John Bolton - August 28, 2025


The CASE for Alberta INDEPENDENCE - In DANIELLE SMITH'S own words


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

170.35963

Word count

1,999

Sentence count

123

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Why Alberta needs to leave Canada. I speak with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about the reasons why she believes Alberta should leave Canada and become an independent province. I think this is the most convincing video on the internet when it comes to Alberta leaving Canada.

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 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel.
00:00:06.840 Great to have you along today, 4.57 a.m.
00:00:09.540 I hope you're having a great start to your Thursday, August the 28th, with the Big Blue
00:00:14.860 Mug of Coffee.
00:00:15.700 Thank you so much for being here today.
00:00:17.400 And I think this could be the most convincing video on the internet when it comes to Alberta
00:00:24.660 independence.
00:00:25.260 And I want to speak directly with Premier Danielle Smith today.
00:00:28.660 And I want to use these points to drive home the fact that we need Alberta independence
00:00:34.100 right now.
00:00:34.740 I believe a majority of Albertans want independence.
00:00:37.480 I believe a majority, Madam Premier, of your caucus, I've heard it's up to 70%, want Alberta
00:00:42.820 to be independent as well.
00:00:45.580 These points are factual.
00:00:47.640 These points are irrefutable.
00:00:49.460 These points are convincing.
00:00:51.020 These points are why Alberta needs to leave Canada.
00:00:54.240 Anyone who hears them should be convinced that Alberta will be better when it is independent.
00:01:00.100 Madam Premier, let's go through the points one by one.
00:01:02.620 I think you will find them compelling.
00:01:04.360 So number one, Alberta has been used as a piggy bank for the rest of Canada.
00:01:10.320 And despite protesting by the province and you, it will not stop.
00:01:14.960 We have no issue with Alberta continuing to subsidize smaller provinces with their needs.
00:01:20.360 But there is no excuse for such large and powerful economies like Ontario, Quebec, BC or Alberta to be subsidizing one another.
00:01:28.840 That was never the intent of equalization and it needs to end.
00:01:33.120 Alberta has been victim of the unwritten policy of the East.
00:01:37.900 Screw the West.
00:01:39.300 We'll take the rest.
00:01:40.420 To the new Prime Minister and the Liberal Party, I have one message.
00:01:46.300 Alberta has had enough. 1.00
00:01:48.400 Enough with Ottawa trampling over our provincial jurisdiction like Canada's constitution doesn't exist.
00:01:54.960 Enough with the meaningless virtue signaling climate policies that only make Canadians poorer and threaten our energy security.
00:02:03.160 Enough of their screw the West will take the rest mentality. 1.00
00:02:06.860 The government of Canada is run by net zero climate zealots who will never allow Alberta to reach its potential.
00:02:14.680 Eco-extremist former Environment Minister Stephen Guibault is still in Cabinet.
00:02:20.860 But that shouldn't surprise any of us, given that the new Prime Minister is a whole new level of climate zealot and eco-extremist.
00:02:27.620 From his decades-long push for net zero banking that sought to make it impossible for banks to invest in oil and gas,
00:02:34.340 to his promise now to massively increase carbon taxes on our industry, make no mistake, he wants to eviscerate our oil and gas industry.
00:02:43.000 It's right in his book.
00:02:45.020 The government of Canada fails at negotiating with our biggest trading partner,
00:02:49.880 while a strong Alberta is called names for doing what is necessary to ensure prosperity.
00:02:56.040 And what does Team Carney want me to do?
00:02:59.160 They want me to abandon my post, remain in Alberta, and do absolutely nothing to defend our province.
00:03:04.240 They want me to cower in the face of Eastern media pundits and politicians who favor political grandstanding to effective diplomacy.
00:03:12.240 I'm fiercely criticized for going into the lion's den to change the hearts and minds of the very Americans
00:03:17.720 that we need on Canada's side to avoid a trade war with the most powerful economy on Earth.
00:03:23.340 They want this lady and Alberta to just sit down and shut up. 1.00
00:03:27.920 Well, here is my response to that.
00:03:30.560 I will not be silent.
00:03:32.160 Alberta will not be silent.
00:03:34.300 We will not be pushed around and called traitors for merely having the courage to actually do something
