Alberta’s ethics commissioner, Marguerite Trussler, cleared Premier Danielle Smith of sending emails to prosecutors on May 18—no evidence found among 1M messages—but condemned her for discussing COVID-era pastor Arthur Pavlovsky’s case with Justice Minister Tyler Chandrow, despite no action taken. Ezra Levant, who shared a legally referenced memo in October 2023, argues legacy media like CBC and CTV ignored the exoneration, amplifying bias while ignoring NDP ties to communism or selective scrutiny of other politicians. With polls tight, the report’s timing—11 days pre-election—raises questions about political motives, though Smith’s defamation case against the CBC strengthens if she pursues legal action. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I talk about the late-breaking news in Alberta that the Ethics Commissioner has condemned Danielle Smith, the Premier, for wanting to drop some prosecutions of old pandemic cases.
I'll take you through the report, including my own small cameo role in it.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this show.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month, and you get my show every night, Sheila Gonridge Show every week, and the satisfaction of knowing that you are keeping our independent journalism strong because we take no money from the government.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, on the day of the election debate, Alberta's ethics commissioner condemns Premier Danielle Smith.
Is it an inside job?
I'll tell you more.
It's May 18th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
I've never seen a bureaucracy move so fast, never seen a court move so fast, never seen a judge move so fast.
Just a few weeks ago, the NDP filed a complaint with Alberta's ethics commissioner, a former judge named Marguerite Trussler.
The ethics complaint said two things, that the CBC had reported that Danielle Smith had sent a series of inappropriate emails to Alberta prosecutors telling them not to prosecute pandemic cases.
The CBC reported this as a fact, even though they say they didn't actually see the emails themselves.
The NDP forwarded that to the government.
They also said, and it's a fact, that Danielle Smith had a conversation with Arthur Pavlovsky.
As you know, Arthur is a Christian pastor who was charged with various offenses under lockdown rules.
And we know that conversation did happen because Arthur recorded it, and the video made its way to the same CBC.
So the CBC was not just a reporter of the news, it was a maker of the news.
And that news just happened to dovetail nicely with what the NDP opposition was doing.
And they filed it with the judge, the former judge, Marguerite Trussler.
And I've never seen anything move so fast.
Today, the judge released her ruling in the middle of the election less than two weeks ago on the day of the debate, ensuring that the media party, including CBC reporters, will be there to make that the lead topic.
Isn't that quite something?
The CBC wrote a story about emails and about Arthur Pavlovsky.
The CBC formed the subject matter of a complaint to the ethics commissioner, and tonight the CBC will have a role in the debate between the leaders.
That's a neat trick if you can arrange it.
Except, and importantly, this judge, former judge, ruled that the CBC accusations were baseless.
The Arthur Pavlovsky story was real, but exaggerated.
But in the case of the CBC, the judge had an exhaustive investigation, spoke to many individuals, all 44 prosecutors who were in charge of prosecuting COVID offenses in the province.
Every single one of them said the same thing.
They had not, in fact, received an email about prosecuting or not prosecuting.
Not a single one received such an email from anyone, let alone the Premier.
Not only did the 44 prosecutors on that file say that, but all 32 staff of the Premier's office said the same thing.
And in case that's not enough to convince you, the civil service had a massive search on the tech side.
They had their tech people, their IT people search more than a million emails.
They didn't find a single one.
The judge concluded that there was zero evidence that any inappropriate emails were sent.
And yet, the former judge, the ethics commissioner, condemned Danielle Smith, said she broke the rule, though she offered no punishment for it, saying that by talking to Arthur Pavlovsky, Danielle Smith was in the wrong, and that by raising the subject with her justice minister, Tyler Chandrow, who just happens to be the health minister who put into effect all these lockdown laws, she put undue pressure on him, even though they only talked about the subject once,
and he did not act on it, and he was not fired.
Compare that with the case of Jody Wilson-Raybold, the justice minister under Justin Trudeau, who simply refused to call off the prosecution of his criminal friends.
His friends at SNC Lavalam were on trial for criminal corruption involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trudeau wanted to get that to go away.
Jody Wilson-Raybold refused to do that.
They continuously badgered her all the way up to the top, Gerald Butts himself, and they finally fired her when she wouldn't comply.
Imagine comparing a single five-minute phone call between Danielle Smith and her justice minister, in which case the justice minister did nothing.
Imagine comparing the two of them, the two of those cases.
It's incredible.
I myself had a small cameo appearance in the report.
You see, last year, and I tweeted about this before, and I think I did a show on this before, I bumped into Danielle Smith and I mentioned to her our campaign that we call lockdownamnesty.com.
Amnesty is technically not the precise word.
It would be more a stay of a prosecution, but amnesty is a layperson's term.
And I sent a follow-up email that I had a lawyer help me draft to the Premier outlining how it's perfectly legal for the government to stay the prosecution of cases for which there is no public interest.
As you may know, for decades in Canada, police simply didn't arrest people for mere possession of marijuana.
Prosecutors simply didn't prosecute for mere possession.
If you were a drug dealer, sure, or if you were doing other crimes at the same time, sure.
But it was just the use of public discretion, that it wasn't worth the resources.
It was not deemed a serious enough crime to prosecute.
So this is not new.
In fact, in my memo, I cited a Supreme Court of Canada case discussing prosecutorial discretion.
Now, the judge claimed that I got it wrong in my memo.
I wasn't under investigation or anything.
The judge, just in passing, said that I, quote, advocated direct interference by the Premier by having her order a stay in prosecutions.
My memo clearly doesn't do that.
I said she should talk to the justice minister, which is what the law prescribes.
That's neither here nor there.
It was just a passing comment by the judge.
But the fact that she got it wrong on a pretty basic matter makes me wonder if she read the whole thing carefully.
