Ezra Levant critiques Ontario’s election debate for excluding conservative parties like the Ontario Party (Derek Sloan) and Blue Party (Jim Karajelios), despite their qualified candidates, while allowing Liberals with government-aligned moderators Steve Pakin and Althea Raj to dominate. Media trivialized Ford’s policies—like vaccine mandates—while ignoring inflation or housing crises, with Rebel News’ Lincoln Jay and Tamara Ugolini exposing deeper flaws, such as Del Duca’s child vaccine pledge. Alberta’s UCP leadership review mirrors institutional bias: mail-in ballots replace in-person voting amid RCMP investigations into Kenney’s "dirty tricks," while critics like Drew Barnes, Angela Pitt, and Brian Jean push for splits or federal alternatives like Poilievre. Both cases reveal elites prioritizing control over accountability, leaving voters sidelined by procedural manipulation and policy evasion. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, I'm going to take you through last night's Ontario provincial election debate.
It was a terrible debate, but I think it was destined to be that way because the conservative parties were banned from debating, and conservative journalists were limited in asking questions.
I think it was very broken.
I'll take you through it.
That's ahead.
But before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast because I want to show you some clips from the debate.
I want you to see it with your eyes.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
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You get my show every night, plus four weekly shows from the rest of our team.
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All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, Ontario has its election debate, but really, what was the difference amongst the candidates?
It's 2017.
And this is the Instrument.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Rules Rigidly Rigged00:05:24
Well, I don't know who amongst you watched the live stream last night.
Sheila Gunreed and myself co-anchored four-hour broadcast built around the Ontario provincial election and their leaders' debate.
I tell you, four hours was long to begin with, but it felt more like four days.
It was excruciating.
You can only imagine what Sheila went through.
She doesn't even live in Ontario.
She was helping me cover it, but it must have been twice as awful for her.
It was run by two government journalists.
So it's what you would expect.
Steve Pakin was one of the co-hosts.
He's a pretty effective moderator, but it is a fact that he works for Ontario's provincial state broadcaster called TVO or TV Ontario.
It's owned by the government and it shows.
Steve was co-hosting along with Althea Raj, who not only works for the CBC, but she was Justin Trudeau's official biographer.
So that sort of tells you what the night was like right there.
The rules were rigged from the very beginning in two ways.
The rules were rigged to keep out the small conservative parties that have popped up in Ontario.
Derek Sloan, the former Conservative MP, now runs the Ontario Party, and Jim Karajelios now runs the new Blue Party.
They're both running a full slate of candidates, and both of them actually have a sitting member of the legislature.
In the case of the new Blue Party, it's Belinda Karahalios.
She's a sitting MPP.
In the case of the Ontario Party, it's Mr. Nichols, both of whom were at odds with Doug Ford.
So over the lockdowns, you would think that the fact that they opposed Doug Ford and left the party would give them even more standing, even more interest.
But alas, they were ruled ineligible for this debate.
The rules were rigged.
You had to run a full slate of candidates and have a member of the legislature, the provincial parliament, but they had to be elected under that party banner.
Why that arbitrary rule?
And they didn't even keep the rule.
The Liberal Party, which is obviously a significant party in Ontario's history and has a number of MPPs that were elected under that party banner, were not running a full slate.
When they realized that, they changed the rules to let the Liberals in.
It would be absurd not to let them in.
But they so obviously cooked the books and rigged the rules so that the small party called the Green Party, with a single MP that got less than 5% in the last election, he was considered a major party candidate, according to the CBC.
But two conservative-leaning small parties, the Green parties of the right, if you wish, who were running full slates like the Green Party, who had a member of the provincial parliament like the Green Party, they were called fringe and not allowed in.
If they just had the three big parties, the Conservatives, the Liberals, and the New Democrats, you could understand the thinking of it.
If they had those big three and the three small opposition parties, it would make sense.
But how can you rig the rules to keep just the conservative little parties out and let in the Green Little Party?
Well, it's pretty obvious.
And they did the same on the media side.
This was run, as I said, by the state broadcaster of Ontario in partnership with the State Broadcaster of Canada.
There were a couple of other media party co-producers of the event they called the consortium.
Now, they did let rebel news in the building.
We had two reporters inside, we had two reporters outside, so they did let us in.
