EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trump heckles Trudeau and his 'democratic legitimacy'
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Summary
Trump's new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and his new tariffs on Canadian potash and other products, have me getting whiplash. Would Alberta ever take Trump up on his invitation to join the United States as the 51st state?
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Big show today. I can't believe it. Tears on, tears off. I'm getting
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a little bit of whiplash. And we have a great conversation with my friend Derek Fildebrand
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about would Alberta ever take Trump up on his invitation to join the U.S. as the 51st
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state? You don't want to miss that. But let me invite you to become a subscriber of what
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Tonight, I'm getting a bit of whiplash with these tariffs on and off and on and off, aren't
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you? It's March 6th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Well, the tariffs were put on yesterday and taken off again today, at least for items covered
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by the U.S. MCA trade deal. In order to protect American car manufacturers and American farmers,
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we have two modifications to the IEPA tariffs that have already been announced against Canada
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and Mexico. This first order relates to Canada. Essentially, what it will allow for is the flow
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of parts and sub-assembly products into America to allow American car manufacturers to continue
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building cars. It basically excludes U.S. MCA-eligible goods from existing tariffs.
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And also, in order to help our farmers at this crucial time of year, we're going to be reducing
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the tariff imposed on Canadian potash from 25 percent to 10 percent. So this is a modification
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to our tariff regime to protect American car manufacturers and American farmers.
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It basically makes it more fair for our car manufacturers during the short-term period before
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April 2nd. April 2nd is a little bit different. That will be much more significant. But this,
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during this interim period, between now and April 2nd, this makes it much more favorable for
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our American car manufacturers. Okay. Can you see that, Peter? Nice to be tall, Peter, right?
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I see right over. You can see. It's so nice. That's why he's such a gentleman. He doesn't
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have to rush. Okay? And this is the same just for Mexico, sir, the previous one.
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Same thing for Mexico, sir. That's exactly right. One for Canada, one for Mexico.
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Yes, sir. They've been in the news lately, haven't they?
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And I spoke to the president of Mexico, a wonderful woman, today. And we helped them out
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with the problem they were having, having to do with the tariffs, short-term tariffs. And we had
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a very good conversation. Also, we discussed drugs, and they've been working much harder lately. Do you
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notice that? On people coming in and drugs. And we've made tremendous progress on both.
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Apparently, they're remaining on other products like steel and aluminum. Just a reminder, a tariff
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is an import tax that a country puts on a good that arrives on its shores. So when Trump briefly
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imposed, say, a 10% tariff on Canadian oil imports to the U.S., that would be paid on the U.S. side.
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That's one of the things Trump has talked about. He says he'd like to replace the IRS, the Internal
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Revenue Service, with an external revenue service. He has plans, he says, to shrink the IRS greatly.
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He sometimes points out that back in the day, tariffs played a large role in U.S. tax collecting.
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And remember, the U.S. didn't even have an income tax until the First World War. So for most of its
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existence, there was no U.S. income tax. Here's a clip of him saying that.
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She said, no tax on anything. How about just no tax?
