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Trash can Dani
1.4k Plays2 years ago
Freelance journalist Jeremy Appel joins Duncan Kinney to discuss the assent of Danielle Smith, the origin of the Trash Can Dani nickname and Jason Kenney's legacy.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Recommendation
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here, host of The Progress Report. We're a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network, and given our guest today, I feel like the recommendation that I have to make is big shiny takes. Jeremy Appel, Raino Greco, and Eric Wickham do their best to mock the very worst takes in Canadian media, and I listen to it all the time. It's a great podcast.
Danielle Smith's Rise to Premier
00:00:20
Speaker
Also, Daniel Smith is now our premier. It sucks, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. But one thing I know for sure is that independent investigative journalism can help curb the worst excesses of a wannabe tyrant like Daniel Smith. So if you think that the work that we do is valuable, please consider becoming a monthly donor. There is a link in the show notes, or you can go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons and put in your credit card. Now, onto the show.
00:00:59
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiscuachwa Skygun, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty Six territory. Joining us today is Jeremy Appel, frequent progress report contributor, freelance extraordinaire, a man about town, writer of an excellent substat called The Orchard that you should all subscribe to if you haven't already. Jeremy, welcome back. How are you feeling?
00:01:25
Speaker
Always great to be here, Duncan. I'm feeling great, like a million bucks. You know, we've elected our new Supreme Leader, whom I pledged my fealty to.
UCP Leadership Election Overview
00:01:41
Speaker
I think it's great that we have another female, strong, empowered premier. Did you know that this is our third female premier in eight years?
00:01:57
Speaker
Alberta leading the way when it comes to female premiers, I guess. That's probably the most of any province. Yeah, pretty amazing. I expect there will be a run on Madam Premier clothing any second now due to Danielle Smith's win. But yes, we are here to talk about what happened last night, or I guess the night of Thursday, with Danielle Smith winning the leadership of the UCP a little closer race than I would have thought.
00:02:26
Speaker
But she did take it 54 to 46 in the sixth round of voting over the last opponent standing, who was former Finance Minister Travis Taves.
00:02:42
Speaker
What are so many thoughts, so many feelings because you were, you were streaming last night, you were on the Alberta advantage Twitch stream. You were reacting live to, you know, Rick Orban and, uh, the guy and the, the auditor telling everyone how definitely secure and not messed with all of the votes were for this leadership race, as opposed to last time. What were, what were the vibes coming out of, uh,
00:03:07
Speaker
both the kind of spectacle that the UCP created as well as the people you were talking to and riffing to last night on the upward advantage stream.
00:03:17
Speaker
I mean, I would say the vibes were, they were pretty dark. I knew from the first ballot, the way the votes were distributed, I knew Smith was gonna win. It was just a matter of whether it was gonna be on the fifth or sixth ballot and ended up being on the sixth ballot. I did expect her to capture a larger percentage of the final vote.
00:03:43
Speaker
But, you know, I mean, 53 percent rather than 57 percent. I mean, a majority is a majority, right? And, you know, I think there was some hesitance among elements of the party. I was kind of, you know, in the final round, I was surprised that
00:04:08
Speaker
a larger share of Ryan Jean's supporters didn't go for Smith. I found that somewhat surprising. But, you know, again, at the end of the day, a win is a win. And it's, you know, and I think we'll get into this more shortly.
Danielle Smith's Vision and Communication Style
00:04:30
Speaker
But, you know, I think that the party is just going to fall into line with Smith's agenda. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:04:39
Speaker
You're entirely right. A dub is a dub. Danielle Smith took it a little closer than I thought, too. I thought it might be 60-40 on that last ballot, or maybe she might squeak it out on the ballot just before, but a little closer than I thought, which might speak to some unity issues. Who knows?
00:04:55
Speaker
But yeah, Rick Orman, I thought it was very funny that they spent so much time talking about how safe and secure and locked down the voting process was, just so no one could come back at them and say, Rick. They saw that there was a problem and they clearly moved to address it.
00:05:19
Speaker
The spectacle itself was fine. I mean, I think the Danielle Smith victory speech needs to be mentioned just a little bit because I think it was quite well done. I think it was quite polished. I think she hit a lot of the notes that she's going to have to hit to be successful, which is, you know, inflation, you know, not leach to alliance. I think she said that like 19 times. But there was a clip where the mask slipped for a little bit and I want to just play it real fast. Here it is.
