Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta has gone from normal to crazy back to normal again

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today I look at Alberta, which has decided it's done with COVID. It's not going

00:00:05.480 to have the obsessive press conferences talking about cases. It's not going to give tests to

00:00:12.200 people who have no symptoms. It's not going to mandatory quarantines for people with the sniffles.

00:00:17.660 It's going to treat it as an endemic disease like the flu. Well, needless to say, that has

00:00:23.020 created outrage from the public health class, the lockdownists. Do you think they'll be able

00:00:29.380 to hold the line? That's the topic for today's show. I'll get to that in a second, but first

00:00:34.220 let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. Eight bucks a month, half the price

00:00:38.380 of Netflix, twice the fun. You get my daily show, plus Sheila Gunn-Reed, David Menzies, and Andrew

00:00:43.180 Chapados, and the satisfaction of knowing that you're helping to keep Rebel News strong.

00:00:47.320 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:59.380 Tonight, Alberta has gone from normal to crazy, back to almost normal again, and the CBC wants

00:01:11.280 them to flip back to crazy. It's August 2nd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:15.700 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:21.500 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:25.560 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:30.440 right to do so.

00:01:36.460 For the longest time, Alberta did not do the lockdown insanity. It just resisted. I think

00:01:42.160 a lot of the lockdownism in the United States was partisan. It was from the Democrats,

00:01:47.620 which, you know, they love the public health deep state. They love control. They love crises.

00:01:53.760 They don't really care about small businesses or individual liberty. And they also love the idea

00:01:57.780 of public sector teachers unions getting paid, but not having to go to school. But mainly,

00:02:04.340 the lockdown was a way of hurting Donald Trump, who was cruising to a re-election before COVID-19.

00:02:09.440 Not only did the man-made recession and crisis hurt him, a lot of fear, but, of course, the excuse to

00:02:15.240 have mail-in ballots, as Joel Pollack told us, that was what lost it for Trump, the legal changes

00:02:21.260 to voting rules mid-campaign. Anyways, in Canada, I think Alberta sympathized the most with Republican

00:02:27.240 sentiments, whereas, say, Toronto really wishes it were New York and mimics New York's politics

00:02:33.560 and tastes like a, I don't know, 11-year-old girl might watch her mom putting on makeup and copycat.

00:02:39.240 It's sad, really, how much of Toronto's political identity, at least on certain things, is so

00:02:44.100 seamlessly built around an inferiorly complex about New York. I mean, how many people in Toronto read

00:02:51.300 the New York Times thinking they're like honorary New Yorkers for doing so, who watch Saturday Night

00:02:56.540 Live as their political humor? It's sort of pitiful. I say that as a Torontonian. So,

00:03:00.760 of course, the Toronto, Ontario Cool Kids wanted to copy the hard lockdowns and that whole aesthetic

00:03:07.400 of New York and other blue states in the U.S., but Calgary isn't part of that Cool Kids Club.

00:03:12.060 Alberta's different. It didn't go mad. Alberta and British Columbia, to an extent, and Saskatchewan,

00:03:17.440 to an extent, they just weren't part of the Cool Kids Club, so they didn't feel like they had to copy

00:03:21.280 that. Until one day, Alberta just utterly collapsed and became insanely locked down, and there was no 0.99

00:03:27.480 justification for it. Hospitals were never overwhelmed, never even close. Cases went up,

00:03:32.780 but what does that mean? What's a case? It's not someone being sick. It's not a hospital or an ICU

00:03:38.260 visitor or a ventilator or whatever. Suddenly, Alberta swung from the most sane to the most crazy, 1.00

00:03:43.280 and it was evident that even Alberta's ruling class didn't believe what they were doing.

00:03:47.100 So many cabinet ministers and MLAs and even Premier Jason Kenney's own chief of staff

00:03:52.140 all just went on holiday over Christmas when they had just told everyone else to avoid unnecessary

00:03:58.440 travel. Some of them did that fake thing where they posed for Christmas photos pretending to be

00:04:03.980 in Alberta and then published them later when they were actually in Vegas or Hawaii. So, they were all

00:04:08.520 caught, and it made Albertans so mad. And just at the moment where they were being locked down hard,

00:04:14.640 the ruling class was out partying. It wasn't that Albertans think traveling is a sin. No, Albertans

00:04:21.460 believe that other than the lockdown cultists and the NDP and the media party and the public health

00:04:27.400 deep state, I think normal Albertans knew the lockdown was BS, and they knew that Kenney knew.

00:04:33.080 And then to see that the rules were being implemented but not followed by the rule makers,

00:04:37.440 that was too much. And Kenney dug in it first. He argued that traveling was good for the economy

00:04:42.780 or whatever he said, which no one disagreed with. They weren't anti-travel. They just note the

00:04:47.460 hypocrisy, the double standard. One law for the little people who are locked down, one law for

00:04:52.640 the rulers. And when that happened again this spring with one of the strictest lockdowns in the

00:04:57.980 country, and Kenney and his abominable health minister, Tyler Shandro, were having that boozy party

00:05:03.560 at the Sky Palace, literally looking down at regular people like ants, barking out lockdown orders while they

00:05:09.480 themselves break the lockdown rules. Well, that just cemented the whole thing as a fraud and

00:05:13.600 hypocrisy. They didn't get it then either, did they? I mean, this clip says it all.

