Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The 25 per cent Ottawa can't ignore after Alberta's referendum vote

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. An exciting night in the referendum last night. We had a live stream

00:00:05.160 that went on till about 1 a.m. Eastern, 11 p.m. Mountain Time. My friend Sheila Gunn-Reed,

00:00:10.960 Lise Merlin, I was on it for a couple hours myself. We chew over the numbers today with

00:00:15.160 Corey Morgan, who ran a third-party advertising group, and I'll give you my thoughts on the actual

00:00:19.780 results of the sub-questions. Remember, there were nine other questions last night, not just

00:00:25.840 the independence one. We'll go through those. Very interesting. But can I invite you to become

00:00:30.320 a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus? It's the video version of this podcast. Just go

00:00:34.700 to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. Eight bucks a month. Maybe not a lot of money to you,

00:00:39.760 but boy, that sure adds up for us. That's how we pay the bills around here.

00:00:55.840 Tonight, it's the day after the big referendum.

00:01:02.260 It's October 20th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:04.880 He's ready for freedom! 0.80

00:01:08.080 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:20.120 Well, Albertans voted yesterday 10 questions on the ballot.

00:01:24.120 Now, just stop right there. If you're from any other province, can you admit that you're a little bit jealous that Albertans are being asked any questions by their political class, as opposed to being told the answer? They're being asked a question. I'm sort of jealous out here in Ontario. Reminds me a little bit about Switzerland, where they actually have more direct democracy, including recalling politicians. That's something we should get into.

00:01:48.880 Ten questions on the ballot. And the one the whole country was watching was question 10. Should Alberta stay a province of Canada or should the Alberta government start the legal process towards a binding referendum on separation?

00:02:03.120 Now, that's a garbage question that's sort of a referendum on a referendum, which makes no sense because it was drafted by a, well, essentially by a Trudeau appointed judge who discovered that, no, no, it's against the law to have a referendum in Alberta without first consulting indigenous people.

00:02:22.700 Just absolutely made up race based legislating from the bench. 0.99

00:02:27.400 So gross.

00:02:28.200 So it wasn't even an independence referendum, was it?

00:02:32.040 Here's a result as of tonight with the hand count still being, the hand counting, which

00:02:36.580 I support, by the way, still being finished.

00:02:38.940 About 75% said stay, about 25% said start the process, call it three to one, roughly

00:02:46.700 1,400,000 on one side, roughly 470,000 on the other side.

00:02:52.800 And I want to tell you tonight that why that 25% is an interesting number.

00:02:57.240 I mean, the 75% is interesting too, but let me start with something strange about the campaign.

00:03:02.480 I was looking at the poll numbers going back all year.

00:03:05.720 The independent side sat in the 20% range pretty much the whole time.

00:03:11.680 One pollster would have it at 21, another at 23, another at 24.

00:03:15.060 A couple of polls squeezed out the undecideds and got it into the low 30s.

00:03:20.300 Never cracked 35, never fell below 20.

00:03:23.600 There was some up and down the way there always is.

00:03:25.360 But the line was basically flat from the spring through the summer, through the campaign, right up to Election Day.

00:03:31.940 Nothing really moved the needle.

00:03:34.700 And then it finished exactly where it had been all along.

00:03:37.020 Now, think about what that means.

00:03:38.220 For a year, everything the Canadian establishment had thrown at that number.

00:03:42.900 And the number didn't move, not up.

00:03:45.260 And this is the important part, not down.

00:03:47.980 Let me give you the list.

00:03:48.980 Thomas Lukasik's Forever Canadian.

00:03:52.300 That was his campaign.

00:03:53.600 the petition drive. He got 400,000 signatures from people who want to stay. He had campaign

00:03:59.660 offices, lawn signs in every town, events, volunteers, permanent bus tour. And for 15

00:04:05.660 consecutive weeks, that campaign reported to Elections Alberta that it had raised and spent

00:04:10.720 zero dollars. That's what was on the official register. I'll come back to that because Rebel

00:04:15.540 News did something about it. By my own estimate, and I want to be clear, it's just a speculation,

00:04:20.860 Lukasik's operation, when you look at the offices and the buses and lawn signs and the concerts,

00:04:27.040 probably between $10 and $25 million was spent on his campaign over the past year and a half.

00:04:34.640 And the public saw almost none of it on paper.

00:04:37.560 I mean, we don't know where the money came from, who it came from, what country they came from,

00:04:41.740 what the terms were.

00:04:42.620 He's never had to account for it.

00:04:44.280 Nobody made him.

00:04:46.120 Then there was vote to stay.

00:04:47.660 That's Jason Kenney, Monty Solberg, Tyler Shandro, the old conservative establishment, basically.

00:04:53.780 Then there's a Canadian Chamber of Commerce campaign, co-chaired by Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley.

00:04:59.840 Think about that pairing.

00:05:01.740 The man who beat her in 2019 and the woman he beat, holding hands at the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce a week before the vote.

00:05:08.240 Big business.

00:05:09.340 I mean, they were, I don't know who was paying for them.

00:05:12.380 And that's part of the problem because none of them disclosed that.

00:05:15.960 Then the parties.

00:05:16.800 Every single political party was on the Remain side, the UCP, Daniel Smith's own government, officially for staying.

00:05:24.040 The NDP under Nahid Nenshi calling the whole thing the biggest political mistake of the year.

00:05:29.240 Well, I think that what Premier Smith has done with this referendum will rank as one of the greatest acts of political malpractice ever.

