Juno News - Oilers fan ARRESTED： Is there a double standard over Alberta’s flag？

00:00:00.000 A video circulating on social media sites shows police manhandling and arresting an

00:00:10.500 Edmonton Oilers fan attending a recent game at Rogers Place.

00:00:14.960 Now according to eyewitnesses, the fan was waving an Alberta flag.

00:00:20.240 This comes at a highly charged time in Alberta as citizens are about to vote in a referendum

00:00:25.880 on the future of the province in Canada.

00:00:28.400 In the video, the man can be seen arguing with police, things got heated, and there was

00:00:33.160 a physical confrontation.

00:00:35.080 The fan insisted he did nothing wrong.

00:00:37.880 Let's watch.

00:00:58.400 well this post on x by rise of alberta an edmonton oilers fan was arrested and removed

00:01:12.680 from the game for waving an alberta flag serious question do you think the same thing happens if

00:01:19.040 he's waving a canadian flag our guest today is keith wilson alberta constitutional lawyer

00:01:24.580 and co-lead of let alberta decide welcome to the show

00:01:28.400 Thanks for having me on.

00:01:30.400 Thanks for coming on.

00:01:31.400 All right, so you saw that video to the degree that you can make any kind of determination,

00:01:36.400 because Rogers does have a policy on the waving of certain flags and signs.

00:01:41.400 But I guess the questions remain about whether during this particular time,

00:01:45.400 the Alberta flag was flown and drew the ire of authorities,

00:01:51.400 given what the province is going through right now.

00:01:55.400 Yeah, it seems strange.

00:01:57.400 it does seem doubtful that anything would have happened if someone was

00:02:02.620 holding a Canadian flag. And, you know,

00:02:06.120 we're in very polarized times and, and I think some people take it too far.

00:02:12.840 And I hope that there's a better explanation than the apparent explanation

00:02:17.580 because both sides should be able to just like you should be able to wear a

00:02:23.420 Flames jersey to an Oilers game, you should be able to wave your Canadian flag, or you should

00:02:29.740 be able to wave an Oilers flag, or you should be able to wave an Alberta flag. It's not like it was

00:02:33.760 an inappropriate flag. Let's talk about what just took place in Quebec and whether or not that has

00:02:39.520 any impact on what Albertans are going through right now. They've seen their Canadian cousins

00:02:45.020 in Quebec vote for a pro-independence party, a party that is sympathetic to the aims of

00:02:53.680 Alberta. They say they won't have a referendum or any kind of vote until at least 2029,

00:02:58.860 as I understand it, Keith. But does that resonate amongst those who support independence in your

00:03:04.380 view? It does. It resonates in a number of ways, has a strategic implication and also a revealing

00:03:10.960 one, which is if you look at how the state-funded media, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star

00:03:18.760 and the CBC and Global and CTV and so on, describe what's happening in Quebec, they refer to the

00:03:27.400 sovereignists and the nationalists. And then when they refer to us here in Alberta, they refer to

00:03:34.280 us as CEPIs, the separatists, and traitors. It's a remarkable contrast in how the Ontario-based,

00:03:48.200 Central Canada-based, government-funded media maligns anything to do with Albertans exercising

00:03:57.400 their democratic and constitutional right to move towards a referendum process on independence,

00:04:04.120 It's what the Supreme Court of Canada said is the right of all peoples of Canada in any province.

00:04:11.620 And then how they, at a minimum, are soft on the sovereignness in Quebec or almost glamorize them.

00:04:20.060 It's a real reveal of how dysfunctional Canada has become.

00:04:24.300 And strategically, Mark, it helps us because it puts the prime minister in a box

00:04:29.720 in the sense that he's going to want to do things to appease the sovereignists and the nationalists

00:04:37.480 in Quebec and bring the temperature down. And usually when Ottawa does that, Alberta pays for

00:04:44.800 it. They use our tax dollars and our hard-earned dollars to give gifts to Quebec, which will flame 0.86

00:04:53.580 separatism here. And at the same time, if the prime minister tries to do too many things to

00:04:59.960 address the independence movement and bring the temperature down here, it could inflame

00:05:05.180 the sovereignness in Quebec. So it's a really, it's made the political chessboard more complicated,

00:05:10.480 and it's also exposed the bias and lack of professionalism of the state-funded media.

00:05:16.900 Yeah, it was interesting. I saw a post today by Dimitri Soudas, who of course

00:05:20.660 worked for Prime Minister Harper. And he pointed out the difference between the Quebec

00:05:26.740 sovereignists and those in Alberta, saying that the sovereignists in Quebec are not necessarily

00:05:31.680 bad people. They're just people who differ with others, with other Canadians, in terms of their

00:05:37.320 view of the country and whether Quebec should be a separate country or not. And the difference,

00:05:41.800 of course, being that Alberta's sovereignists, at least some of them, seek the support of Donald

00:05:46.780 Trump. I happen to note that it was back in 1995, ahead of the referendum there on the future of

00:05:57.740 Quebec, that there were people in the separatist camp who sought the support of the president of

00:06:04.540 France at the time. I remember that too.

