John Bolton - Alberta’s Future： 3 Constitutional Models

00:00:00.000 good evening and thank you everybody for joining a special episode of the levine show as we have

00:00:07.120 quite the panel for you if you've been paying attention to social media the last day or so

00:00:12.300 john bolton and others we have a collection of constitutional conversations for you we're going

00:00:19.160 to presume this is now october 20th and we're starting the conversation about what comes next

00:00:24.080 because if there is a successful referendum on october 19th we need to start thinking about this

00:00:29.200 And what's better time to start than now?

00:00:31.760 As part of the Alberta Women's Independence Network series, this is episode number seven.

00:00:37.640 And what we're doing is we're going to present to you the conversation with Bruce Pardee.

00:00:42.520 We've got Matthew Broderley and Dennis Calama, who's going to talk about different types of constitutions.

00:00:48.580 And we'll just grab that comment. There we go.

00:00:51.720 And first, we'll go ahead and bring in the Alberta's Women's Independence Network to talk a bit about this episode.

00:00:59.200 We've got Angela, Kathy and Pat. Thanks for joining us all. Here we go. This is the big

00:01:05.700 day. Number seven. You guys have been crushing it for six solid episodes. So thank you very

00:01:11.000 much for doing that. Let's go ahead and start with Angela. Angela, why are we here today?

00:01:15.800 Well, the Alberta Women's Independence Network is a group of ladies that we got together

00:01:22.560 a little over a year ago, and our focus has been on reaching out to Albertan women. We also have

00:01:29.660 men that join us as well, but reaching out to Albertan women and inviting them to join the

00:01:35.220 conversation around Alberta independence. Our focus has been on education and building community

00:01:41.760 through respectful dialogue. So as we've been going around the province holding meetings,

00:01:47.320 and our focus is smaller meetings, in-home meetings, sometimes local cafes, restaurants,

00:01:51.840 and sometimes town halls more one-on-one face-to-face conversations we keep hearing the

00:01:57.840 same questions about well what would this look like what would it what could it practically be

00:02:04.320 if we were to become an independent uh country of alberta and it was the same questions over and

00:02:11.040 over again and so a couple months ago um we got together and started to discuss like how can we

00:02:20.080 address these questions in a really meaningful way and we came up with the idea of using a paper

00:02:26.720 that colonel redmond colonel david redmond had put out in 2024 discussing six national interests

00:02:34.960 that must be addressed and used in a successful country now his paper was geared towards

00:02:42.240 canada kind of a call back to what it used to be but when we looked at that paper we realized this

00:02:47.680 is exactly the perfect framework for this discussion around an independent Alberta and so

00:02:56.000 we've been holding as you said a series of episodes where we've brought in different speakers

00:03:03.920 to address these different national interests some of the speakers are from Alberta some of them

00:03:10.080 have been from outside of Alberta and we've also invited many of our Albertan podcasters such as

00:03:17.120 yourself jason such as john bolton and corey morgan and a few others to join us in this to

00:03:22.480 spread this message of um this discussion that we're having fantastic that's a great introduction

00:03:28.640 and if you haven't caught any of those episodes or even just a couple go catch up after this one

00:03:32.800 as well because it all comes together i think quite well here so kathy uh great job why this

00:03:39.440 episode and why these three people because no matter where we go or who we're talking to people

00:03:46.240 want to know what about our constitution what about what is this going to look like what what's

00:03:51.760 going to govern us and and how can i say yes to something that i don't have an answer to yet and

00:03:57.360 so it's been really fun to watch people make that journey through the why the why seems to be

00:04:01.200 satisfied now it's can we do this and how as angela said what's it going to look like after

00:04:07.040 and so as we were sitting down the three of us and discussing okay well who could we reach out

00:04:12.320 two for podcasters and we got that list down but now who could we reach out to for subject matter

00:04:17.760 experts well these three gentlemen i mean their names just immediately rose to the top and came

00:04:22.800 out it just made perfect sense and the fact that each of them come at this from a different angle

00:04:28.960 helps us know that the conversation is going to be very well-rounded that it's going to probably

00:04:34.160 touch everybody's concerns everybody's wants everybody's needs um all the things that people

00:04:39.200 are thinking about should be pretty close to address by bringing these three guys together

00:04:44.080 and thankfully none of them said no so here we are and i'm i'm pen and paper ready man i'm i'm

00:04:51.520 ready to take notes i'm ready to learn from them and i'm really excited to be able to foster and

00:04:56.480 facilitate this conversation so that albertans can now take it home and continue to have it as

00:05:02.720 we go through the summer and get together with family and friends and maybe this could be just

00:05:06.960 the fireside chat of the summer of 2026 as what is our constitution going to look like

00:05:13.120 fantastic i'm excited as well i've spoken to all three gentlemen at different times

00:05:16.640 now we have them all together and there's gonna be a lot of cooks in this kitchen

00:05:20.160 but i have a feeling it's gonna be very civil pet um as we're going through this one well how

00:05:25.040 important is it to you that the audience engages and asks questions and gets involved as we do

00:05:29.920 that as a second half of this episode uh very very important in fact that's kind of the primary

00:05:36.960 point of going live and I think it fosters because a lot of people think like well okay

00:05:42.700 who's going to be the boss of the new Alberta and the whole point that we're trying to get across is

00:05:48.300 that everyone needs to get involved because it's a democratic process so the more people get

00:05:54.140 involved and the more questions they ask and comments they make and criticisms they bring

00:06:00.520 forth the better we can build uh this new independent alberta so please jump in and

00:06:06.520 we look forward to hearing from your comments fantastic i think we're in great hands having

00:06:11.560 the three of you putting these together running around alberta having conversations and i'm very

00:06:15.640 excited to get this started so we're going to bring you back at the end during the q a portion

00:06:19.960 and thank you very much for being here ladies appreciate that a lot thank you okay audience

00:06:25.640 make sure that you go start putting your questions and comments in there and uh don't be afraid to

00:06:30.360 direct it to a particular panel member or the entire panel or just a general question on what

00:06:35.400 you think is going on and then we'll take our best shot at it keep in mind this isn't a debate we're

00:06:40.040 not trying to see who wins and also understand that we can't set policy at this stage these are

00:06:45.320 just ideas and conversations at this stage that's why we have so many of them so don't think you're

00:06:50.600 going to walk away from this understanding exactly where alberta is going to be is multiple paths

00:06:55.400 and at some point in the future then we'll have a conversation at probably the constitutional

00:06:59.720 convention on exactly what we have so without further ado let's go ahead and bring in dennis

00:07:04.440 kelma bruce party and matthew rowley nice to see you all gentlemen as i bring you up here okay so

00:07:13.640 so what i'm going to do is i'm going to go around the panel quick introduction on each of you uh and

00:07:18.840 then kind of throw in what is your position on the spectrum of constitutional options we'll start with

00:07:25.080 dennis so um are you gonna ask me questions or you're only just to tell me to tell people what

00:07:31.800 i think well first introduce yourself and then just give us your perspective on the spectrum so

00:07:36.680 where do you fit on the spectrum of the constitutional options so my name is dennis

00:07:40.520 calvin the only one that probably doesn't have deep constitutional education so i tend to come

00:07:45.880 at the world primarily from a literally average citizen point of view and that point of view

00:07:52.200 which i've grown to over time based in part on learnings from bruce party and from matthew

00:07:58.760 is that the legitimacy of the government flows exclusively from the people through an explicit

00:08:06.200 written constitution and that government only exists within constitutional boundaries

00:08:12.360 rights are very specific textual and clearly understandable powers of

00:08:19.080 government are enumerated specifically in anything not stated explicitly is

00:08:24.720 prohibited and you can amend the Constitution but it's somewhat

00:08:28.180 difficult so in simple terms a constitutional Republican like myself

00:08:32.160 seeks liberty with structure democracy with limits and state authority with

00:08:37.760 explicit constraints. So that's the point of view I have. Okay, fantastic. Bruce, same question to

00:08:43.580 you, a little bit about yourself, and then where do you fit on the constitutional spectrum?

00:08:49.680 Thanks, Jason. I'm the Ontario interloper in this session. I'm a prof at the law school at

00:08:58.220 Queens, and I run a small think tank called Rights Probe, and I've been talking about the

00:09:04.000 new possible constitution for alberta for for quite a while now i would i would put the spectrum this

00:09:09.700 way dennis is the middle man uh i am probably the most radical and matthew is radical in his own way

00:09:21.960 he wants to take us back to something that we used to have and uh sort of sort of still have but not

00:09:27.540 exactly so my take is that alberta is going hopefully is going to have a moment where all

00:09:37.200 things are possible and one of the choices it will have if it chooses to take it is to design

00:09:46.020 a free country i mean an actually free country and that depends upon its constitution

00:09:51.880 If it doesn't take that opportunity, then it will end up adopting something for its constitution that it is used to, and that is part of the problem.

00:10:03.380 So I would characterize these three models this way, if I may.

00:10:07.680 Matthew's model is a legislative supremacy model.

00:10:13.900 The legislature can do anything, not restrained by the courts.

00:10:17.040 dennis's model is a checks and balances model it it tries to insert uh institutions to try

00:10:28.680 and control each other in competition with each other courts and legislatures and executive and

00:10:34.160 so on and my model is a is a is a freedom model it's a flipped default model and that means that

00:10:44.240 essentially that everybody

00:10:46.200 has ownership of their own lives

00:10:48.460 and that the state

00:10:50.280 is not empowered

00:10:52.140 not legislatures, not courts

00:10:54.340 not executive branch

00:10:55.580 nobody is empowered

00:10:57.920 to provide for the

00:10:59.960 general welfare, the public interest

00:11:02.380 the common good

00:11:03.220 in a way that would require

00:11:06.160 setting aside your freedom

00:11:08.260 so my model is the

00:11:10.240 individual first

00:11:11.120 all right you pretty much laid that out there now uh matthew how close is he on that one uh

00:11:17.820 the traditional uh going back a little bit go ahead and introduce yourself and give us your

00:11:22.680 position on the spectrum of the constitutional options yeah so i'm dr matthew rowley president

00:11:28.020 of renew alberta and uh bruce said it pretty well i i do think that there's something that we can go

00:11:34.420 back to uh that though pierre trudeau wrecked our system and though there is opportunity to adjust

00:11:42.740 in a new constitution and and change a little bit here and there tweak it we started with something

00:11:48.260 good and it's much better to adjust what is good than to try to remake out of whole cloth something

00:11:55.460 that may or may not work and then we end up with an equal or an opposite problem so the key elements

00:12:01.380 that i value in our system are responsible government uh parliamentary structure separate

00:12:07.620 roles for the head of state and the head of government uh first past the post system of

00:12:12.900 electoral uh method and then uh a unified power between the executive and the legislative and an

00:12:20.260 independent judiciary in a non-partisan public sector these are kind of the foundations that

00:12:25.780 make up our system it's got a thousand year history to it of development and change that's

00:12:30.340 led us to this. That means it can be flexible where it has to change, but also we have something

00:12:36.320 that we can start with that has proven to be robust over many, many years. So that is what

00:12:42.640 I advocate for. It would be probably the most conservative position from a Canadian or an 0.95

00:12:47.840 Albertan point of view, but it's good to have this opportunity to talk it through.

00:12:53.700 Fantastic. Thank you, Matthew. So what I'm going to do for this first question is going to be the

00:12:57.100 same question for all three of you gentlemen it's going to be and i'm going to go from the

00:13:01.400 most familiar which will be matt uh all the way to bruce so that'll be the order go matt dennis

00:13:07.160 bruce um what is uh you advocating for that is good so give me one or two things that are good

00:13:14.260 and then one or two things that will be different so for example matt you say go back to before

00:13:19.820 pierre elliot trudeau can you remind the listeners what you mean by that so what's a couple things

00:13:25.500 that are good about the system you're talking about,

00:13:27.440 and how did it change or go bad with Pierre-Eli Trudeau?

00:13:31.420 Sounds good.

00:13:32.300 Well, it provides us a system of responsible government

00:13:35.060 where the legislature is supreme,

00:13:38.720 but it's not an empty supremacy or an authoritarian supremacy.

00:13:42.100 There still must be a responsibility to the people who elect the legislature,

00:13:46.560 and it's not merely at the time of election,

00:13:50.100 but during their government they have the requirement

00:13:52.540 to actually stay responsible to the people that they've been elected by.

00:13:57.220 In addition to that, we have the reserve power of the Crown

00:13:59.800 that allows for a kind of a final safety catch if things go bad.

00:14:04.780 As far as the Canadian experience now,

00:14:08.740 Pierre Trudeau basically destroyed our Westminster system

00:14:12.200 by placing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms into his new constitution,

00:14:15.880 which actually created a judicial supremacy

00:14:18.660 where the Supreme Court has the right to overthrow law.

00:14:23.040 The legislature can make a law

00:14:25.420 and the Supreme Court can say,

00:14:26.560 no, that's not constitutional and overturn it.

00:14:28.620 And we've seen them do that a lot.

00:14:30.660 So a significant problem that I have

00:14:32.580 with the present day system

00:14:34.240 is the way that it's been changed

00:14:36.340 to provide the courts with a sure way

00:14:39.580 to destroy the will of the people if they so want

00:14:42.460 and to push especially progressive agendas.

