John Bolton - July 01, 2026


Eastern Writer Tries To Tell Albertans What To Do... Typical


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

172.16

Word count

1,590

Sentence count

122

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

An article written by Kelly McParland in the National Post makes the case for Alberta breaking away from Canada. I think it's a good one, but I also think that McParlin is being condescending to Albertans.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel. It is Wednesday, July the 1st, 5.15 a.m.
00:00:08.520 I hope you're having a great start your Wednesday. Really nice to have you here today. I'm getting
00:00:13.580 started late today. I'm just sitting down behind the computer and I was thinking about taking
00:00:19.500 today off. It is a special day after all. It is July 1st. It's Albertans Day. It's when we
00:00:25.840 celebrate being Albertans on July 1st. But I wanted to address an article I saw in the National Post,
00:00:34.260 and I've seen a few of these articles, and it's brought up quite often, a comparison between
00:00:37.840 Brexit and Alberta independence. This article actually throws in Quebec because Quebec is
00:00:43.600 toying with independence as well. Now, this article written by Kelly McParland, somebody
00:00:48.960 from Ontario, I would suggest that McParland has never been west of the Ontario border or never
00:00:54.620 spent a significant time in Alberta because McParland really doesn't understand Albertans
00:00:59.480 and our grievances out here. As a matter of fact, I would say this article makes a good case
00:01:03.680 for Alberta independence. I'm going to go through a little bit of it here. I'm not going to make
00:01:07.180 this a long video. This is an indication of how Easterners try to tell Albertans what we can and 0.98
00:01:12.340 cannot do. And I guess in this case, what we should and should not do. So the Brexit fiasco 1.00
00:01:17.620 is separatism's future. Ten years after Brexit, the UK is still struggling to regain what it lost.
00:01:23.960 It's not a formula meant to be copied. I'm not going to read a lot of this article. And what
00:01:28.800 you're seeing on the screen right here is a recollection of what's happened over the last
00:01:33.680 10 years with Brexit. Now, let me read the conclusion that McParlin comes to about Brexit.
00:01:42.320 The borders remain porous. The economy remains fragile. Housing remains expensive. Taxes remain
00:01:48.520 onerous. Social benefits are imperiled. And the National Health Service looks increasingly on
00:01:53.500 the brink of something unthinkable and just try to find a dentist. So McParlin makes the conclusion
00:01:59.060 that Brexit has caused all of these problems. I would suggest to you, the reason for all of
00:02:04.480 these problems is not Brexit, it's government. It's a failure of government. And I would say
00:02:11.060 it's a failure of properly implementing Brexit because that has never happened. The first thing
00:02:16.300 on the list that McParlin puts here is one of the main reasons why all these other things are
00:02:20.620 failing, the borders remain porous and you're aware of what's going on. Let's move on to Alberta
00:02:27.020 and Quebec. Neither Quebec nor Alberta is a separate country, but each is contemplating a
00:02:32.060 leap into the deep gorge of uncertainty that so inspired Brexiteers. So just on this short
00:02:37.560 sentence here, the uncertainty of Alberta independence is less frightening to me than
00:02:43.240 the certainty of the failure of Canada. And that's the way I feel and many people out here in the
00:02:48.540 independence movement feel. Now, these next two paragraphs, I initially thought maybe
00:02:53.220 McParland understood Albertans, but I think McParland is being condescending in these next
00:03:01.200 two paragraphs. In both, voters have been promised a brave new world, much like the one featured in
00:03:07.080 the Brexit campaign. No more bossing around from distant Ottawa, where no one understands their
00:03:12.040 concerns or cares about their future. No more watching their resources siphoned off for the
00:03:17.220 benefit of others, no more threat to their culture and customs, no more disregard for the litany of
00:03:21.880 resentments built up over decades, no more outsiders poking in their unwanted noses, Canadian or
00:03:27.660 otherwise. This is a great argument for Alberta independence. But I do think that McParland is
00:03:34.020 being condescending here. All of these reasons that are given in this paragraph right here
00:03:40.160 are reasons why we want to leave. Yet the complications that see Britons moaning their 0.66
00:03:45.940 post-Brexit lot would just as quickly challenge the newly liberated provinces. Both would have
00:03:51.140 small populations surrounded by bigger, richer countries with established economies and no 0.99
00:03:56.460 reason to help the newcomers succeed. Quebec with its 9 million people and ongoing deficit would
00:04:01.920 lose about $30 billion. Alberta would still have an economy based on a single product. Well that's
00:04:07.700 not true. We are building data centers out here. We have a tourism industry that employs about 60,000
00:04:15.620 people, and we bring in $15.6 billion a year in tourism here. As a matter of fact, the number
