“The election was the worst of all worlds, but westerners will pay the biggest price”
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Summary
Ezra LeVant gives his thoughts on the election, and talks to Lorne Gunter about Alberta's clean sweep of conservatives, except for one new Democrat in downtown Edmonton, Saskatchewan s clean sweep, and the loss of their last liberal, Ralph Goodale.
Transcript
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Hello, my rebels. Today, I give my attempt at a post-mortem of the election. I'm sure it'll
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take me several days or weeks to get all my thinking out. I also talked to Lorne Gunter
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about Alberta's reaction. Alberta, a clean sweep of conservatives, except for one new Democrat
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in downtown Edmonton. Saskatchewan, a clean sweep. They rusted their last
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liberal, Ralph Goodale. What does it mean? Well, I'll go into that today.
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Hey, let me invite you to become a premium subscriber. It's eight bucks a month,
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and you get the video version of the podcast, and you get a weekly show from Sheila Gunn-Reed and my
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buddy David Menzies. You do that just by going to premium.rebelnews.com. All right, here's the podcast.
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Tonight, the election was the worst of all worlds, but Westerners will pay the biggest
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price. It's October 22nd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody right
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The Liberals won last night's election. Justin Trudeau's corrupt, smug party won 157 seats.
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That's not a majority in a 338-seat House of Commons. You need 170 seats for a majority,
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but it's very close. He'll be able to govern like he has a majority on most questions, I think.
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The Conservative Party eked out just 121 seats, growing just 23. How's that possible? Trudeau
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blew himself up by firing his attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, because she wouldn't go along
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with his plan to let a bribe-paying company off the hook. That stunned the country. I mean,
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a lot of media fall out of love with Trudeau, so much for sunny ways. And then came the repeated
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blackface revelations. So he was a fake when he seemed so woke before towards minorities.
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Then there was the two private jets move he had, so much for being a global warming champion.
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I know that those second two points I made, the blackface and the two jets thing, I know they don't
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go to the core of his governing substantively, like the way his judicial corruption does, but
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they proved that he was a fake, a liar, an imposter. They took away his preening
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moral righteousness, his condescension, which should have made substantive criticism stick
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So the carbon tax, the disaster with China, taking hostages, economically and politically,
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China's embargoes on us, our stagnant Canadian economy, most of which is self-inflicted,
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especially Trudeau's war on the West, Trudeau's war on oil, the war on pipelines.
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But no, incredibly, the Conservatives only picked up a total of three seats in all of Ontario.
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And in fact, they lost Lisa Raitt's seat, and she's the deputy leader.
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In Quebec, despite all of Andrew Scheer's pandering to the Derry cartel,
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the Conservatives actually lost ground, two seats down. There were a handful of seats,
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one in the Atlantic, but basically the party was retrenched in the West. Of the 23 seats picked
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up by the Conservatives, 18 were in the four Western provinces. All of the effort just to
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grow five seats in the center and the East. It's really Preston Manning's reform party,
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plus a few. Not a seat in Toronto. Perhaps that's to be expected, but precious few in the
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suburbs around Toronto, the 905 area code. Andrew Scheer stayed away from Doug Ford and Doug Ford's
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team. Thinking they were politically toxic? Maybe. The Liberals certainly thought so. They
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campaigned against Andrew Scheer a little bit. The Liberals campaigned against Stephen Harper a lot.
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But the Liberals were incessant about trying to hang Doug Ford and his cuts around the neck of Scheer.
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The funny thing about that, Doug Ford actually won Ontario. Won more than 40% of the vote. Won 76 seats.
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I know that was a year ago, and they've fallen in the polls, but it's hard to imagine Scheer doing
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any worse in Ontario had he embraced Doug Ford. I mean, he lost all of the 416 area code. Can't do worse
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than that. And if he had worked with Doug Ford, maybe he could have accessed the considerable political
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machinery of Ford Nation. But Andrew Scheer did to Doug Ford what Andrew Scheer did to Rebel News and what
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he did to People's Party supporters. He pushed them away. Andrew Scheer hired a liberal dirty trickster
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named Warren Kinsella to smear People's Party members as racist. That's a liberal move. And pushing away
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Rebel News. Why? Because the CBC or CTV or Global News were so good to him. Look at this incredible clip
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from just this morning. I have never seen anything like it. Take a look.
