Full Comment - This is why so many Albertans want to separate

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00:01:11.540 Alberta separation is currently pulling at about 30%, but that may not be telling the whole story.

00:01:24.420 Hi, welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:01:28.480 We have separatist movements on the eastern part of the country, in Quebec, and now in the western part of the country.

00:01:35.420 Prime Minister Mark Carney has apparently told his cabinet to take the Alberta separatist movement seriously.

00:01:41.540 It's not clear that all of them are, and in much of the commentariat in Central and Eastern Canada, Alberta separatism is dismissed, and yet it is a growing movement that should be taken as something to be concerned about.

00:01:55.620 Today, we speak to someone from the movement on why they want to break up Canada, why they don't see a path forward in terms of finding a new deal, and what is driving all of this.

00:02:07.540 Keith Wilson is a lawyer from St. Albert, just outside of Edmonton.

00:02:11.800 He is not affiliated with any of the many groups advocating for separatism,

00:02:16.000 but is one of the leading voices on the issue in the province.

00:02:19.900 And he joined us from St. Albert.

00:02:22.220 So Keith Wilson, let me ask you,

00:02:23.680 why does a nice boy from Burlington, Ontario, want Alberta to separate?

00:02:28.640 Because I want a bright and prosperous future for my kids and grandkids.

00:02:32.860 And I'm deeply disturbed about the direction of Canada.

00:02:35.920 and it looks like Canada is going to continue

00:02:39.940 to go in a deep, dark direction

00:02:41.480 and Alberta doesn't have to.

00:02:44.500 Okay.

00:02:45.740 Those are nice platitudes.

00:02:47.200 Those are nice things to say,

00:02:48.520 but expand on that for me

00:02:50.500 because, look, you and I have talked before.

00:02:54.520 We've had debates in hotel lobbies,

00:02:57.160 sitting at the bar till late in the evening.

00:03:01.540 I know you, I respect you,

00:03:03.400 but I disagree with you.

00:03:05.920 So explain why Alberta is not getting, in your view, the right deal from Canada, or is it even the right deal for Canada? Does it go beyond getting a deal from Canada? Walk me through step by step why Alberta should pull back from Confederation.

00:03:27.180 because confederation is holding Alberta back confederation is dysfunctional um Canada is not

00:03:36.220 working uh in every respect that I can think of that makes sense to talk about um and Alberta has

00:03:45.460 has uh incredible people uh we have incredible resources we have the youngest workforce in

00:03:51.560 Canada we're the largest net contributor to the Canadian pension plan we would immediately better

00:03:56.500 off. Our seniors would be immediately better off by Alberta leaving and having our own pension

00:04:01.080 plan. We are supporting pensioners in the rest of the country. We have the third largest reserve

00:04:07.680 of oil and gas in the world. We have five refineries. Australia has two. We are a net

00:04:17.000 exporter of all kinds of things the world wants, including agricultural products. Our canola

00:04:22.680 industry is larger than the automotive industry in ontario uh alone so uh we have so much going

00:04:29.600 for us but we're constantly being held back by the ideologues in ottawa as manifest this morning by

00:04:35.860 the comments or yesterday i guess it was uh by the comments of the prime minister where he doubled

00:04:40.980 down on his ideological obsession with net zero what did he say there i was at the announcement

00:04:48.660 in Quebec relating to some service contract

00:04:52.420 for the aviation sector with AirAsia.

00:04:55.840 And he was, a reporter put to him the question

00:04:59.200 or the comments made by the CEO of Synovus,

00:05:03.040 a very large oil and gas company in Alberta,

00:05:06.740 where the CEO pointed out,

00:05:09.240 as several other CEOs have pointed out,

00:05:11.920 which is that the world consumers,

00:05:15.920 consumers, the buyers of oil and gas will not pay a premium for the extremely expensive net zero

00:05:23.920 carbon capture and carbon taxes that Carney is insistent upon, and that the government needs

00:05:32.960 to stop being, quote, myopically focused on climate change issues because the world doesn't

00:05:40.940 care that the customers don't want it Carney doubled down and said no no that's exactly what

00:05:47.480 buyers want which is ironic and he particularly pointed to Asia which is ironic because one of

00:05:53.240 the areas in which Synovus operates and sells into is the Asian market yeah yeah Synovus knows

00:05:59.620 Asia well they have operations there um but also Asia gets an awful lot of its oil from

00:06:06.480 um Iran if we're talking about China uh from uh Persian Gulf states which I I don't think

00:06:17.640 they're looking to decarbonize their oil in the same way so I I do understand that that the prime

00:06:23.980 minister does keep saying though that he is uh an Edmonton Oilers fan that he's originally from

00:06:29.960 the territories that he grew up in Edmonton that he understands the west I'm guessing you don't

00:06:35.160 see it that way well if he's just wrong i mean he's just simply wrong what has he been right on

00:06:41.620 um but it doesn't matter because you know the test for alberta leaving and and becoming an

00:06:48.420 independent country shouldn't be uh measured on because a moment in time in ottawa there's a

00:06:57.300 politician who happens to be prime minister who makes lots of bad policy decisions and is an

00:07:06.060 ideologue that shouldn't be the test uh it's a it's a sort of a complimentary reason but

00:07:13.560 albertans are are reaching the conclusion at a more fundamental level we don't have the same

00:07:20.260 culture as the rest of the country uh look at the policy that the smith government here brought in

00:07:26.260 with respect to schools um uh the primary role now of education in alberta is math science social

00:07:37.140 studies you know core curriculum not ideological teachings not woke politics not identity politics

00:07:47.300 and that's been very very well received here in alberta um uh whereas the rest of the country

00:07:54.500 seems to think that those are important cultural values. So Alberta has a very different culture.

00:08:01.460 We believe in smaller government, we believe in taking risks, we believe in entrepreneurialism,

00:08:07.460 whereas increasingly the rest of Canada seems to be focused on what is the government going

00:08:12.540 to do for me today. So you mentioned that the decision on whether Alberta should stay or go

00:08:19.800 shouldn't be based on a particular person in office. Is there the potential for a different

00:08:28.140 deal for Alberta? I'm sure some people would say yes, but I'm asking you specifically.

