John Bolton - May 22, 2026


Keith Wilson on Premier Smith's Announcement - It's Better Than You Think


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

179.85

Word count

4,298

Sentence count

119

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Keith Wilson joins me to talk about Premier Danielle Smith's announcement that Alberta will be holding a referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada. We also talk about the impact of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that struck down a portion of the Alberta government's motion to allow the referendum to go forward.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 That is why I'm announcing today that I will be requesting our government add an additional question to the October 19th referendum vote announced previously.
00:00:08.040 The additional question will be, should Alberta remain a province of Canada?
00:00:13.980 Or should the government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?
00:00:25.080 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel. Thursday, May 21st, 8.07 p.m. It's past my bedtime, I have to say. I'm usually up. I was up at 2 o'clock this morning, but this is an important interview right now, and I'm so pleased and honoured to have Keith Wilson joining me here to talk about what we heard Premier Danielle Smith say tonight.
00:00:45.320 so basically Keith what I heard her say is we're going to get a vote on having a vote that's what
00:00:55.040 I heard and I'm hoping that you can turn some lemons into lemonade here because there's not a
00:01:01.760 lot of people happy with this right now we do get a vote but I'm a little bit concerned about what's
00:01:06.120 going on here I said I said online Danielle Smith isn't sitting on the fence she is the fence tonight
00:01:11.840 What are your thoughts? What were your initial thoughts when you heard this this evening?
00:01:15.480 Well, it was a bit of a body blow, for sure. You know, in my view, John, the reasons for Alberta
00:01:24.240 to become independent are so compelling. And I have yet to hear even one kind of half good
00:01:31.020 reason why we should stay. So if I were king for a day, I wish we could be independent tomorrow.
00:01:38.000 and that would even be waiting too long yeah so yeah what but but when I sit back and I look at
00:01:45.880 this strategically and I put my litigator's cap on and I try and be realistic about the playing
00:01:49.960 field and what I see is first of all we've had the wild card of the courts and there's nothing
00:01:56.960 that she can do or I can do to fix that so this strategy and she was clear about that in her
00:02:03.020 her speech or her address that this this is designed to try and mitigate the impact of that
00:02:07.660 while keeping us moving forward so i agree with that aspect because the choice that people will
00:02:14.340 have on october 19th now is to vote to stay in canada in other words everything's fine we don't
00:02:20.240 need anything changed or you know what i'm not i definitely you're going to be in two camps you're
00:02:27.020 either going to be like you and me clear as day the right thing to do which is to vote for
00:02:31.360 independence so yes I want you the Alberta government to hold a specific standalone
00:02:36.740 referendum on the only one question stay or leave and that's what I want you to do that's what I'm
00:02:41.980 voting but then I know a whole bunch of people and the polls bear this out who don't want to leave
00:02:49.340 but are very unhappy with Ottawa this allows those people imagine two scenarios John where
00:02:56.580 on October 19th, scenario A is that reluctant separatist, the reluctant separatist is given a
00:03:05.040 choice, stay or leave. They're going to vote stay. Now another scenario, they're given a choice that
00:03:12.220 they either vote to stay or they vote to require the Alberta government to hold an independence
00:03:18.060 referendum that reluctant um federalist that are you know reluctant separatist someone who's
00:03:26.460 wants Canada to work but isn't happy at all can vote for that second question right and if we can
00:03:33.740 get them to vote for that we will have a few months to get them to go even further and the
00:03:39.700 other thing that's going to happen is two things let's be honest with ourselves and let's be really
00:03:45.820 self-critical here. We're all working hard, tremendous effort by volunteers. My wife was
00:03:52.600 one of them canvassers. I saw how many hours she put in and how hard she worked. And I know so many 0.99
00:03:57.540 others, just remarkable. But the reality is we haven't progressed from a grassroots campaign
00:04:04.340 to a serious campaign. The truth is that the Forever Canada group, Lukasik and others,
00:04:11.340 have a campaign and they just opened their campaign office and we don't even have a campaign
00:04:17.520 on the independent side we've got a lot of good intentions we've got a lot of volunteers we've got
00:04:23.280 a lot of energy but we don't have a sophisticated strategy so I really don't think if it was an up
00:04:28.500 or down vote on October 19th we'd win it I think we'd lose and it's all over so this gives us time
00:04:34.420 to get our act together and uh uh to to convince the people to make it that don't want us to leave
00:04:43.600 but are concerned about ottawa to vote for the referendum and then get them over to our side
00:04:52.220 which is you know what the right thing to do it allow the work of the transition council there's
00:04:56.980 the alberta transition council that i've been working on we had our first meeting last week
00:05:00.580 and we're getting underway, it'll allow for that white paper to come out that'll describe the
00:05:05.740 details of how Alberta can seamlessly transfer, transition from a province to nationhood.
