Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Danielle Smith makes it easier to separate, following Liberal win

00:00:00.100 Hello, my friends. Incredible news out of Alberta. That province has decided to allow citizens to call for a referendum to separate, and they've made it much easier than before.

00:00:11.600 Boy, we've got all the details. It's fascinating.

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00:01:04.380 Tonight, elbows up, Alberta defends itself against an abusive, faraway, hostile world leader

00:01:27.100 who means it economic harm.

00:01:29.680 I mean, Mark Carney, of course.

00:01:31.600 It's April 30th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:34.620 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:37.580 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:40.640 I'm going to spend most of the show today talking to you about Alberta and what Danielle Smith, the Premier, is doing to fight back in a deeply serious and fundamental way to the war being declared on Alberta by the new Prime Minister, Mark Carney.

00:02:02.980 But first, I want to talk for maybe five or ten minutes about the results of the election.

00:02:07.100 And again, I'm going to let it go, but there was something I noticed today that I thought you might find interesting.

00:02:12.920 Now, some people say I've been too positive about the election results.

00:02:15.960 I mean, a close second place is just a fancy way of saying loser, I guess.

00:02:21.120 And when measured against the benchmark of, what, six months ago, we all thought would happen, of course, it was a disaster on Monday.

00:02:29.000 I'm not thrilled that Pierre Pauly have lost his own seat either, but that's what a combination of redrawing a riding to change its demographics, oh, and mass migration will do to a country or a district.

00:02:41.380 We'll see how he remedies that.

00:02:42.780 Now, I have not heard a single Conservative, other than the Conservatives in name only in Ontario's provincial PC party, and they ran a demoralization campaign against their federal counterparts.

00:02:54.920 I haven't seen or heard a single real Conservative Party member call for Pierre Pauly have to step down.

00:03:00.600 The opposite.

00:03:02.360 The result, 41.3%, was the highest the party had received since the 1980s.

00:03:08.140 Trump was obviously a factor, but his comments didn't seem to put that much of a dent into the Conservative vote at all, actually.

00:03:15.520 Let me show you the polling again.

00:03:17.760 I don't always trust Wikipedia.

00:03:20.060 You always have to check the sources and the links.

00:03:22.640 But Wikipedia is good at compiling things.

00:03:25.340 For example, they have every single poll done in the 2025 election campaign.

00:03:30.660 So scroll down here and look at the dates.

00:03:32.960 This is every poll by every single company.

00:03:35.500 As you can see, sometimes there are several polls every day during the campaign.

00:03:39.800 So Pauly have wound up with 41.3% on election day.

00:03:43.000 But scroll, and other than one smaller pollster called Main Street, which had the Conservatives at that level in a couple of polls, there wasn't a single poll that put the Conservatives that high in the entire campaign.

00:03:55.540 So the campaign exceeded every single pollster's prediction, except for those few from Main Street.

00:04:00.560 But actually, my real point is this, keep scrolling, keep scrolling down to last summer and spring.

00:04:06.040 So I'm talking about 2024, when Justin Trudeau was still in power, when Mark Carney was frolicking in Europe, and the Conservatives were looking great.

00:04:14.520 But look at what you see there.

00:04:16.520 The Conservatives were at 40, 41, 42, the odd poll put them at 43 or whatever.

00:04:22.420 You see my point?

00:04:23.160 But Pierre Pauly and the Conservatives actually did as well as pollsters said they would do back in the glory days of 2024.

00:04:31.140 Even with Doug Ford's griping, the Conservative vote held.

00:04:35.300 All that changed, obviously, is the controlled demolition of the NDP and the Green Party.

00:04:41.760 Tell me where I'm wrong.

00:04:42.740 That's the difference between operating in a multi-party system versus a two-party system in a center-left country.

00:04:50.000 And it was so noticeable in Jagmeet Singh's speech on election night.

00:04:55.080 He didn't express a drop of emotion or concern or remorse or sorrow about the detonation of his party.

00:05:02.840 He really didn't.

00:05:03.740 He mentioned it in passing.

00:05:05.940 He seemed quite glad that he lost.

00:05:07.820 Why would he want to stick around and preside over the wreckage of what he had just ruined?

00:05:13.120 Here, let me choose a poll at random from last year, last April.

00:05:18.140 Here's one from a French-Canadian pollster named Palace.

00:05:21.160 I frankly haven't heard of them, but I just picked it at random.

00:05:23.320 You can see what I mean.

00:05:25.820 In this poll, 41% of people were for the Conservatives, 26% for the Liberals, 18% for the NDP.

