PJ The Belt - May 21, 2026


Alberta Finally Votes To LEAVE Canada？ — It's Long Overdue


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

131.16444

Word count

1,102

Sentence count

41

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.480 Today's video I'd like to talk about something that often gets ignored when it comes to the Alberta independence movement
00:00:06.940 many people think that this
00:00:09.240 cause was started
00:00:12.080 Because of the loss the federal loss of the conservatives
00:00:15.780 And I often say on this channel that I was simply the straw that broke the camel's back
00:00:22.620 basically the
00:00:24.420 last nail in a coffin
00:00:26.780 many of us saw coming and of course the liberal win after 10 years of terrible
00:00:35.780 policies and having ruined our country more ways than one contributed to the
00:00:43.460 amount of support and momentum that this that the cost for independence has
00:00:49.220 however this is something that has been brewing for many decades it is nothing
00:00:56.060 new for albertans to want to separate from canada considering the fact that alberta has been given
00:01:05.020 alberta and western canada in general but especially alberta and i mean especially alberta
00:01:11.020 and its industries have been given a raw deal for many decades
00:01:19.740 that frustration boiled over during the federal election of 1980 when the trudo liberals were
00:01:25.260 declared the winners before western votes were even counted well welcome to the 1980s 0.79
00:01:33.420 western alienation is almost as old as saskatchewan
00:01:39.580 its roots are in the countryside where farmers produced the food that fueled the nation
00:01:44.860 early in the century farmers were already feeling exploited by ottawa and the big grain companies
00:01:50.820 They felt as if central Canada was taking and taking and giving little back.
00:01:56.520 Its wealth is still in the hoof, though the buffalo herds have given way to what will be prime western beef.
00:02:06.100 The west here is still vivid with memories of other times.
00:02:11.120 The days before trails became highways, before campsites became cities like Calgary.
00:02:20.140 This dignified-looking city, now a financial center, hasn't quite forgotten the roaring hoop-up days when it was the last frontier.
00:02:31.500 About as far west as you could go without bumping into a mountain.
00:02:41.680 About 60 miles west of Calgary, the great barrier of the Rockies.
00:02:47.480 There are ways into it, of course.
00:02:50.140 To get to the resort town of Banff, the highway simply follows the valley of the Bow River.
00:03:04.100 This is a land of breathtaking grandeur.
00:03:07.140 Much of it has been set aside as national parks to remain in perpetuity pretty well as nature intended.
00:03:13.260 if you want to understand alberta you gotta understand the west this province was built
00:03:24.880 by ranchers oil men and homesteaders who tamed the land that most people today wouldn't dare
00:03:30.100 settle we're talking rugged badlands the rocky mountains and bitterly cold prairies the people
00:03:37.100 who made a life out here didn't ask for handouts they worked the land raised cattle and built
00:03:42.780 towns with their own two hands alberta's culture is different from the rest of canada we've got
00:03:48.220 rodeos we've got the stampede we've got cowboy hats and muddy boots and we have a strong sense
00:03:54.220 that people should be free free to work free to farm free to live without some government telling
00:03:59.980 them how to raise their children or live their lives that's very different from eastern canada
00:04:05.340 where they seem to love rules red tape and being protected by the government western political
00:04:11.740 parties would flourish and disappear. Saskatchewan voters earned a reputation for supporting
00:04:17.340 regional parties based on western discontent. They were desperate for a voice in national politics.
00:04:25.500 Dick Culver came to politics an underdog. He was charismatic and unpredictable with
00:04:31.100 little to lose. The progressive conservative party was at the bottom of the polls when
00:04:36.380 Culver became leader in 1973 they want a continuation of the present
00:04:42.060 government's drive five years later he built the party into Saskatchewan's
00:04:46.620 official opposition the premier was NDP leader Alan Blakeney he was wired both
00:04:54.120 as an organizer and as a speaker but not terribly stable he might come off the
00:04:59.240 wall and you never quite knew what position he was going to take
00:05:02.420 Culvert lived up to his reputation. In 1980 he shocked everyone and quit the
00:05:08.920 Tory party. He sat in the legislature as an independent where he was sharply
00:05:13.920 critical of the policies of the Trudeau government in Ottawa. French on the
00:05:18.460 cornflake boxes became a trigger issue and people were angry about bilingualism
00:05:24.540 primarily because they were angry at at Ottawa and Trudeau and the feeling that
00:05:29.120 Quebec ran everything. That frustration boiled over during the federal election of 1980 when
00:05:35.620 the Trudeau Liberals were declared the winners before Western votes were even counted. Well,
00:05:40.740 welcome to the 1980s. Then Culver shocked again. He announced the creation of a new political party
00:05:50.040 in Saskatchewan, the Unionist Party, with a stunning platform that Western provinces separate
00:05:56.720 from canada and joined the united states given the fact that the the views are irreconcilable
00:06:03.920 and that the country is in fact breaking up dennis ham was the tory mla for swift current
00:06:09.840 he shared culver's vision and joined the new party they believed western canada would get
00:06:15.680 more recognition as the 51st state culver's argument was a reasonable one he said inevitably
00:06:23.120 we are being drawn into the American net.
00:06:26.580 They are going to make the decisions 0.92
00:06:28.480 which control our economy
00:06:30.240 and ultimately our political system.
00:06:33.120 If they're going to do that,
00:06:34.400 why don't we have a voice in what the decisions are?
00:06:37.080 But the Unionist Party struggled for recognition.
00:06:40.840 MLAs voted in the legislature
00:06:42.820 to strip the new party of all public funds.
00:06:46.260 They thought it was mildly treasonous,
00:06:48.960 if you may put it that way.
00:06:50.840 Nor did the Unionist Party catch on with the people.
00:06:54.200 Despite their frustration, the idea of joining the United States went too far.
00:06:59.980 If we think we've got no voice now in a country of 20 million people,
00:07:05.680 what would we have in a country of 200 million?
00:07:08.980 Culver vowed to run in the next election with Unionist candidates across the West,
00:07:13.740 but the party fizzled.
00:07:15.620 Neither Culver nor Ham ran again.
00:07:19.000 Culver now lives in Arizona.
00:07:21.300 Ham lives in Calgary.
00:07:27.340 Twenty years later, Ham was back in the legislature in Regina
00:07:31.620 when his sister was sworn in as Saskatchewan's lieutenant governor.
00:07:36.520 Linda Haverstock is now the Queen's representative
00:07:39.300 in a province her brother once believed
00:07:41.540 would be better off leaving Canada and the monarchy behind.
00:07:48.040 Although the Unionist Party lasted a mere two years,
00:07:55.740 Western alienation continues to fuel prairie politics.
00:07:59.660 In fact, the current farm crisis is renewing calls for Western separatism,
00:08:03.680 and some disgruntled farmers have even suggested joining the United States.
00:08:09.160 I hear the train a-coming.
00:08:12.980 It's rolling around the bed.
00:08:15.280 And I see the blood shine
00:08:20.180 I don't know where