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You could do that. You know, if the tariffs worked out like I think, a thing like that could happen if
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you want to know the truth. You know, years ago, 1870 to 1913, we didn't have an income tax. We had
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what we had is tariffs where foreign countries came in and they stole our jobs. They stole our
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companies. They stole our product. They ripped us off. And, you know, they used to do numbers. And
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then we went to tariff, a tariff system. And the tariff system made so much money. It was when we
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were the richest from 1870 to 1913. Then we came in with the brilliantly came in with an income tax. No,
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we don't want others to pay. Let's have our people pay. And then you had the depression in 1928,
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1929. I call it 1929. That was a bad time. But, you know, you didn't have tariffs and you had
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tariffs that ended in 1913. But it was the richest our country ever was. So I think Trump has ambitions
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of doing that. And he always says it'll move factories and jobs to America. He certainly has
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been announcing a lot of factories and jobs coming to America. I mean, here's the latest just from
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today. Mr. President, yes, indeed, we are CMA, CGM, one of the leaders in shipping and logistics
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around the world. We are very enthusiastic about this big announcement of today. We are investing
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$20 billion in shipping and logistics. This means the creation of 10,000 new American jobs. We're also
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looking at investing in shipbuilding of container vessels. And we most probably will be making also
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announcement in the next coming weeks. And we would like also, Mr. President, to go for more US flag
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vessels. And we will go from 10 that we operate today to 30 US flag ships and hopefully doing more
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in the months to come. What a difference between Canada and the US. I can't think of any major global
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company that would invest 10 billion or 20 billion or 500 billion into the Canadian economy as has
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happened in the past month in the US or even cut those numbers down by 90% for Canada size. No one's
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made those announcements. And by the way, they could be $100 billion sized announcements if we were to open
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up our oil and gas sector. Even Mark Carney agrees that America is a job creating, wealth creating
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magnet. I mean, in his final weeks as chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, Carney voted along with the rest of
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the board to move their huge company from Toronto to New York to make money, of course. He's not stupid.
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Even as he suspended the tariffs, though, Donald Trump talked about how the US did not need Canadian
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imports. I'll tell you what's a high tariff nation is Canada. Canada charges us 250% for milk product and
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other product and a tremendous tariff on lumber and things as such. And yet we don't need their lumber.
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We have more lumber than they do. We don't need Canada's lumber. So what I'm doing is I'll be signing
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an executive order freeing up our forests so that we're allowed to take down trees and make a lot of
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money and then re harvest trees. We don't need trees from Canada. We don't need cars from Canada. We don't
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need energy from Canada. We don't need anything from Canada. So where we can be self-sustaining,
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which is in most things like we have more oil and gas than anybody. Our forests are massive,
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massive parts. We're just not allowed to use them because of the environmental lunatics that stopped
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us. So I'm going to be freeing that up very shortly so that we don't have to go to other countries to buy
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lumber. You know, why should we be buying lumber from other countries paying tariffs, paying big prices,
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extraordinary prices? And we have lumber. We have the best lumber.
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Now, as you know, the biggest source of Canadian imports to the U.S. by far is oil. And the thing
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is, the U.S. is a huge producer of oil, ahead even of Russia and the Saudis. But they don't have the
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same reserves Canada has. Our oil sands, that's the key to U.S. long-term energy independence,
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they don't move. You can't move them across the border like a factory. I think maybe
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Trump already considers those American oil sands since they're covered in the U.S. MCA trade
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agreement. And oil is produced by many companies that are either American outright or Canadian
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companies with American investors. So maybe Trump already thinks of them as American.
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Because right now, despite all the American industrial might, they rely on us for millions
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of barrels a day without which they would have to buy from Russia or OPEC. That's the whole thesis of
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my new book, that tariffs don't work on the oil sands. And as the United States, you don't want
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them. You don't want tariffs on your oil. You want free trade with oil because it's going to your
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consumers. And you can't, if you're not buying it from Canada, you're buying it from Saudi Arabia.
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But I think a lot of this has just broken down to personal squabbles between Trump and Trudeau.
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I mean, look at some of this from Trudeau crying again to reports of swearing back and forth at each
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other on the phone. Take a look at this. On a personal level, I've made sure that every single
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day in this office, I put Canadians first, that I have people's backs. And that's why I'm here to
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tell you all that we got you. Even in the very last days of this government, we will not let Canadians
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down today and long into the future. Because in the past few weeks, we've been working with our
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provincial and territorial partners to make sure that families can rely on this system,
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not just for years to come, but will allow this system to lock in, to become something that no
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government a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now could ever go back on.