00:06:06.540 Chirac. And there was a bit of a heated exchange there at one point between

00:06:12.220 the Prime Minister of Canada, Chrétien, who told Chirac, you back off, stay out of this, you know.

00:06:18.580 So it seems to me that people in Quebec were seeking support, but I guess maybe

00:06:23.220 Dimitri is talking about specifically Trump. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure, but this is an

00:06:28.400 example, I think, where some people are trying to draw a distinction between what's happening in

00:06:33.740 Alberta, rather, and Quebec. What do you think? Well, first of all, what happened in Quebec

00:06:40.140 at that time was they reached out to the Americans too, you know, Bill Clinton and his administration

00:06:47.160 and my recollection of history is that the Clinton administration said that they wouldn't

00:06:53.540 recognize a unilateral declaration of independence from Quebec. And as you note, with great

00:07:01.080 controversy, they reached out and got the support of the president of France. So this is normal

00:07:07.520 stuff, right? Like this is normal stuff. But what's even more significant here is it was a

00:07:18.100 group of individual Albertans who went down to Washington, according to all the reports that

00:07:23.420 I've seen, several months ago, who announced it immediately on X before they were even back in

00:07:31.040 canada jeff rath in particular um so it wasn't secret it was it was uh they went down to uh you

00:07:39.600 know on a friendship mission to explain what's happening in alberta is from the reports i've seen

00:07:45.180 in the independence movement um they have no authority you know they're completely blown out

00:07:51.000 of proportion this idea that you know they were going to sell the water well no like the government

00:07:57.440 of canada can't even do that so it has to be state to state this is and they recycled it with a huge

00:08:04.640 front page expose on the globe and mail like it's breaking news and they just discovered this you

00:08:10.960 know i the globe and mail tomorrow is going to say breaking gravity is all around us like it's just

00:08:17.600 ridiculous so it's part of we're seeing a smear campaign and a propaganda initiative on this here

00:08:26.080 in Alberta at least on a scale that we haven't seen since the the COVID mandates it's really 0.90

00:08:31.760 spectacular the level of of propaganda they're pushing out and it's all fear-based and and

00:08:38.960 they're doing with the economic stuff and we can talk about that but I think they're doing it

00:08:43.440 because they realize that if an Albertan looks at this question clear-eyed do my kids have a

00:08:50.960 better future if Alberta, if our politicians are elected here instead of by Ottawa, do they have

00:08:56.960 a better future if we're no longer controlled and constrained by Ottawa and we're no longer sending

00:09:02.160 20, 30, 40 billion dollars a year net to Ottawa that we don't go back? They go, this is obvious,

00:09:08.400 we're far better off to change our constitutional relationship. So they don't want that clear-eyed

00:09:13.680 analysis. So they're using smoke, fear, nonsense, recycling old news that everybody knew about

00:09:20.920 to create fear. Now elections, Alberta has rejected several thousand mail-in ballots

00:09:26.620 already claiming that they were invalid due to errors of one type or another. I mean, this is

00:09:32.940 starting to spark some concern on the part of people who are fearful that there will be some

00:09:39.060 gerrymandering here of one type or another uh to what degree are you confident that the upcoming

00:09:44.500 vote will be on the up and up uh i wouldn't say highly confident uh i've just seen so many

00:09:52.180 errors by elections alberta like this epic fail of putting their own postal code wrong on the

00:09:58.340 return envelope and using a postal code that doesn't even exist uh you know that's just

00:10:03.220 spectacular they printed it they held it out and they didn't check their own postal code

00:10:08.980 but more concerning uh the bias that we've seen from elections alberta in allowing tomick lakasik

00:10:16.020 and the forever canadian group to carry on since uh since june uh without following any of the elect

00:10:23.940 strict election financial limit disclosure rules that i have to follow as as co-lead of

00:10:30.580 Let Alberta Decide, third-party advertiser.

00:10:34.480 Thomas Lukasik bragged about not having any limits on the donations.

00:10:40.460 We had some wealthy people that wanted to donate significant funds,

00:10:43.940 and I had to tell them, no, you're stuck at the $5,000 limit.

00:10:47.960 Thomas bragged about that.

00:10:49.900 And then he even said that he would take donations from outside of Alberta,

00:10:53.700 foreign donations.

00:10:54.920 And that was all done in broad daylight.

00:10:56.660 and then he opens two campaign offices that have signs that say campaign offices had campaign signs

00:11:04.020 campaign teams campaign events and elections alberta said oh no he's not campaigning so they

00:11:10.160 finally have entered into some agreement with him and he's now going to have to report his donations

00:11:14.920 uh and start following the rules since august 20th which is completely unfair we've maxed out

00:11:21.340 our donations as of last week, and he can keep right on going. So I am concerned about the

00:11:27.860 neutrality of Elections Alberta and so many of the missteps that they've made. Hopefully they

00:11:35.020 up their game because this vote could be clouded in a shroud of controversy.

