Danielle Smith’s UCP victory on May 30, 2023, with 49 of 87 seats, defied NDP and Liberal attack ads—like claims she’d privatize healthcare—while Alberta’s opioid crisis response succeeded, cutting overdose deaths by 17% (2021–22) vs. BC’s 1.4%. Meanwhile, CMHC handed out $93M in bonuses amid soaring housing costs, and Global Affairs wasted funds on sex history workshops ($12,500), a German sex toy show ($8,800), and celebrity promotions (Atwood: $9,700). Smith’s mandate underscores Alberta’s recovery-focused policies over Ottawa’s bureaucratic failures, proving provincial self-reliance strengthens Canada. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, success in the ballot box for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and success in drug treatment as she continues to make Alberta the control group for a better way in dealing with the opioid crisis.
Then Franco Terrazano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins me to discuss how the government agency tasked with affordability and housing is giving themselves bonuses while houses are more unaffordable than ever for Canadians.
It's May 30th, 2023.
I'm Sheila Gunread, but you're watching the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Well, it's all over but the crying in a couple of recounts here and there, particularly in Calgary.
But it is true, Albertans have given our freedom-minded, tax-hating, gun rights-supporting Premier a strong mandate to leave this province for the next four years.
Danielle Smith is the political and intellectual foil to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
She might be his worst enemy.
She's the outsider replacement to the previously disappointing United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney.
And she was just given a strong, stable 49 seats in the Alberta legislature of a potential of 87.
It really came down to Calgary.
Edmonton, as you've heard me complain, is an NDP liberal stronghold and has been since the Ralph Klein era.
Rural Alberta is consistently deep blue, my common sense people.
And Calgary is becoming more purple.
But I'm not sure it's going to stay that way.
I think four years of what I anticipate will be a strong economic recovery, scientific innovation, a return to the frontier spirit of self-reliance and smaller government, well, all those things can move Calgary back blue.
I mean, the NDP and the Liberals can only predict a doomsday scenario in healthcare and education that never comes for so long before people start to leave the cult.
That's how all death cults end, when the apocalypse prediction continues to miss the mark.
And the NDP predictions of devastation in healthcare and education, they will miss the mark, because they always do.
Now, in the coming days and weeks, we're going to hear why certain politicians lost certain ridings, like Justice Minister Tyler Chandra, who's been so great on gun rights recently.
But I don't think he could ever recover from his mistreatment of pastors during the lockdowns at the behest of Jason Kenney.
We're going to hear why some pollsters were just so wrong, why the media was also just so wrong.
And we're going to hear from the left, particularly the Toronto left, why Albertans were just so wrong to re-elect their premier.
Now, it's our job here at Rebel News to hold the government to account.
And even though we have a Conservative government re-elected, our job's not over.
In fact, it's just beginning.
If Danielle Smith does what her predecessor did and misleads Albertans or renegs on her commitments or refuses to stand up for us against Ottawa and Trudeau and all those external forces seeking to keep us down, destroy us, damage our way of life, and disrespect our culture of liberty, she'll hear from us at Rebel News first, just like her predecessor did.
But insofar as the newly elected Conservative government has the opportunity to teach Calgary a better way for the next four years and alleviate the concerns of skeptical Calgarians, I think the Conservative government in Alberta has the opportunity to teach the rest of the country a better way too, to alleviate some skepticism there.
And it's on one very important, life-changing, life-saving issue where Alberta is truly leading the way.
And if you've watched me host for Ezra in the past, I've talked about this very issue before because it's the one thing that is just so devastating across the board to rural Alberta, to our inner cities, and even to our suburbs.
It's the opioid crisis.
I want to show you this from the incredible folks at Blacklocks Reporter just this morning.
The Commons yesterday, by a vote of 209 to 113, upheld cabinet's, quote, safe supply drug policy.
The vote followed federal decriminalization of simple possession of cocaine, opioids, and methamphetamine in British Columbia.
This is not about encouraging drug use or turning a blind eye to the consequences, addiction minister Carolyn Bennett said in Commons debate on the motion.
Really?
Because it feels like you're encouraging it, and I'm not sure why we have an addictions minister anyway, if we're not dealing with addictions, but rather enabling it.
Anyways, I'll shut up.
Let's go on.
It is about acknowledging the reality that people will continue to use drugs and that by providing a safer alternative, we can minimize the harm and pave the way toward recovery.
