00:00:00.480Yeah, Vancouver, it's really hot in the day right now, and it's really cold at night.
00:00:04.740So I've been warming up at my house by hanging out with ChatGPT and trying to perfect my pizza dough.
00:00:11.440Yeah, no, the weather here hasn't been great. It's been raining a lot.
00:00:14.040I'm hoping that the weather's good on the 22nd, because, of course, Sean Foyke's coming to Edmonton, to the Alberta legislature there, and I'm going to be going.
00:00:22.600I'm really excited for that. Definitely going to be on the ground reporting it for True North there.
00:00:27.960And I don't know. I think there's a lot of protest groups planning to go, so I'm not sure what's going to happen.
00:00:35.720Like, I don't know what the police presence is going to be like. I think it's going to be crazy.
00:00:40.000Yeah. Have you guys been, like, paying attention to any of that stuff with Foyke?
00:00:45.000Of course. Yeah. The Live Revive 25 tour, as they call it. I find that really fun.
00:00:52.620Yeah, there's, like, a lot of controversy over it. It's a bit like court.
00:00:55.480You know, sometimes what happens outside of court is more interesting than what happens inside, right?
00:01:01.420Which brings us to the decision that was, I believe, dropped today in Alberta court, if I'm not mistaken, and you were in attendance, Isaac?
00:01:09.620Yeah, we'll get into that after. But first, we're going to follow a more, well, a different decision, of course, in Nova Scotia, most recently, and, of course, New Brunswick, with the woods bans there.
00:01:24.440I mean, what's happening over there, Alex? What is going on? Can residents just not go outside? Can they not go in the woods? Like, what's going on?
00:01:33.120Yeah, it's not, as is often the case in Canada, it's not exactly clear what's going on. Our friend of the show, who I actually interviewed earlier this week, Jeff Evely, posted a great video on X, where he kind of pointed out the absurd and theatrical elements of the woods ban,
00:01:51.240where, you know, one section of the woods is the woods, and another section of the woods is apparently not the woods.
00:01:59.000And so he has taken it upon himself, and I think a fairly heroic case of civil disobedience, to say that I am going to go into the woods, and I want you to find me.
00:02:08.120So he actually reached out to the Department of Natural Resources for Nova Scotia and encouraged them to give him the maximum fine, which was somewhere in the vicinity of $28,720 and some odd cents.
00:02:20.920And he will be fighting that in court, presumably, with our friends from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
00:03:06.700I think that's something that's probably important to report on in terms of the interview I did with Jeff Eavely is that Eavely is not against bans designed to reduce forest fires.
00:03:17.980So he says, I'm not against burn bans.
00:03:19.900And I wouldn't even be against, he told me, a ban on bringing lighters or matches into the woods.
00:03:24.820Because as I posted on X earlier this week, I don't know how many people actually go out into the woods.
00:03:29.960If you don't have a match or a lighter, it's actually quite difficult to start a fire in the woods.
00:03:34.700Like, there have been entire shows on this.
00:03:37.300You know, if you've ever watched Alone or Survivor or any of these shows, it's actually very difficult to start a fire.
00:03:43.580Without some type of fuel, it's actually very difficult to sustain a fire.
00:03:46.440So it's not so much that he wants to break the rule because he doesn't care about forest fires.
00:03:50.980It's because the rule doesn't make sense.
00:03:53.420That's ultimately, I think, what the biggest issue is with Canadians.
00:03:56.540And this is what makes it so COVID-adjacent.
00:03:58.260It's kind of like when you had to wear your mask while you waited to get seated at a restaurant.
00:04:01.600And then when you sat down, you could suddenly take the mask off.
00:04:10.460And then you said the JCCF is defending him.
00:04:13.040Is that going to be like, do you know their position?
00:04:15.140Are they taking it as this is a violation of charter rights or the Constitution or what their position is there?
00:04:20.200My understanding is that it's going to be a charter infringement position that they're going to be taking if this goes to court.
00:04:26.580I think also the feeling is that this won't go to court.
00:04:29.660Again, the ticket itself is also a performative action, right?
00:04:33.820Because like $20,000, I mean, you also can't squeeze blood from a stone, right?
00:04:38.720I mean, very few people have $28,000 sitting in their bank account, nor should they.
00:04:43.440They should probably invest that somewhere.