00:05:49
Speaker
We will not be told what we must put in our bodies in order to work or to travel. We will not have our resources landlocked or our energy phased out of existence by virtue signaling Prime Ministers. Justin Trudeau, we hate him.
00:06:13
Speaker
Albertans, not Ottawa, will chart our own destiny on our own terms and we will work with our fellow Canadians to build the most free and prosperous country on Earth.
00:06:26
Speaker
We love our freedom. So, I mean, the last two parts of that, I mean, are pretty standard conservative rhetoric, but the whole like what we put in our bodies stuff, like framing, framing vaccine skepticism as like a bodily autonomy argument. I mean, it's, it's an interesting way to frame. I mean, she said some really wacky things about COVID and about treatments for COVID. So she, she still decided to go there, which I thought was, you know, perhaps a signal of things to come. Well, yeah, but by her standards, um,
00:06:54
Speaker
That was quite tame right because we know what her views on
00:07:03
Speaker
vaccination and, you know, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin drinking tonic water are right. And so I feel like that's not a joke. Yeah, but she was she was fighting. She was fighting COVID by drinking tonic. Yeah, she said she was doing her part that you can look that up. You can look that up. I in fact, I encourage you to. There's a great CBC piece from Sarah Rieger.
00:07:30
Speaker
from last year where she talked about that before Smith came back into politics.
00:07:39
Speaker
And yeah, so I think that was pretty tame by your standards, you know, the entire country is watching. So I think she did need to put on a sort of a reasonable face, but at the same time, these are the people she brought into the party, right? You know, who became disenchanted with Kenny, so she's obviously got to give them something
00:08:04
Speaker
But at the same time, she I mean, she's an excellent communicator. Like you cannot deny her talent as a broadcaster and as an orator. And I think that as a propagandist, she's been a full time propagandist pretty much since she got fired from the CBC CBC or CBE. My apologies with with little interludes as a politician. Right. But like it is that is clearly where her skills lie.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. And you know, I think she's a much better orator than she's a writer. Like she's not a good writer. And but but but she's very good at, you know, just saying the most unhinged things and with with complete moral, moral certitude and just totally like straight faced in a way where this is just common sense.
00:09:00
Speaker
And she's very good also handling, from my experience at least. I interviewed her last year when she was at this Jeremy Farkas pep rally at the Calgary Petroleum Club. And I asked her why she liked Jeremy Farkas so much. And she said, well, I like that he wants to bring a culture of saying yes to everything to City Hall. I think that is great. And I was just like, hold on a minute.
00:09:31
Speaker
like his voting record would suggest the total opposite, that he votes against things way more than anyone else in City Hall. And she was like, well,
00:09:43
Speaker
I don't think he was voting no to the BMO expansion. No to the green line. No to it was that he did the flames arena. It was just he didn't want these. It was he didn't want these to happen all at once. Right. But in the future is going to say yes. And we were talking to her the way she said something that was so idiotic with just pure confidence and in this tone where it's just like
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, well, I understand your opinion, but here's why I think it's wrong is, yeah, again, extraordinary, an extraordinary skill.
00:10:23
Speaker
It is, it is, it is a skill and politicians definitely like Daniel Smith definitely have it. I mean, I don't think there's any real disagreement with us that I think, you know, the groveling is about to begin and while the results were tight, everyone's going to fall in line pretty fast. You know, these people can look at a calendar. They know that an election is not that far away.
00:10:44
Speaker
Um, and so, you know, let's not even spend any time being like, will they unify? Yes. I think you agree that they will unify the United Conservative
UCP's Unity and Controversial Appointments
00:10:54
Speaker
Party. It won't take long for them to set aside any, any bruised egos from the, uh, the leadership race that just happened and get down to the real business, which is winning, uh, you know, the upcoming election.