00:05:32.900 So that's when everything looked awesome, majority government territory.

00:05:38.560 Then the NDP and the Greens quit, and their vote went to the Liberals, and the Liberals won.

00:05:43.840 I'm not making excuses.

00:05:45.180 I mean, a loss is a loss.

00:05:46.780 But the Conservatives performed as well on Monday as the poll said they would have performed a year ago against Justin Trudeau.

00:05:55.080 It's just that the opposition was split then and it united during the campaign.

00:05:58.920 So sure, the Trump factor hurt, but I think only in terms of pushing the NDP and the Greens behind the Liberals.

00:06:06.240 I don't think it chipped away at the Conservative numbers, not in any meaningful way.

00:06:09.960 All right.

00:06:10.200 Thanks for letting me get that out of my system.

00:06:12.480 But seriously, don't you think it's interesting that the Conservative number on Election Day really didn't change from their numbers last year?

00:06:21.000 I don't know.

00:06:21.400 I think it's interesting what we do with it.

00:06:22.860 I don't know.

00:06:23.680 Fact is, Mark Carney won.

00:06:25.160 Okay.

00:06:26.460 The election's over.

00:06:27.460 Maybe I'm trying to find a silver lining.

00:06:30.120 But Alberta.

00:06:31.000 Let's talk about Alberta.

00:06:32.060 They have done something very interesting.

00:06:35.020 Here, take a look at this.

00:06:36.140 Is the door still open to Alberta separating?

00:06:40.100 I feel that question wasn't directly answered.

00:06:42.280 Well, not by me.

00:06:43.520 I believe in Alberta's sovereignty within a united Canada.

00:06:46.780 However, there is a citizen-initiated referendum process that if citizens want to put a question on a ballot and get enough of their fellow citizens to sign that petition, then those questions will be put forward.

00:06:59.280 Again, I don't want to prejudge what a question might be, but not by our government.

00:07:02.520 After the break, we'll talk about that with Keith Wilson, the lawyer for the trucker convoy, who has now directed his mind to the prospect of Alberta just leaving.

00:07:15.420 Stay with us for more.

00:07:16.400 Stay with us for more.

00:07:46.400 Stay with us for more.

00:07:47.400 Stay with us for more.

00:08:16.380 That's Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:08:46.380 Oh, those are some Alberta things.

00:08:48.840 Recall citizens initiative.

00:08:50.780 That sounds like wonky reform party stuff.

00:08:53.580 And indeed it is.

00:08:54.440 Preston Manning talked about giving people democratic tools like recall, which is when you don't like a politician, you can call them back.

00:09:02.720 You don't have to wait till the end of an election.

00:09:04.640 Citizens initiative.

00:09:05.800 That means when you put a bill or a law forward, again, not from the legislature, but from the people.

00:09:12.000 But I think of those things, they're very important and that's part of the Alberta spirit.

00:09:15.920 But of course, the constitutional referendum and the lowering of the threshold of it is by far the most important thing, I think, that the premier said.

00:09:28.560 And you may say, well, this sounds out of the blue, what's this got to do with anything?

00:09:32.700 Well, it has to do with everything, including the re-election of globalist, socialist, environmentalist, anti-oilist Mark Carney.

00:09:42.580 Because as you may know, because we've talked about it before, in Canada, secession, that is leaving Canada, it's not banned, it's not illegal, it's not an act of war as it was in the United States during their civil war.

00:09:57.100 It is positively legal.

00:09:59.520 In fact, the law prescribes precisely how to do it.

00:10:02.500 And by lowering the threshold to 10% of people who voted in the previous election, as opposed to 20% of every possible voter, Premier Smith has just made it tremendously more accessible for people to trigger a secession vote.

00:10:25.840 Shots fired.

00:10:27.900 Joining us now to talk about this is Keith Wilson, King's Counsel, a lawyer in Alberta.

00:10:32.040 You may know him from the Freedom Convoy, but he's also someone dedicated to Alberta sovereignty.

00:10:37.560 He joins us now via Skype.

00:10:39.800 Keith, great to see you again.

00:10:40.820 Did I properly understand the import of what Premier Smith did?

00:10:47.120 Yeah, and what's important to understand for your viewers is that while the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that any province can vote to leave Canada, to become independent, to secede,

00:11:01.240 the triggering event for that is a referendum, and it's the provincial legislatures that control the details of what that referendum looks like.

00:11:12.720 In Alberta, we have the referendum statute that's been on the books for quite some time, and in that statute, the cabinet itself can call for a referendum on separation.

