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Alberta's measles catastrophe
536 Plays8 days ago
In the grip of anti-vax culture and governed by an anti-vax premier, Alberta is now the site of the world's second-worst active measles outbreak, with more total cases than the entire United States of America. Former Alberta NDP health minister Sarah Hoffman joins us on the pod to discuss the causes of the outbreak and what the opposition thinks Alberta should be doing about it. Then, for a palate cleanser, a bit about Hoffman's new hobby as a stand-up comic.
For more from The Progress Report, find us at theprogressreport.ca and bsky.app/profile/theprogressreport.ca. The Report is entirely audience-supported; if you'd like to pitch in, subscribe at theprogressreport.ca/patrons
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Transcript
Introduction and Co-host Welcome
00:00:12
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to another episode of the Progress Report podcast. It is July eighteenth I am one of your co-hosts, Jim Story, coming at you from Ameskwetchi, Wyskagan, in Treaty 6 territory, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta.
00:00:27
Speaker
We have our other co-host, Jeremy Appel, with us once again. Jeremy, how are you doing today? Not too bad. It's been pretty busy week um for me, covering all this Alberta Next nonsense.
Interview with Sarah Hoffman on Measles Outbreak
00:00:41
Speaker
So, yeah, I think I'm ready to let you take the lead on this interview we've got it with former health minister, ah current NDP health critic, and a burgeoning stand-up comic.
00:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, Sarah Hoffman, welcome to the show. How are you, Sarah? I'm great. Thank you both for having me on. I'm always ah excited to have an opportunity to talk about public health and health. And I'm happy to touch base on my new hobby as well.
00:01:14
Speaker
It's fun to have a chat with you once again, too. I don't think I've run into you since before I signed on with Progress Alberta. I think the last time I ran into you was was way back during the Notley government when I was doing canvassing and constituency work and that kind of stuff when I was a party guy.
00:01:33
Speaker
Seems about right. I'm glad that we have a chance to connect formally today. Under kind of miserable circumstances, though, the topic for discussion today is Alberta's measles outbreak.
00:01:47
Speaker
Alberta presently has higher rate of measles infection than the entire United States. The last that I read, we are number two in the world after Yemen. And Yemen has some particular getting shot with missiles and bombs challenges to deal with.
00:02:07
Speaker
Number three is India, and we are far, far worse per capita than India presently. like We are the world hotspot for measles infections.
00:02:18
Speaker
Folks, if you are not too familiar with what measles does, because it's been effectively gone for most of your lifetime, ah this is a pretty nasty disease. It is one of the most infectious communicable diseases out there, the sort of thing where if One guy shows up to an Oilers game, dozens of people in the in in the stadium are going home with it.
The Impact of Measles on Vulnerable Groups
00:02:44
Speaker
There is no specific cure for measles once you get it. They just kind of have to take care of you until you tank it out. However, it's very, very preventable with vaccines, which is what makes the whole situation particularly annoying.
00:03:00
Speaker
It's also really dangerous for children and pregnant women. which is why I found it pretty distressing to read the other day that this year there have been six children in Alberta born with measles so far.
00:03:13
Speaker
Not only can measles kill you if you are pregnant, ah but it causes deformities in children. So pretty worrying stuff.
00:03:24
Speaker
ah Sarah, as former health minister, I think you have quite a lot of perspective on how infection control practices actually play out when we try to do them.
00:03:36
Speaker
You've previously had to tangle with problems like this. I wanted to jump right into it and ask you first kind of a structured series of questions here.
00:03:47
Speaker
Sure. Which has to do with some of the potential causes behind the outbreak and behind the poor vaccination rates. And for each of these potential causes, I want to ask you,
00:04:01
Speaker
Does the Alberta NDP think that this is ah serious cause, that this is one of the serious facets of the problem? Do they have a plan to address this specific facet?
Addressing Distrust and Systemic Challenges
00:04:12
Speaker
And if they don't have a plan yet, ah what do you, as as one of the health experts in the party, think they should do about it? Sounds good. Okay, so the first one I want to lead off with here is that there are a lot of folks in Alberta who have legitimate distrust of our institutions, ah people who have been mistreated by the system, people with disabilities, for example, or I mean, anyone who has spent a lot of time in a hospital has seen how Indigenous people, people struggling with poverty, or people with any apparent outward mental illness are treated while they're in there.
00:04:51
Speaker
And I would imagine that among this community, there is pretty poor uptake for vaccination programs. Does the NDP think that this is one of the the serious causes? Do they have a plan and so on? what are What are your answers to this one?