00:11:05
Speaker
But the thing that I think is worth pulling apart a little bit is the transition team that was announced just today, actually. Marshall Smith will be her second-in-command, her chief of staff. Rob, the crisis is the point. Anderson will be the executive director of the previous office, handling strategy and policy. Erika Brutis,
00:11:26
Speaker
woman who is not a senator, just like myself, will be Danielle's principal secretary. Emily Peter Guthrie is her caucus liaison. Honestly, I couldn't tell you much about Peter Guthrie. He's actually not a lot of people know this, but he's actually Woody Guthrie's grandson. Yes. Great, great, great grandson. Just like Danielle Smith's great, great grandmother is Cherokee, right? Yeah.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's exactly the same thing. And yeah, he sort of, you know, I think he really does like embody the spirit of Woody Guthrie, you know, this land was made for you. He's, he's talking about Alberta. Again, people don't know this, the media isn't gonna tell you this, but I think we need to have a discussion about it.
00:12:14
Speaker
Yes. Noted anti-fascist Peter Guthrie is the caucus liaison. Chief Billy Morin of Enoch Nation is the special advisor on indigenous relations. Matt Solberg of the Solberg Lobbying Industrial Complex will be the executive director of caucus. Jamie Moseson will be the executive director of government strategy and Jonah Moseson will be the executive director of
00:12:38
Speaker
That's Jonah Moseson, who was Doug Schweitzer's Director of Communications, right? Chief of Staff, I believe. Wasn't he at one point Schweitzer's Director of Communications because he accidentally sent an email to the CBC that he meant to send to Schweitzer?
00:12:59
Speaker
Do you remember that? What was that, Jonah? I'd have to go back and Google it. It's always very funny when com staffers do that because it's like, oh man, that's like, you must wake up in a cold sweat. It's like, oh, I said what I was supposed to send to my boss to the journalist or whatever. Well, then he sent a follow up email saying, please don't publish.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yes. Even if it wasn't Jonah, that email definitely happened. I'm pretty confident it was Jonah. But anyways, it's just interesting that he went from Schweitzer who is Mr. New Blue, moderate, like, oh, the conservatives need to rejuvenate themselves and become modern center-right party.
00:13:50
Speaker
and who presumably jumped ship and resigned. He was my MLA, now I don't have one. Presumably because
00:14:05
Speaker
He didn't like the direction the party's going in, that he could see which way the wind's blowing. And he stepped down. I mean, if he's not Daniel Smith's director, ED of communications, someone else is just going to fill that role, man. But he's certainly not done something. At least with Jonah, we know that he is going to accidentally send emails to the media.
00:14:32
Speaker
One can hope. Over and above Jonah, who's the ED of Comms, the chief of staff is Marshall Smith. You have done some writing, a couple of stories for us on Marshall Smith. What can you tell the audience about this person? Yeah, it's actually pretty extraordinary that Danielle wants him front and center.
00:14:53
Speaker
Um, so he was the chief of staff to the associate minister of mental health and addictions. That is, was Jason LaJuan and then, uh, Mark Smith. Mark Smith is his name. The call, Mike Ellis, Mike Ellis. Oh, that's another guy. Yeah. Mike Ellis, Mike Ellis, uh, who's legalizing shrooms. So, you know,
00:15:17
Speaker
sweet. But also making it harder for people to use opioids to access them outside of a rigid clinical setting. The shrooms and acid and stuff is like the shiny object to distract you from the
00:15:35
Speaker
actual, you know, changes that will actually impact people negatively. But so Smith was sort of the architect of this, what the government loves to call recovery oriented approach to solving what they incorrectly call the addictions crisis. It's not an addictions crisis. There's no evidence that more people are getting addicted to drugs. It's more people are dying from them because the drugs are increasingly toxic, which is
00:16:03
Speaker
And so Smith, who originally in BC worked for the sort of private recovery industry, got a lot of government money to flow in to these private unaccountable recovery clinics, came to Alberta to do the same thing. And it's been quite a windfall for private recovery clinics.
00:16:29
Speaker
In fact, the UCP convened a panel, because of course they did, on mental health and addictions, and I believe it included three people from private recovery facilities, and two of those got money from the government that they were advising where to give money to.
00:16:52
Speaker
Now, the thing about Marshall Smith, the real interesting thing that came out about him last year through investigative reporting at Glacier Media was that when he was at a recovery clinic in BC, I believe it was Baldy Hughes, he was allegedly
00:17:19
Speaker
forcing people who were there on court order, many of them, to phone bank for his favored BC liberal leadership candidate, Kevin Falcon. Now, Falcon lost that leadership race, but he's actually currently the leader of opposition in BC. And for listeners who don't know, the BC liberals are the BC conservatives, essentially.