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I just don't think Trump and Trudeau like each other. Trump has more tweets tweaking Trudeau
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about when he's going to go. And fair enough, who can Trump negotiate with right now? I mean,
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he can't do a deal with Trudeau. And do they even have the authority to make a deal? I mean,
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they dissolve parliament. If Trudeau is gone in a few days and parliament is not in session,
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what is the point for Trump to negotiate with Trudeau? And what's he going to do? Negotiate with Mark
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Carney, who does not have the democratic mandate for anything. He's never won an election in Canadian
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history. Trump needs a counterpart with a moral authority and the democratic legitimacy and a
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mandate of an election behind them. Obviously, I want that to be peripolia, but it has to be someone.
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And right now it is no one. What's Trump supposed to do? Maybe that's why the new Mexican president,
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Claudia Scheinbaum, has managed to have a more respectful, productive relationship with Trump.
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She actually won an election and she doesn't seem as disposed to cheap shots at Trump.
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Oh yeah. Speaking of which, we're so much stronger together. I've spoken to governors,
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senators, congressmen, and women from every region, both Democrats and Republicans. They know,
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they tell me, these tariffs are a massive mistake. We could have stayed focused. We could have poured
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our effort into making Canada, the U.S., the two richest, most successful, safest, most secure two
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countries on the planet. Unfortunately, one man, President Trump, has chosen chaos instead.
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Now, we have no choice. We have to respond. Earlier this morning, Prime Minister Trudeau and his team
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announced retaliatory tariffs. They have my full support for a strong and forceful response.
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Oh, so Doug Ford is going to keep tariffs on U.S. goods entering into Ontario, even though
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U.S. tariffs are taken off. So it really is just a tax grab, isn't it? Like I said,
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the taxes are paid on the Ontario side. Doug Ford just wants some money.
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Today, I'm writing to every senator, every congressman and woman, and the governors from
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New York State, Michigan, and Minnesota, telling them that these tariffs persist. If the Trump
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administration falls through on any more tariffs, we will immediately apply a 25% surcharge on the
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electricity we export. We will not hesitate to shut off their power as well. I'm encouraging
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my fellow premiers to follow suit. You know, Trudeau is going to be gone soon, and with it,
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hopefully some of the pettiness and vendettas. I'm not sure why Doug Ford thinks that that empty
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role is for him to fill, the taunter of Americans. I'm not sure if that's something that Trump and
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his team responds well to. The fight won't be over for months. Now, will it? Stay with us for more.
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Well, all sorts of news out of Alberta. A threatened tariff on Canadian products, including energy,
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has proceeded, as was foreshadowed some weeks ago. It's 25% on many products, 10% on oil,
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which is chiefly from Alberta. That's obviously lower than 25%, but it still will work out to about
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30 cents a gallon for U.S. customers. That's why I argue in my new book that it's not an America-first
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move to tax Canadian oil imports. It doesn't really make sense. Taxes on imported automotives
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could make economic sense if you got the factory to relocate to America. I don't advocate that.
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Obviously, I don't want Ontarians to do their jobs, but you can't move the oil sands to America.
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And given that the oil sands are really an American-destined product, it doesn't make a lot
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of sense to me. And I think there's a better America-first way. But what happens now? I think
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that Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, has led the diplomatic charge while other premiers
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tried to out-tough guy Donald Trump. Danielle Smith was actually doing the hard work of diplomacy in
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Washington, D.C. She refrained from insulting or raising the temperature of some insane threats
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like Doug Ford threatening to turn off electricity to U.S. states. Just completely counterproductive,
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and I don't think you're going to out-bully Donald Trump. That said, some of the terrorists were put on
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a kind of reset, that they will be suspended for a period of time. I find it a little bit confusing,
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to be frank. And I'm wondering what the reaction is in Alberta, and who better to know than our
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next guest? His name is Derek Fildebrandt. He's the publisher of The Western Standard,
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and he follows these events and others very closely. Derek, great to see you again. Thanks
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for taking the time. Always happy to be on the program, Ezra.
