00:00:00.000The group Stay Free Alberta started the petition last week. The group said it collected more than
00:00:05.000the 178,000 signatures needed to trigger a referendum a month before its deadline to
00:00:10.280submit them to Elections Alberta. A citizen-led petition calling for Alberta to seek independence
00:00:15.960from Canada is gaining momentum across the province. The Stay Free Alberta campaign is
00:00:21.560collecting signatures for the chance to vote on the question. Do you agree that the province of
00:00:26.060Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state? That's the question
00:00:31.300that they're hoping for. The push comes as new polling suggests support for Alberta sovereignty
00:00:35.560is on the rise. Hey everybody, it's PJ. Today we're going to be doing a little bit of a different
00:00:40.420video. What I'm trying to do in this video is to basically talk about those crucial conversations
00:00:48.900that we're going to have to have with the undecided folks, those people in the middle,
00:00:53.180Those who are sitting on the fence, not the people who will never be convinced, but those in the middle, those who may not know much about this, those who may not be informed, those who may not have the information you and I have.
00:01:07.300That's what this video is going to be about.
00:01:10.560When you're talking to people who are on the fence, remember this, the pro-Canada side, the federalist side, those who support Canada staying the way it is in its current malfunctioning situation, they don't often, they rarely ever have logical arguments.
00:01:27.880They lean on attacks. They'll call you, you know, hillbilly. These Albertans, they just keep whining, whining hillbillies, this and that, and so on, among many other things that they use. They don't have logical arguments. They have bribery. Of course, you have random politicians, former politicians coming out of nowhere.
00:01:47.900I think, look, the real problem here is if the Trump administration has been willing to meet with Canadian separatists in secret, which is a clear intervention in our domestic politics.
00:02:05.160And I would not be, given the way that Donald Trump conducts himself, the least bit surprised.
00:02:10.620If he weighs in heavily on this prospective referendum, I think the government of Canada should be sending very clear signals.
00:02:28.360It's only going to get worse and worse.
00:02:30.400The attacks are going to be more pronounced and more frequent.
00:02:33.920And then the other thing they have is feelings. They have nostalgia. They're going to use feelings. You know, they're going to tell you, oh, you know, especially if you're a person who, you know, you're 70 years old, 60 years old, you know, you've lived in Canada all your life. Canada's been home for you. They'll tell you, well, you're betraying the country.
00:02:53.480They won't tell you the fact that Canada, as it stands, is a country, especially if you're an Albertan, who that's really the only people that matter when it comes to this because these are the people who are going to vote for the independence referendum.
00:03:05.660Those are the only people entitled to vote legally in the independence referendum is Albertans.
00:03:11.640If you've been an Albertan long enough, you know that your province has had it rough in confederation, that Canada has never given Alberta a fair shake.
00:03:21.620You know what happened with the national energy program during Trudeau Senior, during Pierre Elliott Trudeau, when Peter Lougheed was the premier of Alberta. You know what happened during those days. You know when Pierre Trudeau gave the middle finger to Western Canada, literally the middle finger to Western Canada.
00:03:47.680All they're doing is trying to shut down your logical thinking and get you to become emotional about the conversation around sovereignty as opposed to thinking about it logically.
00:04:37.780The top contributor per capita. Sure, Ontario has the biggest economy, but per capita, per each Albertan, Alberta produces far more than Ontario. It also gives more than it receives. Ontario receives more, especially nowadays, than it gives out in economic output.
00:04:57.140And Alberta has been the number one producer per capita for decades, the number one contributor to equalization for decades.
00:05:04.060We send billions of dollars out and get zero, exactly zero in return.
00:05:09.220Look at equalization payments this year.
00:05:12.280Again, a big fat zero for Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC even.
00:05:16.900But it's worst in Alberta because Alberta is the largest contributor to it by far per capita.
00:05:23.480And then this money is used to be given to provinces that then turn around and criticize us, like Quebec. Quebec blocks energy development in Canada, particularly from Alberta with our dirty oil, like the Frenchies like to call it.
00:05:38.380But the $14 billion that they get from that dirty oil is very clean, it seems, because they love it and they take it all the time. They love that cash pipeline. They just don't like the pipeline that produces said cash, oil pipelines.
00:05:53.480They refuse to develop their own natural resources. You can look it up right now. And that is a prime example of how unfair the system is. Let's talk about the electoral imbalance. Another fact that those on the other side of the conversation never like to acknowledge or recognize.