00:11:23.200 But we have this new law called the Citizens Initiative legislation, initially brought in by Jason Kenney under the UCP, that provided a process for citizens themselves to get together and compel the government of Alberta to hold a referendum on separation.

00:11:45.140 The problem, of course, and you've commented on this in other broadcasts, is it was a very complex piece of legislation and very difficult to meet the threshold.

00:11:54.600 The threshold was 600,000 signatures over the period of 90 days.

00:12:00.720 Well, what the Premier announced yesterday is that legislation is being amended, so the threshold for citizens to force the government to hold a referendum on separation is now lowered from 600,000 voters to 177,000, and there's 120 days to secure those signatures instead of just 90.

00:12:26.680 So it's a big change that will make Alberta more democratic and give greater say to the citizens.

00:12:37.400 It's dramatic.

00:12:38.680 I mean, I have said before that I thought that the way Jason Kenney, when he was Premier, put these laws on the books is I found it, frankly, I'm not going to say deceptive, but it was a placebo.

00:12:51.140 It was fake that the levels were so high and it was so impossible to do that it would be only the most extreme, like once a century cases that would rise to those levels.

00:13:02.860 To me, it felt like a fake bone thrown to Democrats and populists, because frankly, Jason Kenney, and I've known him for a while, he's never really been a populist.

00:13:14.880 But I think what Danielle Smith has done is she hasn't created this law. 0.99

00:13:18.960 She's just adjusted it to turn it from a fake thing that you hang on the wall to point to when someone says, how come you don't have more democracy?

00:13:26.340 Oh, we have the bill to turn it from a fake thing to a real thing that may actually be used.

00:13:31.920 I think it is absolutely doable to have 177,000 signatures in 120 days.

00:13:39.440 Obviously, you would want to get far more to make sure that there was no disqualification of some.

00:13:45.300 But I think that's absolutely doable.

00:13:48.060 The population of Alberta is approximately 5 million.

00:13:51.480 I don't know the absolute latest.

00:13:53.000 Could you get one in 25 or one in 30 Albertans to sign a referendum?

00:14:02.900 And by the way, they're not saying they agree with the referendum.

00:14:04.900 They just are allowing it to be held.

00:14:07.500 I think it's possible.

00:14:09.760 And I think it is a very clever way that Danielle Smith is sending a message to Mark Carney that Alberta's got its elbows up.

00:14:19.280 Absolutely.

00:14:19.760 And, you know, I do think it is doable.

00:14:24.060 The previous one, I felt the sentiment was so strong that it was possible.

00:14:31.660 I was not naive about the challenges of getting 600,000 signatures in that short a period of time.

00:14:38.260 This is most definitely doable.

00:14:41.560 And there's even a mechanism, Ezra, for in real time each week, for example, you can submit the signatures you have so they get vetted in real time.

00:14:54.060 So let's say you submit a batch of 50,000 signatures.

00:14:58.080 You can find out the next week that they're going to accept 48,000 of them.

00:15:02.500 So you know you're now 2,000 short, as opposed to submitting it all at the end.

00:15:06.460 And they invalidate a certain number of them and you end up being short by 1,000.

00:15:10.660 So there's even that fairness in the process, that transparency that I think is going to ensure that when a group comes forward to make the move to actually circulate the specific petition, that we will get, you know, 200,000 plus.

00:15:26.540 So there'll be no doubt that we've met the threshold.

00:15:29.460 Yeah.

00:15:29.620 And even if, let's say you got 176,000 out of the 177,000, it remains, as you mentioned, within the power of the cabinet to hold a referendum.

00:15:39.920 So if it was effectively there, but through some, the equivalent of a clerical error or a typo, it didn't quite cross the threshold, the premier could call the referendum nonetheless.

00:15:50.960 But here's the thing, and I've been thinking a lot about this in recent weeks.

00:15:54.540 Most of the media in Alberta is run out of Toronto.

00:16:00.560 And I suppose Rebel News is the same way.

00:16:02.740 I live in Toronto, even though my heart is very Western.

00:16:05.680 I was born in the West.

00:16:07.300 Our chief reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, is based in the West.

00:16:10.940 We love the West, but it is a fact we're in Toronto.

00:16:13.600 But that said, I own the company, so it's not like we're run by the Laurentian elites.

00:16:20.100 I regard myself as a bit of a rebel here in Toronto.

00:16:23.140 But most of the media in Alberta are like the radio stations, the newspapers, the TV stations.

00:16:30.520 They are owned and operated out of Toronto.

00:16:34.280 And I do not think, Keith, that the corporate owners, like let's say CTV, and I'm not picking on them, but I'm using them as an example.

