PJ The Belt - Is Alberta LEAVING Canada？ Dr. Dennis Modry REVEALS ALL

00:00:00.000 Okay, going live.

00:00:17.340 And we are live.

00:00:19.360 Hey everybody, welcome to the first edition of the Belt Buckle,

00:00:24.800 name we chose after a little bit of a vote.

00:00:28.460 I am pleased to be joined by Dr. Dennis Modry of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:00:34.960 Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Modry.

00:00:37.520 Now, I have the Google biography, and I'm going to read it here.

00:00:43.920 Dr. Dennis Modry is a renowned Canadian heart surgeon,

00:00:48.000 a pioneer of Western Canada's first heart and lung transplant program,

00:00:52.520 and a former CEO of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:00:55.560 of the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:01:02.020 Sorry about that.

00:01:03.340 Particularly involved in commentary

00:01:06.380 when it comes to Alberta independence.

00:01:09.060 So that's what Google has to say.

00:01:11.660 Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself,

00:01:13.840 Dr. Modry, on a personal level, please?

00:01:17.980 Sure.

00:01:18.740 I'm a native Albertan, and that's correct.

00:01:22.020 I am a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon,

00:01:23.740 And I directed that program and the cardiovascular intensive care unit for the majority of my 32 years in practice.

00:01:34.040 And during that time, I also served on the finance committee of the progressive conservative governments since the Getty era.

00:01:44.580 and being a fiscal conservative and being very concerned about what has happened to Alberta

00:01:53.660 over the many decades and being concerned about what happened during COVID,

00:02:00.260 the trucker convoy and the way the WEF and the World Health Organization are controlling our

00:02:06.440 federal government and the march to socialism and Marxism has concerned me a lot. And so

00:02:13.040 So I was one of the founders of the Alberta Prosperity Society, which is a registered non-profit, non-partisan educational society.

00:02:24.280 We have a board of directors. I chair that board of directors, and the board governs the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:02:31.860 And so it was our board that hired Mitch Sylvester as the CEO.

00:02:37.740 And so our mission, of course, from an educational point of view, is to educate the public on the rationale and the merits of Alberta sovereignty and how to make that happen.

00:02:49.860 So that's that's pretty much pretty much it.

00:02:54.280 All right. Well, Dr. Modri, I personally consider you a successful Albertan.

00:02:59.740 albertan clearly you worked hard and and built a great career in a very difficult field such as

00:03:07.260 health care what here's my question what motivates a guy like you to wake up every day and dedicate

00:03:15.280 the time and effort to the cause of alberta independence like visiting dozens and dozens

00:03:21.240 of small towns and cities all over alberta what moves you moves you personally well that's that's

00:03:28.700 really good question and i can answer it this way you know when i was in practice as a

00:03:34.700 cardiovascular thoracic surgeon critical care specialist and transplant surgeon i could help

00:03:40.060 one person at a time and over the years i had the honor and the trust of over 7 000 patients

00:03:52.540 including around 700 transplant recipients and i thought to myself well you know i can help one

00:04:01.260 person at a time but through the educational process of the alberta prosperity project

00:04:08.060 i believe we can help millions of people in terms of their life their livelihood

00:04:17.420 their freedom their prosperity and so it's really motivating to me to be able to

00:04:25.980 take my background my educational background my practical background my political background

00:04:32.860 and champion it into something that can serve not just the population of alberta because we truly

00:04:41.900 believe that if we save alberta from marxism and communism and you know create a future of

00:04:52.060 individual freedom and prosperity that that will spread around the world and can benefit

00:05:00.060 other regions in canada but there are freedom-loving people that live in other countries

00:05:05.260 as well and i think they are looking to us and we know that because of the feedback we

00:05:10.460 we are receiving that they're looking to us to be successful and helping to bring about a sovereign

00:05:16.860 alberta and so i see this as a much higher calling although it was a high calling as far as i was

00:05:24.700 concerned during my active career as a cardiac surgeon as well but this is at a different level

00:05:30.060 because this helps many more people absolutely absolutely the cost for freedom absolutely

00:05:37.740 important. Now, Dr. Modri, you obviously come from a healthcare background. And one of the

00:05:44.260 things that many people sitting on the fence on the Alberta independence front, something they

00:05:50.080 often wonder is what will healthcare look like in an independent Alberta? Let's imagine we've

00:05:58.040 won a referendum. It's been a couple of years after we have a constitution. In your opinion,

00:06:03.600 what would an ideal health care system look like in an independent Alberta?

00:06:09.060 Will people lose their health care like the NDP will have us believe?

00:06:13.820 No, I think the way to look at health care is this way.

00:06:18.620 Ask yourself the question, are you pleased with the health care system the way it is?

00:06:24.320 And almost nobody will answer the question in the affirmative.

00:06:28.980 And it means that the majority of people are not pleased with the health care system.

00:06:35.340 So to understand what it can be, you need to understand where we're at right now.

00:06:43.400 Now, if you consider in 1995, this helps to get, you know, to frame the answer to your question.

00:06:51.440 If you consider that in 1995, the population was 3.8 million people in Alberta, and there were 5,000 employees for Alberta Health.

00:07:02.200 Well, today, there's 5 million people, only 1.2 million more.

00:07:07.300 And I think your listeners and viewers would be surprised to know that there are presently 130,000 employees.

00:07:15.460 So it's gone from 5,000 to 130,000 employees for Alberta Health Services.

00:07:20.580 And the population is only increased by 1.2 million. So you have to ask yourself the question, is that number of people justified, recognizing as an example, that there are nine levels of management, recognizing, for example, that of the province's $75 billion budget, $26 billion goes to health care.

00:07:45.060 And given the reality that the healthcare system functions in the lowest quartile of quality at the highest quartile of cost based on international metrics and analysis, then you have to say to yourself, there must be a better way of doing things.

00:08:08.480 And you have to ask yourself the question, if there's 130,000 employees, nine levels of management, could there be fraud, waste and abuse in the health care system?

00:08:19.360 And I would submit to you from an analysis that I did for the provincial government a number of years ago that there is.

00:08:27.460 And it's very difficult to get out from under this because of the view that many people have that health care is a sacred cow, that you can't touch health care.

00:08:42.740 And so the question is, is what can you do to fix it?

00:08:46.340 OK, so, well, for one thing, what you can do to fix it is you need to get out from under the constraints of the Canada Health Act, which inhibit creative solutions to health care.

00:09:01.980 And so let's examine for a moment and recognize that our Canadian health care system is one of the very few in the world that ostensibly restricts consumers and that is patients and suppliers, that's health care providers, from coming together outside of Medicare.

00:09:26.260 Now, there are exceptions and we're seeing, you know, greater and greater implementation of private health care services.

00:09:38.220 But if you really want to fix the system and you believe that competition breeds better services at lower cost and greater efficiency, then we have an obligation on behalf of the public to look at alternatives.

00:09:59.220 alternatives. So now notwithstanding what I just said about the healthcare system functioning in

00:10:06.160 the lowest quartile of quality at the highest quartile of cost, we also need to look at other

00:10:11.900 metrics such as medical errors. Medical errors is the third, it's either the third or the fourth

00:10:21.240 most common cause of death. So these are serious issues that, again, because of the constraints

00:10:30.100 of the Canada Health Act, it makes it exceedingly difficult to resolve these issues. But if I were

00:10:36.520 to suggest to you that the problems in the healthcare system occur at every level,

00:10:42.140 they occur at the government level, they occur at the administrative level,

00:10:45.680 They occur at the physician level, the nursing level, the technologists that provide services, and patients themselves.

00:10:56.840 And you can analyze all of these specific areas and say, well, where is inefficiency and where is waste occurring?

00:11:07.080 And that was the essence of a report that I drafted.

00:11:10.760 It was entitled Medicare is Killing Us, Re-Engineering the Canadian Health Care System, which was the background document for Don Mazinkowski's health report.

00:11:21.080 You'll remember that Don Mazinkowski was a very prominent federal member of parliament.

00:11:27.080 And then when he retired, Ralph Klein asked him if he would do a health report.

00:11:31.940 And I wrote the background document for that.

