Juno News - January 30, 2026Doug Ford calls on Smith to denounce Alberta separatists
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Summary
The man spearheading Alberta s separatist movement wants Ontario s Premier Doug Ford to stop bullying Alberta s Premier Danielle Smith. Jeff Rath tells Juneau News that Ford is trying to shame Smith into taking a hard line against Alberta's separatists.
Transcript
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The man spearheading Alberta's separatist movement wants Ontario Premier Ford to stop
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bullying Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Jeff Rath tells Juneau News Ford is trying to shame
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Smith into taking a hard line against Alberta independents. Here is Ford calling on Smith to
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pick a side. Well, you know, something I'm dead against that, you know, going behind Canada's
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back and negotiating is unacceptable. We're one country and we should all be sticking together.
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We shouldn't have groups going around the federal government's back or the province's back.
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To negotiate something with the US. We all know where President Trump stands. He wants Canada
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and that's not going to happen. We'll fight with every tool we have. So I find that unacceptable.
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I don't know about treason. It's unacceptable. It's unethical. And, you know, I'm a little
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disappointed that they've done this. But this is an opportunity for Premier Smith to stand up and say,
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enough is enough. And either you're with Canada or you're not with Canada.
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D.C. Premier David Eby was also harshly critical of Alberta separatists holding talks with US
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officials in Washington. This headline, Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence.
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To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada. There's an
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old fashioned word for that. And that word is treason. It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken
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Canada, to seek to go and ask for assistance to break up this country from a foreign power.
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Well, for her part, Premier Smith refused to demonize the million or so Albertans who favor
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independence. Let's listen. When you look at the polls, they suggest as many as 30% of Albertans
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have lost hope. That's about a million people. And I'm not going to demonize or marginalize
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a million of my fellow citizens when they've got legitimate grievances.
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Our guest today will be Jeff Rath. He'll be along to respond to all of that moments from now.
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While more turbulence in Canada's trade relations with the United States,
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President Trump says he'll restrict the sale of Canadian made jets unless Ottawa allows the sale of
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the US made Gulfstream aircraft in Canada. He took to social media threatening to decertify planes made in Canada.
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Based on the fact Canada has wrongfully, illegally, and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream
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500, 600, 700, 800 jets, one of the greatest, most technologically advanced airplanes ever made,
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we are hereby decertifying their Bombardier Global Expresses and all aircraft made in Canada.
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At one point, shares of Bombardier fell 9% in response to that threat.
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As far as trading with China goes, Trump jokingly said it could be bad news for Canada's national sport.
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What do you think about the UK getting into business with China? Keir Starmer was in Beijing.
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Well, it's very dangerous for them to do that. And it's even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get
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into business with China. Canada is not doing well. They're doing very poorly. And you can't look at
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China as the answer. I know China very well. I know President Xi is a friend of mine and I know him very well.
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But that's a big hurdle to go over when you get Canada. The first thing they're going to do is say,
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you're not allowed to play ice hockey anymore. That's not good. Canada's not going to lie.
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You're now joined by Jeff Rath, co-founder of the Alberta Prosperity Project. Welcome, Jeff.
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While you're hearing a lot of shots taken in your direction by the likes of Premier David Eby and
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Premier Doug Ford saying that you are a traitor, that your acts are those of someone who is
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indulging in treasonous behavior. What do you make of that based on your visits and chats,
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talks with officials, with possibly the Trump administration, other officials in Washington, D.C.?
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Well, let me address Doug Ford first. I mean, the man is a buffoon. He's literally a cartoon character.
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Every time I see or hear Doug Ford, I think of Eric Cartman on South Park. You know, that chubby,
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fat little kid that's about three and a half feet tall. And I just pictured Doug Ford jumping up and
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down going, you will respect my sovereignty, you will respect my sovereignty, right? Like, that's Doug Ford for me, right?