00:05:36.440 It's hurt her very badly because it's woken Albertans up to the actual impact of having a terrible government.

00:05:44.000 So my job now is we are within a year of the next provincial election.

00:05:49.100 People are awake now to the challenges of this government.

00:05:52.480 And my job is to make sure that they stay awake and that they understand that they deserve better

00:05:56.840 and that we can actually provide them with a better government.

00:06:00.280 So Act I, the referendum.

00:06:03.340 Act II, within the next two weeks, we will likely see a new electoral boundaries map

00:06:08.820 that the government will attempt to gerrymander.

00:06:11.040 They will attempt to cheat to win.

00:06:12.440 So we have to ensure Albertans are very alive to that.

00:06:16.300 And then Act 3, the next general election, which will happen within the next year.

00:06:21.200 So we are now in an election campaign, and I will never let Albertans forget what Danielle Smith has done to them.

00:06:28.060 The federal conservatives, Pierre Pauly, have headlined a fundraiser for the Federalist side.

00:06:32.280 And of course, the Liberal government, the Prime Minister himself, came into Alberta for two days in the last week,

00:06:37.020 filling the BMO center in Calgary with 5,000 people

00:06:40.240 and told Albertans to vote no, not just on separation,

00:06:43.520 but on all nine of the other questions.

00:06:45.660 No to the nine, he called it.

00:06:47.280 No to the nine.

00:06:48.400 No to the nine!

00:06:51.920 ...stronger as a country, stronger as Albertans.

00:06:55.840 Why?

00:06:56.580 So we can live our lives as we want.

00:06:59.340 We can have the diversity in this province

00:07:01.560 so we take care of each other and we build together.

00:07:03.920 And in order to do that, rah, rah, rah,

00:07:06.680 in order to do that for the youth of this great province we need to get people out to vote so i

00:07:13.320 just wanted to come here and thank you for what you've already done thank you what you're going

00:07:16.760 to do in the next few days make sure everyone's out there marking their ballots on by monday

00:07:22.600 including monday including no to the nine three former premiers the globe and mail running

00:07:32.840 editorials about betrayal and treason. CBC, CTV Global, all of it. And on the other side,

00:07:40.920 no party with a single seat in the legislature, no get out the vote machine, no corporate money,

00:07:45.540 no union money. Keith Wilson's Let Alberta Decide raised about half a million bucks,

00:07:50.600 which is a lot for a volunteer group and nothing next to a national campaign, is it?

00:07:56.880 Sheila Gunn-Reed's Alberta Choice. Our group raised a fraction of that and 78% of it came

00:08:02.120 in donations, 250 bucks or less. Against all of that, 470,000 Albertans walked into a polling

00:08:09.160 station and said, yeah, start the process. That is a feat. I don't know another way to describe it.

00:08:15.100 Nothing they threw at it worked. Not the money, not the prime minister, not Jason Kenney and

00:08:19.000 Rachel Notley, not the editorials. The quarter of Alberta that just wants out was a quarter in

00:08:24.440 January and it was a quarter last night. The question did not say, do you want Alberta to

00:08:29.860 canada it was a referendum on whether a referendum should be held a muddled question a lot of people

00:08:35.820 on both sides said so by the way why was it muddled i told you because a judge went rogue

00:08:40.540 and um just made it up i tell you that's not going to be i i want to say to my friends who

00:08:47.100 believe in inventing indigenous title and indigenous special favors if you believe in

00:08:53.100 truth and reconciliation this is the wrong way to go because it is not reconciliation it is pitting

00:08:58.700 people against each other based on race by making things up out of whole cloth. It's just crazy.

00:09:04.980 So Danielle Smith went around this rogue judge with the two-step question, which means 25% on

00:09:12.440 a model question with some of your own people sitting in. But that's a floor, isn't it? That's

00:09:18.780 the lowest you're going to get. Because if you can throw everything at it, plus the kitchen sink,

00:09:25.140 and you can't get the independence vote beneath 25%

00:09:29.740 when it was outspent 100 to 1?

00:09:33.680 That's a pretty rock-hard floor.

00:09:35.700 It's enough to sustain a permanent independence movement in Alberta.

00:09:39.300 Whether that turns into a political party or a standing institution

00:09:42.100 or something else, we'll see.

00:09:43.740 Quebec has had one for 60 years.

00:09:46.100 And look at what it's been able to extract from Ottawa.

00:09:48.680 I hope Keith Wilson makes it permanent.

00:09:50.840 What he did over the last year as a lawyer, as an organizer,

00:09:53.520 is the calm voice on the stage when everyone else was shouting.

00:09:57.600 He was outstanding.

00:09:59.060 The movement needs an address and a phone number the day after,

00:10:01.940 and I hope he's the one who builds it.

00:10:04.680 Now let's talk about the part of the ballot

00:10:06.760 that no one in Ottawa really wants to talk about.

00:10:09.840 Remember, there were nine other questions besides independence.

00:10:13.380 Eight of them passed on the count as of tonight.

00:10:16.880 One of them is pretty close, and I'll flag it if it turns around on you.

00:10:22.120 Now, the final numbers on the nine coming tomorrow, but the provincial control over

00:10:28.660 immigration passed big time, 55%.

00:10:32.560 Provincially funded programs, health care, schools only for citizens and permanent residents

00:10:37.840 passed big time, 56%.