But they had another made-up rule that they would let their own journalists ask all their questions to their heart's content first.
And only once the government journalists were done would they allow questions from independent journalists.
So we weren't banned from the event like Trudeau has tried to ban us.
But just like they rigged the rules in favor of their parties of the left, they rigged the rules in terms of the journalists of the left.
And what this did is it ensured it wasn't really a debate after all.
It was just a series of agreements.
They were in violent agreement with each other.
There really was so little disagreement.
For example, what's the largest story of the past two years?
Well, obviously, it's the lockdowns, the torching of civil liberties, the way we segregated people in society based on vaccine status.
So much of this debate was a review the last two years, that just never came up.
Just never.
Not from the politicians in the debate, not from the two journalists moderating the debate, and not afterwards with that hand-curated list of media party.
There just was nobody in the media or the politicians challenging the lockdowns.
Leading on Climate Change00:05:50
There was one mention by Stephen Del Duca, the Liberal leader, criticizing Doug Ford for carding people who were just out on the street or on playgrounds.
Carding is a term that's used for when police pull people over for no probable cause, just pull them over, ask them questions, ask to CID.
Its critics often say it's used to racially profile people.
If you see a young black man walking down the street, go card him when he's doing nothing wrong.
Doug Ford actually wanted every single citizen in Ontario to be carded by police just for walking on the streets.
It was an outrageous idea.
And it was actually the only moment during the entire pandemic where police stood for civil liberties.
And many police chiefs announced that they would refuse to engage in that police state conduct.
Here, watch that clip.
There was a criticism there.
There's no doubt in my mind the people of Ontario have an exceptional capacity to rise to the occasion of a challenge.
But I want to understand better.
I think people at home do as well.
Why, when the science table told you in February 2021 to not reopen so rapidly, why did you choose to do so?
And then, then, why did you tell little kids like my own daughters that they couldn't go to playgrounds and that police should have more power to card trample on charter rights indiscriminately?
Why was that your solution in the midst of that moment of crisis?
Why?
Why then?
Why then?
Mr. Del Duca, as I said earlier on, folks, was everything perfect?
No, it wasn't perfect.
But if there was an issue, I'll get it up there.
I made the change.
I apologize.
But let's just talk about that.
Playgrounds and police.
Mr. Del Duca, for two and a half years, literally 24-7, I was working on this pandemic.
It's easy to sit back from the sidelines when you didn't have to make the tough decisions that I had to make and criticize.
You have the easiest job if you're just sit there and criticize.
Mr. Ford, respectfully, Mr. Ford, Mr. Ford, respectfully, this is the job that you signed up for four years ago.
You asked for people to support you four years ago.
You ran to be premier.
You must accept responsibility.
Very good.
Both major points at yours.
Both major points at the core.
That was the only mention of civil liberties the entire night.
And of course, it's a bit laughable because that man, Stephen Del Duca, the liberal leader there, during the entire lockdown, did not object to any other violations of civil liberties, including much worse violations of civil liberties.
The forced vaccines, the lose your job if you don't get jabbed, the banishment from the streets and schools and universities of anyone who's not jabbed, violations of civil liberties and privacy heretofore unthinkable.
The Liberals weren't upset with any of those.
In fact, they often lobbied to have Rob Ford crack down harder.
It's a laugh when Ford said he was working 24-7.
We simply know that's not true.
In fact, he often got out of Toronto and he went to the family cottage where he could have a more normal life away from the prying cameras.
Doug Ford, like every other politician in Canada, worked half as much during the lockdown.
They certainly took all their pay.
It's laughable, but that is the only moment where civil liberties were mentioned.
You would think that one of the journalists would pick that up either during the debate or afterwards, but none did.
They simply didn't care.
They were far more interested in their own agenda.
And I just knew it would come up, and it did.
Here's Steve Pacan, the government journalist for TVO, saying that in his mind, the existential question for our country right now is not inflation.
It's not housing prices.
It's not civil liberties in the age of a pandemic.
It's none of that.
The existential question, the government broadcaster said, was global warming.
Take a look.
I'm going to suggest the following question to kick off this five-minute debate period, which is: leadership also means leading on the most existential issue of our time, which is climate change.
Now, you live a normal life.
