In this episode, Dr. Dennis Modry of the Alberta Prosperity Project joins me to update us on the progress of the case and give us an update on what's going on with the case. Dr. Modry talks about what he saw in court this week and why he thinks we're going to have a referendum.
00:06:59.580What Justice Feesby was concerned about was, and what the Aboriginal people are concerned about, is a hypothetical, okay?
00:07:11.280And the hypothetical could be this, that when the Supreme Court analyzed the Quebec secession reference,
00:07:19.720okay, they concluded in Section 154 of that analysis that a province doesn't have the unilateral right to declare its sovereignty subsequent to a referendum.
00:07:39.420In other words, you have to go through the rabbit hole of discussions and you have to get the other provinces to agree and the House of Commons to then ratify it and the Senate to ratify it in order to remove Alberta from the Constitution.
00:07:57.840That's the modification in the Constitution, okay?
00:08:02.540However, Section 155 states something different.
00:08:08.300It says, well, not necessarily different, but you could interpret it different.
00:08:15.540Section 155 states this, is that although a province doesn't have the right constitutionally to declare its independence, independently,
00:08:32.000it could make an unconstitutional, okay?
00:08:36.100It's important to understand this terminology, an unconstitutional declaration of independence
00:08:42.080if other countries acknowledge that unilateral, unconstitutional declaration of independence,
00:08:50.920which in fact would be a de facto declaration of independence.
00:08:56.220And in court today, as I recall, yesterday and today,
00:09:03.040I believe that our general counsel made the point that our general counsel made the point that,
00:09:08.880that, that, let me get my wording correctly again, again, I'm not a lawyer, but you need to parse your words very carefully.
00:09:22.440In court, I believe that our general counsel stated that there was no plan to make an unconstitutional declaration of independence.
00:09:35.220And the Alberta Prosperity Project, in its entirety, has been committed to following a legal pathway.
00:09:43.900Now, what came up, of course, was Justice Feesby did refer to podcast information provided not only by Mr. Rath, our general counsel,
00:20:37.760What I'm concerned about here, and what I was thinking while I was watching this over the last three days,
00:20:42.760is how does this infringe upon the rights of a vast majority, which I think is a vast majority of Albertans who actually want to have a referendum?
00:20:49.760A small group of people, Aboriginal people in Canada represent about 5% of the population,
00:20:55.760a very small percentage of the population in Alberta could be holding back a vote on something like this.
00:21:01.760And that's what concerns me about this.
00:21:04.760If we're denied this opportunity, our rights are being infringed upon, don't you think?
00:22:42.760So if the government decides that it's necessary to defuse a potential powder keg and hold an honest referendum that is compliant with the Clarity Act,
00:22:54.760then I think there is an extremely high probability that the provincial government will hold a referendum on that basis.
00:23:24.760But let's look at what was happening prior to the 2015 provincial election, where the Wild Rose was competing with the Provincial Conservative Party, the Progressive Conservative Party.
00:23:39.760And the Wild Rose Party was leading in the polls and had a very high probability of winning, right?
00:24:10.760The courage to win, to get out from under what had been viewed as a progressive Conservative Party that had gone too far to the left and had become, in essence, a Federalist Party that was ineffective in terms of dealing with the federal government.
00:24:31.760That's what the Wild Rose Party had, the courage to win.
00:24:36.760So the question comes up, then, if it were necessary to deal with a provincial government that was unwilling to hold a referendum on sovereignty, okay, then there are two options.
00:24:52.760You do what you can to try and take control of the UCP party, or you form another party.
00:24:58.760In both cases, you have the question posed to the members, do you have the courage to win?
00:25:06.760Because if you have the courage to win, then you have the courage to be able to say, we are going to win this.
00:25:16.760And we are going to take the risk that an NDP party could arise again and, I mean, win an election.
00:25:30.760I think in a very real way, in a very real way, and I want your listeners to look me in the eye and ask yourself the question, do you have the courage to win?
00:25:40.760Do you have the courage to change the UCP if necessary?
00:25:44.760Or do you have the courage to win with a new independence party that maybe all the parties come together?
00:25:50.760I don't know what the right answer is, and we're going to get some information, aren't we?
00:25:56.760As a result of the machinations at the AGM.
00:26:03.760We're going to get another answer when we hear the result of the court proceedings, which I suspect now will come before mid-January.
00:26:12.760So let's say, for argument's sake, the court rules that we can go ahead with our petition question.
00:26:18.760In which case we do that, and at some time in the late spring, the election in Alberta has the signatures and the provincial government has the petition, successful petition.
00:26:36.760And then they make a decision as to when they will hold a referendum.
00:26:40.760So that's really where we are right now.
00:26:44.760I want your people to listen about this point I'm making.
00:27:00.760So you're pretty confident that we're going to have, regardless of, even if this doesn't turn out in our favor, what was discussed over the last three days,
00:27:08.760and will be discussed a bit more before January, that we will have a vote on independence one way or the other.
00:27:15.760Because I know Keith Wilson told me that here.
00:27:17.760He said that when we were at the independence rally a few weeks back in Edmonton as well.