00:06:11.920in eastern canada a vote carries more weight than in western canada than in saskatchewan and alberta
00:06:19.360it's like a two-for-one deal basically one vote in the east can have the power of two votes
00:06:24.300in the west and i'll explain and then we have the unelected senate of course to add insult to
00:06:30.780injury alberta with its five million people we just surpassed five million people and its huge
00:06:36.940financial contributions, which we just discussed, gets only six senators. They're unelected and we
00:06:43.260only get six allocated unelected senators for the entirety of Alberta with 5 million people.
00:06:49.320Meanwhile, take a province like New Brunswick, for example, with a fraction of the population,
00:06:53.820I think they're around 1 million, right? And they get 10 senators. Make it make sense. And again,
00:07:00.840there's the reality that senators are unelected, appointed by the prime minister and Trudeau
00:07:05.580flooded filled the senate with liberal activists right and alberta only gets six with a five million
00:07:13.380population while a province like new brunswick nova scotia with way less people and way less
00:07:18.100financial power than alberta get 10 senators each make it make sense that is something you can bring
00:07:24.980to the table and that's a fact i'll show you the map right on the screen that's a fact that's not
00:07:29.940opinion that's a fact of canada today that alone is recent enough for alberta to want to make a
00:07:37.240huge change and alberta has tried we're going to talk about that has tried for decades to make
00:07:44.100that change from inside canada to no avail the system is rigged against us we're not treated
00:07:50.200like equal partners in confederation we'll treat we're treated like the western colonies of canada
00:07:55.540Canada is the east, the Maritimes, Ontario and Quebec. That's Canada. Western Canada, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan, are basically colonies of the rest of Canada.
00:08:07.700let's not forget like i said the history back in the 1980s preston manning those of you who've
00:08:13.980lived long enough will know preston manning and the reform party they tried to fix this whole
00:08:18.900situation with a campaign that they called the west wants in basically looking for more
00:08:24.140representation within canada more fairness within canada for the west they asked for a fair deal
00:08:30.640and the east said no they opposed them at every turn instead of reform they doubled down what
00:08:37.560hammer down and here we are decades later still having the same exact conversation because nothing
00:08:42.400has fundamentally changed it's the exact same let's talk about what an independent alberta
00:08:48.260would actually gain these are the facts of what alberta would gain this is not an exhaustive list
00:08:53.240because the list is so long but these are some of the main ones that i could think of that i think
00:08:57.600are very relevant to bring to the conversation and bring to the dinner table because this is
00:09:02.920where it gets serious. Alberta sends more wealth. We've established that more financial output and
00:09:08.780more revenue into confederation than it gets back. We produce more than we consume. Surplus, right?
00:09:14.340We're a net contributor and buy a lot. Independence means that that money stays here. It stays in
00:09:21.480Alberta, in Albertan territory, in Albertan soil, funding our own infrastructure, our own healthcare.
00:09:28.700We can make it look however we want. We want it the way it is right now, but actually less corrupt and more efficient than we can do it. We want single payer universal. We can keep it that way. It'll be up to us and we can fund it more efficiently. Tax relief. We can cut taxes. Alberta is already the lowest taxed jurisdiction in Canada by choice because Albertans want lower taxes, not because Canada is benevolent, right?
00:09:52.480And then future investments would stay here.
00:09:55.880We would manage our own pension, which would create jobs because someone has to manage that pension.
00:10:00.940And there has to be an entire structure for it.
00:13:29.320We could access ports in Washington state or Oregon, you know, instead of being held hostage by Ottawa as a sub-national subordinate government, you know.
00:13:41.100And finally, an independent Alberta would be free.
00:13:50.800We'd no longer be shackled by federal policies that attack our energy industry.
00:13:55.140We wouldn't have to deal with carbon taxes. We could drill baby drill. You know, that freedom means more production, right? Which means more money, lower taxes, stronger growth and higher standards of living for Alberta.
00:14:08.220We'll be one of the wealthiest countries on earth because our resources, our resources are plenty, unimaginable, unimaginably bountiful.
00:14:19.320There's so much resources, not just oil.
00:14:22.120You know, there's our farmlands, our minerals under the ground, but also our people, Albertans, some of the hardest working people on earth and some of the most qualified workers in the world.
00:14:34.040We'll be one of the wealthiest countries on earth.