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He's just a, he's just an idiot. And then David Eby, you know, there's no better. David Eby's like a child
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having a tantrum right now, right? You know, we, you know, we have, you know, meetings that we have on an
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ongoing basis in the United States. And it's literally just to exchange information, you know,
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with regard to, you know, the aspirations of Albertans towards sovereignty for us to get
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information with regard to the attitudes of the U.S. administration towards Alberta independence
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and so on. And in one of those meetings, not too long ago, we were saying, you know, one of the
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things that Albertans would really like is a pipeline through the, you know, through the United
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States, the Pacific Northwest, because we're sick and tired of being held hostage by British Columbia
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and this idiotic premier, David Eby, who keeps thinking he has a veto over Alberta oil and gas
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and thinks he can shut in the Alberta oil and gas industry because him and his communist masters in
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China think it's a good idea. So lo and behold, three weeks later, we didn't ask for it. We weren't
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meeting with Scott Besson, you know, whatever. Scott Besson comes out and says, gee, you know, I hear that
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some Albertans might want a pipeline down through the United States into the Pacific Northwest. We would
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welcome that, right? And of course, now David Eby completely loses his mind, has a tantrum like a
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four-year-old child because we've taken his power away from him, right? Like, we're just like, you
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know, it's like a four-year-old kid and you've taken away their favorite toy, right? He doesn't get to
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jump up and down and say, there'll be an Alberta pipeline over my dead body and blah, blah, blah.
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The answer is no, you're not polluting our coast. Well, David Eby and his parliament buildings in
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Victoria pump thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the Pacific every day, right? You know,
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that's what we're dealing with. And I mean, these guys don't like it when you take your power away,
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right? We don't need you. We don't want you. We don't want to talk to you. We think you're a bunch
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of idiots. Like, we're sick and tired of you. We're done with you. Doug Ford, you don't even know
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where your freaking oil comes from. You're talking about cutting off Alberta oil to the United States
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when all of your oil comes from Alberta down line five, back up line nine into Sarnia. Doesn't,
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you know, he's a premier of a province and he doesn't even know where his freaking oil comes
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from. I mean, we're tired of dealing with idiots. That's why we're leaving.
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Well, your critics say that you were down south talking to the Americans, getting help,
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seeking help from the Americans in order. No, I mean, that's all fake news. That's all fake news,
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right? That's completely fake news. The Financial Times, I used to read it when I was going to law school
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in London, and I was really disappointed with the quality of journalism of that paper. I mean,
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the sentence starts off with Alberta, or no, US administration engaged in covert meetings with
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fringe separatists, Alberta separatists, right? Well, there's nothing covert about these meetings.
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We had a big press conference to announce that we were sending a delegation down to the United States
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to talk to them about the attitudes of America towards Alberta independence. That was last summer.
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We've had three of these meetings so far. We talk about them before we go. We talk about them after we go.
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We're completely transparent about what we're doing. And what this Financial Times reporter was picking
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up on is the fact that we are now conducting a feasibility study with regard to the potential
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to have in place a $500 billion line of credit effectively, like a credit swap facility or some
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sort of financial instrument in place, that in the event that Ottawa hypothetically decides to be
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jerked and tries to cut off transfer dollars coming back to Alberta because they don't like the way
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independence negotiations are going or whatever, that hypothetically there would be some sort of
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credit facility in place to take care of that. We weren't asking the Americans for money. They
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weren't offering money. We're talking about simply doing a feasibility study on whether this is possible,
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and it wouldn't necessarily be the US Treasury. It might be through Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan or one of the big
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merchant banks in the United States. We're going down with it. We're planning on going down with a
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team of bankers, economists, actuaries, lawyers, people that are capable of putting a deal memo
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together in a hypothetical fashion that could literally be handed to Danielle Smith or whoever
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the Alberta government is at the end of a referendum process as a dossier saying, by the way, if Ottawa starts
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playing hardball, we've done a feasibility study and everything you need to actuate a credit facility
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that would help you with your negotiations with Ottawa is all here in this folder. Have a nice day.
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There's nothing illegal about it. We're not soliciting foreign interference. I mean, we're just a bunch of
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guys from Alberta that have serious technical skills that are engaged in a process that we hope is
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supportive of Alberta independence. Yeah. Well, I thought I heard
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Premier Smith say that Americans must respect our sovereignty on the matter of-
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You must respect my sovereignty. You must respect my sovereignty. It's stupid, right?
