00:01:41.200On June 23rd, Britain's Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, put out what they call a green paper.
00:01:46.760That's a discussion document, a trap balloon.
00:01:48.640They actually called it Watch This Space.
00:01:52.140Here's a link to the UK government's own website.
00:01:55.900Here's the idea. Britain has what they call public service media, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4,
00:02:02.040Channel 5. Basically, they get government money. The government's paper on their website says
00:02:08.360that social media companies and video platforms, and it names YouTube in particular, should be
00:02:13.460required to make news from those official public broadcasters prominent and easy to find.
00:02:21.180you can see that right there on their press release so what does prominent actually mean
00:02:27.280the government's own press release explains it it means when you search for news their stuff is
00:02:33.220quote more likely to be at the top of people's social media feeds so the bbc goes to the top
00:02:39.280and then in the government's words quote other trustworthy providers other trustworthy
00:02:44.380excuse me that's a word a other trustworthy providers who's that though the paper doesn't
00:02:50.420say who gets to decide well the paper doesn't say that either now i've got to guess trustworthy
00:02:56.720providers are reporters that politicians trust not that the people trust pretty big difference
00:03:03.140isn't it now why would a government do this they they tell you actually they cite a number from
00:03:08.540ofcom that's the british broadcast regular later that's like our crtc this is incredible and i find
00:03:15.420that's very hopeful. 75% of young people, age 16 to 24, get their news from social media.
00:03:23.180And they've got to stop that, right? I mean, by the way, our strongest age group at Rebel News,
00:03:27.480according to Polara's annual trust and media survey, is the 18 to 34-year-old. So I find that
00:03:33.380so hopeful, don't you? But think about what that number means to a government that owns a government
00:03:39.280broadcasters cbc over here bbc over there it means the kids aren't watching the state broadcasters
00:03:47.000they're watching whoever they want and the government's answer is not to make the bbc better
00:03:52.320it's to change the algorithm so the bbc is the first thing they see whether they like it or not
00:03:57.720that is not a media policy actually that's a state broadcaster losing the argument and asking the
00:04:03.720referee to move the goalposts, isn't it? It's like that movie, I don't know if you remember that
00:04:09.900movie about 50 years ago called A Clockwork Orange. There's this terrible scene where they
00:04:14.320literally clamp open your eyes and make you watch what they want you to watch. YouTube saw what this
00:04:21.360was about right away. By the way, in July, YouTube warned its British creators that these rules could
00:04:26.280force it to, quote, put some channels above others and ask them to write into the consultation.
00:04:31.300i'm not usually one to go to defend youtube you probably know they've demonetized us in the past
00:04:37.580they've throttled us they've taken down our videos but even youtube can see that if the
00:04:42.860government orders it to put the bbc on top somebody has to go on the bottom and youtube's
00:04:48.880own numbers say british creators are worth more than two billion pounds a year to the uk economy
00:04:53.48045 000 jobs these are the people who are going to go to the bottom of course it's not just about
00:04:58.960money, though. And it's not just about a growing industry. I think it's about something much more
00:05:02.880than that. I think it's about freedom. Freedom for individual people to make their choice of
00:05:08.360where they get the news. Freedom for those making independent news. And freedom of those who choose
00:05:14.000to watch that independent news. Money is part of it, for sure. They're taking out their commercial
00:05:18.660competitors, but they're really taking away your choice. Now, the government consultation in the
00:05:23.580uk closed on august 31st just a few days ago and here's where i think it gets interesting on july
00:05:29.60014th jim jordan the chairman of the house judiciary committee in washington wrote directly to lisa
00:05:35.820nandy and here's what he said and this is exactly from the judiciary's own website a tiered
00:05:42.820information system government legitimized outlets on top he calls it quote a form of gatekeeping
00:05:49.900that stifles independent and smaller outlets. He demanded a briefing. And that's a U.S.
00:05:54.500congressman, but now comes the U.S. executive branch, i.e. President Donald Trump. On September
00:06:01.7402nd, the U.S. embassy in London filed the official position of the United States government into the
00:06:07.160British consultation. Let me read it to you because you're not going to see this on the CBC.