00:08:36.360 If there was, you know, we think back to the firewall letter that Stephen Harper and Ted

00:08:41.740 Morton and others wrote more than 20 plus years ago, almost 25 years ago, called for Alberta to

00:08:48.740 start its own pension plan, which still isn't all that popular in Alberta, by the way, for Alberta

00:08:53.940 to, you know, and by the way, Quebec has its own pension plan, for Alberta to collect its own taxes

00:08:59.880 the way that Quebec does, to have their own provincial police force the way Ontario and Quebec

00:09:05.640 do, to start setting provincial health care policy directly, which Premier Smith is now doing, and to

00:09:16.580 push for Senate reform. Senate reform is not going to happen. But let's say that someone

00:09:22.360 came forward and said, on those other four, we can get a deal. Does that change anything for you?

00:09:29.580 Well, no, because I don't think it's realistic. You're also going to, the other provinces would

00:09:36.220 have to be willing to address equalization. Albertans are so frustrated that we, for every

00:09:44.980 dollar that each of us including myself send to ottawa we get far less than a dollar back

00:09:52.100 and the delta that you know a huge amount billions of dollars go to quebec and the only reason quebec

00:10:00.720 uh is able to receive that money is because hydro quebec revenue is not included in the

00:10:06.440 calculation so is quebec going to agree to a revision on the equalization calculation no

00:10:13.240 um uh they haven't in the past we had a premier kenny had a referendum on this

00:10:20.540 and he wrote he wrote to quebec and they said no just so people understand alberta's oil revenue

00:10:28.000 is included in the equalization formula but the revenue that quebec generates from selling

00:10:36.440 hydroelectricity to their own population, but also

00:10:39.620 throughout New England, that is not accounted for

00:10:44.380 in the equalization formula.

00:10:46.780 Is that what you're saying?

00:10:48.120 Yeah, exactly.

00:10:49.060 So there's these fundamental imbalances.

00:10:52.240 So Albertans, now let's go back to your core

00:10:55.380 question, because I think it's a great question.

00:10:57.040 What else would need to change?

00:10:59.220 The reality that's so frustrating for Albertans

00:11:02.380 is the ratio of people to a House of Commons seat.

00:11:10.460 There's far fewer people, voters,

00:11:14.320 each riding in many places in Eastern Canada

00:11:18.600 have far fewer people in them.

00:11:20.640 So our vote's not worth the same.

00:11:23.240 So no matter what you do,

00:11:24.900 unless you make a fundamental structural realignment

00:11:27.560 of the House of Commons and how seats are allocated,

00:11:30.060 Our voice is never going to matter. And we're one of the primary economic engines of this country. And voters in Eastern Canada elect people who bring in policies that hold our economy back.

00:11:46.780 Remember, RBC released a report that in the last 10 years, over a trillion dollars, that's a thousand billion dollars, have left Canada.

00:11:59.960 And a large part of that is because of the lost investment opportunity that was here in Alberta as a result of federal policies that are supported by the voters in the rest of Canada.

00:12:09.780 We don't see the world through the same lens.

00:12:13.800 Canada's too big.

00:12:14.860 we're seeing it right now the cattle industry had a press conference in ottawa yesterday

00:12:19.940 and uh they're worried that in order for some needs of eastern canada and central canada to be met

00:12:28.820 they're going to be thrown to the wolves we saw it with the ev canola fight with with uh with with

00:12:36.220 china if alberta was an independent country and if it alberta becomes saskatchewan will follow

00:12:41.920 very quickly. So if Alberta and Saskatchewan are independent of Canada, then the Chinese would not

00:12:47.340 be able to extort the cornola industry at the cost of the Ontario EV sector automotive thing.

00:12:57.080 They wouldn't have that play. Okay, but I would argue this on that front. One, accepting Chinese

00:13:03.860 EVs would not put you in good stead with the Americans. And that would be an independent

00:13:10.440 in Alberta's largest market, they would not want Chinese EVs flowing in. Secondly, China is a

00:13:17.580 horrible customer for canola, whether it's coming out of Alberta or Saskatchewan. Because why? Well,

00:13:23.440 they did a complete ban from 2020 to 2022. Oh, it's so unpredictable.

00:13:27.780 They screwed you over in 2017, in 2013-14. And I say this as someone with family members who are

00:13:36.400 growing you know they're getting ready for seeding in canola and saskatchewan right now

00:13:40.580 you know so i get get that issue but i've made this argument to scott moe they're not a reliable

00:13:46.820 partner so i mean i wouldn't go down that route on the issue wait a minute sorry okay go ahead

00:13:53.280 yeah you drove off the road on me there so so you've got an unreliable partner so you're going

00:14:00.240 to give them more tools to mess with you right no i don't want them to so all you're doing is

00:14:05.860 we wouldn't have that vulnerability that they use this time successfully

00:14:10.700 had alberta been independent so but there's so many other reasons brian it's not just that i mean

00:14:16.720 no they they you you would have the vulnerability of selling them beef that they would turn around

00:14:22.340 and say oh your beef's no good your beef doesn't meet our quality like china is just the worst

00:14:28.040 trading partner in central canada across the country i know there's a lot of people that think

00:14:33.340 the united states is the worst no pay attention to china china is the worst trading partner you

00:14:38.880 can have as soon as you annoy them they invent a reason that your product is no good whether it's

00:14:44.960 oil natural gas beef pork seafood canola and mark carney is taking the position that all of the oil

00:14:55.840 that's produced in Alberta needs to have a new significant cost added to it just to get to that

00:15:01.740 unreliable market. So right now, 80, 90% of our exports every day of our oil go to the United

00:15:09.280 States. The United States, did you hear Secretary of State Rubio this week saying this whole carbon

00:15:15.620 tax thing is dead? And he was bragging about or boasting about how America ended it globally.

00:15:22.780 and they don't want our production,

00:15:27.100 our producers to pay a carbon tax to Ottawa.

00:15:31.700 Carney's insisting on it,

00:15:33.920 insisting not just that we have this carbon tax

00:15:36.800 and net zero costs added to oil we would ship to Asia,

00:15:41.440 but all of our existing production,

00:15:44.280 80 to 90% of our production,

00:15:46.440 it's economic suicide, it's folly.

