Juno News - Preston Manning： Mark Carney will be Canada’s LAST Prime Minister

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. I hope everyone had a wonderful

00:00:06.580 weekend and to all of the mothers out there, happy Mother's Day. I hope you were spoiled

00:00:10.400 and I hope you had a wonderful time. Of course, I'm a mother of four small children and my

00:00:14.600 kids absolutely love Mother's Day. They've been making Mother's Day cards for like a

00:00:18.800 month and as soon as Mother's Day was over, as soon as they gave me the cards, they started

00:00:22.800 immediately on making their Father's Day cards. So it was all very fun and very cute. I want

00:00:27.380 to give a quick shout out though to my own mother because so much of the reason that

00:00:31.500 my life is the way it is and the way that I am able to have four kids and also run a business

00:00:36.960 and be a journalist and have a podcast is because my mom actually lives with us and she does

00:00:40.620 so much. So having a basically a stay-at-home grandmother is like the best gift that we

00:00:45.200 could give to our children and she's actually out on her own adventure right now. She's not

00:00:49.260 here. She is in Spain. So her and her sister have decided to go off on sort of the adventure

00:00:54.360 of a lifetime. They're doing the Way of St. James or as it's called in Spanish, the Camino

00:00:59.080 de Santiago, where they're basically walking across Spain doing an 800-kilometer pilgrimage

00:01:04.300 from Balboa. They flew into Madrid and then up Balboa and then they are walking across the

00:01:12.060 country, a 30-day trek and they're really having the adventure of a lifetime. So I'm so proud

00:01:17.120 of my mom for going and doing this with her sister, having this time for herself, for her health

00:01:21.600 and her faith and everything like that. And we really miss you and we can't wait for you

00:01:25.380 to come home, grandma. Okay. Now to get to the news today, I am very pleased as an interview

00:01:30.600 I've been trying to set up for some time because this person is so relevant to the conversation

00:01:35.120 that we are having in Canada. Right now I'm talking about Preston Manning. Preston is the

00:01:39.240 founder and the leader of the Reform Party. He led that party from 1987 to 2000 and he was

00:01:44.220 the leader of the official opposition from 1997 to 2000 and always just a voice of wisdom

00:01:50.640 in these troublesome times, especially talking about the pathway towards independence or the

00:01:55.520 question of independence for Western Canada and for Alberta. So Preston, welcome to the show.

00:01:59.880 Thank you so much for joining us today. Okay. Well, thanks for having me. That was a good

00:02:03.400 reference to Mother's Day too. That's a very important point to make.

00:02:11.800 Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So I haven't spoken to you in a while. We had you on the show

00:02:16.380 a few months ago when we were talking a little bit about this issue, but obviously it's really

00:02:20.300 flared up. So first of all, why don't you just tell me what your reaction to the recent election

00:02:24.860 was? Were you surprised to see the Liberals get reelected? And what do you make of Mark

00:02:29.180 Kearney as the Prime Minister? Well, the election shifted from the expectation was that Mr. Trudeau

00:02:35.860 was going to be the Prime Minister and the Liberal leader. And the official opposition was well

00:02:42.080 tuned up to deal with all the inadequacies of the nine years of Trudeau reign. But of course,

00:02:49.860 when that changed and President Trump intervening himself in our election and Mr. Carney becoming

00:02:58.160 the quickly becoming the leader of the Liberals, the whole scene changed. And I'm disappointed with

00:03:05.680 the election results because like a lot of Canadians, particularly in Western Canada, we wanted a change

00:03:10.660 in administration, just a complete change. And the fact that that didn't happen has led to a lot of

00:03:17.160 unrest and discouragement with the results of the election.

00:03:22.360 Well, you had a really interesting op-ed in the Globe and Mail back on April 2nd. The headline that

00:03:27.960 they gave it, I don't know if you wrote this or if that's just what the editor put, but Mark Kearney

00:03:31.400 poses a threat to national unity. And so you write that politicians, the media, voters in Central

00:03:39.480 Canada, whether they realize or not, the greatest threat to national unity is emerging not from Quebec, 0.65

00:03:43.580 but on the Western Front. Again, revealed by a recent Polaris survey on account of mismanagement of

00:03:49.660 national affairs by the Liberal government and its consistent failure to address those issues of

00:03:54.160 greatest concern to Western Canadians. Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for 1.00

00:03:58.640 another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it. So I'm wondering what compelled you

00:04:04.500 to write this op-ed in the Globe and Mail? And what do you make of the sort of, I mean, it went, you

00:04:11.040 know, it was really noticed by the elites in Central Canada. Many of them didn't like it at all.