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But Mr. Scheer, when asked why you're spreading false information about your opponents, like among
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other false statements, saying the liberals will decriminalize hard drugs and saying the liberals
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and NDP will raise GST, when they say that's a lie, you can't draw conclusions where the hard facts
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don't back up what you're saying. So you've explained your reasoning to Canadians. My question to you this
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morning is, how do you explain to your five children, from toddler to teenage, that it is okay
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to lead a dirty campaign based on information that is not entirely true and constant attacks on your
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opponents? Well, of course, I reject the premise of that question.
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Wow. And remember, Andrew Scheer has said he'll preserve CBC News funding, and he's never spoken out
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against the other media bailout either. Not that he'll get a chance to be a decision maker on any
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of these things now, will he? Last night, we had a live stream on election night. We covered the
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whole night live. We ran almost five hours. We had more than 120,000 people tune in, which is pretty
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incredible. And we were low tech compared to the state broadcaster, obviously. And obviously, we were
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more fair, and I think more interesting. I was here at our headquarters with Kian Beckstein. And David
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Menzies was out in the Beauce, Quebec, with Maxime Bernier. He got an exclusive interview, in fact.
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And for some reason, the Conservative Party finally admitted one of our journalists, Sheila Gunn-Reed,
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to attend their victory night in Regina. What a laugh. They agreed not to arrest us for doing journalism.
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Oh, but they told Sheila that she wouldn't have room for a computer or a camera. What a weird lie.
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Obviously, they had enormous room. It was a massive building. What a bunch of weirdos Scheer has around
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him doing media relations. But really, who would lead the Conservatives if not for Andrew Scheer right
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now? Bernier took himself out of contention by bolting impatiently a couple of years ago. Jason
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Kenney, the obvious option, is presently engaged as the Premier of Alberta. He didn't want to fight
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Trudeau this time around. I bet he could have won it if he had. What a mess. Do you really think
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Andrew Scheer would do any better in another election in 6, 12, 18, 24 months? Oh, he'll point
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to the raw vote count. Sure. I mean, that's what Hillary Clinton did after 2016 to find some fake
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consolation when Trump beat her under the rules. There is no prize for raw vote counts either in
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America or in Canada. Just because some Alberta ridings went 80% plus for Andrew Scheer doesn't
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mean he gets that riding more than once. Like I say, it's really just a slightly augmented version
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of Preston Manning's footprint. The Bloc Québécois grew in Quebec, including at the expense of the NDP.
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The Greens went from two seats to three. But what all these losers have in common is that they hate
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Alberta and hate Alberta oil and hate Alberta oil pipelines along with Trudeau. That's what they
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all have in common. Here's Trudeau as a young man. Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada
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because, you know, poor Quebecers. He was in his late 20s then. That's when he was a teacher at West
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Point Grey Academy. Here he is about 10 years later, all grown up, almost 40, phrasing his bigotry even more
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Regardez, le Canada fait dur maintenant parce que c'est des Albertains qui contrôlent notre
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agenda communautaire et sociodémocratique. Ça marche pas. Est-ce que le Canada est mieux
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servi quand il y a plus de Québécois au pouvoir que quand il y a plus d'Albertains au pouvoir?
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Ben, je suis libéral alors c'est sûr que je pense que oui. Certainement quand on regarde les grands
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premiers ministres du 20e siècle, les seuls qui ont vraiment tenu le coup, c'était des députés
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du Québec. C'était Trudeau, c'était Mulroney, c'était Chrétien, c'était Paul Martin. Alors,
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tu sais, on a un rôle, on a, ce pays, le Canada, est à nous.
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Yeah. When someone shows you who they are, why don't you believe them? And that's the thing.
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Quebec separatism was always fake. They get, what, $14 billion a year from equalization,
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mainly from Alberta and Saskatchewan. Don't tell me that they'd really walk away from that. It's
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just a bargaining stance to get whatever else they want. Alberta separatism, I see it rising in a way
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I haven't before. And it's not fake. And it's not noisy. And it's not showy. It's quiet and
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resolved. I don't know what's going to happen. But I know that across Canada, people are thinking
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the system's broken. And it's not even broken in a neutral or a friendly way. It's malicious now.
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It's actively destroying the West, which is the economic engine of Canada in so many ways. You know,
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Detroit was once the strongest industrial city in America. Did you know that?