00:10:40.360 12-month wait for social support for new arrivals, 58% said right on.

00:10:47.600 Fees for non-permanent residents using provincial services, 57% support.

00:10:53.720 Proof of citizenship to vote in a provincial election, huge number, 64%, the biggest number

00:10:59.360 of the night other than the unity question.

00:11:02.520 Provinces choosing their own superior court judges, yes, narrowly.

00:11:08.640 Abolish the Senate, yes, 53%.

00:11:12.000 So just a huge, huge support for those common sense ideas.

00:11:15.860 And understand this, the same people who were voting to remain in Canada

00:11:20.840 don't think they're all a bunch of leftists

00:11:23.520 because they voted for the conservative take on all those issues, didn't they?

00:11:27.900 Provincial laws take priority over federal laws where jurisdiction is shared.

00:11:31.920 Yes, about 51%. That was the close one.

00:11:35.260 The only one that failed was opting out of federal programs while keeping the money.

00:11:39.640 That lost by about two points.

00:11:41.340 Remember what Carney asked Albertans to do?

00:11:43.440 No to the nine, he said.

00:11:45.180 He flew out.

00:11:46.140 He stood on a stage.

00:11:47.160 He made it personal.

00:11:48.360 And Albertans said yes to eight of them.

00:11:49.840 Danielle Smith said yes to the rest.

00:11:51.800 She got it.

00:11:53.200 The prime minister campaigned in Albertan lost on those.

00:11:57.180 That's not the headline, and you're not going to read that elsewhere.

00:11:59.840 They're going to call it a huge victory for Carney.

00:12:03.000 Watch what happens next, because it's already happening.

00:12:06.240 Eric DuM, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec,

00:12:08.700 the party that just came within a whisker of the Parti Québécois in the Quebec election,

00:12:13.820 stood up in the National Assembly in Quebec today and said Quebecers should align themselves

00:12:18.100 with Albertans. That's what he said, to build a balance of power inside the federation. He said

00:12:22.920 the new Parti Québécois premier should drop his sovereignty referendum and instead make common

00:12:28.080 cause with Alberta to get powers back from Ottawa. He's moving a motion in Quebec's National Assembly

00:12:33.540 to support Alberta's autonomy, immigration, judges, jurisdiction. When was the last time

00:12:39.340 you saw that? That's a Quebec politician looking west and saying we want what they've got

00:12:44.000 and they support Alberta. Do you think that would have happened without the referendums?

00:12:49.680 By the way, just in the last hour or two, the premier of Quebec, the head of the Parti

00:12:55.520 Québécois, went through all of those ballot questions and say we love what Alberta's doing.

00:13:02.700 When's the last time you heard that?

00:13:06.200 It's a little bit of praise from our cousins in Quebec.

00:13:09.160 Are you not encouraged by that?

00:13:12.200 Now, the sneering, though.

00:13:13.300 I've been reading the morning after coverage, and I want you to notice something. 0.68

00:13:16.500 The 25% did not get a word of respect, not a word. 0.61

00:13:19.780 Gary Mason in the Globe and Mail, who, he covers Western Canada from Palm Springs. 0.63

00:13:26.020 He called the whole independence movement a spectacle orchestrated by grifters and charlatans.

00:13:33.460 The Globe's own editorial board called it a betrayal of Alberta and Canada.

00:13:40.080 Huh? It's a democratic vote?

00:13:43.220 James Moore, who sat in Stephen Harbour's cabinet, wrote that the separatists have been humbled and should probably sit it out for a while.

00:13:50.100 He said this from BC, so he's got views as to who's allowed to talk in Alberta and who isn't.

00:13:54.900 Sit down, he said. 470,000 people. Hey, guys, sit down. I'm from BC, and I'm telling you, I'm here to tone police you.

00:14:04.020 The prime minister said that people who voted for option two, to seek independence, really didn't mean it.

00:14:12.380 Only a small, hardcore, actually want to leave, he said.

00:14:15.480 He was told the number, and his first instinct was to try and shrink it or diminish it.

00:14:20.100 No, it's a great result for Canada, I'm thrilled that Albertans have chosen unity,

00:14:27.100 they've chosen to build together, they've chosen to continue to take care of each other,

00:14:32.100 to move forward together with purpose, high ambition.

00:14:40.100 I'd like to thank all of the volunteers who supported the election, of course,

00:14:49.100 Those who campaigned on all sides, the electoral volunteers who were still counting some of the votes,

00:14:54.480 above all Albertans, for turning out in numbers, participating in the democratic process.

00:14:59.320 And Thomas Lukaszek, on election night in Edmonton, surrounded by his supporters,

00:15:03.140 did he talk about Alberta?

00:15:05.380 No, he talked about Donald Trump.

00:15:07.740 The result sends a message to Trump, he said.

00:15:10.620 Canada's not up for grabs, he said.

00:15:12.600 The campaign to keep Alberta in Canada ended with a victory speech about the American president.

00:15:17.060 How much money did he take from the U.S., from left-wing groups like the Soros-backed MEDIS Touch Media that was promoting him all year?

00:15:25.720 How much money from the States did he take?

00:15:27.820 Canada.

00:15:30.500 So if President Trump is watching this, he better be worried about his midterms.

00:15:37.940 Because Canada is not up for grabs.

00:15:40.300 We are a solid country that's united from coast to coast to coast, and we stick up for each other no matter what.

00:15:52.660 But that's who they are, these critics.