00:04:15.980 And what did you make of the backlash to this piece?

00:04:18.700 Well, I'm glad that the Globe managed to print it. It's not in line really with the Globe's own

00:04:25.500 editorial policy, but I think it's a message that voters and elites in Central Canada need to hear,

00:04:33.320 that there's enormous unrest in the West and dissatisfaction with the way the federations

00:04:40.360 manage, particularly the intrusion of the federal government in the natural resources sector, which are

00:04:48.060 so fundamental, not just to the Western economy, but to the entire economy. There's no pipelines, bills,

00:04:53.920 there's bans on making it difficult for energy to get to seaboard, that that unrest is just building

00:05:01.640 and building. And there's an indifference to it in Central Canada. They think this is just

00:05:08.220 some kind of regional whining. And I think it's a lot more serious than that. The Central Canadian

00:05:14.800 media often always seem to think this is just an Alberta phenomena. And the polling shows this is much

00:05:22.540 broader than Alberta. It's just as strong. This feeling of unrest is just as strong in Saskatchewan,

00:05:30.220 in rural parts of Manitoba and in Eastern Central and Northern British Columbia. So I wrote that to try

00:05:37.900 to get the voters in Central Canada and Atlantic Canada to realize that if you reelect the Liberal

00:05:43.820 government and you have the population to do it, you're going to see an increase in this Western

00:05:48.940 unrest rather than a decrease in it. It'll be interesting to see the polls, the polling is being

00:05:54.580 done as to post-election to see if that Western sentiment increased or stayed the same or decreased

00:06:01.780 as a result of the election. I expect it will have increased.

00:06:06.680 Well, there has been some polling. I'll get to that in a minute. But I just wanted to highlight a few

00:06:10.500 more pieces from your op-ed and just get you to reply. I mean, first of all, that line there that

00:06:14.800 no matter who leads the Liberal Party, a large number of Westerners will simply not stand for 0.71

00:06:20.480 another four years. You also write to voters, particularly in Central Atlantic Canada, need to

00:06:25.120 recognize that a vote for the Kearney Liberals is a vote for Western secession, a vote to break up

00:06:31.180 Canada as we know it. And then you finish a piece by saying the next Prime Minister of Canada,

00:06:35.440 if it remains Mark Kearney, would be identified in the history books, tragically and needlessly,

00:06:40.420 as the last Prime Minister of a united Canada. And so I'm just wondering if you could elaborate

00:06:45.340 on that. Do you really think that Western Canada is at the point where it won't last another four

00:06:50.240 years, it won't stand for it, and that that is perhaps how Mark Kearney will go down?

00:06:54.100 I think it's the combination. The Quebec secession sentiment is there as well. It looks like the

00:07:02.780 party Quebecois is destined to form the next government in Quebec, the first plank in their platform.

00:07:10.420 is to hold another referendum on the secession issue. So you're going to have that continued

00:07:16.300 problem probably increased on the Eastern Front. And then you combine that with this

00:07:22.820 unrest in Western Canada, dissatisfaction with the way the Federation is working.

00:07:28.240 Those are two forces that, if they start operating at the same time, have the potential to blow the

00:07:34.560 country apart. And what's most worrisome in Western Canada is the utter indifference of the central

00:07:41.440 Canadian elites and media to this phenomenon. And even the misreporting on it, they keep thinking

00:07:49.800 it's just an Alberta phenomenon. Polling shows it's broader than Alberta. They also think that the only

00:07:56.620 thing that's being talked about is secessions, the separation. That's not the only thing that's been

00:08:01.280 talked about. The other thing that's being talked about is how could the Federation, the federal

00:08:05.320 government react in such a way as to diminish that unrest. That's just as much on the table. It's been

00:08:11.660 advocated by Premier Smith and Premier Mo of Saskatchewan. So there's other options besides separation, but it's

00:08:20.000 not all Alberta. There's other options other than secession, but central Canada and elites better pay

00:08:26.180 attention to it. It's got the potential to wreck the Federation.