00:14:46.800 Okay, thank you very much.

00:14:47.900 Now, Dennis, when we go to you, some Canadians are probably familiar with the Constitutional Republic.

00:14:53.620 Can you lay out a couple items that would be a benefit?

00:14:56.880 And then a couple things that you would change or tweak, if any, with what we're familiar with with the U.S. system.

00:15:03.180 So the things that people will see that would be different under a constitutional republic is, first of all, the people are truly supreme.

00:15:13.020 You'd see that in the areas of things like referenda, controlling what government can do, binding referenda.

00:15:20.400 You'd see things like your rights explicitly defined and spelled out in a very textual fashion

00:15:26.620 that cannot be fiddled around with by a judge who happens to like something different.

00:15:33.060 And you see very clear paths of what government can and cannot do.

00:15:37.860 And those are the things that you really can restrict government right down to, for example, putting a cap on how much money they can spend.

00:15:45.500 So locking them in financially.

00:15:47.880 So a couple of things that I think we can add in compared to the U.S. system and the ones that are near and dear to my heart are things like term limits.

00:15:56.000 I think the penalty for a bad politician is far larger than the penalty of losing a good one.

00:16:04.520 So we see things like explicit term limits.

00:16:06.440 you get your eight years in office and that's it you're done for your life the other things we see

00:16:12.360 is again the referendum which i mentioned mentioned earlier which is any citizen can

00:16:16.760 make a referendum and actually make it stick on the government now you need enough votes

00:16:22.360 you can't be just a minority doing this but it has to move that way and um so if you push on

00:16:28.280 those things and tied with one last innovation growing largely from the westminster system

00:16:35.400 and that is the idea of an oversight branch that is actually the last sober thought to make sure

00:16:41.320 the rest of government is adhering to the terms of the constitution so that's an addition that

00:16:46.440 we put in compared to the american system and we think will help stop lock-up that you see

00:16:51.560 down there frequently okay fantastic uh well done um okay so bruce we're going to come to you and

00:16:57.720 this is going to be a little bit different because it's a new type of system it's very radical

00:17:01.720 so can you hit us with a couple of the items that you think are really important to understand

00:17:05.960 and then kind of lay out um a couple of the items that you think people really should understand

00:17:10.920 from a cautionary standpoint like this won't be there or that won't be there maybe address two

00:17:16.360 things that i think you think are good and then a couple things that people have to wrap their

00:17:20.040 head around that you think are important well one way to explain it is to contrast it with the

00:17:24.440 models that dennis and matthew are talking about now those two are also very different but here's

00:17:29.400 is one thing they have in common they're both talking about giving power to the people

00:17:33.960 but it's very important to understand that that what what this is and is not they're talking

00:17:40.420 about giving power to the people in the democratic sense that is yeah you can vote it does not mean

00:17:46.500 giving power to the people individually it doesn't might it does not mean that you are free and by

00:17:51.560 that i mean this if the people elect a government with the mandate to provide for the general

00:17:58.660 welfare and that government with the support of the people decide that it needs to override your

00:18:05.780 freedom then it will have the mandate to do that so for example let's consider covid

00:18:13.140 covid the covid regime that a lot of us did not like was a product of legislatures

00:18:20.660 and bureaucracies executive branch if you adopt matthew's model that's what you're going to be

00:18:27.700 able to get. Legislatures are supreme. Therefore, they can do anything they want, as long as they

00:18:32.940 have the approval of the people. Now, my model works differently in this sense. One of the things

00:18:39.340 that both Dennis's and Matthew's model does is start out with a default position. The premise

00:18:45.380 is this. If you are elected as a legislature, or if you are a court, if you put all the parts of

00:18:51.500 the state together, courts and legislatures and executives, the state can do anything. Its powers

00:18:57.480 are unlimited. Its subject matter jurisdiction

00:18:59.420 is unlimited. Now, Dennis'

00:19:01.620 model, unlike Matthew's,

00:19:04.020 sets out an exception.

00:19:06.240 All powerful,

00:19:07.840 except.

00:19:09.060 And the exception in Dennis' model is

00:19:11.260 your list of rights.

00:19:13.900 So the state can do anything

00:19:15.560 except those things that a court decides

00:19:17.820 when it's gone too far, like your freedom of speech.

00:19:20.980 Okay?

00:19:21.640 That also didn't work during COVID.

00:19:24.000 A lot of us were enraged

00:19:25.280 because the legislatures and bureaucracy has done a certain thing and then the courts wouldn't fix

00:19:30.060 it. They said it's fine. My model flips the default. It goes like this. The state, all of

00:19:37.800 its bits, legislature, executive courts can do nothing. It has no powers except. And now

00:19:48.940 we'll talk about what we want the state to actually have the power to do. And I've been

00:19:53.480 listing essentially three things. You want the state to, number one, keep the peace. You don't

00:19:59.620 want riots in the street. You don't want to be attacked by your neighbor. You want to be able

00:20:02.660 to call the police. Number two, resolve disputes. If you and your neighbor are fighting over a

00:20:08.600 fence, you want a place to go to, a neutral place like a court to resolve the dispute.

00:20:13.860 And number three, protect the country. You want a military. You want borders. You want to make

00:20:19.840 treaties so one two and three protect protect uh keep the peace resolve disputes protect the

00:20:26.880 country and not very much else and if you have that structure that architecture that means by

00:20:35.000 definition you are free because the state does not have the power or jurisdiction to do otherwise

00:20:43.160 it does not have the power to restrict your speech it does not have the power to restrict your

00:20:47.480 religion and so on so under my model you do not actually have to try to list all of the rights

00:20:53.800 that you think you ought to have because they're already done you've already done the most important

00:20:58.200 bit which is restrain the state now there are a whole lot of details that need to be filled in but

00:21:02.480 i'll leave it there for now yeah we'll end it right there fantastic and i'm the one that

00:21:07.500 restricts the speech around here today so sorry about that so the next one will go dennis bruce

00:21:12.860 and matt um we've seen overreach of all kinds of governments everywhere what mechanisms would there

00:21:20.540 be within yours dennis that could help restrict respond or even uh hold uh to account uh out of

00:21:28.220 control government so i know bruce and i have our challenges about agreeing on this but i think you

00:21:35.420 can define the rights that are applicable in a fairly succinct fashion like under 15 or so

00:21:42.220 blanket it together so i think you can say basically as long as i can speak as long as i

00:21:46.860 can move as long as i can bear firearms whatever i'm good and the the control is that if government

00:21:54.300 tried to impose covid you would you would basically cross over several of those enumerated rights

00:22:01.900 plus of course you would have the option to go at the government via referendum and in the

00:22:07.340 constitution draft we've been putting together there is no mechanism for the government to

00:22:11.900 overrule a um a referendum to overrule a right um without going to the people for a constitutional

00:22:20.380 amendment which the people will not buy into is my view so i think that there are ways to protect

00:22:26.620 against those kinds of things within a constitutional republic okay bruce same question what mechanisms

00:22:35.260 would be in place to deal with any overreach if it happens well i just want okay i i want to

00:22:41.520 address one of the big tensions in these models which is the conflict we think the conflict is

00:22:47.380 between people and the government and it often is but there's a conflict between the individual

00:22:54.220 and the group the individual and the mob so if you rule by referendum if you give power to the

00:23:01.600 people to vote in a referendum on everything you know every major thing that comes up you give it

00:23:06.280 to a vote okay so just let's go back to COVID for a minute if during COVID you gave power to the

00:23:12.700 people to decide in a referendum what's going to happen and you gave a referendum that said

00:23:17.380 do you think that everybody could be required to take a vaccine and if 75 percent of the people

00:23:26.360 said yes then everybody would be required to take a vaccine your rights notwithstanding because

00:23:34.920 that's the premise of the system you're giving power to the people to say you're giving power

00:23:38.440 to the mob that the the alternative is to say look there are just some places that the state cannot

00:23:45.400 go it only has a certain number of powers and if and if the if the if the subject matter does not

00:23:52.360 fall within those powers i'm sorry there's nothing you can do i want to make another very basic point

00:23:58.520 here's them here's a trap the constitution does not just run on the words that are stated on the

00:24:06.520 assumption that what the words say is what will be honored we have words in our constitution now in

00:24:11.800 the canadian constitution they say a certain thing and we found out lo and behold that the court

00:24:18.120 doesn't think that they mean what they say so if you empower an institution whether it's the

00:24:24.840 legislature or whether it's the court to have the final say on what the cost is and what it means

00:24:34.920 then essentially you're being you're being ruled by that institution and not by the constitution

00:24:41.000 you're being ruled by the people in that institution and not by the words in the

00:24:45.560 constitution your constitution has to be built structured in such a way that there is nobody

00:24:53.160 with lasting power inside the state to be able to demand that everybody do things the way they think

00:24:59.560 they want it to be okay and matt so we're going to kind of massage this one a little bit for you

00:25:05.960 let's go to the pre-pierre elliot trudeau version not the post one because the post one we've seen

00:25:11.880 it's difficult to deal with overreach what mechanisms would be in place if we went to

00:25:16.680 a more traditional version so first of all in bna you looked uh the federal and the provincial each

00:25:24.060 have their sphere where they have uh the task of doing the governance in those areas i actually

00:25:29.140 agree with bruce that we could limit those even more and say you know there's a few less that

00:25:33.600 they can get involved with but beyond that you have a senate and a crown that both provide

00:25:39.340 a means of sober second thought when they're done right when you don't import wing nuts into the

00:25:44.400 senate they actually can stop crazy laws and say hold on a second we should think about this you're

00:25:49.100 invoking the emergencies act because somebody set up a bouncy castle uh we also have to instill the

00:25:55.640 idea that used to be more common that people don't look to the government for absolutely everything

00:25:59.760 that the government cannot be at the center again bruce is just uh basically a 1200s richard the

00:26:05.540 second era Westminster guy. So good job, Bruce. And then I think we also need to recognize that

00:26:12.020 true legislative supremacy means that if a government goes off track, then when we vote

00:26:17.860 them out, the legislature that follows does have the ability to straighten it out and correct

00:26:23.200 what's done. Now that is a slower process, a more conservative process. It's not quite so

00:26:28.840 satisfactory because you can't instantly throw the bums out or stop what they're doing. But if we have 1.00

00:26:34.600 the ability to vote in a new party into power that can truly make changes, then if one party

00:26:41.180 goes off the rails and the chamber of sober second thought fails, you have the opportunity

00:26:45.940 to adjust it as when the NDP were thrown out in Alberta and the UCP came in and started

00:26:51.960 changing things back to fix the problems that were done during that time.

00:26:56.880 Wow, you're really trying to get that Alberta audience on your back or on your side by saying

00:27:02.080 when the NDP got thrown out.

00:27:03.520 They loved that one.

00:27:04.640 Next, we're going to go with Bruce,

00:27:06.220 then Matt, and then Dennis.

00:27:08.560 Courts.

00:27:09.520 What role do courts play under yours?

00:27:12.320 And how much power do they have?

00:27:14.240 Or are they restricted?

00:27:15.380 Let's start with Bruce.

00:27:16.560 Right.

00:27:16.940 So the problem with the courts

00:27:18.240 we have right now,

00:27:19.080 and especially the Supreme Court of Canada,

00:27:21.160 our Supreme Court of Canada

00:27:22.720 essentially has become

00:27:24.040 a kind of star chamber.

00:27:25.720 Yes.