00:11:34.140 At that time, Mr. Mazinkowski told me that he said, what you have defined in the evidence that you've provided was brilliant, but it's too much for the public to take in at this time.

00:11:47.480 So, you know, if we really want to fix the system, we really have to consider Medicare to be provided for those people who are born with problems for which they will never be able to be self-sufficient and they will need assistance for their entire life.

00:12:14.940 And then there's another group of Medicare individuals or Medicare candidates, if you will.

00:12:22.620 And these are people that are compromised by life circumstances.

00:12:26.800 And they may not be able to ever recover from that.

00:12:33.280 And they need to be looked after by Medicare as well.

00:12:36.520 and then there's that group kind of in between where life circumstances create a problem for

00:12:45.200 them and they need a hand up but not a handout forever get them back into functioning society

00:12:55.180 so that's the medicare category and then there's another group of individuals that

00:13:02.180 also need health care, but have the capacity to pay for it to an extent, all right? So you could

00:13:10.860 consider as an example, a Medicare patient, and say for want of, just to make this simple,

00:13:18.080 say a Blue Cross patient, okay? And each of them need the same service, okay? Say a Medicare

00:13:25.120 patient and a Blue Cross patient. The Blue Cross patient maybe pays a premium once a year

00:13:35.120 for their health care to Blue Cross. The Medicare patient doesn't pay anything unless

00:13:43.180 they had been working for a period of time and some of their taxation has gone to Medicare.

00:13:49.920 now at this point i need to just digress for a moment because if to put this in economic

00:13:57.040 perspective as well is that in a sovereign alberta when you are completely out from under

00:14:03.920 all federal regulation and all federal taxes and eventually out of provincial taxes then instead

00:14:11.840 of keeping roughly 50 percent of your income you're you're keeping 90 to 92 or 94 of your income

00:14:21.360 you're in a very different situation and you are able to afford two or three or four thousand

00:14:27.360 dollars a year for coverage okay so that's how everybody gets looked after and whether you're

00:14:35.920 somebody on the medicare side or you're somebody on the private health care side neither of you

00:14:42.400 are paying taxes all right neither of you now let's go back to the medicare patient and the

00:14:50.880 the blue cross patient okay they both need the same service they both access that care instantly

00:15:00.000 because they need it okay so there's no more waiting list you've solved that problem there's

00:15:04.800 no more waiting list um so everybody gets timely health care and that's one of the major problems

00:15:10.640 is accessibility so each each group gets the same timely health care all right now one of

00:15:19.520 the arguments against this kind of a system is that that um it has been stated that the better

00:15:29.520 physicians and nurses, et cetera, will work on the private side. That's not the way it would happen.

00:15:36.220 That's not the way we envision it. The way we would envision it is whether you are a patient

00:15:42.060 on the Medicare side, or you're a patient on the Blue Cross or the private healthcare side,

00:15:48.040 your physician gets paid exactly at the same rate. So there's no incentive to work on one side

00:15:56.680 or the other but in the beginning the efficiency on the private side will demonstrate and helps

00:16:04.840 to demonstrate the inefficiency on the medicare side and if i were to give you a simple example

00:16:11.960 if a surgeon can do three hernias in the morning on the medicare side

00:16:15.880 they can do six on the private side okay and that again is because of the way you set the system up

00:16:23.480 Similarly, if you compare, if you look at the way healthcare operates now, and you consider booking surgical cases, and nursing shift change occurs at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but you're not able to start a two-hour case until 2 o'clock, which would go to 4 o'clock.

00:16:50.160 but shift change has result results in a significant reduction of the nursing staff

00:16:56.280 so traditionally and frequently what happens is the case is canceled okay and so the case is

00:17:03.320 canceled but the staff for an hour are getting paid between three and four right but they're

00:17:10.200 not doing anything between three or four okay so so i mean this is just a simple example i could go

00:17:16.900 through a litany of the examples of the problem at at all of the different at all of the different

00:17:23.620 levels but in my opinion what we are after is the highest quality best accessibility and that means

00:17:33.700 instant accessibility at the best cost and we can provide that service we know how to do it

00:17:42.660 and so let's take an example of the nursing strike right now as not at the nursing well yes let's

00:17:49.860 let's well we've got the we've got the uh we just had the teachers we just had the teachers yeah

00:17:55.140 let's look at let's look at nursing for for a second because the teachers would benefit as well

00:18:01.140 um so let's say the nurses want a 30 increase in in in their wage okay over a period of uh 0.99

00:18:10.980 four years just as an example well do you realize that they would have in a sovereign alberta they

00:18:17.780 would instantly have a 30 to 40 percent increase in their salary simply by virtue of the fact that

00:18:24.740 they're they're keeping 90 of their income as opposed to um you know roughly 50 55 of their

00:18:32.100 income so it's it's a massive benefit to everybody uh union members of every strike whether it's

00:18:42.500 nursing the nurses in a nursing union or educators in the teaching profession or the trades that are

00:18:50.580 involved with unions everybody benefits as a consequence of getting out from under federal

00:18:56.500 regulation taxation and you know it should be a no-brainer for everybody absolutely so what i

00:19:05.640 gather from what you said there is that let the private sector to a certain extent help uh help

00:19:13.660 provide quicker access because one of the biggest problems we have in canada and alberta is no

00:19:19.160 exception to that is the fact that waiting times are killing people people are dying waiting

00:19:25.640 And then there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse evidently in the system, which could also be, would reduce, in an independent Alberta, the cost would be reduced greatly while providing better service for those who need it.

00:19:42.400 Well, exactly.

00:19:43.460 Now, you know, here's just another very simple example to deal with the accessibility issue.

00:19:50.060 You know, McDonald's can run 24-7, right?

00:19:53.680 so why can't our hospital systems run 24 7 fully staffed okay they easily could be and you know

00:20:02.100 nursing staff and surgical staff can maybe do a month on the night shift and a month on the

00:20:08.740 on the day shift or however however people's lives can be oriented around that the the thing is is

00:20:16.400 that you really have to think about health care delivery different from the models that have

00:20:25.120 failed us over the decades. And what we're seeing is, you know, Band-Aid solutions coming here and

00:20:34.040 there where, you know, you've got some surgical centers operating, you've got some private,

00:20:38.780 you know, the dermatologists, for example, can work privately, the plastic surgeons, you know,

00:20:44.620 There's certain ways in which health care delivery is being effected through the private side now.

00:20:55.100 But if you take a comprehensive approach to this along the lines that I'm just talking about, but you have to get out from under the Canada Health Act, and you have to be willing to say and admit the system isn't working as efficiently as it could.

00:21:12.920 let's do something different that we know can work because people you know have different

00:21:21.000 providers of health care have different expectations some people like to work really

00:21:27.500 hard and quickly other people like to have a more relaxed pace and we can we can respect that and

00:21:34.980 and and they can be compensated you know appropriately and if you want to work at a

00:21:41.200 relaxed pace and you're getting just for argument's sake you know a hundred dollars for a service

00:21:46.720 well on the private side you're still getting a hundred dollars for a service it's just that you

00:21:52.320 know a more efficient run private side can run many more services in the same amount of time

00:22:00.720 but that's human nature as well and we need to take human nature into account and and human

00:22:07.600 willingness to work into account and recognize that some people are okay working 30 hours a week

00:22:14.520 other people you know are happy working 40 hours a week and then you got a lot of people that you

00:22:20.900 know really want to work and they're they love what they're doing and their life is centered

00:22:25.660 around their job they get satisfaction and they don't mind working 60 or 80 hours a week that's

00:22:30.620 what they like to do and i know that because that's the way i worked you know so yeah there

00:22:36.760 are people just different people um some like to work 80 90 hours others couldn't imagine doing

00:22:43.400 half that yeah okay so we're gonna pivot a little bit uh still regarding alberta independence and

00:22:50.680 what that entails but we're gonna talk about our brothers and sisters east of us in saskatchewan

00:22:57.880 i believe people in saskatchewan are just as frustrated with the rest of canada as alberta

00:23:03.960 And many of them support Alberta independence and even want Saskatchewan and Alberta to form some sort of coalition.