00:17:47
Speaker
you know, and then the BC NDP or like the Alberta NDP. So they're like the liberals. And so yeah, I mean, so this is a guy who's like rigidly ideological, a tremendously evil person whose policies like he's the architect of the Alberta model, which have caused
00:18:10
Speaker
so much pain and suffering, has closed down supervised consumption sites, has reduced the amount of harm reduction that goes on in this province for this model of recovery over everything. And yeah, a bad person. And now he is the chief of staff to our point. Hey, you said it, not me. Don't like it. Not me. Marshall, if you're listening, I make no moral judgment about you. I'm just staying fat.
00:18:35
Speaker
Erica Brody is very funny that she moved on from being Jason's person, being someone who was essentially created by elevated to the position of president of the UCP by Jason and now is the principal secretary to Danielle. That is an impressive bit of social climbing and career striving. You do have to hand it to her.
00:18:56
Speaker
Rob Anderson also just throw it there for a second too. This is the guy, he is somehow a lawyer and he's a former Wilder's MLA actually, or even PC turned Wilder's. I can't remember his exact career path, but he is essentially the architect of this whole, the Alberta Sovereignty Act and the whole point of the Alberta Sovereignty Act is to essentially cause a constitutional crisis. This is his brilliant legal mind at work. Anyways, that's the transition team, I think.
00:19:23
Speaker
It's bad. I mean, it's always going to be bad. Marshall Smith being the chief of staff is actually
Challenges for Moderate Candidates in UCP
00:19:29
Speaker
quite scary. I don't like him. I think he has done a lot of harm to Alberta and to people living here and to people who are like my new friends and neighbors and people who use drugs. He's just gives me the creeps. But let's move off the transition team to make fun of the rest of the leadership candidates who did not succeed in defeating Danielle Smith. I always like to take a minute in any ranked ballot
00:19:52
Speaker
to talk about the person who finished last. The person who finishes his last in a ranked ballot really finishes last. It's not like you finish last, but people either went out of their way to just not put your name on the ballot, or they put you seventh out of seven candidates. And Lili here came in at 1.6 of the first place votes on the first ballot.
00:20:21
Speaker
Jeremy, do you believe the tactic of appealing to moderates to buy UCP memberships to vote for Lila here in the UCP leadership race worked?
00:20:30
Speaker
Well, you know, I was listening to the breakdowns, Twitter spaces after the the leadership results were announced last night. And their host, Nate Pike, said that while people are saying that there's no progressive voice in the UCP, but I mean, at least 1.6% of voters are
00:20:55
Speaker
And that's actually what he said. So obviously the man who was probably the most prominent and prolific proponent of buying the UCP membership to vote for a candidate that makes you feel good about joining the UCP. And I think he was saving face, but
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this was a total rebuke of the notion that there is like a, you know, a progressive faction of the UCP that's just waiting to be given a voice. I mean, you know, it was a disaster. And of course, of course,
00:21:41
Speaker
we can look at Lila Heer's record and see that she's not progressive at all. I mean, she was elected as a wild rose MLA, right? So she's being reunited with Danielle Smith. And I don't think there's any question that if she's offered a cabinet portfolio with Smith, she'll take it. She'll take it just like she did under Kenny. And
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think this was an utter failure. And I asked Nate about that, you know, and he got a bit defensive. And, you know, if he regrets taking this approach, he's like, absolutely not like the fact that candidate runs is a win.
00:22:25
Speaker
And I mean, you know, and I think that like, I see that point in that, like, like, you know, I think the if you look at the Bernie campaign, and you know, a lot of people disagree with me on this, and I understand that. But if you look at the Bernie campaign, he didn't win, but he did shift the discussion.
00:22:45
Speaker
right? He did drum up enthusiasm. And, um, you know, he, he, he did bring about a paradigm shift. I didn't do that. I didn't do shit. Lila here, Lila here got 1394 first place votes out of something like 84,000 votes. It was, it was actually someone, someone, so I was talking to, to, to someone
00:23:13
Speaker
And who's knows law about these things. And they made the observation that she was running for the wrong party. It was it was literally an Alberta party like entry a scheme. And it failed extraordinarily. It did. What's the over under on how many moderates were convinced to buy UCP memberships in order to vote for lately? Do you think it was more than 50 or less than 50?