00:16:42.900 CTV is owned by Bell.

00:16:44.940 Bell is a massive company of which CTV is a tiny part.

00:16:48.560 It's not even an important part.

00:16:50.780 Do you really think that BCE Enterprises, Bell Canada Enterprises, is going to allow its CTV reporters to reflect the will of the people?

00:17:01.220 Or will they turn into a smashing machine to smash anyone who dares to support this?

00:17:07.300 The CBC, it goes without saying.

00:17:09.260 They were just offered a $150 million bribe by Mark Carney to do his bidding.

00:17:14.360 Of course, they're going to smash the radio stations as well.

00:17:19.640 My point is, whoever pops their head up to do this is going to be subject to the most vicious cancel culture smear machine we have ever seen in this country.

00:17:33.280 If you think what they did to Pierre Polyev was bad, if you think what they did to Preston Manning and Stockwell Day was bad, all those guys wanted to do is be a part of the system.

00:17:44.600 But imagine if Albertans say, we're done being part of the system.

00:17:47.840 We want to leave.

00:17:48.760 We're taking our 170 billion barrels of oil with us.

00:17:52.740 And we may be the first domino to go.

00:17:56.580 I think we're talking deep state involvement.

00:18:00.760 We all worried about the assassination of Donald Trump, and it came within an inch of it.

00:18:06.520 When you're talking about 170 billion barrels of oil, when you're talking about changing entire country boundaries, there will be nothing that isn't thrown at this.

00:18:15.880 I just fear the greatest battle, the greatest hatchet job, the greatest assassination, the greatest fear campaign ever seen in Canada.

00:18:31.900 I'm not focused on that.

00:18:33.920 I'm not riveted by that.

00:18:35.100 I just have a terrible premonition that if Albertans dare to take their destiny in their own hands, the same way Quebec has now done twice, that those Albertans will be ground into powder.

00:18:47.700 What do you think?

00:18:48.500 I agree entirely.

00:18:51.100 I was speaking with a litigator, another lawyer yesterday, who's never been involved in fights like this.

00:18:56.000 And as you know, Ezra, I've been on the front line of some very difficult situations, both in Alberta, where I fought the Stelmac government and brought them down, the old PCs under property rights issues.

00:19:06.440 And then being on the front lines in Ottawa during COVID mandates and Freedom Convoy.

00:19:13.340 So I know I've got the bruises and the scars from those fights, and I know what they take.

00:19:20.240 And what I cautioned this other lawyer about is I said, right now, it's being like in a lawsuit where on the other side, it's a self-represented party.

00:19:29.320 And we're just mopping the floor, right, as experienced litigators.

00:19:32.500 I said, there's Wolf Pax and Dream Teams about to show up on the other side.

00:19:37.540 The Laurentian elite are not going to let this cash cow go.

00:19:41.420 They're not going to want us to get out of this relationship where they can milk us and they can have all these huge amounts of money go to them and us be their play toy for their extremist policy implementations.

00:19:57.080 So, yeah, we're going to have a fight on our hands.

00:19:59.260 There's going to be dirty tricks played.

00:20:01.020 There's going to be attempts to, you know, they're probably going to put so much pressure on me that I may lose some clients.

00:20:06.720 I'm prepared to do that.

00:20:08.580 If it gets too hot for my clients, I'll certainly understand if they want to get a different lawyer on their litigation files.

00:20:15.260 But not only what you just point out.

00:20:19.160 So we're going to have their all of the media, but for a few like yourself, are paid for by the federal liberals.

00:20:28.880 That's just a fact.

00:20:30.840 So they're going to do everything they can to appease their paymaster.

00:20:35.860 They're going to have all the political consulting firms that they deploy in the campaigns developing smear stuff coming after us.

00:20:44.840 They're going to have bought attacks on social media.

00:20:47.860 But there's another factor that's going to even juice this up even more, which is Donald Trump in the United States of America.

00:20:55.600 You know, clearly Trump has aspirations and sees the value of Alberta and Saskatchewan likely becoming part of the United States.

00:21:05.840 Now, it doesn't matter what my view and other views are on that.

00:21:09.200 That's his view.

00:21:10.160 So we're going to potentially have the State Department and other agencies within the U.S. government advancing positions to help one side or the other.

00:21:22.800 So this is going to be a very wild time in Canadian history, without a doubt.

00:21:27.680 Well, and that's the thing, is Donald Trump is such a polarizing figure, and he had such a – he knocked the Canadian election off its balance.

00:21:39.940 Even today, his comments were odd, saying Pierre Polyev hated Trump more, which is clearly not true.