00:23:10.820 I've heard things having to do with the historical fact that Alberta and Saskatchewan were supposed to form Buffalo and all that, but that's on the historic side.

00:23:19.380 Do you have any information on the sovereignty movement happening in the province of Saskatchewan?

00:23:25.500 Anything you'd like to share with us regarding the people over there?

00:23:30.180 Well, we've had a couple of meetings in Saskatchewan.

00:23:33.180 In other words, the Alberta Prosperity Project has been invited to speak in Swift Current and recently in Regina.

00:23:42.940 Mitch was in Regina. I was, along with Chris Scott and Roger Hodkinson, were in Swift Current a couple of years ago.

00:23:51.500 So there is a movement in Regina that I think is quite strong in favor of Saskatchewan sovereignty.

00:24:00.120 So the reality, though, is that each province that wants to pursue sovereignty has to do it on their own right now.

00:24:12.560 This is the way the Clarity Act works and consequent to a successful referendum in Saskatchewan.

00:24:19.120 Saskatchewan can become a sovereign country, similarly in Alberta.

00:24:23.280 And then subsequently, PJ, Saskatchewan and Alberta could then merge under an agreement that that's something that they would want to do.

00:24:35.420 And I think this is important for your listeners to understand, is that when Alberta and Saskatchewan joined Canada on September 1, 1905, they were simply annexed.

00:24:46.220 The people of Alberta and Saskatchewan were not asked if they wanted to join Eastern Canada and be subjugated and dominated and exploited and our self-determination inhibited for the next 120 years.

00:25:00.520 We were never asked that.

00:25:03.520 And I think it's important to understand that we never had a choice then, but we have a choice now.

00:25:13.420 And that choice for us is do we pursue a path that we've been on already, which can only get worse because taxes, for example, are only going to go up.

00:25:27.620 And if Mr. Carney has his way, restrictions will become even greater.

00:25:32.680 And so we have this unique opportunity to get out from under the oppression that we've been experiencing, that Saskatchewan's been experiencing.

00:25:43.420 that other regions have been experiencing, including Quebec, as an example.

00:25:48.980 And so I think the words of Preston Manning a few months back when he said,

00:25:55.820 Mr. Carney very likely will be the last prime minister of Canada, I believe that that is true.

00:26:01.840 That is, yeah, Preston Manning, when he said that, all of Canada had to listen,

00:26:08.020 Because obviously, someone with that political legitimacy saying something like that, and it's very possibly true.

00:26:15.400 I don't believe Canada has been in a more, at least in recent memory, recent history, in a more divided situation,

00:26:23.900 while at the same time being in a very precarious financial position on the world stage.

00:26:31.720 Yes.

00:26:31.900 Speaking about the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, after 10 years of Justin Trudeau and his disastrous policies, particularly for Western Canada, Alberta, to be more specific, what do you make of Carney and do you have any trust in him, any hope that he will try to reconcile the differences between Western Canada and the Laurentian elite?

00:26:59.940 And what do you make of our premier, Daniel Smith, giving him what seems by many people to be cutting him too much slack?

00:27:09.400 What do you think of that?

00:27:11.640 Well, to begin with, Mr. Carney is well-educated.

00:27:16.540 He's had a very prominent career as a bureaucrat.

00:27:21.760 He is fundamentally a bureaucrat, and I'm not sure that he has the leadership skills to bring together the various regions of the country.

00:27:33.620 Now, under Mr. Trudeau and also under Mr. Carney, they have the perspective that all Canadians think the same, are the same.

00:27:42.960 It's kind of like they want all Canadians to go into a blender and come out homogenized and think the same, etc.

00:27:51.760 But the reality is that that really isn't the case. Every region in this country is different geographically. It has different natural resources, and all of the regions have slightly different cultures as well, notwithstanding that the values and principles for Western civilization being Judeo-Christian values and principles,

00:28:18.280 which were foundational to civil society and the rule of law, and our individual, God-given

00:28:23.100 individual freedoms and rights, that is something that is embraced very strongly in the West,

00:28:29.940 particularly Saskatchewan, Alberta Central, and Northern BC, but other pockets in the country as

00:28:35.200 well. But in many other regions, it's a collectivist society, meaning the democracy that

00:28:44.000 functions is the tyranny of the majority over the minority, which is what we see with section one 0.65

00:28:51.980 of the Canadian Bill of Rights. So I think it's important for your listeners to understand as

00:29:06.620 well that if you protect individual rights, you will protect societal rights, but the reverse

00:29:12.140 doesn't occur. So Mr. Carney's perspective, then, is that he believes that he is justified

00:29:22.240 in doing what he wants to do that can adversely affect individual regions of this country for

00:29:32.000 the benefit of other regions. Okay, and this is part of the problem that's creating the angst,

00:29:37.560 particularly out here in the west more more than that though his perspective which aligns with the

00:29:46.840 world economic forum and the whole climate change narrative is such that he believes that in order

00:29:54.280 to control the climate there must be individual restrictions on individual freedoms and on

00:30:01.800 businesses that align with oil and gas industry and agriculture as well as financial institutions

00:30:07.480 that finance those. And he doesn't promise, as he says in his book, he doesn't promise that life

00:30:16.120 will be better for ordinary people. In fact, temporarily worse, fewer choices, less travel,

00:30:23.260 less meat, more inconvenience, and more poverty. Well, if these are his values, these are not the

00:30:31.720 values that the majority of Canadians, and certainly the majority of those of us in the West,

00:30:38.440 wish to embrace so we need to understand what's already happened and what is continuing to happen

00:30:47.800 and although i saw recently he wasn't intending to implement a digital id but this is part of

00:30:57.560 the world economic forum recommendations of which like i say he's a prominent member

00:31:01.880 And the implementation of a digital ID will track everybody, no matter where they are. And the implementation of a programmable digital currency will then enable the provincial government to control very easily your access to your account if you are not compliant with environmental, social, and governance metrics.

00:31:25.460 which is exactly what's going on in China and which is underway in the United Kingdom right

00:31:32.260 now as well. So we're seeing this model play out. And this doesn't align with the kind of

00:31:40.180 individual freedoms and rights that we want. Now, you brought up Premier Smith. And just rephrase

00:31:50.060 what you were saying about premier smith uh before i answer because i've got something i want to say

00:31:55.660 about where she's at as well yeah i was just wondering what what what's your take on the

00:32:01.260 fact that she seems to be cutting him more slack than she should yeah well um i'm going to answer

00:32:08.300 the question this way um everybody knows that after mr carney was elected she met with mr

00:32:15.740 Carney and she made nine demands and she said publicly that if these nine demands are not met

00:32:20.940 that will be a threat to national unity and then with the Alberta next panel there are eight

00:32:28.460 constitutional changes that have been like I say put on the table for consideration

00:32:37.020 as well but the reality is is that it's very unlikely that any of those demands will be met

00:32:44.700 and the constitutional changes that are requested are very unlikely as well to be met because

00:32:54.540 the four hurdles to change the constitution make it virtually impossible and there have

00:32:59.340 been two attempts to change the constitution before one was Meech Lake and the other were

00:33:04.620 Charlottetown and they both failed and so so where the premier is at right now is she's

00:33:11.340 The six months is up, but she has given Mr. Carney another two months in order to come up with something that can meet the concerns of Albertans.

00:33:23.260 But even if it was a pipeline, so for example, Keystone. Keystone was approved and was going forward from the Canadian side, but it was blocked when Biden became the President of the United States.

00:33:39.620 So if Mr. Carney comes up and says, well, we're going to encourage that Keystone go ahead, that's not really much.

00:33:51.460 And even if it generates an additional $20 billion a year of net profit, well, half of that's still going to go to Ottawa when all of it could stay in Alberta if Alberta was a sovereign country.

00:34:04.500 But let me say this about the premier.

00:34:06.420 The premier finds herself in a difficult situation. But what she is doing, and I think she's doing it very well, she has to do two things that I think are critical.

00:34:22.060 One is she has to demonstrate to the public that she can govern, and I think her and her team are demonstrating that they can govern very clearly.

