PJ The Belt - June 06, 2025


Alberta EXITS Canada! - Trump's STATEHOOD DEAL in The Works？ Independence Talk W⧸ Bruce Pardy

Alberta DECLARES INDEPENDENCE From Canada in 2025？ ｜ Referendum Update & Pipeline Conflict! Alberta STATEHOOD DEAL With TRUMP Admin - Happening？ ｜ Separation From Canada Referendum 2025

Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

155.29

Word count

2,215

Sentence count

3

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we'll be watching a recent conversation from the YouTube channel of journalist Harrison Faulkner where he interviews constitutional law professor Bruce Parris Parr from Queen's University. Professor Parr is an outspoken supporter of Alberta independence and has even written a potential declaration of independence for the people of the province. I provide commentary on the most important parts of the interview having to do with the desire for separation, the growing support behind it and the attacks from those who oppose it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 and saying all right we have a new country we're going to start again how are we going to govern
00:00:04.000 it a little bit like if you like the way the americans did it when they left
00:00:08.240 britain after their revolution like they kept some things that were good in british law and
00:00:15.200 governance but in other respects they started again say well how how should we do this
00:00:20.640 that's the kind of process i would like to think alberta will go through 0.99
00:00:23.440 everybody pj here in today's video we'll be watching a recent conversation from the youtube
00:00:35.280 channel of journalist harrison faulkner where he interviews constitutional law professor
00:00:40.480 bruce party from queen's university professor party is an outspoken supporter of alberta independence
00:00:47.440 and has even written a potential declaration of independence for the people of alberta
00:00:52.000 where he uses the american declaration of independence as a base for the alberta
00:00:56.560 document i provide commentary on the most important parts of the interview having to
00:01:01.600 do with the desire for separation the growing support behind it and the attacks from those
00:01:06.880 who oppose it let's watch professor thank you for joining me and first can you explain why
00:01:12.880 you felt compelled to publish that statement and support alberta separatism so i was recently
00:01:18.800 at a town hall in alberta talking about independence and whether or not they should choose to go through
00:01:26.160 with it and i put it to them this way i said imagine that we are in an alternate universe
00:01:34.560 and that in this alternate universe alberta has always been an independent country
00:01:40.720 since its inception and this alberta is a free country like an actually free country
00:01:50.000 it has a small and limited government people have property rights that they can use in the way that
00:01:55.760 they wish it has a genuine rule of law it has low or non-existent taxes it has no red tape
00:02:04.080 it has equal rules for everybody and so on and so forth it's an actually free country
00:02:11.040 and because it has freedom it is also prosperous because it has resources and has been able to
00:02:18.000 to use those resources and sell them to the world and in this alternate universe imagine that the
00:02:24.960 neighboring country canada comes to make an offer and the offer is please join us
00:02:31.840 please join the country and alberta would say okay well what's on offer what kind of a country are you
00:02:37.920 and the answer if it's honest would be well we call ourselves a capitalist country but we're not
00:02:44.160 really we're actually a progressive managed socialist country we will give you jurisdiction in the
00:02:52.400 constitution over your natural resources but then we will interfere with them all the way along and try
00:02:57.680 to prevent you from developing and selling them and to the extent that you succeed anyway
00:03:03.600 we will tax your people and send the money elsewhere around the country and in the meantime we will
00:03:11.440 tell your citizens in the same way we tell ours now how to behave and what to think and what to say
00:03:17.920 and how to use pronouns and all those kinds of things we are a managed country and if you join us
00:03:25.440 you will be managed too now what is the proper response to this invitation what how should alberta
00:03:33.040 respond to respond to the invitation i don't think the proper answer is obviously it's not yes and it's
00:03:40.080 not even maybe we'll think about it and i don't think it's even no i think the proper answer to this invitation
00:03:47.840 is are you out of your mind and if in that scenario alberta would not join canada then the question that
00:03:59.840 arises is if you wouldn't join then why would you stay let's imagine for a minute that alberta wasn't
