Juno News - November 15, 2019


The west is speaking up. Will Trudeau listen？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

175.27121

Word Count

894

Sentence Count

43


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Justin Trudeau has said upon re-election that he wants to be a voice for all Canadians,
00:00:09.600 even those in Alberta and Saskatchewan where the Liberals failed to win even a single seat.
00:00:15.700 He made this promise on election night, basically acknowledging that he's heard
00:00:20.780 the frustrations of Western Canadians. Well, if he has, it doesn't sound like he's doing
00:00:26.460 anything about it. Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan had a post-re-election meeting
00:00:31.580 with Justin Trudeau, as all provincial premiers and all party leaders at the federal level are doing,
00:00:36.860 and afterwards he said that he's got no confidence that there's going to be anything
00:00:41.120 apart from more of the same in this second mandate for Justin Trudeau. Premier Moe said he raised with
00:00:47.820 Justin Trudeau the possibility of pausing the carbon tax, the carbon tax that right now is subject to
00:00:53.700 litigation that's going to the Supreme Court, and this was, according to news reports, rebuffed by
00:00:59.980 Justin Trudeau. Andrew Scheer, the leader of the Conservative Party and leader of Her Majesty's
00:01:05.180 Loyal Opposition, similarly had a sit-down in which he put to the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
00:01:10.280 this idea of repealing bills C-69 and C-48. These are bills that are very widely panned in Western
00:01:17.740 Canada because they only aim to disrupt and hinder the growth of Canada's energy sector.
00:01:24.900 And what did Justin Trudeau say? No, it's not going to happen. So Trudeau says he's listening
00:01:30.440 to the frustrations of Western Canadians, but when solutions are put to him, there's no compromise,
00:01:36.680 there is nothing that he's willing to do to meet in the middle on these issues. And this is why
00:01:41.300 Western alienation is becoming a big problem for Justin Trudeau. It already is one. I caught up in
00:01:47.040 Alberta recently with Arnold Veerson, a member of Parliament in Alberta, a Conservative, and asked him
00:01:52.300 these very questions of basically how he, as an Alberta MP in this environment, stands up for the
00:01:58.860 Alberta voice at the table. This is what he had to say. So there's like a huge frustration in Alberta.
00:02:04.240 We pay the bulk of the taxes. We send our money across this country. And we expect that we don't need
00:02:10.780 our fair share back. We just need to be able to access the markets that we need to get access to.
00:02:16.360 You hear this line all the time, no pipelines, no equalization. I don't know how we're going to
00:02:22.520 bring that back, but I do know that every opportunity our Alberta caucus has to talk about
00:02:29.460 that, we'll be bringing that to Ottawa. We are a large contingent now. It's nearly a clean sweep here
00:02:35.420 in Alberta. And our Saskatchewan brothers and sisters are definitely strong allies on this stuff too.
00:02:40.780 If you allow a significant portion of the population, especially one that contributes
00:02:45.880 so much economically to the country, to be alienated, you're going to breed secessionist
00:02:51.780 or separatist sentiments. I'm actually, as you watch this, on my way to Red Deer, Alberta,
00:02:58.300 where I'm speaking at a conference devoted to the very idea of exploring Western independence
00:03:03.060 and Western alienation. Now, I don't have a dog in the fight on the separation question,
00:03:07.640 not living in Alberta myself, but it's going to be something to watch because quite frankly,
00:03:13.360 Justin Trudeau does not want to have the rise of Alberta separatism and the rise of Quebec separatism
00:03:18.660 on his hands, which is where things are headed now because of his inability to hold together
00:03:23.200 confederation with policies that aim to support the energy industry and support all industry and
00:03:30.240 industry for all Canadians. I don't expect Justin Trudeau to become the Alberta-focused leader.
00:03:37.280 I don't expect him to start catering policy to Alberta, Saskatchewan, even Manitoba or Northern
00:03:42.700 British Columbia for that matter. That's not what we expect here. Those are always going to be
00:03:46.860 conservative strongholds and the Liberals are always going to be more interested in Vancouver,
00:03:51.680 Toronto and Montreal. But he has to remember that you cannot abuse and walk on such a portion of the
00:03:58.380 country without it coming back to bite you in the rear end. And this is what's going on right now.
00:04:04.140 When Albertans are saying things like no pipelines, no equalization, despite how equalization is
00:04:09.580 ingrained in the constitution, it shows that they are getting to the point where they're prepared to,
00:04:14.080 by any means necessary, cut the federal government off. Cut it off. What is the government going to do
00:04:20.660 then? You cannot use and abuse Alberta and Saskatchewan with impunity, which is what the federal
00:04:26.460 government has done for far too long. This means that Alberta representatives, not just at the
00:04:31.640 provincial level, but Alberta members of parliament need to ensure they're using their voice to stand up
00:04:37.020 for the West in parliament because no one else is and certainly no one in this government is.
00:04:44.040 True North is standing up for the West. We're standing up for all of Canada, the values and issues that
00:04:49.300 matter most, the ones the mainstream media are not reporting on. We can't do this alone. If you can ship
00:04:55.420 in a few bucks or join my heritage club to support us year round, please do. There's a link in the
00:05:00.180 description box or you can head on over to tnc.news slash donate. For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.