00:01:43.060I understand Premier Smith will be talking to the province later today.
00:01:48.260It is Tuesday, after all, 1.44 a.m., I think around 6.30 p.m., so we'll have to hear what she has to say.
00:01:54.860Now, I was at this party tonight, a lot of people there, and what I think I'll do right now is allow the people who were at the party, a number of them, to talk to you.
00:02:04.180Keith Wilson, Tanya Clemens, Marty up north, John Tomkinson from United Alberta Flags, and my good friend Jason Levine, along with Bruce Party, who had some great insight as to what happened tonight.
00:02:59.740And, you know, when you have a quarter of the population that feels that Canada is not working for them, that's something to take seriously.
00:03:09.660And the engagement that we've had with people, the discussions that we've started, those are going to continue.
00:03:14.240Because by every objective measure, Albertans would be better off if we can change the constitutional relationship with Ottawa so that we can be electing our politicians here instead of being subject to whatever political winds happen to be blowing at any given time in Ottawa and Quebec.
00:03:34.540Yeah. What do you fear when we have a vote like this? I mean, I know you've had some fears prior to this vote tonight concerned about perhaps our oil and gas being used against the United States of America, things like that. The federal government might feel emboldened by this vote. What do you think?
00:03:54.280well they could and that would be an error but you know it might happen right and what's
00:03:59.060interesting though and everybody needs to keep in mind is that um the supreme court of canada was
00:04:05.740clear that the citizens of any province have the right of political self-determination that they
00:04:13.260can exercise through a referendum process and the alberta government can trigger a referendum at
00:04:22.380any time. And even though right now the premier's indicated that she won't do that, if Prime
00:04:28.680Minister Carney brings in an export tax and decimates our economy, then that could just
00:04:35.580change overnight. So this is a step in the journey. It's not the end. We keep going.
00:04:41.280I do want to ask you that. You say it's a step in the journey. There are people who have been
00:04:44.840working. I'm going to put it this way. They've been working their asses off. You've been working
00:04:48.520your ass is your ass off and so is tanya and and a lot of people have been out putting up signs for0.97
00:04:53.880months and working so hard where do we move these where we move from this people want alberta1.00
00:05:00.440independence does this does this movement continue where do we go from here what's the next step i
00:05:05.520guess well we've got a we've got to uh take a breath yeah uh it's been a big pull but i think
00:05:12.760what's really important is that we keep having the discussions you know I've said this many many
00:05:18.620times by every objective measure Albertans will be better off our children will be better off
00:05:24.760our grandchildren will be better off by changing the constitutional order by changing the way
00:05:30.400we're treated by Ottawa and um and I just don't know that they're going to be able to resist the
00:05:37.660temptation. It's very clear. Even Thomas Lukasik a couple weeks ago when he went to Ontario and
00:05:43.800he spoke at the Economic Club or something or the Toronto Club, something in Toronto,
00:05:48.600he was even surprised by the apathy, the lack of interest, the unengagement, the lack of engagement
00:05:55.820that he got when he pled with them to show my respect for Alberta. So, you know, you'll only
00:06:00.960be taken for granted for so long. So many more Albertans, even those who voted for stay,
00:06:06.340now understand that there is an alternative.
00:06:10.040They chose to stay alternative this time,
00:06:12.240but if Ottawa mistreats us and doesn't make substantive progress,
00:06:17.200doesn't respond to the request from the Premier for concrete action,
00:07:04.800You walked up and said, look, by tomorrow, what do you expect?
00:07:07.780It's going to climb to 30%, maybe a little bit more.
00:07:13.760This is an unusual election in that they published the advance poll numbers first
00:07:23.100and then started counting today's numbers.
00:07:25.900I mean, right now I'm looking at the screen.
00:07:27.820They've only counted 32% of the vote, which is like nothing.
00:07:33.760And we know historically things flip a lot.