00:21:47.940 No, well, I think we're going to have a great relationship.

00:21:51.360 He called me up yesterday.

00:21:52.520 He said, let's make a deal.

00:21:53.700 You know, he was running for office.

00:21:55.720 They were both – they both hated Trump.

00:21:57.920 And it was the one that hated Trump, I think, the least that won.

00:22:02.220 I actually think the conservative hated me much more than the so-called liberal.

00:22:07.200 He's a pretty liberal guy.

00:22:08.740 But, no, I spoke to him yesterday.

00:22:10.080 He couldn't have been nicer.

00:22:11.700 And I congratulated him.

00:22:13.180 You know, it was a very mixed signal, because it's almost even, which makes it very complicated for the country.

00:22:20.820 It's a pretty tight race.

00:22:22.420 But he's a very nice gentleman, and we – he's going to come to the White House very shortly, within the next week or less.

00:22:31.420 But even if it were true, so he likes the result that Mark Carney won.

00:22:35.980 I don't even know if that's true.

00:22:38.420 Trump is –

00:22:38.760 And he complimented.

00:22:39.720 He complimented Carney.

00:22:40.840 Yeah.

00:22:41.400 He's weighing in.

00:22:42.480 And the thing is, Canadians, even Canadians who are sympathetic to Trump, don't want an outside force deciding Canadian things.

00:22:52.680 I think it's like if one family was having a family conversation, and a neighbor overheard it over the fence.

00:23:01.220 Right.

00:23:01.620 And the neighbor came up to the fence and said, hey, let me give you my opinion about your family matters.

00:23:07.020 Marge is right.

00:23:08.200 Yeah.

00:23:08.880 People would say, buzz off. 0.99

00:23:10.620 Who the heck are you?

00:23:11.500 Who even – in fact, it would – it might even turn the family members against – and that's the thing. 0.75

00:23:19.580 Trump could scupper it because Trump has expressed his interest in the 51st state.

00:23:26.520 Trump has not been skillful or precise or articulate over the last few months, and I think he helped install Mark Carney.

00:23:36.940 I don't actually think he meant to do it.

00:23:39.140 I don't actually think he was deeply briefed.

00:23:41.060 I think his mind is on Ukraine, Russia, Iran, China, Mexico, Abraham Accords Round 2, you know, deporting illegals, getting cabinet members approved by the Senate, which isn't even completely done.

00:23:57.180 So, he's got so many things that are obviously a higher priority for him.

00:24:01.280 I think Canada was like a punchline to a joke that he used Governor Trudeau that was a – he got a laugh.

00:24:07.560 So, you know, it's when you tell a joke and you get laughs, you keep telling that joke wherever you go.

00:24:12.160 I think that's all it is.

00:24:14.160 And I think Trump's banter, which I normally love, is what gave us Mark Carney as PM.

00:24:21.200 And I think Trump, if he said, I really like this referendum, would probably sink it.

00:24:28.420 But if he said, oh, I don't like this referendum, no one would believe it.

00:24:32.220 I think the answer is for him to say it's a Canadian affair and we'll stay out of it.

00:24:37.240 But I don't even know if that's the case, because if I was the CIA, I would very much want 170 billion barrels of oil.

00:24:44.480 Although, as I keep telling my American friends, you've already got unfettered access to the USMCA trade deal.

00:24:51.080 Like, you literally can take all the oil you want.

00:24:53.760 There's a side letter to the USMCA, which gives America a preference.

00:24:57.780 I mean, that is the wild card, what Trump might do or might not do.

00:25:06.200 Do you think Albertans would proceed ahead, would barge on no matter what?

00:25:10.720 Well, first of all, I'm very much alive to that.

00:25:16.200 And that's why I brought it up, is that we've got to get out in front of this to the extent that Trump is just absolutely that, a wild card.

00:25:25.020 Any kind of scenarios in gaming out, I'm doing strategically.

00:25:27.920 I map things out.

00:25:29.300 And then as soon as I do the Trump overlay, I just swish all the papers away.

00:25:34.460 Because the strategy, you can't plan for it.

00:25:37.440 But what we can do, and those like myself who have reached the decision personally that the best thing for my kids and grandkids is for Alberta to be independent and leave Canada, the confederation,

00:25:51.320 is make clear that the decision that will be in the referendum when I think it comes, and I think it's going to come soon given the announcement from yesterday, the actual independence referendum,

00:26:04.200 is that the question they're considering is not whether to leave Alberta or leave Canada and join the United States.

00:26:11.360 The question that's being asked on the referendum is whether or not Alberta is going to become independent, a sovereign country.