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, i just want to start by sort of situating it. You're absolutely right that we are you know number two in the world right now in terms of the extreme extreme nature of this. And the Government of Alberta website itself says that if every 1,000 people who are born are ah no Not born, sorry. Of every 1,000 people who get measles, approximately one to three well will die.
00:05:30
Speaker
And this is you know the Alberta government's own website. And we're already over 1,400 people at this point, not aware of anyone dying yet. But this is serious. um And of those 1,400, more than 1,000 them are children, ages 17 and under.
00:05:45
Speaker
pages seventeen and under um So this definitely is something that I think is important for us to be talking to parents because it's not those children who have the ability to consent to vaccines, especially when they're two and under.
00:06:00
Speaker
But generally, we don't vaccinate people without their parents' consent. I'm making sure that parents have all the information and the history around this because you're right, we eradicated this in the 90s and we can do it again, but it definitely took – that big public awareness campaign, public health initiatives, people having family doctors who they had a good trusting relationship and they could get that information from, and public health nurses as well. So if there's anyone listening today, I want to encourage them if they don't know that they've had two doses. And even if your parents were good at getting you vaccinated and you were vaccinated before the 90s, you probably need a second dose.
00:06:37
Speaker
um yeah Maybe you've already had that second dose and you're confident that you have, but if you're not, please call 811- or if you're lucky enough to have a family doctor, make an appointment and discuss ways that you can ah protect yourself and your broader community. Because when I think about these thousand children in Alberta, um I think that's a real, um I think it's a call to all of us to do what we can to protect them and to protect one another. So um I just wanted to sort of situate it with this, that sort of context. And in terms of what's our plan, what will we do?
00:07:10
Speaker
When Rachel chose me as the health minister, one of the reasons why she picked me is because she said I didn't think I had all the answers, but that I did know how to do research and how to access um evidence and and lean on experts.
00:07:24
Speaker
And one of the first things I had to do was choose a chief medical officer of health. I hired Dr. Karen Grimsrud, who had a lot of experience in the Edmonton area and at the university in particular.
00:07:35
Speaker
And I was really proud to work with her. And we did things like tackled um a growing syphilis epidemic and got it under control through open, honest communication with Albertans and targeted campaigns in areas at risk.
00:07:50
Speaker
When the wildfire happened in Fort McMurray, we used evidence to make sure that we everyone wanted to go home as quickly as possible. We needed to make sure that those fire dampening chemicals had been remediated and that it would be safe for people to go back without it causing further health impacts to them.
Solutions for Increasing Vaccination Rates
00:08:06
Speaker
I didn't have the answers, but I knew that there were people around me who did, and I trusted them to give me the evidence and to be able to communicate that on their behalf. Instead, we have a health minister right now who hasn't done a press conference, I don't believe, since you know she's lost three quarters of her portfolio, but she still has public health under her under her mandate. And I don't believe that she's, um since this reduction in the size of cabinet and her portfolio, has put herself out there and talked about this publicly.
00:08:34
Speaker
ah We have an acting chief medical officer of health, somebody who has made it very clear that they don't want the job long term. um And I've talked to several people who've told me that the government's approached them to take the job, but they just won't because they don't feel respected or that their expertise will be trusted in doing this work. And we've seen over and over again that the government's muzzled and ended careers of people who have worked in public health. So This is a real a real serious issue and we deserve a government that is focused on the things that matter to Albertans and ready to lead. And instead, right now we have one that's focused on scandals, um division, and is making reckless decisions to pander to an extreme base and and people's lives are at risk because of it.
00:09:24
Speaker
That's good context. And I should probably have provided all of that in the intro. That being said, let's let's wheel back to this the specifics because I did want to focus in on these potential causes of Alberta's low vaccination rates and talk about those.
00:09:39
Speaker
So if we could wheel back to first the question of how serious is the problem of legitimate distrust of the of the institutions and how do we tackle that?
00:09:53
Speaker
I think the best way to tackle it is to make sure that everyone who wants a family doctor has one. And ah usually you when you're when the institution is a faithless organization that you only interact with in extreme situations, um it's harder to build trust. But when you have somebody that you know is their job and that their goal is to support you and your health experiences and to give you the information you need to make decisions that support you and your family, um that's the best way to build trust is
Confronting Misinformation on Vaccines
00:10:22
Speaker
ah family doctors, so public health experts embedded in our communities and regular relationships. so
00:10:28
Speaker
That's what I would encourage the government to focus on. Okay, well, that crosses off two lines on my to-do list here, because my next question was going to be, you know how how much of this problem do you think has to do with people having less access to family doctors?
