Ezra Levant critiques Canada’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner, who earns $403,800 annually and publicly labeled Freedom Convoy protesters as "anarchists" in April, warning of judicial overreach. Wagner’s predecessor, Beverly McLaughlin, allegedly aided Trudeau’s interference in SNC Lavalin cases before joining China’s politically controlled court. With Jason Kenney’s UCP resignation, Alberta’s leadership race risks repeating past authoritarianism, despite oil royalties surging from $3B to $24B. New candidates like Danielle Smith face scrutiny over civil liberties and economic policies, while Drew Barnes considers independent or Wild Rose Party options. The episode urges Albertans to demand real accountability and reform. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Trudeau's Supreme Court chief judge says you better not criticize him.
He's warning you.
It's June 6th, and this is the Esser Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious f**k.
Do you know how much money the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada makes every year?
Well, it's right there in the Judges Act, the law, Section 9.
I will put it on the screen here.
You can see it.
The yearly salaries of the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada are as follows.
A, the Chief Justice of Canada, 403,800 judges.
And the eight puny judges, $373,900 each.
Puny is actually how you pronounce that word.
It has a similar meaning, a judge of the lower rank.
So the chief judge in Canada makes north of $400,000.
And then there's his expenses and there's perks and the general luxury that comes from the job.
By comparison, Justin Trudeau, the prime minister makes $379,000, not as much.
He makes just under $190,000 for being an MP, the same for every MP, but then he makes the same again for being the PM.
So the Supreme Court judge makes more money than the Prime Minister.
And I'd say he wields enormous power, in some ways more power than Trudeau.
The Supreme Court can strike down a law.
The judges can last much longer than an elected politician.
And of course, the most momentous decisions in Canada are not made by our elected legislators, let alone decided in something as democratic as a referendum.
They're decided by nine obscure judges that 99% of Canadians couldn't recognize or name.
Abortion, gay marriage, legal rights for foreign citizens, legal rights for terrorists.
No democracy decided that, just the judiciary.
And just last week, sorry, that last year, pardon me, the Supreme Court came within one vote of criminalizing a comedian's jokes.
Remember that case?
It was a 5-4 ruling in favor of Mike Ward, that's a comedian in Quebec, and his right to make fun of a disabled kid in a comedy sketch.
Now, I'm not a fan of making fun of disabled kids, but I'm a lot more scared of a government, which is what a Supreme Court is, that tells me what jokes can be said and what jokes can't be said.
A lot more scared of that than what some comedian gets up to in some 18-plus nightclub.
Seriously, expect the next free speech court ruling to go 5-4 against freedom.
Our court has been steadily getting worse and worse every year, and that's on the judges.
Now, I blame Stephen Harper for that in part.
You know, he never took Supreme Court appointments seriously when he was prime minister.
Five of the nine current judges in the Supreme Court were put there by him, including some of the absolute worst ones.
The chief judge of the Supreme Court today, the guy making 400K, his name is Richard Wagner.
Stephen Harper put him on the bench and Justin Trudeau promoted him to Chief Justice.
Wagner took over from the disgraced judge Beverly McLaughlin who held that post for 17 years overseeing its radical lurch to the authoritarian left.
We later found out that Trudeau regarded McLaughlin as a go-to judge for fixing political problems.
Very troubling revelations about how in the pocket she was of Trudeau and worse, that corrupt aide, Gerald Butts.
Remember him?
I don't know if you remember.
She was asked to come in and write a helpful memo explaining that it was entirely legally appropriate for the government to interfere with the criminal prosecution of Trudeau's friends at SNC Lavalam to stop their criminal trial.
That's how chummy Trudeau and Butts were with McLaughlin.
They thought they could ask her.
And for good reason, she is one of them, one of the elites.
And when she retired as Canada's chief judge, you know this, she joined Hong Kong's court of final appeal.
Now that actually sounds wonderful when she did it.
But then Xi Jinping, the Chinese communist dictator, crushed Hong Kong, took it over, exterminated its civil liberties, brought Chinese communist laws and policing into Hong Kong, and ended what was left of its Western freedoms.