00:34:31.320 And second, that they need to demonstrate to the public that we can't actually ever get a fair deal with the federal government,

00:34:41.340 that we can't get out from under being subjugated and dominated

00:34:49.260 and exploited for our wealth

00:34:51.560 and then our self-determination inhibited

00:34:53.640 because that is what the federal government has been doing to us.

00:34:57.060 And when she can come to the public and say,

00:35:00.220 look, we can't get anything done with this federal government.

00:35:05.120 And then I think she can say very legitimately,

00:35:08.760 And I think she wants to have a referendum on sovereignty in the spring. And I think that will occur. And I think she will have more than enough ammunition to come to the public and state exactly what we've been educating the public about.

00:35:25.800 And where I'm pleased in terms of where we are at right now with the Alberta Prosperity Project is that we know we have well over a million supporters of Alberta sovereignty now. And so I think there's a very high probability that a referendum on sovereignty will be successful.

00:35:45.960 oh yes and i actually made a video i believe a couple of weeks ago in regards to what you

00:35:53.740 mentioned there's something that you touched on there that i i think there's there's a lot of

00:35:58.480 merit in that is that she could possibly be putting together and making her case like look

00:36:04.420 i'm trying to work with this government in good faith so that those albertans who are sitting in

00:36:10.260 on the fence and they're kind of in the middle like not knowing like okay i'm not happy with

00:36:14.640 the direction canada's taking but i'm also not all the way on the on the independence uh train

00:36:20.620 yet that they see like she's been trying like she gave them six months then she gave them another

00:36:25.360 two months to give us anything and they won't give us even one of the nine or even one or two

00:36:30.800 of the nine demands that she put on the table that's how much they care about alberta kind of

00:36:36.880 thing and then that way she possibly is helping the the cause for alberta independence in my 0.99

00:36:42.800 opinion she factually is whether in she intends to or not she's helping the case by showing them

00:36:48.780 like look the laurentian elite are not listening the the liberal government is just not listening

00:36:54.600 to alberta they don't care now i wanted to touch on um on constitutional changes you did mention

00:37:02.860 that in canada people have tried twice and it's failed and how difficult it is for constitutional

00:37:10.840 changes to actually take place in Canadian Confederation. So I know that the Alberta

00:37:17.440 Prosperity Project published a document on what Alberta's finances would look like called

00:37:22.580 the value of freedom. And it's a great document. It shows just how much better off economically

00:37:29.720 Alberta would be. It's ridiculous how much better off Albertans would be. But what few people know

00:37:36.460 is that the APP will also be publishing what you guys call a draft interim constitution document

00:37:43.180 and have it open for discussion. Could you tell us a little bit more about this very important

00:37:49.280 document? Sure, I can. So the proposed interim constitution, we've been working on this for

00:37:57.960 many months now. And we've taken into account many suggestions from very smart people and other

00:38:05.940 constitutional lawyers. And most recently, from Bruce Party as well, who's a constitutional lawyer

00:38:13.220 from Queens, a professor of law, very bright gentleman. And he's also drafted a constitution

00:38:22.080 for Alberta as well. So we're in the final throes of melding some of his concepts into

00:38:30.720 our document. But as it stands right now, the proposed, and when we say interim constitution,

00:38:39.480 why we use that term is because that's exactly what it is. Subsequent to a referendum on Alberta

00:38:47.900 sovereignty, there would be a constitutional conference, and this document would come forward

00:38:52.780 simply as a basis for discussion, okay, at a constitutional conference. And you would have

00:38:58.560 all of the interested parties present at the constitutional conference and then it would

00:39:07.120 once you had a final draft that would go out to the public for further public input and and then

00:39:16.880 a final vote as to what the nature of the constitution would be but here are some of

00:39:23.040 things that i can tell you is that it's based on the u.s constitution and it proposes for alberta

00:39:32.400 constitutional republic in which the constitution is the highest authority other than the authority

00:39:43.200 being the supremacy of god the point being that in that constitution it it is going to

00:39:50.720 um like i said be based on the supremacy of god but judeo-christian principles and values that

00:39:57.760 were like i said earlier foundational to the development of western civilization

00:40:03.040 the rule of law civil society and your individual freedoms and rights so from that constitution

00:40:12.160 comes the way the structure of government would operate,

00:40:17.640 and it would be much smaller government, many fewer departments, for one thing.

00:40:23.840 There would be an executive.

00:40:27.880 There would be a House of Representatives.

00:40:30.780 There would be a Senate, and there would be a judiciary.

00:40:33.920 And the Senate, and I think this is important,

00:40:38.060 would be regions throughout the province.

00:40:40.760 So, for example, there could be, just for argument's sake, 80 regions in the province. And each region gets two senators. So Edmonton would get two senators. Calgary would get two senators.

00:40:56.620 So you see the point is that the way a proper Senate should operate is there you have regional representation.

00:41:05.920 The House of Representatives on the other side of the coin, that's representation by population.

00:41:11.600 And then there's the executive course, where there would be either a president or a prime minister.

00:41:19.460 And the additional Senate be elected.

00:41:23.500 Sorry to interrupt.

00:41:24.560 Yes.

00:41:24.860 I'm assuming it would be elected.

00:41:26.360 not like what we have right now all all positions would be would be elected um and and then there's

00:41:34.200 there's um a fifth arm and that fifth arm would consist of um if i can remember this

00:41:42.040 correctly an attorney general a solicitor general um and a an elector general and one other and i'm

00:41:50.920 just blocking on it right now and their obligation is to ensure that each area of government is

00:41:58.520 absolutely following the letter of the constitution and if if individuals were breaching the

00:42:05.800 constitution at all that would be grounds for their immediate dismissal okay the second thing

00:42:12.680 is is that the individuals elected to the various positions would be there for particularly in the

00:42:20.680 executive the health representatives and the well as well actually all four excuse me

00:42:29.000 they'd have two terms two four-year terms

00:42:33.800 and then finally there would be levels of accountability that and recall that are much

00:42:43.640 stronger than they are now and there would be quarterly audits of each department

00:42:50.680 that would be made public.

00:42:52.100 So when you have a quarterly audit of the money that is allocated

00:43:00.400 to those areas and it's shared publicly, it's very much more difficult

00:43:07.500 for there to be fraud, waste, and abuse, if not almost impossible.

00:43:12.300 So I think the final thing is that for certain major issues,

00:43:18.480 for example let's say we're out of we're not paying federal taxes anymore that's gone

00:43:25.080 and we've just gotten rid of provincial taxes but some major new effort is felt to be of the

00:43:34.460 alberta national interest and we need a one percent tax in order to finance that okay just

00:43:42.200 for argument's sake that would have to go to a referendum and a vote by the public okay so so

00:43:49.320 again there would be um far more direct democracy this way as well so i think then when you

00:43:58.200 contemplate the way this would exist this new constitution it's really rather brilliant to

00:44:05.320 think about starting from scratch with the purpose of providing a government

00:44:11.800 that is truly governing for the people and that the people control the

00:44:16.120 government through robust recall and robust accountability that I think the

00:44:25.240 public would have very little concern about the fidelity of the way the

00:44:31.000 government operates. And at present, hardly anybody trusts the way the government operates

00:44:37.140 at just about every level. And finally, I want to say one other thing is that from a constitutional

00:44:42.620 perspective, this would have to be decided at the level of the constitutional conference.

