PJ The Belt - July 04, 2025


Alberta INDEPENDENCE VOTE 2026! - New REFERENDUM Law Has Canada PANICKING!


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

158.60951

Word count

1,892

Sentence count

128

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The Alberta Prosperity Project is a fake petition to keep Alberta in Canada. It was created by a man named Thomas Lukasik, who wants to separate from the rest of Canada. But is it a fake or is it real?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The Alberta government will formalize rules on Friday that will make it easier to have a
00:00:03.980 referendum on topics like separation. One group plans to apply to Elections Alberta July 4th
00:00:09.920 to start a petition under those new rules.
00:00:17.260 Things are about to get very interesting in Alberta. Starting July 4th, yes, American 0.98
00:00:23.520 Independence Day, the new laws that allow Albertans to trigger an independence referendum
00:00:28.600 officially kick in. Isn't that poetic? Alberta's future, possibly as a sovereign nation, or maybe
00:00:36.120 an American state, begins on the very day that America broke free from its own tyrannical government.
00:00:42.900 And right on cue, one of those washed up relics from Alison Redford's corrupt government is trying
00:00:49.020 to crawl back into the spotlight. This guy wants his own referendum. But instead of asking if Alberta
00:00:55.200 should leave Canada, he wants to ask the opposite. Should Alberta stay within Canada? Really?
00:01:01.880 That's like holding a vote to confirm that the sky's still blue. Supporters of independence said
00:01:07.020 that Elections Alberta might toss it out altogether, since it doesn't actually propose a change. 1.00
00:01:12.780 But nope. It got approved. But here's the kicker. His petition still needs almost 300,000 signatures
00:01:19.860 in 90 days, while the Alberta Prosperity Project only needs 177,000 in 120 days, under the new rules.
00:01:28.500 And don't kid yourself. Ottawa's absolutely going to back this fake petition. The media will fluff it up,
00:01:36.100 government-funded influencers will promote it, and federal cash will flow behind the scenes.
00:01:41.380 Tucked in the heart of the Alberta Badlands, tours countrywide often travel to this popular place in
00:01:54.080 Wayne, a former mining community in Drumheller. We would be 98% tourism. Last Chance Saloon co-owner Paula
00:02:02.460 Sutherland, a proud Canadian and staunch supporter of Alberta oil. We are very rich in it, and we're not
00:02:09.340 utilizing it to the full potential. The government is saying no, and we have to do as we're told.
00:02:16.460 It's one of the sticking points for Albertans wanting to leave Canada.
00:02:20.360 Oh, I absolutely would be for it. Premier Danielle Smith has stated she is against the province
00:02:25.020 separating. However, this week, her government is officially lowering the bar for citizens to
00:02:30.120 initiate a referendum, including on separation. But a legal expert says even if the required number
00:02:36.640 of signatures are collected within the mandatory time frame, separating isn't an easy feat, and there
00:02:43.180 are complex issues to consider. Indigenous rights, indigenous land, national parks, currency, the
00:02:49.380 military, whether Alberta itself is divisible. While separatist sentiments have gained momentum in the
00:02:55.760 past few months, a spring Leger poll shows just under a third of Albertans want to separate, though CTV News
00:03:02.500 spoke to in the conservative stronghold territory of Drumheller are against it. I think it's just more,
00:03:08.540 not so much about separating, it's about getting a bigger voice for us out here. We feel forgotten.
00:03:15.180 A perspective shared by others in this family business. It's more of an identity than
00:03:20.640 practicality. And even for Sutherland, who supports the idea. Do I believe it's going to come to
00:03:26.040 fruition? No, I do not. Not in my lifetime. Because if Alberta should ever separate, experts say it's
00:03:32.700 going to take years and it's going to be expensive. Don't you love it when government paid media starts
00:03:38.380 a sentence with the phrase experts say? Those words are often followed by some propaganda statement
00:03:45.180 we're all supposed to believe and never question, because they know better than all of us.
