PJ The Belt - April 16, 2026


The U.S. JUST ENDORSED Alberta & Saskatchewan — This Changes Everything

Topics
alberta independence pursuit alberta independence movement
Mentioned
Mark Carney Keystone XL Brian Trump
Carney Just Created a HUGE Problem for Canada Canada Says “NO MORE” — Deportations START NOW

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

157.63

Word count

1,363

Sentence count

69

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The people of the Canadian province of Alberta appear to be super fed up with the new Canadian government, and they are pushing for independence in one area, especially since Mark Carney was voted in as their new PM. Is it possible for a province to become its own country, and how would that look?

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 They told me there is a path. Alberta is first, and if they sign on, Saskatchewan would follow.
00:00:06.660 There is a movement in Canada to join us. Want to get your thoughts on that and how that's
00:00:11.800 perceived? So it's true. Thank you, Brian. It's true. I mean, is he that far off? Let's think 0.98
00:00:17.100 about this. The people of the Canadian province of Alberta appear to be super fed up with the
00:00:21.640 new Canadian government, and they're pushing for independence in one area, especially this guy,
00:00:26.000 mark carney was voted in as their new pm and he is awful okay keep in mind alberta is considered
00:00:31.120 like the texas of canada they are way more conservative way more limited government and
00:00:36.240 produce the overwhelming amount of the country's commodities like timber and oil and a bunch of
00:00:41.440 other stuff so the federal government of canada is just basically pooping their pants because
00:00:46.080 they realize that they can't fund any of their big government programs without the revenue from the
00:00:51.200 resources of that area. Well, Alberta is a wealth of natural resources, but they won't let them
00:00:58.320 build a pipeline to the Pacific. I think we should let them come down into the U.S., and Alberta is
00:01:07.320 a natural partner for the U.S. The Albertans are very independent people. Now, if Saskatchewan or
00:01:15.360 Alberta were simply to declare themselves independent states and other states were to
00:01:20.460 recognize them as independent states and the government of Canada ceased to have any control
00:01:24.500 over Saskatchewan and Alberta, it may be that de facto they would become independent states as a
00:01:30.520 matter of international law. And the Supreme Court did acknowledge that that was a possibility.
00:01:35.600 I guess the flip side of what they're saying is that if our concerns are not addressed,
00:01:40.140 we feel as though they have been not addressed, then we're willing to explore separation. It's
00:01:44.220 kind of raising the stakes. Alberta and Saskatchewan are pursuing their full
00:01:47.780 independence from canada both of these provinces both in the prairies are looking to separate from
00:01:54.420 the rest of canada even though alberta is farther ahead in the process of obtaining their independence
00:02:01.680 soon to have a referendum this doesn't mean that the people of saskatchewan don't have just as much
00:02:06.760 desire to gain their sovereignty and separate from the rest of canada as much as alberta does
00:02:12.620 Independent Alberta would keep $20 billion for every new pipeline that's built.
00:02:17.800 So Keystone XL is coming, so we know that, so there's another $20 billion.
00:02:21.800 We've been to, like Dennis, myself, and others, have been to Washington to meet with the U.S. administration.
00:02:28.460 They will support Alberta independence.
00:02:33.720 They're very excited about Alberta independence from the standpoint of U.S. national security
00:02:39.300 and freeing the Alberta oil reserves from a security of supply perspective
00:02:43.820 from control of the Chinese communists that govern Ottawa. 0.51
00:02:51.300 Well, look, Alberta is a wealth of natural resources, 0.98
00:02:54.920 but they won't let them build a pipeline to the Pacific.
00:03:00.280 I think we should let them come down into the U.S.,
00:03:04.760 and Alberta is a natural partner for the U.S.
00:03:09.120 They have great resources.
00:03:10.800 The Albertans are very independent people.
00:03:14.840 Rumors that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not.
00:03:19.260 Sounds like you may know something up there.
00:03:21.900 What?
00:03:23.380 People are saying.
00:03:24.580 People are talking.
00:03:26.960 Separation from Canada.
00:03:28.300 It is something that has come up since the Liberals were given another term in government,
00:03:33.160 particularly in Saskatchewan and Alberta, with some frustrated with what they view
00:03:37.860 as out-of-touch policies around energy and the environment created in Ottawa that don't benefit
00:03:43.500 the West. The petition's signature threshold for a separation referendum has been lowered in Alberta,