00:44:47.640 But we would recommend that Alberta begin, at least, as a constitutional republic with ties

00:44:56.960 to the commonwealth and i want to make a distinction here when you have a tie to the

00:45:01.600 commonwealth it doesn't mean that you're under the monarchy so for example there are 76 commonwealth

00:45:08.640 countries and 36 are constitutional republics with no ties to the monarchy so in other words

00:45:17.520 it in in in canada the monarchy is the highest form of of authority and because and we call it

00:45:28.720 a constitutional monarchy but in a new alberta we would recommend um that alberta be a constitutional

00:45:37.760 republic no ties to the monarchy but ties to the commonwealth and why that's relevant is because

00:45:45.360 ties to the commonwealth mean it facilitates trade it facilitates information sharing it

00:45:55.360 facilitates military cooperation and perhaps other things as well and the final point is is that for

00:46:06.080 the people who are in the middle and are feeling an attachment to canada just remember that that

00:46:13.760 that for those people they would still have an attachment to the commonwealth and that may help

00:46:20.000 for some to know that at least emotionally there's a tie to the commonwealth but it would be pragmatic

00:46:26.640 it would be a pragmatic and an emotional tie to the commonwealth something that actually benefits

00:46:32.080 albertans uh like you said trade basically finding a workable compromise of like okay well we're not

00:46:39.200 we're still part of the commonwealth it's just we actually govern ourselves for a change this time

00:46:45.280 so you mentioned that the draft constitution is mostly based on the united states but i've also

00:46:54.240 heard you on the united states constitution but i've also heard you previously mentioned that

00:46:59.440 the amendments wouldn't be necessary because those changes obviously that they had to amend

00:47:04.400 would come from the very beginning, would be incorporated, the good things, and would also

00:47:09.280 improve by taking some direct democracy from the Swiss model, from Switzerland, right?

00:47:16.440 That's correct. That's why I brought up the issue of the direct democracy. I didn't reference it

00:47:20.500 in relation to the Swiss system, but that's exactly correct. Yeah.

00:47:24.920 Good, good. So now that we're talking about constitutional rights, Dr. Modri, anyone who's

00:47:30.780 watched this podcast knows that we're big supporters of GON ownership here and many in

00:47:35.860 the audience, particularly in Alberta, have asked what GON ownership would look like in an

00:47:42.740 independent Alberta. What's the APP's proposal for that in that constitutional document? What

00:47:49.100 does that look like? Property rights in general too. Well, you know, to frame the answer to that

00:47:55.580 question in canada right now we don't really have uh property rights in the in the way in which

00:48:02.140 people think that we do um and an example of that is uh you know if you don't pay your taxes

00:48:10.860 uh then you find out you know who actually owns your property we're seeing property rights being

00:48:17.340 uh trampled on right now uh with respect to um what may occur with the ostrich farm

00:48:27.020 we're seeing property rights being rest asunder in richmond in terms of that recent court case

00:48:36.380 which i understand the bc government is is appealing and so so the issue of property

00:48:42.780 rights is really, really very important. Insofar as firearms are concerned, firearms are property.

00:48:52.040 And for people who have purchased firearms legally, whether they're restricted firearms or

00:49:03.020 unrestricted firearms, they purchase them legally, they use them lawfully for hunting or competition

00:49:11.480 or target shooting and target shooting competitions.

00:49:16.900 And there's no reason – well, the other reason why people collect firearms

00:49:23.860 is they're as historic pieces as well.

00:49:30.820 They're gun collectors, as an example.

00:49:33.840 And so – but, you know, as well, there is the issue of being able

00:49:40.220 to protect yourself. Protecting yourself if you're out hunting should be no different than

00:49:45.780 protecting against a grizzly attack, you know, if that's your last, you know, bastion of

00:49:51.920 protection. And it should be no different from thugs entering your home with the intent of

00:50:02.140 robbing or killing you. So the ability to protect yourself, I think, is critical. And so

00:50:09.860 the Alberta Prosperity Project absolutely supports legal firearm ownership. And I think that,

00:50:22.220 you know, well, we've seen the pushback. The pushback has been, you know, phenomenal all

00:50:30.420 across the country. Even Quebecers have recently come out in favor of legal firearm ownership.

00:50:38.560 And so I think the reality that the federal government has pushed back the deadline for gun confiscation for another year tells you something, that they're receiving enormous pressure, not only from the public, but from police forces as well who say it won't do any good.

00:51:03.100 It doesn't solve the problem because crime occurs as a result of illegal firearm acquisition by criminals.

00:51:14.000 And it's not by legal gun owners that crime occurs.

00:51:18.460 And so, you know, we have this current circumstance.

00:51:23.640 But the answer to your question, PJ, is very simple.

00:51:26.640 We absolutely support the legal use of firearms for all of the reasons that legal firearms are used.

00:51:36.500 Good, good. I think, and I don't know if you can shed some light on this, I might have to have Mitch on for that one,

00:51:45.700 Because I think I overheard him speaking about a potential or that he's proposing a potential Alberta firearms license, like obviously made in Alberta, issued in Alberta firearms license that does away with the need to get the RCMP to approve it.

00:52:06.840 The Alberta authorities would be the ones approving said firearms license.

00:52:11.800 Well, PJ, you're touching on two different circumstances.

00:52:17.080 The circumstances you're touching on right now contemplates Alberta continuing to be stifled within Canada by the federal government.

00:52:26.540 Outside of Canada, Alberta as a sovereign country obviously would have its own firearms license and controls, etc.

00:52:39.920 But you're quite correct. The provincial government has looked at an Alberta licensure, and because firearms are property, Section 91 of the Constitution, it's either 91 or 92, I've forgotten myself, would permit the provincial government, because Sections 91, 92 are provincial control of property.

00:53:03.960 And so it does make sense to develop an Alberta firearms license that would be relevant in that time period when we're still a province within Canada until such time as Alberta becomes a sovereign country.

00:53:21.980 And then that Alberta license would still carry on as in a sovereign Alberta.

00:53:27.460 Good, good. And speaking of a sovereign Alberta, if I remember correctly, you were a part of that delegation which visited Washington, D.C. to discuss matters related to Alberta independence with Trump officials.

00:53:43.820 Could you recap for us what kind of support could an independent Alberta expect from our allies south of the border?

00:53:53.060 Sure. And let me frame the answer this way. You'll remember when Mr. Trump and the Republicans won, and shortly after, he said he was looking for continental-wide security and energy security.

00:54:13.260 Well, Alberta can help achieve those objectives, but it can do so much more as well.

00:54:21.840 So as a result of that, we theorized that the U.S. administration would be strongly supportive of Alberta sovereignty.

00:54:33.860 And as a result of that theory, we decided that it would be worthwhile testing.

00:54:41.620 And so we made arrangements to meet with the U.S. administration at a very, very high level within the administration.

00:54:51.800 And that first meeting was on April the 22nd of this year.

00:54:58.960 And we were prepared for that meeting, having developed a document entitled Benefits of Alberta Sovereignty to the United States and to Alberta Citizens.

00:55:11.620 And that was partly the basis for the discussion that we had there, but we were delighted to hear as we were entering the conference room the comment from the U.S. administration that the U.S. administration is highly supportive of Alberta becoming a sovereign country

00:55:38.520 and recognizes that Alberta joining the U.S. as the 51st state is not in the cards, okay?

00:55:46.640 So that was important for us to understand.

00:55:49.460 And then we talked about the process or the rationale for them not being interested in Alberta joining the United States

00:56:00.420 and for us not being interested.

00:56:02.400 And just for your viewers, it's worthwhile sharing with you that why would we want to, as Alberta citizens, with next to zero to zero taxation, want to jump from the CRA to the IRS?

00:56:23.460 So it wouldn't make any sense to do that.

00:56:30.420 Second is, you know, the U.S. cannot even entertain a region becoming part of the United States as a 51st state unless it is already a sovereign country.

00:56:44.480 And Alberta isn't yet a sovereign country.

00:56:47.700 So we would have to have a second referendum where the people of Alberta voted in favor of joining the United States.

00:56:55.180 And then it's very unlikely that the Congress would accept Alberta joining the United States because you need a two-thirds majority in the Senate and a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives in order to achieve that objective of the Congress agreeing that Alberta shall become the 51st state.

00:57:19.580 And the reason why it won't happen is because the Democrats would then want Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico also to become a state.

00:57:33.600 And the Republicans will never agree with that because they're both Democratic states.

00:57:38.140 And it's unlikely that the Democrats would agree with Alberta joining because Alberta would very likely be a Republican.

00:57:45.760 So the odds of joining are almost zero, certainly in our lifetime and maybe in the next generation or two or longer.

00:57:56.380 So the conversation was mostly, well, about Alberta independence and how Alberta becoming independent would help increase energy security in North America, particularly for the United States as well as Alberta.