00:15:49.500 And finally, all of the CEOs are calling Carney

00:15:52.700 out on this, saying it's nonsense, it's harmful to the Canadian economy. An economist, I believe

00:15:59.420 it was with the Fraser Institute, I may have the institute wrong, but recently released a study

00:16:03.880 saying that if all the costs associated with net zero, carbon taxes, methane regulations, etc.,

00:16:10.400 are implemented, it could cause any further production in Alberta to stop in terms of new

00:16:17.200 production and in time make Alberta's third largest reserve of oil in the world a stranded

00:16:23.600 asset. Albertans are done with this nonsense. To go back to a previous point that you made

00:16:32.260 about Alberta not having equal representation, the approximate average of population per riding

00:16:42.660 in Alberta is about 120,000. In Ontario, it's about 121,000. So your province, my province,

00:16:50.400 we're about equal. We're just slightly higher than you, less than 1%. Quebec is at about 110,000.

00:16:58.900 You go to the Atlantic provinces, and those are the big issues, 74,000 per riding in Newfoundland,

00:17:05.760 41,000 per riding in Prince Edward Island, 90,000 per riding in Nova Scotia, and 78,900 in New

00:17:17.280 Brunswick. So your beef isn't with me. Your beef isn't with Ontario. And even to a large degree,

00:17:25.560 it's not really with Quebec, it's with Atlantic Canada. Well, no, it's broader than that because

00:17:31.680 what it illustrates is even if you were to adjust it it still doesn't make a fundamental change and

00:17:36.420 that's why i say canada is too big it's too big of a optimal governing unit like nobody's really

00:17:41.160 examined that i think is is canada you know if if we could just in a very unemotional way

00:17:47.880 say is is canada with its 10 provinces with its side with its size and its geography and its

00:17:54.580 location to the largest largest um uh economy in the world is this really the optimal organization

00:18:01.420 for it you know like let's pretend it's a corporation and you and i are looking at it

00:18:06.000 as to whether there's a better way to run the thing and i believe that you know there are

00:18:10.900 dozens and dozens and dozens of countries in the world that are far smaller than alberta

00:18:15.360 you know when you look at it from a population an economic and a geographical land mass and

00:18:23.320 location point of view there's every good reason why alberta would be incredibly successful

00:18:28.020 and we wouldn't have to keep every day negotiating with ontario and quebec saying

00:18:32.500 hey we've got a new business idea to employ more albertans genomate more wealth and

00:18:36.680 improve the standard of living here can we please go and do it sir and that's what we

00:18:41.320 have to do right now and the answer is always no

00:18:43.520 respond to the argument that you'd be landlocked though and wouldn't be able to

00:18:50.680 Easily export your goods, because that's what I'm always hearing.

00:18:57.060 You think that's an easy one?

00:18:58.820 Okay.

00:18:59.100 It is.

00:19:00.180 Why?

00:19:00.820 All right.

00:19:01.340 Because think about that.

00:19:03.120 There's two concepts to landlocking.

00:19:05.420 There's the concept of physical location, and then there's the concept of

00:19:10.420 embargoing.

00:19:11.720 In other words, policies.

00:19:13.220 There's an embargo on Iran right now, okay?

00:19:15.880 in other words other actors can through a policy block you alberta is the problem with alberta is

00:19:25.260 not our physical location it's the policies the federal government the carny government isn't

00:19:30.820 even following the constitution section 92 the section 92 10 i think it's a subparagraph a that

00:19:39.220 is designed to prevent any one province from preventing interprovincial works. Only the

00:19:45.940 federal government can approve that. We had it all tested on the TMX when the BC government

00:19:50.140 tried to block it. Only the federal government can approve or block.

00:19:54.400 Correct. But he's allowing BC to block a pipeline.

00:19:58.540 Well, he's granted them an unconstitutional veto. He said to EB and to the First Nations,

00:20:05.920 Neither of which have a veto at law, and he's given it to them. So we have a policy block, but let's just ignore that. Let's assume that wasn't a thing. And Alberta's independent. British Columbia would become embargoed if British Columbia embargoed independent Alberta.

00:20:27.140 What I mean by that is, right now, we supply daily the oil and other energy products to the Burnaby Refinery from Edmonton through the TMX pipeline.

00:20:41.100 If that pipeline is turned off, it's five to ten days before the lower mainland is completely out of fuel.

00:20:47.560 The airport's closed, nobody's driving, everything's shut down.

00:20:51.240 Now, I would never want that to happen, obviously.

00:20:53.740 But when Peter Lougheed was negotiating with Ottawa back in the day and got the Section 92A amendment to the Constitution, one of the things you may or may not remember he announced, because it was a long time ago, is he announced that he was going to cut the flow off down to 85%, a line nine, supplying Sarnia and Pearson and refineries in Quebec.

00:21:15.840 and that caused such a shock the vulnerability that central canada had to its energy supplies

00:21:22.700 that it came to the negotiating table that was just just threatening to reduce it to 85 percent

00:21:27.860 of its flow not reduce it by 85 percent so eight billion dollars worth of goods from british

00:21:34.520 columbia from wines to agricultural products to their mining project they have they have a lot of

00:21:39.640 mined products that need to go by rail to smelters in Quebec and other places to get refined into

00:21:46.980 other more usable metals. They have 80% of the containers that arrive at Prince Rupert in the

00:21:56.220 Port of Vancouver from Asia that have all that stuff in it that you buy at Canadian Tire and

00:22:01.120 Walmart in Ontario come through Alberta on our roads or rail. We freely allow that to happen.

00:22:08.220 I think we would freely allow that to happen as an independent country, and we would expect a reciprocal arrangement. So we have tremendous leverage, tremendous negotiating leverage with both Ontario and Quebec, or sorry, Ontario and Quebec, yes, but more what I meant to say there was British Columbia.

00:22:29.400 So right now, we're embargoed by policy that prevents us from getting our goods to particular markets.

00:22:37.260 And on top of that, 90% of Alberta's trade is north-south.

00:22:45.160 Please, everybody listening, look at a map.

00:22:48.520 North-south to the largest economy in the world.

00:22:52.360 We're okay.

00:22:53.520 You know, the impact, even if there's a temporary disruption in our ability to go east-west, is minimal.

00:23:01.540 So, are you part of the group?

00:23:05.320 I know it's not a large part of the group.

