00:01:19.600well mary simon is retiring as the governor general and mark carney picked the ultimate
00:01:35.480woke ottawa insider to succeed her an activist a far left-wing judge a third worldist we're
00:01:45.520going to come to miss mary simon the incumbent governor general who was merely financially
00:01:52.380profligate and the odd i suppose anti-canadian jab but holy smokes louise r boor is the new0.68
00:01:59.520governor general for those my vintage and older you'll recall that she was a supreme court of
00:02:04.600canada judge for about five years which is the apex of most people's career but she actually
00:02:10.200quit. She resigned as a Supreme Court of Canada judge for what she considered a better and bigger
00:02:16.900offer. For most people, being the ultimate shaper of laws for the country you were born in
00:02:22.660would be the tip top. I suppose the only thing more appealing might be to be prime minister
00:02:29.100itself. But of course, prime ministers come and go, but judges stay till age 75. Louise Arbour
00:02:36.680acquit the Supreme Court for something she thought was more important. She, of course, is a globalist.0.90
00:02:41.940She doesn't really believe in borders. So she joined the UN as a High Commissioner on Human
00:02:47.140Rights. Now, before you laugh, that is a thing. The United Nations is probably the most human
00:02:53.180rights abusing group of nations in the world. Countries like Iran, North Korea, they sit on
00:02:59.400the UN commissions or councils for human rights. So the High Commissioner on Human Rights has a
00:03:06.200choice to make very early on. To succeed in the job, to be successful, to have a happy and long
00:03:14.480career there, means you must go through the fiction of blessing and absolving North Korea,0.64
00:03:21.420China, Russia, and the world's worst human rights abusers. Or, and this has never been tried before,0.54
00:03:28.840actually be a high commissioner for human rights and promote human rights. But that wouldn't last
00:03:33.760long at all. You wouldn't get the appointment because, of course, appointments would have to
00:03:37.980win the approval of, let's say, China, which would never allow someone who would criticize
00:03:43.260their treatment, say, of Uyghur Muslims. Really, the only countries that you're free to criticize0.91
00:03:48.720at the United Nations are Israel, the United States, and Taiwan. South Africa used to be on
00:03:54.580that list, too, until the end of apartheid. So, yeah, Louise Arbour was a perfect fit,
00:04:00.540and now she's the governor general she's the ultimate ottawa insider who doesn't think ottawa
00:04:06.220is as important as important as geneva i haven't thought about louise arbor in a long time frankly
00:04:12.900if you would have asked me i wouldn't have known she was still around she's 79 good for her
00:04:16.860graham hamilton wrote an interesting piece in the national post about her some 18 years ago
00:04:23.420she had a massive career even by then what was so interesting is even then it was so
00:04:30.120clear what she stood for and the fact that it's so clear and so public i mean she's not a private
00:04:34.480person everything she did was in the public scrutiny um mark carney knows exactly who he's
00:04:40.000getting for example she praised cuba and this was again in 2008 there was no inkling of reforms this
00:04:48.960was the most repressive regime in the western hemisphere but she praised cuba publicly saying
00:04:55.020it, quote, showed unprecedented positive engagement on human rights after it invited a UN official
00:05:02.340to visit and signed a few PR papers on civil rights. So, of course, that fits right in. You
00:05:09.100would think, I mean, by any objective measure, Cuba is the most repressive regime in the Western
00:05:14.620Hemisphere. I mean, Venezuela was perhaps closing in on it, but that's over. And she praised them.
00:05:20.760Like I say, she knew how to succeed at the UN. At the same moment, of course, she called the United States a torturing country for its use of waterboarding, even though the procedure was approved on two occasions by the U.S. Supreme Court under two different governments, under a Republican and a Democrat government.
00:05:41.160So, again, the perfect Mark Carney candidate, blessing Cuba, praising Cuba, but accusing America of torture.
00:05:50.860Of course, the Middle East has always been hot, not as hot as it is now, but she praised an Arab human rights charter.
00:05:59.160Now, I think Arab Arabia needs some human rights charters.
00:06:03.280But again, like I say, just a piece of paper is meaningless.0.90
00:06:05.800But I think the reason this was particularly odious and not just a joke is because it called Zionism, which is the belief that Israel can have a nation, called that racism.0.62
00:06:19.160Mark Carney has gone on to declare Palestine a sovereign state to be carved out of Israel with no preconditions at all.0.96
00:06:26.680So, yeah, like I say, perfect fit.0.94
00:06:28.180In another report in 2007, there was a report by UN Watch on anti-Semitism and the UN.
00:06:35.800And UN Watch found that other than one passing reference in a speech about attacks on synagogues, churches and mosques, there wasn't a single mention or reference of anti-Semitism in the world, even though it's by far the leading focus of discrimination.