00:23:39
Speaker
I would say it was more than 50, but less than, I mean, right, she got what, 1,600 votes? 13, almost 1,400. Oh, wow, 1,400? I wouldn't be surprised if 400 of those were like extremely online Alberta centrists who were just really excited to do their civic duty. And look, I'm not, like I understand
00:24:07
Speaker
that perspective that, okay, you're a citizen, you have the ability to try and effect change within a party you don't normally see eye to eye with, in that you should exercise that right. I get that. But take the L if you fail. Don't pretend it was some sort of success when you didn't do anything. You didn't change
00:24:33
Speaker
anything about the party's trajectory and the candidate you supported is just going to fall in line with the rest of them. I mean, I think that's what really irks me about that position.
00:24:46
Speaker
The last point I'll make about Lila Ahir's campaign to become leader of the UCP is that it costs $175,000 to be a candidate. Not only was $175,000 given to this incredibly evil political project, but then let's say your number is right, 400 people paid $10 each.
00:25:07
Speaker
to be members in order to vote for Lila here. What is that? Is that $40,000? I'm bad at math. It's either 4,000 or 40,000. Yeah, I mean, if I was good at math, I wouldn't be a journalist.
00:25:18
Speaker
$4,000. So like, there you go. Like nearly $180,000. Let's just say Roundup of money went to this incredibly evil political party in order to vote for someone who finished with 1.6% of the vote. All right. Enough talking about Leela here. She's done. She's not relevant. I do. She'll be relevant when she's in cabinet again. So like next week, maybe, maybe we'll see. She does. Daniel Smith does have to moderate, you know, cross divides within gardens.
00:25:48
Speaker
I do have to bring up Rajan Sani though. She finished, she was the second person off the ballot, finished with 2.7% of the votes, extremely low and embarrassing number for our Sani, again, $175,000 to run Jesus Christ. But I do have to bring up Sani's campaign. I can bring up every campaign, but I do want to bring up Sani's campaign because early on, political wonderkind and mastermind strategist extraordinaire Ken Bosset-Gool,
00:26:13
Speaker
said that Raja Ansani had the royal jelly, had the mix of circumstances and traits and skills to become the UCP leader. And I would just like to point out that he was very fucking wrong. And Raja Ansani went absolutely fucking nowhere. Ken Bosicool's magic touch did not extend to Sani's leadership campaign. And the reason I bring up Ken Bosicool is because I just Google him and the way that he left and the reasons, which were never fully explained, and the way in which he left former BC Premier, Christy Clark's office,
00:26:43
Speaker
just so you know about it, it's very important information. The last of the kind of like also rands that I think is important to bring up is of course, the man who loves to take pictures next to Jar Jar Bix. You make it sound like there are like multiple photos of him with Jar Jar. Which I mean, by the way, if there are, if you have copies of multiple photos, please send them to either me or Duncan.
00:27:11
Speaker
It's so perfectly encapsulates like just the kind of dweeb that Brian Jean is that he took this picture next. I mean, I, you know, I saw him in person, um, in the summer at the, at, at Stampede and she does not look like a human being. Like he, like, like he, he does look like an alien in like a human suit.
00:27:34
Speaker
Ah, there you go. Yes. Brian Jean running for human premier. He topped out at, he topped out at 15 whole percent, which is embarrassingly low for someone who was tapped as, as a front runner in this race. Like his campaign did failed to launch in very noticeable and significant ways.
00:27:56
Speaker
I mean, he was instrumental in getting rid of Kenny. I think from my understanding and the conversations I've had with people like his machinations were instrumental to getting Kenny out the door and in the leadership review and all that stuff. But it really does seem like plan A, B, C, and D for Brian Jean was to get Kenny out of there and that he would just stroll into the position and that is not how it worked out.
00:28:20
Speaker
No, he ate total shit and couldn't happen to a better guy. I liked when he brought up his dead son like three times in the debate to talk about how his son dying from lymphoma is an example of like AHS bureaucracy out of control. Yeah, a real great guy. And people are saying, oh, he's going to quit politics again. No, he's fucking not. He's going to be finance minister.
