EZRA LEVANT ｜ Alberta secession is no longer just a rural movement
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Summary
A visit to the Western Standard offices in Calgary to talk about Alberta independence. It s May 14th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show. We're very interested in Alberta. I was born and raised in Alberta although I've been in Toronto for more than a decade. I can no longer call myself an Alberta in exile, although my heart feels pretty Albertan. But in Alberta, I think the carriers of the torch, the keepers of the flame of what it means to be an Albertan and what Albertaness is, are our friends at Western Standard.
Transcript
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Tonight, a visit to the Western Standard offices in Calgary
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to talk about Alberta independence. It's May 14th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Well, we're very interested in Alberta. I was born and raised in Alberta, although,
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you know, I've been in Toronto for more than a decade. I can no longer call myself an Alberta
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in exile, although my heart feels pretty Albertan. But in Alberta, I think the carriers of the torch,
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the keepers of the flame of what it means to be Albertan and what Albertaness is. If you're
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Alberta-ish, I'm making up words, are our friends at Western Standard. And I have a little bit of
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history with that name because 15, 20 years ago, there was the Western Standard print magazine.
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Derek Fildebrandt and his team have revived that old name and have built something big.
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I think most of our viewers know you, Derek, but give us one minute on the Western Standard
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new media corporation. Just give us a lay of the land.
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Well, the remnants of Western Standard old media corporation are actually hanging on the wall.
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We've got the magazine covers right behind us down the hall there. But in 2019, we brought the
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Western Standard back as an online publication, really to fill the vacuum in independent media
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in the West, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan. But we've branched out in large measure of BC now.
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And we, you know, we've got our headquarters here in downtown Calgary with full-time offices in
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Edmonton, Regina, Vancouver, and we've got dozens of freelancers hither and yon between Victoria and
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And we've got a few Eastern bastards on the payroll.
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Well, you got to keep an eye on Ottawa because that's where, unfortunately, a lot of the decisions
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in Canada are made. Even though our constitution would grant a lot of powers to the provinces
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through the power of the purse, as in just buying their way in or bullying their way in,
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Ottawa runs a lot of things that the framers of our constitution never intended.
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Well, you know, that's one reason we're going to get a reporter back on Parliament Hill,
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I think, in fairly short order. But, you know, today's Western Standard, the Western Standard
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that you ran in your day, and the Alberta report that predated that, really had the mission
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of carrying the torch of the Western cause. Our style guide has West capitalized for good
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reason, because we see it as a very clear political and social and economic identity.
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And it's, you know, it's taken many forms over the years. And it's evolved, you've been
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able to see it evolve through the pages of the Alberta report, the old Western Standard
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and the new Western Standard. And I think where we're coming to today is the culmination
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You know, I engaged in some self-harm on the way over, I read a column in the Globe and
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Mail by Andrew Coyne, basically saying, basically saying, hey, Albertans, you have no right to
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complain, we shouldn't indulge you. You know, I could sum it up with, shut up, comma, he explained.
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And I knew this would happen when Quebec says, we're hard done by our rights aren't being
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respected, we're not the masters of our own house. The rest of the country, or at least
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as represented in Ottawa, bends over backwards. Hey, you want three seats out of nine on the
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Supreme Court, even though that's disproportionate? You got it. You want bilingualism across the
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Yeah. And, I mean, forget about it, talking about just plain old cash. I think we're about
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to see the most astonishing demonization of Alberta ever, of any province ever. And I even
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saw with Mark Carney in one of his campaign stops, he sort of ridiculed Danielle, Danielle Smith,
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the premier, in a way he would never do with any other premier of any stripe. I think there's a,
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there's a casual, easy default, hate the West. It's, it's the dog you can kick. It's,
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it's the group you can mock in Canada and not worry about it. I feel like a storm is coming.