But the long and the short of it is that today, in a late hit during the campaign, just less than two weeks ago on the day of the election debates, the ethics commissioner condemned Danielle Smith, confirming the NDP-CBC narrative, which is a bizarre one, given that the CBC continues to report on these fictitious emails.
The media coverage of this was absolutely nuts.
They were not pure reporters.
A genuine reporter would tell both the good and the bad news.
If you're the NDP, the good news is that Danielle Smith was caught or was called out for breaking one of the rules.
If you're a Danielle Smith advocate, the good news is that she was completely exonerated on the other one, the CBC email story.
Yet the media only covered the fact that she got in trouble for talking to Arthur Pavlovsky, even though she actually didn't do anything about his case.
What's so incredible is that the CBC didn't even mention the rebuke to them that their story was fake.
The judge went on for pages about the CBC fabrications.
The judge didn't use the word fabrication.
She just said there's no evidence of these emails at all.
The CBC didn't even mention that.
And bizarrely, CTV in their stories for some reason had the sub-headline that the emails exist when the judge specifically said they do not and quoted 44 prosecutors to that effect.
I find it an absolutely stunning proof of my theory, my concept of the media party.
The only reporters you can trust in Alberta are the independent journalists who are not on the take.
I'm talking about Rebel News, of course, Western Standard, True North, and Kian Beck Stee at Countersignal.
The only journalists who are telling the truth about this, the good, the bad, and the ugly, are the journalists who are not taking money from Trudeau.
And I think that although the independent journalists I just listed have a large following in Alberta, typically that following is already fairly conservative and already on side for the Conservative Party.
The CBC and the other media, they reach people in the middle, people who are not particularly political, and of course people on the left who will never hear the other side of the story.
As CTV claimed, the emails exist.
That is a lie.
That is specifically what the judge said does not exist.
Now, I did an emergency live stream on this today for about an hour, and I went through things, and I'd like to show you some of that today.
So I'm going to throw a clip from the live stream, and then I'm going to interview Derek Fildebrandt, the boss of the Western Standard, and see what he has to say.
Look, this is much more than just the Alberta election.
I think it would be atrocious if the NDP won and brought socialism back, and frankly, authoritarianism back.
They're real bullies when it comes to civil liberties.
But I think how Alberta goes, well, that's really the conservative hope for the country in many ways.
And if Alberta manages to get snuffed out by a second atrocious term by a socialist premier, I honestly don't know if it'll ever regain its old spring in its step.
It's also a test of how the controlled, restricted, funded, subsidized media party can operate in an election.
What they're doing to Danielle Smith is exactly what they will do to Pierre Polyev.
It'll be interesting to see if the CBC journalists and their friends in the other bailout media are strong enough to destroy a sitting premier.
If so, it's bad news for Pierre Polyev.
Stay with us.
Next, the excerpt from my live stream.
The ethics commissioner ruled that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith broke the ethics code in regards to pursuing lockdown amnesty.
That is.
a stay of prosecution against people who are still being hounded by prosecutors for obsolete rules that were in effect a year, two, three ago.
I'll take you through the ruling itself, what it says, what it does not say.
But I think there's an even deeper, more important story to it, which is how Alberta's deep state, as it were, is trying to get rid of Danielle Smith with an election, what is it, 11 days away now?
Today, by the way, is the debate day in the province of Alberta.
Danielle Smith, the leader of the UCP, the United Conservative Party, and Rachel Notley, the leader of the NDP Socialist Party, former premier who was deposed by Jason Kenney, but wants a second crack at it.
And opinion polls.
I've seen opinion polls showing the NDP with a real lead, but I've also seen opinion polls showing that UCP is in the lead.
I think that means that it's a volatile electorate.
Normally, pollsters are generally in the same zone.
I think that this election is really up in the air, and the deep state has decided they're going to make the decision.
I'll tell you what I mean by that.
This ethics report was rushed out hastily.
Most of the ethics reports by this commissioner take three, four plus months to do.
This one was done very hastily to make sure it got out before the election.
And maybe that's appropriate.
Or maybe that's someone putting their thumb on the scale.
It was released today, the day of the debates, not tomorrow, the day after the debates, but today.
The day where the candidates are normally preparing and where the candidates themselves would choose the issues.
No, the ethics commissioner herself will choose the issue.
You know that that will be the case.
The CBC has a major role in what I am calling an attempted coup d'état.
And here's what I mean by that.
A few months ago, the CBC reported something as fact.
They said that Danielle Smith or her staff emailed prosecutors on the COVID files telling them to stop.
They couldn't be more explicit.
They said they were emails.
Now, later on, they said they hadn't actually seen the emails.
Isn't that interesting?
But they insisted they happened.
Well, this launched an enormous investigation in the public service by the non-partisan public service.
I don't mean political appointees.
I mean the permanent bureaucracy that runs the government.
They checked over a million emails and couldn't find the emails that the CBC said had happened, even though the CBC couldn't have been sure about it because they never saw them themselves.
Who would have told them?
And why would they believe someone who wouldn't show them in the face of a massive investigation by the bureaucracy that showed no such emails were done?
Crown Prosecutors' Anger00:14:03
Well, in today's report by the Ethics Commissioner, which talks about Danielle Smith and her views on a kind of lockdown amnesty, there's a major section on the CBC.
And I want to show it to you.
And this isn't the most important part of today's story, but it shows you the collusion between the NDP, the media party, Justin Trudeau's CBC, and how it's all happening, in my opinion, with some dissident conservatives who have never accepted Danielle Smith as a leader.
Here, I'd like you to, Olivia or Efron, I'm not sure who's at the computer there.
Is that you, Olivia?
Can you please search for CBC and go to the next instance of it and first show the title page of the report to show people what document we're referring to.