Mass arrests, including mass arrests of opposition leaders and journalists.
Now, other judges who were on that same court resigned in protest.
They refused to give Xi Jinping moral cover.
They refused to stick around and whitewash it, let alone be a part of it.
Not our Bev, not Beverly McLaughlin.
She loves it.
She loves the power.
She loves the prestige, the perks, the pay.
She loves being on the winning side.
She is completely comfortable with staying on Xi Jinping's court.
Yeah, Houston, we have a problem.
She really is the worst.
Look at this.
Look at this here.
Fed regulations should kill websites that use words hurting democracy, says retired Supreme Court Chief Justice McLaughlin.
Consequences ultimately would be to shut them down.
Yeah, so much for guardians of our freedoms.
Hey, good luck to Hong Kong with her on the bench there.
So much for the Charter of Rights.
Our judges are an embarrassment.
Look at this here from the Globe and Mail.
Remember, McLaughlin was the one who said Canada has committed a genocide against Indigenous people.
She has never said that about China and its treatment of Tibet or the Uyghur Muslims, has she?
She hates us.
She loves Xi Jinping's China.
And that's the thing about our Supreme Court.
Do you think they're any less political than politicians in the House of Commons?
Do you really think they're morally or genetically different?
Why?
Because they dress up in fancy robes and make you call them my lord or my lady?
Do you think they're morally better than other people in other branches of government?
The courts are a branch of government.
They're just as governmenty as a politician, just as political.
Except for one thing, they don't have the political accountability.
At least in the United States, their judges go through a vigorous confirmation process, days and days of grilling, absolutely digging through their past rulings and even their past personal statements and personal conduct.
We know everything about those judges, and occasionally judges are blocked from taking the position or judges withdraw in embarrassment.
We don't have that here.
We just have the prime minister choosing someone, often a donor.
An hour or so of friendly questions in a highly controlled committee hearing, and it's done.
There's not even a vote on it in Parliament.
So in America, the judges are political just like ours are.
The difference is in America, they have political accountability at least one time when the judges are going in.
Judicial Independence Under Threat00:14:01
We never have it here, never.
But our courts are just as political as America's.
But look at this.
Look at this news here.
It's a story in Quebec's Le Devoir newspaper from April.
I'm going to read the headline in French because it's so much better than the translation.
And you could probably understand it.
Le juge en chef de Canada, na pas oublier la do de anarchie.
The chief judge of Canada has not forgotten the odor of anarchy.
He was talking about the truckers.
That's what he said.
I'm going to put the rest of the story through Google Translate and bring it in in English for you.
What we have seen recently on Wellington Street here, that's in Ottawa, is a small beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage to take the law into their hands, not to respect the mechanism.
I find that worrying, he says in an exchange with Le Divoir as the 40th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms approaches.
Coups against the state, justice and democratic institutions, such as the one inflicted by protesters at the doors of the Prime Minister's office and the Privy Council, Parliament, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Parliamentary Press Gallery between January 28th and Feb 21 must be strongly denounced by all figures in the country's power, says Mr. Wagner.
Oh, really?
So there hasn't been any trial yet, by the way.
No facts proven in court.
Just hype in the media, rumors mainly, much of which has been revealed as lies, like the lie that there was an arson committed or the lie that there were weapons in the trucks.
I was there myself.
To call it a hostage-taking is obscene and hysterical.
Did the judge even go?
Or was he relying on the state broadcaster for the truth?
But the judge has made his judgment first.
No need to wait for a trial.
It's like Alice in Wonderland.
Trial comes last.
It must be strongly denounced by everyone, he says.
Oh, gee, I wonder if any trucker case comes before him, if they can expect a fair hearing.
I mean, he's just called them anarchist hostage-takers who need to be denounced.
How can anyone have a fair trial when he's already told you his ruling?
And how can any lower judge be relied on to be objective and unbiased, too, knowing what their boss judge thinks?
This is why judges normally do not do interviews with journalists, at least not about cases that are still before the courts.
I wonder if this is why accused truckers have been given such brutal bail conditions, like not able to travel, not able to say anything political in public, not being allowed on social media.