00:10:43
Speaker
Big time. yeah Yeah. And public health nurses. so I grew up in a really small town in northern Alberta. There were only 300 of us who lived there, but there was a public health nurse who worked part-time. She was semi-retired, but you ran into her all the time. And she would say, Oh, you're almost four, aren't you? I'll see you next month for your shots. Right? Like she just knew us and she was part of the community and you respected her. And, uh, we've definitely seen under the UCP, uh, an attack on, uh, public health in general and, um, and, uh, the, so many doctors who've been leaving the province and, uh, it, uh, leads to worse health outcomes. We know it does.
00:11:22
Speaker
Okay, same set of questions here. Again, how significant do you think this facet is? Does the NDP have a plan to address this facet? And if they don't have a plan, what do you think they should do?
00:11:34
Speaker
How damaging has a lack of proactive measures been on this? I'm thinking things like sending out mobile vaccine clinics to hotspot areas, or even imposing vaccination mandates or other infection control mandates like the ones we had during COVID?
00:11:55
Speaker
I think that when people have the information and build trust that most people choose to get vaccinated. And we know, looking at the stats, that right now the worst outbreaks are in the north and south zones.
00:12:10
Speaker
And the good news is that there are experts in public health who live in those areas. The bad news is most of them don't feel empowered to do life-saving work that they need to do because of the culture of fear and and mistrust that the government has been ah perpetuating.
00:12:24
Speaker
um Sarah, if I can interrupt, I and think I have to push back on that one a little. Because my understanding is that because measles is so infectious, the rate of vaccination required to achieve so-called herd immunity, where enough people are vaccinated that the disease won't circulate,
00:12:46
Speaker
and you you won't have serious outbreak risks is is quite high. It's at least 95%. I've read as high as 98% in children.
00:12:56
Speaker
But vaccination rates in Alberta have been low for a long time, since before the Smith administration, or the Smith government, since before the Notley government. um you know Back 2014, I read
00:13:11
Speaker
i read that the uptake for the and MMR vaccine was only 88%, and it had been 85% the last year that they looked. So we were already not hitting these
Reflections on Past Public Health Initiatives
00:13:22
Speaker
numbers, right? the The province has been at risk of large outbreaks for quite a long time because we have not been reaching the correct vaccination rate, even though people have had the information, even though people have had the freedom to make their own decisions.
00:13:38
Speaker
But the rate has gotten worse over the last six years, right? That's true, but it already wasn't good enough in 2014. Yeah, that's fair. Is it fair to argue that people just need the information, that they just need the freedom to make the decision? Because they had the information in 2014, didn't they?
00:13:55
Speaker
Well, I think the trend is moving in the wrong direction. so that's part of what I want to say. And the other piece I want to say is that but Northeast Calgary had the lowest COVID vaccination rates. And before there were mandates put in place, they...
00:14:09
Speaker
moved from the worst vaccination rates to the highest vaccination rates. And a big part of it was engaging with faith leaders, and engaging with other community leaders, being available in the senior center, at the Genesis Center, um making it easy for people to get the information and then get vaccinated. And we haven't seen that same type of all hands on deck response in this situation. So I think that for the most part, um when people, when it when it's easy to get the information,
00:14:37
Speaker
to find out even what your child's vaccine rates are, because sometimes people miss an appointment, life gets busy, and they aren't even aware that they haven't fully immunized their child with ah with a proper number of doses.
00:14:49
Speaker
um I would start there. And I think that there's a lot that can be done if we actually um demonstrate trust and respect for the people with the expertise. And instead, the opposite has happened.
00:15:01
Speaker
um The chief medical officer of health who was in the position after he resigned, said that he flagged this potential outbreak over a year ahead of time from when we hit the disastrous um trend that we saw starting at around the same time that he resigned from his position. And i
00:15:22
Speaker
I would like to say with great a very high degree of confidence that had Nanshi been the premier, we wouldn't be in that position. that he is somebody that I know respects evidence and information and has put me in this role um because he knows I do too.
00:15:39
Speaker
And I think that if we start there and then if it doesn't work, we can talk about next steps, so be it. But when you don't even give people the basic tools to be able to share information, how can you say that it's going to fail?
00:15:53
Speaker
Fair enough. Okay. I have a few more of these potential cause questions to ask. So let's, and stick to the little system here. So um and the next one I want to ask you about are the impact of certain, what I would call insular religious communities around the province.