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Yeah. I mean, going to the, uh, globe column you're talking about from coin, uh, it's East planning,
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you know, it's, they're explaining to the West how the West should feel. Um, although the main
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audience is actually in the East, you know, the, you know, most globe readers are going to be in the
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East, uh, explaining, uh, it's meant to be telling the West how it is, but it's really meant to be
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consumed by Easterners and it's, uh, it's obviously patronizing. Um, uh, you know, uh, what was
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astonishing to me, uh, there was also saying first, you have no, uh, really big, maybe you've got some
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little gripes and, you know, we could talk about that. Uh, you know, I'm sure one election could fix
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it all. And, uh, but more astonishing was you don't actually have a right to leave. Uh, in fact,
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why does anyone have a right to break up a country to which I thought, well, you know, people in
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Yugoslavia, the Soviet union, the British empire, the Ottoman empire, the Habsburg empire, um, might
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beg to differ. Uh, I mean, we have, uh, a pretty universally recognized, at least on paper, right, uh, in the
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world to self-determination of a geographically concentrated people. Um, that's how we get, uh, nation
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states out of the old empires and things like that. Um, and many Albertans, uh, are, uh, now want
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to exercise that right. Just as I do believe Quebecers have that right. I guess the question
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is, and maybe fairly in both cases is, is this a negotiating tactic or is this for real? And many
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in Quebec genuinely are on the independent side. Others use that as so-called profitable.
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Like a good cop, bad cop. Yeah. Yeah. Use it as leverage. Um, some in Alberta want to use it as
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leverage. I think that's a failing strategy. If we're going to do, if we're going to play the
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independence game, we play it to win because we want to be an independent country.
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You know, uh, to separate sounds like something would move, like you would sort of cut out a chunk
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of geography and move it. Everything would remain the same. The buildings, the roads, the people,
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it would just be the final deciders on certain constitutional matters. Instead of living in
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Ottawa and coming from Quebec and Ontario, they would live in Alberta. I mean, um, all matters
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of provincial jurisdiction would remain within Alberta, of course. And what else is there? There's,
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there's foreign affairs, there's coins and stamps and passports. And like the, the change on the
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ground, you would wake up the next morning in Alberta, it would still look the same.
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Um, the, the courts would be there. Maybe, maybe the laws would be slightly amended. They would
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only take Ontario rulings as, um, persuasive, not binding, let's say. Like I, like I just think
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everyone would get up the next day if there was a separate, and other than the apoplexy in the media
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political class, actually not a ton would change in an everyday way. Other than suddenly the province
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would find itself a lot richer and perhaps in control of certain out of control policies. I don't
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think it would be as terrifying as the boogeyman scare tactics suggest.
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Yeah. I think, you know, trying to find, there's no exact apples to apples comparison, but, uh,
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it would be perhaps similar to the partition of Czechoslovakia and to Cheshia and Slovakia,
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Oh yes. And, and they're still where they were, you know, they can still go back and forth.
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Yeah. Yeah. Actually, uh, it, it, but the EU actually, perhaps there's even less border
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than there was. Um, perhaps it's semi analogous without, uh, red coats and blue coats firing
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at each other to the, you know, what happened with the American revolution where it was an
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inherently conservative revolution in the sense that, you know, they weren't trying to
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build some brave new utopia. They were trying to reassert ancient rights that they had seen
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as taken away from them. So when the Americans achieved independence from the British crown,
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uh, they largely, you know, they designed a new form of government, but largely kept most
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of their social and legal institutions intact because it was inherently conservative revolution.
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It wasn't, uh, you know, a liberal revolution like 1848. It wasn't a socialist revolution like,
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you know, 1917. Uh, it was about trying to reassert something that they believed they had always
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had. And I think that's, uh, you know, I, I think that's at the heart of, of the independence
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movement in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I have started to wrestle with the question of, are
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we in a technically revolutionary period? Um, I mean, the term revolution is, uh, hard
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to pin down. Uh, have you ever listened to the revolutions podcast? No. It's a really good
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one. Yeah. Uh, it's a very good one. And you know, what we consider to be a revolution
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is, uh, it's difficult to pin down. Um, I think if we do achieve independence, then retroactively
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we get to call this a revolutionary period. Uh, if we don't, then perhaps not. But, uh,
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in Alberta and Saskatchewan, uh, there, there is something very different happening right
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now. Um, and, and it's, you know, no, no one's talking about a radically new form of government.