00:06:53.860I mean, now it's that way even in Canada, the United States, the UK, and Britain too.
00:07:01.440She was like Mr. Magoo with the big magnifying glass and only one passing reference in her entire career.
00:07:11.120And, you know, it's just, like I say, perfect fit for Mark Carney.
00:07:16.100Like I said, we're going to miss Mary Simon because other than spending $100,000 per flight on food, I'm not kidding when I say that.
00:07:23.060she really kept to herself and knew that the job of a governor, you know, the job of a governor0.92
00:07:28.320general is right. It's, it's not to be the head of government. That's Mark Carney. He was elected
00:07:33.520in an election. The governor general is not the head of state either. That's the King,
00:07:39.580King Charles, but King Charles is busy. He's the King of Australia. Also, he's the King of the
00:07:45.340Commonwealth. He's a busy guy and he lives overseas. So he deputizes someone he would have
00:07:52.080had to have approved uh louise arbour's selection to be his eyes and ears on the ground here to be0.97
00:07:57.660his servants so louise arbour is the agent for the king here she was not elected to anything and0.64
00:08:04.920she's not a political personality in her own right i predict that she will not be able to keep it1.00
00:08:11.040corked that she will mouth off on everything and consider herself to be a political actor rather
00:08:17.660than the quiet uh member of the uh really the court of king charles um you know what's the
00:08:26.920funny thing is iran is in the news now very hotly well iran was in the news when she was um human
00:08:33.840rights commissioner as well and she actually attended a conference in iran and praised it
00:08:40.840And while the president of Iran spoke and said that Israel needed to be, quote, wiped off the map.0.53
00:08:48.100So imagine going to Iran, like being so comfortable with that totalitarian regime and knowing absolutely that they would take good care of you because you were on their side and they knew.
00:20:17.000i've answered your question you should be really you should be really proud and i think you should
00:20:26.740be ashamed of yourself for what for doing coaching's work you froze canadians bank accounts
00:20:32.140Well, I think the point of Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau saying they did nothing wrong, the appeal to the Supreme Court, which implies they believe they did nothing wrong and they think the Supreme Court will say they did nothing wrong, that is a very good reason for people to be afraid.
00:20:48.120Now, I'm glad 300,000 were not, but it is not an irrational fear to think there will be punishments coming from Mark Carney, and I shouldn't propagate that, I shouldn't whip that up, but I can't take any other meaning apart from the fact they're appealing, they're obstinate, and they think they did nothing wrong.
00:21:04.660Well, there's a whole nother layer to this, which just happened this week as well, Ezra, which is one of the parties in that appeal wrote a formal and properly framed application that Chief Justice Wagner recused himself.
00:21:25.160because, as you may recall, he made several public remarks on two different occasions
00:21:31.620during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in February 2022,
00:21:36.900quite alarmist comments, which were clear that he'd formulated an opinion.
00:21:45.960And not only that, it was also clear from his comments that he was relying on CBC
00:21:52.480or other legacy media reports that were subsequently debunked as completely false so it's very
00:21:58.680concerning for me as a citizen as a father but also especially as a lawyer and a lawyer who
00:22:06.720has been representing freedom convoy participants including in lawsuits for the illegal freezing of
00:22:14.260their bank accounts that this week the chief justice decided not to recuse himself um and
00:22:21.960cited as a reason that the cases about the emergencies act or something was kind of obscure
00:22:30.600but no the case is about whether or not the federal government uh had the requisite factual
00:22:38.540circumstance on the ground in the protest in ottawa to justify the invocation and at that
00:22:43.900time uh the majority of the the residential areas in downtown had been cleared out there was a deal
00:22:49.920with the mayor to move the remaining trucks onto wellington and sir john a um all of the borders
00:22:55.960were reopened across the country and uh instead on the monday uh the prime minister then trudeau
00:23:03.140and his cabinet decided to invoke the emergencies act so the question before the court as it was
00:23:08.800before the previous ones the federal court and the federal court of appeals said the the factual
00:23:13.840situation on the ground in canada was not requisite did not meet the legal threshold to justify
00:23:19.880invoking martial law against canadians freezing their bank accounts and doing all the other
00:23:25.740terrible things i want to bring it back to the to the referendum although theoretically you know i
00:23:31.000remember one of the tests of uh um is it in the csesis act is that is that where the test for if
00:23:38.300there's a national crisis uh tantamount to a war um there's a definition of an emergency
00:23:44.880it's in a different law yeah there's a cross reference in the emergencies act to the cesus
00:23:51.640act that's right and how this relates to the to the independence movement is when albertans see
00:23:58.760the chief justice not recusing himself um when they see the federal government uh barreling full
00:24:06.180steam ahead and not acknowledging their tyrannical authoritarian action it's unsettling it causes fear
00:24:14.360like people not wanting to sign a petition and it it just reaffirms in people's minds why the
00:24:21.560proper thing for alberta to do is to to leave canada to recognize its institutions are failing
00:24:28.380and that albertans need to chart their own path through an independent country and and what i was
00:24:34.840alluding to is i don't think that the regime has ruled out using the emergencies act again