Of course it's because of this judge.
And look at this.
You have to be on the lookout.
We must denounce any circumstance that may defeat our principles, such as judicial independence, the role of law, institutions.
What does that mean?
I mean, it means he's a hypocrite.
He just violated judicial independence himself and the rule of law himself.
He just brought the institution of the Supreme Court into disrepute himself.
Do you still trust the Supreme Court?
I don't know if you ever did.
But is your trust higher or lower now that he has weighed in on the truckers before trial?
Did he need to weigh in?
He's a master of the universe.
He gets paid more money than the prime minister.
His word becomes law.
He's godlike in that way.
Did he really feel the need to get into a grubby newspaper and swipe the truckers?
He had some unfulfilled ambition maybe to be a journalist or a pundit or a politician?
Okay, fair enough.
Quit the bench then and get into the arena.
You know, his dad ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party.
Maybe he wants to do that for a living.
But you can't do both.
You can't run for the Liberals and be the chief judge.
Make a decision.
Our friend Bruce Party, the constitutional lawyer and law professor, wrote about this scandal in the National Post the other day.
And I'm glad because I hadn't seen it reported in the English press.
Now, here's the article.
It's called Bruce Party, Supreme Court undermined by Chief Justice Condemning Freedom Convoy.
Confidence in the judiciary depends on whether people perceive courts to be genuinely neutral, not merely within a narrow band of progressive consensus.
See, that's very polite and diplomatic.
That's a law professor talking.
The judge absolutely has to recuse himself from any matters touching on the truckers.
He probably should issue a statement retracting his words.
And frankly, a bigger man would resign to fix the wound he's done to justice.
Everyone charged must be let go.
How can you have a fair trial now?
He's interfered in his own court system.
But he's a power seeker, as you can tell.
In fact, upon seeing this criticism, he reacted like a Trudeau liberal.
And what do liberals do when they get in trouble?
Well, they go to the CBC for some mop-up.
And so did this guy.
Here's the CBC story.
Chief Justice warns against political attacks on judicial independence.
What, what, what, what?
Hang on.
He's the guy who just attacked judicial independence by prejudging a whole raft of cases that are before the lower courts.
But he's the one warning against politicization.
Only Trudeau CBC State broadcaster would write it that way with a straight face.
But look at the bottom of that tweet.
Who can reply?
People CBC Montreal mentioned can reply.
So the CBC is helping the judge by banning anyone from replying to the tweet as they normally would.
The CBC normally doesn't do this.
But they have done it here because he's a friend.
He's an ally.
He's part of the same club they are.
He's important to the ruling class.
He must be protected at all costs.
Who knows?
Maybe the judge himself even asked him, asked the CBC to do that.
He seems to be taking some liberties these days, doesn't he?
And apparently, the judge thought his first interview with LeVar went so swimmingly that he would do another interview with the CBC just to add to it.
And he'll need to do another one to clean this one up, too, I'm sure.
Pretty soon we're dealing with a grubby pundit and spin doctor, but one who's not really that good at it, is he?
Here's the story.
Chief Justice warns against political attacks on judicial independence.
If Canadians lose faith in the justice system, what will happen?
Chief Justice Richard Wagner asks, yeah, he sure wants to find out, doesn't he?
He starts off rambling about the United States Supreme Court for some reason, but then he says about Canada, quote, we can never say to ourselves, we have judicial independence, we are in Canada, everything is fine, we have respect for the institutions.
No, we have to be on the lookout, he said.
Oh, is that his advice?
And as soon as an incident occurs that can attack judicial independence, we must react.
We must denounce.
Easy, easy.
Who's we, by the way?
Who's we?
The Supreme Court?
Through a ruling?
Okay, maybe.
Everyone in the establishment, all his friends?
Or just him personally, the king of all he surveys, whenever he feels like it, like he did in Le Devoir, or like he's doing in CBC now, or whenever he feels like unburdening himself for the poors to take notes.
He's going to denounce things.
What does he mean by denounce?
Courts don't usually denounce.