00:23:07.320 Are you part of the group that says Alberta should separate from Canada in order to join the United States?

00:23:13.640 Absolutely not.

00:23:15.300 Why not?

00:23:16.420 Because the first and obvious reason is we're tired of having a master in Ottawa.

00:23:22.860 We're tired of going on bent knee, you know.

00:23:25.660 Here's another $10 billion for the Canadian economy.

00:23:30.280 May we get permission, sir, to work harder tomorrow to produce more.

00:23:34.660 We're tired of having a master in Ottawa and an ideological one that has crazy policies that we find offensive and dangerous, like this growing use of MAID.

00:23:47.900 And I could keep going.

00:23:49.100 So it's not just economic.

00:23:50.200 So we don't want to, but more fundamentally, Albertans who believe that Albertans and their children and their grandchildren would be better off as an independent country do not want to substitute a master in Ottawa with a master in Washington.

00:24:03.500 And then there's the Americans have a fundamental problem.

00:24:05.900 The reason Trump's not talking about it is it's been pointed out to him that the only way he can get the votes in the House of Representatives in the United States is to have the Democrats support it.

00:24:17.340 And the Democrats aren't going to support it unless they get Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico becoming states.

00:24:22.740 That would shift the political power balance because those are blue regions, always vote blue.

00:24:28.260 So it would preclude and limit the ability for the Republicans to hold power in the future.

00:24:33.360 So Albertans don't want it.

00:24:35.580 Albertans are proud and confident.

00:24:37.480 We don't need Ottawa and we don't need Washington.

00:24:41.480 We know we can go it alone.

00:24:44.520 So, look, I've looked at the polling.

00:24:48.360 Even among those that want Alberta to leave Canada,

00:24:51.520 support for those who want Alberta to become part of the United States is quite low.

00:24:57.400 But, you know, you listen to what folks are saying here in central Canada

00:25:01.560 and they're saying, oh, well, you know,

00:25:03.640 all of this talk of Alberta separatism

00:25:06.220 is foreign interference coming from the United States.

00:25:10.280 What do you say?

00:25:11.660 It's nonsense.

00:25:13.300 Why?

00:25:14.300 It's just nonsense.

00:25:15.080 Because, well, you know,

00:25:19.380 I can literally go on for hours

00:25:22.420 as to all of the advantages for Albertans leaving.

00:25:26.520 These are all things that I've been observing

00:25:28.640 and thinking throughout my adult life

00:25:30.560 and becoming manifestly clear

00:25:32.720 over the Trudeau-Carney era.

00:25:36.340 And I have yet to have anybody,

00:25:40.620 and maybe we can do this in a minute,

00:25:42.840 explain to me why my children

00:25:45.600 would have a better future

00:25:46.720 staying in debt-ridden,

00:25:48.580 ideologically driven Canada

00:25:51.380 with its increasingly authoritarian approach

00:25:56.560 to the world with censorship

00:25:57.700 and everything else.

00:26:00.560 Um, I don't need the American, these ideas did not come from the United States. They did not come from Russia. They did not come from China. They came from me. Uh, and they came from, from tens, hundreds of thousands of Albertans have reached these conclusions on their own.

00:26:16.060 This notion that we're so, I don't know, unintelligent or something that we can't formulate these opinions is just a further affirmation that we don't see the world through the same lens and we shouldn't be hanging out with other Canadians.

00:26:31.760 We should go alone.

00:26:34.280 So when I listen to you talk, you do make an economic argument, but you do also keep coming back to philosophical points.

00:26:43.120 do you just feel that alberta and albertans are disconnected from the mainstream view be it here

00:26:53.360 in toronto or you know perhaps more importantly for the current government montreal and ottawa

00:26:59.380 yeah i do well i think i everybody's entitled to have a view about the role they want

00:27:06.460 government to have in their lives and um uh i when i travel to the other parts of the country

00:27:14.840 i'm always struck and i'll say to my wife we're not the same we're just not the same like when i

00:27:21.620 did my first year of law school you know over 30 years ago 34 35 years ago at osgood hall

00:27:27.320 in north york york university wow well the architecture was spectacular it was like oh

00:27:34.580 Did the designer of Chernobyl's tomb design this law school building as a reason there's not a single window on the place?

00:27:44.380 Anyway, I digress.

00:27:45.860 But my point is, I left there after a year because I was so struck.

00:27:50.060 Like, let's just give you a little tiny example.

00:27:52.700 One Friday night, we were going to have a party in law school.

00:27:56.880 It was a lot of hard work.

00:27:58.460 There wasn't a lot of parties.

00:27:59.580 um and we had to go like to two or three different places because somebody wanted beer and there was

00:28:06.880 like 10 employees in there and my i'm just like what alberta you can go anywhere it's privatized

00:28:13.780 um you go in there's one worker they have the beer in a cooler on a tilted thing and they use

00:28:20.320 gravity and you just take the beer thing out and the next one rolls in then we had to go to

00:28:24.580 somewhere else because it was a government thing and it was only certain many and i'm just like

00:28:29.080 why do people put up with this?

00:28:30.700 This makes no sense.

00:28:31.400 Oh, you got to come back to Ontario

00:28:32.480 where alcohol sales are much better now.

00:28:34.660 Yeah, but no.

00:28:35.560 They're much better now.

00:28:36.400 But I understand what you're saying.

00:28:37.600 I was stuck there in 2022.

00:28:39.580 It's still ridiculous.

00:28:40.700 But you guys are okay with that.

00:28:43.100 Albertans aren't.

00:28:44.240 I don't know if you privatized your registries yet.

00:28:46.600 Here, there are registry services

00:28:48.280 for motor vehicle licensing,

00:28:50.200 registering, marriage certificates

00:28:51.540 that are open 24 hours, seven days a week.

00:28:55.180 Okay?

00:28:55.700 And you walk in and you are out

00:28:58.260 and they can give you every single thing

00:29:00.500 you need to get from the government.

00:29:02.340 There's checks and balances.

00:29:03.680 There has not been fraud.

00:29:04.800 There has not been scams.

00:29:06.160 It's hyper-efficient.

00:29:07.460 It's super low cost.

00:29:08.900 In Ontario, you guys seem totally content

00:29:12.200 to stand in lines and waste your time.