00:24:40.720because actually uh a cry it would be a crisis that i suppose could be called an emergency
00:24:47.240if alberta were to secede now it's completely lawful it's not an unlawful secession it's not a
00:24:53.700war it's not a civil war but it would not shock me um if mark carney uh who is appealing
00:25:01.860the emergencies act case if he would apply it again and i don't think he's ruled it out but
00:25:07.320let's bring it back to next steps here um i mean i don't want to go too far down that road of fear
00:25:12.620because i don't want to magnify the fear but people are afraid um i think one of the meanings
00:25:19.580of mitch sylvester's letter that he read out there was he was saying to the premier we did the work
00:25:23.880we followed the law we exceeded the the quota by almost 100 percent we did it in an uphill way
00:25:30.080um and he sort of nudge nudge wink wink was suggesting that she officially called the
00:25:37.520by-election rather than having the vote counted these petitions counted in elections alberta
00:25:43.280process it because they are tied up in a court case is that what you take away from the letter
00:25:49.800was that what he meant by his letter i think so and and but i just don't want to leave the fear
00:25:55.500thing hanging and i'll just say something about the emergencies act and how it could apply and
00:25:59.180then I'll answer your question head on if I might, which is I'm not afraid of the federal
00:26:05.560government invoking the Emergencies Act against Albertans exercising their rights because there's
00:26:10.060no functional tool they can use. It's just not how it works. Albertans will carry on with their
00:26:16.380ordinary day, the day after the vote, and they will carry on with their ordinary day, a life
00:26:22.100and business and, and, uh, um, uh, as the steps unfold, um, I think it's a bluff and it's a fear
00:26:29.040bluff. So I'm not, I'm not afraid in this context. It's very different than the context of what we
00:26:33.940had, where we had protesters on the ground in Ottawa, uh, the last time it was invoked. So,
00:26:38.880but, but what I really liked about what Mitch Sylvester had to say in his letter to the premier
00:26:43.640is it affirms the current state of the law of Alberta and Canada, which is, uh, the Supreme
00:26:50.820Court of Canada was clear that if a provincial government decides to hold a referendum on a
00:26:55.820clear question for separation, and there's a majority, clear majority that votes in favor of
00:27:00.500it, that creates a positive legal duty for the federal government and the other provinces to
00:27:06.000negotiate the separation. What Mr. Sylvester's letter to the Premier, and I read the
00:27:14.920statutory declaration is it confirms for the Premier and gives her evidence that over 300
00:27:21.620Albertans have signed this petition. We also have another petition from Thomas Lukasik,
00:27:26.720which was in the other direction about staying in Alberta. So now we're in a situation where in
00:27:32.160Alberta, regardless of what happens with the court on this really obscure legal challenge from a
00:27:38.060couple of first nations chiefs is the premier has a clear signal from voters in alberta that this is
00:27:45.780an issue they want to have a referendum on and there's no prerequisite that there be first a
00:27:52.560petition it's just one pathway right uh even the first nations lawyers in the court case were clear
00:27:58.800that there's nothing precluding the alberta government from whenever it wants or the
00:28:02.920Saskatchewan government or the Quebec government from holding a referendum on independence so I
00:28:08.760think this clears the way for Premier Smith to soon announce that there will be what the
00:28:14.120independence question will be and confirm that it will be on the referendum ballot on the 19th of
00:28:19.200October yeah one of the interesting things and I think you and I have talked about this before is
00:28:24.380in the United Kingdom when they had their Brexit referendum there clearly was a boss of the pro
00:28:29.900Brexit side. Nadja Farage had been the leader of the UKIP party, the UK
00:28:33.980Independence Party, for years. He had sat in the European Union, the European
00:28:40.160Parliament in Brussels. So there was no doubt whatsoever that he was the guy who
00:28:44.960caused it. He was the spokesman. He was, he spoke with great authority and now he
00:28:50.060leads a party called Reform UK that will go to the next phase. Here in Alberta, I
00:28:56.900guess i'm not in alberta right now but in alberta there's no such thing there's no part there's a
00:29:03.580there's something called the republican party but it's very minor it's never won an election or a
00:29:07.240seat there are other small parties uh but none of the parties with seats in the legislature are
00:29:13.040for independence uh the reigning united conservative party is pretty neutral the
00:29:18.060ndp are harshly against it i think those are the only two parties with seats um federally
00:29:23.920both the federal conservatives and the federal liberals and the federal ndp are against it and
00:29:28.940the bloc doesn't really care so who is going to be the i don't know if that person has identified
00:29:36.880themselves yet who will be the authoritative speaker i mean mitch sylvester is very well
00:29:41.500spoken um jeffrey rath i think has probably done more media than anyone else though i think he
00:29:47.820comes across as harsh and may not appeal to all markets i think the base is already on side but
00:29:53.000you've got to grow that thing by 20 percent um last point and then i'd love your answer
00:29:57.920there are these different registered third parties but none of them are allowed to spend
00:30:03.060or operate in the same way as a registered political party can so i'm just wondering how
00:30:08.440this vote is going to happen when you have no boss of the yes side and even the most successful
00:30:14.860yes side third party group can only raise and spend a fraction of the no side political parties
00:30:21.020So I'm just trying to think about how the mechanics of this referendum will go.