00:04:09.040 already a part of canada and today's federal government came knocking offering the same deal
00:04:15.040 alberta currently has let's see your wealth gets taken away through equalization your industries get 0.58
00:04:22.000 kneecapped by ideological climate policies and oh yeah your political voice is drowned out by ontario
00:04:29.280 quebec in every single election you think albertans would say yes to that more like hell no are you
00:04:36.880 crazy that kind of offer wouldn't fly anywhere never mind in a proud self-reliant province so if
00:04:43.760 alberta wouldn't join canada under these terms today why on earth should it stay under them it's quite
00:04:51.040 unlikely that a referendum would pass and so and then even further that the federal government would
00:04:56.560 recognize that referendum to begin with so is this more of an effort of trying to raise awareness
00:05:01.920 about the issues that are affecting albertans and to try to you know bring this bring these issues
00:05:07.760 to the attention of federal politicians than it is to actually separate from canada no
00:05:14.240 no no i don't know whether it will actually happen or not nobody does but no this is this is for me and for
00:05:22.960 the people that i've spoken to who are in alberta this is not a negotiating tactic this is a real thing
00:05:30.160 now whether or not they get the numbers high enough remains to be seen but i think it is
00:05:37.200 a an assumption or a hope or a wishful thinking on the part of people in central canada
00:05:45.040 that it is exactly as you've described like this is not really a real thing
00:05:48.960 this is just a way to get a better deal i've suggested to the albertans who are in very much
00:05:56.320 in favor of this that the negotiation that they would like to see happen ought to happen after and
00:06:05.760 not before they win a referendum then and this is what the supreme court said in 1998 about quebec
00:06:12.400 if a province passes a referendum with a clear question and a clear majority supports it then
00:06:21.680 that triggers negotiations with the federal government and the rest of the country and that's
00:06:27.120 when negotiations begin not before because fact of the matter is alberta and the west have tried
00:06:34.560 a number of times over a long period of time to introduce changes into the way we are organized
00:06:40.560 and every single time the powers that be in central canada have shown zero interest so there's no
00:06:47.840 particular reason to think that that would change now and you know albertans as a group have been
00:06:55.920 have been patriotic loyal canadians you know for a long time i have i have suggested it this way they
00:07:02.960 have been loyal to the country and the country has not reciprocated i think they've been treated very badly
00:07:08.080 and but but even so a lot of albertans want to hold on to canada they want to hold on to what they know
00:07:15.680 they want to hold on to what's familiar and they're a little bit wary of the unknown you know fair enough
00:07:21.120 but the argument being made is the problem that was weighing us down is in fact canada and that if you
00:07:30.080 were free of canada and if you were able to reconstitute yourself not by reproducing the canada
00:07:38.240 that you know but going to a different model then what you would end up with eventually is a country
00:07:45.680 that is both freer and more prosperous than the province that they have right now the news media
00:07:53.280 in toronto and ottawa i love calling alberta independence a fringe movement and yet they
00:07:58.720 keep writing articles about it constantly if it's such a joke why are they so nervous they mock it
00:08:06.720 dismiss it say it'll never pass a referendum but deep down they're worried they think albertans are
00:08:13.520 just bluffing trying to get a better deal but here's the thing most albertans who support independence
00:08:20.080 actually mean it whether it's full sovereignty or becoming a part of the usa in some form or another
00:08:26.160 they're serious and for good reason alberta has been asking nicely for decades got nowhere so let's
00:08:33.440 be real if there's going to be a negotiation it should come after a referendum when ottawa suddenly
00:08:40.240 realizes they might actually lose the golden goose that's when alberta has all the leverage and can 1.00
00:08:45.920 choose to choose to use it or not and then what what about first nations issues you recently penned
00:08:52.960 again in in rights probe um your opinion regarding uh the the the situation with first nations treaties
00:09:01.040 because it seems from my vantage point that the first nations community in alberta is almost uh
00:09:08.400 entirely opposed to alberta separation or in terms of recognizing a referendum so what would happen