00:03:50.540 Every now and then, miraculously, the media stumbles across someone who actually supports
00:03:56.140 Alberta independence and gives them five seconds of air time. But let's be honest, most of the time,
00:04:02.780 all we see are people against it. You'd think with a third to nearly half of Albertans supporting
00:04:08.140 independence, the media could at least pretend to be balanced. And when they bring in the so-called
00:04:13.880 experts, it's always anti-independence academics and liberal loyalists. You never hear from folks
00:04:20.240 like Dr. Michael Wagner or Bruce Party, respected thinkers who could actually present the other side.
00:04:26.960 But no. Instead, we get yet another anti-separation echo chamber dressed up as expert analysis.
00:04:35.020 These people never give a positive reason why Alberta should stay within Canada either.
00:04:39.200 Because they don't have one. All they can do is offer fear-mongering and falsehoods.
00:04:44.480 They know there's nothing Canada could offer Alberta that Alberta couldn't provide for itself.
00:04:49.880 Let's begin with Elections Alberta approving an application for a citizen-led referendum initiative.
00:04:56.480 And the question, do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada? The initiative, the work of
00:05:02.760 former progressive conservative deputy premier and cabinet minister Thomas Lukasik, and aims to push,
00:05:08.540 to halt the push by separatists. With approval being granted ahead of new referendum rules kicking
00:05:13.960 in this Friday, this petition must meet old requirements, meaning Lukasik will need to collect
00:05:18.940 nearly 300,000 signatures instead of the new figure of 177,000. Graham, we'll start with you.
00:05:25.320 294,000 signatures. We're now into the summer slowdown window. How steep a hill do you think
00:05:33.800 this Thomas Lukasik-led Forever Canada initiative faces?
00:05:38.840 Well, it's a big uphill. We'll fight, perhaps. We'll see. This is an issue, though, people care about.
00:05:44.640 It's an issue that's easy to understand. It's not like a question about equalization
00:05:49.320 that Kenny put to voters a few years ago, Jason Kenny, the former premier. But this is about, you know,
00:05:55.600 of course, separation. And Albertans, clearly, the polls are shown they're against separation.
00:06:00.980 We saw that by-election result in Old Stisbury-Three Hills just a few days ago, that, you know,
00:06:05.900 the separatist-leaning party, the Republican Party of Alberta, got about 18 percent of the vote
00:06:11.400 finished behind the NDP. So people do not want the province to separate. And the thing is, now,
00:06:16.900 how can Lukasik get the ground game going to get people's names? It's not just a name. It has to
00:06:22.740 be the name. It has to be the address. It has to be verifiable by Elections Alberta. It's a steep hill
00:06:29.160 to climb. And, of course, nipping on his heels is going to be the other guys who are pro-separatists,
00:06:35.460 who want their own referendum questions. It's a bit of a race now to see who can do it first.
00:06:40.100 And the separatists, if I can call them that, the pro-separatists, they only have to get, well,
00:06:44.640 only 177,000 vote names, whereas Lukasik has 300,000. So he needs a really strong ground game.
00:06:52.220 He says he has that, but he is asking for volunteers to help him out.
00:06:56.620 Oh, boy. Here we go again with another one of those stacked expert panels on TV. Two pundits,
00:07:03.860 both anti-independents, both practically rolling their eyes every time the word Alberta comes up.
00:07:09.400 They don't even bother using neutral terms. They go straight for separatists, as if we're some fringe
00:07:15.720 group hiding in the woods. Notice how they never say sovereigntists or independence because they
00:07:21.760 know words matter. Separation sounds dark and negative, while independence sounds dignified and
00:07:29.200 honorable. This guy even brought up the recent by-election laws by the Alberta Republican Party
00:07:34.440 and claims that this somehow proves Alberta independence has no support. Never mind the
00:07:39.520 fact that over 60% of pro-independence voters back Premier Smith and her conservative government.