00:27:26.480 Because of the system that we have

00:27:28.640 with a charter of rights

00:27:30.060 and because we appoint people

00:27:31.960 to that chamber until age 75 they can sit there for you know sometimes 20 years and dictate because

00:27:38.840 they have the power of precedent behind them what the constitution means even though we can all read

00:27:43.960 the document it doesn't say that but because they have the power that they do that's now what it

00:27:48.600 means so they are the ones making up the constitution you can't have that system but you still need

00:27:54.680 courts you still need courts to to to have the power of the state to enforce the law to make

00:28:00.120 sure that people are not using violence so how do you square that what you do is you change the way

00:28:06.680 the court that the judges are appointed you don't appoint them at all you elect them and you elect

00:28:11.640 them for a very short period of time so it's a revolving door there are no vested interests on

00:28:16.520 the court there is no star chamber you've got you get in you you sit for you can pick and pick a

00:28:22.440 number six years eight years maximum and then you're out okay and this is going to sound

00:28:28.200 counterintuitive especially to somebody like matthew but you you get rid of the power of

00:28:33.080 precedent of the highest court that power gives the highest court the power to dictate what the

00:28:38.680 law is for the rest of the hierarchy of the courts in the country now if you take that away i mean

00:28:45.720 in theory i love the idea of precedent that you know like cases should be decided alike but that

00:28:51.560 power is creating the star chamber giving the power to dictate what the constitution means

00:28:57.160 if you take that away then that highest court no longer has that power and every single time

00:29:04.040 the constitution needs to be considered the court in question will go back to the words of the text

00:29:09.320 itself now there's no guarantee that that court will interpret those words in the way that you

00:29:14.920 want them to be interpreted in a particular case that's impossible but the mistakes are not going

00:29:21.640 to act like a de facto coup over the country and in that way in that way what we're trying to do

00:29:30.520 across the board with respect to courts with respect to legislatures and especially with

00:29:35.480 respect to the managerial state the executive branch we are trying to diffuse power we're

00:29:41.880 trying to take power away from all of those branches and give it back to the individual

00:29:48.760 to decide things for themselves okay now matt you have the unfortunate position because we've all

00:29:56.200 seen the supreme court so explain to us how we went from magna carta to magna justices and how

00:30:02.520 would you prevent that what kind of role would courts play uh we would take trudeau's charter

00:30:07.640 of rights and freedoms out in the backyard and shoot it and bury it somewhere um the the big

00:30:13.400 difference between pre-charter and post-charter is not just precedent but it's the idea that the

00:30:19.960 court doesn't just adjudicate based on the law but they have the right to adjudicate the law itself

00:30:27.080 based upon the charter based upon the constitution and while they use precedent sometimes precedent

00:30:33.080 as bruce said isn't necessarily a bad thing it gives us direction and all these things

00:30:37.480 the problem is when the court has the right to weigh the law itself and decide whether the law

00:30:45.240 is lawful so going back to a pre-pierre elliott trudeau system is to return the court actually

00:30:51.720 from a place of supremacy even the name supreme court is very dramatic but it is a lie in the old

00:30:58.680 bna type system because the court was not allowed to overturn law when the legislature made law they

00:31:05.640 could adjudicate based upon that law and upon the precedent that went before so that's a simple way

00:31:11.720 to rein in the courts to to say to them you do not have the right to decide if a law is

00:31:17.960 constitutional or not it is the law that the legislature brought down okay and now dennis

00:31:24.840 same question what role do the courts play there's a supreme court of the u.s things have to change

00:31:29.880 circuit courts bunch of types of levels of courts what would that look like here in alberta so the

00:31:34.840 the way i'm looking at it is that the courts would be able to interpret and apply the constitutional

00:31:42.200 concepts to law but they can't change the constitution itself they can say this law

00:31:47.800 needs to go this way or that way or adjudicated in favor of this person versus that person

00:31:53.480 the part i agree with bruce completely on is we should not have lifetime judges they should be

00:31:59.320 elected that's my preference there's a school of thought that says they can be appointed

00:32:04.200 subject to review but the thing they aren't is lifetime they're there for a number of years

00:32:09.640 pick your poison and they disappear the other thing bruce and i agree on is the absence of

00:32:15.320 precedence requiring that that precedent be obeyed and followed for life i think judges should be

00:32:22.040 expected to look at precedence and say yep that makes sense that applies here or no it doesn't

00:32:27.720 sorry we're not going to pay attention to that one so i agree with him on uh on on those kinds

00:32:33.720 of things and that's the structures we've built in to the uh to essentially protect people from an

00:32:42.120 overly powerful supreme court the other thing we've got in our structure is the idea of the

00:32:47.480 oversight branch the controlling function that says wait a minute this section is getting out

00:32:52.600 out of control it's also an independent elected branch with a term limit and they can say wait a

00:33:00.280 minute the judges are going too far we have a means of stopping them reviewing them and if

00:33:05.240 necessary pull them out of office so we have some limits to on judiciary as well okay and then

00:33:12.680 oversight we might get back to that one again there dennis i might try i dive a little bit

00:33:17.400 deeper in that one okay so the next one is from matthew dennis then bruce it's going to be changes

00:33:22.580 modifications amendments how do we change it once it happens is there a mechanism for it or is it

00:33:28.980 not necessary uh can you please explain how modifications can happen in the future so sorry

00:33:35.060 so to my mind uh first of all a constitution should be very very short small and have as little

00:33:43.220 in the constitutional document as possible and then the details should be in statute and what

00:33:49.580 that does is it means the basic constitution doesn't have to be amended often but where

00:33:54.760 statute has to be amended to update it to make provision for something that's changed in the way

00:34:01.900 life is you know we used to have muskets now we have machine guns what do we do about that

00:34:05.660 you change those things in statutes rather than in the constitution itself when you do need to

00:34:11.200 have an amending formula, it should be robust. It should be fairly hard to amend your basic law

00:34:18.140 because otherwise you are constantly having a turnover. And we see that in different countries

00:34:23.300 where every new party that comes in amends the basic law and it has this knock-on effect down

00:34:27.860 through the rest. So you can build an amending formula into it. Something like the 750 model

00:34:33.880 that we have in Canada is not necessarily bad. The problem is that Canada is so big and so diverse 1.00

00:34:39.720 with so many different provinces and people that you never can get them to agree on something that

00:34:45.080 benefits one part of the country because it won't benefit the other so in a country like alberta

00:34:50.520 where we are more uh homogeneous and united you can have an amending formula that is fairly strict

00:34:57.960 and still is able to pass whether that be usually through the legislature you know the the two houses

00:35:03.960 of the legislature and the crown uh creating a formula themselves or whether you have an element

00:35:09.000 of referenda involved in it is a question that could be open to debate yeah i think ours is

00:35:15.480 pretty strict so i've been the seven provinces 50 of the population represented maybe it could

00:35:21.000 be seven provinces to have 50 support within that province so that large ones don't have too much

00:35:28.040 power on that one dennis back to you on this one now how do you change amend because we know

00:35:32.840 there's over a couple dozen amendments with the us one so there's a mechanism in place

00:35:37.480 so a couple of factors um i'm going to actually start in a different spot and that one of the

00:35:42.680 things that we think needs to be done is the constitutional system and documents have to be

00:35:48.440 written very clearly and so the ordinary citizen who's not a constitutional scholar can actually

00:35:55.800 read understand point to things that they say yep that's something i care about and not written in

00:36:02.120 legalese so that you know you got to be a very smart person like dr party to understand what

00:36:07.320 the heck it means that's one aspect the second thing is the amending formula we have in the

00:36:11.880 constitution today is actually two structures one is a super majority of the legislative assemblies

00:36:18.760 so that would be the senate and assembly of citizens so they have to pass that and lastly

00:36:23.640 is a referendum by the people and it has to pass that so that is why the constitution has to be

00:36:31.320 readable and understandable by the average voter now i do agree also with matthew that you don't

00:36:37.800 put a lot of crap in the constitution that really should be in law we have to find that dividing

00:36:45.320 point it's never totally black or totally white there's gonna be cases where we say well that 0.95

00:36:50.120 probably should be in the constitution and now that probably should be in law and that's why we

00:36:54.280 have these conversations but our structure would be an informed electorate and informed citizens

00:37:00.040 that understand what they signed up to with the constitution and they being the ultimate authority

00:37:04.940 by vote okay and bruce the same one to you it's a small constitution it's very limited power very

00:37:12.220 limited government but if there is a change that's desired how to go about doing that well i think it

00:37:17.280 should be difficult but not impossible i think i've suggested two-thirds vote in both your

00:37:22.360 legislative chambers and two-thirds vote in a referendum that's that's difficult difficult enough

00:37:28.080 um but so while i have a chance though let's one of the difficulties that i have with the premises

00:37:36.760 of of both matthews and dennis's constitutions is this it is it is appealing to the either the

00:37:47.520 knowledge ability or ethics morality of the people involved you need a you need an informed citizenry

00:37:54.480 you need an ethical set of politicians

00:37:56.780 you need responsible government

00:37:58.180 the assumption is

00:38:00.840 you're going to get such people

00:38:02.820 and the problem

00:38:05.000 that we've come to today

00:38:06.980 is that we don't have such people

00:38:08.600 we don't have those

00:38:11.080 kinds of people running the show

00:38:12.340 for my money

00:38:14.300 the constitution, any constitution

00:38:16.280 needs to be designed with the assumption

00:38:19.000 that you are not

00:38:21.040 going to have moral people running the show

00:38:23.040 James Madison basically said this you know if angels were to govern men you wouldn't need to

00:38:29.440 try and restrain them the purpose of the constitution is to restrain the people with

00:38:33.600 power if if if the people with power were moral and upright and ethical you wouldn't need a

00:38:39.660 constitution you just go ahead and give them power and tell them to do what was right the whole point

00:38:45.400 of having a constitution is to restrain the people who will do you wrong and the assumption has to be

00:38:53.700 that you will always have those people in power and if your constitution doesn't work with those

00:38:59.900 kinds of people in power then your constitution does not work it has to work regardless of the

00:39:09.440 character of the people who have power and i know you don't have access to my notes but that was my

00:39:16.800 next point and the next question was what is the presumed uh mechanism in their honorable or

00:39:22.820 dishonorable people are going to be running it so bruce i'll come to you third if you want to

00:39:26.980 tack on any more afterward dennis goes next and then matt because do you have a constitution that

00:39:32.000 assumes there's going to be good people or not good people dennis i i assume we're going to have

00:39:38.220 normal average people and the reason why i think we can get there is by eliminating the whole idea

00:39:44.060 of career politicians with term limits and also controlling the rogue ones via an oversight body

00:39:50.620 so the expectation is not that we have perfect people being elected because that's never going

00:39:54.620 to happen but that when they get in they get identified and removed hopefully by the oversight

00:40:02.380 branch and also they're term limited so the motivation for people to come in i'm going to

00:40:07.980 to be a politician and make a bajillion dollars pick on justin trudeau starts off at 20 being

00:40:12.700 worth 20 million ends up worth 350 million based upon a 300 000 a year salary you know there's

00:40:18.880 something went amiss there so you put those controls in and that's the way i generally see

00:40:23.620 things is there's a balancing act i get where dr party's coming from saying hey keep it minimal

00:40:28.880 because it'll get screwed up i get where matthew's going with like keep it stable with the past we're

00:40:33.860 trying to find that balance between the two and that's why justly the constitutional republic

00:40:38.420 is in the middle trying to strike that middle balance between these two positions

00:40:42.740 okay and then matthew we had this conversation this morning and i understand your position but

00:40:49.940 go ahead and share yours should you be worried if they're honorable or dishonorable what was

00:40:54.480 your constitutional setup for that uh i do believe that you know every thought of our heart is

00:40:59.240 inclined towards evil always and that there is always an element of us that is uh perhaps mistrust

00:41:05.300 untrustworthy which is why we do have to have certain limits but uh i presume i presume albertans

00:41:12.540 and i presume that albertans will have the ability as they have in the past through many long

00:41:19.120 wonderful journeys uh they will have good politicians who will last a long time and then

00:41:25.380 at some point somebody will mess it up and the albertans will turf those people out on their ears

00:41:30.740 and put in a new set of good people and it's actually the tradition that we have is a strong

00:41:36.340 independent society that values our leaders but doesn't trust them uh too far and it's that

00:41:44.020 standard that we can keep as albertans it's essentially what we already have let's keep

00:41:48.100 doing that within a westminster system that does not have people with different values from the

00:41:54.020 rest of canada causing it to be muddied making a good argument for independence right there

00:42:01.300 so thanks for that but uh bruce if you want to attack on after you've heard uh dennis and matt

00:42:07.380 uh they say a little bit of trust uh but some some restraints and some guidelines yeah no i well

00:42:14.260 listen i i i i don't think it's an unreasonable desire but i think it's a little naive

00:42:22.420 because this is how we got to where we are we are in a system now that is being run by

00:42:31.520 well not to a person i'm not saying everybody in power right now is evil that's not that's not true

00:42:36.360 but a lot of people in power are doing things that a lot of us don't approve of

00:42:41.140 and what can we do about it well we have elections that doesn't work you can see it doesn't work

00:42:47.540 we have elections at the at the provincial level we have elections at the federal level we have

00:42:52.120 elections at municipal level, do those elections ever really change very much in terms of the

00:42:58.620 direction of the country, the degree to which our bureaucracies impose upon us? No. You need to make

00:43:05.500 a fresh start. You need to turn the page here. You're going to have a moment where you're trying

00:43:12.160 to reestablish a different kind of civilization. If all you do is create some new checks and

00:43:20.140 balances if you if you do what we've always done you know what we've always done all the way along

00:43:26.760 for hundreds and hundreds of years starting you know back when the king had power all we have

00:43:30.960 ever done is move absolute power around the king had it first and then we moved it to legislatures

00:43:38.960 which is where matthew wants it to rest the americans recognized that legislatures can be

00:43:44.480 tyrants too and so they put in a bill of rights and gave courts the power to decide when the state

00:43:52.180 had gone too far that didn't work out either and it worked out better in the states than it ever

00:43:56.520 has here but it wasn't perfect you can see the holes and now today what's happening is the

00:44:02.600 legislatures and the courts are moving power back to the king but it's not the king anymore now it's

00:44:09.780 manage your real estate okay if you want to fix this you're going to stop moving power around

00:44:15.220 and instead take power away from your government from your institutions from your politicians

00:44:23.780 from your bureaucrats from your judges take it away take back control your life is yours

00:44:29.760 if we keep arguing about you know who has the last call who has the last call the courts

00:44:34.480 Is it an oversight branch?

00:44:36.060 Is it the legislature?

00:44:37.400 So these are all state institutions.

00:44:41.000 The power should not rest with them.

00:44:46.420 Sounds neat.

00:44:48.500 I'll use that word for now as we make our way through this one, Bruce.

00:44:51.800 Okay, so the next one's going to be Matt, Dennis, and then Bruce.

00:44:55.820 Party system, two-party system, first pass to post.

