John Bolton - February 20, 2026


Danielle Smiths Convoluted Confusing Complex Solution To Alberta's Problems


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

160.44319

Word count

1,004

Sentence count

87

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

I woke up this morning thinking about how to cover Danielle Smith's speech to Albertans last night. I woke up with a different perspective and boy did I have a different take on it. I know this is going to be a different opinion than most of you'll see on YouTube today, but it's a good one.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 I guarantee that no one else will have a response to Danielle Smith's address to Albertans like this one.
00:00:10.300 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. It is 3.30 a.m. Friday, February the 20th. I hope you're having a great start to your Friday morning here with the big blue mug of coffee.
00:00:19.560 Of course, thanks so much for clicking on this video. I thought I'd put this hat on. I thought it would be appropriate for the discussion today about Danielle Smith's brilliantly delivered speech to Albertans last night.
00:00:33.920 And I know this is going to be a different take on this than anyone else you'll watch on YouTube today. That's why you come here.
00:00:41.000 I watched the speech last night and I thought, how the hell am I going to cover this? There's a lot to get into, folks. There's a lot.
00:00:46.840 Nine questions will be asked on a referendum ballot on October the 16th. Nine questions. Wow. How am I going to cover this?
00:00:55.520 No doubt YouTubers will be looking at this and going on and on and on for 20, 30 minutes discussing what she talked about last night.
00:01:02.400 But I will do this video without playing a single word out of Danielle Smith's mouth last night because I didn't run to my camera last night to do a video on this.
00:01:12.780 I wanted to sleep on it. I thought it would wake up with a different perspective and boy, have I got a different perspective on this.
00:01:20.040 I woke up this morning thinking about how to cover this and the name Rube Goldberg came to mind this morning.
00:01:28.060 Do you know who Rube Goldberg is?
00:01:29.740 Here's Rube Goldberg on Wikipedia.
00:01:33.700 Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.
00:01:42.560 And I thought, Danielle Smith is Rube Goldberg. 1.00
00:01:45.840 For instance, here is a Rube Goldberg machine to clean your face while you're having a meal.
00:01:51.160 The self-operating napkin.
00:01:52.760 As a matter of fact, you may have played a game that was inspired by Rube Goldberg.
00:01:59.740 Did you ever play Mousetrap?
00:02:14.060 Did you actually ever play the game?
00:02:16.120 I used to set up the Rube Goldberg machine just so I could catch the mouse and I would do that over and over and over again.
00:02:21.280 Pretty cool.
00:02:22.360 But Danielle Smith has become Rube Goldberg. 1.00
00:02:24.720 She's created a convoluted, confusing, complex solution to all of Alberta's problems and it should be much easier.
00:02:32.720 But boy, does she ever look good doing this as well. 0.99
00:02:35.920 I mean, look at that face.
00:02:37.300 Looks like she slept for a week.
00:02:39.060 Her makeup is perfect.
00:02:40.360 Her hair is perfect.
00:02:42.500 It was delivered brilliantly.
00:02:45.400 She's done some broadcasting.
00:02:46.980 She's really good at this, folks.
00:02:48.380 She could have been a broadcaster as her first occupation and would have been incredibly successful at it.
00:02:54.460 She touches on all the right topics.
00:02:56.740 She pushes all the right buttons.
00:02:58.760 She hits all the right buzzwords.
00:03:00.280 I wrote them down here for you.
00:03:02.040 Immigration.
00:03:02.900 Provincial rights.
00:03:04.040 Federal government overreach and interference.
00:03:06.520 Proof of citizenship to vote.
00:03:08.160 Access to social services.
00:03:09.960 Just unbelievable.
00:03:11.240 Here are the questions on the screen that you're going to be asked.
00:03:14.680 I'm not going to read them to you.
00:03:15.960 They go over the topics I just discussed in more detail.
00:03:18.780 And they're a good set of questions.
00:03:20.100 I'll probably vote yes on every one of these things.
00:03:22.820 Broken down into five numbers and four letters.
00:03:25.620 It's the four letters that are the toughest ones here because they're basically talking about working with other provinces to change the Constitution, which is never going to happen.
00:03:34.880 You know, we've had a referendum here in Alberta within the last five years.
00:03:38.140 Back in 2021, we voted 62% in favor of getting rid of equalization payments because Alberta contributes a lot more money into Canada than we get back.
00:03:47.480 But nothing has ever happened because it never will.
00:03:50.260 We'd have to change the Constitution to do that.
00:03:52.820 What do you have to do to change the Constitution?
00:03:55.040 You have to have seven out of ten provinces representing 50% of the population.
00:03:59.480 You have to have Parliament and the Senate agree.
00:04:01.740 And I think Quebec would have to agree because I think they've got a veto.
00:04:04.780 So that's never going to happen either.
00:04:06.300 You know, and Danielle Smith wraps all of this up in a nice little bow.
00:04:12.040 Boy, she did it great. 1.00
00:04:13.240 Looked good doing it, folks.
00:04:14.960 She wraps it up in a nice bow about how well Alberta is doing financially, how much better we can do when we maybe, possibly, perhaps get a pipeline because of Mark Carney's memorandum of understanding.
00:04:26.280 She does a great job at that. 1.00
00:04:27.880 But as I was watching this again this morning, something was in the back of my head.
00:04:33.100 And all through this speech, she never mentions the independence movement once.
00:04:40.420 But it's all over this because she thinks we're going to back down now that we have these nine questions.
00:04:46.760 And that's simply not the case.
00:04:48.320 As a matter of fact, I felt insulted watching this.
00:04:50.620 I felt that she was trying to pull the wool over my eyes as being somebody who wants an independent Alberta.
00:04:58.840 I got mad watching it again this morning because she's created this convoluted, confusing, complex solution to Alberta's problems. 1.00
00:05:07.900 The Rube Goldberg machine, when all she has to do is ask this one question.
00:05:15.080 Do you agree that the province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada to become an independent state?
00:05:22.220 And that is the proposed referendum question that we want on a ballot in the fall.
00:05:27.760 Madam Premier, stop being Rube Goldberg and ask the question that so many Albertans really want to answer.
00:05:37.660 Thank you so much for watching.
00:05:39.280 If you like this video, give it a thumbs up.
00:05:41.420 Subscribe to the channel.
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00:05:43.660 I'll see you in the next one.
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