I have on the screen, and I'll show it to you, and we'll have a link to it.
If you could put that on the screen, this is the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, Province of Alberta, report of findings and recommendations by the Honorable Marguerite Trussler, King's Counsel Ethics Commissioner, into allegations involving Danielle Smith.
So it was published today.
So that's the document I'm reading from.
And then do a find the word CBC and skip the first one.
That shows that you can put it on the screen there.
In January of 2023, the CBC aired a story relying on an unnamed source that a political staff member in the Premier's office had directly contacted prosecutors, plural, in the Criminal Prosecution Service about COVID-related prosecutions.
In March of 2023, a tape was posted to the CBC website of a conversation between Premier Smith and Arthur Pavlovsky.
We can talk about that a little bit later.
The allegation is that the Premier and her staff, as a result of these two incidents, interfered with the administration of justice and thereby breached Section 3 of the Conflicts of Interest Act.
Oh, I skipped a paragraph there.
Highlights from the tape are set out in the NDP request for an investigation.
I also downloaded the tape and personally listened to it.
So those are the two allegations.
That Arthur Pavlovsky recording of his personal conversation with Danielle Smith and far more serious in my mind, the accusation that Smith or her staff were literally emailing prosecutors, plural, and telling them what to do.
That would be political interference like Justin Trudeau does.
That's not something a conservative would do.
Skip ahead to the next instance of the word CBC because this is quite something.
And the next one, just one more.
Yeah, let's read this.
The CBC allegation.
We already read that.
The person who was alleged to have sent one or perhaps more of the emails was incensed by the allegations and denied them.
The lawyer conducting or participating in all the Coots prosecutions, Stephen Johnson, said that he was never contacted by anyone in the Premier's office.
Kim Goddard, Assistant Deputy Minister of Justice at one point, held a town hall video meeting with prosecutors and reiterated the independence of the Crown Prosecutors.
She told them to ignore political statements and to advise her if anyone was contacted, particularly if the contact was from a political source.
At one point, she requested and received from the Crown Prosecution Service an update on all cases, but it was used by her merely as a reference to bring the Attorney General and was never forwarded.
The Public Service Commissioner, with the consent of the Deputy Minister, conducted an email search.
I referred to that.
Keep going.
Skip to the next page.
Look at this.
I think it can be said that the members of the Crown Prosecution Services, that's another way of saying prosecutors, were annoyed and even incensed by the allegation that one of them had received outside political pressure.
Assistant Deputy Minister Kim Goddard is confident no one in the service received an email.
So that's not a political appointee.
That's a lifer prosecutor.
But look at these next two paragraphs, absolutely devastating to the wicked liars of the CBC.
Look at these two next paragraphs.
All 44 Crown prosecutors who had couts, that was the border blockade by the Truckers, or COVID-related files, provided a statement that they did not receive any contact relating to their files from the Premier's office.
44 prosecutors on the COVID file.
None of them appointed by Danielle Smith, of course.
They're not political appointees at all.
They're lawyers who just work for the government.
44 out of 44 said, I don't know what the CBC is talking about.
I have never received such an email.
And then this next line.
All 32 political staff members in the Premier's office at the relevant time provided a statement that they did not contact any crown prosecutors regarding the coups or COVID-related files.
76 people, 76 people said it is not true.
That is absolutely devastating to the CBC.
It was one of the grounds for this ethics complaint.
And here, Marguerite Trusler, retired judge, now ethics commissioner, said in a polite way, the CBC made it up, and they continue to lie about it to this day.
That's a pretty devastating rebuke of the CBC.
Back in October last year, I bumped into the Premier, and I said, look, there's a way, a legal way to stay these prosecutions.
That's a legal term.
Amnesty is probably not the right word.
And amnesty implies you did it, you didn't do it, whatever stage of it, you're just, you're washed clean of your sins.
Amnesty isn't the word.
Pardon isn't the word.
The legal technical term is to stay a prosecution.
Now, I'm going to read you some of the letter I wrote.
Now, I wrote it to Danielle Smith, so I met with Danielle Smith, and she said, hey, give me your ideas on how to do it.
So I'll just read some of this.
You can see this is from October.
Marshall is the name of her chief of staff.
Please thank the Premier for taking the time to speak with me.
It's nice to see her again in a new role.
Nice to meet you.
I'll send you another note in a couple days about blah, blah, blah.
On the lockdown and pandemic prosecutions, I was heartened to see how well informed the Premier is on these matters.
She clearly understands how important these issues are, both politically and morally.
She really is on the right side of history, blah, blah, blah.
The Premier was interested in information that I could provide her about the situation on the ground and mechanisms available to her to provide leadership on these issues.
The purpose of this note is to provide the Premier with that information.
So what follows is a slightly more technical version of what I say on my nightly show all the time.
There are still an unknown number of tickets, charges, and contempt proceedings or related matters.
I have good knowledge of some of the prosecutions, but other lawyers have files.
And, you know, some trials have commenced.
There are real issues about why they're proceeding.
As the Premier says, they appear to have been politically motivated.
Staying or withdrawing the charges would send a strong message in support of the rule of law.
I'm only suggesting that prosecutions which have been politically motivated, targeting people who only sought to exercise their constitutional freedom of expression and religion, be stayed or discontinued.
So let's just go stand to, I'm not going to read all of it because it's a little bit legalistic.
Jurisdiction.
Almost all the prosecutions that I'm aware of are conducted by provincial prosecutors.
They're under the Premier's jurisdiction.
The Attorney General has the discretion on whether and how to prosecute.
Here's a leading case on the matter.
Significantly, what is common to the various elements of prosecutorial discretion is that they involve the ultimate decisions as to whether prosecutions should be brought, continued, or ceased, and what the prosecution ought to be for.