00:08:30.960 Well, you say that central elites might be indifferent to it. In some ways, it seems like they're

00:08:36.320 deliberately hostile. I'll point to this Toronto Star article op-ed. It wasn't even an op-ed, Preston, because

00:08:42.460 it was written by someone who writes for the paper, a business columnist. And the title is, Is it time for

00:08:48.140 Alberta to go alone and break from Canada? And the sort of way that the Toronto Star was promoting this was let

00:08:54.380 them go. Yes, it's time for Alberta to go let them go, as in there's some kind of a burden to the rest of 0.99

00:08:59.280 Canada. Reading that as an Albertan, what goes through your head when you see that kind of thing?

00:09:04.320 Well, that's typical of the Toronto Star. In fact, if you wanted to fan the flames of secession in

00:09:11.440 Western Canada, the best way to do it would be to give every Westerner a subscription to the Toronto Star.

00:09:17.800 Because A, the indifference, B, the hostility, and C, the ignorance of the role that the Western

00:09:29.180 provinces, particularly Alberta, play in the Federation. The revenue that is generated for the

00:09:35.460 national government, the proportion of GDP that is generated particularly by the petroleum industry,

00:09:41.260 that op-ed just indicates a complete ignorance of the relevance of that fact and its relevance to

00:09:47.860 even to central Canada. Well, it is something that I think a lot of Albertans know is how much

00:09:53.060 Alberta contributes to the rest of the country above and beyond what it gets back in services. I don't

00:09:57.560 know that that's common knowledge to folks in Ontario and Quebec, although it should be. I'm curious to hear

00:10:03.680 your thoughts, Preston, on how Premier Danielle Smith has sort of responded. So the day after the election,

00:10:08.920 April 30th, she came out and announced changes to the Citizens Initiative Act, which basically lowers

00:10:14.180 the threshold by which a referendum can be prompted through a sort of democratic process where

00:10:21.600 signatures requirement went from 20% of all voters down to 10% of all voters, and the threshold timeline

00:10:28.280 was increased. And then last week, Premier Smith came out and announced what she calls the Alberta

00:10:34.880 Accord, which is a plan to basically guarantee more pipelines for the future. She made four

00:10:40.340 major demands, including a corridor to get Alberta energy and oil to tidewater in the Pacific,

00:10:48.400 Arctic and Atlantic. She said that they wanted the feds to stop interfering with the development

00:10:53.900 of natural resources, including getting rid of the No New Pipelines Law Bill C-69, as well as the

00:10:59.200 oil tanker ban. They also demanded that the government refrain from imposing export tax or

00:11:05.080 any restrictions on Alberta's natural resources. And finally, basically an end to equalization,

00:11:11.040 that they wanted to create a new formula whereby big wealthy provinces like Quebec, Ontario and British

00:11:17.500 Columbia no longer get the transfers from Alberta. So what do you make of Premier Smith's actions and

00:11:25.120 sort of what she's laying out on the table here? Well, I think it's a responsible approach. I think

00:11:29.640 it's supported by a large number of Albertans. And what the approach she is basically taking,

00:11:37.080 say that there's a list of conditions that have to be met by the federal government and the federal

00:11:43.040 parliament for the West to remain content within the Federation. And she spells them out. Premier Moe's

00:11:50.340 done the same thing. And I think her list is correct. It's very much based on this fundamental

00:11:57.900 fact that apparently large numbers of Canadians don't get, that the biggest economic strength of

00:12:05.120 this country is its natural resources. Canada is the largest country, second largest country in the

00:12:11.760 world by landmass, which means you have the second largest or maybe the largest stock of natural

00:12:18.100 resources, agriculture, energy, mining, forestry, and the fishery. And the fact that under the Trudeau

00:12:24.400 administration, those sectors were treated as relics from the past and environmental liabilities.

00:12:32.240 Those are the building blocks to the Canadian economy. And what she's doing is asserting there's

00:12:38.100 certain things that have to be done to remove the obstructions to the development of those sectors

00:12:43.180 by the federal government. And that's not just in Alberta's interest, that's in the national

00:12:47.660 interest. And the ball is now in the federal government's court and people are going to watch

00:12:51.800 the throne speech. And not just the speech, there's been talk, talk, talk about all this for a long

00:12:57.980 time. They're going to watch whether there's any action on the part of the federal government to

00:13:03.000 address those things on her list. And in terms of the referendum, of course, Alberta, again,

00:13:09.280 Western Canada tends to favor more democratic mechanisms, referendums, citizens' initiatives,

00:13:17.080 freer votes in the legislatures than the parliament. And this is quite in accordance with that tradition.