00:05:19.140 You know, it's the first time I've heard of, Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that Jameson's

00:05:24.220 is a nice Irish whiskey, but it's not the finest. It's a budget liquor, Mr. Speaker.

00:05:30.860 If your answer to a question about breaking the lockdown in a palatial private lounge is to say

00:05:35.560 that a $50 bottle of whiskey is economy whiskey, as if that answers the underlying grievance instead

00:05:40.440 of proving it. That suggests that, in fact, you have been too long at the Sky Palace. And

00:05:45.580 indeed they have. They have been insulated. They've never met real people. That's anti-gathering

00:05:50.920 rules, social distancing. The media didn't hold them to account, other than to demand more

00:05:55.020 lockdowns. Same with the NDP opposition. They were all living in a weird world of public

00:05:59.620 health echo chambers. So I think it was genuinely a shock for them when actual citizens had the

00:06:05.480 first chance to talk to their politicians this month, or July 1st, when they spoke back.

00:06:11.520 I think that these politicians were in such an insulated bubble, they genuinely thought

00:06:15.820 they were beloved, that everyone supported the lockdown.

00:06:19.200 Arrest, Chandro, now! You're going to jail! 1.00

00:06:22.760 What do you got to say, Chandro, for your war crimes? What do you got to say? Crimes against 0.74

00:06:27.160 humanity, medical coercion. You made a lot of kids cry, buddy. You're a murderer.

00:06:32.600 Alberta's Minister of Health, Tyler Chandro, holding on to his son as protesters surrounded 0.99

00:06:38.140 him and his family during Canada Day celebrations in Calgary. The protesters yelling insults and

00:06:44.720 directing some of the abuse towards Chandro's children. 0.98

00:06:48.280 I'm sorry, buddy, but your father is a war criminal.

00:06:51.120 Now, I don't agree with talking to his kid, but I absolutely believe in the right of citizens

00:06:56.740 to heckle politicians at public events. It's in our Constitution, you might recall.

00:07:02.540 So Alberta's lockdown was truly one of the worst. Giant stores like Walmart or Costco were allowed

00:07:07.640 to stay open. Liquor stores and cannabis stores allowed to stay open. And they were limited only

00:07:12.160 with a percentage of their fire code capacity. So something like, let's say, 20% of their normal

00:07:16.500 capacity. Measured as a percent, though, you see? But only churches and other houses of worship

00:07:22.380 had absolute fixed number limits, no matter how large the building. 15 people. Even for big

00:07:28.740 cathedrals, massive megachurches, 15 people total. 10 for a funeral. What? Five of the

00:07:36.280 theater was outdoors. Huh? That makes no sense. But it was not about science or health.

00:07:42.400 The NHL was allowed to play and practice hockey and go to restaurants with their whole entourage

00:07:47.200 while kids' sports were canceled. The Bachelorette was allowed to film a whole show in Jasper.

00:07:52.080 No social distancing, to say the least. But churches were penalized. You can't go to a

00:07:56.880 funeral at a church. It was outrageous. It was the worst in the country. Four pastors

00:08:01.420 were sent to prison. James Coates of Edmonton for 35 days, Tim Stevens of Calgary, Arthur Pavlovsky

00:08:06.600 of Calgary, his brother David Pavlovsky. The worst, Alberta went from the lightest lockdown

00:08:12.620 to the most authoritarian. No reason, either. The worst of the bullying. The worst of the

00:08:16.900 anti-Christian bias. The worst enforcement. The stupidest. But that's not really Alberta,

00:08:22.580 is it? There was a mini revolt of the caucus after the Christmas vacation business. Cabinet

00:08:29.900 ministers were sacked, which is pretty dramatic. The premier's own chief of staff was sacked,

00:08:34.000 pretty dramatic. And then another revolt after the Sky Palace, when the lockdown was denounced

00:08:39.560 by more than a dozen MLAs, too many for the government to fire them all. And you know,

00:08:43.460 I think our rebel news journalism and activism really helped focus the issue. Certainly the

00:08:48.220 NDP and the media party didn't. So I think it was as much for reasons of political fatigue

00:08:53.800 as any health statistics that on July 1st, Alberta lifted the lockdown on gatherings, including churches.

00:09:01.800 And just late last week, Alberta made final changes that relegated COVID-19 to the same status

00:09:07.440 of any other endemic disease. Like the flu. It's just always around. And use your wits and common

00:09:13.060 sense. But there's not going to be this whole cottage industry built around it anymore. No more

00:09:16.900 panic porn press conferences. No more BS scaremongering about this variant or that number of 0.86

00:09:22.980 cases. All of which is deliberately unintelligible. Deliberately designed not to be understood,

00:09:27.880 but merely to be feared. So as of a couple days ago, there's no more testing for people who have no

00:09:32.920 symptoms. Why would you test someone without a symptom? It was always iffy. The PCR tests were

00:09:38.020 notoriously false, giving false positives. Didn't have any medical meaning. No mandatory quarantine

00:09:43.940 anymore. There isn't for the flu. No mask mandates. No school closures. Life is normal now.