Put differently, prosecutorial discretion refers to decision regarding the nature and extent of the prosecution and the attorney general's participation in it.
Decisions that do not go to the nature and extent of the prosecution need a decision that govern a crown prosecutor's tactics and conduct before the court.
Blah, blah, blah.
So you see, I have footnote number one there.
Scroll to the very bottom of this memo.
I want to show you that that case is from the Supreme Court.
It was in a case called Krieger in the Law Society of Alberta, a 2002 case.
SCC says it's a Supreme Court of Canada case.
So I'm quoting the Supreme Court.
I'm not making this stuff up.
Okay, go right back up.
Thanks very much.
I just wanted to show my footnote there.
This next paragraph is important.
Specifically, the Attorney General can decide the nature and extent of the prosecution and the Attorney General's participation in it.
And Crown prosecutors employed by Alberta Crown Prosecution Service have prosecutorial discretion to stay or withdraw proceedings, blah, blah, blah.
It's usually done in open court.
Scroll down, scroll down, scroll down.
The basis for staying them, if there's no reasonable likelihood of conviction, and it does not suit the public interest.
There are clear legal issues with many of the cases, vague and confusing.
As aptly noted by, you know, and I quote others, other experts, Dr. Fluker.
Yeah, I'm not going to, this is a fairly dense legal memo.
The Premier can, should she choose to, direct the Attorney General to review and withdraw or discontinue any cases arising from the Chief Medical Officer of Health Orders under the Public Health Act or any pending charges.
So I don't say that the Premier should tell the prosecution what to do.
I say the Premier can direct the Attorney General to review and withdraw.
The Premier could request that the review be undertaken with respect to each prosecution.
Obviously, the Attorney General would take into account the Premier's view that without more, proceeding, these prosecutions is not in the public interest.
I would also encourage the Premier to note that beyond the lack of merit and political nature of these charges, the province has a shortage of prosecutors, court staff, and Superior Court judges.
Can you imagine putting 44 prosecutors on this beat?
In consultation with my lawyers, it appears the most direct and efficient way to direct the state proceedings is to make a written memo, and I get into the technicalities.
Anyways, so thanks very much.
You can read the whole thing.
I've tweeted that.
It's on our website.
It's a technical memo, but it's really what I say and have been saying in public for about two years now, which is I don't really use the word and I use the word amnesty, lockdown amnesty, because it's a common parlance.
People know what amnesty is.
Stay a prosecution is a little more technical.
That's actually what it is.
And you can see my memo from October outlines, and you can see, and I mentioned it twice there, that nowhere do I recommend the Premier talk to any prosecutors at all.
I say talk to the Attorney General, have him review things with an eye to are these good cases.
That's what I say.
If you don't blame me, read the memo for yourself.
But go back to Judge Trussler's ruling, because I think she misquotes my memo.
It's not a big deal.
I mean, I don't care.
But she said the only incident that is in any way close to what was reported was the email containing a letter sent by Ezra Levan criticizing the prosecutions and purporting to show why they were wrong and what to do about them.
The communication was sent to the Premier's Chief of Staff, who forwarded to the Chief of Staff of the Minister of Justice, Christopher Thrasher, for response.
As the latter was within the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry, the email was appropriately forwarded from one political staffer to another so that the second political staff member could deal with the matter.
Mr. Thresher provided the email letter to the Minister of Justice, Tyler Chandrow, who in turn forwarded to the Deputy Minister Frank Boscha.
It was then sent to the Assistant Deputy Minister in charge of the Prime Prosecution Service, who did not forward it to any crown prosecutor.
She appropriately had a discussion about it with the deputy minister, and nothing further happened with the letter.
So that's it.
Can you scroll back up a little bit?
Okay, can you search my name one more time?
Because it's at a later point where she refers to my memo itself.
Yeah, search her just one more time.
So I'm fine with what she described there.
But here she says, go back up one or two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So she says on October 25th, Marshall Smith received the email directly from National Levant, which surprisingly from someone legally trained, that's me, advocated direct interference by the premier by having her order a stay in prosecutions.
I did not say that.
I just read to you what I said.
I didn't say that at all.
I said that the Premier should direct the Justice Minister to review the cases and the ones that do not meet the legal standards, the Justice Minister should stay them.
I never said that the Premier should order a stay in the prosecutions.
I defy you to find that.
I think I'm going to write to the judge and point out that she's wrong.
Not that anything turned on it.
Like I say, this fake complaint by the CBC was thrown out by the judge.
But it bothers me about this much that the judge didn't read my memo.
It's only like five pages.
Filtering Alberta News00:02:33
Well, I'm based in Toronto, even though my heart may be in Alberta.
So the information I get about Alberta is often through the filter of the internet.
One of the things I've detected by going through dozens of tweets about this Ethics Commission report and Danielle Smith is that the media party, the regime media, the legacy media, the bailout media, whatever you want to call it, have universally ignored the fact that the CBC's central allegation against Danielle Smith that she or her office meddled with prosecutors, communicated with prosecutors, was absolutely devastated by this report.
The judge, Marguerite Trussler, who's now the ethics commissioner, she's a former judge, said 44 out of 44 prosecutors who touched COVID violence said, no, they didn't receive a single email about it.
And everyone in the Premier's office testified they didn't send an email, which seems to make sense since none were received.
And yet the CBC is still publishing that such email, a series of emails were sent to prosecutors, plural, yet not one can be found.
I find that incredible, an incredible lie to begin with, but even more so that this former judge, Marguerite Trussler, now the Ethics Commissioner ruled, said, I can find no evidence of this.
And yet even noting that, which was half the complaint here, is completely absent in the regime media.
It's almost like they're in a club together.
In fact, this stunning website story by CTV actually has a headline, email was found, or email exists, even though the ethics commissioner said there were no emails, just absolutely incredible.