00:13:22.840 And basically, the referendum gives people a chance who want a particular position to be

00:13:27.840 adopted by the governments to have a referendum to see how much support there is for it.

00:13:34.060 Well, you mentioned earlier about having popular support and you'd be curious to see what the

00:13:39.300 polling numbers show. Well, last week we did get some polls. So according to a new poll released by

00:13:44.880 City News, 36 percent of Albertans and a majority of UCP voters want to leave Canada. An Angus Reid poll

00:13:52.780 also found that roughly half the people in both, to your point, Alberta and Saskatchewan would be

00:13:59.360 interested in independence. And so I'm wondering, though, like, I mean, Canada's constitution does

00:14:06.800 allow for provinces to separate. If there's a popular will, there's a formula. Do you think that

00:14:13.500 there really is that type of sentiment enough to push this over?

00:14:18.100 I think the sentiment is out there. What those polls don't mention, there are other options besides

00:14:22.340 separation, like what the premier's offering. There's several others. And I'm involved with a group that

00:14:28.840 wants to put on what we're calling a Canada West Assembly, where you would get a bunch of

00:14:36.500 representative people from the four provinces, almost like a legislature, and then have these

00:14:42.180 major propositions for what should the West do, put in front of that, and subject to cross-examination

00:14:49.940 and debate and everything else. And one of the options certainly would be the secession option.

00:14:55.740 But again, secession to do what? To form an independent country? Maybe that's one option.

00:15:00.780 Secession to form an independent country that would end up in some kind of union with the United States?

00:15:06.100 That's another option. All of those should be put on the table. Too much of this is done in the back

00:15:11.360 rooms and small groups working on it. Don't get it out in front of a democratic forum and have those

00:15:18.120 options looked at. And then take some votes as to which ones would be best to recommend to the provincial

00:15:26.580 governments. One of those is the secession one. It's not nearly as simple as people think it is.

00:15:33.560 You could hold one of those references. Quebec is further along this road than the West is. But

00:15:39.940 suppose you have to have, according to the Clarity Act, you have to have a clear question and a clear

00:15:47.620 majority on it. So let's suppose, let's take Quebec, but it could be the West. You have a question,

00:15:53.580 should Quebec secede from the Canadian Federation and form a new country? Clear question. And then you've

00:16:01.240 got to get a clear majority. And there's a big argument, what's a clear majority, but it's probably

00:16:05.360 60% plus. But suppose you get it. Suppose you get that. What's going to happen then? Is that entity

00:16:14.160 going to secede automatically, get out of the Federation? No. No. What that'll trigger is a big

00:16:20.840 federal, provincial, constitutional conference triggered by a crisis and focused on that particular

00:16:28.200 problem. But that's all that that triggers. And then you're basically going to have a debate about

00:16:35.140 whether you can reconfederation. And that would happen whether Quebec does it or whether Alberta

00:16:41.180 does it. It's not simple. And a lot of these people that are advocating that just think it's

00:16:46.260 that simple. That idea should get in front of some people that know what it's all about.

00:16:50.660 And not antagonistic to it, but just say, here, you should understand constitutional law. And

00:16:56.060 it's not as simple as you make it. Right. And so, I mean, just to go back to your op-ed

00:17:02.100 in the Globe and Mail, you predicted that Carney, if he's reelected, might be identified, you said

00:17:08.000 would then be identified in the history books as the last prime minister of United Canada. So

00:17:12.180 presumably you do foresee something like this happening in the next four years.

00:17:16.260 Well, no. If the federal government responded to some of this, then some of this could be

00:17:22.080 averted. But there's a real skepticism in the West. I mean, Mr. Carney's done a 180-degree

00:17:28.720 turn on. He used to be a total champion of climate change. Now that's been put in the

00:17:35.340 background. The Liberal Party was opposed to hydrocarbon energy development, opposed to pipelines,

00:17:43.120 et cetera. Now he professes to be in favor of these things. Standing behind him at present,

00:17:50.800 he's going to maybe change this tomorrow, was a cabinet of 23 people who just three months before

00:17:56.300 were saying exactly the opposite of what he's been saying. So you can forgive Westerners for being 1.00

00:18:02.820 pretty skeptical. And they'll be skeptical about the throne speech, too. More words, more words,

00:18:07.360 probably words that try to address it. Where's the action? And that's what the premiers are watching.

