The Decibel - Take Back Alberta and its mission to reshape politics

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

The Alberta election starts today – and one group in particular is ready for it. It’s called Take Back Alberta and it’s a network of people who share the same values: no vaccine mandates, no pandemic lockdowns – and Christian faith. Together, its members are trying to reshape politics in the province from the ground up.Reporter Carrie Tait spent months going to the group’s meetings and talking to its leader to get a sense of its plans in this very competitive election between Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party and the NDP’s Rachel Notley, as well as what its goals are once the election is over – both inside Alberta and beyond.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

All right, we'll get started. We need to all help each other out. Okay. Ready. Oh, Canada. I'm here in Tabor. We're in a farm shop, and there's about 60 people in plastic chairs

that were all lined up. There's coffee, and people are visiting. There were vegetables and dip and some cookies lined up. There's coffee and people are visiting. There were vegetables and dip and some cookies lined out. It was friends of friends and family. People all, you know, they knew each other and they were all there to see one man speak. My name is David Josh Harper. I was born in Macomb, Alberta. For those of you who don't know And they were all there to see one man speak. Carrie Tate is a Globe reporter based in Alberta, and she's been reporting on David Parker and the very conservative group Take Back Alberta. It's a group tied together by anger over vaccine mandates and government restrictions during the pandemic. And now it's gaining influence in the province

all the way to the premier's office. In this election, David is determined to help the United Conservative Party win. And part of that is his fear of what he believes are the evil socialist NDP. Today, Kerry's here to set the stage for the Alberta election, explain what Take Back Alberta is, and how it has ambitions to grow beyond the province. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Kerry, thank you so much for being here today. Well, thank you for having me. So, Carrie, you've been to some meetings.

You've talked at length with its leader. Can you tell me what exactly is Take Back Alberta? Take Back Alberta is a little bit hard to define. I describe it as a vibe. It's not necessarily like a club, like you're a member of a club. It's more of like an association. It's a network. It's people who believe in an individualistic understanding of rights and freedoms. Its roots are definitely in being upset over COVID rules, restrictions, mandates, all of that. A lot of its messages

are communicated sort of like over values and sort of winks. It definitely is on the right side of the conservative movement. Some people even go as far to say it's the far right side, but it definitely represents the social conservative side with religious undertones. Okay. And so it's not a political party. It's a movement, as you say. It's kind of a vibe, if you will. Yeah, it's a vibe.

I mean, legally, it is a third-party advertiser or a third-party, a PAC idea. Somebody could have TBA values but not necessarily even have ever gone to a meeting, but they just align with them. And then so Take Back Alberta would maybe be supportive of them, even whether if that person likes it or not. That's where sort of just the values come in. Okay. And so how big is this group? It's tricky to say because this isn't a group that's necessarily based on membership. But at one point, its leader, David Parker, had told me there were like 30,000 people involved. Maybe it's hard to say. That might be an exaggeration.

It might not be. But that's how Take Back Alberta works, that it's hard to pin down who is or isn't Take Back Alberta because it's such a loose association. You may never have heard of Take Back Alberta, but you might even align with its values. And that's where sort of the way it can succeed without being, you know, a defined political party. And to put, so you said, you know, 30,000 is kind of the estimate you were given. We're not quite sure about the validity of that. But to put that in perspective, the population of the province, Alberta, is about 4.3 million. So.

Right. But so who are these people then? Who are the people that are coming out to these to these events? It's very, very rural. That is definitely where it's the strongest. And a lot of the people had ties to the border blockade in Coutts and the convoy in Ottawa. David Parker was able to tap into that and find those people and organize them and harness them. He developed friendships later out of that with some of the key people who were participating and organizing in Coutts, Jared McCoy, Marco, Van Hugenbos. And now those people, he's like trained them up almost. That's kind of the idea of like how to be a regional captain, how to organize others in your network. And they're like Take Back Alberta deputies now. So that's where its roots are. And then a lot of that still runs through Take Back Alberta today.

So they still do talk about being definitely against the government telling them what to do. But then it goes broader than that now when they look at what they think libraries should do, whether or not it's appropriate to have drag performers reading stories to children in libraries. Those are the types of things now that it's concerned with, sort of the values that are part of the vibe. Well, we've talked a little bit about David Parker, but I guess let's dive into who he is a little bit, Carrie. Just briefly, he's the leader of Take Back Alberta, but who is he?

It is fair to say that he is a little bit, Carrie. Like just briefly, he's the leader of Take Back Alberta, but who is he? It is fair to say that he is controversial. He is homeschooled, son of a pastor and a homeschool facilitator. And that really plays into who he is and who Take Back Alberta is. He was really offended when pastors in Alberta were arrested during COVID. Jason Kenney started arresting pastors.