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It was the highest industrial wage. Factories. It was Motor City. It was the place to be.
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But then it was destroyed by democratic policies. Look at it now. Abandoned and decrepit.
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It can happen. Look at Venezuela. It can happen. Look at Baltimore. It can happen.
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But maybe Alberta won't stand by and let it happen. Maybe Alberta will leave. That's not illegal.
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It's actually the opposite. It has been legalized and formalized and proceduralized
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by Quebec, actually, when separatism was litigated a generation ago. A clear question,
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fairly asked, a proper legal process. Our Supreme Court has actually prescribed the manner of separation.
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And you know what? I bet Justin Trudeau wouldn't actually mind that. You take out the most conservative
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province, you're probably going to win a lot more elections as a liberal.
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Canada would be a smaller, poorer place, but it would be all Trudeaus. You take out the 34 seats
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of Alberta from last night, Justin Trudeau would have his exact same count, but out of 304 seats,
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he would have a majority. You don't think he wants that?
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I wonder what's going to happen now. Stay tuned. We'll ask Lauren Gunter next.
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In Alberta and Saskatchewan, know that you are an essential part of our great country. I've heard
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your frustration, and I want to be there to support you. Let us all work hard to bring our country
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What? Do you think that means a pipeline's going to go through? Do you think that means the carbon tax
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will be held off? No, no, no. It's just another posture, another pose. He's a fake feminist. He's
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a fake carbon tax reducer. I mean, he has two jets. He dresses up all the time in blackface,
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in costumes. That was just a line someone threw in there that he had to read. Do you think,
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do you really think he's going to lift a finger for Alberta and Saskatchewan when he's now in
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coalition with the NDP, the Block, the Greens, all of whom are anti-oil patch, anti-pipeline? Well,
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let's ask someone who is in the heart of the West, our friend Lauren Gunter, senior columnist with the
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Edmonton Sun, who joins us now live via Skype. I think it's as bad as it gets, Lauren. Am I pessimistic
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on that? I think that I see already Husky is laying off hundreds, maybe thousands of workers
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this morning. They were waiting to see how things go and they don't need to see any more. I think
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Husky, I think you will see another $100 billion lead, $100 billion lead to the West.
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Yes. And you see the Detroitification of Calgary. Detroit used to be the number one industrial city
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in America. Then Democrats ruined it. I think it's that bad. Am I wrong?
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It's not that bad yet, but will it get that bad? It could. Absolutely it could. You're absolutely
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right that we will probably see at least another $100 billion leave the country or not come into the
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country. It's a little hard to prove just how much it is, but stats can't estimate it that in
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the last three years, there's been $100 billion that hasn't been invested in energy that would
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have been invested otherwise. And I think that that's going to happen over the next two or three
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years too. I was sickened last night. At first, I sort of snickered and then I just felt sickening
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to hear Trudeau say, I want you to know that we're going to be there for you. We're going to,
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this is, this is Bill Clinton's, I feel your pain without the masculinity. It is so weak and it's so
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insincere and smarmy that it just makes me sick. Yeah, you're right. I mean, Albertans don't want
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him to be there for us. Um, Saskatchewan people. I mean, I, I saw the election results in many,
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uh, districts, the liberals got less than 10%, sometimes as low as 5%. And in most, in most of
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the districts in Saskatchewan and Alberta, they're in third place. So no one's looking for Trudeau to
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be their friend. Uh, Westerners are disgusted by him, repulsed by him. Um, so they're not looking for
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him to feel any pain or to be there with us. Uh, I think Westerners, and I speak as an exiled
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Westerner in Toronto, um, want tangible things like build the goddamn pipe, sorry to swear. Uh, don't bring
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in the carbon tax. Stop talking about transitioning off oil. No one else in the world is. Um,
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the number one messenger for Trudeau, uh, and Trudeau's handouts in the run up to the election.
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You remember there were stories that in, in the run up to the 2015 election, the Harper government
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gave out about 1.5 billion in grants all over the country. Those, you know, handshaking check
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presentation photo ops. The liberals did about $13 billion of that in the run up to this election.
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The biggest single ambassador for handouts was, uh, the Edmonton center MP, Randy Boissoneau.