00:30:25.720So let's start with the last point first that you make.
00:30:30.720So Alberta has extremely restrictive, complex, convoluted, onerous campaign type laws that apply not only to political campaigns, but referendum campaigns and petition campaigns.
00:30:47.440Well, we just finished the petition campaign as of Saturday night, and there is no cabinet order setting down under the Referendum Act an independence question yet.
00:30:58.460So that puts us in an in-between period for the next number of weeks, potentially months, where there are no restrictions. We're in a period of free political expression and free political advocacy, which is remarkable that we even have to have these restrictions, but we do.
00:31:17.440Um, and so over the next number of weeks, it's open to any groups to do whatever they want or any individuals to do whatever they want, because there are no restrictions on free expression and, and free political advocacy.
00:31:31.380So I, I think it's important that all Albertans and all the different groups take advantage of that legal opportunity and, and express themselves and organize themselves.
00:31:40.940But I do not believe that success will necessarily follow. Actually, I'm stronger than that. I think it would be a bad idea for the independence movement to rally around a political party. I really believe that this needs to be a grassroots initiative.
00:31:57.700I've been involved in a number of grassroots initiatives over the years, including the freedom movement coming out of the government overreach of the COVID mandates.
00:32:07.460And I think it's very important that it be citizen initiated and it be grassroots, it not become partisan through a political party.
00:32:15.400I think it just changes the dynamics fundamentally.
00:32:18.740I think in time in Alberta, voices will become more prominent than others.
00:32:24.880I think voices will become just like we saw with Tamera Leach and the Freedom Convoy.
00:32:29.460There was many voices, but the crowd, the Canadians gravitated to her voice.
00:32:36.760And I think that same dynamic is likely to occur here.
00:32:39.340But it's going to be really important because as your pollings revealed, Ezra, this idea that there was a big, soft, mushy middle is not the truth.
00:32:47.520And it's a wake-up call for the independence movement in Alberta that they're going to have to get much more sophisticated and use much more sophisticated approaches to reach those who are strongly opposed to independence to cause them to see the importance of a yes vote to improve the future for their kids and grandkids.
00:33:07.020Yeah, I mean, I think the most striking divide in Alberta is rural versus urban. If it was just the rural parts, Alberta would be independent in a heartbeat. It's overwhelming. But it's less so in the cities, even in Calgary. And it's less so with women. And there's different demographics that have to be reached. And I think perhaps with different messages and different messengers.
00:33:31.080I want to play for you a clip of Jason Kenney and this is him speaking at a Globe and Mail conference a couple weeks ago. Jason Kenney along with disgraced former cabinet minister Thomas Lukashik have become the two, I think, leading Remain in Canada spokesmen with Naheed Nenshi probably trailing in third.
00:33:49.320Let me play for you a clip of Jason Kenney where he where I mean, he's taken to calling independence supporters kooks like he's fallen back to what he did during COVID times when he was premier.
00:34:01.260He started to name call Albertans, Yahoo's, kooks, fringe, wackadoodles like whatever.
00:34:25.080And I think he gets his polling correct so far.
00:34:29.900But listen to what he says about if the independence vote gets both 30 or 35 percent, which is where it would come out now, I think, if the vote were held.
00:34:42.000The hardcore separatists in Alberta are in the single digits, but you'll see in some polls, sympathy for separation at a possible separatist yes vote could be in the 30 to 40 percent range.
00:34:55.500So how do you account for that huge difference?
00:44:22.940And any Canadian who doesn't want this referendum should reexamine their own beliefs about democracy, because every once in a while, Canadians get to speak.
00:44:33.000I remember the Charlottetown Accord of some 30 odd years ago.
00:44:37.020That was a wonderful moment where severely normal people told the political class to get stopped.
00:44:42.060And I think that that's at the very least giving Albertans the right to speak and maybe someone in Ottawa actually listening, even if it's not a successful vote.
00:44:51.940I think that'll be the most healthy thing for democracy in years.