00:18:15.040 Well, one of the themes that relates to this is, or if I was in the federal government's shoes and

00:18:22.000 wanted to send a signal to the provinces to try to reduce this federal provincial conflict, which

00:18:29.200 virtually exists with every provincial government, I would introduce an act respecting provincial

00:18:36.640 jurisdiction. And what that act would do is amend the major statutes, the federal statutes that

00:18:43.440 authorize intervention in areas of provincial jurisdiction, like the Canada Health Act. Health is

00:18:50.160 a provincial responsibility, but the federal government intervenes under the Canada Health Act. Natural

00:18:56.560 resources development, the constitution is perfectly clear that this is in provincial jurisdiction,

00:19:01.680 but the federal government passes legislation that directly interferes with it. The Impact Assessment

00:19:07.840 Act, the No Pipelines Act, there's half a dozen of them. And then municipal government, the constitution

00:19:15.200 is perfectly clear, municipal government and municipalities is a provincial responsibility. The

00:19:20.960 federal government intervenes through the Canada Housing Act and through the Canada Mortgage Bank

00:19:25.840 Act, where the mortgage bank makes big loans to municipalities without even talking to the

00:19:32.080 provincial government. And then the constitution also says property and civil rights is a provincial

00:19:38.720 responsibility. The federal government intervened in that area through the Emergency Act and the courts

00:19:44.480 even mentioned that some of that intervention was unconstitutional. So if the federal government passes

00:19:51.040 a statutes like that pulling back out of those areas by amending the statutes and give it the power

00:19:56.080 to do that, that would be a pretty clear signal to the provinces that the federal government understands the

00:20:02.160 basis of unrest. But more speeches, more press conferences saying we're going to do something, etc., etc., etc.,

00:20:10.240 I don't think that it's going to take some action to remove the skepticism on those points.

00:20:17.680 Well, I think it's granted. I mean, just the recent election that we just fought, I mean, this issue

00:20:22.080 was basically never raised. I don't think I heard anyone put the question to Mark Carney. The focus

00:20:28.160 of the campaign was almost entirely on our relationship with the United States, on President Donald Trump,

00:20:33.840 potential tariffs. If anything, you know, we had two federal debates. One of them was in French,

00:20:37.840 where the entire debate was basically focused on Quebec and how to appease them and how to give them more.

00:20:42.800 And I don't think that Alberta was even mentioned. So, you know, what kind of hope do you have that

00:20:49.280 Mark Carney cares about this? I mean, he doubled down on Bill 69. He said he's not getting rid of it.

00:20:53.520 So is there any expectation that he will meet any of Daniel Smith's?

00:20:57.120 Well, the skepticism is that he won't. Now, that puts the ball in his court to prove that that's

00:21:02.160 that that's not the case. But the other thing that, again, rankles Westerners,

00:21:13.760 no part of North America has had more experience with populism, not just populist movements,

00:21:21.600 populist governments, populist movements that became governments, than Western Canada. If anybody ought to

00:21:29.040 be able to figure out a strategy, how to deal with Donald Trump, because he's on top of a populist

00:21:35.040 movement. In fact, the whole axis for looking at the political landscape, I think, has changed. The

00:21:43.280 old landscape, it's all left, right or center. If we're the left, right and center. No, that's not the

00:21:49.840 axis anymore. The axis is this way, bottom-up democratic populist movements versus political

00:21:56.080 parts dominated by aristocratic elites. That's the new axis. And if you want to interpret the

00:22:03.280 American landscape, that that's what's happened there. You've got this bottom-up populist movement

00:22:09.040 that put a leader at the top. Whether he's a populist or not, time's going to tell. But he's on

00:22:15.200 top of a populist movement. Well, by Western Canada's experience, how do you get to the leader of a

00:22:20.080 populist movement? Not necessarily, but going to Washington. I mean, maybe there's a place for that.