00:58:12.780 And that's the support.

00:58:13.640 Yeah, well, there's a couple of other things. I mean, we talked about the reality of virtually eliminating trade barriers. It would basically be a free trade region across the U.S. border, which would benefit both sides enormously.

00:58:30.100 We talked about, you know, moving to a U.S. currency because we trade oil and gas in the U.S. currency now.

00:58:36.900 So that would be a benefit to everybody here in Alberta as well.

00:58:42.160 And then we also talked about, and because I've shared this publicly, we put on the table, we didn't get a response,

00:58:49.100 but we did put on the table the whole idea of, you know,

00:58:53.780 would the U.S. be willing to convert for Alberta citizens one Canadian dollar to one U.S. dollar at

00:59:01.100 par? And while we never got a response, it's on the table. Because remember, this was a

00:59:07.720 preliminary meeting and it wasn't a meeting where you really, you know, hammer out exactly what's

00:59:12.980 going to happen. But that takes me to the next meeting that we had, which was on September the

00:59:19.060 29th. And that meeting was for two hours. And there were more individuals that were present

00:59:27.500 from the U.S. administration. And this doesn't get to be much higher in the echelons of power

00:59:33.500 because one of the individuals there is the chief of staff of one of the most

00:59:38.860 powerful cabinet members of Mr. Trump's cabinet. And that meeting fundamentally confirmed

00:59:51.080 everything that we talked about before. This is the second meeting, right?

00:59:56.380 This was the second meeting. And we rehashed some of those things. And we talked about some

01:00:05.540 things that we were asked not to share. But one of the things that I didn't mention as well is that

01:00:15.840 the U.S. administration, subsequent to a successful referendum on Alberta sovereignty, will

01:00:21.720 acknowledge Alberta sovereignty. And that's internationally important because it provides

01:00:29.280 political and legal legitimacy to Alberta's declaration of sovereignty or declaration of

01:00:36.280 independence. And that's the biggest thing here. It's once Albertans vote for independence,

01:00:44.740 the most powerful nation next door, just south of the border, saying we recognize your sovereignty

01:00:51.220 makes all the difference in the world. It doesn't matter whether Canada at that point disagrees,

01:00:57.940 We're entering negotiations, if we do enter them, with an ace.

01:01:04.640 We're entering with a very big advantage that Alberta at that point is a de facto country.

01:01:12.720 China never recognized Taiwan sovereignty being separate from China.

01:01:19.780 They still don't recognize them to this day.

01:01:22.060 But the fact that they have international recognition from other nation states makes them a de facto country.

01:01:29.720 Well, that's true. And, you know, the most recent example of that was Kosovo in February 2008.

01:01:39.040 Kosovo had had a referendum and then declared its independence unilaterally from Serbia.

01:01:44.720 And one month later, in March of 2008, Japan and Canada were the first two countries to acknowledge Kosovo's newfound sovereignty.

01:01:56.440 And I think it would be rather hypocritical, don't you, PJ, if Canada, the rest of Canada, didn't acknowledge Alberta's sovereignty subsequent to a successful referendum on sovereignty.

01:02:09.120 And by the way, Quebec, when we met with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the leader of the Parti Quebecois, towards the end of September, he also said when he becomes premier next year and they have a referendum on sovereignty, that they will acknowledge Alberta's sovereignty subsequent to a referendum as well.

01:02:33.360 So it's interesting to see that.

01:02:35.460 Oh, yeah. That's another thing that people are not paying a ton of attention to, because I think at this point in time, at least in Canada and internationally even, Alberta is, disturbably so, getting most of the attention when it comes to the sovereignty topic.

01:02:51.440 But Quebec has been moving, and I mean, they've been doing this for decades and decades. Their sovereignty movement is well more advanced than ours when it comes to institutionalization of it.

01:03:01.380 I'm fairly certain that the governing party at the National Assembly, I can't speak French, at their National Assembly, they unveiled their own constitution, didn't they? Are you aware of that?

01:03:16.840 Well, I think this is interesting to think about. When King Charles was here for the opening of

01:03:27.160 parliament in the spring, the entire Quebec legislature, so all the parties in Quebec

01:03:36.600 that formed the Quebec legislature in a unanimous vote voted to end the relationship with the

01:03:42.360 monarchy. And Mr. Plamondin's Parti Quebecois, which has won the last three by-elections and

01:03:51.140 is leading massively in the polls right now, is very likely to become the governing party in

01:03:59.160 Quebec. And he said to us at that meeting towards the end of September, that when he becomes premier,

01:04:05.780 he will remove the lieutenant governor as well. So if you think about Quebec, they never signed

01:04:12.160 the Constitution Act 1982. They have already jettisoned the monarchy, and they're going to

01:04:22.360 get rid of the lieutenant governor. Ostensibly, they're already a sovereign country. And section

01:04:28.560 155 of the Supreme Court analysis of the Quebec secession reference would conceivably give them

01:04:35.280 the right to declare their sovereignty unilaterally and without a referendum and and um so they're

01:04:45.040 right now um preparing a constitution for quebec okay and that constitution for quebec

01:04:54.160 basically will get them out from under federal control of just about anything so at that point

01:05:01.280 Do you see where you see where I think I'm going with this?

01:05:03.720 This is my understanding of the Constitution that they are going to be putting forth in the near future.

01:05:11.460 I don't believe it's released yet, but it's coming up.

01:05:15.100 And so and that's the implication of it.

01:05:17.820 Oh, that's very serious.

01:05:19.700 And like you said, the party Quebecois, which is the party that Paul St. Pierre is leading, they're way ahead in the polls.

01:05:28.540 They are expected to sweep their election, and they've won the previous by-elections that they've had.

01:05:36.780 So things are about to get very interesting in North America, particularly in Quebec and Alberta, as referendums are imminent.

01:05:45.560 Yeah. And of course, the federal party, which is the Bloc Quebecois, which only exists in Quebec, will be working hand in glove with the Parti Quebecois to bring about a successful referendum if they actually want to actually go ahead with the referendum.

01:06:05.000 Because can you imagine what would Ottawa do if they just declared their independence unilaterally? I don't think they could do very much. But the implications already are interesting for us here in Alberta, because if Quebec is no longer part of a constitutional monarchy, because they've gotten rid of the monarchy, then why are they getting $14 billion of equalization payments?

01:06:31.040 And we give $14 billion to the equalization formula, you see.

01:06:37.740 But Mr. Plomondon said something very important that I think your listeners need to understand.

01:06:43.740 And that is that the reason they want Quebec to become a sovereign country is because they want to preserve their language, their culture, and they want to get out from under federal political corruption.

01:06:56.640 And Mr. Plamondon said very clearly that those that $15 billion that Quebec receives is used to corrupt the political system.

01:07:10.680 And we don't need that $14 billion because when we're out from under all federal regulation and taxation, our fiscal capacity surplus will exceed that $14 billion.

01:07:22.540 dollars so we'll have more money available to us in a sovereign quebec when the federal government

01:07:29.100 isn't controlling us anymore so i thought that was very interesting wow well dr modri i

01:07:37.100 this has been an amazing conversation i am and i'm gonna throw this in there i am uh i've said

01:07:43.740 on this channel a couple of times now at least that i don't believe canada survives as a country

01:07:51.580 I think we're going to be looking at the balkanization, and I take no pleasure in saying this, but I think we're witnessing the balkanization of Canada in real time.

01:08:01.860 Regional differences are becoming more pronounced, not only culturally with Quebec, which obviously culturally, but financially, as in Quebec seems to be moving forward very firmly and very quickly.

01:08:18.020 So Canada is looking a lot like Yugoslavia before it fell apart.

01:08:24.860 But I'm going to play devil's advocate, if you'll allow me here, for five minutes.

01:08:29.600 I'm going to talk about some of the things that people on the other side that don't support independence would say and that they comment, you know, the trolls comment every day on each and every one of my videos.

01:08:44.920 PJ, before you do, let me make one comment.

01:08:47.380 One of the things that we agreed to in our meeting with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was this.

01:08:53.280 He said, you know what, if we were out from under any federal control, we would probably work very harmoniously together, respecting our differences.