00:03:40.400 about our nations and provinces' predicament other than merely indulging in self-righteous tantrums.
00:03:46.200 And I, for one, will never be silenced by the party in Ottawa that has sold out our beloved province
00:03:53.040 for the last 10 years with the help of their NDP collaborators.
00:03:57.360 Why should Alberta stay in a country that replaces a bad leader with one that is even worse?
00:04:03.560 The offensive agenda that we have, whether it's emissions caps or net zero electricity regs,
00:04:11.080 all generate from Mark Carney, who's been pushing that agenda for a long period of time.
00:04:17.100 So if you think that I would meet the potential of his leadership with any enthusiasm, let me tell you,
00:04:23.560 I think he'd be even worse than what we see out of Justin Trudeau.
00:04:27.840 Madam Premier, why should Alberta continue to accept any rules that continues to threaten our biggest industry?
00:04:35.660 The inability to approve pipelines, getting approvals and then having them pulled,
00:04:40.780 having a convoluted regulatory process that makes it impossible to get new pipelines built,
00:04:46.140 continued threats of regulating our power grid, continued threats of regulating our industry,
00:04:50.880 continued threats of export taxes, cutting off energy.
00:04:54.560 I haven't really seen any change that would lead me to be encouraged that we're going to have a reset on our relationship.
00:05:01.000 Alberta and Albertans continue to get ripped off by Ottawa that uses our money to fund places that vote liberal.
00:05:09.160 Ottawa overtaxing us.
00:05:11.600 I mentioned that at the beginning of the evening, that our program costs are 70% of all tax dollars.
00:05:19.580 We only collect 40%.
00:05:21.100 Ottawa collects 60%.
00:05:22.940 And then they use political means to transfer it.
00:05:25.640 Alberta, year after year, has $20 to $25 billion that is siphoned out of our system to go to Ottawa
00:05:33.600 so that it can be spent mostly in Quebec, but also in other places that vote liberal.
00:05:38.700 We have been watching this for years.
00:05:40.900 $600 billion in the last 40 or 50 years that have been taken out of this province.
00:05:46.660 You don't think we might be able to do a little bit more on social spending
00:05:49.660 if those $20 to $25 billion stayed here?
00:05:52.280 You don't think we'd be able to cut taxes a bit if those $20 to $25 billion stayed here?
00:05:57.760 It is $5,000 per Albertan that every single year gets transferred out of this province
00:06:06.540 for political reasons so that the Liberals can continue to spend it in places that vote liberal.
00:06:12.740 That is what is happening in the province and in the country.
00:06:15.760 Alberta continues to be treated unfairly, but we're told to shut up and keep paying.
00:06:22.960 In just the last 10 years alone, more than $500 billion, that's a half a trillion dollars,
00:06:28.480 in global investment capital destined for our resource sector has disappeared.
00:06:33.720 It walked away from Alberta and Canada and instead headed off to Texas, Asia, and the Middle East
00:06:39.800 to places that welcome resource development and jobs.
00:06:43.260 That cost Alberta and Canada quite literally hundreds of billions in GDP,
00:06:48.900 corporate taxes and resource royalties for health care, education, and public infrastructure.
00:06:55.240 It cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and thousands of healthy and growing businesses.
00:07:01.560 It was national self-harm on a level never seen.
00:07:05.300 Ottawa and the Liberal Party isn't the solution to any problem, Madam Premier.
00:07:09.860 It is the cause of Alberta's problems.
00:07:12.160 Alberta is being held back.
00:07:14.580 Our economy has been under attack for most of the last 10 years.
00:07:18.220 Frankly, off and on for decades long before then.
00:07:21.840 Not by a foreign country or by world economic forces.
00:07:26.120 No, Alberta's biggest threat to our prosperity and growth has come from our own nation's capital.
00:07:31.920 Alberta has an Ottawa problem.
00:07:33.580 Ottawa, Liberals and the East have cost us tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth for Albertans.
00:07:43.040 And for the last 10 years, to put into context why we need it again a few years later,
00:07:49.060 Ottawa, led by the Liberal government, has taken direct aim at Alberta's core industries.
00:07:54.920 From Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines law, to the tanker ban off the northwest B.C. coast,