00:28:50
Speaker
or he's going to have some role. I mean, there was no difference between what he was saying and Danielle Smith was saying. There literally wasn't. She had the Alberta sovereignty act. What was his harebrained scheme called? Autonomy. Autonomy. It was the same fucking thing. It was the same thing. It's just no one cared about it. Yeah, because he was copying her idea and saying that it was different.
00:29:17
Speaker
And people wanted the harder stuff, right? Like Brian Jean is a pretty beige dude at the end of the day, right? And Danny was given the base, the hard shit that they wanted. And they were like, thank you for your service and getting rid of Jason Kenney. I want the hard stuff. And they got it from Daniel Smith.
00:29:34
Speaker
Speaking of Danny, Jeremy, it's time to do some serious journalism now, and that is the Trash Can Danny nickname. I think it has a certain ring to it. I don't know if it's going to stick. It's old. It's an old nickname, but I did want to get into where this nickname Trash Can Danny came from.
00:29:55
Speaker
And there has been some excellent reporting on this that we've recently highlighted from Dave Cornway. I believe Terry and ego Jones on the upward advantage has also talked about the origination of the nickname trash can daddy. And it's also important to point out that this nickname
00:30:13
Speaker
was used by Calgary Herald workers who were on strike because Daniel Smith was a scab who scabbed for the Calgary Herald during that brutal strike where the union was broken. But the nickname comes from Daniel Smith's time.
00:30:30
Speaker
on the Calgary board of education, where allegedly she dug through a trash bin and took the papers that she found in there, went to the Alberta report and the Herald. And there was a bunch of like nasty like schoolyard insults directed at the other trustees, like clearly like
00:30:51
Speaker
This school board had become dysfunctional and this was really the kind of nadir point of the school board of like Daniel Smith allegedly going through the trashcan to pick up these like mean notes, mean girl notes about fellow trustees and then going to the media with it. So there you go. Trashcan Danny, feel free to use the nickname if you like. I think it has a certain ring to it. What are your thoughts on the trashcan Danny sobriquet? Sobriquet? I never know how to say that word. I've never, I've only ever read it.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a suitable nickname for a suitable gal.
00:31:36
Speaker
I tweeted out last year when she did her leaving chorus radio shtick that I actually had an exclusive photo of Danielle Smith.
00:31:57
Speaker
at work on her last day at Chorus and it was just a photo of a trash can and someone asked me to delete it and I did and I won't say who but you can piece it together.
00:32:12
Speaker
based on the timeline. Any nickname we used on a picket line on that has a certain validity and cache to it. So use it as you want. Yeah. I think it does go show how petty she is and insecure despite her public displays of confidence and charisma that she's actually a deeply broken person. And I find that really interesting.
00:32:40
Speaker
Well, speaking of deeply broken people who are now the premier of our province, let's, let's get into how much damage she could do and what your predictions for how much damage she is going to do to our institutions.
Concerns Over Danielle Smith's Leadership
00:32:54
Speaker
Um, you know, the stated point of the Alberta sovereignty act is to create a crisis, but do you think it's going to be the Alberta sovereignty act that's going to create the kind of worst of it, or is it just going to be like, she's just going to fire the entire board of HS and like,
00:33:09
Speaker
essentially caused the healthcare system to come to a halt. Which do you think is worse? What do you think is more likely? What kind of scenarios do you see as she takes control and starts doing Danielle Smith things to the kind of institutions that are supposed to be in charge of how this province works? Well, I think she has to move hard and move fast.
00:33:34
Speaker
I mean, that's what Kenny did, right? When he first became premier, right? It was just get all the stuff out of the way that will be hard to reverse. And so I don't think she's going to do the Alberta Sovereignty Act first thing because I think she needs to work out with caucus sort of what that's going to look like.