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They can't stop free citizens of Alberta from talking to whoever we want, and they certainly can't
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stop the most powerful government in the world from speaking to whoever they want. Danielle can jump up and
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down all she wants. We don't care. I mean, you know, Danielle's so out of touch. She talks about,
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we have an agent and, you know, a rep, a delegate in Washington, and they will talk to the American
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government. I understand from talking to people in Washington that the left-wing bureaucrats in
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Edmonton have literally hired as their lobbyists, you know, a bunch of holdovers from the Obama
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administration. Like, nobody in the Trump administration wants to talk to them. Like,
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our understanding is that we have better access to the U.S. government or the U.S. administration
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right now than both Alberta and Canada have. You know, because, I mean, look at Mark Carney. Who
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wants to talk to him anyway? He's constantly sticking his thumb in Trump's eye. I mean,
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just two weeks ago, he was threatening war with the United States over Greenland. He wanted to invoke
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Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. First time in Canadian history that a Canadian Prime Minister has ever
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threatened to invoke, you know, or, you know, to respond to an Article 5 request against the United States.
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Could you imagine a Prime Minister saying anything more stupid, right? Like, how long would a war
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between Canada and the United States last? I mean, you know, Mark Carney's, you know, I think
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he's completely lost it. Like, he's lost his mind in it. Well, yeah. I mean, the fact that maybe
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people like Baymere Ford and Evie and others are getting nervous by the level of support that you
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have been managing to... Oh, I mean, they wouldn't be calling me names. They wouldn't be, you know,
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they wouldn't be insulting us. They wouldn't be doing all this stupid stuff if they didn't
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understand that we're going to win. I mean, they see where the momentum is. They understand politics.
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We've created a political movement in Alberta that has more members, volunteers, and canvassers
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than all three political parties in Alberta combined, right? We've literally created the
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largest political movement in Alberta history. You know, they know we're going to win and they're,
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they're scared, right? So now it's like, well, he's a traitor. It's treason. It's, ah,
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you know, when Quebec goes to separate, nobody's calling them traitor, you know,
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traitors or treasonous or it's, we love you. Please don't go, right? But it's Albertans. It's like,
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screw you. We'll lock you up. You traitorous bastards. You know, like, it's okay, whatever.
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And every time they do it, I'll just finish the slot. Every time they do it, they remind another
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hundred thousand Albertans to go sign the petition. I mean, we love it. Like, the Albertans love it.
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It's like, insult us somewhere, you assholes, right? Go ahead. You got a million people,
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according to Danielle Smith, 30% of the population. Obviously, that's not going to cut it in a
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referendum. No, but I mean, Danielle can't do math because we have 5 million people in Alberta. 30%
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of 5 million is a million and a half. It's not a million, first of all. And so, you know, just leave
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that alone, right? But, you know, but those numbers, like the 30% number, that was, you know,
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a couple months ago, right? So, since this petition campaign, and we thank Danielle for it. She's the
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one that got the ball rolling with Bill 14. And because we're out there, you know, engaging with
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people and people are being energized and activated and going out and signing their name on the dotted
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line on what they're calling the Alberta Declaration of Independence petition, right? These people aren't
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coming back, right? Like they're, you know, these are now hardcore Albertans in favor of independence,
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and they're going to energize everybody else. We got 18, 19, 20 year old kids coming out and signing,
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and their grandparents that are afraid of losing their pensions and all these silly lies they're
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being told. The grandkids are going, look, you guys have had your go. You got a good life here,
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right? Don't talk to me about your pension. I want a future. I want to be able to afford a home.