They say guilty or not guilty or they meet out a fine or imprisonment.
What does he mean by denounce?
He says, it's not for judges, judicial independence, it's for citizens.
This is to ensure that citizens understand that when they come before the courts, they will have access to an impartial and independent judge whose decision will not depend on an occult influence.
Okay, hang on, the guy who smeared the truckers as anarchists and hostage takers, his words.
He's worried that maybe judges don't seem independent, or rather, he's worried that those stupid little people won't understand things correctly.
And he says he's going to do this more and more until you understand correctly.
Let me quote, Wagner said he knows he's taking a risk by communicating more openly and frequently with the public and by taking the court outside of Ottawa.
He said he still believes doing nothing would be riskier.
All right, so if I understand him correctly, he's going to condemn us without a trial outside the court system.
He's going to denounce us in his words.
So like I say, he's a pundit now, grubby, like you and me.
He's a politician now, except no one voted for him and no one can vote him out.
So when a grubby pundit and politician that you can't vote out says you're an anarchist hostage taker and denounces you, what can you do in return?
Well, the only thing I can think of in a liberal democracy is to speak out.
Since you can't vote him out, and since he obviously has no emotional self-control and very weak judgment, you criticize him in return.
But that's what he says he wants to stop.
That's what his warning is, according to the CBC.
It's right there in the headline.
Chief Justice warns against political attacks on judicial appendance.
I wrote some thoughts on this about the weekend.
So now that he has revealed himself as a political activist by denouncing a peaceful political movement using Trudeau's language, he doesn't like the fact that he is being criticized as all politicians should be.
He wants it both ways.
Really, he wants censorship.
So he'll prejudge the truckers.
And his predecessor, the disgraced Beverly McLaughlin, will denounce Canada for a genocide.
So they'll not just be political, they'll be political extremists.
But if you little people dare to clap back, he'll call you a public danger.
It really is a team effort.
Politicians, journalists, and now judges want to smash us to pieces rhetorically.
You're all Nazis.
Legally, the Emergencies Act.
And politically, by God, God forbid you proles talk back to them.
Insurrection.
Insurrection.
Look at the elites all harmonizing here.
They're all rushing to the support of their political judge who is warning Canadians not to criticize them.
I note that the public safety minister's policy advisor, the liar who recommended the Emergencies Act, is thrilled.
Censorship is coming.
That one guy, Keith Torrey, there, he works for the public safety minister.
Soon after I made those tweets, liberal MPs weighed in.
Here's one, that notorious house flipper in BC, Taliban.
Remember him?
How much have you profited on those 25 in the past decade?
I mean, I'm not, you know, I think it's important to talk about.
I'm going to answer that question again, so I'm going to be sure.
Yeah, how much have you profited on those sales?
I, when you ask, I'm going to give me a second to just make sure I have the right okay.
So, sorry, ask me the question again, sir.
Yeah.
How much have you profited, personally or business-wise, on the sales of those 25 properties in the last decade?
While I can't give you an exact number, what I can tell you is that it is by no means the number that has been put forward.
But what I can also tell you is that I am absolutely committed to any and all measures that we have put forward that would apply.
So he said seeking to delegitimize and politicize Canada's non-political institutions, whether our courts or the Bank of Canada, is a dangerous game.
And all Canadians who care about our democracy must speak out and put a stop to this before we reach the point of no return.
Yeah, yeah, no.
Those institutions are deeply political.
The Bank of Canada just admitted they had failed.
They were printing money on demand to enable Justin Trudeau.
And we see the Supreme Court being politicized by its own judges.
But, you know, I guess I could be wrong.
Maybe they're both great institutions and in the best of health.
But this Liberal MP doesn't think we can even have a debate on the question.
He said we must, quote, put a stop to this, this being any criticism.
That's what he wants to stop, the criticizing the government.
So it's all agreed then.
The Trudeau Liberals want to censor you.
The Trudeau media wants to censor you.
And the Trudeau courts want to censor you.
Mainstream Media Censorship00:05:32
Maybe seize your bank accounts too.
I don't know.
It's pretty much the whole direction here.
Oh.