00:04:46.000But, yeah, that's not something most people can pay.
00:04:49.700And so I imagine that they won't be enforcing this to the full extent of the law, even though the Premier of Nova Scotia says that he intends to.
00:04:58.320Yeah, Waleed, have you been paying attention to this?
00:05:00.680Do you think these tickets are going to get tossed or enforced?
00:05:03.440Or what do you think about the timeline here?
00:05:05.940Yeah, just to get on what Alex was saying, is 12 was the number that Tim Houston quoted in his previous press conference.
00:05:13.46012 people have been fined, assuming we're around the $25,000 range.
00:05:17.920Do I think they're going to be taken all the way?
00:05:20.520Well, for now, Houston's rhetoric says so.
00:05:22.420He says that he intends to take them all the way, prosecute them fully to make sure consequences are paid up.
00:05:28.660So, again, like you guys have mentioned, people are so close to financial insolvency.
00:05:32.980Affordability is already a crisis in Atlantic Canada as it is in the rest of the country.
00:05:37.140So I don't really think anyone actually is going to pay up penny by penny.
00:05:40.240But the governments are definitely putting all the pressure possible.
00:05:43.780I mean, that's Nova Scotia with Tim Houston.
00:05:45.800You're talking about $25,000 as you're starting fine.
00:05:47.820In Newfoundland, in Labrador, you have fines between $50,000 to $150,000.
00:05:55.320And the result of a default in payment could increase.
00:06:00.380Well, previously for defaulting payments of certain fines would get you three days in prison or up to three days in prison.
00:06:07.220Now that has been taking up to six months in prison.
00:06:09.720So Newfoundland, they're levying jail time, six months.
00:06:13.520Some serious consequence there, of course.
00:06:16.220And the fine range of $50,000 to $150,000 is just unprecedented.
00:06:20.520But the story here, guys, is the fact that they're moving goal close.
00:06:24.600And that's where they're losing a lot of people more and more by the day, actually.
00:06:28.260Between Tim Houston and New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt, between those two individuals, three narratives have been peddled in less than a week.
00:06:37.660First, with Tim Houston, you had the question about going into forests, starting a fire.
00:06:42.340Then Susan Holt's like, oh, it's not about starting a fire.
00:06:45.260It's more so about, you know, you not being in the forest, getting injured.
00:06:49.160Because if you get injured in the forest, we're not going to come save you.
00:07:32.100And, of course, many people, like some of the activists that are fighting for civil liberties in that issue, like they've said before, I mean, they're all good with taking on preventative measures against forest fires.
00:07:46.080But, of course, when you take this rationale and you change it day by day, week after week, people lose you.
00:07:54.060Yeah, no pun intended there with the cooked.
00:07:57.200But, yeah, no, just quickly, I just want to touch on one thing.
00:08:01.120So the Nova Scotia thing, you can't go in the forest, whatever.
00:08:03.700But I thought the Newfoundland thing, Waleed, was just more of like a fire ban, which I thought more people would be advocating for because, of course, we've seen the problem with arson in terms of forest fires in Canada.
00:08:15.300And lots of people have been calling for much, much, much larger punishments when it comes to arson because of the forest fires.
00:08:23.120So is that the key differentiator there between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia?
00:08:26.960That, one, you just can't even go in the forest because you could possibly start a fire.
00:08:31.080And then one is like, you actually just can't have a fire.
00:08:34.500So actually, last Saturday's press conference with Premier Andrew Fury, he himself said the penalties, which, again, like I said, include minimum fines of $50,000,
00:08:43.080are applying to anyone that ignores evacuation orders, that enters the restricted zones, or otherwise obstructs firefighting efforts.
00:08:52.980So I'll let you interpret how that would be.
00:09:37.900And so I think that this forest fire ban and the outrage surrounding it, I don't want to suggest that Jeff Feebley's objection to it is superfluous.
00:09:45.820What I will say, though, is that I find that it fits within a trend of people on the political right in Canada kind of finding ways to vent their outrage that they used to use against Trudeau.
00:09:58.540So we went from ostriches to Christian rock concerts to forest hiking bands.
00:10:06.000Like, what do any of these things have in common?
00:10:07.960And I'm not so sure that they have anything in common other than the fact that people are just looking for a place to vent their rage, so to speak.