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I love the idea of putting a circle around the federal income tax portion
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on my paycheck and knowing that I don't have to pay it anymore because there'll be no more federal
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income tax in Alberta and we'll live in an income tax free jurisdiction. I'm finally going to have a
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future, right? They're not putting that back in the box. And of course, the federalists have nothing
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to sell us because what have they got except fear? Oh, well, trade agreements. You're not going to have
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any trade agreements. Bullshit. You know, the United States isn't going to stop trading with us or buying
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Alberta oil because we're independent. You know, 90% of our trades north south, right? It'd be very
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easy for us with a free trade agreement with the United States, right? You know, which is one of
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the things that we're hypothetically discussing, you know, with the United States, right? Like,
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hey, in a perfect world, an independent Alberta would have a one-page free trade agreement,
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zero tariffs on both sides of the border and, you know, free movement of goods and services back. Oh,
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thanks for the information. That's very interesting. No, you know, no agreement. We're not agreeing to
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anything. But think about that, right? So literally within six months, we could replace all east-west trade
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with more north-south trade. We wouldn't need Canada. And that's what Canada needs to internalize,
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right? We don't need Canada. Canada needs us. But they forgot that somewhere along the way,
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and they've been treating us miserably for decades, and we're all fed up. Like, we're up to here,
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and we're not coming back. And Daniel Smith did acknowledge that, but you're suggesting that
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Premier Ford is bullying Daniel Smith. Why would you think that? Oh, didn't you see him? He was, like,
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mansplaining to her, and, like, you know, and just, like, oh, yeah, well, you gotta decide what
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sign you're on. If you're on Team Canada, you gotta say enough is enough, and you gotta blah, blah, blah,
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blah, blah, right? Like, come on, Doug. Like, that's not, you know, like, come on. Like, you'll just look
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silly when you do that. Like, Mr. Tough Guy. I'm gonna be tough with the Premier of Alberta and tell her how
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she has to talk to her voters. Like, I've never seen anything stupider. I'd be like, oh, my God,
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really? You're gonna mansplain to Daniel Smith, who's probably one of the most popular, and I'll
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acknowledge that, one of the most popular premiers in Alberta history, you know, on the conservative
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base, right? You're gonna mansplain to her how she needs to talk to her voters who she knows way
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better than you do? Like, come on. I want to ask you about something you said earlier about
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Commerce Secretary Besant. Sure. Did I hear that correctly, that he said to you,
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hey, I hear you want a pipeline to the Pacific? No, no, no. He didn't say that to us. I mean,
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he just, you know, it's obvious that he heard, you know, that we were generally musing with people in
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the United States. I'm just presuming that. He wasn't in the meetings or whatever. But, you know,
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we go down to the United States and we're talking to our, you know, talking to our contacts in the US
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about the things that Alberta would want or an independent Alberta would want. And obviously, one of the
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the things that we said, hey, you know, this would be on the wish list would be a pipeline that could
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go around British Columbia through the US Pacific Northwest, because we're sick and tired of being
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held hostage by communists in British Columbia. And, you know, and that was where it was left.
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No agreement. Like, they're not in a position to agree with us or offer us anything. We're not
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demanding or asking for agreements. But I thought it was really interesting that three weeks later,
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Secretary Besson, who was obviously briefed about our discussions, because I love the line,
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it's like, oh, and I heard a rumor that there might be a referendum in Alberta this year, right?
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So he was obviously briefed about our discussions about what I understand that Albertans would like
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a pipeline down to the Pacific Northwest, right? Obviously, you know, we'd be open to that or
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whatever words he used, right? So, you know, there's a lot of very positive things that come out of open
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dialogue between people, right? And one of the things that comes out of an open dialogue is that other
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people can understand better where you're coming from and what your interests are and so on. And
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we've been sharing those interests with American officials on behalf of our movement and on behalf
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of the people of Alberta. And we see a lot of positive things coming out of it. Like, my only
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question for Danielle Smith is why the hell, instead of going to the United States and saying,
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don't talk to my Albertans and I don't want you talking to them anymore, blah, blah, blah,
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respect my sovereignty, right? Like, instead of doing this cartoonish bullshit, why she hasn't
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immediately sent a delegation to Washington to walk through the door that we've opened for her
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to a pipeline in the Pacific Northwest, right? Instead of coming to Ottawa to grovel on bended knee
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again, to EB and Carnie to, oh, please treat us nicer at part of T Canada, why can't I have a pipeline?