00:15:54.280 I don't think they love Albertans.

00:15:56.340 They won, and they still couldn't manage to say a kind word about a quarter of the province.

00:16:00.420 I think the mask slipped a bit.

00:16:02.640 The political class, the pundits, the people who read the editorials, they didn't hate the referendum.

00:16:07.140 and they more sort of hate the idea that Albertans get one

00:16:10.940 and that Albertans get to speak out and that they don't...

00:16:14.140 Like, the reason they hate the referendum

00:16:15.700 is because they're not in control of it.

00:16:18.400 And they get to choose if you talk about immigration or not.

00:16:22.360 And when was the last time there was a vote in parliament

00:16:24.220 on immigration numbers?

00:16:25.320 I don't even remember everyone in my whole life.

00:16:27.560 The fact that Alberta dared to put these questions to the people. 1.00

00:16:30.620 That's what they hate about Alberta. 0.81

00:16:32.340 They've always hated Alberta.

00:16:33.320 The referendum just gave them permission to say it out loud,

00:16:35.720 But I thought it was a wonderful exercise.

00:16:38.540 By the way, I'm going to say thank you.

00:16:40.000 Thanks to everyone who supported Sheila's campaign called Alberta's Choice, the lawn signs, the ads, the scrutineers, the telethon, small donors, hundreds of them, $250 and under.

00:16:51.540 Sheila was the registered contact.

00:16:53.440 She carried the compliance burden.

00:16:55.380 She filed every weekly report on time.

00:16:57.400 And she did it while Elections Alberta couldn't get the mail-in balance right.

00:17:00.960 And I want to remind you something. Back in September when Forever Canadian had reported $0 for 15 weeks in elections, Alberta sat on our complaint since July, Rebel News sued.

00:17:13.480 We went to the Court of Kings bench in Calgary and asked the judge to make the chief electoral officer do his job.

00:17:19.080 11 days later, Thomas Lukasik held a press conference and announced that as of that moment, his group would be entering the arena as a third party advertiser and reporting its money.

00:17:30.960 Two weeks after that, elections, Alberta signed a compliance agreement with him, like a plea bargain.

00:17:35.600 And the first real number started appearing in the register.

00:17:38.560 We didn't get everything we wanted.

00:17:39.840 The months before September is still a black box of him just taking gushers of foreign money.

00:17:45.720 But the rules finally got enforced late because we made that happen.

00:17:50.260 That's what Rebel News does.

00:17:51.620 So let me finish where I started, the 25%.

00:17:54.360 Who are those 400,000 and 470,000 people? 0.77

00:17:58.620 Well, look at a map.

00:17:59.940 Central Peace Notley voted yes.

00:18:02.680 That's named after Rachel Notley's dad, by the way.

00:18:05.900 The rural ridings ran strongest.

00:18:07.880 The cities went the other way.

00:18:09.320 Edmonton and Calgary at more than 80% for staying.

00:18:12.900 Those yes voters are overwhelmingly federal conservative voters.

00:18:16.900 They are UCP voters.

00:18:18.800 They're the people who put Daniel Smith in the premier's office

00:18:21.100 and the people Pierre Polyev needs in every riding west of Winnipeg.

00:18:25.740 Daniel Smith is addressing the province tonight.

00:18:28.300 Jason Kenney says the UCP now faces a reckoning.

00:18:32.040 He wants to destabilize her, doesn't he?

00:18:34.720 Jeffrey Rath is already pushing for a special meeting in the party.

00:18:37.860 Pierre Polyev, who told Albertans to vote no,

00:18:41.200 has to wake up every morning knowing a quarter of his base in Alberta

00:18:44.240 just voted to start leaving the country.

00:18:46.460 I'd say it's more like half his base.

00:18:49.540 I think this whole thing was good.

00:18:51.520 It was good for Alberta.

00:18:52.620 Ottawa had to come and be polite.

00:18:55.420 Carney had to fly out and beg.

00:18:57.100 A pipeline that was dead for 10 years suddenly got a new date.

00:19:00.640 I don't think it's going to happen,

00:19:01.860 but Carney felt compelled to throw Albert in some sort of a bone.

00:19:05.400 And Quebec is now quoting Alberta.

00:19:07.440 Isn't that incredible?

00:19:09.540 A quarter of a province is not a fringe.

00:19:11.880 It's not something that can be ignored.

00:19:14.520 And if Daniel Smith and Pierre Pauly were smart,

00:19:16.840 they'll stop apologizing for it and start speaking for it.

00:19:20.420 I'm not saying they have to be separatists in their messaging,

00:19:23.860 but they have to make Alberta count. Alberta's interests just moved to the front of the line.

00:19:29.940 The job now is to keep them there. If I were Danielle Smith, I would focus on those eight 0.99

00:19:35.020 out of nine sub-referendum questions that give her an immediate mandate to act on immigration

00:19:41.840 and welfare. And by the way, if Naheed Nenshi, the opposition leader, and Mark Carney and everyone

00:19:49.300 are reveling in the success of the no vote for independence.

00:19:54.600 Pretty tough for them to argue against abiding by the yes vote

00:19:58.980 on the eight of the nine referendums that passed, isn't it?

00:20:03.060 Stay with us for more. We'll talk to Corey Morgan.

00:20:14.500 Well, last night I was here in the Big Smoke

00:20:17.520 While the action was out west in Wild Rose Country, Sheila Gunn-Reed, Lise Merle, and, of course, Corey Morgan and others joined in our live stream covering this important historical political event.

