Tucker Carlson coming to Calgary for speech, conversation with Alberta premier
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It’s not yet known what issues Carlson will address during the event
Published Nov 07, 2023 • Last updated 31 minutes ago • 3 minute read
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is coming to Calgary in January 2024. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Former Fox News anchor and provocative U.S. political commentator Tucker Carlson will visit Calgary on Jan. 24 for a live speech followed by an interview.
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Carlson, whose popularity skyrocketed as he brought far-right talking points into mainstream news on his show Tucker Carlson Tonight, will also be in conversation with Premier Danielle Smith toward the end of the event.
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The premier’s office confirmed Tuesday that Smith will attend the event in Calgary.
“The premier participates in a variety of public and private events and does interviews with dozens of reporters, broadcasters and podcasters from across the political spectrum,” press secretary Sam Blackett said in an emailed statement.
“Obviously, she does not subscribe to every view of every interviewer or reporter she speaks with whether that’s the CBC, the Toronto Star, or Tucker Carlson.
“The premier aims to share Alberta’s message with as many people as possible whether they’re from Alberta, Canada, or around the world.”
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Carlson, who was one of the most popular hosts on Fox News, occasionally targets Canada and its federal Liberal government on his show and was a vocal supporter of last year’s “Freedom Convoy” movement.
Since being fired from the network, Carlson has started hosting a new show called Tucker on X, where he has challenged the murder of Black man George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, purported the killing of Christians in Ukraine, and deemed the non-profits tending to undocumented immigrants in the U.S.’s southern border as “criminals.”
Carlson, who had his start in journalism by writing for neo-conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, went on to host shows at CNN and MSNBC before being hired by Fox News. There, he was a proponent of Donald Trump and pushed out several conspiracy theories regarding the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and Ukrainian bioweapons.
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Fox terminated Carlson after settling a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems by paying $787.5 million for falsely claiming election fraud.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Gavin Young/PostmediaAlberta NDP says Danielle Smith should not appear with divisive personality
Opposition members of the legislature said the premier shouldn’t give time to such a divisive personality.
NDP Leader Rachel Notley said Carlson has attacked Ukraine, made disparaging remarks about women and endorsed an attempted uprising related to the presidential election in the United States.
“He is not a credible figure,” Notley told reporters at an unrelated news conference in Edmonton.
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“The fact that our premier believes it’s appropriate to normalize the things this person would say by appearing on a stage with him demonstrates a profound lack of judgment on her part.”
Notley said it also damages Alberta’s reputation on an international level at a time when the province is trying to attract investment dollars.
“I would call on the premier to immediately cancel that planned appearance, because Albertans deserve better from their leadership,” she said.
“They deserve responsibility. They deserve a measured form of leadership — and appearing with that character on stage is not that.”
“Tucker Carlson is a pro-Putin white nationalist, so naturally Danielle Smith is scheduled to help him promote his event in Calgary in January,” finance critic Shannon Phillips wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
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MLA David Shepard added that Carlson is a loud promoter of “great replacement theory” and other white nationalist ideas — “not someone the premier of a diverse province should be giving time, particularly at a time of rising antisemitism (and) Islamophobia.”
‘His profile is massive’: event organizer
Christian Darbyshire, partner at Tine Public — the organizer of the event and other talks involving notable names, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah and Ellen — said Carlson has grown in popularity in the past couple of years.
“He gets tens of millions of views on each of his shows, sometimes hundreds of millions of views,” Darbyshire said. “So, he’s gotten to the point where his profile is massive now, and so a lot of people want to see him.
“There’ll be additional cities that will probably be announced at some point, but Calgary is the first one that got organized.”
He added that the company reached out to the Alberta government, which showed interest in attending.
Darbyshire said it’s not yet known what issues Carlson will address during the event.
“We’ll probably have clear direction on all that sometime in January, a few weeks before the event,” he said.
Tickets for Carlson’s appearance go on sale at Ticketmaster.ca at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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