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You know, like, we're sick of it. Like, we're sick and tired of Albertans being forced to beg for,
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you know, what should be ours as a right. And for the life of us, we can't understand when we're
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funding the whole stinking country, why it is that Ottawa is so determined that they won't let us make
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more money so that we can help people more. They're literally strangling the goose that lays the golden egg,
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and we're sick of it. Like, we're sick and tired of it.
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I mean, do you think that some Albertans are starting to think, well, the other provinces can
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have their opinions, but this is up to us. I mean, it's all well and good for Premier Ford to speak
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out on this issue, or Premier EB, whoever, or the Prime Minister himself. But at the end of the day,
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it's up to Albertans to decide this. So, you know, kindly just back off and let us do what we need
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to do, and you can let the chips fall where they may. Does that...
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Well, I think Carnie's got the message. He was sure a lot more subdued the other day,
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because I've been gleefully going on every news channel I can get on, including CTV National,
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where they foolishly let me go on live again, which they hadn't done for years,
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where I had the opportunity to go on about how Mark Carnie was the best supporter of Alberta
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independence we have, because every time he opens his mouth, he drives another 100,000 Albertans to
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our banners, right? So I think he's getting the message, but I don't think Doug Ford and David Eby have
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gotten the message that every time they taunt Albertans, insult Albertans, call us names.
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My other favourite one that EB said was he actually said that anybody that supports Alberta
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independence is not a real Albertan. Think about that. Like David Eby, a champagne socialist from,
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you know, Vancouver, right, is telling Albertans how to define themselves and what is a real Albertan
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and what isn't. And of course, according to David Eby, the only real Albertans, you know,
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are socialist federalists living under the dome in Edmonton, you know, who think that he's a good
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guy. I mean, and the rest of us aren't real Albertans. I mean, you know, I've only had five
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generations of my family living in this province. I mean, I, you know, like, you know, I'd like to
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know what David, David Eby thinks a real Albertan is. I got to ask you when the, when you think the
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referendum will take place and how much support you've gotten now in terms of the numbers of
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people who've signed up? Well, yeah, I mean, I'm, we're not given exact numbers. We're going to save it
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for a big reveal at the end. But what I can say is like, we've set a goal for ourselves and maybe
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that's where Daniel got the million instead of a million and a half or whatever. But we've set
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a goal for ourselves to try to get a million signatures in this campaign. We only need 178,000,
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right? So to get a million signatures, we need 62,500 signatures a week, right? We want to get more
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than a million. So we're behind the curve on that because we've had trouble, you know, getting
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our canvassing badges out, you know, and I'm not allowed to say why, but you can guess,
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getting our canvassing badges out to our canvassers. We're, you know, we've been a little
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bit slow, you know, getting started because of that. But now, you know, we've got, you know,
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an army basically of 5,000, you know, our beachhead of 5,000 canvassers on the ground right now.
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We're hoping to have 10,000 canvassers, you know, by the end of next week, we're working towards getting
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50,000 canvassers as part of our campaign so that we can literally go knock on every single door in
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the province in an 87 constituency door knocking campaign. But right now, we've been doing events,
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people have been coming out and signing at events, you know, we're speaking to halls full of people
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and asking them all to join up and become canvassers. We have a private, we have a permanent
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location campaign going where individual ground floor businesses with good parking and access are
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volunteering their businesses as canvassing locations. So we have permanent locations
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where people can go sign the petition. And that's going very well. And then, like I said,
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we're going to start an 87 constituency door knocking campaign. And, you know, we're hoping,
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you know, hoping to get there through that. But then if you look at this, and that's, you know,
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for getting us over the million, right. But with regard to the statutory requirement of 178,000,
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the math on that is we need roughly 12,000 signatures a week. And we're currently crushing
00:21:58.760
that. I mean, we're completely crushing it, right? I mean, we had 4,950 people come to an
00:22:05.080
event in Calgary on Friday, at least probably double what they're going to have at the National
00:22:08.840
Conservative Convention on this weekend. I'm going to go down there and take a look just for just for
00:22:14.360
giggles. I'll kind of be the skunk of the picnic in that room, I think, but whatever.