And they mean it, if you hadn't noticed.
Stay with us for more.
Look who's sitting next to me.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Have I got big news for you today?
Rebel News is delighted to announce Kerry Diot, the former member of parliament for Edmonton Griesbach, is joining us as our political correspondent and Alberta Legislature Bureau Chief.
Kerry, it's great to have you.
It's good to be here, Ezra.
I've admired you guys for a long time.
I think everybody knows that the mainstream media has fallen down on its job occasionally, and I'm fond of pointing it out.
So I really have admired independent media like you guys, and I'm really proud to be here.
And we're going to have a lot of fun, and we're going to break a lot of stories.
And it's just great to be part of this team.
Well, I'm thrilled to have you aboard.
You bring a lot of experience.
First of all, you were a journalist for years.
Then you were in the Edmonton City Council fighting the battles in that left-wing den.
And then you went to Ottawa for two terms.
You bring a lot to Rebel News.
A lot of our guys in Gallus are young, you know, citizen journalists in their 20s.
And I love their energy.
I love their style.
But there's something about having someone who's been there, done that, been a legislator, tour, been in, you know, I think you're going to bring something new to Rebel News.
I'm really excited about it.
Well, I am too.
And it's full circle coming back to my journalism roots.
Well, tell me a little bit about some of the beats you plan to cover.
Obviously, it's in your title, Political Correspondent and Legislature Bureau Chiefs.
There's a lot cooking in Alberta itself with Jason Kenny stepping down.
That's a whole thing.
The Federal Conservative Party from which you came, they're having a leadership.
This is the perfect time to hit the ground running.
Yeah, obviously you've got the two leadership races going on.
You've got all kinds of stuff happening in the city of Edmonton.
A very left-wing council.
And you've got some problems in the downtown.
You've got it's a target-rich environment, I think.
And, you know, I were just talking earlier today.
It's not just the legislature in Edmonton.
There's the oil sands.
Edmonton's the gateway to the north.
There's indigenous issues.
There's environmentalists.
There's, you know, you expressed an interest in traveling.
For example, we just had folks at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
We love to send people to cover interesting stories like the UN Global Warming Conference.
It's not just Edmonton.
It's based in Edmonton, but really national and even international.
Yeah, absolutely.
When I was down in CPAC, I was covering it for another organization in Florida.
And I'll tell you, there was a lot of interest in the Freedom Convoy from Americans.
And Rebel News came up again and again and again.
And it was really interesting because for once, all the Americans knew the name of our prime minister.
And it usually was followed by a very bad word after that.
But it shows you the scope of rebel news and how it's gone worldwide.
It really has.
And the trucker convoy was a lot of folks met us for the first time because we were really the folks who just had our cameras on, just showing it like it was.
I'm excited about that.
You've also got connections, though.
I mean, we don't have a lot of connections to folks in power.
We just don't.
We're more populists.
We're more grassroots.
But, you know, you've done two terms in parliament.
You were on City Hall.
I think you've got sources.
Sources, some that will come on camera, some that won't, but that can give you tips.
I think you're going to be a pipeline for information.
Yes, and I think people are more and more realizing that the mainstream media does not tell the whole story.
And that's certainly my pitch, and it's certainly been my experience.
So I think I can reach out to a lot of these folks, a lot of people who I consider friends, a lot of people who are of various political stripes and say, look, talk to me and let's get the full story out there.
Yeah, I think that's more important now more than ever.
I think the last two years has eroded what little trust the media party had left, but it's also eroded trust in most other institutions.
And I think that journalism can be an antidote to that if it's, you know, shine the light of public scrutiny.
I'm delighted you're with our team.
I think it's a great credit to us.
I mean, seriously, though, I mean, I'm not just blowing sunshine at you.
You could have done a lot of things.
You could have joined a fancy government relations firm.
You could have, you know, with your experience and what you've done, and you could have gone a lot of places.
The fact that you went to Rebel News, it's a bit of an honor to us.
I mean, we got great people who are new also, but I think it's a vote of confidence in what we're doing.
I'm thrilled, and I'm grateful.