00:07:37.820Like modern elections are different than the elections of 20 years ago
00:07:41.640because there's such a significant amount of early voting and mail-in voting.
00:07:47.660So I think, and I think credit to Thomas Lukasik,
00:07:52.460I think he ran a good campaign of getting people out to vote early.
00:07:56.740that was his strategy and so the early vote reflects that he's winning the early vote i
00:08:03.340think we're gonna win the the today's vote the in-person vote the amazing thing about the early
00:08:09.800votes is you can't convince those people to change their vote after they've already voted too exactly
00:08:14.300they've already made up their mind even if we made a good there's a reason why so many political
00:08:20.020political parties want those early votes absolutely what if it is 33 when we wake up in
00:08:26.700the morning um that means are you satisfied with that oh 100 i mean like hey i'm satisfied already
00:08:34.320now like you know we went to a rally this weekend we went to a rally last year in october
00:08:39.960last year in october we didn't even think we'd have a referendum so so i mean i you know
00:08:46.580pragmatically speaking i still think this referendum is a bit of a consolation prize
00:08:50.580there's a bit of you know i'm not happy with the whole citizens initiative and the courts
00:08:55.700interfering and the first nations i'm not happy with that but but we had an opportunity to send
00:09:01.620a message and the message is is significant if it's 33 or 30 that's one in three so if you walk
00:09:08.500into a room and there's 10 people there's three of them that are not happy with ottawa right right
00:09:13.380And we have to look at not just questions, like when we talk, we're talking question 10 implicitly, but there's nine other questions and they're coming out as yes.
00:09:42.580i think we need to do that what do you think we should yeah i just want to take a break
00:09:45.880you were out in the side of the road saying this for weeks now i just want to go i have to change
00:09:51.140the spark plugs in my old truck and i'm putting it off forever and ever right uh no like we need
00:09:56.640to uh we need to calm down a little bit take the the rhetoric a little bit down and and our leaders
00:10:05.320It's our leaders need to reach out to each other and try to, you know, they have to recognize that it's not 100-0, it's not 90-10, it's 70-30.
00:10:55.680And here with my friend Tanya Clemens from Let Alberta Decide.
00:10:59.560And right now, I think we're sitting at, I don't know, maybe 23, 24 percent.
00:11:04.500I was talking with Marty up north. He expects by morning 33 percent.
00:11:08.620I know you're disappointed. I know Keith is disappointed.
00:11:11.440I spoke with him already. I'm disappointed. A lot of people disappointed tonight.
00:11:15.020What are your thoughts and what do you have to say to people who have been working so hard and diligently over the last, oh, God, 18 months, probably?
00:11:22.960And specifically since January 2nd, when those petitions went out there, what do you have to say to them right now?
00:11:27.760Well, I'm disappointed because we were anticipating or hoping for a majority win so that we could deliver that mandate to our provincial government and empower them with that strength to negotiate with Ottawa.
00:11:38.260But it's because we were looking at getting 50% plus one.
00:11:42.740But if you look at the results now the way they are and try to take away your disappointment out of it, we've got one in four Albertans, which may be one in three Albertans by the morning, supporting the pursuit of independence.
00:11:55.260So when you're walking around Alberta tomorrow, know that one out of every four people that you're seeing, maybe one out of every three people that you're seeing, is supporting all your efforts and the work that you did.
00:12:07.600And especially when you think about where we were a year ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago, like we have shifted the conversation and really brought it to the forefront.
00:12:16.800And not even just for Albertans, but like it's on a global stage.
00:12:19.860There's global media everywhere talking about it.
00:12:54.160you think of the last time this happened it took 30 35 years basically since i don't think it'll be
00:12:59.680that long i think that we we've got momentum and it's going and it's like what keith my partner
00:13:04.880says that once you see it you can't unsee it so there's going to be some things that carney does
00:13:11.200in the near future i'm sure that causes the world of hurt to albertans that maybe will make a few
00:13:15.920people that voted for option one go man what was i doing regret yeah maybe a little bit of regrets
00:13:21.360But regardless of how the path forward looks, I am so, so proud of the people who work so hard on this.