You talk to normal people.
You go around, you travel around, you talk to friends and family, but you probably talk to other people you don't know.
Is there anyone in your circle?
Is there any shopkeeper, cab driver, shoeshiner, restaurant waiter, waitress?
Is there any real human you know outside of the political media industrial complex who talks about global warming?
In fact, it's very cool spring in Canada.
I don't think I've heard a single normal person talk about it.
Imagine, again, just coming out of the pandemic in atrocious inflation.
I mean, it's not a provincial matter, but other issues include Ukraine, supply chains, price of gas, carbon tax.
Could you imagine saying that global warming is the existential issue and making that the central, the central question of the debate?
No wonder they wanted the Green Party leader in.
He would talk about that instead of boring things like civil liberties.
Well, the Green Party leader, who I had frankly never heard of before last night, said that not only is green ideas a crisis, we have to get ready for the next society-wide crisis, which he announced in advance very helpfully, would be about climate.
Here he is saying, get ready for the next climate crisis.
We've had our practice with the COVID crisis.
Now let's do it all over again for climate.
We need to make sure that we're adequately prepared for the next crisis.
Whether that crisis is a pandemic, whether it's the climate emergency, whether it's some unknown crisis that's bearing down on us.
And that means investing in people, making sure our care providers are adequately and fairly compensated.
It's making sure that the most vulnerable are protected.
You know what?
Binder Notes Revealed00:11:25
It made me pine for the Conservative Party leadership debate of just a week ago, where the questions were too brief, where candidates were interrupted by Tom Clark, where there were weird gimmicks like ping-pong paddles and that sad trombone wah, wah, wah, wah sound.
It was a clown show.
It was a circus.
It was a gimmick with Tom Clark.
But frankly, after three hours of listening to the droning on of the think-alikes, really, the differences and the distinctions amongst these candidates was minuscule.
I started to pine for that conservative debate.
After the two government journalists got done, there was these scrums.
And like I say, the rebel news journalists were not allowed to ask questions first.
We had to stand back while the government journalists were permitted first questions.
We did get a few questions in, and I'm glad we did.
But again, it was so odd to me to observe just the chumminess, the allegiances amongst all the government journalists and between the government journalists and the politicians.
The first name basis, the casualness of it all, they're all friends.
There were no aggressive questions, not even for Doug Ford.
There were no aggressive questions.
It was all, how do you feel?
And just trading softballs back and forth.
The first name basis, I think, was these people are a clique.
It's them, not versus each other.
They're not pitted against each other.
It's all of them versus you.
It's the club versus those not allowed in the club.
The new Blue Party and the Ontario Party are definitely not allowed in the club.
Rebel News, they try and keep us out of the club, but really it's you.
This is a clique.
This is a circle of friends.
The journalists and the politicians each.
Just take a look at some of this chummy first name basis.
This is the opposite of an accountability moment.
Hi, Stephen.
Hey.
Hey, Mr. Elijah.
Hey, Colin.
You caution.
Hi, Stephen.
Hey, how are you?
Good.
How are you?
Great.
Hi, good evening, Ms. Horvath.
Hi.
Hi, President.
Well, first of all, before you ask me the question, I think TVO did a great job tonight.
So thank you.
I'll tell Steve.
So chummy, so weird.
They are not holding the government to account.
How could they?
They live off the avails of government.
How could Althea Raj and Steve Pacan, who get paid by the government, hold the government to account?
And all the rest of them, too.
You know, the weirdest thing about the whole night, I have to say, was that Doug Ford, the Premier, had a little briefing book, a little binder on stage, which I don't know what was in it, but I can guess it was just little talking points, little facts on different issues.
He probably had some statistics in there on issues that he thought would come up.
I didn't particularly notice him glancing at them, but the idea of a politician having a briefing book is not that interesting.
It's how the politician responds to questions.
The briefing book might have a detail or a stat or something like that.
It's just wholly uninteresting.
But the number one question in the post-debate scrum, again, was not about the cost of living, was not about the carbon tax, was not about the price of gas, was not about would we have, I don't know, a lack of baby formula in this country, too.
I saw a story last week about that.
Is that a problem?
Nothing curious like that.
The number one question, both for Doug Ford himself and for the other parties, was, hey, how come Doug Ford took a binder in there?