But I'll get into that because that actually hasn't happened anywhere that they provide a safer alternative.
Opposition leader Pierre Polyev sponsored the motion asking that cabinet immediately reverse its deadly policies and redirect all funds from taxpayer-funded hard drug programs to addiction treatment and recovery programs.
Spending since 2017 totaled over $800 million, Pierre Polyev told the Commons.
In contrast, Alberta, from the very beginning of Jason Kenney's tenure, and much to his credit, chose a different way forward than many jurisdictions, not just here in Canada, but also around the world.
We've even changed how we talk about the opioid crisis and treatment here in Alberta.
We don't really use terms like safe supply because it's not true.
There's no safe supply of injectable or smokable poison for which to slowly kill yourself.
We don't use words like harm reduction to describe government-funded drug dens with state-issued fatal toxins handed to you by some government employee.
In fact, we don't really use the word harm reduction at all anymore.
I like the word that Alberta's public safety minister uses instead.
He calls it palliative care.
You know, I've never heard the government enabling of the slow agonizing suicide of the victim of drug use as palliative care, but I think it's accurate.
It really is.
There's no way out of drug addiction except for getting clean or dying.
That's it.
And the government and those around you can help you do one or the other.
In Alberta, we've chosen life, not just for the addict by opening up thousands of drug treatment beds, but we've also chosen life and hope and freedom from addiction for the families of the addicts who suffer alongside the addicted in a thousand different and small ways.
You know, there's one thing that came out of the leader's debate that truly revealed the dishonesty of the NDP, who literally right now, even still, won't shut up about Daniel Smith allegedly making Albertans pay for health care in all the NDP's dishonest and thankfully failed attack ads.
Remember this ad?
So, my friends, if I am your premier, we will stop these attacks on our public health care, and instead, we will get to work on fixing it.
We won't privatize it, we'll strengthen it.
We won't fight with doctors, we'll recruit doctors, we won't cut, we won't cut diabetes pumps, we'll fund them.
We won't blame Albertans with cancer or heart conditions, we'll make sure they get treatment and care.
We won't make seniors pay more for medical exams, we'll cover more of their medications and yes, their vaccinations because we believe in science and evidence, not conspiracies.
And my friends, we will not, we will not make women pay for reproductive health care.
We'll cover the cost of contraception for free.
I'm a very careful political watcher because it's my job, but it's also something I'm really interested in.
And I'm also someone who pays very close attention to the addiction crisis.
And let me tell you, I had no idea that the NDP had been charging the most vulnerable Albertans and those trying to get clean $40 a day for a treatment bed.
It came out in the debate.
Look at this.
You know, one thing I'm so proud about with our UCP record is it's being known as the Alberta model for a recovery-oriented system of care.
Because we know policing is only one side of the story, the other is getting people the help that they need.
And my chief of staff is one of the foremost experts on the recovery-oriented system of care.
We got rid of the $40 per day user fee that Ms. Notley charged.
We've added 10,000 treatment beds.
We're building recovery communities, some in conjunction with First Nations partners, and we are going to make sure that every single person who wants addiction treatment has access to a treatment bed.
Those two things have to go together.
It's true.
The NDP was charging people with nothing, the most desperate amongst us and their families, $40 a day for life-saving treatment while flat-out lying about the intentions of the UCP for our health care system.
But not only is what the UCP doing with drug treatment the moral thing to do by recognizing the dignity and potential of the individual and alleviating the suffering of the addict and their families, it's the effective thing to do if you actually care about what the left says they do, overdose deaths.
The left says we have to give addicts a quote safe supply of drugs, otherwise they're going to get dirty drugs and then die.
So we'd rather keep them alive and suffering on our drugs than have them die on their own.
That's the theory anyway.
Though we do have now 30 years, so about one and a half generations of suffering on the downtown east side, the Vancouver testing ground for these bad ideas, where society's forgotten people are used as guinea pigs for these societal experiments, which proves that safe supply has zero impact on overdose deaths and it might even have a negative outcome.
Alberta's got early data proving that our approach is saving lives.
Look at this.
It's by Michael Schellenberger in the National Post comparing one approach from one province to another completely different approach in another province.
All indications are that Alberta is getting it right.
From 2021 to 2022, overdose deaths in the province dropped by 17%.