00:16:11
Speaker
And i do want to be cautious about this because this is people should not be getting the the takeaway here that like Hutterites are bad or Mennonites are bad.
00:16:24
Speaker
These groups are not a monolith. Some of the subgroups of these communities are very good on vaccination. I was just reading about the diligence of some Hutterite colonies in Saskatchewan on maintaining their COVID vaccination rates.
00:16:38
Speaker
But there are some communities and areas around the province where things look very, very bad. I'm thinking in particular of the Le Crete area,
00:16:50
Speaker
If you look at the Alberta Health Service's measles exposure website right now, they've given up even tracking what locations in La Cret have had measles exposures now. They just list the entire town as a danger zone.
00:17:03
Speaker
ah how do we How do we move forward if there are going to be some small subsets of the population that are extremely going in the other direction on on vaccination rates? Like, if if we need 95% vaccination to hit herd immunity in a normal situation, it seems like the level of diligence we need to protect everyone is just going to be impossible if you have communities where no one at all is getting the vaccines, where they are they are deliberately avoiding them.
00:17:37
Speaker
ah So how significant does the party think this problem is and how do they intend to address it or how do you think they should address it? Yeah, thanks for the question. And for i think everyone's looking at the data and imagining what they know about those areas. And and the truth is we don't know specifically who in La Crete has contracted measles. We do know that there are 18 new cases since the last update in the North Zone. And and you're right that um that the community of La Crete is an area where there have been significant spread of new cases.
Comparing Government Approaches to Public Health
00:18:15
Speaker
And what I would do with that information is I would say, let's connect with the public health experts in that area. Let's figure out if we need to move more from other parts of that province up there to help um how ah do mobile clinics, to help get more information out and to and to surround um the community with ah people that they can trust and and um and show that we respect them and that we can be allies in helping to save ah people's lives.
00:18:45
Speaker
Do realistically expect that they they would accept that? I mean, there was an incredible hostility in that community to these sort of things around COVID.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, people thought that Northeast Calgary wouldn't get vaccinated either when it came to COVID. And with the campaigns and and community leadership getting on board, it made a huge difference. So um I think in many different cultural and religious communities,
00:19:14
Speaker
It's important to talk to people who are in positions of trust and power and help answer their questions because um they have the potential to help um bring more information to a broader number of people. so but It seems like the people who are in trust and power in that region are like Dan Williams, David Parker, Adriana Lagrange.
00:19:35
Speaker
but Dan Williams lives in that area. but The others I don't think do, but um i I think that there are a lot of people who are religious leaders, community leaders, an elected office position,
00:19:47
Speaker
um and and other types of cultural organizations, volunteer organizations, who ah probably are open to evidence and information in helping to to share what can be done to support one another and to keep each other safe. So I i believe it's worth trying.
00:20:05
Speaker
And I grew up in rural northern Alberta, too. And like I said, it was Mrs. Berry who kept the assumption was that everyone was going to get their kids vaccinated. And she knew how old we were. And she would you know say, I look forward to seeing you very soon. yeah We got an appointment for you next month. And you didn't want to let her down. You respected her.
00:20:23
Speaker
and um And I think that if we had a government that showed respect for those health care workers and embedded more of them in community, in communities just like La Crete, um we could see the rates of immunization and protection for the population ah much, much higher.
Sarah Hoffman's Comedy and Connection
00:20:41
Speaker
But yeah, 18 new cases since the last update is definitely a matter for concern. And like you said, the airborne nature of this spread, it's different from a lot of other illnesses in that it's well documented that in, I think it was the opening ceremonies for the Olympics many, many years ago,
00:20:59
Speaker
there was somebody on the field who was contagious and people way up in the stands ended up contracting it in an outdoor stadium. So this is highly infectious and making sure that ah people don't treat this the same way as they do maybe the common cold or other types of infection, I think is and important for people to have that information. Okay. Well, I hope that that optimism is justified. Okay.
00:21:23
Speaker
Me too. I have a couple more of these of these thorny potential cause questions. we We're not quite done. So the next one is, and again, how significant does the party think this is? Do they have a plan to address this? And if they don't, what do you think?
00:21:40
Speaker
and Let's talk about the misinformation about the vaccines, because it it seems like this stuff has a lot of purchase in Alberta. People still are hewing to the widely debunked claim that the and MMR vaccine, and measles, mumps, rubella vaccine causes autism.
00:21:58
Speaker
And now they've got this new thing, this new meme that I see ah RFK pushing pretty heavily ah about the vaccines having quote unquote, aborted fetus particles in them, which is ah quite an exaggeration of kind of a grain of truth. the My understanding is that the that the vaccine was originally developed using a line of cells that was cloned from a fetus. So it was like like one cell from the 60s that has been cloned over and over again that they've been using to make the vaccines.