00:20:32.580 It was exciting. I think the polls had, I mean, all the polls were really saying the same thing, that the independence movement would not carry the day or the vote to have another vote, to be more specific.

00:20:46.620 But there was a lot of interesting things that were smoked out.

00:20:50.180 And now that the dust has settled, let's just chat a little bit more about it with our friend Corey Morgan.

00:20:55.480 He has a show with Western Standard and does us the favor of appearing on our live streams occasionally as well.

00:21:02.920 Corey, great to see you again.

00:21:03.840 I should mention you had one of the more successful third-party advertising groups.

00:21:07.880 Your signs were everywhere in Alberta.

00:21:10.840 So congratulations on that hard work.

00:21:12.760 First of all, I mean, you were more than a journalist.

00:21:15.100 you're an advocate as well. You've written the book, The Sovereignist Handbook. How do you feel?

00:21:20.640 Like, we'll talk about what you think in a second, but how do you feel this morning?

00:21:25.860 Well, I mean, it's still overall good. It wasn't as good a result as we hoped it would be,

00:21:30.980 that's for sure. But it wasn't devastating either. What I think happened is we really

00:21:36.120 consolidated the existing support for an independence movement that really has been

00:21:40.320 growing for years. We have shown in an open democratic manner after five months of campaigning

00:21:46.600 that one in four Albertans have really had enough. They're ready to change the status quo

00:21:52.300 and through independence if need be that way. So I think that's really establishing something.

00:21:58.540 On the downside, though, I don't think we really managed to reach the new and undecided people

00:22:03.440 yet. We weren't able to connect with them and make them consider taking that path this time

00:22:09.460 around. So we got to reevaluate how we're coming at this and looking in the future. But I don't

00:22:14.140 think it was a wasted endeavor by any means. Yeah. The way I look at it is the numbers stayed

00:22:20.180 steady basically all year. And despite, I mean, it's my estimate that about 40 or $50 million

00:22:27.540 in dark money was spent in the province. I think 10 or 15 or 20 of that was spent by

00:22:34.300 uh thomas lukasik who had the the primary campaign but then there were secondary campaigns all of

00:22:40.380 off the books none of it reporting source of funds um you had the u.s based made his touch

00:22:45.920 which is a soros super pack you had jason kenny's mystery employers you had you know public sector

00:22:52.620 unions you had all of this versus well who you didn't have any political parties with sitting

00:22:59.660 politicians you in fact all the political parties including the ucp conservatives and the canadian

00:23:06.260 uh the conservative party federally they were all on the remain side so i don't know was did the

00:23:12.800 leave side was it outspent a hundred fold uh i think so did it i don't know of any get out the

00:23:21.660 vote that's what they call it when you activate people to get to the to the polls i don't think

00:23:28.120 that the Leave side had a get out the vote campaign. So to me, it's a miracle that that

00:23:33.240 number stayed steady all year. What do you think of that? Absolutely right. I mean, we were at a

00:23:39.180 terrible disadvantage as far as that goes, especially compared to political parties.

00:23:43.480 The maximum fundraising allowed for any one of our groups was 600,000. Keith Wilson's group hit that

00:23:48.980 relatively quickly, and then he just simply couldn't spend anymore. Mine raised a couple

00:23:53.820 hundred thousand. The maximum didn't hinder me, but I was still one person with a couple of a

00:23:57.760 dozen excellent volunteers around me. We didn't have a large campaign machine. We had a dozen

00:24:04.120 smaller third-party advertising groups. And it's kind of remarkable, actually, that we had the

00:24:09.500 impact that we did. And that's what I mean in looking forward, though, that I think we can

00:24:14.580 establish something more solid going into the future, an organization, a group, or something

00:24:19.660 that might evolve out of this. And we really were against every aspect of the establishment,

00:24:24.600 that the academia, every level of government mayors were coming out, you know, tax funded

00:24:31.040 business groups. It was the whole works. They threw everything about the kitchen sink at us.

00:24:35.300 And even then, one in four Albertans came out and said, we support moving on on that question

00:24:41.100 there and on option 10. Yeah, I know a little bit about the story of Brexit. That's when the

00:24:46.440 United Kingdom voted in a referendum to decouple from the European Union. And same sort of story

00:24:53.460 there all the big parties including the party that called the referendum all the banks all the

00:24:59.640 media like really everyone was for remain now they had a charismatic leader in the form of nigel

00:25:07.220 farage who had for years been making the case for brexit as a member of the european parliament so

00:25:14.260 he had a platform he had he was a well-known name he was a household name i'd say in the uk and

00:25:21.520 people knew him for better or for worse. So they had that advantage. But really, they didn't have

00:25:27.440 a lot of other political infrastructure. That said, when I asked the question, who was the

00:25:35.040 leader of the sovereignty movement, I think the real answer was Keith Wilson, who you referred

00:25:41.760 to earlier, came across as very sober-minded, thoughtful, strategic, moderate. He raised the

00:25:48.600 most money so i think it's evident that he was regarded as the natural leader that said you had

00:25:55.520 i mean i'm going to mention jeffrey rath someone who we've had on the show before and i've worked

00:25:59.140 with him before but when he went down to the united states and made a big hullabaloo about

00:26:05.000 having secret meetings with the trump administration which i frankly take to mean some

00:26:09.560 intern met him like i i do not believe he met anyone at a cabinet level i just don't believe