00:29:16.000 So we're different.

00:29:17.740 This is people that I bring from Ontario

00:29:20.620 to visit with me,

00:29:21.600 and they see these things.

00:29:23.120 They go, wow.

00:29:24.200 It's almost like taking them to Disneyland.

00:29:25.840 all right we got to take a quick break when we come back i'll ask you when you actually

00:29:31.600 became a separatist keith back in moments there were so many missed opportunities to catch this

00:29:39.660 before the devastating thing happened a third of them we found literally in the phone book

00:29:45.860 these people were not afraid they knew that nobody was effectively hunting them they knew

00:29:51.680 they had escaped justice, that they were going to die in their beds.

00:29:55.740 When I give talks at law schools, it's that the Charter ultimately is empowering a minority,

00:29:59.560 and it's empowering a minority that's a guild across the country, and it's a fairly elite

00:30:03.420 guild, and the guild is lawyers.

00:30:04.580 Families who were split by referendum, and brothers and sisters who never talked to each

00:30:10.900 other for years after the referendum, because they were so angry at each other because of

00:30:15.360 the emotions on both sides.

00:30:17.220 The reason he was assassinated was not because he was trying to put a satellite into space,

00:30:22.020 but because the gun that he was creating had other applications that made him and the gun very dangerous.

00:30:32.400 It's finally here. A new season of Canada Did What?

00:30:36.220 Post-media podcast that revisits the big Canadian political events you might think you remember

00:30:41.600 and tells you the real story you never knew.

00:30:44.100 I'm Tristan Hopper

00:30:45.880 The voices you just heard are from our brand new season 2

00:30:49.540 We will unpack some of the pivotal moments that helped define our country

00:30:53.340 Often without a vote, usually without a plan

00:30:56.000 And sometimes without anyone admitting what they've done

00:30:59.400 We'll find out how Canada became a welcoming paradise

00:31:03.180 For untold numbers of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War

00:31:07.420 We let them build monuments to their wartime exploits

00:31:10.560 and even ended up honoring a Nazi fighter in the House of Commons.

00:31:14.620 And I'm sorry to say that none of that happened by accident.

00:31:18.180 We'll bring you the little-known story of a troubled Canadian rocket scientist

00:31:22.040 who turned to a sinister life of selling giant guns to terrible people.

00:31:27.460 And if that sounds like a spy novel, it ends like one too.

00:31:30.840 You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Quebec's attempted secession from Canada

00:31:34.640 and how very close we came to a political crisis

00:31:37.900 that would have made Brexit look like a picnic.

00:31:41.040 You'll hear about how the much-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms

00:31:44.920 turned into something its creators never wanted,

00:31:48.080 and how many of the most extravagant warnings about the document

00:31:51.260 were all quickly proven true.

00:31:53.900 And you'll even hear about how authorities bungled multiple chances

00:31:57.500 to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in our country's history

00:32:00.480 and then proceeded to pretend it never happened.

00:32:03.980 These aren't dusty history lessons.

00:32:06.100 There are stories about power, ambition, madness, and the things about Canada that a lot of people would rather ignore.

00:32:12.900 But not you. You won't want to miss an episode.

00:32:16.200 Subscribe to make sure you get all of Season 2 starting March 2026 anywhere you get your podcasts.

00:32:23.720 Keith, I said off the top, why would a nice boy from Burlington, Ontario want to make Alberta a separate country?

00:32:29.820 And I just said that because you and I know each other and I know you grew up in southern Ontario.

00:32:34.900 You moved to Alberta later.

00:32:38.680 At what point did you end up saying, this isn't working, that Alberta should be separate?

00:32:45.840 Because you didn't arrive in Alberta with that position.

00:32:49.040 What was it that made you say, Confederation isn't right?

00:32:54.020 Well, it was two things.

00:32:54.980 It was one, I also lived for six years in Vancouver in my late teens and early 20s.

00:33:01.780 And I was driving back from Vancouver and driving towards Edmonton and I remember coming over a ridge line and I could see beautiful valley vista with a farmer out, farmers out in their fields bailing, you know, the tractors busy in the fields and people busy and then the highway was busy with trucks hauling goods and then there was a train coming that kind of overpassed the highway snaking.

00:33:26.220 It was a beautiful shot, and it was full of all kinds of goods that had been produced and resources in Alberta, and I thought, wow, what an industrious people.

00:33:35.320 And we really are different, having lived in three different parts of the country.

00:33:39.620 There's a real entrepreneurial drive here.

00:33:41.500 There's a real getter done.

00:33:43.260 So that was one thing, but the most turning point for me was realizing how very few things the federal government actually does.

00:33:52.800 you know most of the things that impact any one of us in a day are done by municipalities and from

00:33:59.340 a governmental point of view and and the province the federal government has very very few roles

00:34:04.560 in our daily lives and then i looked at the extent to which they do them extremely poorly that any of

00:34:11.480 us will experience when we go to renew our passport and it's particularly if it's in a rush

00:34:15.360 and you've got to go to a passport office and see how terribly things are run by the federal

00:34:19.340 government. And then once I saw how they were holding Alberta back and most acutely threatening

00:34:26.360 the future prosperity for my children and my grandchildren. So it was a progression of all

00:34:32.020 those factors coming together. Do you believe that, you've got the signatures now, but do you

00:34:40.780 believe that Premier Daniel Smith will follow through on the promise and allow the referendum

00:34:48.880 to happen i do she's kind of boxed in i think my suspicion would be and i haven't talked to her

00:34:56.980 about this so i'm just guessing my suspicion would be that she would prefer a world in which

00:35:01.600 she didn't have to hold an independence referendum in october but she has to and the reason she has

00:35:07.380 to is that's interesting because a lot of people in central canada think premier smith is a

00:35:13.140 separatist no she's not yeah i i don't think so either i i know her i i think she's a federalist

00:35:20.240 um but there's this view oh she's definitely a separatist she just wants alberta on its own

00:35:26.500 you don't see it that way no i don't because um she she she believes in democracy um and she

00:35:35.100 believes in letting the people have a say uh she believes in referendum and she believes in citizen

00:35:40.980 petition and what you're seeing is the uh end product or the out outflow of that process

00:35:48.240 because a former deputy premier thomas lakasik in the summer had a citizen initiative petition as

00:35:56.480 well and achieved the signature threshold to call for a referendum on alberta staying in canada

00:36:03.100 so she has a mandate to hold a referendum from that alone uh i'm not sure what's going to happen

00:36:09.740 with all the attempts by a few First Nations chiefs

00:36:12.800 to block the pure Alberta wants to leave petition,

00:36:18.080 should Alberta cease to be part of Canada petition,

00:36:21.560 but she already has a legal mandate to hold one.