00:26:19.760 And then only after that should we enter into consideration of whether we want to change our relationship with our main trading partner, the United States,

00:26:29.020 that this is not a referendum on joining the United States.

00:26:32.440 This is a referendum on Alberta's independence, its freedom, and its sovereignty.

00:26:38.360 You know, a week ago I was in the Isle of Man.

00:26:42.120 I was looking into Brookfield Asset Management's tax avoidance strategies.

00:26:47.360 And it's this little island between Ireland and the UK.

00:26:50.540 They obviously speak English.

00:26:53.420 It is a crown territory.

00:26:56.160 Like King Charles III is their sovereign.

00:26:59.500 But they have their own laws in many things.

00:27:02.360 They have their own currency.

00:27:04.440 It's called the Manx Pound.

00:27:05.980 It's tied one for one to the British Pound.

00:27:08.680 But it's sort of a semi-sovereign place.

00:27:11.640 We didn't have to show our passports to get there.

00:27:14.920 But it's interesting.

00:27:17.100 And I just am thinking to myself a little joke.

00:27:19.640 Maybe if Alberta becomes a lower tax place, maybe Brookfield Asset Management will actually move its headquarters to Alberta.

00:27:28.920 That's not a funny joke, but it made me think.

00:27:30.840 Hey, I got a question for you.

00:27:33.800 I'm of your vintage.

00:27:36.180 So I remember the big referendum in the 90s.

00:27:39.600 And, of course, there was one a generation earlier.

00:27:41.620 In Quebec, I mean.

00:27:42.780 The Quebec referendum.

00:27:43.680 Yes.

00:27:43.860 They've had a couple.

00:27:44.560 And I remember very clearly the response from the entire establishment in Ottawa.

00:27:53.360 The Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, all the media, all of it.

00:27:58.340 It was when Quebec sovereignists or separatists, they use different language, when they would make a demand, it wasn't met with anger or rage or threats.

00:28:12.960 The establishment said, we'll give you that.

00:28:16.220 Just say.

00:28:17.060 What are your terms?

00:28:18.280 Just stay.

00:28:19.160 And it was within half a percent, the last referendum.

00:28:25.240 And even after that, the payoffs, the bribes, some would say, the compromises, that's where the Liberal government engaged in the so-called sponsorship scandal.

00:28:38.780 The federal government decided they were going to sponsor everything, every building, every carnival, every concert, and have the word Canada and the Canadian flag there.

00:28:50.360 They spent a quarter of a billion dollars.

00:28:54.260 And so much of that was stolen and kicked back to the Liberal Party.

00:28:57.040 So there was a lot of criminal elements, as you get with the Liberals.

00:28:59.820 But putting aside the crime, my point is, their response to Quebec separatists in the moment was, please don't go.

00:29:09.020 We'll accommodate you.

00:29:10.620 We'll give you distinct society status.

00:29:13.040 We'll give you guaranteed seats on the Supreme Court.

00:29:15.640 We'll give you special constitutional rights.

00:29:17.980 We'll give you so much spending.

00:29:19.900 Please, please, please don't leave.

00:29:21.460 We love you, baby.

00:29:22.360 Come back.

00:29:23.520 And when they almost left, the love didn't stop.

00:29:27.800 Billions more flowed.

00:29:29.120 That was how Quebec separatists were treated.

00:29:33.000 How do you think Alberta separatists will be treated?

00:29:37.180 With disdain.

00:29:39.700 You know, it's remarkable the attitude.

00:29:44.780 You even saw it when Carney, halfway through the election campaign, mocked Premier Smith.

00:29:50.700 There's this arrogance that I find with the Federal Liberals, where they just think they know better.

00:30:00.760 They think all of us out here in the prairies are hicks and unsophisticated, you know, blue-collar workers.

00:30:07.300 And that's partly what's driving this wave of separatism is Albertans are tired of being treated poorly.

00:30:19.640 Albertans recognize the value of their work and what we contribute to Canada.

00:30:23.620 And if we're not going to be appreciated, well, we'll keep that wealth here and we'll do better things with it and spend the money more wisely than the federal government will.

00:30:33.160 So, you know, it'll be interesting to see if Carney changes tack.

00:30:37.800 I think he's concealed his true ambition, which is he wants Canada to be an experiment.

00:30:44.380 He wants to show the world that we can get to net zero, that we can get to strictly electric vehicles, that we can, you know, magically, as he said in one of his scrums,

00:30:53.540 he said, we're going to put a carbon tax or, you know, tax emissions from heavy emitters so that Canadians can get less expensive heat pumps. 0.78

00:31:05.160 And I'm like, this guy's nuts.