I took that personally because my dad is a pastor. But more than that, I believe that religious freedom is the cornerstone of Western civilization. And that really ignited something in him. He's been involved in politics his whole life. His first moment in politics, this thing he describes is getting involved in his local board for his federal MP. He's 14 years old, right? And so my mom said, well, if you want to be involved in politics, if you want to get involved, you should probably go to your first ever political meeting. So she took me to my first ever, what's called an annual general meeting.

I got elected to the board of directors that day because I was the youngest person there by 30 years old. By 30 years, I was 14 and the next youngest person was like 44. And so they're like, hey, young person, let's get them involved in politics. Then he ends up working in Ottawa. He works in the prime minister's office and in various ministers' offices. The reason I'm telling this story is not to say, hey, look at me. I was Stephen Harper's advisor at 23 years old.

Listen to this story. I was the only one who showed up. As much as he's painting himself as an insider, he also describes himself as an outcast, that he was never really fully accepted in Ottawa in those conservative circles. So he's trying to show he knows how to maneuver in the political world, but he's still just like them. He's still an outcast, not part of these, you know, political elite. He claims that he was behind the news coming out that Andrew Scheer's children were educated in private schools with the conservative party picking up the tab. The former conservative leader, of course, Andrew Scheer. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And he takes a lot of credit for bringing down Jason Kenney.

He doesn't deserve all of the credit for Jason Kenney's downfall. He did help start to organize to push out Jason Kenney. But to say that he, you know, take back Alberta was the sole reason, of course, is going too far. And Kenney is, of course, the former premier of Alberta there who was UCP, United Conservative Party. Yeah. So he does paint himself as like somebody who knows how to take down leaders. And like you said, it's hard to know how much he was involved in these political downfalls. But this is certainly part of the story that he presents. So what about his relationship, though, with current Alberta Premier Danielle Smith?

What's that like? Premier Smith attended David Parker's wedding in Canmore in March. And that revelation shows that there's proximity to power that we didn't otherwise know. I asked David Parker about this. He said, no, we're just friends. The idea that it's about influence, he brushed that off. He said, this is a friendship, we share a passion for politics. But for people who are worried about TAPAC Alberta and the power that they might wield, or if they're worried that they make the UCP look too far right wing when, you know, you're out on the door campaigning, say in Calgary, and you want to present a more moderate view, the news that

Danielle Smith attended this pretty small wedding, it was 75 guests in Canmore, will fuel that fear. There is a little bit of tension with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Maybe right now that Take Back Alberta is helping her and lifting her up. But it also, you know, David's very clear that he could turn on her. Interesting. And then, of course, this year in March, as you said, Daniel Smith went to went to his wedding. And so we have kind of his side of that story. What what what does Danielle Smith said about about why she attended the wedding. Well, we asked the UCP campaign and what they said was, quote, the premier was invited to a wedding and attended, end quote. And then the statement went on to attack Rachel Notley. So, OK, so this kind of movement, it doesn't really get off the ground, of course, without money. So, Carrie, do we know who's funding Take Back Alberta?

Yes and no. Money with Take Back Alberta is a very contentious topic. I don't have the answer right now on how much money there ever was at the beginning. David has told me like the biggest he ever got was like $3,000 or $5,000 here or there from people with deeper pockets. Then it shifted into a third party political advertiser, this legal entity under Elections Alberta Act.. And he was trying, you know, they'd set a fundraising target. And he says that that flopped. And now what happens at the meetings, they literally take up a collection. Somebodys, just cash coming in the door. And right now they're using that, David says, to cover like his gas because he's driving this blue Ford F-150 all across the province, covers expenses. But they're not out there,

not publicly at least, with big, you know, flashy billboards or anything like that. We'll be back in a minute. Carrie, let me ask you, ultimately, what is the pitch that Parker is making to the people who show up to these events? His pitch is you have to get involved. If you want power, all you have to do is get involved. He's arguing that social conservatives like the people in these rooms have been pushed out of power because they're apathetic. It's their fault. One of his lines is democracy isn't broken, you're broken.

If you're wondering why society is going the way it's going, and some of you may not be wondering that, but a lot of us are wondering why this is happening. Why are we watching our values erode? Why is our system collapsing? Why do people seem to not care about character and virtue and values anymore? It's because you're not the ones making the decisions. And so his plan and his pitch is if we want things to change and we want them to reflect our values, we need to go to these really boring meetings and do it ourselves. So that's the nut of this organization. Have they been successful at getting into these kinds of positions in public office? Absolutely no denying. He has put some pretty big wins on the board. The most notable is looking at

the UCP's provincial board. You know, they ended up when the votes were counted, all nine open seats in that race, this was last October, were people that TBA, you know, quote, endorsed. The party board has influence over the candidate selection, over the direction of the party. Some of that comes from the board, not exclusively. So there is also a tension there on whether or not the board is, you know, the boss of their MLA or the premier. And that's where a lot of that influence comes from, too. And is the idea then that they could, you know, with these positions, if there's some influence there, they could essentially pull the party further right? Yeah, Take Back Alberta has definitely pulled the party to the right. And in this election,