00:36:24.480 And politically, the polls vary,

00:36:27.640 but at least 70% of the UCP membership,

00:36:31.480 her party, the ruling party in Alberta

00:36:33.480 is the United Conservative Party, the UCP,

00:36:37.280 are separatists.

00:36:38.480 so um she could lose i've seen it a bit lower at like 60 but sure it's a majority yeah it moves

00:36:46.820 around i've seen it i've seen it as high as 72 and and as low as 60 um so it's a if you're the

00:36:55.280 leader of a political party just you know looking at this objectively from a political science point

00:36:59.980 of view um you have to be responsive to your base and the real danger and uh former premier

00:37:07.860 premier kenny has spoken to this a number of times recently and i agree with him is that

00:37:14.680 if she doesn't hold a referendum the base will split uh a new political party will likely form

00:37:22.120 on the right uh and then the the new private the new government of alberta in the next election

00:37:27.380 will be an NDP government, as happened once before.

00:37:32.520 So she's kind of stuck where she has to move forward with this.

00:37:38.720 And the only thing that I see potentially stopping

00:37:43.820 the independence wave is fundamental wholesale reforms

00:37:50.040 from the federal government and the provinces

00:37:53.760 allowing Alberta to achieve its potential

00:37:57.540 and allowing us to remove ourselves

00:38:00.740 from a lot of the socialized policies

00:38:03.680 and these ideological policies.

00:38:07.880 And because they're ideological policies

00:38:09.840 and they're driven by ideology,

00:38:12.100 they're not going to do that.

00:38:14.260 Well, so that's kind of where I wanted to go next

00:38:16.660 is let's say, okay, the referendum goes ahead in October.

00:38:21.560 Are you looking to separate

00:38:23.080 Or are you looking for what Ted Byfield used to call refederation, where you want the federation to change again?

00:38:31.760 Kind of going back to what we talked about earlier, the firewall letter, that there are a series of changes that could be made.

00:38:38.420 I outlined some of them, but now it would also include ensuring pipeline development or ensuring that LNG becomes part of the Alberta export economy.

00:38:53.800 Are you looking to fully separate or refederate?

00:38:58.940 And if you're looking to fully separate, would you acknowledge that there's part of the movement leaning towards separation that would be okay with a new deal, per se?

00:39:12.840 absolutely uh there would there would be uh a lot of people who um are there's a lot of people who

00:39:22.180 are not yet separatists or support independence who are deeply troubled about the lack of fairness

00:39:30.340 in the relationship with the rest of canada and um what i like to emphasize is and i'll be brief

00:39:38.920 on this is that um alberta's not you know we're not getting jackhammers around our four borders

00:39:46.220 and bringing in a moving truck like you move a house and moving it down the road we're still

00:39:50.520 going to be here and and and if you want to fly to vancouver from ontario you're still going to

00:39:55.400 need to fly through our airspace etc and the rail and the car and all of these things so i think what

00:40:00.720 would happen is that alberta would enter into a bilateral trade agreement and a free movement of

00:40:05.040 goods and cooperation agreement with the rest of canada and the other provinces but so it wouldn't

00:40:10.600 end there wouldn't be these big steel barriers put up uh and we would never talk again um uh but

00:40:18.080 well good because i quite i quite like stampede quite like the rest of the province

00:40:22.640 well there's a lot of beautiful things here yes and and uh we wouldn't want to impair people from

00:40:28.540 moving to stay together with family from one side to the other so um it would require

00:40:35.580 i just can't see ottawa wanting to give up control over our lives ottawa as carney just

00:40:42.880 demonstrated with his comments on doubling down on net zero he wants to tell us how to live our

00:40:50.360 lives and albertans don't like that um we want to decide how we want to live our lives consistent

00:40:56.560 with what we see as priorities,

00:40:58.600 not what Ottawa sees as priorities.

00:41:00.480 So, but I do agree with you

00:41:02.460 that there are a lot of Albertans

00:41:05.420 who would be satisfied

00:41:06.980 with a reconfederated arrangement.

00:41:10.860 My point is that none of the options

00:41:14.480 short of an independence vote

00:41:16.280 give us any leverage.

00:41:18.100 And former Premier Kenney's

00:41:19.980 equalization referendum proves that.

00:41:22.740 He had a referendum,

00:41:24.240 a clear majority of Albertans

00:41:25.660 wanted a renegotiation of equalization the equalization program and how much money we send

00:41:32.240 to ottawa um and uh he then wrote to the prime minister to to open up a dialogue on it and the

00:41:39.960 prime minister said no and then premier kenny at the time wrote to the other first ministers and

00:41:44.620 said let's hold a first minister's meeting to discuss it he said no and that was the end of

00:41:49.040 it there was nothing he could do oh because most of them are taking in of course so this is my

00:41:54.940 i'm ashamed to say ontario just to emphasize this the only option that forces the federal

00:42:02.880 government to the table that forces as a matter of law constitutional law forces the province to

00:42:09.800 the table and gives alberta negotiating strength is a clear majority voting on a clear question

00:42:16.540 for independence on October 19th.

00:42:20.320 So do you feel like a second-class citizen

00:42:26.720 within Canada?

00:42:28.440 Do you believe or feel or think that

00:42:32.080 those who are supporting your movement

00:42:35.800 now believe that you're second-class citizens

00:42:40.280 within your own country?

00:42:42.520 I don't know if they feel second-class.

00:42:44.200 they feel abused, you know, and shackled, and forced to pay for things that they find offensive.