00:10:14.040So, if you recall, in 2020, our neighbors to the south in the United States, when Donald Trump went out of office in 2020, you saw this very pronounced on the left.
00:10:24.340Remember, there was always, what is the new thing?
00:10:26.300So, first, they were outraged at the unvaccinated.
00:10:31.480Then they were outraged at, you know, objections to trans people in women's sports and so on and so forth.
00:10:37.360And so I think that those two things are analogous, and I just thought it was kind of an interesting theory to throw out there that might explain why people are getting so angry over these kind of niche issues recently.
00:10:50.400But, of course, when it comes to charter rights and constitutionally protected rights, you can expect, well, you would hope that Canadians would unite against it.
00:11:00.980But even with this, we haven't seen a united front, more so a divided front, with two people or two groups of people taking very strong stances on both sides.
00:11:10.840Well, I think it's also an issue that's unique to the Maritimes as well, right?
00:11:15.200Because I don't know if it has something to do with the fact that they receive so much subsidy from the government in terms of seasonal work, but they tend to have, like, a more paternalistic approach to the way they view their government, right?
00:11:25.220They're more accepting of a government controlling what they do.
00:11:29.880You know, could you imagine if they tried to do this in B.C. or Alberta?
00:11:32.520Like, they'd burn the legislature down.
00:11:36.600So, you know, I guess, like, the Maritimes is a different place, and people view their politics very differently there.
00:11:43.100Well, speaking of politics, yeah, well, myself and Fortune North was at Alberta Prosperity Project Town Hall in Edmonton on Tuesday, which featured about 300 attendees live at the town hall there.
00:11:59.580And I heard around 600 also tuned into the live stream, which was, yeah, no.
00:12:05.880So this town hall was one of the almost 40 events that they've had in the last two months.
00:12:11.460So, like, basically, every day, guys, they're having a different town hall in some Alberta municipality.
00:12:17.060And this was, I think, the first one that had been to one of the two major cities, that being Edmonton and Calgary.
00:12:21.780The other ones have been to, like, small towns, rural places.
00:12:24.560But this was the first one in one of the main cities.
00:12:28.260So the event was about two hours long, just over.
00:12:31.780And it had three speakers, the first of whom, Dr. Dennis Modry.
00:12:38.580He, of course, implemented Western Canada's first heart and lung transplantation program and performed the first heart and lung transplants in the 80s and 90s.
00:13:17.180So there was lots of things I couldn't possibly summarize what happened at this two-hour conference quickly.
00:13:25.000But the third speaker was, of course, Alberta Prosperity Project CEO, Mitch Sylvester.
00:13:31.680And he, I guess, took a slightly different approach.
00:13:34.700And he was talking about more or less how Canada was built to work against Alberta, citing equalization payments,
00:13:42.780pension contributions, Senate representation, Supreme Court justice representation, all things on how Alberta is set up to fail, essentially, in Confederation.
00:13:55.380He said a few other interesting things.
00:13:58.200But I also spoke with a couple attendees at the town hall there, one of whom, Catherine Speck.
00:15:26.200I mean, I'm kind of an old school self-determination people person, I guess.
00:15:35.920So if Alberta wants to pursue, within their legal rights, potential independence, I'm all for it, personally.
00:15:43.920I mean, I would tend to agree with many of the sentiments that you just relayed from that event with regards to Alberta being treated very unfairly.
00:15:57.580This is where you basically abandon your wagon and do fentanyl.
00:16:02.760So it's, yeah, even further west than west itself.
00:16:11.800And I would love for you guys to take us with you.
00:16:15.460Not to say that I don't love Canada and I don't appreciate this country very, very much.
00:16:19.760But I definitely share many of the sentiments that Albertans do.
00:16:24.020Yeah, and that's another thing they were, I guess, emphasizing at the town hall is that, look, we're trying, or Alberta or the prosperity or the separatist advocates, let's call them, are trying to go down the route of this democratic process wherein if a majority of people want to separate, they will.
00:16:40.180And they're just trying to say, look, we want to hold these town halls to present you all the information that we have and you can make the decision for yourself.
00:16:47.240So it's more of like an informational session.
00:16:49.000We're going to, there was lots of data and facts in the presentation that here's how much oil we produce, blah, blah, blah.