So that's what it looks like through the filter of the internet from here in Toronto, a couple thousand kilometers away.
Who is a man on the ground, finger on a pulse, who is living and breathing Alberta politics every day, who's about an Albertan as they get?
I'm talking about my friend Derek Fildebrandt, the boss of Western Standard.
Hey, Derek, nice to see you.
Always good to be back.
Thank you.
Well, thanks for having us.
And how, by the way, how are the wildfires?
I mean, the smoke, I know, is an inconvenience, but how are the fires themselves?
Are there still people who are in danger?
Yeah, it's still raging, still nasty.
I mean, most of my interaction with it is just smoke around Calgary.
It's a lot clearer today than it was the last few days.
I had a couple days ago, it looked like the red planet looked like Mars around here.
But I've talked to some folks who are up there.
Chandra On Leaks00:13:47
I talked to one MLA who's running for re-election up in the northwest corner, and he has essentially not campaigned the entire election.
He's just been kind of coordinating efforts on the grounds there.
It's still pretty chaotic, but it seems to be a little less extreme than the 2016 ones that saw Ford McMurray get cinched pretty bad.
Yeah, I can imagine what an, I mean, not just an inconvenience, but when there's that real emergency on the ground, even a politician has to, especially if they're an incumbent MLA, has to be part of the solution, not just indulging in the campaign.
Do you think that's going to affect the election timing at all?
I mean, it's one thing that'd be an inconvenience or even a blight in the sky, but what do you think?
Do you think there will be some parts of the province where voting is delayed at all?
I want to get back to the ethics question, but I am curious what you think.
Just quickly, I don't think it'll be a material difference.
Most of those are big, sprawling rural ridings that, for the most part, are safe UCP.
The only one in the north that's in play in any way would be Lesser Slave Lake.
And it's a very low population riding.
It's under a special formula.
So even a few hundred people not able to vote actually could switch things there.
But I don't think it's going to be a material, make a material difference to the ability of people to get out and vote in a way that'll actually change the outcome of any seats.
Yeah, I think you're right.
And doing something as dramatic as changing an election, I think, erodes confidence.
And by the way, it's a license to move elections around for any so-called emergency.
All right, let's get back to the news of the day.
Look, there's no getting around it.
The ethics commissioner did say that Danielle Smith broke the rules.
She had no punishment, no sanction, no advice even on how to fix it.
But she did say that.
I got a question for you.
Is this what they call in campaigning a late hit?
As in something so close to the election, so dramatic, like a surprise by someone who could have waited a couple of weeks, but said, no, no, no.
I want this to come out before the election.
I want this to come out on election day.
I'm going to meddle in the election.
I'm going to drop a bombshell right on debate day, 11 days to the vote.
Is that unfair on my part?
Or was this a late hit in the campaign?
Well, it is a late hit.
Was it intentional?
I mean, it's certainly weird.
I've never seen federally or provincially an ethics commissioner release a negative report during a campaign period.
I've just never seen that before.
So it definitely leaves open the possibility.
But at a minimum, the ethics commissioner is sensitive to the allegation of it because in it, she recommended that the legislature consider amending the laws around the Conflict of Interest Act so that the ethics commissioner could put investigations on hold during a writ period because it's obviously a very hyper-political time.
But these are always political things, but this is a very political time.
So at the very least, the ethics commissioner is aware of the perception that this is very politically timed.
That doesn't necessarily mean that it was done intentionally, but it is extremely strange.
But to be fair, though, I mean, if this had dropped a week after the election, the NDP and the media would allege that the ethics commissioner was covering up for the UCP and for Premier Smith.
So there's probably no good way to time this kind of thing one way or another.
Now, there are two main complaints.
The first was those CBC emails, which the judge, if you read the report, exhaustively looked into, talked to multiple people, and the judge, I say the judge, she was a former judge, now the ethics commissioner.
She said that the prosecutors were adamant it didn't happen and they were even angry with the allegation.
Like these prosecutors, 44 prosecutors, not only every single one of them denied it, but they were sort of hurt that someone would smear them saying that they were somehow being directed politically.
So all 44 prosecutors said no.
I think it was 32 staff in the premier's office said no.
The judge here says there is no evidence at all.
To me, that's a calamitous rebuke of the CBC's reporting.
And yet the CBC is still reporting that.
Still reporting the existence of emails that the judge can't find and 44 prosecutors can't find.
I've never seen anything so brazen in my life.
So it's a good news, bad news story, because Smith did get her hands slapped on a bit, and I know you're going to want to touch on that in a bit.
But on this, this was the good news side.
Smith has maintained she has not, her and people in her office, to her knowledge, have not been in any contact with prosecutors.
And if someone had or if Smith had, that would be bad.
That would be definitely warranting significant censure.
It'd be very inappropriate.
But the report was clear here.
And the CBC has not changed their story that we've seen at least.
They haven't updated the story or retracted it and apologized.
All of the media that I've at least seen from the legacy media in Alberta have, at the very least, in the story, if not really talked about that part, generally not put it up front.
It's been all about the negative side.
And I mean, I guess that is the news business.
We're all guilty of, you know, if it leads to bleeds, if it's negative, it tends to be more newsworthy.
It's never a news story that nothing happened today.
But it's definitely been downplayed in the press that she's been, it seems entirely exonerated of the more serious allegation against her.
And the CBC is not only not playing up that in the reports on the report that came out today, but hasn't retracted its existing story.
So definitely would seem to strengthen the legal case if Smith decides to pursue her defamation suit against the CBC post-election.
You know, it's one thing for them not to retract.
Like they can say we stand by it, but they don't even acknowledge that the judge tore a strip off them and said it's fake.
Like you can say the judge ruled against the CBC email allegation and said they had no evidence.