00:44:59.000 How's the electoral system?

00:45:00.800 uh definitely a party system is important all of these things came about because they were needed

00:45:07.920 that's something to remember and again it's why i i like to be a conservative don't tear something

00:45:13.240 down until you know what it's for and you've learned to value it and then either change it

00:45:18.720 or in some cases destroy it but if you cut down a tree because you didn't like where it was and

00:45:23.860 then you decide that actually it was pretty good you can't just put it back on the stump and hope

00:45:27.500 it'll keep growing so with things like the party system it came about because there had to be some

00:45:32.900 order and coherence in forming a government within the legislature and it's good to have

00:45:39.220 usually a two-party system but i actually like the canadian three-party system believe it or not

00:45:43.860 you have this kind of wild card party that can be the the protest vote and take the the balance of

00:45:50.920 power in the parliament from time to time if you want to send the government a certain message you

00:45:56.380 want to keep them in power but you want to reduce the amount of power they have so a party system

00:46:01.080 is good and healthy and has its place anytime you have independent people we'll just have

00:46:05.760 independent legislatures or legislators within five minutes they've somehow grouped themselves

00:46:11.000 because you need to be able to organize you need to be able to fund it you need to be able to have

00:46:15.680 some sort of coherence that gets the government's program through the legislature and if it's all

00:46:21.260 independent it's really great until humans start acting like humans and you have 46 chiefs in the

00:46:27.000 in the uh in the legislature and nobody's willing to follow anybody else so we have parties to

00:46:33.180 create order because part of the goal we see the canadian thing peace order good government

00:46:38.580 is that we should have an ordered government that is good and that functions

00:46:43.120 okay dennis same question is there a party system and how does that work with the elections well as

00:46:51.180 as usual i find myself halfway between matthew and and bruce uh one of the concepts that dr party

00:46:57.340 brought forward is the whole idea of the amateur state get rid of these professionals and that's

00:47:01.980 something i fully endorse the other thing i agree with on matthew is that there needs to be some

00:47:07.340 structure needs to be some sort of parties that because people will run around like chickens with

00:47:12.300 their heads cut off if you just let them wander around so but what we're seeing is something

00:47:18.300 where there is a party system i actually don't care if it's two or three or five

00:47:22.780 it probably won't be 25 but they're relatively weaker because um in the case of the westminster

00:47:30.380 system if the party in power loses a vote of confidence then of course need a new election

00:47:35.980 and i don't like that at all um so you want to be able to sort of say well you can try and pass

00:47:42.220 legislation that doesn't make it let's keep on going so you have a weaker party and it's weaker

00:47:47.580 in part because of things like term limits you can't have career politicians who hang around for

00:47:54.220 35 years amassing fortunes you say you got your eight years you do your thing two terms in the

00:47:59.580 senate you're out and so they're still not completely amateurs the way bruce thinks

00:48:04.700 but they're not completely embedded politicians we can't get rid of and that's the balance we see

00:48:09.900 okay and then bruce party is there a party system yeah i i broadly agree with dennis

00:48:19.060 on the term limits thing i do believe in an amateur government that's the way i put it

00:48:24.480 you do not want a professional ruling class with their thumb over you

00:48:29.300 but one of the reasons that parties have acquired such a lot of power in our system

00:48:36.680 is because governments do so much because governments have a lot of power parties have

00:48:45.340 a lot of power so the real solution to to to parties having too much power is governments

00:48:53.960 that don't have power what you ideally want is you want a legislature with people who have been

00:49:00.040 elected sitting in the chamber twiddling their thumbs thinking what are we going to do today

00:49:08.620 we have no power everything is done we can't interfere this or that we can't dictate that or

00:49:14.760 this like we have nothing to do and you can have parties there if you want the parties shouldn't be

00:49:21.900 dictated by the constitution the people want if people who are elected want to gather together

00:49:26.620 in groups and say we all believe in this well that's fine they're free people they can explain

00:49:32.260 what it is that they stand for and they stand for it all together that's fine that's a party

00:49:36.280 so i don't think we should outlaw parties but the importance of parties is is a problem because it

00:49:43.880 reflects the importance of government the constitution should minimize the importance

00:49:49.820 of government if you do that then the party problem goes away

00:49:52.820 so you're raining on the party a little bit but okay that's cool i like that a lot um okay so

00:50:01.220 now it's going to be dennis bruce and matt for the next one uh is there going to okay dealing

00:50:06.280 with specifically alberta would there be one level of government or would be a national a regional

00:50:11.860 municipal how would the government break down if at all let's start with dennis so we see a single

00:50:17.620 level of government um where municipalities are really the only other layer but they're

00:50:24.020 essentially creatures of that single layer they would be um paid for by grant they wouldn't be

00:50:30.180 holding um be able to create laws other than a very minor sense uh under the guise of the

00:50:36.340 the legislatures and so uh certainly not a provincial level or something in between so

00:50:42.180 So what we do have, though, is a bicameral system where you've got, like I said, a Senate representing regions and an assembly of citizens representing the will of the broader people, the number of people.

00:50:54.400 And that's the only structure you have.

00:50:56.940 I see a lot of nodding out of Bruce in your next, Bruce.

00:50:59.860 Would you like to add anything to that?

00:51:00.860 Yeah.

00:51:01.320 Well, yes.

00:51:01.940 One level.

00:51:02.760 One level.

00:51:03.580 Don't make this complicated.

00:51:05.180 You don't want to grow your government, make it big and unwieldy like we have now.

00:51:09.260 We're trying to get away from what we have now.

00:51:12.180 we have a problem now we're trying to fix it let's not reproduce it that's the last thing you want to

00:51:18.300 do if you're if you're trying to live in a free country as a lot of albertans are saying and

00:51:25.240 thank goodness for that let's just ask this question what does that mean

00:51:30.660 and for my money if you are free you are not coerced by other people that is not by your

00:51:38.600 fellow citizens and not by the state. That is, you are not subject to their force or threats of force

00:51:44.360 to make you do what you want to do. One level of government with some very basic rules, and that's

00:51:49.860 the first one. No force allowed by people or by the state. If you have that rule and you have all

00:51:57.620 your property rights and so on, you have your contract rights, you're able to deal with people,

00:52:02.320 then you don't need all the bureaucracy. You don't need municipalities. You don't need all the

00:52:07.600 layers you don't need all the people you just need simple government with simple principles

00:52:13.320 to to allow people to run their own lives well matt now the ball's in your court are we going

00:52:20.940 to get a consensus on this one or should it be broken down further uh first of all i'd say

00:52:25.860 government is a historic reality because we do need ordering of our lives we have municipal

00:52:31.480 provincial and federal government uh and you'll see a similar thing in pretty much every country

00:52:36.920 because there are different layers of order that are required.

00:52:40.180 We don't want the feds mandating, you know,

00:52:43.020 where you can take your dog for a walk in the city.

00:52:45.760 I do think that it's better to have a federal and provincial level

00:52:49.800 because I envision for Alberta that very soon Saskatchewan will join us

00:52:53.980 and I'm guessing they won't want to just come in under our laws.

00:52:57.060 I mean, if they would, cool, but I'm guessing they would still want to have

00:52:59.680 some sort of provincial autonomy over certain aspects.

00:53:02.800 So I think it's actually good to have those separate levels of government

00:53:06.700 with municipalities being a creature of the provinces we have now now i would be open to a

00:53:12.520 single layer of government but when we're looking at the vastness of even western canada and if we're

00:53:18.600 believing that other provinces will actually look at us and say hey i want to join it's going to be

00:53:23.980 a hard sell to them to say yes you can join but you have to give up your legislature and your

00:53:29.920 areas of government that are under your control we want freedom and it's very hard to say to someone

00:53:35.320 else give up your freedom to us trust us with all of those areas that previously you've self-governed

00:53:41.560 so i would preserve the self-government of provinces that we have now with the expectation

00:53:47.480 that we would see other provinces joining alberta in this project so maybe at the beginning and then

00:53:54.040 if somebody else joins uh take another look at it but at least we have a two out of three saying

00:53:59.960 one level of government and with municipal municipalities treated a little bit differently

00:54:03.960 okay so this one we'll go to bruce dennis and then matt um inquiry is oversight by people

00:54:10.280 so what kind of power do the people have while the government is functioning so we'll start with

00:54:15.260 i think i said bruce dennison and matt

00:54:17.740 you mean in terms of recall and and and such things i don't i don't think if if if you do

00:54:26.860 things the way i'm suggesting you don't need any of that because the the because governments

00:54:32.720 legislatures executive branches will have such minimal amount of power to start with

00:54:38.800 that your complaint if there's going to be one is they're trying to do something they have no

00:54:43.360 jurisdiction to do if that happens you go to a court and say look this is what the constitution

00:54:48.080 says the constitution says they have the power to keep the peace result disputes protect the country

00:54:54.240 and that's all and now they're trying to make me wear a helmet while i ride my bike

00:54:59.040 that doesn't fit in any of those things make them stop and the court will read the constitution

00:55:03.120 say yeah you can't do that go away that that's all you need i mean let me give you an example

00:55:09.440 under your your one maybe make this a little easier um let's say the government decided to

00:55:14.240 go and invade other countries because they got the power to go ahead and do stuff outside the

00:55:17.840 border so using all the resources to go and colonize or take other countries sure sure so 1.00

00:55:24.960 so vote the bums out your your remember the people again under my model the people who are 0.96

00:55:32.720 in power doing this are not in there very long they're they're up for re-election maybe once 1.00

00:55:38.560 if if if that and then they're gone and then they're back to being a member of the public

00:55:44.000 like everybody else there are there is no there's no political elite here there is no ruling class

00:55:49.520 and so if these people you know want to survive as a normal person after they've done what they've

00:55:55.840 done they better be damn careful that they use their power judiciously and don't go off the deep

00:56:01.760 end but i i i don't i'm not inclined to all of these layers of of procedures and checks and so

00:56:11.280 on it should be clean people should know that they have a vote to elect by the way my bicameral model

00:56:18.880 just to pick up on something that matthew alluded to is a lot like the american one and i think i

00:56:24.980 think maybe dennis is as well so what you want to do is you want to elect it's a two-chamber idea

00:56:30.020 you elect one chamber representation by population that is one person one vote and you elect the

00:56:36.300 other chamber based upon not population but upon territory that is every equal you know

00:56:42.080 equally sized piece of Alberta gets to elect like two people to that chamber.

00:56:49.740 And that way you offset the distorting effects of population concentration in urban areas.

00:56:57.860 When you have that, like the states does, you know, each state elects two senators,

00:57:02.080 but elects congressmen based upon population, then you have hopefully a more balanced

00:57:08.260 representative system and uh and that will carry you to the next election

00:57:12.880 okay uh dennis same question inquiries overset by people direct democracy what kind of uh tools

00:57:20.320 exist so i tend to find myself agreeing with uh bruce on a number of points but one of the main

00:57:26.760 ones is that with term limits you of course uh have to return back to society and if you've been

00:57:32.600 a really bad politician that's not gonna bode well for how well people uh want to do business

00:57:37.860 with you or whatever. So I agree with that particular aspect. I do, however, see that

00:57:42.400 bad people will get into office and try and do things, particularly around getting more money

00:57:47.660 into their pockets, writing sweetheart deals, whatever the case might be. I think there has

00:57:52.160 to be a mechanism for citizens of that riding, whether it be for Senate or Assembly of Citizens

00:57:58.320 part, that they can actually go and say, you know, Dennis, we thought you were a good guy. 0.98

00:58:04.440 you've proven to be a real idiot we definitely don't want you even for this term certainly not 0.98

00:58:08.900 another one and have the people of that riding be able to recall you now that has to have a bit of 1.00

00:58:15.020 a barrier I think some structure that says you have to have a threshold before you can do such

00:58:20.380 a thing and of course you have to get a majority at least to recall the guy but effectively given

00:58:25.680 that mechanism and the the last thing is for things a little bit more insidious and harder

00:58:31.000 to pick out that's where that oversight branch comes in again to say wait a minute we can convene

00:58:35.240 a grand jury to go after dennis and say you know you're actually working under the table

00:58:40.220 not visibly and you are subverting the government and the constitution and we have a right to check

00:58:46.020 you out and ultimately take you out all right then matt uh question to you we've seen the

00:58:52.220 government over the last at least 10 years get away with a whole bunch of things uh how would

00:58:56.320 it work under the revised or going back to the original Westminster system so first of all I'd

00:59:04.060 say with term limits all you do then is you just bump the political elite one level out so instead

00:59:09.840 of having the political elite be the people that are in forever you have the political elite who

00:59:14.580 have their puppet who will then sit there for their term limited period but at the end of the

00:59:18.380 day their masters will still be the ones that determine it a term limit does not in any way

00:59:23.060 preserve us from a ruling class because ruling classes always do exist and always will it's just

00:59:30.100 the people that manage to figure out how to work the system so what you need to have is first

00:59:35.620 accountability to the house ministers government has an accountability to the house they must keep

00:59:41.140 the confidence of the house and if a minister or the government loses the confidence of the house

00:59:46.180 they can be fired then they have accountability to public opinion if the public shouts loud

00:59:51.620 enough and says hey what are you doing sends in petitions then the government realizes that what