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Uh, and to, to your point about, we don't want handouts. We don't want gifts. We don't want
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bailouts. We just want you to do what's economically sensible, which is build the pipeline. Boissoneau
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was defeated in a riding that the liberals have held off and on for about 25 years. Uh, but you know,
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he came out and he said, Oh, here's a hundred thousand dollars for a woman's clothing boutique.
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And here's a hundred thousand dollars for a lady's custom boot maker. And nobody wants that. That's
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not what anybody wants. Like at one point came out, he and Amarjit Sohi, he was the natural
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resources minister and also an Edmonton MP who was decimated last night. He was pushed aside by Tim
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Oppel, who's a former Harper, uh, campaign cabinet minister. Uh, both of them had come out and said,
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we're going to put $1.6 billion into retraining oil workers to do other jobs. That's exactly the
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wrong message. That's exactly why they're so unpopular. Yeah. Yeah. Um, oil men don't want to,
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uh, be baristas or learn to code. They want to do oil work. And if they can't do it in Alberta,
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they'll do it in North Dakota or Colorado or Texas or Pennsylvania, even with their natural gas
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fracking. And I'm afraid that's, what's going to happen. Um, now let me say something that I
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observed last night. Maybe, you know, Keith Wilson, um, very straight laced lawyer, a couple of years
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older than me. He worked for the farmer's advocate. Then he worked in property rights. And I saw him make
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a tweet last night. I was doing our live show last night and he was so, he was so calm. In fact,
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let's put that tweet on the screen if we can. Uh, he said, and this is like the most straight
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laced lawyer you'll ever meet. He like irons his blue jeans. And he said, let's hold a proper,
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fair and lawful vote on separation. If Alberta votes to separate the Supreme court of Canada
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has laid out the process to implement the divorce. Alberta will be much better off without the burdens
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to Ottawa imposes. And we won't have to send our wealth to Ottawa. Sorry, but it's time to go. And
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I saw that and it was done in the style of that, of the personality of that man. Calm, methodical,
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legalistic, absolutely law abiding, not hot blooded. In fact, he's saying, sorry, like it's not a rage.
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I'm out of here. It's not a hot tempered moment. He's not slamming the door. He's just leaving.
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Yeah. He's just saying, okay, so we're done. All right. Uh, guess what guys? Good news.
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There's a process here. It's already been litigated by our Quebec friends.
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Yep. Uh, there's already road. So it's not illegal. This isn't being a traitor. This isn't being like,
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this is not a civil war. Hey guys, there's a little process. It's already hammered out. Let's do it.
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I'm a lawyer. I'm sorry, but I think this is how we should go about it. You've got severely normal
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guys like that. And I saw professional, moderate, fancy people, not nationalist, populist, pitchfork.
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I'm not talking about the press demanding populists. I'm talking about, um, the, the guy,
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the establishment guys, the well-to-do guys, the temperate people who have a lot to lose.
00:19:09.820
Yeah. I'm doing things wrong. Yeah. And, and they're just done and it's not even rage. It's all
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right. No, it's resignation. I tried to explain this to a radio host in, in central Canada earlier
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this week. I said, it's just resignation. It's not anger. It's not. And when I say that there's
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going to be a separatist movement come out of this in Alberta, I don't know to what extent that's
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going to happen. I already know that there's a conference going on in Red Deer in mid November,
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uh, where people are going to talk about, uh, some of the, the, the processes that need to go
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through in order to, to get a movement going and then to make the movement, uh, and to have the
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movement lead to real independence. It's just going to happen. And I said, they said, so it's,
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it's that anger. I said, well, there's a lot of anger for sure, but mostly this is not coming from
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establishment people. This is coming from people in professions whose lifestyle really isn't affected
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as much by, uh, bad federal government decisions as people who work in the patch or who own small
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businesses. I said, these are just people who are quietly resigned to the fact that this doesn't
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work anymore. Yeah. I think, and I said, you know, the, the, the one thing that's different about
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Alberta independence, which doesn't really exist yet. I think it's coming. I think the mentality is
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coming. Um, uh, it needs to, it's very amorphous right now. It's kind of like a cloud. It needs to be
00:20:37.740
condensed a bit and become much more focused. But I said, the difference is Quebec could never
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bring itself to leave because it could never give up the money. Right. It was always the money. And
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I'm 14 billion in equalization every year. They just can't give that up. Yeah. Uh, and they know
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subconsciously they can't. I said, but Alberta also knows subconsciously that if it left, it probably
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would have more money. Yeah. And so that's the huge difference. And I said, this is not going to be
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Jacques, if it comes to this and I have not entirely convinced yet that it will come to
00:21:08.680
this, but if it comes to this, this will not be Jacques Perrazo's never ending trip to the
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dentist. Yeah. That's what he calls Quebec nationalism. This will be done fairly quickly.