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It's just, uh, largely in large measure, keeping our form of government, keeping most of our
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institutions, uh, but decentralizing them from a distant imperial government in Ottawa and,
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and repatriating them if, uh, to borrow a term from the first Trudeau, repatriating, uh, the
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constitution to a local level. Yeah. You know, I, I'm not as familiar with American constitutional
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texts as I am with our own, but in the Declaration of Independence, I think that they talk about a
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distant and partisan king or something, someone far away across the ocean, ruling things in the
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colonies. And that in itself was a quarrel. I mean, well, Ottawa is not much further from Calgary
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than, uh, Boston was from London. So let's, we should, we should keep that in mind. Hey,
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I want to talk to you about something that I'm still like a lot of Canadians, I think,
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turning it over in my mind. Six months ago, I thought we were going to have a majority government
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with Pierre Polyev and some of the things he, he proposed, I think would have lowered the temperature
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in Alberta, the same way Stephen Harper's victory did, uh, over a decade ago. Um, that didn't happen.
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And I think it's, it's pretty universally acknowledged. It didn't happen because of
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the United States and in particular, Donald Trump, you could say it was over the tariffs or the 51st state
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narrative, but I really think that he caused a shift that, that led to Mark Carney being prime
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minister. And I don't understand why he did that. I don't even know if he understands why I don't know
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if he even meant to do it. He seems to be taking credit for it. Here's my point. Um, if there's an
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independence referendum next year, I think there will be, I think Donald Trump could kill it in a word
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if he said, Oh good, we're going to devour you. Cause I think Albertans, um, would want to be the masters
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of their own house to borrow the Quebec language. Sovereignty association might be an outcome to borrow
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another Quebec term. But I think in a, in, with the flick of his tail, mighty President Trump, the same way
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he effectively chose our prime minister could, I think, sink the independence movement. I don't think he could
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make it because if he endorsed it, people would oppose it. If he, like I, I, almost anything he
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does, I think could sink it. Am I too worried about that? Yes and no. Um, yeah, you know, I mean,
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he's tried to take credit for putting Carney in after I, I, I get the impression that's more, uh,
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ex post facto where, where he's just, that happened. And it's Trump smack talking as Trump does.
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Um, I mean, look, if, if Trump said, uh, yeah, we want Alberta as our 51st state, I think that would,
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uh, harm the cause of, uh, any constitutional change, uh, significantly. Uh, independence always
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pulls significantly higher than joining the United States. Um, but there are other options that could
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be realistically considered. One is, um, you know, economic union, um, you know, and, and kind of
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incentives that might come with that. Uh, you know, if, if Trump, uh, you know, I'll, I don't
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think Albertans want to be a part of the United States at this time. It's just not a mainstream
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opinion. And much as the legacy media and Eastern media claim this is a fringe movement, uh, it's
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the lowest in polls at 33%. Some polls have it in the low forties. Uh, that's significantly higher
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than the NDP and liberals get in Alberta combined. So, you know, if that's a fringe movement, then
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the being a leftist is a fringe movement in Alberta. Uh, I, it's a large minority movement
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that I think has the potential to win. Not, uh, it's not standing to win yet, but, you know,
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if Trump were to say, well, you know, if Albertans decide they want to be their own country, I'm
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willing to offer economic union with current, if you want, if you wanted to kind of maybe make
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that happen, offer currency exchange, you know, um, you know, when West Germany absorbed East
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Germany, they did a one for one Deutschmark to whatever East German commie mark was called.
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And, and that was very expensive because they were absorbing a much larger entity relative
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themselves. And it was like, uh, you know, one to four in currency, uh, Canadian dollar
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as bad as it is. It isn't as bad, you know, you'd have a lot of Torontonians sneaking in
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and saying, I'm an Albertan. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so I think, you know, if he was being subtle
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and, and I, one thing Trump is not known for is being subtle. Uh, but if, you know, if he wanted
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to see something like this, he would put some reasonable measures towards economic union,
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uh, not political union, but economic union in the window. Uh, I mean, our, our main commodity oil
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and gas are already sold in American dollars. Our, our, our economy runs North, South, not East, West.
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So, so that kind of thing could make sense. If Trump wanted to hasten something like that,
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he could make some moderate measures like that, uh, that, that, that could incentivize it. If he
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wants to kill it, uh, he could either say he's against it or he could say he's for it. But both
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of those, any intervention from him, uh, that is that plain, which tends to be his style, I think
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would hurt him. Yeah. I think you're right. Huh. You know, um, well, I would say just in terms of,
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uh, Trump involvement, uh, he does present a unique opportunity, uh, for this to succeed
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after the fact. Um, you know, I, I, I think ideally this goes through a clarity act process
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that is legal, constitutional. Um, the first two parts of the clarity act are that it has to be a
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clear question and a clear majority. And I'm in agreement on that. Uh, after that, it gets murkier.