00:31:07.740 And then on top of that, in his election acceptance speech, he said that his, our relationship with the United States is over.

00:31:16.280 Yeah.

00:31:16.600 This guy, I mean, I'm seeing no indication that anything he said on the campaign trail is true.

00:31:22.260 He was caught, you know, saying in Alberta that he supports pipelines and then in Quebec that he'll block them.

00:31:29.720 He said that he's going to make Canada into an energy superpower and then he qualified it in a media scrum close to the election day where he, what he said, what he meant was a renewable energy superpower.

00:31:41.480 There's no such thing.

00:31:42.460 You can't export renewables on scale outside of hydro.

00:31:45.840 So it's going to be interesting times to see who the real Mark Carney is and whether there's going to be any attempt at reconciliation from the federal government to the prairies or whether they're going to continue to pursue their extremist failed policies and keep their economic, their knee on our economic neck.

00:32:06.900 Yeah.

00:32:08.060 You know, I've, I've often wondered who could be a leader of this movement.

00:32:12.200 I know there are people who are doing certain parts of the work, but typically a leader is someone who has some authority, some gravitas, maybe a household name.

00:32:25.080 The trucker convoy started in a way leaderless.

00:32:29.540 It was, it was, it was sort of an organic, authentic, spontaneous movement.

00:32:35.800 Now leaders emerged, including Tamara Leach, who you and I know well, but it didn't start that way.

00:32:43.420 It was almost like, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was kind of a group consciousness, like we got to do something and oh yeah, I'm going to join in.

00:32:51.960 And I guess what I'm saying is, now that I think about it, if the referendum can be called with just 177,000 people saying yes, and if the question is, as you described, clear and, you know, it's going to be a brutal campaign.

00:33:10.960 But maybe, maybe it could, maybe it would be leaderless and maybe it can be leaderless, because I'm just thinking anyone who had the province-wide name recognition would either be destroyed immediately by the establishment or, or undermined in some way.

00:33:32.160 Like, I'm just trying to think, like Preston Manning, he's, if I recall, he's around 80, he might be even actually a little bit older, I'd have to, I think he's 82, actually.

00:33:47.660 But the thing is, if, if it's a citizen's vote, it can be leaderless.

00:33:51.820 It can have a hundred leaders or it can be a, it can be a decentralized leadership.

00:33:57.680 It can and only in one circumstance, in my view.

00:34:00.760 You know, I witnessed firsthand, I was on the ground for 22 days during the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa and, and was in all the key places throughout that historic protest.

00:34:13.520 So I got to witness firsthand what was happening, particularly behind the scenes.

00:34:17.900 And what was always remarkable to me was how everybody was there for the exact same reason.

00:34:25.980 They had, they had, they all had the same notional mission statement.

00:34:30.420 They all had the same outcome in mind.

00:34:34.320 And I'm really starting to notice parallels with the various Albertans that I'm meeting who I've never met before.

00:34:40.240 So not people I know and old friends, I'm paying attention to that too, but people I've never met before.

00:34:46.060 And I'm noticing that they all have the same sense that, that the future prosperity of our children and grandchildren is being compromised by these extremist failed policies, the reckless spending,

00:35:00.460 and the holding back of our province in terms of its economic potential, you can grab anybody at random, they'll give you all those three things.

00:35:09.840 And they're all action focused.

00:35:13.180 Their action, their call to action is to support a yes vote to get us independent.

00:35:20.580 So, um, uh, it's one of the challenges is going to be that there's so many different groups trying to go in slightly different directions.

00:35:30.600 Um, but I, I, we're early into this.

00:35:34.060 I think the real difficult challenge now is not going to be to get the citizen initiative petition to the threshold to compel the Alberta government to hold a referendum.

00:35:46.680 The real fight is going to be convincing enough Albertans to vote yes in the referendum on separation so that the, the results are super clear in terms of it being a very clear majority, not a close majority.

00:36:03.820 So that will strengthen our hand in the negotiations that will follow with the other provinces, the federal government and the first nations.

00:36:11.060 Yeah. Well, I've said it before, if Alberta goes, I think it's quite likely that Saskatchewan will go within a year or two.

00:36:20.000 And at that point, Canada's internal balance, the remainder of Canada falls apart.

00:36:27.040 It's basically Ontario plus, and it wouldn't surprise me if British Columbia or part of British Columbia would be another domino.

00:36:35.660 And then where would the North go? Where would the Northwest territories and the Yukon go?