00:21:20.240
Yeah. Well, you know, I was thinking the opposite, love and hates are not actually opposites.
00:21:27.720
Mm hmm. Um, the different sides of the same coin, there's still passion there. There's still
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a feeling there. The, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.
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And, um, the pantomime, the, the, the theater of a Quebecer in Quebec city arguing with a
00:21:48.500
Quebecer in Ottawa over Quebec separatism and how high the, the Dane geld has to be paid.
00:21:54.680
That's different here. You know, that, that tweet I read you from Keith Wilson, that's not
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hate. That's indifference. That's, you know what? Canada was nice, got some sentimental feelings,
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but not a lot of feelings. Uh, there was no hate there. It wasn't, I hate Canada. It was okay,
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guys. Um, you know, we, we sure gave it a good try and thank you, but let's just, can we just follow
00:22:17.680
plan B now? So I, I think that's far more terrifying. Uh, in many ways it's got, it should be. Uh,
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and, and I think in many ways it's going to be, if it comes about and, and I'm going to repeat this
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again, I'm not entirely sure it's going to happen yet, but if it comes about it, the speed with which
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it comes about will surprise a lot of people in the rest of the country, uh, who've lost, who, I mean,
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I saw people tweeting last night, oh, I'm so tired of Westerners whining about alienation. And they
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never said that about Quebec nationalism. Yeah. Yeah. I held this hostage for 25 years off and on,
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made it do somersaults and back flips and all sorts of demeaning things to prove that we loved
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Quebec. That, that horrible fly in love in thing in, in Montreal in 1995 during the second referendum
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still makes me nauseous. And you would never see that in Calgary. So let's say there was a
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referendum in Alberta. You would never for the life of you see liberals fly in to Calgary and say,
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we love you stay because they don't love Alberta. There is actually hate, but it's towards Alberta.
00:23:26.220
The common theme between the Greens, the NDP, the bloc and the liberals is they're anti-oil,
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they're anti-pipeline. And if you scratch the surface, they're anti-Alberta. They think Alberta
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is a synonym for bigot. That to me is, is the real nub in all of this is that, you know, people are saying,
00:23:42.240
well, now that, uh, Trudeau has to rely on the NDP to keep him in, in office, uh, we're going to lose
00:23:48.960
Trans Mountain, which I think is a real, real possibility. Uh, but all Jagmeet Singh has to do
00:23:55.760
is twist Trudeau's rubber arm. Yeah. Trudeau doesn't want Trans Mountain either. Yeah. They were
00:24:01.420
supposed to start construction, uh, this past summer and they obviously didn't. Um, I want,
00:24:08.080
I've been thinking about how it might go because Donald Trump, uh, published a perfunctory
00:24:12.980
congratulations tweet to Trudeau last night, which is how you do it. And I'm reminded that not long
00:24:19.220
ago, Donald Trump made a half serious offer to buy Greenland. And I know that sounds absurd, but
00:24:26.080
he wasn't the first American president to propose it. America has bought territories before, including
00:24:31.640
Alaska, uh, the Louisiana Purchase. You could see that right there in the, in the name.
00:24:36.960
Slightly different times, but yes, it's been done. Yeah. And Greenland, there's almost no one who
00:24:41.240
lives there. Less than a hundred thousand people in this massive place. And I think they were worried
00:24:45.480
because China was trying to get their hooks into Greenland, believe it or not. Um, I tweeted back,
00:24:51.880
I mean, my tweet, what I'm talking too much about Twitter, but I thought, you know what,
00:24:54.880
Donald Trump, you were rejected by Greenland. You make a good offer for Alberta and what,
00:25:00.680
you know, and I'm not saying full statehood, but. You know, somebody said to me the other day,
00:25:05.940
I was again on a radio show and I was talking about, when I was asked about, is there going
00:25:10.460
to be Western resentment? Is there going to be a Alberta independence? I said, well, you know,
00:25:14.960
you have to remember that. And then the one person said, well, why would you want to leave?