CBC stands by its reporting.
So, okay, so you're saying you disagree.
Now we have to choose between the judge's version and the CBC's version, but at least we have the news that the judge was against.
It is possible that the CBC is correct.
I don't think it is at this point.
I think the scales have been pretty heavily tilted one way to show that it's not likely a correct story.
But it is possible it's true and they have a right to stand by it.
But they do have an obligation to at least acknowledge that this has been the result of the report, that this former judge and the ethics commissioner says, no, didn't happen.
Fake news.
Yeah, I mean, if there's a million email search done by the public service, nothing shows up.
All 44 prosecutors said, no, we didn't receive anything.
The entire premier staff said, no, we didn't send it.
I think it behooves the CBC to put up her shut up or at least acknowledge this contradiction, which they haven't done.
I have a theory, though.
And I'm going to run it by you.
It just popped into my mind.
I make a cameo appearance in this report.
In October, I met with the Premier.
I bumped into her at an event and I talked to her briefly about I used the word lockdown amnesty.
It should have been stay of prosecution.
That's the more accurate term.
And I followed up and I sent her, I think it was a five-page memo where I remember I read that.
You know, I had a lawyer help me prepare it.
So it wasn't just my musings off the top of my head.
And I talked about how you do it properly.
You know, you have the attorney general review cases with the public interest in mind and reasonable likelihood of conviction.
And the attorney general is the decider.
Anyway, I stand by the memo.
I think it's a great memo, and I'm not shy about it.
Frankly, I've said the same thing on TV many times.
Indulge me for 30 seconds.
So the judge treats my legal memo, and she says the legal memo was sent by me to Smith and her chief of staff.
Okay, that's true.
And then it was sent to the justice minister and then the chief of staff and then the attorney, sorry, the associate deputy minister or something, and then the head of crown prosecution service, and it went no further.
So this ethics commissioner, former judge, tracked where my memo went, and it just went to the names I just told you.
So she literally followed who forwarded it to whom.
So she just listed all the names.
Danielle Smith and her chief of staff, Justice Minister Tyler Chandra and his chief of staff, and I think three bureaucrats in the Justice Department.
That's it.
Yeah.
Now, my memo was leaked to the CBC a few months ago.
I don't think Danielle Smith leaked it to the DBC.
I don't think her chief of staff leaked it to the CBC.
And frankly, I can't fathom why a civil servant would leak it to the CBC because they were angry at any accusations of interference.
This wasn't interference.
This was my advice.
I see.
Here you go with this.
So if it wasn't Danielle Smith or her chief of staff, and if it's not the civil service, the only political person was Tyler Chandrow.
And it was leaked to the CBC.
And so here we are, Derek.
The CBC is digging their heels in on this.
Oh, I swear there were emails.
We can't prove it to you, but someone told us and we believe them.
Well, gee, I wonder if that's Tyler Chandrow.
Because if Tyler Chandrow had told the CBC, there had been emails, trust me.
Well, my God, if the Justice Minister tells you it happened, you better believe him.
He wouldn't lie, would he?
He's Danielle Smith's right-hand man.
So that would be the explanation for why they were so extremely tenacious, despite not finding an email after a million email search, despite 44 prosecutors saying, I don't know what you're talking about.
Why would the CBC hang on for dear life?
Well, if Tyler Chandrow had said, no, no, no, guys, trust me.
Well, the CBC would not give that up, and they would not reveal who he is.
And that's a hell of a thing.
Who else could it be besides the guy who leaked my memo?
I think Tyler Chandrow did it.
I think that he is against Danielle Smith.
I think he was the health minister who put in place these lockdown laws.
I think he wants to be premier.
And I don't think he's been particularly helpful to Danielle Smith.
He certainly didn't do her bidding on this matter.
I accused Tyler Chandrow of being the source of the CBC and the leaker of my memo.
What do you make of that allegation I just told you?
You've got me a lot.
That's a lot to think about.
It's there's a lot, I think, to lend credibility to the possibility.
I'd have to do some more research myself, but it is possible.
I mean, I did think it was very an awkward position that Chandra was put in.
That he, you know, he was dropped as health minister soon after Chandra introduced the vaccine passports for Jason Kenney.
You know, Chandro was after Jason Kenney and kind of alongside Jason Nixon, the kind of the guy that the insurgent element in the UCP and Alberta wanted gone for his role in lockdowns and mandates.
And then Danielle Smith comes in as the crusader against these things, and she doesn't obviously put him back in health, but then she puts him in justice.
And clearly on the docket, injustice is dealing with these people, many of which have been wrongfully charged with violating lockdowns and mandates that were put in place by Tyler Chandra.
Now, that is an awkward position, if nothing else, that you put in place these regulations and laws that people get charged under.
And then you're responsible for overseeing them then as justice minister.
And the new boss says, I want you to look into essentially stay a prosecution for these people who have been charged under the regulations that you as health minister introduced.
And if nothing else, that is grossly awkward.
But I'd have to follow the dots a bit more, but it certainly raises a real possibility that it could have been Chandra, but I'm not confident enough myself saying that.
Well, and I have no proof of it other than there's a very short list of people who had access to my memo.
It was leaked to the CBC.
It sounds like the same motive and modus operandi as the leaker on the invisible emails.
Well, I think that.
And leaks are great.
I mean, we used to get leaks like nobody's business out of the Kenny government.
People who were opposed to Kenny in that government, they were leaking to us twice a day for like two years.
And it was devastating to the government.
And I generally agree with the reasons for it, but it was our job as journalists to collect information.
It wasn't our job to carry water for the government.
But definitely would not be surprised one bit if Smith had people in her government who were not her friends and were leaking things.
Banning Questions: Jonathan's Take00:10:24
Yeah, you know, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
That was the case under Jason Kenny.