00:16:54.860You know, those kinds of things like the money, of course, their fiscal costed plan is like 100 pages, 200 pages, whatever.
00:17:00.420And they have all the analysis in there and that was referenced slightly at the town hall.
00:17:04.000But yeah, I mean, it's really just the democratic process of town halls, right?
00:17:08.740But something else that I attended on Thursday there was the court ruling on the petition question, of course, which many people were looking forward to, let's say.
00:17:19.000And I don't know, more or less the judge went through the whole ruling.
00:17:25.340So he spoke on background and precedent for like an hour.
00:17:27.980And on the last 30 seconds, he delivered his conclusion, which he struck the motion to dismiss the petition, which means it will go forward.
00:17:35.020Or the debates on whether it can proceed will go forward.
00:17:38.640That means he said that there were legitimate arguments on both sides and that Albertans deserve to hear both sides of the argument and come to an informed decision.
00:17:50.060And one of the quotes he said at the end there was, democracy deserves nothing less.
00:17:54.440And then I was talking with a few of the representatives for the Alberta separatist movement, notably, for example, Mitch Sylvester.
00:18:02.280I talked to him and he said to me, you know, I think this is important.
00:18:06.800He actually compared it to Athens because going forward with this, like anyone could have tuned in to the court hearing today.
00:18:27.540And yeah, he compared it to Athens, you know, back in the day when the public sphere was at its greatest, let's say, where all the citizens just came to the, I don't know what it's called, amphitheater and debated things.
00:18:41.600And, you know, and that's really the cornerstone of democracy.
00:18:50.000Well, look, I, looking at Quebec's history, as someone born and raised, well, at least born in Quebec, raised in Ottawa.
00:18:57.140So I have a very, very local perspective on how separatism has touched and challenged Canada's federalist narrative.
00:19:06.440Because, again, it's a, it's a small little river cross between Gatineau and Ottawa.
00:19:11.620And, of course, the mentalities would change much more radically between those bridges.
00:19:16.420So on Alberta and whether or not Alberta has a strong case that I personally respect or that I personally encourage.
00:19:22.860Look, I just think it's purely based on the fact that we've had consecutive liberal governments while Alberta has rejected their agendas.
00:19:30.440You have the EV mandates, you have C-69, killing pipelines, killing projects, essentially killing Alberta's path of prosperity.
00:19:40.460Like, yeah, Alberta has still a pretty relatively competitive well-being considering the rest of the country and the state of the country.
00:19:47.100But if you look at Alberta's top prosperity projection based on if they were to open up more oil markets and, you know, increase the capacity of their existing pipelines and perhaps increasing the amount of projects they're going to take on in the future.
00:20:02.760I mean, the possibilities are endless.
00:20:36.720That's something you have to ask someone from the province for now.
00:20:40.020But I really do believe that the frustration angle about Alberta's contrast in economic priorities, its contrast in economic interests, as you say, they pay into the CPP, federal pension plan, equalization formula, subsidizing provinces of a weaker scale with much less in return on Alberta's behalf.
00:20:59.760There is a really strong case from Alberta's perspective to consider a rewiring of relations with Ottawa, again, would that require independence, would that require a different constitutional process?
00:21:13.040But I really much respect the case of Alberta's behalf.
00:21:15.720The only advice I would say is you have to tie a cultural element into it as well.
00:21:19.860It can't just be about checks and balances and economics.
00:21:22.060To last a certain time period, you've got to also integrate some cultural considerations.
00:21:27.460The question of immigration, the question of security, probably public safety can be inserted into that conversation as well.
00:21:34.300But I find the Prosperity Project, along with the town halls, along with everything else the government and the public are doing, to be of great interest.
00:21:40.960And I look forward to seeing where it comes next year.
00:21:43.440Yeah, well, Lee brought up the Quebec Supreme Court ruling precedent, which, of course, the judge mentioned a few times.
00:21:51.100But another thing I found interesting was there's really no Canadian precedent for constitutionally related referenda, specifically whether these referenda could violate the Constitution or not.
00:22:03.840So a lot of the precedents he drew on are from Europe and the U.S.
00:22:07.960But, Alex, going forward, well, first of all, do you think Canadians have been paying attention in large to Alberta's sovereignty movement thus far?
00:22:16.340And do you think that will grow going forward, especially with these court rulings, if they're very public affairs?