00:25:18.820
You're a landlocked. I said, yes, but we still have one border that Ottawa doesn't control.
00:25:23.120
Yeah. And that's the border between Alberta and Montana. Yeah. And, and the, in his first week
00:25:29.000
in office, Donald Trump, um, indicated that he wanted to revive Keystone Excel. And he in fact
00:25:36.100
told the pipeline company, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. And they've been, the courts have slowed
00:25:40.600
them down. But Donald Trump is as eager for the Keystone Excel as Trudeau is as eager to block.
00:25:46.520
But, but maybe there's a, maybe there's another pipeline out through Montana, Idaho and Washington
00:25:53.000
to the West coast. Yeah. That's a good point. And there's all sorts of possibilities that don't
00:25:58.040
involve us having to bow and scrape to Ottawa and to the BC government to try and get one small
00:26:06.200
pipeline that's twinned with an existing pipeline that has been there since the fifties. That has
00:26:11.940
never been a problem. Yeah. I mean, it's a piece of metal, the mind when you start to think about
00:26:16.640
what we're being told no to. Yeah. It's, it's a piece of metal, uh, a tube about the size of a hula hoop,
00:26:23.600
uh, except for that, um, doesn't, uh, convey the degree of high technology for finding and detecting
00:26:32.760
and sealing cracks. And it's a very high tech piece of equipment. Um, and I mean, would America
00:26:41.800
take Alberta? Well, I mean, there would likely be Republican seats. You could bring in a Puerto
00:26:48.820
Rico as the, you know, the Democrats and the Republicans would, or, or, or maybe Alberta would
00:26:53.840
just stay as a territory as Puerto Rico is, or maybe it would be an independent place. Maybe it
00:26:59.460
would have the queen still on our currency. I don't know, but all of a sudden, but can I throw
00:27:04.240
one, a different wrinkle at you? I'm talking about it as someone who's, I'm an Albertan. I am
00:27:09.860
affectionate to Alberta, even though I lived in Toronto for 10 years, but let's say you're Justin
00:27:15.280
Trudeau. Come home. All is forgiven. Well, well, well, you take 34 Alberta seats out of parliament.
00:27:23.040
Yeah. I don't see how Justin Trudeau ever loses an election again. Yeah. That would be because
00:27:28.920
you're removing 34 pretty much guaranteed conservative seats. All of a sudden, Trudeau's
00:27:33.820
got a majority. And for, uh, Catherine McKenna and Gerald Butts, who care about carbon emissions,
00:27:40.080
well, you've just reduced your national emissions by one third. You've just gotten rid of all
00:27:44.980
those pesky right wingers. You've gotten rid of all the stuff you don't like. Uh, you're
00:27:49.720
going meat free. You just said, well, and I hope it would be 48 seats that they would lose
00:27:55.160
because I have to think that we could maybe talk Saskatchewan into coming along.
00:28:00.020
Oh, absolutely. And frankly, um, parts of the interior of BC would probably want to join
00:28:04.320
too. I remember at the Western standard, we had a, uh, a columnist named Rick Dolphin who
00:28:09.560
had a great sense of humor and he talked about a future territory called Albumbia. I mean, he
00:28:15.420
had a little bit of humor that he said, Alberta, with that part of the interior of British Columbia,
00:28:18.640
he even wrote an anthem. He was making jokes, but look, Czechoslovakia is now the Czech Republic
00:28:26.420
and Slovakia all around the world. We have people going to smaller units, not larger units.