01:09:05.080 But where trade makes sense, where other things make sense, we would probably work very harmoniously together.

01:09:13.000 And I think that's important.

01:09:14.420 So even though there may be balkanization, the reality is that we may actually have a more functional structure in terms of relationships with other regions.

01:09:25.860 Something to think about.

01:09:27.700 Fair enough, fair enough.

01:09:28.860 That possibly if, you know, Canada changed the structure for a change, then things would possibly work for the better.

01:09:38.500 Okay, so I'm going to play devil's advocate.

01:09:40.340 Okay, I imagine I'm an NDP activist who will never, ever support Alberta independence.

01:09:47.420 I am all against it.

01:09:49.060 It's never going to happen.

01:09:51.220 Here's rebuttal number one.

01:09:54.000 Alberta cannot separate because the land and resources belong to the crown,

01:10:00.100 and therefore they belong to the federal government.

01:10:03.340 Yeah, well, the fact of the matter is that's not true at all.

01:10:08.740 We have crown lands in Alberta. 60% of Alberta is crown lands. 81% of that 60% is controlled by the provincial government. 19% is controlled by the federal government. As a consequence, in a successful referendum for sovereignty, Alberta will take control of that 19% of crown lands as well.

01:10:32.340 And why I know this is because there will be negotiations. There's a 1.3, soon to be $1.4 trillion debt, if Carney gets his way, because he's predicting $100 billion deficit. And so there will be negotiations on the debt. There'll be negotiations on the $400 billion that the federal government owes Alberta with respect to the Alberta pension plan.

01:10:59.740 and there will be negotiations on the military basis.

01:11:04.580 So at the end of the day, that person is dead wrong.

01:11:10.040 And there's, remember, the Supreme Court has already said this,

01:11:15.240 and this is Section 154 of the Supreme Court analysis.

01:11:18.180 It's very important to understand.

01:11:19.540 If a region in Canada finds themselves in a colonial relationship

01:11:26.540 with a higher power, meaning Canada, I mean the federal government,

01:11:34.120 if a region in Canada finds themselves in a colonial relationship

01:11:38.040 in which there's evidence that the region has been subjugated, dominated,

01:11:44.420 exploited, or their self-determination inhibited,

01:11:46.560 they have the right to leave Canada and to form a new nation.

01:11:51.620 They have that right.

01:11:53.240 So whoever said that is dead wrong.

01:11:56.540 All right. Well, there you go. And that's also international law. That is international law.

01:12:02.980 It's also international law. Yeah. And then the same goes for the resources, because the resources belong to the provinces, right?

01:12:11.100 The resources belong to the provinces and they will still remain within the provinces.

01:12:15.840 Right. Right. OK, so here I'm coming with another one. I'm going to put on my union boss.

01:12:22.300 not not one of the unions because there's a lot of common sense people on union members i mean

01:12:26.380 one of the union bosses the ones who benefit from the chaos right and i'm gonna say um alberta would 0.99

01:12:34.060 fail as an independent country because it is landlocked okay um okay well i'm gonna answer

01:12:41.660 the landlocked question and i'm also gonna i wanna carry on an answer an investment question okay so

01:12:49.580 right now canada is landlocked alberta as a sovereign country still doesn't have an ocean

01:12:56.620 at its border right but the difference between the two is we're policy locked we're policy

01:13:03.820 locked by the federal government because the federal government negotiates trades and the

01:13:09.260 federal government um is is in a situation along with adjacent provinces to control what happens

01:13:17.580 in alberta so so to a very large extent when alberta becomes a sovereign country okay now

01:13:26.860 you can look at well the united nations convention on the law of the sea articles 124 and 125 require

01:13:36.780 that countries that do not have access to tide water must have access to tide water transit

01:13:44.940 through other countries that are already that have an ocean border and so so there you have

01:13:54.380 international law united nations convention on the law of the sea states that very clearly

01:14:01.100 that's number one number two um within canada we don't have any ability to push back against

01:14:11.660 these things such as bill c48 the tanker ban we we can't push back against these things

01:14:18.300 as a sovereign country we can now say that we have negotiating power we have clout we have the

01:14:28.700 ability for example if we're really if we're dealing with an intransigent british columbia

01:14:35.180 or an intransigent manitoba ontario or whatever then we can say well look if you don't work with

01:14:44.620 us on these things we will block trade going east and west across our border okay or will highly

01:14:53.900 tariff goods and services going across our border or we will block air flights going through going

01:15:03.020 over alberta so alberta has far more clout this way as a sovereign country it wouldn't make sense

01:15:12.380 for the rest of the country to embargo alberta we quite strongly feel as though

01:15:18.780 saner minds will prevail and everybody will recognize the economic benefit of working

01:15:26.860 collaboratively and collegially with the sovereign alberta and it's very likely that saskatchewan

01:15:32.620 is going to be right there with us anyhow so that makes sense and then the final point i would say is

01:15:38.460 is even now 90 of our trade goes south and when we have a free trade arrangement with the u.s

01:15:45.100 there will be even more trade that goes south but the landlocked the landlocked argument

01:15:53.180 doesn't hold water at all and i want to make one other point and that is in relation to investment

01:15:59.340 some people have said that um alberta is a sovereign country uh in business will flee alberta

01:16:08.060 investment will dry up people won't invest in alberta because of uncertainty

01:16:14.300 well let's examine the record the record is is that look at what happened when the federal

01:16:21.580 government blocked investment in alberta as a result of the national energy policy

01:16:27.260 and as a result of equalization and other confiscatory tax policies and regulatory

01:16:34.560 costs, we've lost over a trillion dollars of planned investment in Alberta. The Premier has

01:16:41.140 pointed out, as well as the Canadian Taxpayer Federation, that just in the last 10 years,

01:16:46.520 we've lost over $500 billion of planned investment in Alberta because the investors

01:16:54.980 couldn't see a business case. And they couldn't see a business case. Why? Because of federal

01:17:01.280 regulation and taxation. And just since Mr. Carney has been elected, we've lost another

01:17:08.240 $89 billion of planned investment in Alberta because of federal regulation and taxation.

01:17:15.060 And then when you look at economic growth of all industrialized countries in the world,

01:17:21.840 economic growth per GDP we're dead last dead last 1.4 percent economic growth in 10 years

01:17:31.500 that is absolutely abysmal and it is only because of federal regulation and taxation

01:17:37.520 so the argument that some people would use that investment would dry up it's already dried up

01:17:43.880 And the contrary argument, though, is that investors will always go to the least regulated and least taxed regions in order to run their businesses and generate a profit so that they can even grow their businesses and provide at a competitive advantage pricing that makes sense for consumers.

01:18:10.520 So this Alberta becoming a sovereign country will be a magnet for investment.

01:18:16.880 Capitalism. Capitalism. That's the way to go.

01:18:20.320 But you touched on something that's important. This is why socialists, socialists hate capitalism.

01:18:28.080 OK. And and and so this is part of the cultural difference in Canada, Ontario,

01:18:35.940 Quebec, and, you know, some areas in the Maritimes are very socialistic in their thinking.

01:18:41.440 Southwest BC is very socialistic in its thinking.

01:18:44.840 Manitoba is somewhat very socialistic in its thinking.

01:18:48.120 But the rest is very capitalistic in its thinking.

01:18:52.400 And so this is why we have this dichotomy.

01:18:55.500 And, you know, we have to just recognize we can't continue trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

01:19:01.820 The same thing isn't going to work for everybody.

01:19:04.520 Oh, yeah. Okay, and then one more for you, Dr. Madrina, I appreciate you being here with us. One more, one more, one of those comments here that I get all the time. One more of those. So, okay, that all sounds great, but Albertans are going to lose their passports. You don't get to remain Canadian. It's not going to happen. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You lose your passport, okay?

01:19:32.280 And you'll also lose your pension.

01:19:33.960 You don't get to touch the Canada pension plan if you guys separate.

01:19:38.480 All right.

01:19:39.080 Well, federal law would not support that contention.