00:22:26.480 You get to him through his own followers. That's how you get to him. Trump has to pay attention to

00:22:32.880 the people that got him there. And one of the promises he made to the people that got him there

00:22:37.520 was he'd lower their cost of living. Now, what tariffs and counter tariffs do is increase. It's a

00:22:43.520 consumer that ends up paying in those non-productive tariff wars. So I think there's a way to get to

00:22:50.240 Trump, if you want to, say, reduce his policy on tariffs. It's not to counter tariffs, although

00:22:58.080 you can maybe make a short-term argument for them. It's by getting to his followers. And when

00:23:04.560 Premier Smith went down and got on one of these big American talk shows that's got 30, 40 million

00:23:10.960 followers, that's what she's doing. She's getting to Trump's constituency. And there's going to be 0.84

00:23:17.360 senatorial elections in the third of the states in 2026. Canadians ought to be involved in those

00:23:23.920 and get anti-tariff Republicans to get into the Senate. And Western Canada has some wisdom on how

00:23:33.120 you deal with populist movements and populist governments. Central Canada doesn't have the foggiest

00:23:38.800 notion about. And most of those commentators, I say to political science students, particularly if

00:23:46.320 your prof is still talking about politics, left, right, center, left, right, center, left, right,

00:23:50.720 center, ask him, does he also think the earth is flat? Operating in a framework that I think doesn't exist.

00:23:59.760 I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the Oval Office bilateral meeting that we saw last week between

00:24:06.720 President Trump and Mark Carney, because it seems to me that if you're watching online and you saw

00:24:12.160 the commentary from Axe and YouTube, it was very critical of Mark Carney. And it basically said that

00:24:17.200 this guy was out of his league and Trump basically just had him for breakfast. Whereas if you're watching

00:24:22.560 the traditional media, the CBC and others, they were very complimentary of Mark Carney saying that it was

00:24:28.800 sort of masterful, playing a game of chess and whatever. My own perspective is that I think

00:24:33.520 Trump kind of humiliated him. Like he gets that Mark Carney is there because of Donald Trump. And

00:24:39.280 like they're sort of denying that. Like Donald Trump came in, he created this huge political

00:24:42.880 problem in Canada, and Mark Carney was seen as the one who could solve it. Mark Carney got elected

00:24:47.200 basically off of bashing Donald Trump. And Trump almost kind of appreciates that. He was having fun with

00:24:53.200 Carney, sort of saying like, you know, this is one of the greatest political comebacks of all time,

00:24:57.360 even better than mine, right? And almost kind of taking credit for the fact that he was there,

00:25:01.840 laughing at the fact that Carney had been bashing him, maybe open to some kind of a discussion or

00:25:06.800 debate. But in my perspective, it seems that Carney was unwilling to make the concessions, right? Like,

00:25:13.920 Trump is concerned about the trade imbalance. Carney has no interest in reducing many of our own

00:25:19.680 barriers and our own subsidies and our own sort of supply management issues. And he was more interested in

00:25:24.640 just hitting back like dollar for dollar tariffs and all that kind of stuff. So I'm curious to hear

00:25:29.760 your thoughts on that exchange. Well, for one thing, I find it embarrassing from a democratic

00:25:35.840 standpoint that an American president can dominate and almost dictate a Canadian election. The fact that

00:25:46.480 there was a fair increase or holding the line on the voter turnout, you know, what does that say about

00:25:53.920 Canadian democracy that only a threat and statements by an American president can get people to wave the

00:26:01.760 flag and be patriotic? Like, what does that, is there not enough in this country regardless of who the

00:26:09.200 American president is to be proud of? Is not our economic strength through the resource sector

00:26:16.000 something that should make you proud? Is not our history, although it gets trashed by the professors

00:26:21.680 at a lot of the universities and teachers? Haven't we got enough to be proud of regardless of what the

00:26:28.480 president of the United States does? And I find that embarrassing and worrisome that that's what it takes

00:26:37.040 to get Canadians to feel patriotic, act patriotic and wave the flag? I think we've got enough to be proud

00:26:44.400 of regardless of who the president is. One hundred percent. Okay. Well, I did, I have one question just

00:26:50.320 sort of imagining a future independent Western Canada or Alberta. One thing that often gets raised is say

00:26:56.720 Alberta and Saskatchewan did decide to leave Canada and go it alone, they would be landlocked. And so they

00:27:03.200 potentially would be met by the same kinds of issues where they can't get their product to

00:27:08.400 Tidewater because they would still have to deal with Canada. That's an assumption that this worry is