00:59:56.660 they're doing is going to harm them they will lose re-election and in the last ditch similar to what

01:00:01.300 dennis is saying you have the crown who is actually in charge of appointing the ministers serve at the

01:00:06.580 pleasure of the crown so if they go off the rails so badly that they won't even listen to public

01:00:11.860 opinion that they don't care what the house says then the crown steps in and says sorry

01:00:16.500 your time is done and they dissolve the house or they fire the ministry okay and we're in our last

01:00:23.100 five minutes before we hit the questions from the audience so audience go ahead and start throwing

01:00:27.040 those questions in i'm sure you got a few of them um next one it will go in i think the order of

01:00:32.460 least uh difficulty so we'll go with uh matthew dennis and bruce on this one let's say alberta

01:00:39.580 picks yours what would the transition from the current government that we have right now

01:00:44.160 look like to go towards yours so what would the transition look like it'll be difficult

01:00:49.580 uh be hard what do you think uh matt it should be fairly easy because it involves separating

01:00:56.720 off ottawa now it's not going to be roses and sunshine there's always an adjustment period and

01:01:01.760 it's not not difficult it's just easier when all the laws stay the same all the terms stay the

01:01:08.200 same all of the precedents are the same the structures are all there all we're doing is

01:01:12.920 adjusting it, looking at the old British North America Act and saying, hey, how do we want to

01:01:18.900 make it new? Or looking at other Westminster models and saying, how do we want ours to function along

01:01:23.680 those lines? Adjusting it as we need to, and then going forward from the place that we were, which

01:01:30.160 allows us to continue in the traditions, the precedents, the conventions of the Westminster

01:01:35.700 system. You can keep the crown, whether you like King Charles or not, the good news is he has no

01:01:41.560 direct effect on you in your day-to-day life great great to have them over there on the other side of

01:01:46.240 the ocean but you can just have a governor general the same as you do you don't have to change a lot

01:01:51.380 which means that there will not be a lot of upheaval and there will actually be a lot of

01:01:55.520 stability even as you are making those adjustments and then dennis uh what would the transition look

01:02:02.280 like to a constitutional republic well it wouldn't be easy but i also don't see it being

01:02:09.700 extraordinarily difficult because many of the laws we have today up at the criminal code

01:02:15.500 actually they're not they're not hugely different from what we would want under the constitution

01:02:21.960 as we imagine it so some of those could be just essentially continued and there would of course

01:02:29.340 be a body where we'd say we had we would the new legislatures would have to redo this law

01:02:36.780 very quickly matter of urgency somewhere be fairly minor revisions but again redone

01:02:42.540 and some almost cut and paste um you know take out the old name canada and put in alberta and

01:02:48.300 you're done so i see this process going on over a number of years but in parallel i also see a

01:02:54.140 cleanup of government so i think of the doge kind of thing where you go through and say all right

01:02:59.900 not only do we clean up the financial mess in the expense of government we also go through

01:03:04.780 and clean up the legislative mess and get rid of old laws that really ought not to apply may not

01:03:11.820 fit the constitution and really ought to be simplified and eliminated so i think the

01:03:16.780 legislatures would be quite busy for the first two or three terms in the model we propose

01:03:23.340 but after that it should settle down to a more normal level of business with relatively little

01:03:28.140 uh legislation going on and then bruce obviously it's a little bit more radical and hasn't been

01:03:35.200 done so there's going to be at least an education portion to this transition what do you think

01:03:39.660 yeah i'm talking about ending the nanny state and there's going to be some transition there i mean

01:03:47.440 especially with respect to interests that people have have garnered over time so for example if

01:03:55.280 been paying into a pension into a state pension well you've been paying money into a pension that

01:04:01.200 you you need to be able to be granted your interests in that pension even though we're

01:04:06.160 not going to do that anymore the biggest transition though is the idea to get people's

01:04:13.040 head around the idea that the state is not empowered to do a lot of these things anymore

01:04:17.440 like it cannot make policies about most of the things that you're used to the state making

01:04:22.400 policies about the state has no power to tax and spend on a single-payer health care system

01:04:32.000 like it can't be done it's not a matter of policy decisions it can't be done

01:04:36.320 the state does not have the power to dictate curriculum to educate your child cannot be done

01:04:43.760 so whenever people think of you know how they think that you know social problems ought to

01:04:48.880 be solved and look to governments to solve it that's not the idea anymore that's the biggest

01:04:54.080 transition yes there'll be some mechanical things for sure no question about it but the biggest one

01:04:59.280 is governments are not there to do those jobs people this is on us we do this ourselves okay

01:05:07.920 and then this last question and it's meant to kind of make you think a little bit about your position

01:05:13.440 And it's going to go Dennis, Bruce, and Matt.

01:05:16.980 If you can't, let's just say you can't pick yours.

01:05:20.540 Which one would you pick of the other two and why?

01:05:23.540 Start with Dennis.

01:05:25.980 Tough question.

01:05:27.200 I'll be blunt.

01:05:28.000 I think ultimately I would settle on a modified Westminster system.

01:05:34.600 Because I do believe that, I like libertarianism the way Bruce describes it.

01:05:40.080 I like the idea of self-sufficiency, but I know that doesn't cover quite a few people.

01:05:45.120 So I'd probably say no.

01:05:46.360 I would aggressively work within the Westminster system to put some of the tougher rights in that I've been advocating.

01:05:53.160 But ultimately, that's where I would go.

01:05:56.300 All right, Bruce, if you can't go radical, which way do you want to go?

01:06:00.240 Oh, well, so let's just compare the situation between two representatives of these choices.

01:06:10.080 The Republican choice, and I know it's not exactly the same as what these folks are, what Dennis and Matthew are prescribing, but just metaphorically, there's the UK, which is still pretty much a legislative supremacy system, and you have the US, which is alleged to be a Republican system.

01:06:29.880 The U.S. has a Bill of Rights, and the U.K. does not, essentially.

01:06:34.640 It has the European, but, you know, don't worry about that.

01:06:37.540 Question, which of these two countries, they both did badly, and we all did badly,

01:06:44.360 but which of these two countries did worse during COVID?

01:06:49.240 Which of these two countries did worse during the present free speech crisis?

01:06:54.420 And so on, down the line of all these problems.

01:06:56.740 I think on balance you will find, as badly as it has done, the U.S. has fared better under its Republican system than under the British Westminster legislative supremacy system.

01:07:10.860 I do not trust legislatures to be the final word on anything anymore. 1.00

01:07:18.020 They do all kinds of crazy, stupid, tyrannical things. 0.99

01:07:22.540 And so much as I dislike the record of our Supreme Court of Canada on our charter and our constitution, I think they've made a real hash of it. 1.00

01:07:32.620 But the Americans have done better with their system.

01:07:34.680 The Americans have what is right now, even though it has lots of flaws in it, their model right now is the gold standard of existing constitutions.

01:07:44.520 So if I'm going to pick one and not my own, then I'm going to pick Dennis's because it's the closest to the American system.

01:07:51.640 okay and then matt you can either break the tie or create a three-way tie what's your answer

01:07:57.140 uh if i can't do the existing if we're forced and all albertans are forced to put their guns

01:08:03.140 to the head and say we're going to do something new and different and radical one way or another

01:08:07.460 i would actually be tempted to go with bruce on the logic that i do actually agree with him a lot

01:08:14.620 in the theoretical sense of the role of government and those type of things the reason that i'm

01:08:20.760 advocating for what I'm advocating is because of practicality of where we are, the history that we

01:08:26.320 have, bringing people with us on this journey, et cetera, et cetera. But if we're going to go

01:08:31.060 no holds barred, I wrote actually a master's thesis arguing pretty much what Bruce is saying

01:08:38.100 as far as the role of the government and saying that it's actually the role of the church and

01:08:41.920 other social organizations to do anything social. And I agree with that from a theoretical sense.

01:08:47.740 the problem is we'd be going from way over here to way over there and that would be too much of

01:08:55.020 a shock and you would cause such dislocation to people that it would be problematic but if i was

01:09:01.500 forced to choose i'd actually go hang out with bruce in the radical corner that's incredible

01:09:07.080 the one that requires no force is the one that you felt forced to choose um and here's kind of

01:09:12.720 a good example of what we're talking about here so this is why we have these conversations so 0.96

01:09:17.600 let's jump to our q a we're gonna bring back uh the ladies to help us out with this uh angela

01:09:23.680 welcome back pat welcome back and kathy welcome back so right before we jump into the questions

01:09:30.000 i want to ask each one of you a question angela starting with you what do you think of this uh

01:09:34.720 panel and the conversation we just had here oh fantastic conversation and so needed um

01:09:41.040 um and and we've been watching the chats and it is just very lively um all these different

01:09:48.480 thoughts and ideas coming forward has really stimulated I believe a lot of people thinking

01:09:53.580 about this and um it has probably answered and and giving answered some questions that they've

01:09:59.040 had for a long time so I'm really really excited for it question for you Pat as well you don't

01:10:04.860 have to pick a winner but what do you think of this conversation so far oh I like to pick winners

01:10:09.900 but i won't this time um fabulous conversation everything i thought it would be and more and i

01:10:16.380 think we should keep doing rounds of it because an hour and a half is just not an um not enough

01:10:22.540 time so i have a lot of questions hopefully i'll have time to ask them well we put time

01:10:29.180 term limits on this conversation so uh we've got to feel what that's like uh kathy what did

01:10:34.140 you think of this conversation this is exactly what we've been waiting for and hoping would

01:10:39.340 happened tonight and i just hope everybody's ready because we're going to do a part two

01:10:44.140 we have to i just we do oh yes and three and four and five so did you hear that gentleman

01:10:50.940 you've been elected to another term okay so let me go ahead i want term limits

01:10:58.460 two parts so i don't know we'll have to debate this more um the first question is for matthew

01:11:03.420 directly uh matthew the westminster's model relies more on conventions rather than hard

01:11:09.340 constitutional limits why should the new nation of alberta rely on unwritten expectations matthew

01:11:15.580 because it keeps the constitutional limits out of the the realm of the courts and being adjudicated

01:11:23.040 by the courts if it's convention then it's everybody saying yeah that's how it always

01:11:27.580 has worked out and you have to go with the way that it was in the past so you know looking at

01:11:33.780 the u.s with their arguments over a simple idea everyone has to has the right to keep and bear

01:11:39.280 arms well they're always questioning this and that but the the way you do it with convention

01:11:43.660 is just so have you always been able to own a gun yeah we've always been able to own a gun then you

01:11:47.740 can own a gun have a nice day it's actually simpler and it allows public opinion as well

01:11:53.340 as the legislature to weigh in on it rather than firing it off to the courts all righty

01:11:59.360 hopefully and we got a few from the same one so we actually took the time to ask a question from

01:12:04.440 each of you so let's go ahead and do that uh again with alberta nation for independence by the way

01:12:09.540 they were watching this morning and had questions that bring them this afternoon and that's exactly

01:12:13.680 what they did this one's for dennis how do you prevent a directly elected president from

01:12:18.260 accumulating excessive personal power in a young nation well no question that first election is

01:12:25.220 going to be pivotal so uh let's as voters be really informed on on our who our choices will be

01:12:31.860 but remember the president is subject to the same term limits the same recall options and everything

01:12:38.100 that every other elected position is is uh subject to so if the guy tries to do dumb stuff um recall

01:12:45.700 them uh the oversight branch can check for failures and pull them from office if necessary

01:12:51.620 and i think that's the control we put in place all right quick answer there thank you very much

01:12:57.220 dennis and then the next one here is for bruce from the same user uh bruce who has final authority

01:13:03.540 to interpret the constitution bruce an excellent question an excellent question this is part of

01:13:10.260 of the problem, right? The answer is

01:13:12.400 each court

01:13:13.860 hears each case.

01:13:17.200 The buck has to land somewhere.

01:13:20.680 But the answer is not

01:13:22.260 the Supreme Court, nine judges

01:13:24.240 who sit for the rest of their lives.

01:13:27.040 If you leave

01:13:28.320 it to each court hearing each case,

01:13:30.260 then the interpretation of that document

01:13:32.260 might change, might change

01:13:34.120 from case to case to case to case.

01:13:36.120 That's unfortunate because that's unpredictable.

01:13:38.360 We don't want unpredictability.

01:13:40.260 But on the other hand, if you're going to defuse power inside your system, then you're going to have to leave it with the judges.

01:13:46.980 And I won't go into details, but I've described a court system wherein you, for example, you have trial courts made of two judges who have to agree in order to convict somebody or find somebody liable.

01:13:58.760 And the interpretation that they give has to be consistent with each other, the meaning they give to the words of text.