01:19:43.920 For people that leave Canada and move to Paris or move to London, England, or move to Cabo

01:19:52.780 St. Lucas or move to Australia, they get their Canadian pension.

01:19:56.800 They get their OAS.

01:19:58.120 They still have Canadian citizenship.

01:20:00.020 no matter where they live in the world.

01:20:03.040 So in a sovereign Alberta,

01:20:05.420 you can maintain your Canadian citizenship,

01:20:08.880 but you can also have Alberta citizenship.

01:20:12.580 And the value of an Alberta citizenship

01:20:15.660 is that if you're an employee, for example,

01:20:19.860 then you have the ability to, an employee or an employer,

01:20:23.380 you have the ability to determine

01:20:25.560 where you want to pay your taxes.

01:20:27.940 So you can pay virtually, well, personally, it would be virtually zero taxes in Alberta.

01:20:35.660 It'd be a reduction from 23% corporate tax to about 12% to 15% in Alberta.

01:20:42.800 Or you can choose to continue to pay Canadian taxes.

01:20:47.240 And you may have to pay for individuals that prefer to define their citizenship only as Canadian

01:20:55.960 for tax purposes, you may have to pay some sort of a charge to function in Alberta.

01:21:03.240 So, you know, these are choices that people can make, but there's no way legally the federal

01:21:10.160 government would have a real problem, you know, trying to do something like that. And sure, you

01:21:17.040 know, people can argue and say, well, they can change the law. They could be so upset that Alberta

01:21:21.180 is leaving that they could say pensioners aren't going to get their pension well that that wouldn't

01:21:26.460 sit right with international law and that certainly would not sit right if we were negotiating these

01:21:33.080 things with the u.s government as well because the u.s government we know they will help facilitate

01:21:38.340 alberta becoming a sovereign country oh yeah especially if if they decide to get to such a

01:21:45.720 level that they're literally taking people's entitlements like things people worked for like

01:21:50.560 their pensions and and passports right because they're you know they were citizens at one the

01:21:55.320 citizens right well look at look at mr uh carney himself he has at least three citizenships u.s

01:22:02.540 canada and um and the united kingdom and maybe more maybe more i don't know so there's no reason

01:22:09.420 why you can't have more than one passport so that's that's a false flag argument oh yeah well

01:22:15.540 Dr. Dennis Modry, thank you so, so much for being with us. I appreciate you very much. I appreciate

01:22:21.900 the conversation. All of you guys watching, go to the albertaprosperityproject.com. If you want to

01:22:28.360 help the cause for Alberta independence, you can volunteer. There's hundreds and hundreds of

01:22:35.060 volunteers, but they can always use more. This cause is going to require each and every one of

01:22:40.380 us to participate. If you want to donate, you can do so there as well. I'm going to bring up the

01:22:46.300 next panel, our town hall that you guys are going to be having. Dr. Dennis Modry and Mitch

01:22:53.180 Sylvester are going to be in Edmonton just this Tuesday. Free for everyone right here. It's a free

01:23:01.140 event. They're very informative. I've been to about half a dozen of them and they're fun. You get to

01:23:07.660 meet like-minded Albertans. You get to talk about the important things, about the future of this

01:23:12.360 beautiful province. Dr. Dennis Modry, thank you so much for being with us.

01:23:17.860 PJ, I'll see you in the next one.

01:23:24.740 Adios.

01:23:28.540 All right, that was Dr. Dennis Modry of the Alberta Prosperity Project. Thank you all so much for

01:23:34.520 being here all of you guys who are here uh still with me i might read some of your comments here

01:23:40.160 let me just bring the chat i don't want to put the chat on the screen at the time because um

01:23:45.560 it would it would kind of block the um the way that i have this working it would kind of block

01:23:53.260 the the stream but thank you thank you guys so much for being here i definitely appreciate you

01:24:00.520 all, many of you tuned in. I didn't expect so many of you to tune in. I think I saw 400 people

01:24:07.780 at some point. I expected like 200. Thank you all so much for being here.

01:24:14.640 But yeah, if you guys can go to this event right here, those of you in the Edmonton area,

01:24:22.720 it's completely free, you know, and you get to see like-minded individuals. Because I know that

01:24:28.240 sometimes, guys, you may feel like you're all alone, like everybody around you, particularly

01:24:32.660 in Canada, especially if you live in the city, in the Edmonton area, the most liberal city in

01:24:38.320 Alberta, you may feel alone. Like, man, there's not people who think like me. It's just me. I

01:24:43.100 probably got to move, I probably got to move to Texas. And I get it. I understand, you know,

01:24:47.440 I've considered myself moving to Texas a bunch of times. But here in Alberta, there's still a lot

01:24:54.880 of common sense. There's still a lot of fellow Albertans who believe in freedom and they're

01:25:00.680 normally here. This is where they are. This is 100% free. It's later in the evening at 7 p.m.

01:25:08.900 So if you came out of work at 5.30, 6, you know, you can quickly spend an hour and show support

01:25:16.520 for the cause. Again, it's free. You don't have to pay a dollar. If you want to donate a dollar,

01:25:21.960 i'm sure the alberta prosperity project given that they're not for profit they could use it

01:25:27.080 but you don't have to just your presence there is huge and um i try to go to as many of those

01:25:33.080 as i can when i'm not doing my day job so maybe i'll meet you at one of those you know and i'd

01:25:40.120 like to show you guys a video from the alberta prosperity project here before i go this is mitch

01:25:46.360 Sylvester he's the CEO of the Alberta prosperity project and he's got a message

01:25:50.620 that I'd like to share with you guys here okay so let's put it up here this

01:26:00.040 is basically about what you guys can do to help advance this cost for Alberta

01:26:04.960 independence particularly those of you who live in Alberta so have a listen

01:26:10.600 everyone that's been feeling the pinch on all the increased costs and all the

01:26:15.040 losses of the rights and freedoms, the endless amount of censorship bills that

01:26:18.580 are coming out from the federal government. We have a path. And a path

01:26:22.120 forward is a free and independent Alberta. In order for us to succeed at anything

01:26:26.280 that we're going to do politically, we need to show up. It is imperative that we

01:26:30.880 show up. We can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch. The reason that we

01:26:34.800 are here is because of our apathy and our lack of participation in our democracy.

01:26:39.100 It's very important for you to show up to the AGM because numbers do matter here.

01:26:43.240 I want everybody to put everything aside and make this a priority.

01:26:47.540 Please join us in Edmonton for the 2025 UCPAGM on November 28th to 30th at the Edmonton Expo Center.

01:26:54.740 Let's fight this government overreach together.

01:26:58.340 There you go.

01:27:00.260 So that was Mitch Sylvester of the Alberta Prosperity Project

01:27:05.720 talking about how if we want to be heard if we want to be free if we actually believe that this

01:27:15.260 province can achieve its independence then let's put our money where our mouth is and let's do

01:27:22.280 let's actually do you know let's actually get out there participate meet fellow albertans

01:27:29.640 have the difficult conversations that we all know are awkward, uncomfortable. Sometimes we

01:27:36.380 just want to kind of give it up. Like, yeah, I don't want to talk about it. This person probably

01:27:39.760 doesn't care. But, you know, maybe one day it starts to resonate with that person when they

01:27:45.080 realize, holy crap, we're paying 45 to 50 percent of our money in taxes. Let that sink in for a

01:27:51.400 minute, guys. Canadians pay 45 to 50% of their money in taxes. That is the reality in this

01:28:00.920 country. And Alberta is actually the lowest taxed region in all of Canada, but we're still heavily

01:28:09.020 taxed compared to just south of the border. Taxes in just in Montana, just a couple hours south of

01:28:16.540 here are a lot lower than they are up here so we definitely need to do something anyways guys

01:28:25.440 thank you all for tuning in thank you all for being here we're gonna do this every sunday

01:28:30.200 at 4 p.m it's called the belt buckle um yeah we're gonna do this every every sunday uh 4 p.m

01:28:39.580 all right it's been pj i'll see you guys in the next one peace

01:28:46.540 You

PJ The Belt - November 03, 2025

Is Alberta LEAVING Canada？ Dr. Dennis Modry REVEALS ALL

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