00:33:57
Speaker
But I think that she's going to go after AHS. I think that will probably be her first thing and sort of open the way for her Uber for doctors scheme, or Uber for naturopaths, which she thinks are doctors.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, I worry about the healthcare system, to be honest. I think it's already hanging by a thread. And not that the people at the top, on the board of the AHS is naturally gonna, that getting rid of those people is necessarily going to create the crisis. I just think it's gonna take so little to make things get really bad when it comes to healthcare, that that's what I worry about. I think the Alberta Sovereignty Act is mostly angels dancing on the head of a pin shit, right? It's like constitutional questions. There isn't really enough time
00:34:52
Speaker
You're arguing about esoteric, philosophic legal principles when it comes to constitutional law and shit. I don't know if that is going to be the big thing that tips the government or Alberta into crisis. I have a feeling it's going to be some other fucking fire fire that pops up. Maybe it won't even be healthcare. Maybe it's something we don't even see.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's really I mean, you know, it's going to be an exciting time. That's for sure. In in in Alberta politics, certainly the most like, like, and I don't mean exciting a good way, of course, but like the most like captivating. She is going since I moved here in 2017.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, I think she is going to move fast and break stuff, and that's the point. And at some point, there are just knock-on consequences and effects that are impossible to predict that could be really bad. And yeah, I agree. I'm not excited to kind of discover how much harm she can do in such a short time. But I think it is going to get worse. And yeah, it's not great. Finally, Jeremy, our final segment,
00:36:09
Speaker
You know, we've pretty much not talked about him this whole time, but I think we do have to close with Jason Kenney.
Criticism of Jason Kenney's Policies
00:36:18
Speaker
Now, before we start talking about him, I think it's important to get out of the way that you do not, under any circumstances, have to fucking hand it to Jason Kenney. You don't have to be polite to him. You do not have to be respectful to him. You don't have to thank him for his public service on the way out the fucking door. Jason Kenney was a tremendously evil, bad person who did immense amounts of harm.
00:36:37
Speaker
to the place that we live and to the people we know and love and uh fuck that guy he killed people the curriculum will have long-term effects on the it the curriculum changes will have long-term effects on the education system for the negative i mean you could pick a pick a file and he fucked it up somehow and i think it's worth you really hit this home when you know back in i think it was may when jason kenny originally
00:37:04
Speaker
Uh, was kind of forced out as leader of the UCP. You wrote a piece for passage called Jason Kenny's, the mind is worth celebrating no matter what's next. And it's a, it's an excellent piece of writing. We'll put it in the show notes, but like, what from that piece do you think still holds up? Uh, well, I'm a bit biased, but I would say all of it. Um, um, no, I, I mean, I think just the, the, the, the, the sheer, uh,
00:37:34
Speaker
damage Kenny did on a variety of fronts, whether it's his crusade against the labor movement or his best summer ever policy, which, by the way, Danielle Smith was a big fan of. She didn't like that he cucked out and backtracked under pressure from the woke globalist elites, like doctors who are in natural paths.
00:38:07
Speaker
There's actually a quite good piece more recently in the Canadian press from Dean Bennett. I disagree with some of the language he used.
00:38:20
Speaker
I thought it was a good sort of retrospective of all the horrible decisions Kenny made, though of course Bennett doesn't say so because, you know, this, you know, this fucking cult of objectivity that isn't real. But
00:38:42
Speaker
You know, I think that his legacy is, I mean, we'll have to see what happens with Smith, but I know Dwayne Bratt, big brain Dwayne said that, you know, we may look back at the Kenny years as being one of relative calm, you know, before the Smith years. And, you know, I think that
00:39:10
Speaker
That's ridiculous. I mean, calm for who? Like for who? Like people who's like the people whose whose relatives died at the Cargill meat packing plant. The the the, you know, age recipients who had their their payments cut. You know, and I could go on and on, but
00:39:42
Speaker
Yeah, educational aids who are fired at the like at the start of the pandemic, you know, like healthcare jobs that were privatized. Yeah, pick a picky like literally I started doing this like I started talking to people and I started writing this piece very similar to Dean Bennett's piece of like all of what was the worst thing that Jason Kinney did to the system and in his time as premier and
00:40:07
Speaker
I just had, I had like eight, nine, 10 pages of notes and it just kept going. And it's like, I couldn't even sit down and try and formulate a narrative because it was thing after thing after thing, like fucked up thing after fucked up thing. Like I can't even give you an example right now, but it's like, uh, I'll remember when they trotted out fucking granddad curriculum guy to just be like, uh, I forgot about that. That was awesome. What's the hot guy doing now?
00:40:37
Speaker
kids should learn their time stables. Oh fuck, I don't know. It's probably gonna be a top bureaucrat. Like Chris Champion, you know, Paul Bunner, you know, and Chris Champion actually like was instrumental in writing.