It's definitely the case under Danielle Smith.
Thanks for indulging my theory.
That's all it was, a speculative theory.
But I just reading the report today.
It's worth digging into.
I think it's very much worth digging into by process of elimination.
That's what.
Yeah, exactly right.
Hey, there's about a week and a half to go, which is not a lot of time, but in another sense, it's an eternity in politics.
So many more things can happen.
Typically, political parties save their biggest bombshells in their opposition research for the last week.
They don't shoot it all in the first week of the campaign.
I think that we haven't even seen the worst of it.
Now, on the Danielle Smith side, the woman did radio and TV shows for years in which she said controversial things as a pundit.
So I'm sure there's some clips there they'll dig up.
Who knows what the UCP's bombshells are on the NDP?
I think both sides have priced them in.
I think conservatives know that Rachel Notley is an anti-oil extremist.
I think NDPers are already terrified that Danielle Smith is a libertarian who doesn't believe in a heavy-handed government.
How much are these bombshells going to move the needle?
Because, boy, the polls are close.
And I was scared this morning.
But then I thought, you know what?
Has this changed anything?
Has anyone who liked Danielle Smith before changed their mind or vice versa?
What do you think?
Well, it depends what polls you're looking at.
Most polls until now have showed a modest UCP lead, which was a huge comeback after, you know, Jason Kenney spent better part of two years, like 20, 25 points behind the NDP.
So Smith brought the party back into a competitive position.
Now, some polls are still showing the UCP with a modest lead, especially in Critical Battleground Calgary.
But there are others that have showed the NDP with a modest lead.
Previously, all the polls showed, across the board showed, a moderate UCP lead.
Now they're showing moderate UCP leads and moderate NDP leads.
So I'm not sure what to make of it.
It's possible that these bombs have been hitting their mark and eroding it.
I think a lot of, as you said, I think a lot of the controversy around this, you know, Danielle Smith is a controversial figure who said controversial things.
A lot of that is baked into the price already.
It's a sunken cost, if you will.
But the oppo-drops against the NDP, they're not hitting the mark because the media have reported precisely zero of them.
So if a UCP candidate, if there was an audio recording of a UCP candidate farting in the public washroom 10 years ago, that's going to be on the front page of the Herald and the Journal.
But, you know, as of this morning, we have released evidence of four NDP candidates, including one incumbent MLA, who have clearly and unambiguously, publicly stated their support for communism or communism-affiliated things, including Rod Loyola.
We already know he was a communist, but it's kind of been swept under the rug because it wasn't explicitly capital C communist.
It was just supporting who Go Chavez, who happens to be a communist.
But, you know, we've gotten photos of him at the front of a Communist Party of Canada delegation in a parade.
We've got another candidate for MLA who's been sharing images of Chairman Mao with inspirational quotes from him.
And so there's now four of these MLAs in total.
And you know how many stories I've seen in the government-funded legacy media on this stuff?
Precisely zero.
Zero.
And that is much worse than even I thought.
I think neither of us have a particularly charitable view of the government-funded media.
But, I mean, they used to keep up the appearance of balance.
And not everybody working there is bad, but now it is worse than it was even four years ago.
I think four years ago, if it was exposed that an NDP candidate running to be the government supported and explicitly supported an ideology that killed about 100 million people in the last century, it would get a mention at the bottom of a story somewhere.
Maybe not, it wouldn't get a headline, but it'd get a mention somewhere.
I've seen precisely zero mentions.
So any hits on the NDP, they're just not landing because unless you're watching independent media, reading independent media in Alberta, it's just not happening.
It doesn't exist.
And so the UCP is fighting against, in a media landscape, even more hostile than is normally there for conservatives.
You know, you make me think of what happened a few days ago at a press conference about a week ago.
Your reporter, Jonathan Bradley, who is so mild-mannered, he's so polite.
I think he's too polite, by the way.
I mean, nice guy.
He's such a nice guy.
He's too nice.
I'm trying to make him meaner.
I'm trying to make a pit bull.
I'm going to beat him and make him meaner.
Yeah, you've got to meanify him a bit.
But the reason I mentioned that is because butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
And he goes to an NDP event to ask a bona fide question.
And the press aide says to him, We're banning you because you engaged in hate speech against one of our candidates.
As in writing a critical story, it's criticised.
It's just hate speech.
Let me just show a clip of that because people might be thinking I'm making that up.
And by the way, this is the nicest guy.
I think he's too nice, but I emphasize that because he's not a hater.
And his criticism is fair and gentle.
Take a look at his clip.
Jonathan Radley, Western Center, I got a question about the military.
Yeah, your question is up.
Okay.
You know, that gave policy with your particular outlet where you have operated in hate speech against our candidates.
We value taking questions from you.
I've gone over this, Jonathan, several times.
Happy to continue talking about it.
Happy to have that discussion with your editors.
Thank you for coming.
That's a smear.
And they've kept out others like the other day, Kian Bexty.
He literally told the NDP in advance what his question was.
It was firm but fair.
He wasn't noisy.
He wasn't swearing.
He wasn't blocking.
And they simply refused to come out till he was let out by police.
And then Rachel Notley later said, oh, we had a protester.
Here's a clip of her calling him a protester.
Well, thank you very much.
And thank you, everybody, for your patience.
As many of you here know, we had to remove a protester, but I'm very pleased that we were able to have folks stick around.
Now, the thing is, that looks insane to me.
And by the way, they banned Rebel News, of course.
So you're banning Western Standard.
You're banning Countersignal, Kian Bexy.
You're banning Rebel News.
Rachel Emmanuel gets into some of the events.
I think it's just because she's so nice, but that didn't work for Jonathan Bradley.