00:11:42.640 But there will be poll watchers and so forth on all sides.

00:11:47.220 Yeah, we've got scrutineers that have been selected, as do the political parties, and we've taken some other steps to help us understand and detect if there is funny business going on or just mistakes.

00:12:02.900 but so far there's been so many and and the fact that that the elections Alberta has let one side

00:12:10.680 have such a profound advantage and ignore the rules is already caused a loss of confidence

00:12:18.000 that I just don't know that they'll be able to regain. The polling has suggested that at least

00:12:24.140 some of the polling and you've seen it Keith suggesting that the the referendum will be a

00:12:28.400 pretty much a cakewalk for the Remain side. But as I understand it from speaking with you earlier,

00:12:35.480 that may not be the case because the polling may be biased towards the Remain camp. What's

00:12:42.580 your thinking on this? Well, I tease some of the legacy state funded media and I say, yeah,

00:12:49.340 you're right. Just tell everybody stay home. They got it. Don't worry. No problem. Oh,

00:12:54.600 there you got this guys no point to vote you know rake leaves look at all those leaves in your

00:13:01.000 backyard don't go stand in a polling line um in all seriousness um you know we know in the past

00:13:10.200 that uh um there's two you know the trump administration or the trump's election the

00:13:17.480 polls were wrong brexit we're very similar to what the polls were in brexit and the stay side

00:13:23.480 was like oh we got this we got this we got this and like no no you don't and there is inherent

00:13:30.120 fear here because of the radicalization of the stay canada side they feel they have moral

00:13:38.040 superiority the number of assaults and vandalism that our sides received is just is disturbing

00:13:45.560 just disturbing um so um people are concerned that's why one of our strategies mark was not

00:13:54.040 to push lawn signs hard and instead go to very large signs that we could put on municipal

00:13:58.840 boulevards because we knew that people were afraid to put a sign on their yard out of fear that they

00:14:04.120 come by in the morning and their car would be keyed up or their house would be vandalized or

00:14:08.680 they would be threatened or harassed so there's a lot of people that whisper to me I don't tell

00:14:18.620 anybody and these are executives and others with corporations and even government folks

00:14:22.940 that I'm voting option two all the way so and also too this election is not actually an

00:14:30.120 independence up down vote as you know from your previous coverage that it's what we're saying is

00:14:36.560 here's your choice on the 19th and that the advanced polls is option one says status quo

00:14:42.380 stay the same more control by ottawa more restrictions by ottawa more tax dollars coming

00:14:50.320 out of your pocket to ottawa no respect for alberta uh not addressing any of the grievances

00:14:56.740 everything's fine you want to bring in a export tax and devastate our economy to get leverage in

00:15:02.940 negotiations with trump to preserve the ontario manufacturing economy go for it put an export tax

00:15:09.420 on that's basically what option option one says surrender as an albertan option two even if you

00:15:15.660 don't support independence says no there's fundamentally unfairness in the constitutional

00:15:21.500 framework and confederation albertans can do better we need to do better you need to treat

00:15:27.420 us better you need to come to the table and make serious proposals ottawa to address this unfairness

00:15:33.740 to address the unfairness of equalization to address the address the laws that target alberta

00:15:40.380 there's no east coast tanker ban oil's the same there's a west coast tanker ban the emissions

00:15:46.620 cap regulation was targeted at alberta we are the recipient we are the target of harmful laws from

00:15:53.660 Ottawa and even if it's true, according to Premier Smith, that Carney's turned a new leaf,

00:15:59.980 which I don't fully believe and I don't agree with respectfully with her, he can flip in a second.

00:16:06.460 He can bring in National Energy Program 3.0 next week. Well, he wouldn't do it next week. He could

00:16:12.540 bring it in next month or next year and there'd be nothing we could do about it. That's what needs

00:16:17.740 to change um we have a hostile anti-alberta uh government we continue to have that even the media

00:16:26.540 as we described at the start of this program and how they characterized us so the vote on the 19th

00:16:31.500 is about whether or not you want everything to stay the same and you're happy with the status quo

00:16:35.980 or whether you think alberta can do better all right keith wilson thank you so much for coming

00:16:40.940 on the show we appreciate it thank you keith wilson if you enjoyed the show and appreciate

00:16:46.780 great independent journalism, please consider becoming a premier member of Juno News

00:16:51.240 by going to junonews.com backslash straight up. It helps us do what we do here. Thank you so much

00:16:56.980 for tuning in. See you next time.

Juno News - October 07, 2026

Oilers fan ARRESTED： Is there a double standard over Alberta’s flag？

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