In the same period, British Columbia saw a 1.4% reduction.
In January 2023, the latest month for which data is available in Alberta, overdose deaths dropped to 111 from 172 in the same period last year.
In April this year, BC counted 206 overdose deaths, a 17% increase over April 2022.
Should Alberta continue on its recovery-focused path, we should expect to see overdose deaths drop drastically while many more people with addiction find their path to a better life and recovery.
Friends, it's my hope that other jurisdictions in North America plagued by this apocalyptic pandemic of death, crime, and human misery caused by opioids follow the Alberta example.
Bureaucrats and Bonuses00:12:35
It works, and the numbers don't lie, and lives depend on it.
And one of those things that makes Alberta great and different is how we treat our people.
We treat them like human beings, and I hope that never changes.
Stay with us.
Franco Terrazano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins us up after the break for a bit of a victory lap.
They got an entire government program canceled.
up next on you you sensorious bug While government bureaucrats and health bureaucrats were sending you home to languish in unemployment, they were giving themselves huge bonuses.
And this didn't just happen in one bureaucracy.
It really happened across the whole of government.
And that's been evidenced in order paper responses across the board.
Now, it also happened in several government agencies, not just in ministries.
For example, new release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation today notes that the CMHC sunshine list and bonuses ballooned during the housing affordability crisis.
So while you're struggling to get by to pay your mortgage, the bureaucrats who are in part responsible for some of this are seeing their bank accounts get bigger and bigger.
Now, joining me about this new press release from the Taxpayers Federation is Franco Terrazano.
Franco, this is your work.
Tell us about it.
Yeah, well, look, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, another crown corporation that is rewarding itself for failure with bonuses and pay raises.
Get this, folks.
The CMHC, according to its own website, has one objective: housing affordability for all.
Well, guess what?
Over the last three years, either you couldn't afford a home, or if you do have a home, now you're worried about your mortgage payments going through the roof.
Now, if that's the objective for the CMHC, in what world does it make sense for them to be handing themselves $93 million in bonuses and pay raises when Canadians can't afford a home or during a pandemic when the taxpayers were losing their jobs, taking pay cuts, when many small businesses were using the credit card to take out a line of credit just to keep their lights on.
You know, and you looked at this a couple of different ways.
So you looked at it from the viewpoint of the Sunshine List.
So employees making over $100,000 a year.
They have 931 of those staffers in 2022.
You also looked at the bonuses being paid out.
And I've looked at this data in other agencies and ministries, and I can't see how what the metric is for paying out these bonuses.
I don't know if they're performance reviews.
I don't know if it's just you showed up at work while everybody worked remotely.
I can't figure out how they're paying these bonuses.
Tell us a little bit about these bonuses.
And have you been able to get to the bottom of what the metric is by which they measure a bonus for a government bureaucrat?
No, I think if you show up to work with the shoes tied, you're getting a bonus if you're working in the federal government.
But seriously, folks, Sheila, I'm so glad you brought this up that it's across departments.
It's all these different crown corporations that are rewarding themselves for failure.
Let me give you a couple examples.
Okay, the federal department bureaucrats can't even meet half of their own performance targets, not even meeting half of their own performance targets.
They've been getting bonuses.
Now, in the real world, you don't meet half of your own performance targets.
Your boss shows you the door.
Your boss doesn't hand you a big fat bonus check.
Let's look at the Bank of Canada, right?
They're the group that's in charge of keeping inflation low and around 2%.
Well, if you've been living anywhere outside of Iraq in Canada the last couple of years, if you've gone to the grocery store, you've gone to the gas station, you know that the Bank of Canada failed to do its one and only job, yet it handed $45 million in bonuses and raises to its central bankers.
Let's look at the CBC for a second, right?
Everyone's favorite state broadcaster.
Well, during the pandemic years, it handed out $80 million in bonuses and raises to its employees.
But here might be the craziest example of all, Sheila: Destination Canada, a crown corporation that is tasked with marketing Canada's tourism industry.
During the years of 2020 and 2021, our borders were shut down.
People couldn't come to Canada for tourism.
Many restaurants shut down.
Many others in the hospitality industry shut down.
What does Destination Canada do?
It also handed out bonuses and raises during those pandemic years.