00:13:30.140Like, do not forget the convoys of blue, the flags along the highways, the honking, the people who were babysitting and repairing signs all through the nights, the rallies, the conversations, the like Chris and his Let's Talk Alberta and bringing everybody and welcoming them into the conversation.
00:13:49.980like these are very big things to be very very proud of the friendships yeah and the friendships
00:13:56.860of course we met the best people on this for sure we're sitting here in a couple of chairs in uh
00:14:02.460downtown calgary right now and it wasn't too long ago i'm on your farm we're sitting in your chairs
00:14:07.580in your combine and it has great day it has been one of the most fulfilling things for me in my
00:14:12.460life and i've i've been so happy to be part of this but it's all the people i've met and people
00:14:17.180like you. So thank you so much. Oh, thank you. It's awesome. It's been awesome. And we are
00:14:22.600disappointed, definitely. But I'm proud of what we've done. Thank you. Yeah, I'm super proud,
00:14:27.640too. I'm proud of Hal Burton's. Thank you for all of your work, guys. Here with John Tomkinson
00:14:32.820from United Alberta Flags. You've been out working real hard. You know, I drove up to Edmonton the
00:14:38.620other day, saw signs pretty much every quarter. Oh, sorry, flags. Getting flags up everywhere.
00:14:43.400Yeah, it was unbelievable. You've been working very hard on this. Your feelings. I mean, I spoke with Keith, we're at about 23%. Marty says, we'll likely be at 33 by the morning.
00:14:53.380I suspect so, too. I suspect, I mean, the numbers that are coming in now are the early ballots. I think it is disappointing. It is not what we would like to have seen.
00:15:02.460However, you know, it took hours to get through the polls. There were delays there as well. It's going to take hours to get through two to three million ballots on 10 different questions.
00:15:12.780Yeah. So we've got a preliminary sense here. And, you know, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, yeah, Keith gave us an excellent concession speech. These aren't the numbers that we wanted. But when we take a step back and pause, regardless of where they come out, and I do tend to agree that I think we're looking at closer to 30 percent right now, even with this low benchmark, one in four Albertans is ready to take a walk.
00:15:37.820That is a profound signal to the entire country.
00:15:42.080That's a profound signal to our current government and our current leadership.
00:15:45.620That's a profound signal to Kearney, to Quebec, to Ontario, to Manitoba, to the entire nation,
00:15:53.180that there's something fundamentally flawed in Canada.
00:15:57.040It might not have been the 50% that some people wanted or were worried about.
00:16:00.340It's still substantial to think that a quarter of the population of our province is ready to walk.
00:22:16.520It's one of the first votes in a long time0.99
00:22:18.340where Alberta actually got to have their say.
00:22:20.120But I am a little disappointed that if the numbers stay where they are now and they don't creep up to, say, 35 percent, that we actually did lose support during the campaign across Alberta.
00:22:29.740And that part surprised me because I didn't see people leaving the option two side, going to option one.
00:22:48.760You keep coming out here to talk about this. You found, I think you find Alberta to be interesting. This is the true hope for the country. I think you've used words to that effect. Are you disappointed?
00:22:59.960Yeah, I'm very disappointed. I have been thinking of Alberta as the last bastion of hope for this country. And that the people of Alberta have the sense, which many other areas of the country is lacking, that something's not right in this country.
00:23:17.640But the results tonight don't really bear that out.
00:23:22.000And so one has to wonder whether the population of Alberta as a whole really does think that Canada is not working very well.
00:23:32.340These results, at least as they are right now, they might change through the night.
00:23:35.960But as they are right now, you've got to wonder what happened to all the concerns that Alberta has been expressing for decades.
00:23:43.620What where are those concerns in the in the in the results of this vote?