What?
Here, just take a look for yourself.
Not only did they ask Doug Ford it, they asked all the other candidates, why does Doug Ford have a binder?
Hi, Mr. Schreiner.
I just wanted to get your thoughts on Mr. Ford bringing a binder.
Did you notice the frequency of him referring to the binder?
Did you feel like it was a crutch or was it just an aid that he brought to the debate?
On the pre-prepared notes, what did you bring with you?
And what did you notice during the debate with Mr. Ford?
Was he referring to his notes a lot?
Were they a crutch or were they simply just an aid during the debate?
In North Bay, after the debate, you did not stay to answer reporter questions.
Noticed you had a binder with notes in this debate.
Question is, are you afraid of making a mistake?
On the binder that you brought up today, I think there were a lot of people who were watching who noticed that, you know, you occasionally had to glance down at the binder to refresh your memory.
Why were you so reliant on pre-written notes in this debate?
Why couldn't you speak from the heart or from the mind, as the other leaders say they did?
So you've got the premier of the province there.
And this may be your only chance to put a tough question to him.
He's had years as the premier during the most controversial era in memory.
And you want to ask him about his little binder and what he had.
Does anything turn on it?
Does a single vote turn on it?
Do you care?
Are you that bored or are you that purposefully uninterested in the issues of the day?
Why would you ask about that instead of any possible question you could ask?
Well, like I say, controlled opposition, controlled media.
They didn't let real journalists ask questions.
They didn't let real politicians in.
It was quite something.
We had a couple of reporters on the inside.
One of them was Lincoln Jay.
He was not permitted to ask questions of Doug Ford.
All the other journalists ensured that they ragged the puck and took up the time.
So Lincoln followed Doug Ford out and hollered to him, why did you break your word on the vaccine mandates?
Like so many other so-called conservatives, Doug Ford once said he would never allow a vaccine mandate.
And of course, he flip-flopped.
Or Lincoln Jay tried to put that to Doug Ford.
Obviously, he didn't stop to answer.
Take a look.
Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford, why'd you flip Mr. Ford?
He was back behind the Pfizer.
Guys, he's starting taking questions.
Mr. Ford, why'd you flip-flop on the vaccine?
Why'd you flip for it on the vaccine passport?
Lincoln and our reporter Tamara Ugolini, they showed more get up and go than these mainstream media government journalists.
You saw Lincoln hollered at Doug Ford.
He walked away.
But we had success, Lincoln and Tamara, asking questions of the liberal leader, Del Duca.
Here's the first one from Lincoln, where he asked Del Duca to explain this statement.
Take a look at the statement by Del Duca, where he says he would bring back forced vaccines for children.
This is what he said the other day.
Mr. Deluca, last one.
Pledged to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of scheduled vaccines for school children.
The chief medical officer of Ontario, Dr. Kira Moore, has stated that there needs to be more study.
It needs to be looked into more.
With that being said, what's the basis for your decision to add this to the list of scheduled vaccinations?
So let's remember that NACI has actually said that kids between the age of 5 and 11, they are strongly urging those kids, like my younger daughter, our younger daughter, to get the vaccine.
We think it's important because the numbers are still as low as they are.
Roughly 40 to 45% of those kids have gotten both doses.
We think it's a way to boost confidence and make sure people understand.
We want our schools to stay open.
We want our kids to be healthy at all times.
And frankly, the science is settled.
We know that the vaccines work.
We know that they keep all of us healthy, not just our kids, but their parents, their grandparents, and frontline education workers.
Isn't that funny?
You have an interminable, like three-hour debate.
You have excruciatingly long QA sessions where the media party fills it up.
And no one even asked about that until our Lincoln Jay grabbed him in the hallway as he was walking away.
Good for Lincoln, eh?
And Tamara Ugalini was there too.
And I have to think that the Liberals didn't recognize her because I would be surprised if they would stop and answer her real questions if they knew who she was.
Here she is pointing out that Del Duca talks about supporting businesses and choice and things like that, but he was for shutting down small business.
I'll let this run a little bit.
Take a look at our Tamara Uglini asking more questions as a citizen journalist in two minutes than those government journalists asked in hours.
Take a look.