00:22:24.180Do you think people from across the nation are going to be watching?
00:22:27.500If I'm being perfectly honest, I would say no.
00:22:29.820I mean, Canada is a really big country.
00:22:33.780I just learned recently, if you turned it sideways and you overlapped it over Europe, I think it would stretch from London to Nepal.
00:22:41.260So, like, that just gives you an idea of the distance between Alberta and the Maritimes, right?
00:22:46.080I mean, even here in B.C., we neighbor, we're probably, I guess, your largest bordering country, if you were an independent country, or tied with Saskatchewan, I'm not really sure.
00:22:55.520Even here in B.C., like, on the street, people are not talking about Alberta independence at all, frankly.
00:23:03.420And I'm not saying that it's not important.
00:23:05.280I'm just saying that I think that the interest outside of Alberta is minimal.
00:23:09.820Well, we'll see once if a constitutional question or if a referendum question comes forward and if it's voted on, because then this was mentioned a lot in court today, too.
00:23:19.540It's like that's not even really binding in itself.
00:23:23.100It just triggers a negotiation among, of course, the province, the country, etc.
00:23:32.160Definitely once it gets to that stage, I'm sure it'll be the talk of the town of every town, but we'll have to wait and see for that.
00:23:38.420Speaking of unity, I guess, we saw some of the Western premiers kind of unite, maybe, against Mark Carney not dealing with China's canola tariffs.
00:23:51.520I mean, I saw Wob Canu, and I don't really know how to interpret what he said because this is such an unbelievable statement, but he said that Western producers are losing or lost $1 billion in a single day because of these canola tariffs.
00:24:06.620So, I don't know if that's just, like, saying they lost a billion over a certain timeframe because of the decision of one day or if they're actually losing a billion dollars a day because that's just insanity.
00:24:18.040Yeah, what went on here with the canola tariffs, Waleed?
00:24:22.400On Wob's comments, I'm not sure if he's referring to any specific jurisdiction, if that's the entire country.
00:24:28.420And, again, the magnitude and the timeline matters a lot, but those are his words.
00:24:33.020A billion dollars a day that they're losing based on these canola tariffs, the 75.8% that China slapped on, on top of some other previous tariffs that China slapped on to kind of those agricultural products, most of whom come from the West as well.
00:24:44.680So, you're not surprised that the Western premieres, with the exception of David Eby, because I haven't heard anything from him in the last day in the two.
00:24:51.500Wab Canu, Daniel Smith, Scott Moe have all made it clear that these tariffs need the same tension, if not more, than what the tariff situation that the U.S. is drawing us into.
00:24:59.260Obviously, this whole elbows-up theme, election domination, the focus on, you know, both the Liberal Party and their supporters have always been, since perhaps the late last year, have been on U.S. tariffs.
00:25:12.300But on China, there's a greater effect, frankly, because at least for now, as Ryu and I have covered in previous episodes,
00:25:18.500Kuzma is saving the game for at least this year on most of our products that are going between the border.
00:25:24.940So, the U.S. effects, the U.S. tariffs do have an effect, but it's rather minimal.
00:25:29.880When it comes to China, it comes to a very interesting question, and this is just something I probably had a bit of a beef with here at True North with another colleague in the past,
00:25:37.760about what it is that comes out of this situation.
00:25:40.260So, China, as you know, applied these tariffs based on the fact that Canada applies 100% tariffs on imported EVs from the country.
00:25:48.640This is kind of the way of levying whether or not we will bow down and open up one sector in exchange for another.
00:25:55.720Obviously, China has a very, very important market influence in our canola exports, so there's definitely a case to be made there.
00:26:03.280Scott Moe himself, I think he's the one who took the lead when it comes to the rhetorical response,
00:26:07.120because he had a press conference where he himself said that Carney has to drop the prioritization of the EV industry in Canada.
00:26:13.420In other words, Scott Moe, a conservative leading premier, is asking Carney to open up the EV market to China
00:26:20.300in exchange for the canola market to resume its highest potential of trade activity with China, with Beijing.
00:26:27.760Daniela Smith is also essentially similar when she's asked Carney to take similar steps.
00:26:32.840Scott Moe also asked for him to push Mark Carney, that is, to push for a meeting with,
00:26:37.120uh, Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and, uh, even Manitoba's premier has emphasized the importance