News Release

UCP MLAS MUST DENOUNCE PAWLOWSKI SPEECH, PHONE CALL WITH SMITH

 

CALGARY – UCP MLAs must denounce Danielle Smith’s phone call with extremist Artur Pawlowski in light of video of his speech at the Coutts border blockade in 2022, which prosecutors call “an overt threat to violence.”

 

Alberta’s NDP is now sharing the February 2022 video of Pawlowski’s speech to the border blockaders at Coutts so Albertans can understand the full context of Smith’s conversation with Pawlowski.

 

“Danielle Smith owes Albertans an explanation for why this extreme individual, facing two criminal charges, got a single second of her time,” said Justice Critic Irfan Sabir.

 

“She owes an even greater explanation for why she would attempt to interfere in our justice system to stop the criminal charges laid against this extreme individual.”

 

Last week, the Alberta NDP released footage of a January 2023 video call between Danielle Smith and street pastor Artur Pawlowski, who faces charges of breaching a release order and mischief for inciting people to block public property at the border crossing at Coutts in January 2022.

 

During the phone call, Smith says she’s “sympathetic” to Pawlowski’s case, and tells him she has been following his “advocacy” for many years. Smith claims she is in contact with “prosecutors” “almost weekly” before telling Pawlowski she has expressed her “dissatisfaction with the tactics” of Alberta Crown Prosecutors to the deputy Attorney General.

 

“So can you just leave this with me and I’ll make that request one more time?” asks Smith.

 

Smith now refuses to take questions about this call and has threatened the media with a lawsuit. 

 

In this video from February 2022, Albertans will hear Artur Pawlowski:

• Call for a “revolution”. 
• Suggest that his actions are to prevent his children from being enslaved.
• Brag that he has lost count of all the criminal charges he has faced.
• Tell the crowds that there are not enough RCMP officers or Military to stop them.
• Call the members of Alberta law enforcement “gangsters” and “the biggest mafia”.
• Tell the crowds that some might “pay the price”.
• Compare the Coutts blockade to the Alamo, a bloody siege during the 19th-century Texas Revolution.

 

“If Danielle Smith won’t take questions about her phone call, UCP MLAs in Calgary should explain why they support her,” said Sabir. “Artur is well-known in Calgary for his hateful and extreme views. Calgary UCP MLAs must denounce Artur’s speech and the Premier’s intervention on his behalf.”

 

“Every day that Danielle Smith hides from this accountability, she continues to show Alberta why she is unfit to be Premier.”

 

Alberta’s NDP once again calls on Danielle Smith to appoint a judge to get to the bottom of her office’s involvement in the justice system and report back to Albertans within 30 days.

 

-30-