00:07:45.800 But sure, let's cherry-pick the one result and pretend that he speaks for the entire movement.
00:07:51.100 That's not analysis. That's propaganda. These people are not there to inform you.
00:07:55.900 They're there to shape public opinion. They're all paid by the liberal government to pretend to be
00:08:01.320 neutral while carrying water for Ottawa. And if Alberta independence truly had no support,
00:08:07.720 why are they working so hard to shut it down? Why the sabotage petition? Why the panic? Because
00:08:13.800 they know what we all know. Momentum is building, and they hate it.
00:08:18.900 John, what do you make of the formulation of the question? Do you agree that Alberta should remain
00:08:23.720 in Canada? And how do you see that resonating with Albertans?
00:08:28.760 Yeah, I think the question is fine. It's pretty obvious. It's a clear question. That's always
00:08:35.800 important when it comes to the sort of thing. And an endorsement of the status quo is generally easier
00:08:43.240 to get people to buy into because it's the default, rather than agreeing to some kind of change,
00:08:48.840 especially as momentous of a change as secession. The issue is that, yeah, he has this steeper,
00:08:55.240 taller mountain to climb as opposed to the separatists, right? And I can't help but think that
00:09:01.080 there's a theme of unintended consequences here where, well, what if he doesn't get his signatures
00:09:07.800 first? Does that make the federalist movement, if we want to call it that,
00:09:15.960 appear weaker? Does that give credence to the separatist cause? Like, I think there are sort
00:09:20.600 of other elements here at play than just, you know, can he get signatures?
00:09:26.440 And I agree with John. He's talking about, you know, what happens if this stumbles? What happens
00:09:30.840 if Ocasek can't get the number of people that the voices or the names signing up? That does,
00:09:37.240 to me, then enhance some of the momentum to the other guys. So this is a race now in summer.
00:09:43.000 So, John, how do you see campaigns for and against this Lukasik-led petition playing out?
00:09:49.560 Do they generate hot headlines? Are they out there right front and center? Or do they
00:09:54.120 play out in the background because it's summer?
00:09:58.120 Yeah, I think they do. They do play out in the background because it's summer and doubly so for
00:10:02.280 the status quo campaign. You know, let's keep things the same isn't exactly the sexiest campaign slogan.
00:10:07.400 And, you know, because it is the default option to stay in Canada, a lot of the folks who
00:10:14.920 are going to vote that way, regardless of which referendum question gets put to the population,
00:10:19.800 are probably off, you know, on camping trips with their families and going away for the summer and
00:10:25.640 spending time at the lake and in the mountains. And as opposed to the people who are really galvanized
00:10:31.080 for their cause, which are the separatists, they're going to be very motivated. And these people already
00:10:38.040 have their lists because it's the same list that various right-wing organizing groups have. It just
00:10:45.880 gets circulated around. And I think they have the edge there, right? Not just in terms of having a
00:10:52.520 smaller hurdle to get over, but, you know, motivation and organization.
00:10:58.840 And these people are going to be working overtime for the federal government to make sure that they
00:11:04.520 paint the independence movement in a negative light while promoting the federalist petition
00:11:09.720 as a patriotic one. I've even heard the word traitor being thrown around and then they claim to be
00:11:16.200 impartial. Give me a break. To be completely honest, Albertans who support independence need to brace for
00:11:23.400 a dirty fight. The attacks have already begun and they'll ramp up fast. Don't lose focus. Some people
00:11:30.680 will never be convinced. But many are still curious. Still open. That's who we need to reach. That's who we
00:11:38.440 need to talk to. So stay sharp, stay steady and speak the truth.
00:11:43.720 All right. Thanks for watching. Thank you for subscribing. Special thanks to those of you who
00:11:48.120 have donated to this project. It is much appreciated and it helps me continue making videos. See you on the next one. Peace.