It's shocking because, you know, you cite some data in your press release here that one-third of Canadians indicate that they think the government isn't doing enough to deal with the affordability crisis and that many Canadians who don't own a home, I think it's two-thirds of Canadians who don't own a home, just now have given up.
They feel like that goal is completely unattainable.
And yet the government bureaucrats, whose job it is tasked to make housing more affordable for Canadians, they're taking home $12,000 annual bonuses.
It's outrageous.
Crazy.
If their one job, according to their own website, is housing affordability for all.
In what world should they be tapping themselves, patting themselves on the back with these huge bonuses that average nearly $12,000?
And again, the sunshine list, the number of bureaucrats at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation taking home more than $100,000 in annual salary, you have 931 of these bureaucrats.
I mean, if the government was really worried about making life more affordable, they would build more homes and you could do a lot more to make houses more affordable by having 931 carpenters rather than 931 overpaid bureaucrats, right?
The last thing that we need in Canada is more overpaid government bureaucrats.
What we actually need in Canada are more homes being built.
Now, I want, this wasn't on the list of things that you and I were to talk about, but I want to talk about this because I think this is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation win.
You guys did this.
I think you should take a victory lap for this one because talk about useless bureaucrats.
I don't know what the Mission Cultural Fund did before, but I know what it does now.
And I don't like it.
And I don't want to pay for it.
And thanks to the exposure of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, they really don't exist anymore.
Tell us about, well, give us the PG version of what they were doing with our money and what's happened to them since, if you wouldn't mind, because This is a reason to donate to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation this right here.
Well, thank you.
And yes, we were really the ones that were digging up all of this waste.
Our supporters kept the pressure on the government.
So, very proud of the work that our supporters did.
But look, there is one of the most wasteful areas of this government, which is saying a lot, is this little-known slush fund within Global Affairs Canada known as the Mission Cultural Fund.
Now, they dubbed this fund as a way to promote Canada's foreign policy abroad.
But when I tell you what they're spending money on, I think you're going to be shaking your heads, folks.
Okay, so one thing that they did, they spent $12,500 for seniors to give their audiences a recount of their sexual histories.
Oh, wait, I forgot the best part.
No, no, no.
These were seniors in other countries talking about their sex lives.
Folks, the government was outsourcing old people sex stories in places like Taiwan, Australia, and Austria, where you actually had tax dollars going to fund these performances where geriatrics in other countries would tell the audiences their best time, first time, last time, worst time-uh, absolutely crazy stuff.
One other crazy example, a separate example from this fund: 8,800 bucks for a sex toy show in Germany.
Now, Sheila, maybe I'm just a little old-fashioned, but if the Germans want to have a sex toy show, maybe they can pay for it themselves, huh?
You know, that's something I never want to see as a German sex toy show, let alone participate in the payment of it.
And there's other ridiculous things in here.
For example, the government was using the slush fund to act as press secretaries and PR agents for their friends.
For example, $51,000 on red carpet photography exhibition for Canadian rock star Brian Adams.
The guy's a millionaire.
Hire your own PR agency.
Don't make me.
Likewise, with Margaret Atwood to promote a new book in Australia, nearly $10,000 for a liberal feminist to help promote her book.
You know, I'm just surprised that somebody else is reading a different book than The Handmaid's Tale, but she's got her own PR agency.
Why did the liberals think that this was something that Canadians needed to pay for?
Oh, I have no idea.
And you know what?
Nothing in government has done on its own, right?
You always have these band of bureaucrats around a table who are all getting bonuses, I'm sure, trying to decide what to spend the money on.
Wouldn't you just love to be a little fly on that wall in the wall of the committee of bureaucrats saying, Yeah, let's pay for this sex toy show called Who's This?
Yeah, approved rubber stamp.
You know, I would love to actually just have maybe a coffee with one of these government employees.
If you're listening to the show, please just reach out to me.
I would love to have a coffee and pick your brain to understand why you think that the Canadian taxpayers who are struggling right now should be paying thousands of dollars for things of this nature, whether it's the seniors talking about their sex lives in front of a live audience, whether it's that art show, if we can call it that in Germany, or if it's whether it's just handing tens of thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars for this photo exhibit, red carpet photo exhibit for a rock star or to Margaret Atward to promote her famous book.
Like, in what world does this pass the test of sanity to be using Canadian taxpayers' money?
Now, the Mission Cultural Fund is now defunct, thank goodness.