00:09:51.860 Because you know what? It is normal. The abominable, sorry, the abnormal part in terms of health issues.

00:09:57.540 The lockdown was the abnormal part. Now, I have to mention that Alberta's health bureaucrats are 1.00

00:10:03.760 still prosecuting Arthur and David Pawlowski. That's not normal. Tyler Shandro wants to throw

00:10:09.220 them back in prison for 21 days because they won't apologize. Seriously. The use of that word in their

00:10:14.040 legal documents filed at court, you can see that at saveArthur.com. They want to throw him back in

00:10:19.440 prison for 21 days because he won't say sorry. But other than that bizarre, petty vengeance and

00:10:23.800 bullying by Tyler Shandro against Arthur and his brother. Other than that, Alberta today is the

00:10:29.620 same pretty much as Alberta before the lockdowns, at least in terms of the law. Well, that can't be

00:10:36.240 allowed. I mean, as this American panic porn expert says, it's like Florida North. I now crown Alberta as

00:10:44.680 the new Florida of Canada. Get a positive COVID-19 test. No need to isolate, says new horrible rules by

00:10:50.860 heinously irresponsible medical health officer. Yeah, Florida's pretty terrible. The freest and

00:10:56.820 healthiest and best state in the union, especially when you consider how many seniors live there. By

00:11:01.500 the way, this doctor, Eric Fagelding, he's not a medical doctor, but he pretends to be one on

00:11:07.680 Twitter. Here's an actual MD. When Alberta going full Florida, with Alberta going full Florida on COVID

00:11:14.540 measures, there's now three distinct approaches in Canada to containing the virus. How do we protect the

00:11:19.500 rest of the country from the mistakes of the let it rip crowd? How do we ensure we can keep numbers 0.75

00:11:24.660 down and open schools safely? You know, he's an expert and you should trust him about Alberta

00:11:30.120 because he lives in Toronto. And according to this map, he thinks Alberta and BC are the same place

00:11:35.840 and that locking down millions of people in Ontario and destroying lives and jobs and families and

00:11:41.000 ruining school and childhood. That's being careful, he says. Pretty sure that doctor hasn't lost a day's

00:11:47.380 pay in the last 18 months. Calgary's socialist mayor thinks it's insane. He loves masks.

00:11:55.100 Not for health reasons. I mean, Naheed Nenshu, I used to know well when we were in school together.

00:11:59.720 He's always been physically sort of the same as me. He weighs about an eighth of a ton,

00:12:04.820 as I like to say. So you know he deeply cares about health. And you know his mask will probably

00:12:10.920 take care of all his problems. No, he just likes the social control. Here's to those national posts

00:12:18.140 that get 140 grand a week from him. The bad news is you have COVID. The good news is you're in Alberta.

00:12:24.680 I think that's meant as an insult, but it's actually true. Here's the stats for those in Alberta that

00:12:29.560 Colby Kosh put together. 100% recovery rate for anyone young at all. 99.5% recovery for pretty much

00:12:36.680 anyone under 60. So most people, yeah, if you get COVID in those age groups, you're almost certainly

00:12:42.940 going to be fine. In Ontario, they treat you as a leper. In Alberta, you can use your judgment

00:12:48.120 like you would for the flu, which happens to kill thousands of people a year, but for which we let

00:12:53.500 people live their lives. You know, some TV doctors who are worried they will no longer be reality TV

00:12:59.140 stars anymore. And their careers as celebrities are coming to a close. They're furious. Removal of

00:13:06.360 Alberta's remaining COVID-19 protocols sparks outrage among physicians. Oh, well, man. A group of doctors

00:13:13.480 plan to gather the Manougal Center in Calgary over the noon hour on Friday to voice concerns about

00:13:18.640 Alberta dropping mandatory health measures for COVID-19. Yeah, COVID fear porn is over. TV doctor's

00:13:25.220 hardest hit, I guess. Now, I support these doctors having their freedom of speech and giving their

00:13:30.140 political advice. I would invite them to run for office as part of a lockdown party. Maybe that's

00:13:35.980 just another way of saying the NDP. But if they want to be doctors, be doctors. Give advice to their

00:13:40.680 patients. I'm not their patient. They're not doctors to the whole province. If they want to be

00:13:45.320 legislators, run for office. I encourage it. I really do. Let's finally put these lockdown ideas to a

00:13:50.960 public test. You know what's the giveaway? That this isn't about health, but it's about political

00:13:58.420 control. You know what tipped me off? It's all they talk about rules, lockdowns, bullying. It's like

00:14:04.960 those classic mask enforcer cell phone videos we see. They never run up to someone without a mask and

00:14:10.960 say, put your mask on, you'll get sick. Or even, put your mask on, I'll get sick. They never say that.

00:14:18.320 Have you ever seen that? I never have. They always make the argument about authority.

00:14:22.680 Put your mask on. That's the rule. Or more honestly, put your mask on. If I have to, you do too.

00:14:30.600 And that was all obedience conditioning, these masks. Obedience conditioning for the vaccines.

00:14:35.760 Look at this from the Globe and Mail. It's time to get tough with vaccine resistors. Can you imagine

00:14:41.940 talking that way about any other medical condition, any other experimental drug?