00:42:52.520 You know, whenever I watched the pattern, whenever there was a new scandal around Prime

00:43:00.420 Minister Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, he would say, you know, we go from having a Pride week

00:43:08.120 to announcing, oh, it's Pride Month, you know, and then people out here in Alberta would lose

00:43:14.040 their minds and then he gets into another scandal and he would make a really blatant deliberate

00:43:18.700 announcement that the federal government is now going to increase their annual spending on you

00:43:24.220 know identity political stuff by 200 million to 500 million and then people would lose their

00:43:29.740 minds it was a wedge issue it was a distraction issue um and it worked so we're just tired of

00:43:35.800 those games um albertans want to get back to basics uh so many of us and we just know our

00:43:42.660 potential. It's remarkable. We have so much potential and it's not just oil and gas. We

00:43:47.460 have an incredible aviation sector. We have an incredible manufacturing sector. We're

00:43:51.220 very innovative. We have incredible agriculture, not only agriculture, but food processing

00:43:57.180 and agribusinesses. So we're extremely diversified economy, but we have the blessing of having

00:44:03.320 the third largest reserve of oil and gas in the world, right beside the largest economy

00:44:09.900 in the world. You've mentioned Premier Jason Kenney a couple of times, former Premier Jason

00:44:16.500 Kenney a few times. He was elected after the NDP, Rachel Notley government, saying that he would

00:44:26.760 stand up for Alberta, fight for Alberta. He was deposed in part because some people felt he didn't,

00:44:33.100 also because of handling of COVID. He was attacked from the left and the right on that.

00:44:37.700 And you ended up with Premier Danielle Smith, who was elected in part to say that she would stand up to Ottawa.

00:44:50.600 I hear all the time that our Premier, Doug Ford, is a liberal who stands with Mark Carney way too much.

00:44:58.820 As much as Doug Ford praises Prime Minister Carney, I haven't seen people as effusive about Prime Minister Carney as I have Scott Moe in Saskatchewan and Danielle Smith in Alberta, two Western premiers in areas where there is a separatist movement, talking about how great he is.

00:45:18.900 Do you feel like she's standing up enough for Alberta? Is she playing a game of trying to negotiate or deal her way into something better for Alberta? How does that play? Because I know how Premier Ford saying anything nice about Mark Carney plays in Ontario.

00:45:39.580 those who love Carney love him a lot those who hate him they're driven to distraction by Ford

00:45:45.380 saying that uh how does that play in Alberta because as I said you know there's one premier

00:45:52.480 out west who's gone on a couple of trade missions with him they can't stop saying enough good things

00:45:56.800 about him is that a net positive is it a negative is it a betrayal of those who said she will fight

00:46:04.640 for Alberta in ways that Kenny and Notley didn't?

00:46:08.060 Well, I think a lot of Albertans are very supportive

00:46:15.980 of Premier Smith because of so many sensible policies

00:46:20.420 she's brought in.

00:46:21.800 For example, we got rid of tabulators,

00:46:24.320 so if you're going to vote in an election,

00:46:25.660 you've got to physically be there and put an X

00:46:27.560 on a piece of paper and have a human count it.

00:46:30.500 I could just go on.

00:46:31.760 The changes she made to the curriculum

00:46:33.520 and trying to get ideology out of our schools.

00:46:37.340 She's done some incredibly good policies

00:46:42.400 that are very reflective of the aspirations

00:46:44.980 and the concerns of Albertans.

00:46:46.820 And that gives her a lot of political clout.

00:46:49.200 It gives her a lot of political credit,

00:46:51.300 political capital.

00:46:52.280 Political capital, that's the term I think

00:46:53.820 is most appropriate.

00:46:55.440 But there's some Albertans who want her

00:46:58.020 just to become a separatist.

00:46:59.580 I'm not one of those.

00:47:00.600 I think her job should be to go down the middle

00:47:03.060 and try and make Canada work,

00:47:05.960 but also let democracy work as well.

00:47:09.700 But I do think it was an error,

00:47:13.300 a well-intended error, good intentions,

00:47:15.900 with the MOU.

00:47:17.420 The MOU was a scam completely from the beginning.

00:47:20.820 It was a bad deal.

00:47:22.140 And could you imagine you and I doing an agreement

00:47:24.360 on something,

00:47:26.340 and the next day you see me at a podium

00:47:30.180 putting in something that you and I know

00:47:34.100 will block the agreement from going ahead.

00:47:36.740 That's bad faith dealing.

00:47:38.920 When Carney stood up and said,

00:47:40.840 yeah, I just did this deal for a pipeline to the coast

00:47:43.120 as long as Premier Smith imposes

00:47:45.320 this incredibly costly regime

00:47:47.520 making the oil and gas industry

00:47:49.300 particularly uneconomic across the board

00:47:52.140 to get this one pipeline to Tidewater.

00:47:54.560 Oh, but by the way, I just gave Premier Eby

00:47:58.460 and the First Nations a veto to block it.

00:48:00.980 Like, come on.

00:48:02.080 So the whole thing's a bad deal.

00:48:03.840 The oil industry's finally come out vocally, publicly,

00:48:06.900 and said, this is a bad deal.

00:48:08.760 It's going to hurt the industry.

00:48:10.560 There's not going to be a pipeline

00:48:11.920 because there's no oil company that can produce the oil

00:48:14.160 to put oil in the pipe.

00:48:16.680 So I think that was a mistake, but she has wide support.

00:48:21.320 I still support her.

00:48:22.700 I think she's a great premier.

00:48:24.440 I think she needs to continue to walk up the middle

00:48:26.600 on the separatism issue and let Albertans decide.

00:48:31.220 And, you know, she has a very difficult job.

00:48:35.780 You mentioned earlier core challenges by Indigenous groups.

00:48:39.400 How do you deal with the fact that there are treaty lands?

00:48:43.020 That in itself would make joining the United States difficult.

00:48:46.760 There are treaties with the Crown.

00:48:49.060 But I have spoken to people who are Alberta separatists who say,

00:48:53.160 oh, it's simple.

00:48:54.300 We remain part of the Commonwealth.

00:48:56.120 We remain part of the crown and those treaties remain.

00:48:59.740 It's just that Alberta is no longer part of Canada.

00:49:02.040 Where do you stand in this?

00:49:04.140 It's actually, that's, people are saying what you just said,

00:49:09.040 but they're getting some of their facts wrong and you've accurately described

00:49:12.080 what they're getting wrong.