00:16:35.520
Well, thank you for that. I'd like to play a couple of clips from Danielle Smith's press
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conference yesterday, and then I want to talk about the very grassroots movement by some folks who
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were saying, you know what? Let's join the states. Let's take Donald Trump at his word when he says
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he wants to annex us. Let's go. So I'll come back to that afterwards, but let's look at a couple of
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clips from Danielle Smith's press conference yesterday. I'd like your thoughts on it. Here's
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the first one where she refers to the fact that the oil sands were given a lower tariff than other
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sectors of the Canadian economy. Let's take a quick look, and I'd love your thoughts for this one.
00:17:12.260
No, I mean, it's been successful. The fact that we saw a 10% tariff rate instead of 25%
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is a recognition, I think, that energy resources, whether it's oil and gas or critical minerals
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or electricity, are vital components of U.S. success. That's what we were arguing, is that
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if you want to be able to exert American influence internationally, geopolitically,
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through oil exports, you need Canadian oil to be able to backfill so that American consumers
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are protected. We very successfully made the case that there were a multitude of refineries
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that would shut down potentially with 25% tariffs, and it would certainly cause an increase in the cost
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of fuel. I just saw a story today that even 10% tariffs are going to increase the cost of gasoline by
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30 cents a gallon in some jurisdictions. I think that that message was heard loud and clear. It could have
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potentially been almost three times higher than that. So I would say that we've been able to be
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successful on making some of those arguments. I think we can make them for food. I think we can make
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them for intermediate products. But it does take us working with our American counterparts in business
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as well as in various levels of elected office to press the point for us. I have confidence that we
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can be successful on that. Just look at what happened today with a reprieve on auto tariffs.
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I think the more the stock market responds in a negative fashion, the more consumers demonstrate
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that they're going to be hurt, the more industry voices that speak up. I think that that's going to
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get us to a place where we can get to where I think we really need to be, which is renegotiating the
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Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and dealing with some of these irritants so that both countries can get
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I think I'm a little confused there because just the other day, President Trump said he wants to revive
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the Keystone XL pipeline, which is dead and buried. That grave is cold. But, I mean, Trump knows
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that's going to bring in 800,000 barrels a day. That's a lot. That's what, about $20 billion,
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just roughly off the top of my head. That's so much dough. So on the one hand, he's saying,
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I want more oil sands oil. But on the other hand, he's saying, you want to put a 10% tariff on it.
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I'm getting a little bit of whiplash. And I'm a super fan of Trump, by the way. I find it hard to
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I'm not sure there is understanding it. I mean, there's the mad dog theory of Trump,
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you know, that he's just throwing us off and softening us up. But I'm not seeing any strategy
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in this. I'd like to think he, you know, this is some art of the deal thing where he's trying to
00:19:49.480
throw us through a loop and soften us up. But I'm not seeing how this works here. And, you know,
00:19:56.740
so it's not good for American consumers. It's not good for American refineries. It's not good for
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American energy independence, if you're defining that as North American energy independence, at
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least. It doesn't square with Keystone XL. I'm just not seeing any strategy here. And, you know,
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I'm, I'm sympathetic to Trump on some issues. But it, I'm having a hard time squaring it with,
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you know, those who just think this is a part of some brilliant strategy. I'm not convinced is a
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part of a brilliant strategy at this point. You have to wonder if it's just kind of going off
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half cocked on a bunch of different fronts, as he's trying to reorder global and North American
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trade. I, I'm not convinced that there's any sound strategy in what he's trying to achieve
00:20:44.100
with at least with Alberta oil, I can see what he might be trying to achieve with the auto sector.