00:14:45.580 I am tired of this gentle persuasion business. We continue to pander to a group who, in many cases,

00:14:53.400 is simply too lazy to sign up to get a shot. Yeah, that's it. Laziness. This from a journalist for a

00:14:59.860 living, calling someone else lazy? Or they continue to embrace crackpot conspiracy theories and

00:15:05.920 misinformation being spread on social media. We patiently hope that they will wake up and see the

00:15:11.340 light one day. Meanwhile, they're recalcitrant effects of rest. Yeah, those crackpots with their

00:15:15.820 misinformation. Gee, why don't they obey? People should not be walking around with masks. Let me 0.87

00:15:20.580 just state for the record that masks are not theater. Wearing a mask might make people feel

00:15:26.300 a little bit better. Masks are protective. But it's not providing the perfect protection that people

00:15:32.220 think that it is. There has not been any indication that putting a mask on and wearing a mask for a

00:15:38.540 considerable period of time has any deleterious effects. There are unintended consequences.

00:15:44.120 People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face. And can you get some schmutz

00:15:48.660 sort of staying inside there? Of course. You do not need to wear a mask indoors if, in fact,

00:15:54.700 you've been vaccinated. Good that you're vaccinated. But in a situation where you have people indoors,

00:15:59.940 particularly crowded, you should wear a mask. So even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask.

00:16:05.380 If, in fact, you are vaccinated, fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you do not need to wear a

00:16:10.880 mask outdoors or indoors. When the children go out into the community, you want them to continue to

00:16:16.380 wear masks. You know, if you look at children outside, particularly when they're with the family

00:16:20.560 walking down the street, playing a game or what have you, don't have to wear a mask.

00:16:26.380 The pediatric, the Academy of Pediatric, actually makes that recommendation that children should be

00:16:32.000 wearing masks from two years old onward. And you're asking now if your child is a member of

00:16:37.720 your household, can you walk outdoors with your child without a mask? According to that chart,

00:16:43.840 the answer is yes. But the child can't, not to beat it to death. Yes, yes. Because now the CDC says,

00:16:50.620 I mean, I think I've got this right. One mask is better than zero masks. Two masks is better than

00:16:55.840 one mask. But you don't have to have double masks. Is that right? I mean, it became clear that cloth

00:17:02.120 coverings that you didn't have to buy in a store that you could make yourself were adequate. And

00:17:07.820 then you want it to fit better. So one of the ways you could do it if you would like to is put a cloth

00:17:13.160 mask over, which actually here and here and here where you could get leakage in is much better

00:17:20.500 contained. Are you a double masker, Dr. Fauci? Look like you are. It's time governments in this

00:17:26.660 country get tough. We need vaccine mandates and we need them now. He's so butch. Never pretend that

00:17:33.840 the media believes in your civil rights. They don't. They only believe in your civil rights,

00:17:38.400 well, for their pet causes, not for you. People who refuse to get vaccinated should not have the

00:17:44.360 same privileges as the rest of us. They should not be able to sit in restaurants or bars. They should

00:17:49.040 not be able to work out in gyms. They definitely should not be able to work in long-term care homes

00:17:54.480 or hospitals. Get ready for about 40% of the nurses to quit. Hey, anything else, by the way,

00:18:00.780 should fat people or people who drink or cheesecake or have a certain kind of sex, should they also be 0.95

00:18:08.180 banned from public places? And can we demand them to tell us their private information? Can I get a list

00:18:15.440 of all the bad things that are nobody's business that I can demand to ask strangers and ban them

00:18:21.800 from things? And this newspaper guy wants to ban people from a restaurant. He's neither the customer

00:18:27.180 nor the restaurant, but he just wants to really ban things. Mention these people pretending they ever

00:18:33.520 cared about the Charter of Rights. In the meantime, we continue to get down on bended knee and plead with

00:18:39.320 people to get vaccinated. Not for a second do they ever think they could be wrong, hey? That there could

00:18:45.520 be a reason why people don't want to get vaxxed, whether they have natural immunity from recovering

00:18:50.200 from COVID already or whether they're so young the vax is a greater threat to their health and the

00:18:53.860 disease. Or if they have a religious objection or if they just want to wait a bit before taking

00:18:58.220 experimental drug. Maybe they want to get pregnant. Maybe they're pregnant already. They don't want to 1.00

00:19:01.840 take these meds. In fact, wouldn't you say the harder and more extreme the shouting, the sneering,

00:19:09.060 the condescension, the more doubt they'll sow? If you have a position, an idea, are you more persuaded

00:19:18.340 to change it from a bully who's calling you names like the globe is and threatening you? Or from

00:19:24.600 someone who can appeal to your underlying concerns and say, I know what you're worried about. Can I give

00:19:28.340 you some information? I couldn't imagine a worse vaccine salesman than these people. Stay with us for

00:19:35.800 more. Well, the whole world has been on pause for 18 months or so, it seems. The only thing that

00:19:52.740 people have been talking about is COVID, not so much the virus, but the lockdown and the lockdownism,

00:19:59.460 how it's changed so much of our lives. Where once masks were optional, now you're a double masker or

00:20:05.300 you hate grandma. Now you're a double vaxxer or you hate grandma. Now I hear triple vaxxing is in

00:20:11.720 vogue, even though it doesn't help. Vaccine passports are on the way. We saw signs the other day popping up

00:20:17.600 in airports across Canada for separate segregated lines, depending on your private medical details.