00:28:33.500
Everyone wants out of the European union, not just Brexit, but, but across the EU, there are
00:28:38.280
many places that want more rights, Italy, uh, Austria. Um, I think, I think the idea of splitting
00:28:45.860
up the world's second largest country that's obviously not getting along with itself, it's
00:28:51.480
unthinkable until the moment it's not. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. I mean, and I, I still
00:28:58.320
hope it doesn't come to that. I still hope that there's some way of working around this, but,
00:29:02.020
but I'm not optimistic because, you know, the, the one thing liberals want more than anything
00:29:08.140
else is to stay in power and they would sell their mothers. Yeah. I mean, I like Calgary,
00:29:14.220
look, Jagmeet Singh never visited, uh, Alberta in the whole campaign. Trudeau visited Calgary for
00:29:19.860
15 minutes at midnight on the weekend. It's not like they like Alberta anyways. I mean,
00:29:24.220
like they like the tax money and the donations, but frankly, I don't think Trudeau, I think Trudeau
00:29:28.720
would absolutely be rid of Alberta, um, just so he could, and his liberals could rule forever in the
00:29:36.480
rump of Canada that remains. And I can't imagine that Donald Trump and his Pentagon and his State
00:29:43.800
Department would say no to some sort of association with the world's third largest oil
00:29:48.820
reserves. Well, I think by the time this happens, it will not be slow. If it happens, it won't be
00:29:55.440
like Quebec going on for decades, but I, I'm not entirely sure that even if he's reelected, Trump
00:30:01.660
will still be around as president. By the time we get around to getting all the T's crossed and the
00:30:06.720
eyes dotted, but nonetheless, I don't think whoever is the American president would, would shun, uh, an
00:30:12.480
alliance of some sort with Canada. Yeah. Well, I mean, there would be a free trade deal. I mean,
00:30:17.100
why not just inherit NAFTA, you know, and, uh, absolutely. And, and Alberta, I mean, it could be
00:30:23.700
like a Switzerland. You could have all sorts of, it could have its own borders and its own, but it
00:30:29.240
could have strong alliances and it could be a sort of, I mean, once you're freed of the equalization
00:30:35.700
payments, that province could reduce its, it could eliminate the income tax. You, you take out 14
00:30:42.220
billion dollars that's shipped to Quebec and, uh, other parts every year. I think that's more than
00:30:47.280
Alberta collects an income tax every year. I'd have to check my math on that. It is. No, it's
00:30:51.080
considerably. Well, listen, I got one last question for you. Jason Kenney, in my view, he harbors
00:30:57.940
ambitions to become prime minister one day. Um, he speaks French very well. He is national
00:31:05.460
connections. He has a national, uh, notoriety. He's, I wouldn't say he's a household name,
00:31:10.900
but he's known widely as strong connections to ethnicities. I, I think that he will not abide
00:31:18.260
any of this talk because he doesn't want it to tarnish his Captain Canada, uh, brand if he seeks
00:31:25.620
the prime minister's chair, which I think he will. So I think he's actually going to seek to block
00:31:31.340
any of this talk, but I don't know what the alternative is because diplomacy hasn't worked.
00:31:37.980
The, the alternative is, because I know that, that there's been talk of this already within
00:31:44.220
the Alberta government. What do we do next? Uh, is kind of a revival of the firewall. Uh,
00:31:50.540
you remember back when Harper and Flanagan and Morton and a bunch of other, uh, Alberta luminaries
00:31:56.140
came up with ideas about how Alberta could protect itself from the, the grasping hands of Ottawa and
00:32:02.300
the demands of Quebec. And, and, uh, you know, there were a number of things that were thought of.
00:32:07.100
Um, I'm, I know that they've been thinking about that within the provincial government and
00:32:12.620
that may be enough to, to, to stall or stop, uh, independence movement. I don't know. It's going
00:32:19.100
to be interesting, but it is not going to be the status quo. That's, that's the key. Yeah. Well,
00:32:24.940
Lauren, it's good to catch up with you. I know this story is not going away. I saw Scott Moe,
00:32:30.060
the premier of Saskatchewan sent a list of, I'd call them friendly demands. Um, but the thing
00:32:35.980
about a demand is you need an or else or else I'll do this or, or then what, um, if you don't have
00:32:42.700
the or else there, it's, it's just a daydream. And why would Trudeau possibly, I mean, Trudeau has
00:32:50.220
even in some ways, even more than he hates Alberta, he hates Saskatchewan because Saskatchewan
00:32:54.780
was the first to oppose the carbon tax because Rachel Notley accepted it at first. So,
00:32:59.660
and of course, Saskatchewan is now liberal free. Saskatchewan is smaller. Um, I think in many ways,
00:33:05.420
Trudeau hates Saskatchewan more. So why on earth would he possibly listen to Scott Moe or Jason
00:33:10.940
Kenney? Well, you know, I, I, this is probably a point we don't even need to worry about. I don't
00:33:17.260
think he hates Saskatchewan more. They are indifferent more because Saskatchewan doesn't
00:33:22.220
come up on the radar the same way that Alberta. Alberta stands in the way of Ottawa controlling
00:33:28.060
everything because Ontario typically goes along with what Ottawa wants to do. Uh, and if you look
00:33:34.380
at it, the only region in the country that gave the liberals the same or more support, uh, in this
00:33:41.580
election as in 2015 was a greater Toronto area. Yeah. Everywhere else, every other region gave them
00:33:47.580
less support, but Toronto kept them in power. And so Ontario is driven by, by Toronto and people,
00:33:56.300
you talk to people in, in Southwestern Ontario or Northern Ontario, they don't like Toronto very much
00:34:01.020
because they don't like the way Toronto controls their province. So they don't, they look at us in
00:34:07.420
Alberta as competition to their power center. Yeah. And that's what they, they, that's what they
00:34:12.380
dislike about Alberta. Saskatchewan, they don't think so much of, uh, so it's flyover country. Yeah.