Well, I'm glad to be here, and let's do some good journalism and let's have a lot of fun.
Right on, I think we'll do both.
Jason Kenney's Departure00:14:19
There he is.
Harry Diot, our new political correspondent and Alberta Legislature Bureau Chief, not too far away from where Sheila Gunread is based in northern Alberta.
And we have Daniel Day up there too.
So we got a little bit of a crew going on in Northern Alberta.
I think it's going to be amazing.
And it's nice to have you pop by our world headquarters here.
There he is.
You won't want to miss a minute of what Carrie's up to.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me are next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer mailed.
Clive Lewis says, over 200,000 people voted New Blue and Ontario Party.
That is actually a big number because you know another 200,000 would have voted for them, but we're too afraid of Del Duca and Horwath to split the vote.
Yeah, it could be.
I mean, we'll never know what caused people to vote the way they did.
I guess you'd have to ask them.
I think the poll showed a conservative victory all along, so that would be the kind of time you would feel emboldened to vote for a smaller party on the right.
I don't think anyone really thought that Del Duca, the liberal, or Horwath, the NDP, were going to, like, I just don't think there was a mood that they were coming back.
Like I say, voter turnout was the lowest in history, so I don't think people were actually voting out of fear.
I think it's you have a split.
You split the factions, and you had a bunch of small parties, and so what's the point?
So I like all those guys.
I've interviewed every one of them.
But, you know, divided, we fall, United, we stand.
Earthly Newscast says elections should be 100% transparent.
I'm still not convinced that elections are not rigged.
Every voter and vote should be logged in a public database.
Well, I'm going to disagree with you there because how could you have a secret vote then?
You don't want people to have to publicly say who they're voting for because if that was the case, they could be put under undue pressure.
The whole point of a vote is that it's secret.
Candice Lee says, I hope Ford isn't too proud of himself for his win.
Winning by default is not something I would be proud of.
Well, I don't think Ford has shame in particular.
I think he just believes in power.
And he just got a new lease on power.
If anything, he's going to be emboldened.
And even more worrisome are the thinkers and doers around him.
I don't think that Doug Ford really believes in much.
I think he literally does whatever the last person who talked to him tells him to do.
But I think the people around him have plenty of schemes.
A lot of it for personal enrichment.
A lot of lobbyists are going to have a heyday.
Who knows?
Maybe it won't be as bad as if the new Democrats or Liberals were elected.
But looking back over the last two years, I really can't see the difference.
Brutal lockdowns, emergency act, persecuting Christian pastors.
Not as bad as in Alberta, but pretty bad too.
Yeah, I really don't think there's a lot of good here.
But federally, that's got my hopes up.
The Federal Conservative Party race continues to give me some hope.
My friends, that's the show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.
Good night.
And keep fighting for freedom.
And let me leave you with our video of the day.
You don't want to miss this one.
Adam Sois here for Rebel News.
In just a few moments, I'm going to be joined by MLA for Cypress Medicine Hat, Drew Barnes, for a bit of an insider perspective on the political landscape here in Alberta.
We're also going to be talking about the looming and very front of mind UCP leadership race that is well underway now with two candidates officially declared and many more expected to throw their hats in the ring very soon.
All of those reports can be found at UCPLeadership.com.
I wanted to get sort of into an insider's perspective on the sort of political landscape in Alberta, particularly with Jason Kenney announcing that he'll be stepping down and this new race.
But before I get into that, I want to ask a little bit about the fact that you were sort of ejected from the UCP for daring to ask questions, whether it be about his leadership, about COVID-19 restrictions, on all those fronts.
Todd Lowen also experienced the same fate.
Very much a sentiment that people willing to speak out on that were being shown the door.
Many of those key issues you were sort of advising differently on, you were advocating on behalf of your constituents likely contributed to Kenny being shown the door.
Why, first off, was Kenny not sort of willing to listen to those voices of reason?
You know, I can't speak for why he wasn't willing to do what he said.
Adam, thank you for talking to me today.
But he clearly said when I started to disagree, and at times I did agree with some of the policy the government had, especially when they had the COVID mandates regional.