00:20:24.440 I don't think we're going to be out of it anytime soon. But as the panic, I think, is replaced in

00:20:30.980 some people's minds with skepticism and hesitation to believe the public health deep state, other issues

00:20:37.260 are reemerging. And we see, for example, how Alberta once again gets the short end of the stick. 0.98

00:20:43.980 The latest insult was Justin Trudeau appointing a liberal patronage appointment to the Senate

00:20:53.060 on behalf of Albertans mere months away from when that province has scheduled a province-wide

00:21:01.160 Senate election. Let me say that again. Although appointing senators is the prerogative of the

00:21:06.140 federal government, the government of Alberta has for decades now held Senate elections. Trudeau,

00:21:12.280 seeing that, went ahead and basically said, I don't care about your election. I'm going to appoint

00:21:17.980 my patronage appointee. And what are you going to even do about it? That's a really good question,

00:21:26.060 isn't it? Because when the question is put to Quebec, what are you going to do about it?

00:21:30.360 They have an answer. A perpetual revolutionary party called the Bloc Québécois and its provincial

00:21:37.300 wing, the Parti Québécois. And if you doubt them, well, they've held to referenda. What can Alberta do

00:21:44.760 to be treated seriously and not just laughed at? Well, the new book has some of the answers. The book is

00:21:52.760 called Moment of Truth, How to Think About Alberta's Future. And I really like the cover.

00:21:58.460 It's a signpost with different signs. Go it alone. 51st state. Let them freeze. Roll over.

00:22:05.300 Pipelines or bust. Build firewall. It's edited by Jack Mintz, Ted Morton, and Dr. Tom Flanagan,

00:22:11.220 who joins us now via Skype from Calgary. Dr. Tom, great to see you again. You were my,

00:22:16.900 one of my professors when I went to University of Calgary many years ago. The things we talked about

00:22:21.840 back then, Western alienation, the Reform Party, are things we would talk about now. COVID has

00:22:27.760 drowned them out. But all those same issues, those systemic issues, those problems with

00:22:32.640 Confederation, none of them have been fixed, have they? No. And that's really disappointing

00:22:38.960 because it seemed that our generation was making a lot of progress on that with the foundation of

00:22:44.780 the Reform Party and eventually getting to the point of a national party which could run the

00:22:51.300 government. And we did make progress in that period of time. But it's all been pretty much lost.

00:22:56.680 And, you know, the Senate is just one example of Alberta idea, which has now been rejected by the

00:23:06.760 Eastern establishment. But lots of other things, too. The development of the Alberta energy industry

00:23:12.680 has been blockaded by liberal government. You can go down the line of reforms that have been proposed in

00:23:20.700 Alberta. And, you know, they appeared to work temporarily, but in the longer term, they've been

00:23:26.640 beaten back. And that's the setting for this book. You know, where do we go now? What are the options

00:23:31.420 for Alberta? Yeah. I mean, the Senate election in many ways is the least important. It's just

00:23:38.760 symbolic. I mean, the election itself was non-binding, really. Trudeau could appoint anyone he wants under the

00:23:44.460 Constitution. But just the ease and casualness with which he stuffed that seat in the middle of a

00:23:51.480 campaign, I think, shows the temperature. I mean, if a guy can kill the Northern Gateway pipeline,

00:23:58.440 the Trans Mountain pipeline, the Energy East pipeline, if he can kill multi-billion dollar

00:24:04.820 projects and throw tens of thousands of people out of work, obviously he'll think nothing of a

00:24:10.320 symbolic slight. Because, like, seriously, what are you going to do about it? And let me put that to

00:24:15.460 you. Yeah. What could Alberta possibly do if it got really mad? Well, that's right. And we canvass

00:24:23.720 some of the possibilities in the book. And of course, one possibility is an outright separatist

00:24:29.480 movement. I guess the editors of the book and most of the authors are not really ready for that,

00:24:36.120 although a couple of the authors, this is a collection of essays, and a couple of the authors do

00:24:39.860 assume a separatist viewpoint. But I guess most of us are willing to try some tactics that haven't yet

00:24:48.240 been tried. One is the upcoming referendum on equalization. It's been talked about for 20

00:24:59.400 years or more ever since the publication of the so-called firewall letter, but hasn't actually been

00:25:05.680 tried. Well, it will be tried this fall. There's a Supreme Court decision which says that if a

00:25:10.760 province requests constitutional discussion on something, other provinces in Ottawa are bound

00:25:15.900 to at least come to the table and discuss it. So that's the point of the referendum on equalization

00:25:20.480 is to provoke a constitutional discussion showing how unfair this program is to Alberta and

00:25:27.680 demanding some change into it. Now, will it succeed? I don't know. But at least it's a step forward

00:25:33.740 that hasn't been tried yet. Another step that could be considered would be creation of Alberta-only

00:25:41.460 programs like Alberta Pension Plan, which again is an idea that goes back to the firewall letter.