00:20:48.580
You know, and that's, that's obviously a bad thing for, for Windsor and the Ontario auto auto
00:20:53.540
manufacturers. You can at least see where he might be trying to go, but I, I haven't, I can't see where
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he's trying to go, at least with the Alberta oil sands. You know, one thing that is very clear is his
00:21:06.240
disdain for Justin Trudeau. I mean, again, he's, he's yanking his chain, calling him governor
00:21:12.240
instead of prime minister. He's done a couple of tweets or other social media posts where he has
00:21:18.120
suggested that Trudeau loves this fight because it'll give him a chance to not retire. And in
00:21:25.020
fact, to run again. I think there's a possibility of that. I, I think Mark Carney and the liberal
00:21:33.000
party have in some ways moved on from that. I think Trump is, is enjoying fighting with Trudeau and,
00:21:41.860
and Trump's sort of a scrappy guy. He gives people mean nicknames and he roughs them up a bit.
00:21:46.840
And then afterwards he makes up with them. If you think about everyone from Ron DeSantis
00:21:50.600
to Marco Rubio to even JD Vance, they were all people who used to be his foes. Now they're his
00:21:55.500
buddies, but they all went through sort of a bruising middle step. I, I don't quite understand
00:22:02.260
what's going on, but my thesis is if Trump wants to get back at Trudeau, there are other ways to do it
00:22:07.420
without pushing away Canadian oil, which is, as Danielle Smith just put there, so essential for
00:22:14.760
America's success. Yeah. You know, and I, I don't think this is going to be a Trudeau. I mean,
00:22:21.800
there was a window where Trudeau may have used this, uh, to call a snap election and circumvent the
00:22:27.220
liberal leadership race. Uh, we are so close to the liberal leadership race at this point that, uh,
00:22:31.960
no, that that's, that's not in the cards. Although it might be a fair accusation that the,
00:22:36.820
you know, Trudeau was using this to help, um, uh, improve the political chances of the liberal
00:22:44.460
party. I think there's been evidence of that in the polls, although the polls are, the polls are
00:22:48.400
drunk. Uh, they, they, they just, they, they're, they're so all over the place, but there's at least
00:22:52.940
a substantial body of polling evidence that the liberals have had a recovery riding this, uh,
00:22:58.740
you know, kind of postmodern nationalist wave. Um, it's, um, I mean, if, if Trump wanted to really
00:23:07.700
agitate Trudeau, he would exempt, uh, Alberta oil and maybe other, even other very heavy Alberta
00:23:13.500
products. Cause then it would, it would create even more cleavages between Alberta and the West
00:23:18.460
on the one hand and, and the, uh, the federal government in Ottawa and Trudeau on the other,
00:23:23.600
uh, tempting Trudeau to put on an export tax or, or embargo the United States or something like that.
00:23:30.140
If it looked like, uh, you know, Ontario and Quebec were the ones getting hit and Alberta was
00:23:35.360
getting, uh, an easy ride. So I, I think if, if, if Trump was playing more, he's doing that a little
00:23:41.720
bit by putting a, you know, I should say, you know, only 10% tariff on, uh, on Canadian oil,
00:23:47.700
primarily from Alberta. Uh, that is creating a tension that, you know, the Trudeau government's
00:23:52.720
going to be like, well, well, why are they only getting 10 when we're getting stuffed with, uh,
00:23:55.900
25 on, on most central Canadian products? Uh, but again, it's just not making a ton of sense
00:24:01.360
coming, what's coming from Trump on this one. You know, uh, Western Canada has some really
00:24:05.460
valuable things. Danielle Smith listed some of them there. Saskatchewan has a lot of potash,
00:24:09.360
which is important for agriculture and other things. Of course, Alberta has a lot of oil.