He said he welcomed public disagreement and public debate, but he obviously didn't.
And, you know, it's good in some ways that 49% of the UCP, 49% of his small club agreed with me that he wasn't servant leadership, he wasn't the right kind of leadership.
And Alberta, for us to be the freest and most prosperous place in North America, we need different leadership.
While 51% of the vote passes the constitutional threshold of a majority, it clearly is not adequate support to continue on as leader.
And that is why tonight I've informed the president of the party of my intention to step down as leader of the United Conservative Party.
So yeah, so what, the Ottawa attitude, the top-down, the lack of servant leadership, particularly the lack of listening and engaging strong caucus members who represent all Albertans, led to his downfall.
And now it's absolutely time for change and real conservative, real economic freedom, individual opportunity change.
So I was actually at a town hall last night with Danielle Smith, one of the candidates, and we'll get into that a little bit.
But she said that she very much hoped that unlike maybe the last race where there was some division, there was sort of the Gene Camp and the Kenny camp, now with so many people being involved in this leadership bid, she's hoping that this time around the leadership may actually be an opportunity for unification.
Do you think that's possible?
Yeah, I hope it is an opportunity for unification as well.
I hope good conservative ideas get discussed.
But Adam, that's where they're offside already.
Number one problem is Jason Kenney should have went away.
We should have had an interim leader, an interim premier for a period of time.
Kenny still today has his thumbs on the scale.
The bias, the overreach into the leadership situation is so wrong.
It may be limiting who joins.
Look, we've only had, I think it's one person from cabinet speak, you know, come forward so far.
So absolutely, Jason Kenney's thumb on the scale is absolutely wrong, and that's where it starts.
That's why he has to go.
And do you think that there is a sort of an anti-freedom sentiment, or at least not as pro-freedom a sentiment, within the UCP, given that it's supposed to be Alberta strong and free?
Or do you think that's basically just coming from the top down?
Oh, I think it's just coming from the top down.
You know, where the membership is listened to, it is so grassroots.
It's all about economic freedom.
It's all about individual freedom, individual opportunity.
Our civil liberties so stepped on.
Hey, let's not forget.
Jason Kenney, I think, was the only leader in all North America that had pastors in jail, fences around churches, these kind of things.
And at times, threatening an election, to keep caucus in line and those kind of things.
No, no, he lost track so badly of the fact that this is about Albertans.
It's about the 4.4 million of us who work hard, pay our taxes and take risk.
And the fact that when we weren't listened to, we being the 60-some MLAs, the 30 backbench or the non-cabinet MLAs, when we weren't listened to, that hurt all Albertans.
And again, Kenney, you know, paid the price for that.
And the number one thing he needs to do now is move on, resign today.
Let's go back and get it right.
And let's have a new interim premier and let's have a leadership race without Jason Kenney's thumbs on the scale.
So once Jason Kenney is out of the picture, some have expressed concern that it's going to be the same old people like Jason Copping, Tyler Chandra, some of these people who had their hands all over these restrictions are still going to be part of the party.
Do you believe that they can sort of be reformed or do you think that they were just being sort of pressured?
How do you think the UCP can truly move forward and is it beyond just the leader?
Well, I'll say this.
First of all, it's up to Albertans to decide and grassroots should have total input on this.
I too though am concerned that those that were on the inside that didn't have the courage or the ability to speak up or else agreed with all the policies and the way that I was limited in my ability to speak, I am concerned if we don't get some new voices as well and have a chance for that to be heard.
But again, Adam, that's why Jason Kenney has to go away.
A lot of people aren't going to step up and put their name forward, you know, financially or personally or time-wise support people when Jason Kenney, the Premier of Alberta, who's on a short timeline now, but still controls that $62 billion he spends a year.
Of course, government's too big in this province, but its overreach is huge.
And again, until he goes away, this system is not going to be as inclusive and as fulsome as it could be.
So on the note of sort of these new faces coming along, maybe some familiar faces as well, the first person to declare is Danielle Smith.
In one of her first conversations, she actually said it'd be great to see you run.
But what have you heard about her sort of bid?