00:36:40.600 A lot of things would be afoot. And I don't know how that would end, but it could be that Mark Carney's election, as Preston Manning prophesied in the Globe and Mail, would be the last election of a prime minister of a united Canada.

00:36:57.740 Um, Mark Carney lacks a sense of Canada because he's been away for so long.

00:37:04.560 You can tell it in, in little things. He says, cultural references that are a decade or two old.

00:37:10.780 He doesn't understand things. He doesn't, he doesn't, hasn't followed things.

00:37:15.880 He mixes up Keystone XL pipeline with a Trans Mountain pipeline. You know, listen, a regular person, of course, he's not going to know the difference, but you're, he's clearly a guy, a politician who doesn't, those are huge things.

00:37:28.320 He doesn't know. He hasn't been following. He's been busy saving the world from global warming. And then he saw this opportunity.

00:37:35.140 So I, I think that he lacks an empathy and an understanding and he's tone deaf in his own way. And he really is a VVIP. He really is at home at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

00:37:49.440 Um, he really is at home hanging out with Ghislaine Maxwell. Um, that's his tribe. When Prince Andrew threw a lavish party for Mark Carney at Buckingham Palace, that's his happy place.

00:38:03.480 That kind of guy in Alberta, I don't know how he'll work. I mean, he's the kind of guy who has police arrest independent journalists.

00:38:11.420 Um, I think it's going to be independent journalists leading the way on this because any corporate journalist is going to be cut off at the knees.

00:38:18.700 Keith, we're going to talk about this many times in the months ahead, I'm sure, because it's, it's so fascinating and, uh, I'm trying to get my head around it.

00:38:27.340 My friend and colleague, Sheila Gunn-Reed has announced a new website and I haven't visited it yet. It's called donegettingscrewed.com.

00:38:38.140 And Sheila loved that and she chose it. I'm not about to tell her no. I think we got some fun stuff there and, and I actually haven't watched that yet.

00:38:47.240 So, uh, maybe, maybe I'm a little nervous about what's at that website, donegettingscrewed.com, but that's Sheila's response, uh, to Mark Carney.

00:38:56.260 So we'll see. And Keith, you and I, let's stay in touch on this. And, uh, uh, I think this is going to be the story of the year.

00:39:02.100 We, elections are about vision and aspirations. After elections, true leaders have to deal with real serious problems affecting real people in their daily lives.

00:39:13.860 I don't think Carney's got it. So yeah, it's going to be a very, very interesting time. And then we have the complete wild card of Donald Trump and, uh, we're in interesting times, my friend, for sure.

00:39:26.100 Great talking with you, Keith Wilson, King's counsel, a lawyer for the freedom convoy, and a man deeply involved in the thinking and strategy behind Alberta, Alberta's, uh, possible referendum. Keep in touch.

00:39:40.640 Stay with us. Your letters to me are next.

00:39:43.860 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me, Dean writes,

00:39:54.780 If Canadians didn't learn their lesson with Trudeau, it's likely they'll never learn.

00:39:59.620 Well, here comes more pain. I mean, higher taxes, more debt, continued war on fossil fuels, which means more unemployment, massive immigration and censorship.

00:40:09.720 It really is going to be as bad as Trudeau or worse.

00:40:12.200 Laura says, Can we be assured there was zero political interference?

00:40:17.460 I don't know who you mean. We had several, uh, indications when the National Security, um, committee that's in charge of monitoring for foreign interference said China was interfering.

00:40:29.540 That happened two or three times during the campaign. And everyone just shrugged.

00:40:33.160 In fact, Mark Carney didn't fire anyone. He waited for one of his candidates to resign.

00:40:38.180 But the successor, who was also deeply in bed with the Chinese Communist Party, continued through to Election Day.

00:40:46.440 Valerie Hawk says, From Ontario, I would like to apologize to Alberta.

00:40:50.640 Please remember, not all of Ontario voted for this.

00:40:53.200 As for Doug Ford, he just lost six votes for my family.

00:40:56.860 Doug Ford was atrocious. 0.80

00:40:59.120 Doug Ford was an underminer. He was a demoralizer. 0.99

00:41:02.280 And what's interesting to me is Doug Ford got a lower vote in Ontario as a percentage than Pierre Polyev did.

00:41:11.520 He just had the good luck of having a split liberal and NDP party.

00:41:16.140 Well, that's our show for today.

00:41:18.280 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home,

00:41:23.620 good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:41:25.880 Good night and good night and good night and good night.

Rebel News Podcast - April 30, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Danielle Smith makes it easier to separate, following Liberal win

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