You made the affordability pledge and you simultaneously criticized Doug Ford for favoring big box stores, but then in October of 2022, 2021, sorry, you mandated, you called for the closure of restaurants and gyms.
So how do you reconcile those two seemingly indiscrepancies?
Well, I don't look at them as a discrepancy.
I think it's important in a public health crisis to listen to the best medical advice and science.
But I also think it's important to make sure you are there to provide direct and quick and easy to access financial support for small business entrepreneurs, including restaurants, gym owners, and others.
That's why in the Ontario Liberal Plan, for those businesses, small businesses hardest hit during this pandemic, many restaurants, many gyms, we will actually get rid of their corporate income tax for two full years to give them a chance to catch up, catch their breath, maybe deal with some of the debt that they have hanging over their heads, and stay afloat so they can keep growing.
That's one example of how we are favoring small businesses in particular.
Doug Ford's abandoned them from day one.
Talks a good game, but favors the giant corporations and big box retail instead of the mom-and-pop shops.
It's got to stop.
If the choice was truly theirs, then would you just allow businesses?
If the choice was truly theirs, as your platform slogan seems to be, then would you just allow restaurants and gyms to stay open despite any sort of provincial mandate going forward?
Well, first of all, we all hope that there will be no future mandates because as a people, we've worked so hard to get to this spot.
Nobody wants to go backwards, but I've said this all the way through the pandemic.
I'd be guided by the science.
I'd make responsible decisions, probably some tougher decisions earlier on.
But I would make sure that we didn't just say financial help would be there.
We'd actually deliver it.
Doug Ford never really delivered it.
I tell you, we got more real questions put, and I don't know if we actually got valuable answers, but we put the questions in that hallway impromptu, informally, outside of the rules, than the whole rules system that preceded it.
Would you agree with me on that?
You know, we didn't ask, well, what color was your binder and how many pages?
No human being in Ontario cares about the binder.
I mean, do you care about the notepad I have in front of me?
Why would you care?
It's the words and the ideas that count.
While the mainstream media journalists were just killing time asking about non-questions, our citizen journalists, neither of whom went to journalism school and the CBC way of doing things, they're asking real questions, got better answers than the media party.
I think that this debate, in its own way, is a microcosm of the failure of the entire country, of the failure of the institutions.
You saw the failure of journalists and the failure of politicians by rigged rules.
The elites love the lockdown.
The elites really don't care between Doug Ford and the liberals and the NDP.
Really, how much difference is there amongst them?
All the elites care about is that they maintain their position, their status in regards to you, that they're above you, that they can keep out any competitors to them.
Jason Kenney's Dilemma00:13:15
I think none of the candidates won yesterday.
They're all so indistinguishable.
But who lost?
I don't know, Ontarians, of course.
None of these leaders will make a good premier.
But the system showed itself to be completely broken.
Stay with us for more.
I wouldn't have thought it would be this way two years ago, but Jason Kenney is one of the least popular premiers in Alberta, especially despised by his party's conservative base.
Of course, that has not caused the left wing of the province to become enchanted with them.
He's lost both the left and the right.
The left thinks that Rachel Notley, the former NDP premier, can become premier again.
Well, the party is in a pickle.
The party that Jason Kenney himself fused together from the former Wild Rose and the progressive conservatives, there is an overt plan within the party, a movement to throw him out.
Kenney managed to derail it, insisting on a mailed-in ballot rather than the in-person vote that was scheduled.
A lot of people say shenanigans are afoot.
And in fact, Elections Alberta is investigating.
So will Jason Kenney win or will he be thrown out?
A poll published yesterday in the Edmonton Journal says that most Albertans think the United Conservative Party should drop Jason Kenney, but that's just their opinion.
It comes down to those who actually bought a party membership and cast a ballot.
Joining us now from Edmonton to talk about this is our friend and chief reporter, Sheila Gunread.
Sheila, it's interesting to see that most of the province wants Jason Kenney gone.
His popularity has been underwater for months.
But it really comes down to who cast a ballot and much more importantly, who counts the ballots.
Am I right?
Yeah, that is true.
We saw some controversy, I guess, as so many people flooded into the party buying memberships to become actively engaged in the party that the venue that was originally rented in Red Deer for the leadership review vote, according to the party, and the numbers do say this, that there were more people who wanted to cast a vote than they were able to provide space for.