00:22:38
Speaker
But that's gotten twisted in the discourse. And now people believe that the vaccine has got ground up baby in it. And I would imagine that this is giving them quite...
Advocating for Public Health in Alberta
00:22:51
Speaker
a lot of new inroads into the, the anti-abortion, the anti-choice set. Um, so this stuff is just, uh, it's just vicious. How, how much of a problem do you think it is? How much do you think it's suppressing the vaccination rates and what do we do about it?
00:23:06
Speaker
Uh, people haven't, uh, used that as a reason when they've talked to me personally. I'm, I'm not sure if, uh, lot of your listeners have had people use that as their specific hesitation.
00:23:20
Speaker
Um, For the most part, I would say people have who are vaccine hesitant have a general mistrust and don't have a lot of access to good information. And um I'm thinking back to when I was a kid watching, but shoot, what was her name?
00:23:38
Speaker
There was woman who would come on TV and she'd talk about sexual health and answer very technical questions. And she was like a grandma. and But you knew that you could, trust was it Dr. Roof?
00:23:49
Speaker
um like guess Was it Sue? Dr. Sue? Dr. Sue. That's her. and um And when you have multiple people giving you evidence-based, fact-based information um that maybe, but you know, she wasn't a community leader in my town, but she was somebody when you turn on the TV, she was answering questions that somebody else had asked. You didn't even need to ask the questions ah to help debunk some of the myths that people had around ah sexual health and decisions that they were making in that regard. And i am it's difficult when a president promotes somebody who is peddling extreme positions.
00:24:36
Speaker
The good news is is that he's not our president. The bad news is that our government isn't taking this stuff seriously and that they are very happy to sit on the sidelines and let misinformation um be spread because they are very openly ah pandering to extreme segments within their own population. The fact that during the by-elections, as a motivator, I believe, they decided that they were going to stop paying for the COVID vaccine for even people who are healthcare care workers. so
00:25:07
Speaker
And they announced that in the middle of the summer by-election, I think is really crass and not good governance. And it's dangerous to b what appears to be very clearly making ah extreme political decisions to pander to a political base. Nobody else in Canada has followed their lead on that. And um it's ah it's good because it's really dangerous.
00:25:36
Speaker
i am wanted to ask something because you were, of course, health minister from 2015 2019.
00:25:47
Speaker
and Of course, um we weren't dealing ah with the public health issues that we are ah today um at that time.
00:26:00
Speaker
But I'm wondering if looking back with the benefit of hindsight, um Do you think there were any ah mistakes you or you know the NDP government made in those four years that ah may have um contributed to what we're seeing now without you know downplaying the UCP's role in sort of stoking these fires? Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker
what Were there any sort of oversights that now looking back, um you think, oh, we should have done that? In terms of public health? Yeah. you know, it's one of the areas I'm ah particularly proud of, to be honest, because I think that um you never really know what your legacy is going to be until you learn who your successor is and are they are you know who's goingnna who's going to fill those shoes after you. And um I would say Tyler Shandro.
00:27:00
Speaker
Adrienne or LaGrange make me feel pretty good about the time that I was the minister and healthcare care was quite boring. I think the best thing you can do is have access to good ah primary care, and making sure that you have a family doctor who's available. And you know at the time we were in government, every major municipality, you could get a family doctor. And that is definitely not the case today. so um I think that's probably the biggest thing that I'm proud of on that front.
00:27:26
Speaker
We did have a bill that I brought in around information sharing between um schools and public health around vaccine records. And it was um so that if there was a potential outbreak in a community, public health could access the information about all the children who were in that school.
00:27:44
Speaker
um Not what their vaccine status was being given to the school, but that public health could get the information about all the students who were there so that they could do targeted um outreach to the families around prevention.
00:27:57
Speaker
um I'm glad that we passed that legislation. Maybe we should have worked faster to put some money behind it to do more preventative um outreach in the in the time that we had. i think there was about a year between it when it was passed and when we were defeated in the provincial election in 2019.
00:28:18
Speaker
um I think that's something that You if i were the minister right now, I would really focus on, especially as we get ready for back to school, as many kids who aren't fully immunized right now, if we could get them updated, it would be a much safer fall when kids do return back to school.
00:28:38
Speaker
I do see from the Alberta Health Services performance report from the last year of COVID, of the Knotley government, that throughout your term, vaccination rates were gradually increasing.