00:25:49.540 There are some good economic arguments in favor of it, but COVID has made everybody, you know,

00:25:56.120 kind of afraid of everything. So COVID has really dampened our timetable, I would say. But those are

00:26:05.760 the kind of ideas that you'll find in the book is, well, what can we do? Founding a Western party

00:26:12.500 didn't work out. Well, it worked for a while, you know. I'd say it was great while it lasted. But in the

00:26:19.540 longer run, it's been kind of swallowed up by the system. Yeah. Well, I'm really impressed by the

00:26:25.520 quality of authors and scholars who have written these essays. Like it's a, it's a compendium of

00:26:32.140 views. I mean, Preston Manning writes the first essay. Ted Morton's in there. Donald Savoy.

00:26:37.440 Derek Burney. Barry Cooper. David Berkerson. Like these are, these are not wild eyed, you know,

00:26:47.600 populist rabble rousers. I mean, maybe they are, maybe they would call themselves that as a point

00:26:52.480 of pride. You know, I don't say that as an insult, but I mean, these are PhDs. These are nationally

00:26:58.560 known economists. These are people who have been around for decades and have had, so I mean, you know,

00:27:05.300 maybe I, maybe you'd call yourself a wild eyed man and, and, uh, you know, maybe a couple others

00:27:10.060 were, but putting kidding aside, this is a serious treat. I think this is the first serious treatment

00:27:15.520 of what happens if it doesn't work. And I think this perhaps normalizes a conversation

00:27:23.920 where separatism has to be an option. The reason I say that is if there's no, or else you'll never win

00:27:30.700 a negotiation. I mean, Donald Trump had many flaws, but one of his great strengths is he knew how to

00:27:37.000 negotiate. And the first thing you have to be able to do is walk away from the table, walk away from a

00:27:41.640 bad deal. There has to be an or else. And I don't think Alberta has ever had the or else. There was

00:27:47.020 very briefly Peter Law, he toyed with maybe turning off the taps. Um, but I don't even know if the East 0.75

00:27:53.800 would care anymore. They, uh, I don't know. I mean, I'm excited about this book, but it's only a very

00:27:59.000 first step, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And, uh, yeah, thank you for pointing out the quality of the

00:28:04.480 contributors. I think Jack Mintz, uh, the book was his idea and he recruited, uh, many of the

00:28:11.040 contributors. Um, you know, Jack has now become, I would say the leading economic commentator in

00:28:16.820 Canada today on our public policy. And, um, some of the other people are absolutely top drawer like

00:28:23.320 Derek Burney. Uh, you know, Derek was, uh, ambassador to the United States. He was chief of staff

00:28:28.840 uh, for, for the prime minister, for prime minister Mulroney. I mean, this is a guy who

00:28:33.620 really knows his way around government. And Derek has a striking statement in his chapter. He says,

00:28:39.200 you know, if, if Alberta continues to be kicked around as it is now, separatism is a completely

00:28:44.920 understandable response that these are my words, not his, but that's the sentiment of it. So, um,

00:28:51.320 yeah, these are some top flight people in this, uh, in this book and very serious thinkers.

00:28:56.600 Uh, so where will it go? It's, you know, as I say, it's, you're right. It's the first step and

00:29:03.680 that's the way we envisioned it is to, um, give people something to think about, put some ideas

00:29:09.360 on the table. Uh, we are writers and scholars. We obviously aren't going to do this ourselves.

00:29:15.060 Our role is to bring ideas to the surface, but see what the political leaders can come up with.

00:29:21.380 Uh, your, your point about having a threat, I think it's important. And one disappointment for

00:29:27.720 me was, uh, the way that Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta was a good friend and I support, but,

00:29:33.740 you know, he's gone out of his way to repeatedly say that the separatism is not an option. We won't

00:29:40.720 even talk about it. And I think that takes away the threat right, right at the beginning. And I think

00:29:46.300 you do need that threat. Um, even if you don't talk about it all the time, I think you need it

00:29:50.820 in the background. So anyway, we're at the very early stages here and COVID has scrambled everything.

00:29:58.340 Um, but, uh, I believe we will get back more or less to normal eventually. And these issues are

00:30:05.540 going to come back because this is a perennial problem for Alberta of being exploited, uh, 0.96

00:30:11.700 by, by Eastern Canada where, you know, it's all actually very simple when you come right down to it,

00:30:16.820 the votes are in Eastern Canada. Uh, the resource wealth is in Alberta, uh, to some extent, other Western

00:30:23.300 provinces. And it's a, it's a very big temptation for politicians to cater to the votes and appropriate

00:30:30.660 the resource wealth. And, uh, it can be a winning political strategy for long periods of time until

00:30:35.940 the, sometimes the effects become so bad that it has to be suspended, but it keeps coming back

00:30:41.540 because it's, uh, it works. Uh, so Donald Savoy and his, you know, he's one of the top political

00:30:46.740 scientists in Canada, perhaps considered the leading expert on Canadian political institutions. He's from

00:30:52.660 the Maritimes, not a Westerner, but he's got a powerful analysis in that book of how Canadian

00:30:57.780 political institutions are systematically rigged to favor population majorities in central Canada.