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Uh, you have a conflict between clarity act and then the universal right to self-determination
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of a geographically concentrated people. And, you know, so we would need to negotiate with
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Ottawa and the other nine provinces and have a virtual unanimity of them. And in the meantime,
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they can put a hundred poison pills in it, making it impossible to leave. Uh, as Cohen was saying in
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his globe column just this morning, uh, meaning Alberta will never get to leave because no one
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will ever agree to let them go. What matters then is not, uh, you know, some Kumbaya agreement
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that we'll never get with Ottawa and the other provinces. What matters is international recognition.
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And if we obtain recognition from the United States, well, that is independence on that day.
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Yeah. You know, there's about 30 odd, I forget the exact number of, uh, conservative MPs from Alberta
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every time. And Saskatchewan goes largely conservative too. Um, if Alberta were to leave to become
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independent or some other arrangement, it's, it's quite sure that the conservative party of Canada
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would never win again in terms of like, if you took away 30 seats from them and if Saskatchewan left
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too, the conservative party of Canada is expressly a federalist party. So I think it's going to be very
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interesting in the next 18 months to see what the federal conservatives, including the Alberta
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members of the federal conservatives say about all this, because some of them will be sympathetic in
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their hearts. But, uh, if the, if the federal party gets tagged as being separatist or separatist
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friendly, that could harm the federal conservatives in the, in Eastern, Central, Atlanta, Canada.
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Well, first, I, I actually don't think it would mean that, uh, you know, the conservatives never win a,
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you know, post Alberta or post Alberta, Saskatchewan independence federal election
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again. Uh, the political landscape simply reorients itself. It'll orient, uh, to be like the old
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progressive conservative party, pre-reformed party, uh, that is more Eastern based. It would be
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further left. Doug Ford. I was just going to say, I mean, you could, you, it would be just more of a
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Doug Ford style federal conservative party, uh, that I, you know, it, like look at an Eastern
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Canada, the, uh, Atlantic Canada, the, uh, you know, there's so-called conservative parties that
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went out there. They're scarcely conservative in most cases, a few exceptions. Uh, so I, I, I do
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think the landscape just, uh, adopts and shifts itself. Um, uh, I mean, you know, if Quebec left,
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that doesn't mean the liberals would never form government again. The liberals would just have
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to adapt to it. Um, but you know, to your point about, uh, you know, the conservatives here,
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um, yeah, a lot of them are going to be torn their careers. Tell them, shut up at least.
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Yeah. Just, just avoid the topic because in a lot of their hearts, a lot, a lot of these guys are
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Alberta patriots, uh, and Saskatchewan patriots. So it was like the trucker convoy in that it was
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in their hearts, but the former leader, Aaron O'Toole said, you can't express that. You can't meet
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with them. Remember? And, and the party was so adamant, they defenestrated O'Toole. It was quite
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something. I, I think there's going to be some of that same tension here. You're going to have
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some, especially on the rural side, there's going to be rural parts of Alberta where separatism is
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60%. I, I, I, I think this is different. Um, that was differences of opinion on a policy and social
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issue. Uh, this is a fundamentally constitutional national identity issue. The conservative party
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of Canada, by definition, has to be a Canadian, pan-Canadian federalist party by definition. Um,
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the Alberta UCP is different. It is a Alberta party. Smith is trying to walk a fine line,
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allowing both it to be home for conservative federalists and the independence movement,
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which is difficult. Federally, I don't see the same room. I think conservative MPs who
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want to speak their mind, stay true to themselves on this, who, and many of them are genuine federalists.
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It's not a problem for that, but, uh, the Alberta MPs federally, uh, they have to sit outside the
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conservative party and, and, and that, that is unfortunate, but you can't leave, you can't form
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a new country without forming new parties. Yeah. I think that there's going to be that stress within
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the federal conservatives, but also like, I'm just looking out the window of your boardroom here,
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and I see the towers of downtown Calgary. There are many corporations that are national in scope.