The reason I mentioned all this, Derek, is because this would normally be a devastating authoritarian approach by Rachel Notley and the NDP if the rest of the media were to describe what they were doing, but they don't.
So Rachel Notley has perfect serenity, kicking out the four independent media in Alberta because she knows that the big boys won't even talk about it, so she'll get away with it.
Well, there was a one-day story.
So at the beginning of the campaign, you might recall, there was controversy because Danielle Smith said she's going to take only one question from all of the media so she could take questions from more media instead of two questions from just a few media.
And the media were very, you know, the kind of media were upset about this.
And Rachel Notley tried to make a big point of it.
And she put on Twitter, I'm having a press conference tomorrow, and I will answer all of the questions and their follow-ups from all of the media.
And I kind of scratched my head.
I was like, oh, we've been kind of quietly banned from the NDP for a while.
Well, we haven't made a big deal of it, but, you know, because like, whatever, they don't have to talk to us if they don't want to.
We're not going to cry about it.
But she's kind of on her high horse here.
I think I'm seeing some serious hypocrisy.
So I sent the classiest, most bona fide, experienced journalist I got around here next to Dave Naylor.
I sent my news editor, Nigel Hannaford.
Oh, he's a great guy.
He's very British, very proper gentleman.
How much more friggin' mainstream do you need to get than one of the former editors of the Calgary Herald?
I sent him down, and Rachel Notley just says, nope, nope, you guys engaged in hate speech.
And so that, now, so the media, the legacy media picked that up, except they put it kind of at the lower half of the story after, well, Danielle Smith will only take one question from everyone, and that's a big deal.
And then Rachel Notley not taking questions from people she doesn't like is the bottom half of the story.
But there's been virtually nothing since.
But, you know, it's just, she keeps moving the ball.
She says, okay, if your Rebel is not Rebel or Town of Signal.
They're not accredited members of the legislative press gallery, that nice little club there, Gatekeep.
So they're not allowed in because they're not accredited.
Well, then we show up.
Well, we're accredited and we're accredited at the press gallery here, Saskatchewan, Parliament Hill.
We show up.
Well, she needs a new excuse because we are accredited.
So she says, well, you're hate criminals.
So, you know, and how do you defend against that?
That's just technically, according to lawyers, that's just her opinion that she could say we commit hate crimes.
So she just moves the ball.
And at the end of the day, what it comes down to is, are you too much of a pain in asking inconvenient questions for her?
And if that is the case, you don't get to go.
You know, I don't like it when journalists complain about how tough their life is.
And maybe that's what I'm doing here.
But I don't think I'm talking about myself.
I don't think I'm even talking about you or Jonathan Bradley or Kian Becksy.
I'm talking about Rachel Notley and how she demonizes and defames her opponents as hate criminals and shuts down public accountability now in the opposition.
Imagine what she will do if she becomes premier.
Alberta could go very dark in terms of censorship.
Alberta's Political Future00:03:06
Derek, it's great to catch up with you.
In the closing moments we have, I don't want to put you on the spot, but if you had to guess based on current trends, do you think Danielle Smith will pull it off, or do you think Rachel Notley will be restored and the socialists will take the castle again?
Oh, God.
You know, and this is the worst possible time to ask because by the time this airs, it'll almost be debate time.
It's so much good.
Yeah.
Yeah, I take your point tonight.
The debate's on.
We're having a live stream.
Are you guys having a live stream too?
But here, I hate when people cop out and give non-answers, so I'm going to give the best answer I can.
Absent the debate, if the election was held at noon today, I'd say the UCP squeaks by.
I'd say in aggregate, they're leading in polls, although not all the polls, but also the math favors them better because the NDP are so heavily concentrated in Edmonton.
So if the election was held at noon today, I'd say the UCP wins a slight majority, loses a bunch of their seats, but still holds on to government.
But this evening, the debate has the potential at least to finally tilt real momentum one way or another.
Yeah, I think you're right.
All right, my friend, thanks for your time.
Good luck today.
You're doing important work out there.
Love the Western Standard.
Keep it up.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
You too.
All right.
Cheers.
There you have it.
Derek Fielderbrand, the boss of WesternStandard.news.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your feedback to me on my monologue about the immigration poll.
Bill Fairhall says we don't have and can't build the kind of infrastructure to support this in the timeframe.
Ridiculous idea.
You would wait at emergency departments for hours to days from hours to days and doctors from months to several years.
It's a crazy idea.
Imagine 100 million Canadians, but they're not going to be new villages in Northwest Territories.
They're just going to turn Toronto from the greater Toronto area, about six and a half million people.
They'll turn it into a 20 million person mega city like Mexico City.
It makes no sense economically, infrastructure-wise, social cohesion.
Most people in the country would not be born Canadians.
You would completely change the character of the country.
You would snuff out old Canada.
And where would these folks come from?
Quebec is worried because they know they're not going to be French speakers.
I don't understand.
It's an insane idea.
It's an idea that makes sense if you're a corporation looking for a market, not if you're a country looking for citizens.
Peter After he says, I would be angry at Danielle Smith if she had not made the call.
Sending a half a dozen police to a church during services should be talked about, investigated.
Lone police officers sometimes get killed dealing with violent offenders, like in a Hay River Northwest Territories a few years ago.
But we sent a group of officers to a peaceful church.
Where or who is giving these police their orders?
Start a petition to fire Tus Trustler, lacking any common sense.
Common Sense Reflection00:00:29
Best regards.
P.S. recent poll was comparing Premier Smith and Notley, but they left out who practices cancel culture category.
Yeah, isn't it funny?
Danielle Smith has gotten more trouble from the media for a brief phone call with Arthur Pavlovsky than other politicians got in trouble for jailing pastors.
Like, isn't that crazy?
I think that's a reflection of the media party, not the common sense of the common people.