00:28:53
Speaker
So i don't I don't think we have too, too much to criticize from your years. Things seem to have been going in the right direction, although they were still below what would have been the optimal, you know, the herd immunity rate.
00:29:08
Speaker
Yeah. but but But yes, I do see that you were making progress during years. Thank you. um But yes, absolutely so much more to do. And one of the reasons why I'm still committed to ah but returning an NDP government, and hopefully I'll get to play a key part in that, in making sure that we have good public health for all of us.
Commitment to Public Health and Community Engagement
00:29:29
Speaker
Okay, moving beyond these questions about the causes of the low vaccination rate, I wanted to ask you um what it's like for you and your colleagues to be advocating on this issue considering the deep, deep unpopularity of infection control practices here in the province.
00:29:47
Speaker
Even among people who do get their vaccines, things like distancing and masking for COVID were extremely unpopular. And I'll note that I rarely saw NDP MLAs masked up for events.
00:30:04
Speaker
The Alberta Medical Association this year called for everyone to keep their kids away from Stampede because of the measles risk. They said that no one should should be bringing children to Stampede, but I didn't see the the party advocating that anyone keep away from Stampede.
00:30:20
Speaker
ah so So tell us a bit about the challenges of trying to work on this file when the culture here is so, it seems hostile to any progress on it.
00:30:33
Speaker
it's like a bit of a third rail, right? Well, and I do think that most major jurisdictions, maybe all have moved away from mandatory, um, masking.
00:30:45
Speaker
I know that, uh, you know, at the entire time it was the law, I absolutely complied and felt good about complying and knew that I was doing something to help protect myself and others. Um, but I think that, um,
00:31:00
Speaker
I'm really grateful that I've been able to get immunized. Uh, every time a COVID vaccine's been available, I've gotten my booster and that the people that I know I've elderly, an elderly mom and she's remarried and I want to make sure that they're both safe and, and they're able to get their vaccines. I feel anxious about the fact that, um, not everyone can be able to afford that this year with the government making the decision that, um,
00:31:25
Speaker
that people will have to pay out of pocket. And that is going to be a really tough decision for a lot of people who are that in between sending their kids or grandkids a card with some money in it at Christmas or whether or not they're going to be able to afford the vaccine. Like these are really divisive decisions that the government's perpetuating that impact affordability and impact our safety and wellbeing. So um
00:31:52
Speaker
generally though, i will say that, uh, oh Albertans like anybody want to be able to um live their lives and feel comfortable in their communities and want their kids to be able to play soccer and um and go swimming and have the same childhood experiences that many of us had in previous generations. So ah my goal is to make sure that everyone has access to ah primary care, to a family doctor, to people who can share good information with them and
00:32:25
Speaker
that we do so in a way that respects the values of the Canada Health Act. I'm very proud of the NDP's legacy and feel a responsibility to help be a positive steward when it comes to moving public health forward rather than backwards.
00:32:42
Speaker
What's it like for your colleagues who are trying to advocate for this kind of stuff in areas where the hostility to these measures is quite high? Advocate for like and MMR vaccines and those types of things?
00:32:55
Speaker
vaccines and infection control practices of all kinds? oh um I think that we are all doing our best to meet people where they're at and share good information, whatever that looks like. And I think that Albertans are interested in having an opportunity to discuss things with people that they know are experts. I think that they're are a lot of things that this government is not expert on, but has very strong opinions on and actually works to bestymie the voices of experts. So we in the NDP, I'm really proud of saying that we want more public health officials and we want them to be able to speak freely.
00:33:41
Speaker
And I believe that under an NDP government, we will have more academic freedom than we see today under the UCP. um I was just wondering, you've been doing stand-up ah comedy ah lately, Sarah, um you know, doing shows across the
00:34:06
Speaker
And I thought that was interesting. I mean, we'll have to ask, ah you know, Dave Cornoy about this, but it would seem that you're probably the first elected official to, you know, start doing stand-up comedy while you're in office, right? in Alberta, uh, at least.
00:34:24
Speaker
Um, so what made do you decide to, uh, you know, do standup? and Thanks for the question. After the leadership race last year, i decided to sort of challenge myself to do two things that I'd never really done before. The first one was, uh, decided needed to start meditating and I did 10 day silent meditation retreat.
00:34:46
Speaker
And when I was there, I think it was day three. i started thinking about a Seinfeld episode and I couldn't remember the context, but I remember Elaine yelling at somebody about something and it came to me on day seven. And I was like, oh yeah. And I went through like every episode of Seinfeld I could think of.