00:22:18.840
I'm not going there to grab a microphone. I have some friends that are going to be there. I'm
00:22:23.000
going to try to behave myself. But anyway, you know, so we have way more people at our event
00:22:28.280
on Monday than they're going to have at the Conservative Convention on the weekend. But also,
00:22:31.800
even though we had, you know, 4,960 people in the room, during that day, we had 150 canvassers
00:22:37.800
working in the bottom of the big four building, we had another 5000 people come through the bottom of
00:22:42.200
the big four building signing petitions, right. So we had over 10,000 people go through the big four
00:22:47.400
building that they think about that in Calgary, right. And we had 10,000 people the weekend before
00:22:52.040
show up at a signing event in Edmonton and Rundle Park. And then everywhere Mitch and I go,
00:22:56.840
you know, out in rural Alberta, right, the population of whatever town we go to doubles
00:23:02.040
as all of these people come streaming in from the farms and neighboring hamlets and whatever,
00:23:06.360
you know, to hear our message and to sign the petition, right. So we're rocking and rolling.
00:23:11.000
I mean, we're, you know, we're confident we're easily going to crush 178,000. You know,
00:23:16.520
we obviously want to get way more signatures than, you know, little Tommy Lukasik got with his silly,
00:23:21.320
uh, um, you know, silly, um, uh, remain in Canada campaign over the summer. But keep in mind,
00:23:27.720
we're doing this in January and February in Alberta, right. So that'll tell you how committed
00:23:33.400
our people are, right. You know, as opposed to Lukasik's people just going out and hanging out in
00:23:37.640
dog parks and, you know, wherever it was, they, you know, whatever they were doing. Right. So,
00:23:42.360
and even Lukasik, it was really funny. He, he had a video the other day where he's talking about
00:23:46.840
waiting to square off with the separatists and you got to send me money so we could square off with
00:23:51.720
these separatists. Right. And, uh, in that video, he, he admitted or acknowledged that it looks like
00:23:57.480
the independence campaign is inevitable. The referendum is inevitable. Right. Like, you know,
00:24:04.040
so even like we're laughing with a buddy and I said, well, you know, we're not even through the
00:24:07.480
first quarter, Lukasik's already thrown in the towel. Right. So it's, um, you know, it's, uh,
00:24:13.320
you know, we're, uh, we're feeling pretty good about where we're at. No date set. Right.
00:24:20.200
There's no date. Uh, no, no, no date set. And, um, uh, you know, we're good, you know,
00:24:26.760
we're, we're happy about where things are at. I mean, we're, it's going to be October. I mean,
00:24:29.800
that's, you know, sort of, if you do the electoral math and figure out how much time elections
00:24:33.240
Alberta needs and the government needs and, you know, all the rest of it, you know,
00:24:36.360
we should be looking at a, you know, a standalone referendum on independence in October or November
00:24:41.000
of this year, which is all the time we need. Like we'll have this huge energized base of people
00:24:46.040
coming out of, uh, the signature campaign. Right. So, you know, that's going to form the core base of,
00:24:52.760
you know, volunteers and supporters for, uh, the referendum campaign. Right. And, uh, you know,
00:24:58.760
like we've, we've literally created the largest, um, political movement in Alberta history. Right.
00:25:04.120
Our volunteers, our canvassers, our members, all of them combined, um, you know, are probably two or
00:25:10.520
three size times the size of the membership of every political party in Alberta combined.
00:25:16.280
Right. Biggest political movement in Alberta history.
00:25:20.520
So, you know, that's, and again, that's just to come back to the, you know, sort of full circle.
00:25:24.440
That's why they're freaking out. That's why Doug Ford's calling his name.
00:25:27.000
Evie's calling his names. Kenny's calling his names. You know,
00:25:30.200
Nenshi's calling his names. I mean, it's, you know, that's all they got. Right.
00:25:33.560
Thank you, Jeff, for coming on the show. Appreciate that.
00:25:36.360
Yeah. My pleasure as always, Mark. Thanks for having me.
00:25:38.280
Have a great. And now your opportunity to support Juno News, support independent journalism.
00:25:44.440
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00:25:50.680
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