00:26:13.820 he did but he came back and in a i think a self-aggrandizing way wanted to say well you

00:26:19.900 know i met with the administration and we talked about a half a trillion dollar deal and no you

00:26:24.620 didn't but what you've done by being so mysterious about it is you put in the minds of middle of the

00:26:30.280 road albertans that there's a secret deal afoot that there's a radical deal afoot that we don't

00:26:35.960 know everything that's been and combine that with the wave of anti-americanism and anti-trumpism in

00:26:41.920 the country right now i think frankly jeffrey rath's boastfulness about his trips to america

00:26:47.080 i think that played right that was like a um typecast of everything that was wrong with you

00:26:57.460 know trying to make the case for independence played right into mark carney's hands i believe

00:27:02.860 that the stunt and it was only that of going to washington dc and crowing about it i believe that

00:27:11.160 cost the leave side at least five percent i really do oh i could very very possibly believe that i

00:27:19.900 mean a lot of this whole campaign is about trust we're asking people to trust us to lead alberta

00:27:25.980 into an independent and better place and when you have somebody who's who's framed as one of

00:27:30.060 the leading figures within this holding what is well these these meetings he boasts about but

00:27:35.820 secretive about with whom and about what and so on well that that shatters the trust and albertans

00:27:41.320 i think won independents or a degree of them of course and that's what we're trying to convince

00:27:45.000 them for but they weren't looking to jump into an even bigger pond on a secret deal or something

00:27:51.200 like that that that just makes it even more questionable than than remaining where we are

00:27:55.420 so it did very real damage i really think it did and i mean these days in canada i mean i'm still

00:28:01.700 trump supporter and i don't care who knows it but that i'm a i'm rare that way and trump's name in

00:28:08.020 canada well let me put it this way from wab canoe to david eb to doug ford to mark carney every

00:28:15.920 single politician on the left and center left and even center who bashes trump is winning i'm not

00:28:23.100 saying it's good i'm just observing it and so it was the worst of all timing by the way the premier

00:28:28.020 of quebec he who is the leader of the parti quebecois they just had their election a few

00:28:32.560 weeks ago he says yes he wants a referendum but not until trump is gone which is a very interesting

00:28:39.000 way of phrasing it because he doesn't want to be splashed by you know whatever happens down

00:28:45.200 i think that's actually a very wise thing for him to say um one of the things that i think

00:28:51.200 characterized the campaign was a lack of public profile people standing up keith wilson

00:28:57.360 is a king's counsel, which means he's a prominent lawyer, but he wasn't really a household name. He

00:29:03.760 wasn't like a member of parliament or, you know, I know that, for example, Brad Wall, the former

00:29:11.500 premier of Saskatchewan, had said many pro-Western, even separatist things, but he sort of piped down

00:29:17.500 after. But there were no people of that stature, no famous business people, no cultural leaders

00:29:23.600 who really stood up and for anyone who did even like in the music industry for example i think

00:29:30.340 there was some some musicians who said something pro-independence they were de-platformed and

00:29:35.460 stomped on like i think there was a real fear that if you stood up and were counted as being

00:29:43.620 for independence you would be called a traitor you would be de-platformed and the mob would

00:29:50.120 take care of it. I really think that that was a limiting factor. In Quebec, they don't have that.

00:29:54.540 In Quebec, it's cool to be a separatist. Yeah, we have to build that culture here. We need to

00:30:02.680 have people coming out. I mean, one in four Albertans are looking in this direction. And

00:30:07.320 we know some people in positions of profile and speaking for large groups, they're feeling that

00:30:13.420 way too, but they're in the closet. They've been very effective in ostracizing anybody who dares

00:30:18.400 to come out in Alberta, whereas they wouldn't dare try to treat

00:30:22.160 separatist voices in Quebec the same way they have in Alberta.

00:30:26.720 But again, Quebec built that culture. They fostered

00:30:30.480 that. They worked on a long game for independence that we haven't

00:30:34.440 done yet in Alberta. And we should be looking at some of those examples,

00:30:38.360 as I said, with more of a central organization, a long game. How can we find those

00:30:42.420 voices? How can we bring them out? Even if they aren't fully leading in the movement, but they can

00:30:46.460 speak openly about it and support it and be comfortable about it i i think in establishing

00:30:52.320 though it's not theoretical in such a a solid large campaign that one in four albertans are

00:30:59.800 you know leaning towards and sympathetic towards independence at the least uh a person knows they

00:31:05.920 can stand out and they do have allies around them though you know even if three out of four

00:31:09.400 aren't thrilled with where they're going at this point one in four are and that's a lot of people

00:31:13.480 That's a lot of support. And I hope maybe some artists, academics, business people, as you said, will start to stick their neck out a little as this movement develops.

00:31:22.480 We'll see for sure. You know, Mitch Sylvester, who really led the charge to sign up petitions that sparked the referendum in the first place, he said, I asked him, well, should there be a new separatist party?

00:31:35.500 Will that split the vote? And he said, well, no, the party is the UCP. The party to stay with is the governing party.

00:31:42.700 Now, I think, first of all, that's accurate. I mean, why would you start a splinter when so many conservative-minded, independence-minded people are already in the governing party? I think it's true. Like, let's say there's a quarter people in the province who voted for independence. You know that they're not supporting the NDP. You know that they're not supporting the liberals.