00:27:13.920 just confined to Alberta and Saskatchewan. It isn't. It's broader. It does go into Manitoba so that you

00:27:20.720 could get access to the Atlantic through a port at Churchill. It's very strong in British Columbia,

00:27:31.440 including in the area that has the deepest deep water port in the country. Like it's,

00:27:38.080 if you just confine it to those two provinces, yes, you've got this landlock problem. But if you

00:27:42.800 broaden it out to the entire West, then that goes away. Well, it doesn't go away, but there's ways of

00:27:50.080 meeting it. Well, one of the other challenges, and this is one that a lot of the people that talk about

00:27:54.480 secession haven't addressed is what will be the status of indigenous groups that have treaty

00:28:00.640 arrangements with the Crown and with the federal government under those circumstances.

00:28:06.080 How is that going to be handled?

00:28:07.440 It's one of the challenges. One of the proposals will be that they be treated as, be given municipal

00:28:14.560 status. But will some of them settle for that? Back in 1995, when people forget that there was a

00:28:22.880 referendum in Quebec that came within 34,000. If 34,000 people out of four and a half million had

00:28:28.800 changed their minds, you would have had a yes vote for secession from Quebec. And I was a member of

00:28:34.400 Parliament at that time. We had representatives from the Northern Cree come to our office and say,

00:28:41.440 we don't care what Quebec does. We are under federal jurisdiction. We expect the federal

00:28:45.680 government to continue to deal with us and look after us. And so what would have happened? And some

00:28:52.240 of these people were quite threatening. We can do some real damage to Quebec hydros towers in our area.

00:28:58.800 Maybe blink the lights in New York was one of the phrases that were used. Maybe that would get some

00:29:03.280 attention to our concerns. There's issues like that that would have to be resolved and not easy.

00:29:09.680 Interesting. And yeah, we are still sort of dealing with those concerns. Whereas some of the

00:29:16.880 First Nations in Alberta say, you can't do this. Juno News talked to constitutional lawyers that said

00:29:22.080 that there isn't standing for them to block a citizen's initiative like this. So that's definitely

00:29:27.360 an interesting, outstanding issue. Well, Preston, we always really appreciate your time. Sorry,

00:29:32.160 did you have any final thoughts on that? Well, just on just what you said there.

00:29:37.520 This business is trying to shut up the people that want something different, secession or whatever

00:29:42.880 the options are. I don't think that's a democratic way either. I think the democratic way is let them

00:29:48.960 put that position together. There's about 10 groups working on this in the behind and they're not

00:29:55.440 unified. Let them get their position together and let them get it out in front of the public.

00:30:00.320 And let the public have a kick at it. I think by suppressing the talk about these things,

00:30:06.160 you do more damage than getting them out and having a genuine political discourse.

00:30:10.480 And if this assembly we're talking about comes about, one of the things we're hoping is to

00:30:16.560 demonstrate maybe for a week or 10 days, what genuine democratic discourse is about. It doesn't occur in

00:30:24.640 the legislatures now that are just partisan divided. It certainly doesn't occur in the Parliament of

00:30:30.480 Canada and I know about that. But can we not for 10 days have people present positions clearly and

00:30:38.480 they're listened to? Can we not have them cross-examined by asking questions and getting answers?

00:30:46.480 Can those people not be obliged to listen to other people? We're going to listen to you,

00:30:50.640 but you got to listen to something else. And can you not take some votes at the end that indicate how

00:30:55.680 much support there is for a particular proposition? Where today is there genuine democratic discourse?

00:31:03.280 Hopefully, maybe this assembly can demonstrate it and demonstrate it on an issue of the future

00:31:08.720 position of the West in the Federation.

00:31:11.480 Well, it's so interesting. Preston Manning, thank you so much for your time and your insights.

00:31:15.880 We're really looking forward to, I hope that comes to fruition and maybe we will have some real

00:31:20.760 debate and real democratic discussions in this country. Thank you so much for everything.

00:31:25.720 Well, thank you for having me.

00:31:27.160 All right, folks. That's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:31:30.600 I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you and God bless.

00:31:33.320 You're watching Juno News, Canada's fastest growing independent news network. Our team works day and

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Juno News - May 12, 2025

Preston Manning： Mark Carney will be Canada’s LAST Prime Minister

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