00:05:12.380 So it gives us a chance to get our act together and get us in a winning position.
00:05:18.560 Let me play it from Premier Daniel Smith's side here and maybe defend her a bit. Now,
00:05:25.600 don't throw anything at your screens if you're watching this right now because people are upset.
00:05:28.920 Was this her only play? Because our petitions are held up in court. Lukaszek's question, would it have been held up in court? Would there have been court challenges for that? Would we ever get that question to a ballot on a referendum in the fall? Was this her only play in this situation?
00:05:47.620 so how i gamed it out and i previously gamed this out and that's why i was able to react so quickly
00:05:53.800 i hadn't gamed out her question because i didn't see that coming that was really creative i thought
00:05:59.800 what i gamed out was if she announces tonight that on october 19th it's up or down vote in
00:06:06.900 other words you either vote to stay or leave just like brexit was stay leave and then the first
00:06:14.980 nations, the few of the chiefs that are acting as political opportunists for Ottawa, in my view,
00:06:22.560 convince another Ottawa appointed judge to shut down the provincial referendum,
00:06:31.400 then we're completely on ice. I'm going to phone you up and say, hey, let's go on a bike ride to
00:06:37.940 Banff, man. Not that that's a bad idea, but you see that we'd be completely shut down.
00:06:42.820 yeah this the way she did it and i listened carefully to her words she's right the courts
00:06:49.340 can't touch this one and it keeps the power with the people in the meantime and allows the rest of
00:06:55.260 us to get our act together there's one more variable too that's probably not obvious at all
00:06:59.520 i'm a student of american politics i always follow american politics really close one of the reasons
00:07:04.480 i do that is it's my way of not getting overly involved in canadian and alberta politics as i
00:07:09.660 follow a country that I have nothing to do with. So one of the things that's happening right now
00:07:13.660 in the US is the midterms are coming up in November. And there's a lot of concern that
00:07:19.660 Trump's going to lose control of both the Senate and the House. And one of the issues that's a
00:07:26.740 swing vote for independence is his treatment of Canada. They see everything he's doing as hostile
00:07:32.960 to Canada, and they're angry at him for it. They don't realize that here in Alberta,
00:07:37.100 we see him more as somebody who will help albert achieve its potential so he would be under a lot
00:07:44.100 of pressure so imagine we had the up down vote in october and imagine we won it and then
00:07:49.500 negotiations fall apart with with ottawa they block us through bad faith negotiations which
00:07:54.900 many of us expect they're likely to do right and then we need trump to to recognize a unilateral
00:08:00.260 declaration and he can't because he's worried he's going to lose too many seats in the midterms
00:08:06.540 right so we want that to happen after november so having a vote in february or march um allows us to
00:08:16.560 to do a number of things that i think we can make these lemons into some refreshing lemonade
00:08:22.140 did did she say that we would do this next year i guess i'm i'm concerned i'm sorry she said she
00:08:28.700 said months or she said months or years i don't think it's going to be years it can't be years
00:08:33.380 she won't survive years but what i mean by that politically she's boxed in yeah well my concern
00:08:39.760 is this she's under an enormous amount of pressure here i'm going to talk about some people who are
00:08:46.060 not really happy with her and the independence movement in just sure but there's an election
00:08:50.680 there's an election plan for next year one year less a day after the referendum in october of
00:08:57.280 this year that's right is she going to schedule a referendum on independence months before an
00:09:03.320 election here in alberta can you see that general they call it in in government if you work in
00:09:08.460 government they call it the red zone and the red zone is six months before an election okay all
00:09:13.240 right so yeah there's certain things you wouldn't do in a year it would have to be months then it
00:09:18.620 would have to be months after this vote in october then have to be months yes yeah yeah i'm thinking
00:09:24.140 february march is when when the vote should be and and um this is a little different though
00:09:31.000 because no it's different all right yeah but it's so like look at feel the intensity of your
00:09:37.720 emotions right now and mine earlier right and our fear and our anxiety combined with our hope and
00:09:43.820 aspiration um is this is highly motivating for the electorate within the party as we know well
00:09:51.840 like you know their their site crashed last week uh on membership sales because there's so many
00:09:57.400 people buying membership i went in to make sure my membership was current everybody in my family