00:06:12.340The U.S. has, quote, serious concerns about the plan. A government picking which outlets get
00:06:17.640preferential visibility quote risks becoming a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship
00:06:22.940so that interesting and this this is the line i'm so interested in this is from uh the u.s
00:06:29.920government this is from donald trump's office is from marco rubio not meaningfully different than
00:06:35.540outright removal that ranking videos down is not really different than banning them think about
00:06:45.040that. The U.S. government is saying if you bury someone in the algorithm, you've effectively
00:06:49.260censored them. You don't need to actually delete their channel. You just need to make sure nobody
00:06:53.800ever sees it. The U.S. government, quote, would likely consider such a measure as facilitating
00:06:59.200censorship. They say it, quote, could establish a template that authoritarian regimes could invoke
00:07:05.080to justify more control over online content. Exactly. How is that different than what they
00:07:08.960would do in China or Russia? So the U.S. government asks Britain to withdraw the plan,
00:07:14.220not amend it, withdraw it. Get rid of that bad idea. Then they ask the questions, and I want you
00:07:20.540to listen to these questions carefully because I've been asking them in Canada for years now.
00:07:25.060What criteria will decide whether an outlet is sufficiently trustworthy? Who makes that call?
00:07:30.120Will the criteria be made public even, or is it secret? Will there be a process to appeal being
00:07:35.340left off the list? And what role will third-party so-called media literacy organizations play,
00:07:41.540the so-called fact checkers in deciding who gets ranked. They're basically left as censors,
00:07:46.040every one of them. I think those are good questions. But here's the thing, Canada already
00:07:52.740answered those questions years ago. And the answer every single time was the government decides. And
00:07:58.780if you don't like it, we'll see you in court. I mean, we don't call it a trust list here. We call
00:08:04.500it something a little bit different. We call it a qualified Canadian journalism organization,
00:08:09.780a QCJO. It's a journalism license. If you have one, your newsroom gets the payroll subsidy. Your
00:08:15.800subscribers get a tax credit. You're in the club. If you don't, you're not. Who decides?
00:08:22.820In Canada, a committee appointed by Justin Trudeau, actually, not by you. Rebel News applied,
00:08:28.820and we're one of the largest independent news organizations in the country. And Trudeau's
00:08:32.420committee came back and said, less than 2% of what we do is even original news, they said.
00:08:36.780They called us activists. Yeah, as if the CBC is not activist. I've said this before and I'll say it again. It is anathema to a free press to have a government committee determine who is or isn't a journalist. That is upside down. Real democracies don't have journalism licenses. Russia does. Iran does. China does, by the way.
00:08:56.320Now, we sued. But in September 2024, the federal court sided with the government, which was frankly shocking to me. We appealed. Last September, we were in front of the Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto. And Mark Carney's government lawyer stood up there and told three judges that the whole point of this system is to make sure Canadians get journalism that is, quote, informed and reliable. Like that's like the CBC. They won't even tell you that the terrorism on 9-11 was terrorism.
00:09:25.840Now, we're still waiting for the ruling from the Federal Court of Appeal.
00:09:57.580He lashed out at Rebel News yesterday.
00:09:59.600I don't know if you saw that, saying we're not allowed to say the things we say about the great Kamloops hoax that there are 250 bodies in a mass grave at a former residential school.
00:10:10.640That's a wild accusation of genocide against Canada, against the Catholic Church, which is why the liberals like it, actually.
00:14:31.240So one of the things that I recognized several months ago is that we need to remove a level of uncertainty.
00:14:43.500We need to remove the fear of what independence would look like by providing a very detailed plan that describes the steps from going from a province to Alberta becoming a country.
00:14:59.160And, you know, how will we provide continuity of banking services, of mortgages, of CMHC, of air travel, of pensions, of rail service, and so on?
00:15:14.280All of these different aspects of policing, court systems.
00:15:18.520And so I brought together a bunch of experts.
00:15:25.900Dennis is a transition change specialist, retired.
00:15:29.160He's overseen the merger of companies like Kansas City Rail when it merged with the CP Rail, and they had to keep services and continuity running and operate over three different countries, Canada, United States, and Mexico.
00:15:43.820So we brought together a whole series of experts in various subject matters, everything from banking and currency, international trade, taxation, immigration, military, policing, legal, to prepare a detailed transition plan that would detail the steps involved in Alberta.