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Uh, Calgary is a large interconnected city. It's connected with the world financially, et cetera.
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And I think that there'll be similar pressure on the business community that anyone who has a
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position of leadership will be told don't endorse such a radical extremist anti-Canadian movement.
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And I think there's going to be some real pressure on people not to express their feelings,
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their political views, or be canceled by, I mean, I understand in politics, ideas are what the party's
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about. So they have to have, you know, these are the four corners of what we believe in. If you don't
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believe them, you're in the wrong party. But what about leaders of national or international companies?
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What about people who have a, like if there was a sports star from the Calgary Flames or the Edmonton
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Oilers who, who came out for separatism, I think that the league would smash them. I think that anyone
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who has a vulnerability to central Canadian group think narrative control would be smashed.
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Um, well, there's going to be a lot of pressure for that, but I mean, the independence movement,
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you know, it's like a wave coming into the beach and goes out, but it comes a little bit closer every
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time. Others compare it more to a well flare, uh, whatever, whatever your metaphor, uh, this one is
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different. This one is radically different than everyone before, uh, you know, without meaning to,
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uh, you know, denigrate previous waves of it, of which I've been a part. So I'd have to denigrate
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myself if that's the case. Uh, this is not just a couple of cranks on the prairies, uh, ranting about
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the Eastern bastards. Um, you know, the one square kilometer around where we're sitting here in
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downtown Calgary, you would not believe what the words I've heard come out of the mouths of senior
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business leaders. This is not a, uh, crank on the ranch movement anymore. But they're saying that to
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you privately. When I look around, I mean, there, there, there is some fear yet of speaking. I'll put
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it this way. Some of them, uh, a lot of them are, are, are, are there now ready to vote yes in the
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of the ballot box. Uh, many of them are now at the point where they will openly say, and it's not just
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in private to me, they'll openly say where they are on, on independence, but they're not yet prepared
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to go stand at a podium or write a column about it, uh, you know, in, on a public setting, but, uh,
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they're there. And, and this is bringing credibility. Uh, I expect it'll probably be
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bring, uh, funding the, the federalist side will be infinitely funded by, by governments and, and just.
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And how do you stop that? I mean, you can have a law, you can have elections, Alberta, try and enforce
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it, but try stopping the internet. I think you're going to have every political activist in Canada.
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You're going to have international activists. You're going to have, um, anti-oil activists. You might have,
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uh, foreign countries with some stake in it. I don't know. I mean, OPEC would probably want
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Alberta to stay shackled within Canada. I don't know what China would say. I don't know what,
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uh, I, I, and of course we don't know what America's deep state would say. They probably
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wouldn't mind getting their hands on the oil. And maybe they think that independence is a
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halfway step. I, I think it would be a free for all and, and everyone in the world would,
00:23:38.120
Yeah. I, I, I'm concerned about foreign actors on both sides and by foreign actors,
00:23:43.000
I'm also including Ottawa. I'm including Ottawa as a foreign power in this, um, really anyone,
00:23:48.760
um, uh, you know, Pacific coast to Winnipeg or Flan Flan. It's a debate for everyone within there.
00:24:01.720
Right. Uh, if you're outside of that, you know, I, I, I, uh, uh, north, south, uh, sorry, no,
00:24:07.240
if you're south of it, uh, uh, west of that or east of that, I, I'd like it to stay out. I'm not
00:24:13.740
sure. I'm quite sure actually it's not possible to, to do that. Uh, there's going to be, there,
00:24:20.100
there are so many agendas involved on both sides.
00:24:22.680
And in the age of social media, how do you even know?