00:10:01.840 went in and oh oops supple have realized they renewed theirs right we're not messing around
00:10:06.880 here we're gonna do this and um so she's she's not gonna get a pass and so she's gonna have
00:10:15.420 tremendous pressure and we need to keep the pressure on the premier and the and the party
00:10:19.860 to follow through on this and in a timely way and not make this some kind of lark
00:10:25.520 because if she does uh she could lose her position um and even if she doesn't there'll
00:10:33.320 be such a split in the party that it'll weaken the party um people will go to a new party i don't
00:10:39.680 know what party that is or they'll they'll either create a new party or they'll go to one of these
00:10:44.500 marginally functioning parties right this is what happens in politics history and uh so uh she's got
00:10:52.400 to follow through for the those of us who want the right to vote on on uh our future and exercise
00:11:00.260 our right of self-determination through a democratic process and move alberta to nationhood
00:11:05.600 she's um people are calling for her head right now online they they were talking about this days ago
00:11:11.280 if she doesn't give us a vote, an up and down vote on independence in October, that they're 0.92
00:11:18.040 going to get rid of her. And is that a wise thing to do? We get rid of Danielle Smith.
00:11:23.820 We got Nenshi and the NDP waiting around the corner. I mean, there's lots of strategy going
00:11:28.420 on here in different ways this can play out. And that would end it. Like, that's the thing.
00:11:31.700 So what people have to ask themselves, just like you did, and I did. Okay, what option did she have
00:11:39.680 given this intervention by the courts yeah and that boxed her in so she could have delayed the 0.61
00:11:44.740 whole thing waited for the courts um and and go back to that person you've met them yeah and i
00:11:51.180 never asked you this but i know i'm certain you have someone in your circle who says i am so
00:11:57.680 pissed off at ottawa for a b and c so you're going to vote for independence no no i want to stay in
00:12:03.380 canada you know people like that right yeah yep and i'm not asking you to name them or identify
00:12:06.880 i'm not trying to play that game no but now imagine them going into that ballot and now
00:12:12.240 they've got a choice to say stay or call on the alberta government to hold a binding standalone
00:12:17.820 independence referendum i can see a lot of those people and i actually um looking forward to
00:12:23.620 testing that with them soon you know tonight or tomorrow voting up some of my friends who are in
00:12:28.320 that camp and saying how would you vote and i think i know what they're going to say each one
00:12:32.460 of them are going to say i'm going to vote for the government holding independence we got to get
00:12:36.500 Ottawa to stop this. But then what's going to happen is, because whenever I have like a debate
00:12:41.440 with Jason Kenney, like I have coming up on Monday, and I say, okay, great, you agree that
00:12:46.460 all these grievances are real, you agree that these unfairnesses are real, you agree that
00:12:50.480 immigration policy is terrible, and that you actually had it right when you were Minister
00:12:54.180 of Immigration, Mr. Kenney. And you agree that we're being held back economically, but you don't
00:12:59.140 have a single plan for how to fix it. And the only plan that works, and the only option that is
00:13:05.040 actually viable? Is it voting for independence? So it'll give us a chance to get ourselves
00:13:09.980 organized, to put a real serious campaign together with a strategy, with strategies,
00:13:16.660 and mobilize the grassroots and equip them with the right tools to help convince others so that
00:13:23.220 we can win this. And we have the time. I remember last year, people were saying,
00:13:27.340 we need a referendum now. And everybody's saying, no, we need to hold this back because we need to
00:13:31.220 plan here we we need that time for strategy let me ask you this because we've you know money i hate
00:13:37.640 going back around to money but right now where we are if we've got this plan for this question in
00:13:44.000 october are we in some kind of a campaign phase right now where you know we're limited to what
00:13:49.580 we can contribute to the independence not right now it's going to take some weeks okay uh for the
00:13:56.120 cabinet to issue the order and formulate the steps that they need to take and go through their
00:14:01.580 processes and it's not until the cabinet issues an order in council under the referendum act
00:14:07.560 setting the specific legal question um so the announcement today doesn't mean that that
00:14:14.820 trigger's been met it's the order in council issued by cabinet which is some weeks or potentially
00:14:19.840 months away and in that period of time um none of the elections alberta campaign finance rules
00:14:27.760 are in place and we're in a period of free political expression and it's an ideal time
