John Bolton - May 11, 2026


Alberta's Constitution - 3 Possibilities - Have Your Say On Your Future


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

192.23367

Word count

2,231

Sentence count

93

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Jason Levine, Angela Tabak, and Kathy Flett join me to talk about the importance of women in Alberta's independence movement. They discuss the need for women to have a voice in the independence movement, and why it is so important for them to be a part of it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. Great to have you along today. And I wanted to talk
00:00:09.040 to these people you see on the screen right here about something I think is of great interest to
00:00:14.100 people moving forward when it comes to the Alberta independence movement. As you can see,
00:00:18.620 I've got Jason Levine here, Angela Tabak in the bottom right, and Kathy Flett in the bottom left.
00:00:24.760 And Kathy and Angela have been part of the Alberta Women's Independent Network, which I have been very happy to be part of, proud to have started off this series of interviews over the last several weeks, talking about Alberta independence.
00:00:38.160 But other issues as well have got into the discussion.
00:00:41.620 And we've got a discussion coming up that Jason will be hosting to talk about the Constitution.
00:00:48.460 And this is something I know that has been discussed for months.
00:00:51.380 and I think they've had a constitution for the most part drafted for an independent Alberta
00:00:56.080 since before Christmas last year, although it's being tweaked. It's sort of, I guess we could say
00:01:01.520 a living document at this point. And we're going to have an interesting discussion about this on
00:01:06.960 Monday night with three terrific guests, which Jason will tell us about in just a moment. But
00:01:11.600 I wanted to talk to Kathy and to Angela first. First off, thank you for letting me be part of
00:01:16.040 this. I started this off a couple of weeks ago. Tell us about the Alberta Women's Independent
00:01:21.360 Network and why you're doing this. Maybe Angela, you can start this off. Sure. And thank you so 0.99
00:01:26.580 much, John, for being a part of this. It's been so exciting. So the Alberta Women's Independence
00:01:32.360 is actually Independence Network. That's all right. It's something that we started a little
00:01:38.260 over a year ago. And our whole focus has been in engaging Albertans with a focus on women who
00:01:45.400 perhaps historically personally have not had a lot to do with politics who have not been a part
00:01:51.720 of the conversation that we find ourselves in now in alberta and so what we've been doing
00:01:58.920 is we've been going across the province we've been meeting in people's homes in local restaurants
00:02:04.360 cafes and even town halls speaking to albertans and inviting them to become a part of this really
00:02:11.720 important conversation and so we've been doing the last three four weeks a speaker series that
00:02:20.360 Kathy can kind of tell you a little bit about. Sure so as we were going around literally the
00:02:26.840 whole entire province of Alberta the same questions kept coming up and the same concerns kept coming
00:02:32.440 up and so another gal that works with us came to us with this document that Colonel Redmond had
00:02:39.400 written not very long ago just a couple of years ago and said what about these six pillars what if
00:02:43.640 we explore these six pillars and uh we said okay and then the idea is just morphed into this
00:02:50.520 into this series that we've done and the idea was to get our local podcasters alberta is filled with
00:02:56.440 amazing local podcasters you two are two of many and and some subject matter experts and those
00:03:03.240 subject matter experts did not need to be from alberta they could be from anywhere and the
00:03:09.080 conversations in these in these podcasts that we've had exploring these six pillars have gone
00:03:14.440 in directions that we couldn't have even imagined when when this idea first came to be and now
00:03:20.920 there's a hunger for more people don't want it to stop they want us to keep going so we will
00:03:25.560 yeah we'll get to you in a second jason you're waiting patiently there but i do have a question
00:03:29.240 for Angela and for Kathy right now.
00:03:32.080 I had Tanya Clemens on the channel 0.81
00:03:33.740 a couple of months back,
00:03:34.920 and I said,
00:03:35.820 do you think, Tanya,
00:03:37.500 it's important for women
00:03:38.540 to have a strong voice in this movement?
00:03:40.260 I know, Kathy, you're out speaking
00:03:42.060 in different events,
00:03:43.300 and obviously you've got this voice here 0.95
00:03:45.960 with the women who put together this network