01:14:07.020 and then you leave that case and you go to the next case with a panel of two and so on so in

01:14:11.740 other words what you're doing is you're giving more people who are elected and on short terms

01:14:17.280 short leashes the responsibility of interpreting constitution for the purpose of that case

01:14:23.400 and that case alone and so their power is curbed

01:14:26.600 all right uh and because we are still a capitalist society we're gonna bring up our

01:14:35.380 super chat next and it's a question for all three so let's go ahead and do that uh prairie uh prairie

01:14:41.380 cossack asks what's the panel panel's opinion on getting rid of universal voting right and making

01:14:46.960 it a privilege let's start with uh bruce on that one please okay the problem with any of these

01:14:54.560 ideas like you know it makes sense that only these people should be able to vote or only these people

01:15:00.140 should be able to do x problem is that that decision itself requires somebody to make it

01:15:06.580 so who are you going to choose to make that decision like is it the people all together

01:15:11.460 are we back to mob rule so my answer is no look if you're going to live in a democracy

01:15:16.500 every citizen and i think it should be limited to citizens every citizen of a certain age

01:15:23.200 you get a vote in other words the same rules apply to every citizen of majority age other

01:15:31.580 than if you're going to mess with that then you're really messing around with things

01:15:34.700 okay so it is a privilege for citizens of majority age um let's go to matt next on that one

01:15:41.320 i i would agree practically speaking what we have now is what we have uh you know part of me likes

01:15:48.600 old 40 shilling freehold the idea that you need a stake in the government in the life of the nation

01:15:54.040 before you have the right to vote so that it avoids the politics of envy and the whole eat

01:15:58.680 the rich and i'll take from the rich to give to you the poor if you give me your vote but

01:16:03.400 practically speaking age of majority 18 years old universal voting rights for all citizens

01:16:10.360 citizens as bruce said is a good standard that has been effective across many countries and many

01:16:17.320 constitutions all right well dennis let's see if you knock our socks off do you have a different

01:16:22.600 answer than the two gentlemen there no citizens reach the age of 18 you get to vote that's the

01:16:27.640 deal the one adder i put in is i think it should be a requirement to vote so i literally think of

01:16:34.360 i think australia does this you pay a hundred dollar fine if you don't show up to vote without

01:16:38.840 a you know reasonable excuse because i think that if we're going to depend on citizens uh deciding

01:16:44.600 how we want to run they sure the heck better not say i'm too tired i'm too lazy i can't be bothered

01:16:49.560 to vote yeah to be honest with you i kind of like that one as well um this rights and responsibilities

01:16:57.160 people keep forgetting that responsibility you won't be surprised if i don't but anyway

01:17:02.360 of course no force right no force in yours the first be with you um okay so uh here we go here's

01:17:09.320 Here's another one for a little bit more timely for the current system.

01:17:13.080 Would anyone's system allow floor crossing?

01:17:16.120 Let's go ahead and start with Dennis on this one.

01:17:19.080 So floor crossing is this construct in my mind of the Westminster system.

01:17:23.020 So I see it more as there is no such thing as floor crossing.

01:17:25.880 It's more about you vote in favor of a proposed law or action where you don't.

01:17:31.980 It doesn't, you belong to the party the same the day after as you did the day before.

01:17:36.540 okay and then matt floor crossing i think if in the westminster system it's true there is a room

01:17:45.780 for it if the uh person who's crossing the floor has truly consulted their constituents and it's

01:17:52.040 a matter of deep principle and not a brown paper bag or a skeleton in the closet there's actually

01:17:58.640 a room for someone churchill famously not only ratted but re-ratted uh based on principles so

01:18:05.100 i think there's room for it but it shouldn't be this shoddy shabby thing that we've just witnessed

01:18:10.600 and especially if a floor crossing leads to a change of majority that would actually be a cause

01:18:16.220 for the the king to step in and dissolve the government for an election because you've lost

01:18:21.360 or you've gained a majority not through the will of the people through an election but rather

01:18:25.900 through backroom dealing king charles are you listening king charles somebody clipped that

01:18:31.280 and it's home uh bruce your thoughts no i agree with dennis uh this is one of the flaws for me

01:18:37.120 of the westminster system if you're in a republican american type system where there's

01:18:42.240 a separation of of powers between executive and legislature in the in the american system

01:18:48.560 you know you can belong to one party and vote for or against the bill introduced by the other party

01:18:55.520 you're elected as as a representative to exercise your own judgment you do what you think is best

01:19:00.800 and then people will judge your voting record okay fair enough um this next one i think i i

01:19:07.200 know which is the smallest but let's see what the other two say as well um from healthy full

01:19:12.880 uh what model has the smallest government limits its future expansion and does not completely give

01:19:18.080 away monopolies on force let's go with bruce because i already know that answer i think

01:19:22.160 well mine's the smallest government and has the most limits on its future expansion

01:19:26.880 does not completely give away monopoly on force.

01:19:30.700 So let me just describe the way force works in my constitution.

01:19:37.740 The state can't use force.

01:19:39.280 It's one of the first rules, because if people are going to be free,

01:19:42.140 then the state can't be using force against it,

01:19:44.000 except that the state has to use force to enforce the rule against force, right?

01:19:51.220 Because if you don't enforce that rule, it's not a rule.

01:19:54.380 So if you have a law that says no one can use force, then the state needs to use its force to enforce that rule.

01:20:03.300 So we have not completely given away the monopoly on force.

01:20:07.800 A monopoly on force for that purpose is the thing that manages to keep the peace.

01:20:14.480 If you don't have that, then you have anarchy.

01:20:18.080 The only force is to enforce the use of force.

01:20:21.040 Okay, lots of forces in one sentence.

01:20:23.540 congratulations on that one uh dennis your thoughts there uh traditionally us a large

01:20:28.900 government right so uh how small could that government end up being and do they have uh

01:20:33.780 monopoly of force so uh definitely within the structure we're looking at it would be

01:20:39.060 there have the other controls within the constitution we see things for example like

01:20:43.300 a fixed percentage of the previous year's gdp as a control on spending to keep government from

01:20:50.020 growing but i also look at the example of texas in the us which has its own constitution its own

01:20:55.860 structures as they negotiated their way in after um us was formed and you sort of say let's put

01:21:02.660 some of those structures in place that actually prevent government from meeting too often but

01:21:07.300 they i think their rule is the government can only meet for so many weeks per year that's it

01:21:12.180 get your job done and otherwise wait until next year so i think we can put in some controls to

01:21:16.820 limit um limit the uh the the growth of government and the size of government as far as monopoly on

01:21:23.780 force this is where bruce and i do disagree i think there has to be some element of managerial

01:21:29.300 state in there that includes using force much the same way as i think he said and essentially

01:21:35.140 we can say look my neighbor wants to build a three-story purple chicken coop on their backyard

01:21:39.940 that's against the law the state is going to come in and remove it or get them to remove it so

01:21:44.420 there is some element of force in what we're doing. Yeah, you have something against chicken

01:21:49.060 coops. You said that on my episode as well. I'm not sure what the prejudice is. Maybe you like

01:21:53.840 pigs. I don't know. Matt, same question. Is there an element of force and how can you have smaller 0.98

01:21:59.440 government and stop the expansion? I think we do see a good example of this in the current Alberta

01:22:04.360 government. Albertans like smaller governments and, you know, you usually win when you say,

01:22:09.200 I'll make the government smaller. Sometimes at the same time, the government just goes ahead and

01:22:13.200 make something bigger but the ability is there to make the government as small as the electors want

01:22:19.740 and to limit its future expansion in alberta we see this the person who stands up and says i'm

01:22:25.200 going to tax you more and do more things usually we say yeah it's a bad idea uh and on the monopoly

01:22:31.120 of force i do believe government does have the monopoly on lawful force or not a total monopoly

01:22:37.280 but a like actually like bruce says the monopoly on who gets to have force and adjudicating that

01:22:43.900 so we should have the right to you know self-defense and these other things where we use

01:22:48.360 force as private individuals but there should be an adjudicator of that private force in the

01:22:53.640 government hence law and that goes back to the very dawn of time so in the westminster model it

01:22:59.800 is up to the electors how small and limited they want their government to be

01:23:03.860 all right um what i want to do now is i'm going to go to kathy and sorry to put your spot here

01:23:10.660 but kathy as you were sitting in the chat going through a bunch and then i'll go to pat and then

01:23:14.680 angela after was there some question or question that came up a lot that you'd like to bring

01:23:18.960 forward i got a lot more to go so i can keep going through the queue but was there something

01:23:22.460 that came up a few times while you were in the chat not the ones that i was watching no that

01:23:28.520 that aren't already here in the general chat that we have going on us ladies here

01:23:34.280 pretty much is is in there good so i would just keep going okay uh pat i actually think there's

01:23:41.200 one in here from you uh how about i go ahead and bring that up and then uh we'll address your

01:23:46.760 question right now so why do you believe a governor general or lieutenant governor is more

01:23:52.080 effective shield against tyranny than parties oversight branch which can subpoena and remove

01:23:58.360 corrupt officials uh directly so i guess this is for matt and then we could actually ask the other

01:24:03.400 two gentlemen to jump in on this one as well after so matt actually it's actually dennis's

01:24:07.440 oversight branch yes or dennis's yeah not parties can uh yeah i think the lieutenant governor is

01:24:16.400 more effective yeah uh governor general or lieutenant governor have that ability to fire

01:24:22.100 if so needed ministers of the crown or other people within that system for this exact reason

01:24:28.240 Why wait to subpoena them? Why not just fire them if they are? It's meant to be a last resort. It's meant to be the final tool that is used. I think the last time it was actually used was the 1970s in Australia. If I'm correct, Bruce can correct me on that. But it was used in a case where a prime minister refused to vacate his office despite losing an election and the voice of the people.

01:24:54.340 so there the governor general said you're gone buddy it was as simple as that so it's actually

01:24:59.140 easier than with a subpoena system or any other sort of thing they just fired them

01:25:05.580 all right and then dennis will come to you because you're the one that has the oversight branch why

01:25:11.220 do you think that's more effective than a governor general and lieutenant governor

01:25:14.040 so so actually the whole concept of the oversight branch came from a discussion between matt and

01:25:19.480 myself around he was pushing the role of governor general and so forth for the very function he just

01:25:25.420 described we thought about and talked about it and sort of what i concluded is you need that

01:25:31.680 final check and balance to get rid of someone that's misbehaving in some fashion so the difference

01:25:40.700 is i don't trust individuals i actually want to have you know a formal process a grand jury or a

01:25:48.820 group of people to look at this and look at the evidence and say yes in fact dennis you're a bad

01:25:52.900 dude out you go rather than depending upon the whim of a governor general governor general or

01:25:58.800 lieutenant general witness the last two governor generals we've had even the last three or four 0.99

01:26:03.480 and i go man we're getting some awfully stupid ones i don't see a protection against that 0.98

01:26:08.120 and then bruce is your position none of the above and if so why 0.98

01:26:12.960 none of the above none of the above here's why checks and balances are are kind of nice in

01:26:21.820 theory and sometimes they work but sometimes they don't work a lot of the times they don't work and

01:26:27.480 they don't work at precisely the moment you need them the most and i think again one of the best

01:26:32.000 examples of this is covid you didn't have an oversight branch during covid but if you had

01:26:37.380 would the oversight branch have been different than the other three branches you already have

01:26:42.460 the legislature the bureaucracy the courts the problem is this when you have checks and balances

01:26:49.520 inside a single beast that is the state what often happens as is happening today

01:26:56.800 is that all of those branches which are checks and balances in theory on each other they all

01:27:04.580 basically are on the same page about the big picture question sure they have their disputes

01:27:10.060 and quarrels. But in the big picture, they all were on the same page on the necessity for the

01:27:18.600 state to govern society and keep people safe with the measures that were introduced during COVID.