00:49:13.940 And it's this, the treaties, all of Alberta is covered by treaties,

00:49:19.240 unlike Ontario and definitely unlike British Columbia.

00:49:22.360 Those treaties were entered into in the 1800s before Alberta was a province.

00:49:26.120 So the jurisdiction of Alberta changed over the course of the treaties, and it came into existence.

00:49:34.780 And the treaties were still honoured, and there was no adverse impact on any First Nations rights at all.

00:49:41.840 Then, when Alberta, unlike Central Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan, when they were formed as provinces in 1905,

00:49:49.620 the federal government maintained ownership of all of the crown lands in the province,

00:49:56.320 including the oil and gas, including the water.

00:49:59.900 And it was a major point of aggravation, led to a separatist movement.

00:50:03.780 In 1930, there was the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement,

00:50:08.040 whereby all of the lands in Alberta that are subject to treaty were transferred.

00:50:14.260 All of the crown lands were transferred from the federal government to the Alberta government.

00:50:18.200 there was a clause and this is part of our constitutional documents the 1930 transfer

00:50:22.640 agreement is a constitutional document there's a clause in there that said the province agrees

00:50:29.180 that by taking over control and getting ownership of all this land and all the minerals and all the

00:50:33.340 resources that it will honor the treaties and the Alberta government will ensure that all of the

00:50:39.240 First Nations traditional rights are honored hence First Nations here do not have to get hunting and

00:50:44.000 fishing licenses for example so we already have an example that's worked in the real world

00:50:48.820 it's not hypothetical this worked there was a change in governmental structure there was a

00:50:54.720 change in governmental ownership and control of domain of sovereignty and it had zero adverse

00:51:00.880 impact on the first nations so what we're hearing from a few select chiefs who are taking these

00:51:06.900 positions without consulting their people uh on their own is just fear-mongering i think it's

00:51:13.500 political favor-seeking for Ottawa. It's got no basis in fact or law. History has shown that

00:51:19.720 Alberta, the lands subject to their treaty can change, and there's no adverse impact. There's

00:51:25.060 also the Jay Treaty from the 1700s that allows First Nations, ever since the 1700s, to move

00:51:32.000 freely across the US border, for example. They don't have to present a passport. You do. I do.

00:51:36.680 They just have to present their treaty card. So we already have a proven example of if Alberta

00:51:41.920 becomes a country and it's an international border. We'll adhere to the Jay Treaty from

00:51:46.100 the 1700s, and they'll have free movement. All right. This is why I like talking to you,

00:51:52.980 Keith. I disagree with you, but you actually have answers and you've thought through the

00:51:56.640 questions ahead of time. So I don't wish you well in your referendum, but I do wish you well

00:52:04.600 personally. And thank you once again for the time and the conversation. Very important discussion

00:52:10.660 for not only Albertans, but all Canadians.

00:52:13.960 So I thank you for the opportunity, Brian.

00:52:16.780 It was, I appreciate it.

00:52:18.500 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:52:20.720 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:52:22.460 This episode was produced by Andre Pru.

00:52:24.600 Theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:52:26.660 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:52:28.620 Please make sure you hit subscribe,

00:52:30.960 share this on social media,

00:52:32.180 tell your friends about us.

00:52:33.600 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:52:35.460 there were so many missed opportunities to catch this before the devastating thing happened

00:52:45.680 a third of them we found literally in the phone book these people were not afraid they knew that

00:52:52.280 nobody was effectively hunting them they knew they had escaped justice that they were going to die in

00:52:58.060 their beds when i give talks at law schools is that the charter ultimately is empowering a minority

00:53:02.420 and it's empowering a minority that's a guild across the country,

00:53:05.620 and it's a fairly elite guild, and the guild is lawyers.

00:53:07.600 Families who were split by referendum and brothers and sisters

00:53:12.740 who never talked to each other for years after the referendum

00:53:15.600 because they were so angry at each other because of emotions on both sides.

00:53:20.380 The reason he was assassinated was not because he was trying to put a satellite into space,

00:53:25.060 but because the gun that he was creating had other applications

00:53:31.160 that made him and the gun very dangerous.

00:53:35.440 It's finally here.

00:53:37.000 A new season of Canada Did What?

00:53:39.280 Post-media podcast that revisits

00:53:41.020 the big Canadian political events

00:53:43.000 you might think you remember

00:53:44.660 and tells you the real story you never knew.

00:53:47.840 I'm Tristan Hopper.

00:53:49.100 The voices you just heard

00:53:50.660 are from our brand new season two.

00:53:53.040 We will unpack some of the pivotal moments

00:53:55.060 that helped define our country,

00:53:56.760 often without a vote,

00:53:58.040 usually without a plan,

00:53:59.060 and sometimes without anyone admitting what they'd done.

00:54:03.440 We'll find out how Canada became a welcoming paradise

00:54:06.340 for untold numbers of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War.

00:54:10.840 We let them build monuments to their wartime exploits

00:54:13.600 and even ended up honoring a Nazi fighter in the House of Commons.

00:54:17.660 And I'm sorry to say that none of that happened by accident.

00:54:21.400 We'll bring you the little-known story of a troubled Canadian rocket scientist

00:54:25.080 who turned to a sinister life of selling giant guns to terrible people.

00:54:30.520 And if that sounds like a spy novel, it ends like one too.

00:54:33.880 You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Quebec's attempted secession from Canada,

00:54:37.940 and how very close we came to a political crisis that would have made Brexit look like a picnic.

00:54:44.120 You'll hear about how the much-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms

00:54:47.960 turned into something its creators never wanted,

00:54:50.760 and how many of the most extravagant warnings about the document

00:54:54.320 were all quickly proven true.

00:54:56.940 And you'll even hear about how authorities bungled multiple chances

00:55:00.560 to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in our country's history

00:55:03.520 and then proceeded to pretend it never happened.

00:55:07.020 These aren't dusty history lessons.

00:55:09.160 They're stories about power, ambition, madness,

00:55:11.820 and the things about Canada that a lot of people would rather ignore.

00:55:15.940 But not you!

00:55:17.300 You won't want to miss an episode.

00:55:19.240 Subscribe to make sure you get all of Season 2 starting March 2026

00:55:23.220 anywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - May 11, 2026

This is why so many Albertans want to separate

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