00:32:03.460 obviously the the mass of them are ucp provincially and cpc federally pierre pauliev's campaign

00:32:12.060 which is a very interesting position for both of those leaders to be and by the way i like

00:32:17.160 both danielle smith and pierre pauliev in fact danielle smith uh in just over a week is coming

00:32:22.420 to our rebel news live event in calgary um how does she handle the fact that if 25 percent of

00:32:31.400 Albertans are for independence, they're in her party. So half or more of her party voted to go.

00:32:42.060 How does she manage that? I think she needs to start showing some progress. I understand the 0.93

00:32:47.960 pragmatism and trying to work with Carney and show that you can work in a cooperative way,

00:32:53.640 but that's not what that fashion of the party wants to see. And we need to see a solid

00:32:58.520 piece of action somewhere this pipeline we just keep talking about and talking about and talking

00:33:03.360 about uh the the proposed pipeline will fall to rust by the time they get anything into the ground

00:33:07.780 she needs some other short-term victories but i i think maybe she'll focus on the other nine

00:33:12.620 questions gets she can get those through the legislature quickly things like those immigration

00:33:17.600 changes identification for people uh you know if they plan on voting uh whether or not we're

00:33:22.840 going to fund health care and education for people who are temporary visitors to alberta

00:33:27.340 And again, I think she should start talking about an Alberta pension plan again.

00:33:31.400 There's no, there's a very good reasons to pursue that.

00:33:34.140 Now, Burton's been talking about it for a long time and that could cool the separatist element within her party while she still has to prepare for a general election in a year.

00:33:43.400 Yeah, you know, Janet Jackson, about 25 years ago, probably more, had a song, What Have You Done For Me Lately, which is such a great phrase when you think about it.

00:33:52.500 And I think Daniel Smith has a mandate, hundreds of thousands of votes, to do the reforms you just described.

00:34:02.380 One of the most obvious in those other nine questions was showing ID to vote.

00:34:08.400 I mean, duh.

00:34:09.880 Another was, you know, limiting benefits to those who are here as citizens or permanent residents.

00:34:17.540 If you're here as a temporary foreign worker, no, you don't get to bring your whole family over for free health care. 0.77

00:34:22.800 Sorry, you just don't. 1.00

00:34:23.960 That's not the deal.

00:34:25.080 And there's such common sense.

00:34:27.240 It was written in such plain English.

00:34:29.460 She's got such a mandate.

00:34:31.380 I think seven out of the nine passed.

00:34:33.280 I think one of them was sort of wobbling back and forth even this morning.

00:34:36.740 That's a to-do list, Corey.

00:34:38.920 That's enough to keep a premier busy.

00:34:40.820 And, you know, the part of her base that's feeling rambunctious, that's red meat for them.

00:34:51.560 Absolutely. So she's got that mandate and I think she needs to act fast because we have heard voices.

00:34:56.700 We know that there's an element within the independence movement.

00:34:59.040 They've got the pitchforks and torches out for Premier Smith.

00:35:02.260 They want her out of there. 0.99

00:35:03.640 They want to try and install a premier who is fully pro-independence.

00:35:07.920 And even if that doesn't reflect a majority of Albertans, we've seen from past actions, premiers are at most risk from their own membership if they can alienate a large enough segment of it to bring about a review.

00:35:21.300 Even a successful leadership review, if it was triggered, if this is happening in this next six months, could really distract this government a heck of a lot when they're going into an election year. 0.98

00:35:30.640 So she needs to throw some red meat to the base and show some accomplishments. 1.00

00:35:34.340 And as you said, she just got a mandate.

00:35:35.880 So I would hope and think she's going to jump on that quickly and start saying, this is the stuff we can take to the bank.

00:35:40.640 Yeah. You know, in politics, you can have your plans, you can have your strategy. But of course, do they survive contact with the other side? And Mark Carney, I think he was acting in bad faith. I don't believe a word he said, but he did his best as a liberal to try and appear Alberta friendly.

00:36:01.080 You know, he said repeatedly, this is my home province.

00:36:05.460 You know, he talked about, he used the first person plural when talking about Alberta.

00:36:10.000 And although it's fake and unfeasible and a joke and a distraction, his West Coast pipeline idea at least pretended to be a statement of pro-Alberta-ness.

00:36:22.320 It's not.

00:36:23.860 There's no deal.

00:36:25.840 There's no route.

00:36:26.660 There's no customers.

00:36:27.980 There's this bizarre carbon capture scheme.

00:36:29.980 It's not going to happen, but the fact that he felt compelled to go through the motions of it shows that he was trying in some way to mollify Alberta.

00:36:40.860 Here's my question for you, Corey.

00:36:42.580 Do you think that Mark Carney will continue to at least pretend, even if it's not real, to at least make noises about being friendly to Alberta?

00:36:52.020 Or do you think that now that the referendum's done, he can drop the act?

00:36:57.200 Well, if he'll drop the pretense, I think he'll keep pretending.

00:36:59.980 but nothing will still just get accomplished i don't think we'll see as much of him as we'd seen

00:37:04.880 in recent months because he's going to focus elsewhere europe seems to be where his priorities

00:37:10.320 are and uh you know with alberta if push comes to shove and we get a clash so then the talons are

00:37:16.740 going to come out the real liberal prime minister will reappear and we'll be quickly find out that

00:37:22.000 alberta's interests if they are not in what's considered the liberal party of canada's interests

00:37:25.960 they will be shut down so again that's a risk that premier smith is taking if she keeps being

00:37:33.000 so tightly tied to prime minister carney because we know the time is going to come when the real

00:37:37.960 carney comes back out and she could end up going down with him if she's not careful so

00:37:43.020 it'll be interesting to watch yeah being premier alberta is a dangerous job when you think about

00:37:48.840 Daniel Smith, Jason Kenney, Rachel Notley, Jim Prentice, Alison Redford, Ed Stelmeck.