00:40:51
Speaker
curriculum stuff. I mean, maybe I keep coming back to the curriculum as the most harmful long-term thing, or just like the corporate tax cut, just like giving billions away to corporations for like purely for ideological reasons, not for any other reason. Corporate tax cuts do not spur growth, economic growth in any way. It's literally just more money in the pockets. It's like,
00:41:15
Speaker
I don't think I have a super strong unify message to come out of this segment aside from like fuck Jason Kenny. I hope we never have to see his fucking face again. And anyone who's going to try and rehabilitate his reputation or his legacy, tell him to get fucked. Yeah. I mean, it's, um,
00:41:34
Speaker
It's absolutely a good thing that a bad day for Jason Tenney is a good day for humanity. And I think we can separate that from the shitstorm that's about to come. But yeah, it's like this rehabilitation of George W. Bush in the Trump years, he was just as bad if not worse.
00:42:01
Speaker
Right. It's just he wasn't like he wasn't rude to people on Twitter. And, you know, it's same thing. And, you know, I but I think the the the, you know, the fact I mean, Kenny's a guy who, you know, started his political career by making LGBTQ people's lives worse in, you know, the Bay Area in the late 1980s. And you can't
00:42:36
Speaker
A type person who does that isn't going to change, you know what I mean? I mean, he's never expressed remorse.
00:42:45
Speaker
And it just continued when he was Premier. I mean, rolling back legislation, protecting GSAs, comparing unvaccinated people to LGBTQ people who weren't able to visit their spouses at the AIDS of the AIDS crisis. Hey, I wonder who lobbied for that.
00:43:12
Speaker
You know, he was an objectively terrible person. It was fucking gross seeing the head Nenshi, who just really wants right wingers to like him. And Rachel Notley, much the same, be like, oh, well, you know, I appreciate his commitment to public service. What fucking commitment? In what capacity was he committed serving the public?
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, dude was an ideological warrior for capital and rich people and the religious right his entire fucking.
Jeremy Appel's Writing Projects
00:43:42
Speaker
Which is why you should buy my book when it comes out called rejecting the premise. Jason Kenyon theory and practice to be published at some point next year by Dunderan press. Yeah. Coming soon. I mean, not that soon, but you still got to write it, but you are working on a book. Congratulations on the book deal, by the way. Um,
00:44:03
Speaker
Jeremy, I think perhaps the most frustrating part about Jason Kenney, I mean, we can all say fuck Jason Kenney as he walks out the door and all of that kind of intuitive energy I think is worthwhile. But perhaps the most frustrating thing is that it wasn't folks like you and me who were ultimately responsible for getting rid of him. It was the worst people in Alberta who were responsible for getting rid of him. And that is a little frustrating, I think. Yeah, no, for sure.
00:44:34
Speaker
And I mean, shit's probably going to get worse, but it was also pretty bad to start off with. So, you know.
00:44:45
Speaker
Fair enough, my man. All right, well, thank you so much. I think you gave the plug already, but if people want to follow along with your work and eventually get the book plugs that I will be sure to flood the feeds of yourself once that book gets close to being done, how can people kind of follow along? Well, first thing you should do is subscribe to my newsletter, The Orchard.
00:45:06
Speaker
You can do so for free. You can also give me money which would be greatly appreciated Considering writing a book does not pay well You can also follow me on Twitter. I am very close I'm a hundred followers of less than a hundred followers away from reaching the big 10k So if you don't follow me already You know hit the follow button if you think I'm annoying and I post too much just mute me don't unfollow Don't be one of those people
00:45:36
Speaker
because I will remember in Holy Against You. That's essentially where you can find me. I also write for The Progress Report sometimes and other independent media outlets like Ricochet and The Breach. You can find me there.
00:46:04
Speaker
Sweet. Do it folks. He's a good follow. It does great work. Um, also if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear, I am very easy to get ahold of as well. Uh, I am on Twitter at Duncan Kinney far too often. You can also reach me by email, which might have a little more impact. I don't know. Getting an email is a little different than getting a Twitter DM or whatever, but my email is Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. Thank you to Jim Story for editing this podcast. Thank you to cosmic fam. You communist for our theme. Thank you for listening and goodbye.