00:16:03.860should Albertans vote for independence and exercise their legal constitutional right to
00:16:09.540pursue independence, what would the transition look like and how could it happen in the real
00:16:14.540world? And that's what the report's about, and I was pleased to release it yesterday.
00:16:18.800And what has been some of the reception, before we get into the finer details of the proposed
00:16:26.240timeline, how long this would take, but what has been the reception of this, both from the
00:16:32.680independent supporters but i also think from the other side too because you know we hear from the
00:16:37.180federalists uh some real compelling reasons to stay as in nostalgia but they don't really have
00:16:44.940any real economic plan for uh how to fix this con the mess that alberta's in right now
00:16:52.560constitutionally so what's the reception been like for the transition plan well i've heard a lot of
00:16:59.360positive feedback um i'm still waiting for the negative feedback and i'm sure it will come
00:17:03.800um and looking forward to it and defending defending the work and improving it if necessary
00:17:09.480uh but so far it's been silence from our opponents you know they kept repeating this
00:17:14.300line even last week and the earlier this week jason kenny former premier kenny uh who seems
00:17:19.820to be having lots of twitter x tantrums lately um was saying that well they've got no plan they
00:17:27.000got no plan and sort of like boom 200 and whatever pages here you go enjoy so it's been quiet so far
00:17:35.800I think they're studying it I think they're trying to figure out how to attack it and that will come
00:17:40.160but um you know it it's a heavy read I joke with many that in parts it's a little bit like reading
00:17:48.700the terms and services from your cell phone plan or something but because some of this stuff is
00:17:54.760very technical and it's a little bit dry you know but uh people should hunt and peck through it it's
00:18:01.720it's organized with chapters on various things if you're a farmer you're going to want to watch
00:18:06.660read the agricultural section and probably the international trade chapter um if you're a veteran
00:18:14.380you're going to want to uh read various specific chapters so that's how it's designed well and
00:18:21.760And, you know, my takeaway from the plan, which I read last night and early this morning, is that this is hard work.
00:23:23.700The transition agreements are in place to take all the federal employees
00:23:27.960who work and live in Alberta, who want to keep working and living in Alberta,
00:23:31.420our transition from the federal payroll to the Alberta payroll.
00:23:34.720And we've identified all of the things that need to be done and completed
00:23:38.040so that businesses can continue, commerce can continue, the economy can continue.
00:23:42.720What changes, Sheila, is that we're no longer ruled by elected officials in Ottawa, that we have no say over, that we'll always be responsive only to the wishes of Quebec and Ontario because of democratic math.
00:23:57.640Instead, we will be electing officials here in Alberta that will make the decisions and policies for just changing the constitutional framework of the country so that we're governed by elected officials here in Alberta who are accountable to Albertans instead of the defective, broken system we have today.
00:24:15.680you know when you were talking about you know Alberta not starting from scratch just taking
00:24:21.880over what the feds are already doing and these institutions will not exist it sort of reminded
00:24:27.880me of when Donald Trump just very recently renamed Lake Ontario to the Lake of America
00:24:33.500the lake still exists the Americans didn't come in during the lake and refill it with American
00:24:38.380water the thing still exists it just has a new name and you know we have to start thinking about
00:24:44.580what's happening in Alberta in a little bit of the same way. Now, one of the questions I hear
00:24:49.460frequently at town halls is, okay, it's all well and good that you may come up with a transition
00:24:55.800plan. But part of that transition plan is, of course, negotiations with the federal government.