00:37:56.980 I think I've just listed six premiers in a row who served only one term.

00:38:01.820 Am I right?

00:38:02.320 Did I get my math right on that?

00:38:04.240 That's right.

00:38:04.920 Nobody's won a second term as a premier in Alberta since Ralph Klein.

00:38:08.020 Like, that's quite something.

00:38:09.480 Yeah.

00:38:09.760 And it's usually members who take them down, not the voters.

00:38:12.300 Yeah.

00:38:12.740 So it's a dangerous terrain.

00:38:14.620 I remain a fan of Daniel Smith.

00:38:16.240 I don't agree with everything she said.

00:38:17.620 i think she's too trusting of the liberals but um i think that she is the most the closest to a

00:38:25.020 freedom-oriented premier in canada and you know there's a saying in politics you can't beat

00:38:30.460 someone with no one and that's what i say federally to people who grumble about pierre

00:38:36.060 paulia but okay well tell me who you prefer and a real person not someone anyone don't say that

00:38:41.340 tell me who and by the way david coletto who i think is a good pollster said put in other

00:38:48.380 alternative names in his test for that he said there's no one who could lead the conservative

00:38:53.660 party right now no one who would move that number more than two percent because it's not just about

00:38:59.720 the conservatives it's about mark carney like i say your battle plan doesn't survive contact with

00:39:04.660 the enemy and mark carney is the dominant force in canadian politics right now and um so for those

00:39:11.740 who would replace danielle smith i would say tell me who and tell me how because i'm a skeptic of it

00:39:17.960 great to catch up with you cory uh tell me what you're up to next you got a live stream tomorrow

00:39:22.220 yeah i'll be doing my regular show there tomorrow uh at noon and uh well more columns will be coming

00:39:28.960 out and it looks like uh perhaps i'll be going out to some press conferences pretty soon well

00:39:33.900 we'll talk more about that. That sounds exciting. Thanks for joining us, my friend. We'll keep in

00:39:38.480 touch. You bet. Thanks, Cesar. All right. There he is, Corey Morgan. He's a freelancer who has

00:39:43.140 a live stream every Wednesday with Western Standard. And for the last few months, he's

00:39:47.160 been helping with our project called Alberta Fact Check. Every morning, he and Sheila Gunn-Reed

00:39:52.280 fact check the regime media. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.

00:40:03.900 hey welcome back your letters to me about the referendum thomas jefferson six says the case

00:40:11.660 for alberta independence never really got a hearing against it was the entire canadian

00:40:16.140 political academic and media establishment and the option one side got massive funding while

00:40:20.800 the option two side got nothing the alberta government using taxpayers money to promote

00:40:25.020 only the option one side instead of being impartial is disgusting well that goes to my

00:40:29.740 point i think the leave side was outspent at least a hundred to one and yet the remain side

00:40:38.940 couldn't push the leave numbers lower than 25 they stayed the same the whole time that is the base

00:40:45.600 that is the rock solid minimum for independence it could only go up sasquatch chronicles said how

00:40:53.920 crazy would it be if president trump offered citizenship to the albertans who voted to leave

00:40:58.760 canada but lost in the referendum i'm pretty sure these are the type of americans we're looking for

00:41:03.060 well i think that the whole trump angle actually hurt the referendum because it was done in a way

00:41:10.580 that that was cheeky and silly and mysterious when jeffrey rath went down to washington dc and had

00:41:17.080 secret meetings that he wouldn't say who he was meeting with talking about things he wouldn't 0.84

00:41:21.260 report it sounded like he was having secret deals with trump to devour alberta which is

00:41:28.300 not what was on the ballot. And I don't think most Albertans want it. And if Albertans would

00:41:34.220 want a deal, they would want it fleshed out and talked about honestly and candidly, not some

00:41:39.540 backroom thing. I think in that case, Jeffrey Rath, who I've worked with in a friendly way

00:41:44.500 on other projects, I think he was just trying to big himself up. Oh, I had a meeting at the

00:41:49.280 White House. I don't think he had a meeting in anywhere near the corridors of power. And I think

00:41:54.480 he puffed himself up. And I think that really hurt. I think that probably cut at least 5%

00:41:59.800 off the referendum numbers because people thought, well, are we going to be handed over in some

00:42:05.200 secret deal we've never seen? I think he harmed the movement there. Ken Fraser says, free Alberta,

00:42:11.720 stay committed. We should reconcile ourselves to the fact that our cause of freedom will be achieved

00:42:15.960 as long as we stay committed, never give up and never let down. And in the end, Alberta will be

00:42:20.740 free. Well, I mean, look at Quebec. They've been fighting the battle for more than 50 years.

00:42:26.400 They're not out of Canada, but they certainly have benefited from it. No one can say Quebec

00:42:30.720 has not benefited from having an or else. Give us this or else. Maybe Alberta needs an or else. 0.59

00:42:39.480 That's our show for the day. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:42:43.620 Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:42:50.740 You

Rebel News Podcast - October 20, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The 25 per cent Ottawa can't ignore after Alberta's referendum vote

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