00:14:32.640 for people to get organized that's why i've recorded uh some of on my youtube channel about
00:14:37.280 recommending that groups form around you know functional groups so seniors for independence
00:14:44.320 veterans for independence farmers for independence artists for independence engineers for independence
00:14:50.400 lawyers for independence and people can self-activate on that and uh that will be a good
00:14:56.320 way for everybody to organize so we can have multiple multiple groups to counteract the
00:15:01.640 stay stay in canada side i should say though i don't agree with the premier's rosy characteristic
00:15:09.320 description of many things that she described. Things are not that good. Ottawa has not changed
00:15:17.300 course that dramatically. We're not getting a pipeline. Come on. That thing is so full of
00:15:23.940 poison pills and giving an unconstitutional veto to EB, giving an unconstitutional veto to the 0.96
00:15:29.900 First Nations. As each few weeks go by, he just did his presentation a day or two ago to the
00:15:35.980 Vancouver Board of Trade, and he loaded on even more conditions. There's going to be no
00:15:40.860 profitability. He says British Columbia also has to approve it and receive significant financial
00:15:47.280 benefits. And then he said the First Nations still have a veto, and they have to receive,
00:15:52.700 have ownership and receive significant financial benefits. And then where's the oil company,
00:15:58.780 where's the pipeline company going to get the commitments for the oil? Because
00:16:01.720 we've just now imposed a five to fifteen dollar per barrel carbon tax emission net zero nonsense
00:16:07.620 on it so we're not going to get a pipeline uh let's be honest uh and the ideologues are still
00:16:13.820 in ottawa i think that the other advantage is as each month goes by it will become more clear
00:16:21.840 to the reluctant um the reluctant federalists you know the people who want to stay in canada
00:16:29.860 but they're very concerned about Alberta's being treated, to realize that Canada's done,
00:16:35.900 that the Liberals are the natural governing party. We have a completely different set of
00:16:40.760 values and culture, and we have to just own up to that. When we become independent, we're not
00:16:48.060 carving out the boundaries of Alberta and putting it up on dollies and moving it somewhere.
00:16:53.020 We'll have an agreement with Ottawa and the rest of the country on trade and mobility,
00:16:58.580 but will be negotiating from a position of power, and we will not be seeking their permission
00:17:04.220 to be economically prosperous. It's interesting. You look at the strange bedfellows that are going
00:17:12.680 to be working together against us. Paulyev came out and said he's going to be campaigning against
00:17:17.520 Alberta independence. This campaign is going to start because this question in the fall will
00:17:21.860 determine whether we have an independence vote you're going to have smith nenshi kenny carney
00:17:28.880 eb all working together it's almost it's almost like canada working against alberta it's almost
00:17:34.320 like a metaphor for 121 years of alberta being part of canada isn't it it's very odd but they're
00:17:41.860 all going to be fighting against alberta in this that's well you know i saw what what
00:17:47.620 um poly have said in vancouver i think it was and kept talking in french for the longest time and i
00:17:54.460 got bored and didn't hear the english part but honestly um and i thought is he talking to albert
00:18:01.360 yeah anyway but i thought to myself you know what and i like pierre like i do i think he's done hard
00:18:09.720 work like but but you know i also like somebody who was a clerk who did a terrible job you know
00:18:16.800 it's just like some people are good at things and some people aren't but the bottom line is
00:18:20.400 he's completely ineffective because the political parties are completely ineffective because the
00:18:26.300 system doesn't work because they think that if they go into the house of commons if you've ever
00:18:31.420 gone in person and watched question period you just come away feeling like you want to throw up
00:18:35.840 like serious it's so nice i'm not joking it's absolutely nauseating because you see the theater
00:18:41.000 they like all turn to the camera you need like and then everybody else is talking and then at the
00:18:46.020 time they all look because the camera's coming their way and you're just like really what are
00:18:49.780 you jokers doing but my point is is he is going to be as effective i believe despite his best
00:18:57.220 efforts he's going to be as effective at making the case for why i should change my opinion and
00:19:02.900 vote to stay in canada as he has been at addressing the fundamental problems of ottawa
00:19:09.780 right he's not it's that the systems are corrupted they're broken they don't work
00:19:15.060 We have a cultural disconnect.
00:19:17.760 Canada's too big to be effectively governed. 1.00
00:19:19.920 Our economic needs are too diverse.