00:35:06
Speaker
And I thought, oh, I ah really enjoyed those experiences of reliving, you know, 90s and early 2000s TV shows, but maybe I should get some ah more contemporary references. And I signed up for a i think it was a six week course through the Grindstone Theater in the fall. It's, know, great Edmonton nonprofit theater company. And I met nine other interesting people who also signed up on their own.
00:35:33
Speaker
And I thought if I can learn some, you know, more joke structure, and that would be fun. And maybe it's something that I'll use in my professional life too, but I just wanted to to take a course, develop a new skill and,
00:35:46
Speaker
By week four, I was pretty hooked. like And then I showed up at an open mic because I thought, oh, we'll see if strangers think I'm funny. If they think I'm funny, then maybe I'll have more fun with this. And it was so much fun. I loved the first open mic I did and how supportive the community of comics were. And a lot of them are people that I probably would have never encountered in if I hadn't you know picked up a mic and ah put myself out there a little bit. And it's been really nice to find new ways to connect with people.
00:36:17
Speaker
And humor is, um yeah, it's it's pretty gratifying. So it's been a lot of fun to tell stories, ah figure out ways to make people laugh and um be a little bit vulnerable in a way that you typically aren't as a politician.
00:36:33
Speaker
suppose there's some some overlap in competencies with was speaking in the legislature, right? yeah You're always kind of monologued And I don't mean you specifically, but i mean, ah folks in the legislature are always kind of monologuing when they get up to speak.
00:36:47
Speaker
Oh, there's times where your whip will tell you you have 20 minutes go. And, you know, you maybe had ah five minutes that you thought were really good, but you got to figure out how to um make that into a 20 minute speech and not be totally boring. So, yeah, there's lots of times for your monologues in the legislature.
00:37:05
Speaker
Are you getting more laughs from the other side these days? Hmm. I would say few people over there want to laugh. And we've always had a pretty decent banter.
00:37:18
Speaker
And there's some people over there who will never laugh. And that's okay.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, and because you know to expand on that, you've course been in MLA for a decade, four of those years as a cabinet minister. ah Before that, you were school board trustee.
00:37:35
Speaker
So, I mean, you've been in the public eye locally and then provincially for quite some time now. um Did that help you um in the way approached getting up in front of a crowd of strangers and ah you know, trying to make them laugh?
00:37:58
Speaker
I think so. I also was like, often politicians are taught to be risk adverse. And I think um most of us have been to a pretty significant degree. And then we see other people um take lots of risks.
00:38:12
Speaker
And I'm thinking specifically about a number of American politicians that like things that they do and say would have been disqualifying a generation ago. And they're not now. So I think it's given me at least a little bit of permission to be a little bit more myself, be a little bit more vulnerable.
00:38:30
Speaker
and um And, you know, at the end of the day, it's comedy. We're there to build a connection, try to make people laugh. and And if I can do that, it's a win. And I think sometimes people are nervous when they see me on stage that I'm there to, you know, try to indoctrinate them into the NDP or something. You know, I'm i'm there to try to make them laugh.
00:38:47
Speaker
And they showed up because they want to laugh. And I feel like that's a good place to start in building a connection.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:38:55
Speaker
And yeah, just one more thing I wanted to ask, because when I saw you were doing standup, you know, I couldn't help but wonder. um Is Sarah, um you know,
00:39:10
Speaker
getting ready for a possible career change. or Are you going to be running for reelection in 2027 or sooner if there's an early election? And i want to... um I'll answer that question.
00:39:26
Speaker
I'd love to run again. No, I want to be an MLA. i want to be the funniest cabinet minister in Nahad Nanshi's cabinet. And i want to make sure that we get back to focus on things like cutting child poverty getting people good health care and education, good jobs and tackling the affordability crisis. And if I can do that while finding some humor in the world and having a hobby, I think we should all have the opportunity to have some hobbies. And and I like this one a lot.
00:39:52
Speaker
it's a very good hobby for a woman who doesn't have kids at home. And ah there are many women who do have kids at home, but ah the fact that I, most shows are at nine or 10 o'clock at night.
00:40:04
Speaker
um ah The fact that I can have a very fulfilling day job and still get out and tell some jokes with ah folks late at night, it's been, it's been a great fit for me. And if there's anybody listening to this, who's thinking, huh, maybe I should try telling some jokes. Yes, you should.