00:31:04.420 Yeah. The book's called moment of truth. How to think about Alberta's future. I like this line

00:31:08.740 in the, on the back part brainstorm, part blueprint and part rallying cry. I think that's true. You know,

00:31:16.340 um, I'm glad you mentioned Jason Kenny and I've known him for ages too. We were part of the snack

00:31:21.300 back together who went out with Preston Manning. I mean, Manning, he rose in response to the first

00:31:29.860 wave of Western separatism. Uh, I think some folks forget that the separatist party actually elected

00:31:36.340 an MLA in Alberta in a by-election. Preston Manning said, no, no, the West wants in. It was,

00:31:43.220 it was his counterpoint to separatists say, no, no, let's reform it. We want to stay in. Let's be the

00:31:50.100 do-gooders. Let's be so naively idealistic and our sheer good faith will win over the kleptocrats 0.99

00:31:57.300 out East. And, you know, um, we'll accomplish through love what, uh, what these separatists

00:32:03.060 can't do through ferocity. I don't think that succeeded. Stephen Harper, I think, uh, ameliorated

00:32:10.660 a lot of these problems just by, you know, being less hostile to the West and making it more Western

00:32:16.260 friendly. He was helped by a few other things, including, I don't know, strong oil prices. He

00:32:22.020 just didn't get in the way. But here's the thing about Jason Kenney. I think, and I, I mean, I like

00:32:27.780 the guy too, although I, I think he's been heavy handed during the lockdown. I think he wants to run

00:32:33.780 for prime minister. I think he wants, uh, perhaps to be reelected as Alberta premier. He's still young,

00:32:39.460 very early fifties, um, finish up Alberta. Well, he's at a disastrous year and a half

00:32:45.460 and then run for federal office. But, and so everything he's saying and doing in Alberta as

00:32:52.500 regards to the federal government, I think part of his brain is thinking, how will this sound in five

00:32:57.220 years when I'm running to be prime minister? So I can't say anything that would even have a whiff

00:33:05.620 of, of separatism or even alienation or even, um, so I, I, I think that he's not fully dedicated

00:33:14.180 to the present task of representing Alberta or the West because he's got his eye on that main chance

00:33:20.100 later when Aaron O'Toole fails. Will he come in and, and take that job? That's my hunch. That's my

00:33:26.980 hunch. I have no basis for that other than speculation. Well, you may be right. You know, I don't have any

00:33:31.620 information on Jason's mind, so I can't say, but it's certainly a, uh, a plausible explanation.

00:33:37.860 Uh, but you know, I've worked for politicians for a long time associated with them. And so I don't,

00:33:42.020 I don't expect perfection. I just, uh, look for some movement and in the direction that I'm

00:33:48.660 think is necessary. And, uh, we can criticize what Jason has done, but he is in fact holding the

00:33:54.820 referendum on equalization, which is a, or can be a first step towards Alberta's self-assertion.

00:34:01.780 So I'm willing to, you know, take that in good faith and see what comes from that. If it, uh,

00:34:06.740 now I am a little concerned that up to this point, the government hasn't really made much of a case

00:34:12.180 in the public mind for why it's holding this referendum. They've allowed opponents to, uh,

00:34:17.700 to define it thus far. I can't tell you how many times I've heard talking heads say

00:34:21.780 this referendum is pointless because equalization is, uh, is a matter of federal legislation,

00:34:28.020 uh, you know, which is true, but that's only the beginning of the story.

00:34:32.660 Um, it's based in the constitution and there's possibility for discussing the terms of it and so

00:34:37.620 on. Uh, but the government hasn't been very aggressive in, in utilizing this opportunity.

00:34:43.460 So we're gonna have to see what happens. It's an opportunity. And what will the government make of

00:34:47.700 it? Uh, I hope they, I hope they make something. Can't say for sure until we see it.

00:34:53.060 Um, I'm not gonna ask you to predict the future, but if, if you, I'm gonna ask you to tell our viewers,

00:34:58.580 if you wouldn't mind answering this, which you think is the best future. So not which

00:35:03.060 you predict will be done. But if, if Alberta wanted to move away from the word, no, no pipeline,

00:35:11.380 no oil sands, no freedom, no, no, no. And if it wanted to, I don't know, to borrow a phrase,

00:35:17.540 have some self-determination. Um, do you think

00:35:23.780 staying in Canada and making the case like Preston Manning did, if that's option one,

00:35:29.300 option two, trying to become the 51st state, maybe set off against Puerto Rico, add two more stars,

00:35:36.580 one Republican, one Democrat to the flag or option three, trying to be some sort of independent

00:35:42.660 country. Which of those three alternatives do you think would allow Albertans to live their best

00:35:48.740 life? As the kids say, staying in Canada, trying to reform it, joining America as a 51st state or

00:35:55.300 trying some sort of independence? Well, you asked what would be the best option for, for Alberta,

00:36:01.540 not what I think will happen necessarily, but what would be the best? Well, the best option,

00:36:05.860 I think pretty clearly would be remaining in Canada, which has, you know, many, many great

00:36:12.020 assets and virtues. Um, and assuming our proper role in Canada and getting a government, which is

00:36:19.300 not constantly trying to block us. Now we thought that might be possible for a while. Uh, can that be

00:36:26.900 done? Uh, I guess as a step towards that, some of us are proposing these, you might call independent,

00:36:34.340 uh, independent, what's the right word? Autonomism, I guess is the word we use. We're proposing these

00:36:40.020 autonomous alternatives that make Alberta more self-reliant within, but still within Confederation.