00:25:01.920What happens if the federal government doesn't negotiate in good faith the way they're required
00:25:06.560to? And who decides what good faith is? Well, they're going to, first of all, look what's going
00:25:12.240on in the country right now with the United States and the repeated every day we're hearing
00:25:17.080from Prime Minister Carney that we need to somehow purchase and eat and consume everything
00:25:28.600that we've been sending to the United States and eat and buy our way out of this loss of market
00:25:34.440access. The reality is that Alberta and the Alberta economy are an incredibly important
00:25:41.800market to Ontario, Quebec, and the rest of the country. We purchase a huge amount of goods and
00:25:47.240services every year. So we have a tremendous amount of leverage by that fact alone for
00:25:54.060negotiations with the provinces in central Canada. And the reality is, is we're the critical supplier
00:26:00.180of energy products that support their economy. So we have tremendous leverage, economic power
00:26:08.200and leverage. And everything that's happening in North America politics and geopolitical politics
00:26:13.380is actually making Alberta's position stronger and stronger. Ontario and Central Canada are
00:26:18.840going to become weaker and weaker in the coming weeks, days and months, and we're going to become
00:26:22.880stronger and stronger. I'm not happy about that. I'm simply responding to the right question that
00:26:29.020you're raising and many have in their minds is, are these guys going to be nasty? Are they going
00:26:34.320negotiating good faith or bad faith. And I'm saying at a practical level, if they do, they're
00:26:40.120going to meet the force of our power. We're going to go into it with good faith. We want them to
00:26:46.660benefit and continue to prosper in the future as well. This isn't about animosity. But at a legal
00:26:53.720level, what the Supreme Court of Canada said is that if the parties effectively don't follow
00:26:59.540through with their constitutional obligation for good faith negotiation, that it opens the door
00:27:05.040for the province who's voted to leave to do a unilateral declaration of independence and seek
00:27:11.660international recognition. And of course, for Alberta, the most important party for which we
00:27:16.820would be seeking that recognition would be the United States and some other places. And we know
00:27:22.820that that's what would happen. So we're in a tremendously advantaged position. We need to
00:27:29.640recognize the strength of our position and be confident in our position. Our first approach
00:27:34.360is to be fair, but we have tremendous economic leverage in the negotiation if the other players
00:27:40.780don't want to be fair, and we have an escape route if they're downright nasty. Now, one of the
00:27:48.180things that we're hearing from the Federalist side, particularly Jason Kenney, who seems to be
00:27:52.780uh the batman of the federalist side with his robin being rachel notley what a
00:27:59.100strange duo those who are didn't have that on my bingo card strange strange duo um i mean i guess
00:28:07.340they have the uh ability to kill jobs in common but um one of the things that jason kenney has
00:28:13.680said is that instantly our international agreements would just vaporize upon independence and
00:28:22.080And I think he's doing that to sow some fear in the export market here in Alberta.
00:28:32.680Well, this is the whole point of the transition plan is the Alberta government should, if
00:28:39.740the vote on October 19th is for option two, immediately stand up a task force to get to
00:28:47.000work on identifying what needs to happen, including what replacement trade agreements
00:28:52.200would be needed, and to go as far as to having discussions with the other parties about what
00:28:56.480they might look like, right? Because if, let's just use Canadian trade, so is, you know,
00:29:05.500Premier Kenney, if he thinks about this, and is honest with the audience he's speaking to,
00:29:10.740will agree, I'm sure, that there's no way the central Canadian economy could afford to stop
00:29:17.760trading with Alberta today. Forget about energy. Forget about the energy. They desperately need,
00:29:22.980if they can't sell pieces of equipment and machinery to the United States, they need to
00:29:30.280be able to sell it to Alberta, right? So that would be economic suicide for them, not for us.
00:29:37.120And then on top of that, we are the engine of the fuel of their economy, literally, right? We have line nine and line five. So Peter Lougheed, former Peter Lougheed used that as leverage to get a constitutional amendment.
00:29:53.220So this whole idea that the agreements would end overnight and there wouldn't have been work done ahead of time to have a replacement agreement in place is nonsense.
00:30:07.060It's not how the real world works and is completely solvable by preparing.
00:30:12.800And this transition plan details the exact steps required and the specific agreements that need to be replaced and how they can be modified.
00:30:23.220Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on the New Brunswick church arson pew process. This is a
00:30:35.360hate crime period. Well, we're going to find out, aren't we? It sure looks that way. Alexa Lavoie
00:30:41.040is going to the court in Bathurst, New Brunswick. It's actually on Tuesday. Yesterday I made an
00:30:48.280error and for some reason I said it was on Labor Day. Forgive me, I got my days mixed up.
00:30:53.220It's on Tuesday. Alexa will be there in Bathurst, New Brunswick.
00:30:56.940Montreal's a little bit closer than I would be.
00:31:00.360And Alexa speaks French, so that's going to be a big plus because my French is terrible.
00:31:05.120So, anyway, that's a long way of saying we're going to keep covering this.
00:31:08.240And I'm afraid it looks like a hate-motivated even, I would even say it looks like a terrorist incident.