00:40:20
Speaker
Like, if you want to like, Just Google Edmonton open mics. ah Find out when there's one. One of my favorite, the first one I ever did was at the Grindstone on a Wednesday night and it's a show up, go up. ah There's another one at Southbound that's the same on Monday nights. Like there are people over the city who are happy to give you a mic. And if you've got three to five minutes of jokes, you'll get a chance to tell them and um and see how it goes. And it might be a very good fit for somebody who's listening to this and thinking maybe I should try it. My my feedback would be yes. And if there's another hobby that you're thinking maybe I should try it,
00:40:51
Speaker
sign up for that too. Like this is, um, you know, life is short. We should embrace opportunities to grow as people, build relationships and connections and explore hobbies. So, uh, if, uh, either of you wants to go to an open mic with me, uh, I'll bring you any time.
00:41:08
Speaker
And who would you say is your funniest, uh, colleague? Oh man. Okay. So it depends on the day, but Marlon Schmidt and I both have, uh,
00:41:20
Speaker
very similar sense of humor and he's okay with me roasting him a little bit. So I think that makes him a good sport and makes me appreciate his sense of humor too. He's come to a number of my shows, which is very sweet, but um yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of funny people in the ledge.
00:41:36
Speaker
Jody Calhoun Stonehouse and I, when we were in the leadership race, often found opportunities to make each other laugh during the day. And, and that's great, but yeah, no, there's, there's a lot of funny people and a lot of people who,
00:41:48
Speaker
like to show up and laugh at other people's comedy. So it's nice to be able to share some of this with my colleagues. What's the Nenshi cabinet like? I mean, I know you're going to say good, obviously. Great, exceptional. you know You're not going to say you're having a bad time.
00:42:01
Speaker
But maybe if I could ask more specifically, how are they how is the Nenshi caucus different from the Notley caucus and the Notley leadership that you worked with?
00:42:14
Speaker
ah We're more experienced. we're We're ready to lead. And, you know, I think we did a great job of leading, but I don't think we were ready when it started. We yeah definitely, there were, you know, four people who had MLA experience, two of us who, Joe Ceci and myself, who had other elected office experience. And um that was it, right? So we, um it's definitely more experienced and more diverse experience.
00:42:39
Speaker
in terms of backgrounds, work experience, sectors, as well as cultural and religious backgrounds. So yeah, I think we are going to be even better than the already exceptional 2015 cabinet that we had. And I look forward to seeing um the kinds of great decisions that we make when we have more voices at the table with different types of experience. And we are ready to lead. The fact that, you know, I keep thinking about um how Danielle's leadership is different from Nahed's leadership. And one of the big ways is that um I picture him during the flood and how he was out there with folks on the front lines doing the work.
00:43:22
Speaker
And also when he needed to get out of the way, he got out of the way. He went and did the media interviews so that the emergency responders could be able to really focus on ah what they needed to be doing on the ground. So, um,
00:43:33
Speaker
I loved working with Rachel. She was a wonderful premier and I am confident that I'm going to love working with Ned. I already do. He just needs to have a chance to be the premier and get us back on track in this province. And and I know that he can do it and I want to be a part of that.
00:43:48
Speaker
Okay. Well, I guess that's all the questions we have for you today, Sarah. Thanks for making the time to come on the pod. It was nice to get to talk with you again after not running into you for many years.
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah. ah Thank you. I had a great time chatting with you and I'm hopeful that some of your listeners will check their vaccine records and get a booster and help us get full herd immunity so that we can yeah think about this as one of those points in time and history rather than how it's dramatically changed the way we function in the world. So thank you.
00:44:22
Speaker
Well said. Folks, if you enjoyed this episode, can... can always pitch in at the progress report.ca slash patrons. We don't paywall any of this stuff. We don't run mattress ads. We would like to keep not doing any of that stuff.
00:44:39
Speaker
So if you would like to help us keep the lights on, or actually ah we we have a specific expense to worry about right now, which is if Jeremy sounded a little crackly to you on today's episode, it's because his mic gave out.
00:44:52
Speaker
You have to replace that. So if you'd like to give us a hand, ah Yeah, just browse over to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, where you can contribute. On theprogressreport.ca this week, you'll also find a couple of real banger stories from Jeremy about Danielle Smith's Alberta Next panel. We sent Jeremy down to Deer to attend the first and probably most demonic of them.
00:45:17
Speaker
And then Jeremy had a look at who's actually on the panel ah you will probably not be surprised to hear that most of them are UCP donors. So that's a fun story.
00:45:28
Speaker
Check it out on our site. That's theprogressreport.ca. Jeremy, great to chat with you again. Great to have you as always. And folks, we'll see you next time.