00:03:50.440 and a referendum petition is making the rounds here at home too. So what has to actually be done
00:03:56.020 in order for separation to happen? Well, under the Constitution of Canada,
00:04:01.340 one province has no right to leave unilaterally. So even if there were a referendum that purported
00:04:09.040 to prescribe separation, that would not give the province in which the referendum occurred
00:04:14.560 the legal right to leave. Having said that, the Supreme Court did hold in 1998 that if a clear
00:04:21.420 majority on a clear question votes to leave Confederation, and they had Quebec in mind,
00:04:28.560 but the logic would apply just as much or almost as much to Alberta and Saskatchewan,
00:04:33.480 that an obligation would fall upon the federal government to negotiate in good faith the exit.
00:04:40.440 The Trump administration has reportedly expressed support for Alberta to obtain their independence,
00:04:46.980 telling the Alberta Prosperity Project that upon a successful referendum,
00:04:51.580 they would be willing to give international recognition to the new nation of Alberta.
00:04:56.520 And in turn, one can assume that the same level of support would be given to an independent Saskatchewan.
00:05:03.360 Is it possible for a province to essentially become its own country?
00:05:08.880 And how would that look?
00:05:10.600 Now, if Saskatchewan or Alberta were simply to declare themselves independent states,
00:05:16.540 and other states were to recognize them as independent states,
00:05:19.840 and the government of Canada ceased to have any control over Saskatchewan and Alberta,
00:05:23.080 It may be that de facto, they would become independent states as a matter of international law. And the Supreme Court did acknowledge that that was a possibility. It might not necessarily be constitutional. And given how other states tend not to recognize breakaway provinces, unless the federal government has condoned the departure, I don't think that's very likely.
00:05:47.800 But I mean, theoretically, it could happen de facto, even if not legally proper.
00:06:17.800 In addition to admission to international organizations and access to capital markets, external recognition offers legitimacy and allows foreign relations with the world.
00:06:28.460 If Washington chooses to recognize Alberta and Saskatchewan, overnight, they become de facto new nations.
00:06:35.960 now when we look at all of the provinces we see that when the original dominion of canada
00:06:42.980 was created and put together it was ontario and quebec right upper and lower canada plains of
00:06:47.680 abraham big old scrap between the english and the french finally they figured it out
00:06:50.560 and they got themselves sorted out so they had upper and lower canada quebec and
00:06:53.520 and ontario but then they decided to bring in two more provinces as bookends which would be
00:06:57.960 manitoba and new brunswick now manitoba did negotiate their way somewhat ottawa was still
00:07:04.340 little bit cranky about the whole Louis Rial thing, you know, property rights, autonomy,
00:07:07.620 all the things they don't like over there. But they still let them negotiate their way in a bit.
00:07:12.220 New Brunswick also negotiated their way into Confederation. British Columbia came on board,
00:07:19.320 also negotiated their way into Confederation. Remember, that was to keep the U.S. out,
00:07:23.980 right? Because they were getting ready to join forces with Alaska. They had already bought
00:07:27.360 Alaska. They wanted to have their own way like right up there along the coast. And so the Canadian
00:07:31.680 government at the time said oh absolutely not and they took over um what we know today as british
00:07:37.980 columbia and brought that into confederation the other two maritime provinces that i've already
00:07:42.440 clicked on so prince edward island and nova scotia negotiated their way in we did not we were brought
00:07:48.760 in there was not even a legislature building here there was nobody at the table to say this is what
00:07:54.380 we want this is what we don't want it was this is what you're all going to get that's the foundation
00:08:00.000 that our two provinces have been built on.
00:08:02.440 The independence movement in Alberta is no longer just a fringe idea.
00:08:06.960 It's gone mainstream.
00:08:08.600 The support is growing so fast that even the government-paid fake news media
00:08:12.760 can't ignore it anymore.
00:08:14.760 Everywhere you go in the province, the big question is the same.
00:08:18.420 Is it worth it to stay in Canada, or should we take our future into our own hands?
00:08:23.420 And of course, Ottawa's already playing dirty,
00:08:26.360 funding paid opposition and trying to smear the movement.
00:08:29.220 But instead of scaring people, it's only making Albertans even more determined to obtain their
00:08:35.100 independence. The momentum's here, and it's not going away.