00:04:23.160 of people coming out here to see Alberta is going up on a yearly basis. So many people are coming
00:04:28.160 here right now. They're trying to keep people away. We have more than one industry. Let me start that
00:04:33.060 up again. Alberta would still have an economy based on a single product whose price it couldn't
00:04:37.880 control, but without the various subsidies, supports, and financial backstops that come
00:04:42.780 with his place in Canada. When Kinder Morgan gave up on the Trans Mountain pipeline, it was Ottawa,
00:04:48.600 not Edmonton, that it could afford to buy and build it. Does McParland understand Trans Mountain
00:04:54.100 pulled out because of government, because of regulation, because of climate change? That's
00:05:00.100 why Trans Mountain pulled away. This is a failure of government. It's a failure of Ottawa. It's a
00:05:06.880 failure of the Liberal Party. And what did they pay for that pipeline? Six times what it was worth?
00:05:12.780 Canadian taxpayers' dollars, by the way. There's no reason to expect Canada would adopt a friendlier
00:05:19.280 attitude to a breakaway province than Europe did to London after Brexit. There would certainly be
00:05:24.580 no more need to protect Quebec dairy farmers by forcing other Canadians to pay higher prices for
00:05:30.100 milk or cheese. How fair is that? That's a failure of government. Why the hell do I have to pay more
00:05:35.860 for milk or cheese out here in Alberta because they're protecting dairy farmers in Quebec? One
00:05:41.360 of the reasons why Kuzma is likely to fail, by the way, or to continue with costly bilingualism
00:05:47.380 programs enforced in 10 provinces for the benefit of one, or send billions in support payments to
00:05:52.960 help fund hospitals, schools, and social programs. So Ottawa would no longer do that for Alberta?
00:05:58.660 Listen, Mr. or Mrs. McParland, I don't know if you're a man or a woman. Do you not understand 0.53
00:06:05.320 how much money Alberta contributes every year to the Canadian government?
00:06:10.420 $25 billion a year in transfer payments alone go to Ottawa. $5,000 for every man, woman,
00:06:19.740 and child in this province. When Ottawa gives Alberta money, it's returning Alberta's money
00:06:26.000 to its rightful owner. Jesus Christ. Alberta would find itself landlocked. You know,
00:06:33.960 I've been dealing with this for ages. We are landlocked. We're landlocked. Well,
00:06:38.020 what does Keith Wilson say? We are policy locked by Ottawa. We would have negotiating power if we
00:06:46.220 left with British Columbia. It might have to get nasty. We would like to have a pipeline to the
00:06:53.680 coast, British Columbia. No. Well, then you can't have access to the rest of Canada. British
00:06:58.640 Columbia would be Canada locked. Can you imagine the harm to British Columbia if we shut down our
00:07:05.060 borders for a couple of days or maybe turned off the taps to maybe a gas pipeline? I hate to say
00:07:11.000 it might come to that. Alberta's 5 million people would place it roughly equivalent to the status
00:07:18.420 of Slovakia in Europe, but without the EU benefits. And that's if all 5 million stayed.
00:07:23.480 The 2021 census indicated 48% of the province was born elsewhere. That's true. 0.98
00:07:28.640 i'm born elsewhere came here close to 15 years ago for a better life and i found it i found it
00:07:35.280 because frankly alberta is better than the rest of the country a calgary chamber of commerce survey
00:07:41.840 found almost half of its members are prepared to relocate their business if the province starts a
00:07:46.640 separation process well the calgary chamber of commerce does not represent all business
00:07:51.280 actually a small percentage and where are they going to go calgary chamber of commerce represents
00:07:57.520 a florist shop. Where are they going to put their florist shop? Move it to British Columbia or to
00:08:01.440 Ontario? That's ridiculous. We'd be fighting off companies and businesses with a stick with lower 0.97
00:08:06.380 business taxes, lower income taxes, lower regulations. This would be a great place to
00:08:12.600 live. And again, I'm more frightened of the uncertainty of Canada than I am of an independent
00:08:17.860 Alberta. By far. There's more in here. Lots more. You can read this article. I could go through the
00:08:24.020 whole thing. It'd take me all day. They go on to talk about, we'd lose our trading relationship
00:08:29.060 with Canada. Well, we actually do very little business with the rest of the country. A majority
00:08:34.640 of our business is with the United States of America. $151 billion of trade with the United
00:08:40.740 States of America. They're on our Southern border. As a matter of fact, Albertans have more in common
00:08:45.880 with people who live South of us than we do with the rest of the country. In fact, many people who
00:08:50.820 settled out here originally came from the United States of America. You can read this article.
00:08:56.720 It makes a great case for Alberta independence as far as I'm concerned. Mr. or Mrs. McParlin
00:09:02.560 don't understand what Alberta is about. Link in the description. If you like this video,
00:09:07.340 give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications.
00:09:10.880 I'll see you in the next one. Happy Albertans Day.