00:03:48.280 in this series of interviews.
00:03:49.820 How important are women's faces and voices
00:03:52.860 going forward in the independence movement?
00:03:55.280 Either one of you can take this question.
00:03:58.020 well we are literally 50 of the population so if if we want to achieve albert independence we've
00:04:05.780 got to have the women on board and the fact of the matter is is that um as women we're just 0.83
00:04:12.180 wired differently than men not better not worse just different and we see things in a different
00:04:18.660 way and from a different perspective and what i just noticed is that like for myself personally
00:04:24.580 a lot of the messaging that was coming out about alberta independence was not appealing to me it
00:04:29.460 was not addressing the things that i was particularly concerned about and so as i
00:04:35.780 started talking to other women in my neighborhood i realized i was not alone in that and um and so
00:04:41.940 yeah we've got to have messaging that hits all demographics and that that is able to speak to
00:04:49.060 all demographics across Alberta if we are going to be successful.
00:04:53.700 Okay. You know, after you came back with that terrific answer there at the stop, I thought,
00:04:58.920 you know, that was kind of a dumb question. You are 50% of the population. Jason, I want to find 0.96
00:05:03.760 out about this event. What do you think? I mean, obviously women have to have a voice in this. And
00:05:08.920 as Angela so deftly said, there are a little bit more than 50% of the population. How important
00:05:15.480 important is their voice and then tell us about this conversation you're having on Monday night 1.00
00:05:19.680 you're asking me this question no I'm asking Jason okay Jason women are incredibly important 0.98
00:05:27.100 absolutely and I will have to fact check and I say fact check true that they're not more important 1.00
00:05:32.720 or less important they're just different and that's why I have a show here with my wife every
00:05:36.760 morning and we have these conversations to get that other perspective there but we're going to
00:05:41.000 have Matthew Rowley, who's going to be advocating for a repair of the current Canadian Constitution
00:05:46.900 as a starting point for Alberta. We're going to then have Bruce Pardee, who's going to be on the
00:05:52.260 other end of the spectrum there, talking about a completely different radical change, which is a
00:05:56.820 less power for the government and a smaller size for the government. And then right there in the
00:06:03.460 middle, we're going to have Dennis. He's going to be talking about how we can make changes and take
00:06:08.380 something like the Canadian and the American Constitution and merge them together to make a
00:06:13.020 much better, stronger constitution, something people are a little bit more familiar with and
00:06:17.200 understand that ends up in a republic. So I'm excited to have all three of these gentlemen
00:06:21.400 to talk about a spectrum of options and conversations about how a new constitution
00:06:25.980 for the nation of Alberta can be materialized for the people, by the people, and then at one point
00:06:31.380 ratified by the people. So I'm looking forward to that one. Yeah, I know Dennis, I mean, Dennis has
00:06:36.180 been working on the Constitution for Alberta, and I've talked to him about this for several months
00:06:41.340 now. And I know he's had discussions with Bruce as well about this, and I'm sure he's taken in
00:06:47.720 some information and probably tried to integrate some of what Mr. Party has to say. Bringing
00:06:53.100 Matthew Rowley into this is interesting as well. I've had a chance to speak with him.
00:06:57.420 What do you think? I know, Jason, you're doing this on Monday night because you've got a bit
00:07:01.060 of a background and you've talked about the Constitution quite a bit. Do you think we can
00:07:05.780 marry two different systems together to get something that a majority of Albertans will
00:07:09.760 agree upon if we get our independence in October? Well, I think what most Albertans want is a
00:07:15.260 different system, one that has representation, is a lot more fair, and it does listen to the people,
00:07:20.520 along with a lot more direct democracy, where the people have a say in what happens
00:07:26.220 throughout the government. It's not once every four years, four years that we actually have this.
00:07:30.900 Now, Matthew Rowley's position is a little interesting because he's not saying,
00:07:34.360 let's take the current Canadian system and work with it.
00:07:37.060 He's saying, let's go back to the original one,
00:07:39.160 which is before Pierre Elliott Trudeau changed it and messed it up.
00:07:43.860 His perspective is it was actually perverted at that point in time,