00:34:18.940
Well, it's good to talk to you. These are very, uh, dramatic days, Lauren. It's nice to see you. Thanks
00:34:23.180
for your time. You bet. All right. There you have it. Lauren Gunter, senior columnist
00:34:27.660
with the Edmonton Sun. Stay with us more Ahead of the Rebel.
00:34:37.420
Hey, welcome back. On the results of the federal election last night, Edward writes,
00:34:43.020
for those needing consolation, Scheer did win the popular vote. Now we can join Hillary Clinton and
00:34:47.100
write a book. I really had no great expectations and figured one or the other would have
00:34:51.340
a minority government. Just glad Justin didn't win a majority or there would be
00:34:55.020
no taming his ego and ambitions. He could be right. Part of me is more afraid of his minority
00:35:02.380
government because I have no doubt that what Jagmeet Singh or other minor parties like even
00:35:07.820
the bloc would demand from him as a concession would be even worse than what he would cook up
00:35:12.460
on his own. I guess the only consolation for me is that Jody Wilson-Raybould won.
00:35:17.820
Mark writes, I guess Canadians are happy with a corrupt government. Well, I can assure you that's
00:35:23.500
what Trudeau takes away from the thing. And by the way, I checked SNC-Lavalin on the Toronto Stock
00:35:28.060
Exchange. Just afternoon when I checked, it was up 15%. The stock market capitalization of SNC-Lavalin
00:35:36.540
rose $425 million this morning because they know their good friend is there and they're home free.
00:35:48.700
Oh, by the way, this morning Husky Oil laid off hundreds of workers in Calgary. Who cares about
00:35:54.060
them though, right? I mean, that's what we all want, right? To phase out the oil patch.
00:36:00.220
Kyle writes, RIP, PPC. One and done. Uh, yeah. And to which I say, uh, too bad. Because I think we do
00:36:13.340
need a populist nationalist voice to talk about issues that have been ignored by the rest of the parties.
00:36:19.580
I wish that had been done within the conservatives, but Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier couldn't keep
00:36:24.060
together. I think it was job number one of Andrew Scheer to keep Maxime Bernier in the party.
00:36:31.260
Jean-Claude Chen managed to keep Paul Martin in the party after he beat him. Stephen Harper managed to
00:36:35.580
keep Peter McKay in the party after he beat him. Doug Ford has managed to keep all his rivals in the party
00:36:41.900
after he beat him. It's on Maxime Bernier too, but Andrew Scheer let the split happen.
00:36:49.580
Liz writes, it's time for Wexit. There is no surviving this Canada. Well, I note that the word
00:36:56.780
Wexit is trending on social media today. Uh, we'll see what happens there. The thing is, Jason Kenney
00:37:03.340
wants to be prime minister. So I don't think he would, um, entertain any solutions that involve
00:37:11.180
Alberta decoupling from the rest of Canada. It'd be interesting to see how that all resolves.
00:37:18.060
Well, I don't know if we're any better today than we were yesterday. Um, I think Trudeau is relieved
00:37:23.420
that he's still prime minister. I think Andrew Scheer has to be disappointed. And Jagmeet Singh,
00:37:29.180
he was sure smiling last night, but his party was cut in half. What a disastrous night for everyone,
00:37:34.940
I say. Oh, well, we'll be there to fight. I think part of the problem is media. And so I think part of
00:37:41.660
the solution rests with us. I'll do my best and we'll do our best. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all
00:37:47.660
us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.