But I don't think that watching for this to pop up rebranded in another way in another department, maybe under Canadian Heritage, I think that there's a real potential here.
So that's why I admire the work that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation does, and I encourage people to support it because you're looking out for these things when the rest of us don't really have the time.
So, Franco, how do people support the work that the CTF does?
Because you're like us.
You won't take government money, and how could you if you're trying to hold them to account?
We never have taken a penny from the government, never have, never will.
Please head over to taxpayer.com.
Check out our newsroom for more information on some of these crazy stories and how government politicians and bureaucrats are spending your money or check out some of the petitions.
I think we've got some great campaigns that your folks will admire and want to get behind.
Got some great t-shirts too.
I got one from Chris Simps, which I love very dearly.
It says, This is why we can't have nice things.
And it has a picture of Parliament Hill on it.
Oh, she's the best.
She's the best.
I'm sure she's watching.
I'm sure she is.
Franco, thanks so much for coming on the show.
We'll talk to you very, very soon.
Awesome.
Thanks for having me.
Stay with us.
Your letters to Ezra read by me up after the break.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where we read your viewer feedback.
And like the mainstream media, we actually care about what you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News.
That's why we leave the comment section open if you've been to a CBC article these days or even a tweet by a CBC journalist who I'm reliably informed is supposed to have given up on Twitter because Elon Musk is mean.
Viewer Feedback Read00:03:02
They normally close the comments or don't allow comments.
And, you know, it just speaks to how much they know you disagree with the work that they're doing.
And, you know, I actually welcome the free and liberal exchange of ideas.
If you disagree with me fundamentally on a point, I'm happy to hash it out with you.
And so that's why sometimes, like I did a couple weeks ago, I read hate mail to my regular Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
Now, I think you guys are pretty nice to Ezra.
So maybe this isn't going to be hate mail.
But on Ezra's interview with Aaron Gunn about his new documentary, Canada is Dying, Iron Woman Canada writes, I used to work in a Suboxone clinic.
Oh my goodness.
I'm just going to stop right here.
My producers didn't know that my monologue was on the Alberta recovery-based approach to opioids.
So this is fascinating that they sent me a letter about the drug crisis.
Anyway, I'll restart.
Iron Woman Canada writes, I used to work in a Suboxone clinic and 95% of the clients came there addicted because their doctor prescribed them opioids for their injury or after their surgery.
One client, for example, was an accountant who tore her rotator cuff swimming.
And that's what she was prescribed.
She became hooked.
And when her doctor cut her off from her prescription, she began getting them on the street.
When that became too expensive, she went to the cheaper heroin.
Doctors are the biggest drug dealers.
You know, there's a lot of truth to that.
Doctors were encouraged to prescribe opioids and downplay their addictive nature.
I think both the doctors, but also the drug manufacturers did that.
And it has caused an absolute crisis.
And as you say, once doctors stopped prescribing, they didn't take the addiction away.
And then they turned to cheaper, dirtier alternatives.
And then society decays around the addict.
And there's never really been full accountability for that, has there?
On Ezra's endorsement, our first ever as a company in eight years of Daniel Smith.
And he didn't tell me that he was endorsing Danielle Smith.
I don't tell Ezra what to do, but As editor-in-chief, he didn't tell me that he was endorsing Daniel Smith.
But we're a free speech network, and this is something that Ezra did.
Basket Hound 2 writes, I have since she took over.
You are right, Ezra.
Canada needs more like her and all of Pierre's conservatives in Ottawa.
Hard for me to even type that name Ottawa.
I've lost respect for any of them.
Thank you for standing up for Canadians when we needed you, beloved truckers.
Yeah, I'm a firm believer in a strong Alberta is a strong Canada.
Alberta's Economic Role00:00:52
A robust, economically sound Alberta is the best thing for the rest of this country.
I just don't think our prime minister feels that way.
I do know that our premier here in Alberta feels that way.
And more than anything, maybe Canada doesn't want our help.
That's okay.
But just get out of our way because Albertans need jobs and we need economic prosperity.
And even if the rest of the country doesn't realize that they benefit from it, why can't they just leave us alone to do what we do best?
And that's create energy and fuel the economy.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thank you to everybody who works behind the scenes in HQ and Toronto to put the show together and everybody who works for Rebel News across the country.
There are hands in multiple time zones working to bring you the news every single day.