00:19:22.220 Ontario's based on an automotive manufacturing sector,
00:19:25.280 as you know well from your history and my as well.
00:19:28.240 And a lot of that's largely due to the fact
00:19:30.560 that it was a supply of low-cost labor
00:19:32.460 to the largest consuming economy in the world,
00:19:35.480 the United States of America.
00:19:37.120 Whereas Alberta's a resource economy.
00:19:39.300 It's not based on low-cost manufacturing like Ontario is.
00:19:43.280 We don't need to make cars here.
00:19:45.060 Because we have resources in every field and a growing capability and everything from lithium to helium to fertilizers to Dow's largest project in the world is occurring here in Alberta and Fort Saskatchewan.
00:19:59.080 Because the world needs more of the incredible products that we can develop from our oil and gas, all of the plastics and unique glues and resins and composites that make up the modern world, right?
00:20:11.200 so we are an absolute superpower a rock star and we're held back by ideologues in ottawa
00:20:18.400 and we're done with it um i'm going to wrap it up here in just a moment you're stepping up
00:20:24.380 a lot in this aren't you you're going to be spending a lot yeah you're going to be spending
00:20:28.060 a lot more time doing this i am you know and i was just on another podcast you're like
00:20:32.760 will you lead the like there's no campaign you know i teased it was derrick smith i said you're
00:20:37.940 to be my campaign manager. But let me be clear, I'm prepared to do more. I'm prepared to be more
00:20:45.820 visual. I did my first CTV interview today at their request, and there was like some valve
00:20:51.920 opened. I'm going to be on CBC twice tomorrow, once with the house and another with Rosemary
00:20:58.020 Barton. And I'm looking forward to, I want them to come at me really hard and try and ask me the
00:21:03.960 hard questions. I'm looking forward very much to my debate on Monday in Calgary, the public debate
00:21:11.080 with Jason Kenney. And I hope to see you there, John. I will be. I will be. Thank you. And so,
00:21:17.960 and I want to be on your show a lot more. And I want to, as was reported in the National Post,
00:21:24.220 in that story that Donna Kennedy Glanz released last weekend, where she spent a lot of time with
00:21:29.420 me over a period of days and really deeping into who is Keith Wilson and where do I want to go with
00:21:34.920 this. And, you know, she revealed something, which is I've reduced my my caseload, my client base by
00:21:40.700 75 percent. And I've done that so I can really dedicate and volunteer my time to help advance
00:21:48.080 independence. So I'm very serious about this. I appreciate all the kind words of support and
00:21:52.860 encouragement that I've had. I'm going to put my shoulder to the wheel, man, and we're going to move
00:21:56.780 forward. We're going to make this happen. I have a request of all the people who are part of this
00:22:02.460 movement in this province. And we've got different groups working on different things. But we're
00:22:08.420 stronger together than we are apart. We need to work together. Leave the egos at the door for
00:22:15.860 Christ's sake. Let's work together on this and we can win this thing. This isn't about who's leading
00:22:22.400 it. Everybody can have their part here. I have a small part, just like the people who were out
00:22:27.960 collecting those signatures have their part. I always thank them because they were doing so much
00:22:32.140 for this movement. For God's sakes, let's work together. This is very important. It is. I
00:22:36.780 completely agree 100% that we, we have to do that to win. We have to do that so we can develop a
00:22:42.340 coordinated strategy. We don't have that right now. It's critical. It's critical. Success requires
00:22:47.540 it and i think we can get there stop fighting with each other folks work together that's the
00:22:52.880 most important thing um i want to first off before i leave i want to wish you best of luck
00:22:57.680 against jason kenny on monday night the world's going to be watching this one are you prepared
00:23:02.560 you're ready to go yeah i mean i mean i've internalized all this stuff you know and i had
00:23:08.400 the the go against him last time and um you know all he's got is fear and uncertainty he's got no
00:23:18.180 plan uh you know probably get personal and try and get under my skin but that's not going to work
00:23:23.860 and um i hope he prepares really hard and can try and make the best case that's possible and
00:23:31.160 i hope to completely blow it out of the water well we're going to be rooting for you on monday
00:23:35.440 night. I know the whole province will be watching and best of luck to you then. And thanks again for
00:23:40.640 doing this. I appreciate it. Look forward to having you back on the channel again. Keith Wilson,
00:23:45.000 thanks so much. Thank you very much, John. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up,
00:23:49.600 subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications. I will see you in the next one.