So then they moved to no longer in-person voting, which does shake people's confidence in the validity and the integrity of the vote.
And that seems to be playing out in these survey results from Common Ground was the survey pollster.
And, you know, only six out of 10 of those surveyed said they believe UCP members should vote to remove Jason Kenney as a party leader.
Only 21% said he should stay, with the remainder saying that they were unsure.
And, you know, when asked whether they had confidence that the leadership review would be conducted fairly, only 55.1% of those surveyed said they were either very or somewhat confident.
That's not a lot when it's only half of the people that were polled.
And this is people across all parties.
So this is, you know, just a random sampling of about 2,100 Albertans that were surveyed on this.
And, you know, pretty close to half of them think this isn't going to be done fairly.
And that's a bad look on the UCP, no matter what the results are, because people will always question them.
Yeah, it was really weird how when Kenny won the leadership of the UCP last time against Brian Gene, he engaged in so many questionable tactics.
I mean, it seemed to me that was like Mike Tyson fighting, you know, a teenage kid in flyweight.
I mean, it was just so overwhelmingly in Kenny's favor.
The fact that he engaged in shenanigans seemed unnecessary and too tricksterish by half.
Now, I have my doubts about the Alberta elections officials.
We ourselves have tangled with them.
They've tried to ban your book and our lawn signs.
So they're highly partisan.
That said, it's not some NDP who's complaining.
It's other conservatives.
It's Brian Gene, who is back.
He won his seat as an MLA in a by-election expressly on a platform of giving Jason Kenny the heave-ho.
And remember, Kenny's people thought they could stop him from winning that.
They couldn't.
I think they're outmanned, out-gunned, out-hustled, which is why they need the dirty tricks this time, which is why they need to change the rules.
I understand that Jason Kenney threatened to quit as premier if they didn't go to the mail-in ballot U.S. Democrat style.
You know, that's the first time I've heard that, but it doesn't surprise me.
Given that the UCP is still under not just investigation by elections officials, but the RCMP are involved regarding the sort of dirty tricks that were alleged during the last leadership election.
You think they would have taken a lot more care and control to make sure that this was beyond reproach, that there were no strange smells of anything going on or changing the rules last minute or changing the way by which people could vote last minute.
But they did it again.
And like I said, no matter what the results are, people are not going to trust them.
And it's going to be conservatives who don't have trust in the leadership of the party.
And unfortunately, that forces conservatives to do two things, either stay home or break away into another party.
Those are the two things that conservatives love to do, especially out here in Alberta when they think their conservative party is lying to them.
Yeah, it's so strange that Kenny fused the parties and now he's causing quite a division in the parties.
And it's the same leader he beat last time who's leading the rebellion.
I think that if Jason Kenney stays on as leader, I am afraid that the New Democrats simply will win again, because obviously the left wing would never vote for Kenny.
He relies on conservatives and rural folks, but they are so turned off by Kenny for policy reasons, for style reasons.
Let me ask you this.
There have been a number of party MLAs, including some people of some high rank, who have basically telegraphed to the public they want Kenny gone.
If he wins again, there will obviously be a cloud over his over that.
Will they just grumble and be quiet and fall into line?
Or do you think they will do as you've suggested, break away?
I mean, do you think that Brian Gene will actually be a loyal soldier, obedient to Jason Kenney and all the other MLAs who have criticized him, whether it's for his pandemic policies or just his top-down style of governing?
Do you think they're going to hold it together or will they break away?
I think if Jason Kenney does lose the leadership review, I think the party will be able to stay together.
I think if Jason Kenney wins, even by a slim margin, I think you're going to see a fracturing of the party even more so.
And some of that, Jason Kenney is directly responsible.
For example, throwing Drew Barnes out of the party.
He was a loyal wild roser.
The remaining one who did not cross the floor with Smith when she blew up the party and delivered us to the NDP.
He was a loyal, beloved MLA in his community, and he was thrown out of the party because he didn't toe the party line, according to Jason Kenney and his pro-lockdown anti-church stance.
And there are others who are sort of on the cuss, like Angela Pitt.
Again, first elected as a wild roser, very pro-uniting the two parties, getting everybody back to work, but also quite a civil libertarian.