And do you have any thoughts on her campaign for the leadership?
Well, again, it'd be up to Albertans to decide.
It'd be up to UCP members to decide.
I've been saying to all Albertans, everybody spend 15 minutes a month from now on being involved in politics.
Five minutes for your country, five minutes for your province, five minutes for your municipality.
What a better way to start.
Buy UCP membership and pick who you like the most.
As the last 2012 Wild Roser that was elected in 2012, it's interesting to see.
We had a huge opportunity back then that didn't come to fruition.
It was unfortunate.
And I'm looking forward to seeing what Danielle puts into the leadership race.
And I'm looking forward to seeing what others do as well.
Speaking of others, Todd Lowen, a fellow MLA, kind of showed the door for being principled, very much along the lines with yourself.
He is the other person who at this point is officially declared.
What can you say about your colleague?
Oh, well, lots of good things to say about Todd for sure.
Hard worker, consistent conservative.
Spoke up strong against Jason Kenney's overreach in the same way that I did.
So I'm looking forward to hearing what he develops and talks about as his ideas.
Now, I personally think that Alberta needs its own written constitution.
We need meaningful citizen initiative referendum.
We need meaningful recall legislation.
And like the Conservative Party of Canada, we need meaningful reform so we can hold our leadership accountable.
I hope Todd starts to talk about some of those things.
Now, there are obviously no one else formally declared yet, but there are some names we clearly know about beyond Brian Gene.
And I mean, maybe comment on Brian Gene, but along with Brian Gene, are there any other sort of interesting names that you've heard of around the discussion?
Well, again, I, you know, see what happens with Brian.
You know, he had his chance to be in the public eye and let's see if he develops his ideas and thoughts further.
I've been hearing about a couple of the other cabinet ministers from Jean Suwani, who comes from a nice Calgary base and an oil and gas background.
Let's see what ideas she presents.
Rebecca Schultz is another one whose name I keep hearing about quite a bit.
Let's hear what she presents.
That's just it.
As long as Jason Kenney is still around, we haven't heard any of the ideas that these people are going to bring to the table to make Alberta free and prosperous and the most economic freedom place that it could be.
Travis Taves, the finance minister, is the other name who's registered.
I am so surprised that he hasn't come forward and said, hey, let's end the 2% small business tax.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan did exactly that.
It's $160 million a year that would allow small businesses to get back on their feet, allow them to be more competitive.
Oil and gas royalties, $3 billion last year, $13 billion this year, maybe as high as $24 billion next year.
And he is saying things like, maybe we'll reduce the taxes.
Let's go back to our 10% flat tax and lower.
Let's give families and individuals as much economic freedom as possible.
Now, will the constituents of Cypress Medicine Hat have Drew Barnes moving forward as an independent or potentially as a member of the UCP?
And is there any chance that that's as leader of the UCP?
Thanks for that question.
First of all, I'm so grateful to represent Cypress Medicine Hat for three terms.
A lot of my constituents are talking to me, asking me to run for leader of the UCP.
I'm not going to do anything in that vein until I see what the rules are.
The fact that the leadership selection committee has been appointed from the board, the fact that to my understanding, all the people on that committee, none of them were made up of those 30 or 35 constituency presidents that wanted leadership review and wanted change.
So is Jason Kenney directing them?
I don't know, but I've got to see what the rules are.
A lot of my constituents have asked me to run as an independent.
They like the idea that I was able to speak up on their behalf, independently, and at times loudly, and thanks to you for doing that.
I've also been talking to groups like the Wild Rose Party.
You know, I looked at the Ontario election last night where the third party groups didn't do all that well.
But back in 2012, back in 2015, we had a strong Wild Rose rural focused party that was here for families, economic freedom, individual opportunity.
So I'm exploring that as well and seeing what's out there.
And first and foremost, talking to my wife and my family.
Awesome.
Well, we look forward to any updates potentially on that front.
Drew Barnes, MLA for Cypress Medicine Hat.
Thanks so much for taking this time and speaking with us.
And for everyone at home, I want to thank you so much for tuning in for Rebel News.