there are candidates for the UCP who definitely align with Take Back Alberta. Some of those people will likely end up as MLAs because they're in pretty safe ridings. If people within the party believe that people of those values are their base, you know, the party may bend to that or reflect that. That's sort of what they're hoping. So we've got this leader of a right-wing movement with ties to the premier of Alberta, and he's leading this group of people who have previously not really been involved in politics, but they're now suddenly taking an interest and taking action, actually, to engage in the democratic process. And now there's a provincial election in Alberta. So what are Take Back Alberta's plans for this election?

Take Back Alberta on this is determined to help the UCP win. Now, even within Take Back Alberta, there's people who say, but, you know, Jason Kenney and the UCP, they're the ones who caused this harm to us during COVID. And David's response to that is, you know, Kenny's gone. We have Danielle Smith now. And even when Danielle, you know, has things where she's let them down, he says, look, she's not perfect, but it's better than the nasty alternative in the NDP. That's very much his singular focus is keep the NDP out. So they're out there definitely working their networks, trying to get their friends who might not normally vote, get them out, doing those things that people normally do on getting out the vote. So to gauge their influence on the election will be difficult. They're much more effective in exercising and influencing power within the party itself. That's fascinating. And I wonder, when you're talking about maybe switching someone from NDP to UCP, does he give people advice on how to persuade others to do that? He does.

I was at a meeting in Calgary, which is a battleground. Whoever wins Calgary will probably end up in power after this election. And so he was telling people, look, we all know about the vaccines. We all know about the world economic form. We all know about 15 minute cities. But don't fight those with the people that you're trying to convince. Don't talk about that stuff. You know, they don't get it. Just talk about the voting and the politics. So he's. And we should say those are all like conspiracy theories, essentially, which which don't have any any weight to them. Yes. Among a lot of the people who attend these meetings, there's a belief in them, not 100 percent, not everyone. But he's

just saying, like, just keep that side of your beliefs quiet. Focus on this. It does seem like a lot of these people are from kind of similar parts of the province. You mentioned rural communities. So I would imagine those are already areas that the UCP would win kind of without resistance. Oh, absolutely. Kerry, let me ask you a little more broadly now about the Alberta election. Just generally speaking, where does each party stand with voters at the start of this race now?

This is going to be a fascinating election. So the writ drops today, and we're going to vote on May 29th. And it is so tight. This is probably the most competitive election in Alberta's history. The NDP will end up winning most, if not all of the seats in Edmonton. The UCP will end up with most of the seats in rural Alberta. And that leaves Calgary, two seats in Lethbridge, and then maybe the odd speckle in other suburban areas. So Calgary is the battleground. The UCP and the NDP are desperate to attract votes here. The UCP, we saw last week, has decided its path to power is through funding a new arena for the Calgary Flames. You know, they're trying to make that a ballot box issue. If you want the arena, vote for us. The NDP haven't quite figured out where they're going to, how they're going to navigate that yet. Okay, so the arena sounds like it might be an issue that kind of rises to the top here and people will be talking about. I know it's early here, but is there anything else that we have a sense might be a big issue in this election? There's no clear defining issue yet. Of course, keep in mind the election only officially started today. But there's no clear

path of UCP believes this on healthcare, NDP believes the other thing. It's very much trying to paint each other as one or the other. Does Danielle Smith truly believe in publicly funded healthcare? The NDP are trying to seed doubt and the UCP is trying to say, it's fine. We're funding things. We're getting things fixed. So in a way, it's this really heated election without a clear defining issue yet. Just very lastly here, Carrie, I want to come back to Take Back Alberta, because it seems like a lot of their momentum is really coming from the fact that the people were angry about the pandemic. But the era of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, it seems to be done now. So I wonder, will its relevance fade as as public anger from these past measures disappears? Or do

you think they're going to refocus on, I guess, maybe different cultural issues? That's a great question. I'd asked David that as well. What happens after the election? How do you keep all of these people engaged? And his answer to me was school boards. Basically, now, he said, it's the long march through the institutions. And that's Take Back Alberta is not just about this election. It's about remaking society as a whole. And I know it's called Take Back Alberta, but does he have ambitions to make this bigger? Like, I don't know, anything out of the province or beyond the province to kind of expand this movement? In his wildest dreams, absolutely he does. What made Take Back Alberta how it happened was in part because there was this pool of people who were ready and just didn't know what to do. And he believes that there's enough pockets of that across the country that you could build this out or and you tap into faith networks and build it out from there. It will be much more difficult, but he's definitely plotting. Carrie, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Well, thank you for

having me. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wellms. Our intern is Andrew Hines. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer. And Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.