I think she was party whip, if I am remembering correctly, or leader in the house.
Anyways, high-profile position within the party, a party of a position of leadership.
And she has spoken out against Jason Kenney.
The only difference was that she was a little bit closer to the circle of leadership with Jason Kenney to just tossed out.
It would have caused a lot of controversy.
So she got to speak her mind.
Drew Barnes got shown the door.
And with enough of those former wild rosers sort of sniffing around and saying, okay, we tried unity.
It obviously doesn't work because there are too many red Tories in the mix here and hangers on from the before times that we need to go back to where we were and do, you know, a rural party and an urban conservative party.
We might see that going forward.
The only thing that I think that will save Jason Kenney in all of this is that the NDP are really ramping up their advertising.
And so they're keeping Rachel Notley top of mind.
I know for me, you know, I'm watching Amazon Prime and there's an ad for the NDP and Rachel Notley's mug is on my screen all of a sudden.
And that reminds you, you know, things were really bad, really bad when she was around.
And maybe Jason Kenney is bad, but not Notley bad.
I think that might be his only hope.
Isn't that interesting?
You know, there's a saying in politics, friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
And it's true because, and, you know, it's sort of funny for someone who used to be the head of the Taxpayers Federation and then who was in the grassroots populist reform party.
And, you know, he has an imperious way to him, a top-down way.
The only way I can make sense of it, and I think this makes everything make sense from his lockdown extremism to his denunciations of conservative party members as Yahoos and racists and extremists.
The only way that makes sense is if you look at his role as Premier of Alberta as a stepping stone to going back to Ottawa to seek the prime minister's chair.
And I think Pierre Polyev may be successful in that and may short-circuit Jason Kenney's plans.
There has been no moment where Kenney has chosen Alberta over Ottawa, whether it's equalization or an Alberta provincial police force or an Alberta pension plan, anything that could in the future have been held against him by the Ottawa Press Corps, he simply didn't do.
And I think that's one of the reasons why he broke and went so over the top on the lockdownism and the prosecuting of the Christian churches.
If he was an Alberta first guy who said, this is my best and final job, I want to be premier of Alberta.
As long as I can be, this is where it's at.
Instead of always looking around for the better next opportunity.
So I think his judgment provincially was always colored by that.
And I think.
It's been a disaster for his premiership.
I think that's why he's made bad decisions during the pandemic.
And if he loses, and that's his desperate situation, because if he gets thrown out as premier tomorrow night, I think that that's a huge hole in the bottom of his canoe if he was planning to run for some federal party leader in the future, because to be thrown out by your own party in scandal is pretty tough to come back from.
I think that he's fighting to save himself as premier.
But again, I think that's just to save himself for a run for PM in six years or whatever.
But I don't know.
I think maybe he missed his moment.
I think Pierre Polyov is grabbing the chance that Jason Kenney would have wanted.
Last word to you, Sheila.
What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?
It's not about the pollsters.
It's about actual party members and those who count the votes.
Do you think it's going to be a fair count?
And you think Kenny will win?
I'm not sure if it's going to be a fair count.
I think we'll have the perception of fairness.
I think Kenny will win very narrowly.
But instead of doing the Ralph Klein thing and saying, well, I did win the leadership review, but it's just not enough for the party to be confident in me.
I don't think that's going to be the sort of remarks we're going to hear from Jason Kenney.
He's going to say 50% plus one means you all love me and let's move on and fight the NDP.
The problem is there is a rift in this party that I don't think will heal as long as he's premier.
It's not enough to not be Rachel Notley.
You have to keep that UCP coalition together.
And there are just too many, I think, disgruntled, high-profile conservatives who are saying, you did this wrong.
Hang On For Everything00:00:40
There was another way.
You refuse to take it.
And I think you're right when you say that Pierre Polyev is sort of the problem in Jason Kenney's plan.
Now, as long as there was a mediocre leader of the federal conservative party, there was a path for him back to Ottawa.
Now I'm not so sure there is.
And so he's going to hang on for everything he can here in Alberta because this is his one time in charge.
Yeah.
Very strange days.
Alberta just doesn't seem to catch a break.
Sheila, great to see you again.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for having me on, boss.
All right.
There you have it.
Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter, and based in the Edmonton area, stay with us.