01:27:24.640 And none of them would step out and say, no, no, this is wrong. And if you are giving the final

01:27:30.060 authority to some other branch inside the state to do the same thing, then again, all you're doing

01:27:36.840 is moving power around you're making the buck stop here instead of here or here or here you

01:27:42.600 have still not done the most important thing which is to say sorry this is not for you this is for

01:27:50.920 the individual people out there and you have no jurisdiction to make these calls in the first

01:27:55.640 place okay fantastic question there pet um angela did you have a question want to throw in here at

01:28:02.120 this stage or just move on to the next one yeah actually i do so i noticed in the chat

01:28:06.520 so there was a lot of reaction to the idea of remaining under the crown and so my question is

01:28:13.080 for matthew how would this actually benefit us as albertans to remain under the crown what does that

01:28:21.080 do for us so the crown provides us a locus of ultimate authority that is not political

01:28:29.400 and that does not exercise day-to-day power in other words you can be loyal to them fiercely 0.98

01:28:35.240 loyal and you can still hate the government's guts and think the prime minister is a doofhead

01:28:41.080 and both are permitted at the same time it provides us with those ultimate reserve powers

01:28:46.680 that don't rest or vest authority ultimate in the government as a permanent institution rather the

01:28:53.960 government comes and goes it is dissolved and reconstituted and there is that sense that

01:28:59.000 government is not eternal or like bruce said this state that is this ultimate thing that

01:29:04.360 is above all other things so it protects us from that uh and it avoids the whims of a government

01:29:11.320 because at the end of the day you have this person who is a thinking feeling human being

01:29:17.000 who theoretically and i would argue actually with the majority of our kings and queens of the past

01:29:22.680 care for their people and and are able to help them just one little point with the queen bless

01:29:28.920 her heart i loved her to death uh she would go in as she was going on walkabout into the store 0.74

01:29:34.760 to look at the price of goods because she wanted to know what her people were being charged for

01:29:40.280 food because of course she had people to get her food she cared enough to look at the little 0.93

01:29:45.080 details to stop and hear the little people and having someone like that who is the father or

01:29:51.320 the mother of the nation as it were who is disconnected from the daily grind of the

01:29:56.540 political process provides us a locus for ceremonial and for unity all right um and

01:30:05.180 something to look at on your dollar bills as well so bruce said check and balances a few times and

01:30:10.560 the next one is a different type of check and balance uh so dave annis or five to six who

01:30:17.600 represents 4 525 other dave annis is out there um his question is how does your constitution

01:30:24.140 strictly for prohibit fiat money printing and the resulting erosion of citizen purchasing power

01:30:30.520 337 million was printed in february 2026 eroding wealth wow none of that ended up here uh let's

01:30:37.200 start with bruce on that one great question great question it's important that the state not have

01:30:42.880 power to do that and that's exactly what i'm describing right so in this flipping the default

01:30:47.680 thing the state has the power to do nothing except what's the list if the list is keep the peace

01:30:57.040 resolve disputes protect the country one of the things that's not in that list is printing money

01:31:04.320 having a central bank setting interest rates having monetary policies it has no power to do

01:31:12.320 any of those things it cannot be done there is no policy there will be no legislation it is outside

01:31:18.240 the the limits of what the state is empowered to do period okay dennis yeah i mean while i agree

01:31:29.600 conceptually with with what bruce wrote the reality is we need money we need means of exchange

01:31:34.960 and we don't want to have everyone wanting running around with piles of gold or diamonds or

01:31:38.800 whatever arguing what's worth what so you do need a method of exchange and that's called money now

01:31:45.360 the fiat money problem is a different one because going off the gold standard for example way back

01:31:50.080 when was one of the larger mistakes in our histories so within things like the value of

01:31:54.640 freedom we put in thing put in the aspect that the currency must be backed now do we put that

01:32:00.240 in the constitution perhaps yes perhaps no but that is the the concept is that the fiat currency

01:32:07.280 doesn't exist it's this represents so much oil so much precious mineral so much whatever and

01:32:14.640 we can't issue more currency until we have more of those other precious things of real value

01:32:20.240 and i think that's the control we could put in fiat currency is is a curse on our on our worlds

01:32:25.920 for sure and matt the king or queen's all over the currency so how does this work for you

01:32:30.800 gotta love it a central bank and a currency are important to any modern economy just look all the

01:32:37.580 great economies have them for a reason but it is true a fiat currency that is unbacked by any sort

01:32:44.320 of real tangible wealth whether it be commodities gold silver is going to be one that erodes the

01:32:50.040 wealth of people because it is inflationary now you can avoid that chiefly in statute like i say

01:32:56.280 keep the constitution small and the statutes do the work but you have to limit the right of the

01:33:02.120 government to print its way out of its money problems and that comes down to going back to

01:33:07.320 the last question the limitation of the size of government and the role of government into areas

01:33:13.320 that they should be and the people saying if you go into those other areas you're going to have a

01:33:18.440 problem okay and as we get into this next question here um suna soul silver has any country ever

01:33:28.480 tried bruce's suggestion of government i've honestly never heard of this type of government

01:33:32.800 before so bruce one for you bud right not to my knowledge never been tried in the real world i

01:33:39.780 mean lots of people have talked about the various ways that one might achieve an actually free

01:33:45.900 country uh but in the real world no because there are too many vested interests who are determined

01:33:53.280 not to do it this way here's one of the problems there's going to be great resistance to this kind

01:33:58.800 of a model for the very reason if i may put it this way for the very reason is that it would work

01:34:05.320 it would work to to prevent the accumulation of both political and economic power at at the top

01:34:14.080 levels of the of the architecture right so no it has not been done has not been done

01:34:20.980 this is i mean i'd like to think that this is one of those moments where it's possible to

01:34:27.800 contemplate but if it's not to be then it's not to be all right and this is one of the things

01:34:34.460 you've said many times if you're going to make a change make a big one make it worthwhile if you're

01:34:39.600 going to if you're going to go where you've never gone you have to do what you have never done

01:34:43.920 it sounds like star trek to be honest with you um okay so question out here from matthew

01:34:50.620 oh sorry pat you wanted to ask something there i saw a hand up there yeah sorry just before we

01:34:55.580 move on to another question my question then for you is because in theory i very much like your

01:35:02.900 idea but in practice i feel that especially given the generations of the nanny nanny state

01:35:10.820 not enough canadians even not enough albertans are able to make that leap right away it's kind

01:35:17.860 of like jumping off the cliff and my question is would there be a potential where we could start

01:35:23.460 off with something in the middle like dennis and then have a kind of timeout phase of five or ten

01:35:31.540 years where we get the people to get used to the idea,

01:35:36.100 but also to start taking the responsibility needed in order

01:35:39.700 to actually put this theory in practice.

01:35:42.740 It's a great question.

01:35:46.360 It reminded me of an old saying.

01:35:48.140 It goes like this, in theory, there's

01:35:51.640 no difference between theory and practice.

01:35:54.820 But in practice, of course, there is.

01:35:56.300 uh i think the answer to your question a very good question is no that that's not going to happen

01:36:04.640 i don't think this is the kind of thing that can be done incrementally for the reasons that you

01:36:10.060 allude to it's very difficult to do at all it's the kind of thing that has to be done cold turkey

01:36:16.380 in a moment where everything is on its edge so for example the americans did something

01:36:23.840 extraordinary and their constitution is not the one that i'm describing but they did for their

01:36:29.260 time something as different as what i'm describing for this moment and they needed that crisis

01:36:36.860 for it to happen if they had waited and they said we're going to just reproduce what we have

01:36:43.040 from britain we're just going to keep the westminster system we're going to keep everything

01:36:46.420 except maybe not pledge to the king and we'll fix it later on do we think that you know 50 years

01:36:53.500 after that they would have sat down and said you know folks it's time now to change over

01:36:57.500 to a completely different thing well no because by then the interests in america will have will

01:37:04.540 have gathered under the system you established and it will be impossible so this is only possible to

01:37:11.980 to contemplate because you're making a break with what you have and if you don't do it now

01:37:17.580 won't happen another way to look at this one pet is um can you move out of your parents house but

01:37:25.560 go back for dinner and laundry or can you be married and single at the same time a little

01:37:30.420 difficult a little difficult sometimes you just have to make that leap of faith and get her done

01:37:33.940 i'm thinking that we build it into the new system like okay you've got five years to get used to

01:37:39.540 this and then the band-aid comes off well you can't do it that way you could do it that way you

01:37:44.220 you you could decide on the new system and say fine we're going to have this system looks like

01:37:49.740 this we're going to have you know a a five years ten years long transition period from one to the

01:37:56.700 other that might work because then you know what you're going to fine yeah but it can't be

01:38:02.620 incremental with like growth you have to establish it at the beginning i think is his big point there

01:38:07.820 yes uh matthew here's one for you now question for matthew thank you alberta nan for independence

01:38:13.820 Why is the constitutional monarchy model best suited for long-term unity in a newly formed independent Alberta when it has failed in Canada?

01:38:23.380 It hasn't failed. Canada has failed. And that's not because of the system.

01:38:28.020 If we had a republic, we'd be in the same situation.

01:38:30.780 The problem is that we have at least four different cultures and nations trying to unite across a vast continent under one system.

01:38:39.620 No matter what the system is, it's just too big.

01:38:43.060 so it's not the issue of you know the king somehow having affected our lives no he hasn't really it

01:38:49.660 isn't even that the legislature is so bad we voted you're you know the majority in the east voted in

01:38:56.520 the people who have made all these changes it's because we are not able to have our voice heard

01:39:02.180 and even if we had a republican model we still would have had our voice not heard so we fix it

01:39:08.800 by cutting off ottawa not by making dramatic changes to the very foundation of all that we

01:39:14.320 have it's so so simple get rid of the thing that's causing the problem and don't get rid of anything

01:39:20.960 else then if there's further problems you go okay we need to change here we need to change there

01:39:25.760 that's actually the westminster tradition is you do have the living tree and an adjustment that

01:39:30.880 can be made as you need to but start slow cut cut off the gangrene and then see if you have to cut

01:39:36.960 off the whole leg and then uh thank you and then back to pet a little bit there so i guess you can

01:39:43.680 be single and married it's called engagement so you know when the wedding date is so under that

01:39:48.400 model you're eventually going to get that marriage and get her done um let's go to dennis there's one

01:39:53.360 here for dennis so dennis what about globalists that prepare one person after another even with

01:39:59.920 your term limits so interference uh in the process i mean i'll be real clear there is

01:40:08.000 limited ways a constitution can block every last possible ill and i don't care which one

01:40:15.920 of the three you look at here what we require more than anything is an informed knowledgeable

01:40:23.680 electorate who are keeping their eyes open one of things i am i lament frequently is that

01:40:28.880 the average Albertan doesn't even know how they're governed today they don't know what the rules are

01:40:34.680 they don't the constitution is they don't know anything and if we continue down that vein yeah

01:40:39.780 then nefarious people like the globalists will come in and say yeah we'll just fool around with

01:40:44.740 your system we'll stack in our candidates one after the other and you actually know better off

01:40:49.680 than you are today so if citizens don't take that responsibility seriously none of these systems

01:40:56.680 will work oh i think mine will mine will because mine will because there's no power to wield or

01:41:02.520 very little power to wield the globalists are not going to want to infiltrate my government because

01:41:06.760 the governments don't do anything i mean there's no point you can't lobby somebody who has no power

01:41:11.880 and there's no in being a member of the legislature in my kind of country is kind of like why would

01:41:17.560 you want to do that you're kind of wasting your time so and it will also force the public to very

01:41:23.240 quickly become responsible and knowledgeable yes yes correct exactly so yeah and matt you want to

01:41:30.140 throw your head in on this one uh because you actually have a head of state and is it also

01:41:34.880 going to be hereditary is the next king or queen going to come from the offspring of the current

01:41:40.980 one yeah i'd just like to say elections are not always the answer uh it's good to have heredity

01:41:46.560 because then you know there's no reason to politic right hey let's try and get our candidate for the

01:41:52.820 king. Well, it's whoever is the son of that person is going to be the king. So what are you going to

01:41:57.580 do? You can't manipulate it. Elections provide for an industry and interests to build their

01:42:05.460 own strategies to win elections. I was just sitting in a campaign thing where I was learning

01:42:10.460 how, quite frankly, to manipulate voters, you know, because someone was teaching. They said

01:42:15.880 more nicely than that but you're teaching people how to use the system to maximize your vote and

01:42:23.480 minimize the other guy's vote so elections don't guarantee protection that is the people the

01:42:29.480 populace just what dennis said we need people who are going to think um bruce said it we all agree

01:42:35.080 on this point who are willing to act and who are willing to be involved in their government

01:42:39.320 okay um next question for all uh back to prairie uh cossack all countries that adopt

01:42:48.640 universal voting rights are plagued by vote buying uninformed voting and voting on a short-term

01:42:54.800 appetite prove me wrong bruce you want to try to tackle that one first oh i wouldn't want to prove

01:43:00.280 you're wrong i think that's true but the point of my architecture is that it doesn't really matter

01:43:06.620 that much because the legislature you elect is not going to be doing any fundamental things the

01:43:11.800 fundamental things are already set out in the constitution as are the limits to the power of

01:43:16.280 the legislature itself and it's going to attract people so so one of the things one thing is that

01:43:23.380 one of the things that dennis and i have in common in these models is is term limits for everybody

01:43:27.720 but my term limit goes like this everybody who has any role in the state in any capacity whether

01:43:35.100 it's a legislator like a politician a bureaucrat a judge an ambassador a receptionist a consultant

01:43:43.020 can only work for the state for you know pick a number six to eight years total in their over

01:43:48.200 their lifetime so if you are a politician for eight years you can thereafter not be a judge

01:43:53.880 not be an ambassador not be a consultant moreover those people who work for the state

01:43:59.860 all of them will be paid the median national wage the median national wage in other words

01:44:08.060 working for the state in any capacity is no way to get power and it is no way to get rich

01:44:13.100 so you're going to have trouble finding people to do it and who cares about the election you're

01:44:19.180 going to have people sitting in the chamber with nothing to do okay and then let's go to

01:44:25.120 dennis next on this one how would you address this if well i mean well i don't think you'd

01:44:31.320 be proven wrong i think uh bruce has some of the the insight required in the sense that

01:44:37.920 you know we have to teach our electorate we have to make it not desirable to be in government

01:44:44.800 a long time there's no big money to be made i mean where he and i differ is not on term limits

01:44:50.640 uh as a concept but i just say look you do need professionals who can deal with complex things

01:44:57.740 i come from large united body of work you cannot bring a guy in at the lowest bidder

01:45:03.020 some guy's going to make 500 bucks an hour doing something he's not going to come to the government

01:45:06.440 a competent person won't come in for do it for 50. so we have to find a way to somehow

01:45:11.900 differentiate between the folks that actually wield power so the elected officials the top

01:45:17.600 level bureaucrats away from the people that are doing the day-to-day work that need to be paid

01:45:23.120 a competitive wage because you need that skill set and that talent so that's the way i see it

01:45:28.460 okay then matt i'll throw this question to you as well because there is no term limits you can