00:09:15.040 then constitutionally if anything well i first i i'm not sure that that perception is correct
00:09:21.760 i think it's true that a a good portion of indigenous elites are opposed you know that that the people on
00:09:30.880 the top of the hierarchy have expressed concerns uh but i i have spoken to and heard from a lot of
00:09:39.600 indigenous people who are not of that opinion at all and so like everything else this is one of the
00:09:47.120 questions that's going to be up in the air so when you are separating from the country that you belong to
00:09:54.960 you're separating not just from the country but from the established order of the country in other
00:10:00.960 words at least in theory you are wiping the table and saying all right we have a new country we're
00:10:06.720 going to start again how are we going to govern it a little bit like if you like the way the
00:10:11.120 americans did it when they left britain after their revolution like they kept some things that were good
00:10:18.560 in british law and governance but in other respects they started again say well how how should we do this
00:10:25.520 that's the kind of process i would like to think alberta will go through 0.99
00:10:28.320 how would how would this benefit the alberta economy um in in the and the oil industry and the
00:10:36.800 jobs that that revolve around that i i would assume that if alberta were to were to separate they would 0.92
00:10:42.960 still need the cooperation of the canadian government to you know bring the oil to tidewater
00:10:49.200 they could rely entirely on the united states but do you do you get the sense that um alberta business
00:10:56.160 the alberta business community thinks this would be a good thing for them here's something that the
00:11:01.840 news will never admit to many in alberta's business world do support independence the ones
00:11:08.320 that don't surprise they're usually receiving some sort of subsidy from the federal government
00:11:14.480 but if alberta went its own way it wouldn't just survive it could actually thrive imagine drafting
00:11:21.120 a modern constitution built on individual liberty equality before the law and economic freedom
00:11:28.080 no more ottawa micromanaging every industry no more chasing investments away alberta could be one of the
00:11:34.720 freest most prosperous places on earth and let's not forget alberta would actually be able to speak 0.73
00:11:41.120 directly with the united states whether it's trade deals partnerships or even statehood territoryhood
00:11:48.000 that's a future worth building unshackled from the weight of a government that's been holding it
00:11:52.720 back for generations people have said but we'll be landlocked um as though there are no you know
00:11:58.960 prosperous landlocked countries in the world you know switzerland austria sure czech republic you know
00:12:05.280 they're not they're not major oil exporters but nevertheless they're they're they're very well off but
00:12:11.360 we're also assuming something else which may not be true which is that once alberta starts to do this
00:12:18.240 that everything else will remain the same and that's probably not likely i mean one of the things
00:12:22.880 that could happen is as alberta gets closer to this if they do that other provinces other populations
00:12:30.080 in other provinces might say well don't leave us behind i mean saskatchewan is a is a likely candidate
00:12:37.200 these problems are very um deeply entrenched they're in the constitution if you like i mean
00:12:43.760 just let's take one example the senate ontario and quebec have 24 seats each
00:12:50.480 and the west the four provinces together have 24. now the purpose of the u.s senate
00:12:59.120 is to counterbalance counterbalance representation by population our senate does the reverse our senate
00:13:06.400 gives all the power to those places that already have the population and moreover
00:13:10.880 we still have an appointed senate the federal government is appointing alberta's representatives
00:13:17.440 to the senate okay that's intolerable and they have asked nicely a number of times to have that fixed
00:13:25.840 nobody cares my own take would be don't negotiate don't negotiate until after you win a referendum
00:13:33.120 and then see to what extent canada wants you to stay if if you alberta are going to the federal
00:13:42.000 government and saying oh could we please have these things and if we have these things then maybe we
00:13:47.760 won't leave that means you are losing the negotiation you know you are winning the negotiation if the
00:13:53.840 federal government comes to you and says how about these things would these things satisfy you will you
00:13:59.920 please stay all right thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video please do me a solid and hit
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