00:07:47.700 and it was functioning fine before then.
00:07:49.940 So he's actually advocating to go back to and repair the Canadian system
00:07:53.980 before that and start there.
00:07:55.840 But what I really enjoy about having this conversation at this point is
00:07:59.300 a lot of Albertans are waiting for the how.
00:08:01.660 Like, how do we get this done?
00:08:03.640 The why is pretty clear to many people at this stage.
00:08:06.480 The how is not so clear.
00:08:08.140 And about 20% of Canadians, and you can assume it's about 20% of Albertans,
00:08:12.360 do like the Commonwealth, and they do like the king being part of the head of state.
00:08:17.360 So that's still a large chunk of people that shouldn't be ignored.
00:08:19.940 So Matthew bringing that conversation to the table, I think, is important.
00:08:23.120 But the one thing that all three of these gentlemen have in common
00:08:25.720 is we need to have a new system that has to start with independence for Alberta.
00:08:31.460 So this is not about repairing inside of Canada.
00:08:33.780 This is about a new nation and how we should birth it.
00:08:36.860 Monday, May 11th at 5 p.m.
00:08:38.800 And of course, you'll be able to see it on Jason's channel.
00:08:40.920 I think we're going to be streaming it on my channel as well.
00:08:42.720 So I hope you'll watch it.
00:08:43.880 Kathy, I want to ask you this. 1.00
00:08:45.780 You've got a small group of women right now arranging these events.
00:08:48.780 Can people get involved with your organization and how do they do that? 1.00
00:08:52.900 Easily. Absolutely.
00:08:54.620 The easiest way is probably just connect with us on our social media pages.
00:08:58.060 so we've got one on x and we're on facebook as well you can sign up for our newsletter so you
00:09:03.340 can stay in the know of everything that's that's going on and if anybody wants to have a home
00:09:09.100 meeting let us know we're happy to come we'll go wherever like we keep saying have wheels we'll
00:09:15.020 travel and and we will we'll go wherever and um always looking for ladies too who are willing to 0.99
00:09:20.780 to do what we do, right?
00:09:23.240 Like it's better, Angela and I are happy to do it,
00:09:26.960 but more hands make light work.
00:09:28.880 And so anybody else who wants to learn the presentation
00:09:31.880 that we give to be able to do it themselves,
00:09:33.920 we're happy to equip them to do that as well.
00:09:36.180 And Angela, wrap things up with you here.
00:09:37.900 You're obviously looking for people who are coming out
00:09:39.600 who are gonna ask difficult questions as well.
00:09:42.040 I know by looking at Let's Talk Alberta, Cathy,
00:09:44.820 you've been involved with that very much,
00:09:46.680 making and having discussions.
00:09:48.380 They're always looking for objections because they want to counter those objections.
00:09:53.440 I suppose it's the same.
00:09:54.880 You're looking for people who are sitting on the fence who are dead set against independence here in Alberta?
00:10:00.460 Absolutely.
00:10:01.240 And this is also one of the opportunities that we have for tomorrow night because it will be live streamed.
00:10:05.880 If there are folks that want to get involved that have questions or have objections, please get on with the live stream.
00:10:12.340 We'll be following the chat.
00:10:13.960 We're going to try to answer as many of those questions as we can.
00:10:18.380 and it is an opportunity for people to ask questions we asking questions is part of the
00:10:25.440 discussion it's probably the most important part of the discussion that we need to have
00:10:28.700 and we need to as Albertans get back to being able to have hard discussions and be able to kind of
00:10:38.100 duke it out in a really polite and respectful way if we're going to find the best solution for our
00:10:44.020 province it's got to be we've got to be able to look at all the different angles and honestly
00:10:49.120 assess each each idea and eventually come to that the best solution possible thank you very much
00:10:56.420 angela kathy i appreciate you very much thanks for including me in this jason as always a pleasure
00:11:01.700 to talk to you good luck with this discussion bruce party dennis kalma matthew rowley five o'clock
00:11:07.200 monday of course you can check it out after that uh on jason's channel be sure to subscribe to
00:11:12.980 Jason Levine, for goodness sakes, everywhere. If you aren't, you should be. And it'll be on my
00:11:19.660 channel as well. The best to all of you. Thank you for joining me as we record this early on
00:11:24.740 Sunday morning. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. If you like this
00:11:30.680 video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications. I will
00:11:34.820 see you in the next one.