00:36:48.900 There are big, uh, huge, huge problems involved, um, in, uh, trying to, uh, join the United States.

00:36:58.740 Uh, uh, you know, I'm not sure that we'd be welcome as long as the Democrats are in power.

00:37:04.580 Um, and the United, the problems in the United States, you know, I would say at least as big as

00:37:10.580 those in Canada, um, and as being a sovereign state, well, yeah, it has a certain attraction,

00:37:17.220 but we would be landlocked. And so we would still have big transit problems to work out. You know,

00:37:23.060 we're worried about our, uh, access to tidewater and so forth. Well, that doesn't go away just with

00:37:28.740 the declaration of sovereignty. So, you know, the ideal solution would be, uh, uh, a better,

00:37:37.620 a better version of Canada, which recognizes Alberta's ambitions and doesn't treat Alberta

00:37:42.900 just as a golden goose. Uh, can we achieve that? Um, I don't know that it's, it's, it's depressed.

00:37:50.260 The record is depressing. I have to say that many of the authors, you know, sort of of my generation,

00:37:55.220 people who are now in their seventies and spent, uh, many, many years, um, working for the reform

00:38:03.300 of Canada and in various political movements, whether it was a reform party or the Canadian

00:38:08.420 Alliance, the conservative party of Canada, or some of the provincial parties, um, other national

00:38:13.940 parties, uh, you know, we were all kind of rolling the same way and thought we had made

00:38:19.380 progress and they're seeing it all undone in the last few years. It's been very, very depressing.

00:38:24.900 And that's the mood behind this, this book. We wouldn't 10 years ago, or even five years ago,

00:38:30.020 we wouldn't have written the book this way, but we've seen so much lost since 2015 with the block

00:38:36.660 blockade and there's obstruction of pipelines and, uh, attacks on our basic industries.

00:38:42.340 Um, so that's, that's the mood behind this book, but for me still, uh, reform of Canada would be the

00:38:52.660 best outcome. Uh, others say, look, Tom, you've, uh, you know, you're, you're just naive. It can't be

00:38:59.700 done. And they're turning in a more separatist direction. And then, and I respect that. And maybe

00:39:05.460 that could be the spur to some meaningful negotiations. Uh, if Jay Hill can get some

00:39:11.140 results with his Maverick party and make it seem like a real, uh, a real force, you know,

00:39:16.020 that might, that might lead to some change too. I mean, you're absolutely right. When you said about

00:39:20.260 Quebec that all their gain political gains, which are enormous, have been made with the threat of

00:39:26.020 separatism in the background. Um, there was always that fear, you know? Yeah. Um, to improve things

00:39:35.140 within Canada, uh, the template of Quebec shows you need to have a credible threat to

00:39:41.060 leave Canada. I suppose it's like a bad marriage. Um, uh, the threat to leave the threat of a divorce

00:39:48.580 might focus the mind of the other party to improve the marriage itself. I'm trying to use an analogy,

00:39:53.540 you know, Dr. Tom, it's, I was just thinking, uh, when I first met you at the university of Calgary,

00:39:59.060 I was a teenager and these same issues were being described. I am 49 now, and I'm not sure what

00:40:06.580 progress has been made on these files. Um, the book is called moment of truth, how to think about

00:40:11.940 Alberta's future. Uh, you'll, we'll have a link below this video that you can click to get a copy.

00:40:18.100 Great to see you again. And I look forward to meeting up, uh, perhaps next time I'm in Calgary.

00:40:22.260 Thanks for your time today. Okay, Ezra. Thanks for having me on. Our pleasure. There you have it.

00:40:26.740 Dr. Tom Flanagan, who was one of the editors of the book moment of truth. Stay with us more ahead.

00:40:44.740 Well, that's our show for today. What do you think? Do you think Alberta will be able to resist

00:40:48.180 the squawking from the fancy people, the official people, the public health deep state,

00:40:52.660 or do you think they'll flip-flop again? They, they used to be the best province. Then they became

00:40:57.220 the worst. Now, except for their, you know, persistent hounding of some dissidents like the

00:41:05.060 Pawlowski's, they're the best province again. Do you think they'll be able to resist the pressure

00:41:10.260 from the Globe and Mail and the CBC and all these TV doctors? I wonder. I, uh, I think it'll be a

00:41:16.820 fascinating test. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, had a lot of resistance in the beginning,

00:41:22.420 but he held firm and he's reaped not only the public policy success, a healthy state with a

00:41:27.700 booming economy, but the political success and people respect them. It'll be very interesting to see

00:41:33.300 if the Alberta government can resist the peer pressure. That's our show for today. Until

00:41:38.180 tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home,

00:41:41.620 good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 03, 2021

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta has gone from normal to crazy back to normal again

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