00:24:24.920
It's impossible to regulate. I mean, you, you can do your best to not make it so blatant. Uh,
00:24:30.880
but do we really think that the people's Republic of China doesn't have its ways or that the CIA
00:24:36.280
doesn't have its ways or CSIS? I mean, if you and I aren't on a list already, we're not doing
00:24:40.780
with something right. Well, listen, I've, I've really enjoyed this good chat and you've put
00:24:45.340
some things in my mind that I, that I'm going to think about some more. Um, I, let me throw you
00:24:51.320
one last question. It's about Brexit about a decade ago, the United Kingdom, they had a conservative
00:24:56.720
prime minister who said, all right, you separatists, I'm going to throw you a bone. Let's, let's give
00:25:02.800
you a chance, blow off some steam. We're going to have a referendum and I'll show you no one supports
00:25:07.860
you. Look at me. I'm so democratic. I'm going to, and what do you know? The people shocked
00:25:14.040
the establishment. Everyone was against Brexit, all the banks, all the media, all the political
00:25:18.640
parties, except for Nigel Farage's UKIP. And it happened. And I think there's a chance of
00:25:25.540
it happening here. What, and Danielle Smith is sort of in that interesting place where she's
00:25:30.560
going to host the referendum, if not necessarily champion the exit. What, what, what hasn't
00:25:38.400
happened yet that you think might happen? Will, will a leader emerge? Will, will, will something
00:25:43.880
happen preemptively? Will Mark Carney surprise us all and, and be more attentive to the West? I don't
00:25:49.000
think his cabinet suggested. Help me, help me see into the future a little bit, because I don't know
00:25:53.220
what to look for. Well, it's Brexit's not the only great example. We have one much closer to home,
00:25:57.600
the Charlottetown Accord. The Charlottetown Accord, just like Brexit, had unanimous support on one
00:26:03.200
side, and that was to ratify the constitutional changes of the Charlottetown Accord. The Conservatives
00:26:08.760
supported it. The Liberals supported it. The NDP supported it. Labor unions supported it. The banks,
00:26:13.280
industry, everybody. CEOs would take out ads. Everybody who was invited to a cocktail party
00:26:19.240
anywhere in this country supported it. The only opponents were the Bloc Québécois and the Parti
00:26:25.540
and the Reform Party, a complete opposite. And they opposed it for radically different reasons,
00:26:30.540
but they opposed it from different sides. And it was defeated nearly everywhere outside of Ontario.
00:26:35.840
Yeah. Of course, Ontario, Ontario loyal, she remains, will do what she's told. But, you know,
00:26:43.060
so like Brexit, it, you had all the institutions and civil society and business, all the different
00:26:49.780
parties lined up on one side. It's not necessarily going to work out, you know, that kind of Cinderella
00:26:56.760
story here. But I, today predicting, I think we have a one in three chance. And that's not bad. I mean,
00:27:05.440
it's better than the zero chance we've had for the last hundred odd years in Alberta.
00:27:09.300
Um, it, the movement's going to take new leadership to step up. Uh, people have been stepping up so far
00:27:18.320
and, uh, much of it's been positive. Um, but we're going to need, uh, our Nigel Farage. We're going to
00:27:26.560
need our Preston Manning, our George Washington, pick your historical figure. Uh, no, hopefully not a
00:27:32.720
George Washington because that means we're shooting. So, uh, hopefully we don't need Washington, but,
00:27:37.140
um, you know, uh, I, I'm, I'm pretty cautiously optimistic that because this is not purely just
00:27:46.460
the rural heartland of Alberta anymore, it's got people with some real financial and industrial
00:27:53.000
skin in the game who now want to see this happen. I, I, I'm cautiously optimistic. We're going to see,
00:27:59.800
uh, new leadership emerge, uh, to, to lead this in a way that is credible, that is not going to scare
00:28:06.340
people living in the, the two big cities of Alberta. Uh, and I, I don't discount Saskatchewan
00:28:13.460
being a part of this. Uh, uh, British Columbia, I want it to be a part of it, but I don't think
00:28:18.580
they're going to be the, they're not going to be the first man on the beach. They're coming in the
00:28:21.480
second wave. Uh, they, I don't think they're, I mean, the interior of BC is, is, is a different
00:28:25.980
creature from the lower mainland and the lower Island. Um, it could come someday, but they're not
00:28:30.600
going to be on the beach first. Uh, but I, I think our, our brothers in Saskatchewan, uh, feel what
00:28:37.760
we have. Uh, and, uh, who knows, maybe the leader, maybe the leader will be Alberta, one Saskatchewan.
00:28:46.480
Maybe there's someone who can lead both at the same time. Great to catch up with you.
00:28:50.240
Congratulations on the Western standard. Thank you very much. There he is, Derek.
00:28:53.200
Well, that's our show for today. I'll be back in Toronto tomorrow and I'll try not to East
00:28:59.600
explain things too much. I'll be a half of all of us at Rebel News, you at home. Good night