. Yeah, you're a good friend, Peter, and I love the pod. And great to join you as always. Take care. Well, West of Centre ain't bad either.

Thanks for the plug. I'll take it. Don't worry. You'll get them. Okay, Kathleen. Take care. Bye-bye. You too.

Bye. Kathleen Petty talking to us from Calgary today. That's pretty well going to wrap it up for this day, but I am going to leave you with one thing. It's that time of year. I don't know. Have you got your pumpkins already? Do you do pumpkins at this time of year? I mean, I think they look great. You know, they look great for a couple of weeks and obviously on a certain night,

they look really spectacular. I found in good housekeeping, Can you believe it? Mansbridge looks at good housekeeping. There it is. Twelve pumpkin carving tips to help you create the perfect jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween. I'm not going to read all twelve. I'll read three because I've never heard of them before. Here's one. Start cutting from the bottom, not the top. The pumpkin carving pro they talk to says cutting your lid from the bottom of the pumpkin

helps prevent the sides from caving in later. Did you know that? That's where you start the carve, at the bottom, not the top. You know, hint number two. Keep your pumpkin fresh by spreading petroleum jelly on the cut edges to seal in moisture. If your pumpkin still shrivels a few days later, you can revive it with a face-down soak in cold water for up to eight hours. Go figure. Now here's the real tricky one.

Do you like pumpkin pie? Do you love that smell of pumpkin pie? Well, do you want your jack-o'-lantern to smell like pumpkin pie? If you do, when you light the candle, sprinkle cinnamon inside the lid, and it'll smell just like pumpkin pie. There you go. Who said you couldn't get great cooking tips from this podcast? I want to zoom up the numbers of favorite cooking podcasts.

The Bridge. Gotta love it. And that was our Encore Edition for this week. Our episode from two years ago, October of 2022, with Kathleen Petty, the host of the podcast West of Centre. Thanks for joining us. Talk to you again with our next new edition of The Bridge tomorrow, Thursday. It's your turn and the Random Ranter.