01:45:33.300 have lifelong appointments uh what do you say i think it is important that everybody not be

01:45:39.660 elected that's why there should actually be appointments that are serious one of the problems

01:45:44.620 that we had with pierre trudeau and his ilk is they deliberately appointed uh less than bright

01:45:49.660 people because they wanted to destroy the senate and the crown as legitimate and so they appoint

01:45:57.500 you know whatever kind of dingbat they can find who can't actually do the job and is who's going

01:46:01.740 to embarrass the office so appoint good people to those things that can then ensure that they

01:46:07.900 hold the elected side to account so that the vote buying uninformed voting and voting on a short-term

01:46:13.580 appetite can't take over the system okay uh question we got two more questions for all and

01:46:21.160 then we'll start to wrap up so frank asks what is the size of government still 87 mlas let's go

01:46:27.980 ahead and start with dennis on this one don't have a specific number in mind i think it's uh 87 feels

01:46:34.300 pretty big for me um i tend to think of something like 40 senators 40 mlas or mps whatever you call

01:46:42.540 them um because i'd like to see the size of government being small i don't think many things

01:46:47.260 are improved by having many many voices in the room arguing their points okay and then matt we'll

01:46:54.620 go to you next and then bruce at the end here uh i think representation by population means you have

01:47:01.020 to have a fair number because otherwise if you have one person representing 150 000 people it's

01:47:06.380 just stupid you can't do that so you have to have a large enough house that when we say representative

01:47:11.500 they truly are representative and on the senate side i actually just in my little personal bna 1.00

01:47:17.740 set it at 50 members that were divided among the counties and the cities of alberta just as a way

01:47:23.100 to have enough people that again they represent their part geographically of the province but

01:47:29.740 again it's not set in stone on that you'd have to think it through more carefully than i did

01:47:35.100 okay and bruce how would you split it up yeah i'd prefer something smaller but i would imagine

01:47:41.420 two chambers one elected by population and the other elected by geographical territory so that

01:47:47.980 you counterbalance the distorting effects of concentration of population other than that 87

01:47:53.160 might be too many for one chamber but i'm i'm i don't know what the exact number should be

01:47:59.220 okay and you kind of just you have this power bruce like you know what's coming up uh so i'm

01:48:05.100 going to still bring it up um how often dave asks how do you make sure the urban centers don't use

01:48:10.780 their tiny uh their majority to impose their will on rural areas we'll start with you bruce

01:48:16.340 because you kind of just answered that and then we'll get to matt then dennis yeah yeah you have

01:48:20.460 you have two chambers and if you have one of those chambers elected by geographical territory

01:48:25.080 that is you know one or two senators let's call them to be elected to the senate based upon

01:48:31.940 square footage in the territory and the same size of each territory then you completely offset any

01:48:38.580 distorting effects of population okay and i just noticed that we're losing matthew shortly so let

01:48:44.160 me just kind of get to the last one and then we'll start to wrap up with you matthew uh let me go

01:48:48.120 ahead and get this one off um okay so i just had it let me just go get it question for all uh if

01:48:57.240 the party system if there's a party system do we abolish whipped votes for representatives to truly

01:49:02.720 speak for their constituents so the party really controlling the representatives let's start with

01:49:07.460 Matt, on this one.

01:49:08.840 I think there is a limited role for whipped votes.

01:49:11.560 I like, actually, the UK Parliament in this,

01:49:13.940 where the backbenchers have a lot more autonomy and independence

01:49:16.880 than they do in Canada, where every vote feels like a whipped vote

01:49:20.740 and they're all just kind of trained SEALs, if you say it in a mean way.

01:49:24.600 So I would want fewer whipped votes, but I wouldn't want to abolish them

01:49:28.320 because if a government's trying to get its agenda through,

01:49:30.880 it can't have some rogue MP stopping them.

01:49:33.480 okay matt if you have to run we won't take that as you bowing out of this conversation we know

01:49:39.420 that you have a schedule so i will move to dennis's on this one party lines they seem to be

01:49:44.420 pretty solid lately yeah i don't like whipped votes at all i think that there's gonna be some

01:49:49.660 natural congregation of people to say hey let's all vote this way or that way but i don't see it

01:49:55.400 across party lines you take the case by case basis of a group of people who like an idea or want to

01:50:02.640 pursue an idea will they whip themselves to do it for that particular piece of legislation fine

01:50:09.840 but i don't see a party saying okay dennis you must vote for this because otherwise bad things

01:50:15.620 happen don't like it okay and bruce if you can answer this one quickly we might be able to get

01:50:20.300 to matt's closing so because we'll go to that next uh what are your thoughts sure i'm not a great fan

01:50:25.440 of whip votes but but the but the whip votes happen more frequently in westminster systems

01:50:31.280 because it's more likely to be a vote that might take down the government.

01:50:34.560 So if you don't want to lose power, you have to whip your votes.

01:50:38.040 So that doesn't occur in different kinds of systems

01:50:41.400 where there isn't the same liability in losing control of the agenda.

01:50:48.500 Okay, great job.

01:50:49.740 So, Matt, we're going to go to you first,

01:50:51.280 so you can do your closing comments,

01:50:53.180 and then if you have to take off, you take off.

01:50:56.120 Yeah, I would say first, both Bruce and Dennis are awesome and friends,

01:51:00.620 which i appreciate and they think deeply and they show us what can be done when we all think when

01:51:07.180 we all weigh these questions out not as a debate to score points but as helping people to be

01:51:13.180 educated and to understand so i'd say we have capable people we have smart people we have

01:51:20.300 knowledgeable people let's get informed and think and then on the other side of independence it's

01:51:26.460 not a scary unknown, but it's a practical thing that we can look forward and see a way to the

01:51:33.240 future. Let's look and see how we can make a better province and a better country out of

01:51:40.500 independence through all of these things. Hear, hear. So I'm the king of this podcast. I'm going

01:51:46.740 to pirogue you now, Matt. So if you need to leave, you can leave. But thank you very much for being

01:51:51.800 appreciate you have a good one thanks matt uh dennis uh kind of closing comments what do you

01:51:58.600 have for us i i echo a lot of what matt says i consider both bruce and matt's friends people

01:52:05.080 whose opinions i treasure and value and um what really matters to me is that all three perspectives

01:52:13.400 actually share a very important and common concern and we all understand that freedom

01:52:18.680 isn't preserved just by

01:52:20.740 good intentions. It only survives

01:52:23.020 where durable institutions make

01:52:24.820 abuses of power

01:52:26.460 difficult, visible, and reversible,

01:52:28.940 even if they're small the way Bruce sees it.

01:52:31.660 And the disagreement amongst

01:52:32.760 us is not whether power is dangerous.

01:52:34.760 We all agree it is. The disagreement

01:52:36.620 is how best to restrain it.

01:52:39.240 And that's my view.

01:52:41.480 And Bruce,

01:52:42.540 closing comments, and then we'll kind of start to wrap up.

01:52:44.960 But yeah, take your time.

01:52:46.100 I completely agree as well.

01:52:48.300 And one of the fantastic things about this moment in Alberta is that I can talk to people like Dennis and Matthew about these things in a serious way, in a way that is, you know, has potential real world implications as opposed to sitting in some dry academic chamber and talking about it theoretically.

01:53:07.940 So my hat's off to both of them for engaging in this and putting forward their ideas.

01:53:12.620 It's been a treat to get to know both of them and a treat to be on this podcast.

01:53:17.700 So thank you very much.

01:53:19.480 It's certainly all of our pleasure.

01:53:20.880 We enjoyed it.

01:53:21.500 And you certainly got a lot of people thinking, Bruce, about yours because there's nothing to look at and say, hey, look, they did great.

01:53:29.400 But I really like your comment there.

01:53:30.980 Like, it's so good, they don't want it.

01:53:33.380 So we don't see it anywhere around.

01:53:35.460 That's kind of an interesting argument there.

01:53:38.200 One of my favorite ice creams growing up, and sorry if I say this wrong, but Napoleon, Napoleon, was a strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla because I like a little bit of all of them.

01:53:47.700 So, Kathy, I'm actually going to come to you next.

01:53:50.020 Do you see pieces of all of these that you actually like?

01:53:52.960 And maybe there's a way to kind of create something very different here.

01:53:58.160 The one that I really have trouble with is with is with Matt, with the Westminster system.

01:54:04.220 I just it hasn't worked.

01:54:06.060 I've everybody knows what I'm going around doing my speeches.

01:54:09.300 It's to bring that education piece as to how we became a province.

01:54:13.140 And I have never, ever seen it work to our advantage.

01:54:16.020 So even in a smaller setting in the country of Alberta, I just can't see how there's not going to be one part of the of the country of Alberta that's left out because of the way that it's that it's set up in the Westminster system.

01:54:29.740 But I'm willing to be proven wrong. I really like what Bruce says.

01:54:34.140 I'm libertarian, too. So get out of my way. Let me live my life and and let's go on.

01:54:39.200 And if you do me wrong, we'll do something about it.

01:54:41.160 But at the same time, Dennis says, you know, he comes in as that measured voice, bringing kind of the two sides together.

01:54:47.260 That is probably much more palpable for Albertans to be able to wrap their heads around.

01:54:52.420 So, again, this is why we just have to keep having these conversations so that Albertans go to that referendum, very educated as to what they're saying yes or no to.

01:55:03.080 And then, more importantly, to the Constitutional Convention that will follow, knowing exactly what's before them and what they're saying yes or no to.

01:55:11.160 so i just really appreciate this conversation and i look forward to doing it again

01:55:16.200 fantastic uh angela same question do you think there's a piece of each one of them that you like

01:55:20.920 or are you just a chocolate vanilla type of gallon forget that strawberry from the crown

01:55:26.840 yeah i do i honestly do have a hard time um understanding the importance of the crown or

01:55:33.880 what value it would bring to us um and again like kathy i am um libertarian um leaning for sure um

01:55:44.440 i like what bruce has to say and i i think it was it's going to take a lot of education to get

01:55:52.360 albertans to to be able to envision that and to understand that uh what what he is pointing out

01:55:59.080 um and so if we don't get to that point that kind of leaves us with denisis which would not

01:56:04.920 necessarily be a bad thing at all i can see a lot of good in it i really do believe that the cure to

01:56:10.920 what ails us is to have a very active and informed electorate which is why we're having these

01:56:18.360 discussions and these conversations and why we're inviting folks like if you haven't had a chance to

01:56:23.800 go and look at the six previous episodes please do you'll find a list of them on our on our facebook

01:56:30.200 and on our x pages because um we definitely need folks who are informed and and able to

01:56:37.560 feel confident when they stand in that polling booth and and check that box yeah i don't want

01:56:43.560 to freak anybody out but it may be one of the most important non-family and personal related

01:56:48.360 question you ever answer so making sure you're informed on it pet same question can we take

01:56:53.800 pieces of each of it or are you going to throw out one all together too i think we're going to have

01:56:59.240 to and uh i think it's no surprise to anybody that in terms of a westminster system it's just

01:57:06.440 a non-starter and i actually disagree with a couple of things matthew said the uk is a small

01:57:12.680 country smaller than the land mass of alberta and how well is that going there um and the crown is

01:57:19.560 not of no consequence because through the governor general the crown controls the military and the

01:57:27.160 government and so i don't agree with that whatsoever um i'll be honest i'm i'm a bruce party gal

01:57:37.320 however i don't think that our population as a whole is prepared for that i don't think they'll

01:57:43.800 go for it and in that sense that's why i asked my question which is can we start with the middle

01:57:52.520 and put term limits on that and decide in five or ten years you need to get on your feet get used to

01:58:00.440 the idea of not having a nanny state do everything for you and have a plan for incrementally i am

01:58:08.200 my background's in behavioral science so we need to incrementally you know properly positively

01:58:15.240 reinforce people to get them on board um so that's that's kind of my idea and in terms of

01:58:21.720 the common thread where we need an educated and engaged citizenry rather than either precluding

01:58:30.120 people from voting or mandating that everyone should vote maybe there should be a test

01:58:38.040 that you need to pass before you vote which will be educational and you know get you up to speed

01:58:48.280 before you're making such decisions for your fellow citizens and yourself

01:58:53.480 should the first question be can you name your representative now

01:58:56.920 we got about 30 seconds and we're going to lose the stream so i'm going to have to wrap up on

01:59:03.640 that point and i actually think there's a lot more support than you would think for that kind of

01:59:08.440 thinking pat so thank you very much to matt for being here uh as well it's a tough position to

01:59:14.280 take is you're fighting uphill battle because there's a lot of resentment and jadedness because

01:59:20.040 we're currently in that system uh dennis thank you so much for sharing yours as well i think a

01:59:24.520 a lot of people understand it they get it and then bruce i think we have to keep talking about

01:59:29.160 yours some more because if there's a lot of support for it you might be able to see that

01:59:33.160 radical shift to make this all worthwhile kathy pat angela you all rock but thank you all very

01:59:38.600 much for being here tonight i appreciate it make sure you share it out there's multiple places you

01:59:42.520 can find us so share it out follow everybody involved and i definitely want to make sure

01:59:46.280 that you guys all understand that i love you all very much and god bless thank you jason

John Bolton - May 12, 2026

Alberta’s Future： 3 Constitutional Models

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