00:08:01.300 the oil and gas emission cap, which of course targets one sector and we know is meant to be a production cap,
00:08:08.460 not just an emissions cap, and their net zero mandates on electricity as well as vehicles.
00:08:13.960 In fact, in just the last 10 years alone, more than half a trillion dollars in global investment capital
00:08:21.120 destined for our resource sector has disappeared.
00:08:24.760 It's cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions in GDP and resource royalties
00:08:30.540 that could have been used for health care, for education and for public infrastructure.
00:08:35.000 Canada continues to get in the way of what Alberta does best, building things.
00:08:40.980 They aren't the solution to any problem. Ottawa is the problem. They get in the way.
00:08:46.240 If they would just let us build more pipelines to get more of our product to market, whether it was,
00:08:53.780 yeah, let me give you the numbers so that you just know how big it is.
00:08:57.580 If we had had, if they hadn't cancelled Northern Gateway, that was approved and the federal Liberals cancelled it.
00:09:04.180 We were well on our way to getting Energy East up and running,
00:09:07.100 except for they couldn't see an end to the regulatory process after spending a billion dollars,
00:09:12.360 so they pulled the plug.
00:09:13.560 We were building the Keystone XL pipeline,
00:09:16.180 and they didn't lift one finger to help us with the American administration
00:09:19.300 when they turned around and cancelled it five seconds after Biden got elected.
00:09:23.200 If we had had those three pipelines built,
00:09:25.920 they'd be built today, and we'd be selling 2.5 million barrels of oil per day more.
00:09:31.700 At today's prices, that's $55 billion in GDP.
00:09:34.860 Mark Carney, the Liberals and Ottawa want to leave our riches in the ground, Madam Premier.
00:09:41.120 It's absolute insanity.
00:09:43.680 Well, you have to understand just how damaged Alberta is by the fact that we didn't get pipelines built.
00:09:49.220 If we had built Northern Gateway, if we'd built Keystone and we'd built Energy East,
00:09:52.840 we'd have 2.5 million barrels more per day of production,
00:09:56.240 which is $55 billion a year worth of GDP value,
00:10:00.160 which is worth $17 billion to my government alone,
00:10:02.960 and about an equal amount to the federal government.
00:10:05.000 So this is not just an ideological argument.
00:10:08.460 It's not just a minor disagreement.
00:10:10.340 Oil is by far the most valuable export for Canada.
00:10:14.080 Any of the projects that you will see on the ultimate list,
00:10:17.500 I will tell you that a bitumen pipeline will be by far the greatest benefit to all of Canada.
00:10:23.580 That's why we're going to continue to push for it,
00:10:25.240 because it's just a good project.
00:10:26.680 It's good for our country.
00:10:27.980 There's $9 trillion worth of value in discoverable and achievable reserves right now.
00:10:33.220 And so why would you leave that in the ground?
00:10:34.820 No other country in the world would, and we shouldn't either.
00:10:36.800 Because of Canada, Alberta keeps falling behind.
00:10:41.200 Actually, we've got the lowest living standards in the world.
00:10:43.560 Like, we're falling behind all the OECD countries in productivity growth,
00:10:47.820 the standard of living growth.
00:10:48.780 And that's because these are the kind of projects that consistently fail and do not get built.
00:10:53.400 So we can't sugarcoat that.
00:10:55.220 That is a reality.
00:10:56.060 If we want to be a rich country and we want to be able to keep up with our neighbours and growth,
00:10:59.740 we've got to build things.
00:11:00.600 We've got to dig things out of the ground.
00:11:01.900 We've got to get products to market.
00:11:03.080 We can't keep on borrowing and borrowing and borrowing.
00:11:06.800 And watching the kind of situation that we've seen over the last 10 years develop.
00:11:10.400 That is not what Albertans want.
00:11:11.960 It's not what Canadians want. 0.53
00:11:13.340 And so I think there needs to be a complete attitude adjustment about all of these projects
00:11:17.380 because we've lost a lot of opportunity across the board, across the country.
00:11:21.860 Madam Premier, I hope you found these points convincing.
00:11:25.940 Wouldn't it be great if Alberta had a strong, official voice speaking out on behalf of the Alberta independence movement?
00:11:33.240 Thank you very much for watching.
00:11:34.620 If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications,
00:11:40.260 please share the video as well, and I'll see you in the next one.