00:24:14.100
One of the things that gets me is that liberals from Eastern Canada who disparage resource
00:24:21.020
industries who, who say we have to stop them. We have to transition away from them who hate the
00:24:26.880
oil sands and frankly, hate mining suddenly want to conscript the mining industry and the oil industry
00:24:32.640
to be the battering ram in this fight. Um, I see Catherine McKenna, the disgraced former
00:24:37.940
environment minister who never saw an oil barrel that she didn't hate now calling on Alberta to
00:24:43.980
take one for the team. Let me play a quick clip of Danielle Smith talking about this threat of
00:24:51.620
export taxes where Canada would either tax or stop exports. I'd love your thoughts on this. Take a
00:24:59.060
look at this from yesterday where Danielle Smith sort of had a dukes up, not towards Trump, but towards
00:25:03.860
Trudeau. Take a look. What is Alberta willing to do if the federal government does, uh, put in some
00:25:09.220
type of export tax or decide to cut off energy to the U S well, an export tax would be a violation of
00:25:15.720
the 1977 pipeline treaty. We've committed to not tax the content of energy products going down to the
00:25:22.600
United States. And I would hope that the federal government would abide by Alberta's wishes not to
00:25:27.280
unfairly, uh, tax our jurisdiction. I know what an export tax would mean. $150 billion worth of product
00:25:34.840
tax at 25% would generate $40 billion for Ottawa that would then be spent on Ottawa's priorities.
00:25:41.180
And I have absolutely no interest. You will notice that when Doug talked about adding a surtax,
00:25:46.220
he wasn't talking about Ottawa adding an export tax that then would be collected by Ottawa to be decided
00:25:51.300
where it was going to be spent by Ottawa. He's adding that tax so that he has the ability to keep
00:25:56.440
those dollars in his own province to be able to defray any of the damage on his own people. So I would say
00:26:02.360
it is not on, it's not been on from the beginning. And you do not demonstrate that you are a reliable
00:26:07.220
supplier of energy products who are our most important trading partner by acting in that,
00:26:12.160
in that kind of erratic way. So there, there's no circumstance under which I would support an export
00:26:16.580
tax. I I'm glad to hear her say that. I don't know if she has the political, legal, constitutional,
00:26:22.260
legislative horses to stop Trudeau if he wanted to do that. What do you, what do you make of it?
00:26:26.920
Do you think that's an idle threat by Trudeau? I mean, cutting off oil to America would be
00:26:31.640
tantamount to a declaration of war, putting an export tax on them. I don't know. I think that
00:26:37.880
would inflame things. It would do a lot more destruction than reconstruction. What do you
00:26:41.980
think? Well, uh, embargoing oil exports to the United States is just simply not possible. I think
00:26:48.700
a lot of people have seen the map by now, a map that, uh, 99% of Canadians had never seen until a few
00:26:54.780
weeks ago showing that the oil sands, uh, you know, these pipelines from Alberta, uh, they don't
00:27:00.760
just go straight into America, uh, the, the, the oil, sorry, our pipelines going to Eastern Canada.
00:27:06.200
They don't actually go to Eastern Canada. They go through Saskatchewan, they go to the United States
00:27:10.380
and they come around and they eventually come up back up through the Great Lakes. So if, uh, if Ottawa
00:27:15.700
was to, uh, Ottawa was to turn off the taps to America, uh, the Eastern bastard would be making the
00:27:20.940
Eastern bastards freeze in the dark. Uh, they, they simply couldn't do it. So I'm actually in a very
00:27:26.060
weird way. I'm kind of glad we didn't build energy East because it means Ottawa has no leverage to
00:27:30.620
actually turn off, uh, oil exports to the United States, which is why, uh, they're not really talking
00:27:35.640
about that. They're talking about export tax. If they did, it's a tatramount, uh, you know, an oil
00:27:42.640
embargo against, uh, uh, against the United States is tatramount to a declaration of war against
00:27:47.020
America. An export tax is tatramount to a declaration of war against Alberta. And, uh, and there really
00:27:53.560
is no length to which, uh, Alberta should not go to resist it. Uh, I, I've been resistant against
00:28:01.020
the whole, uh, faux team Canada idea because it's, uh, it's not really been team Canada. It's team
00:28:08.100
Ontario, Quebec. Uh, what's, what's about protecting them? Uh, I think Smith was right to take a,
00:28:14.940
uh, a pretty diplomatic approach to this. There's been partial successes to that,
00:28:19.660
which I think it's at least in part why we have a 10% tariff on oil, not a 25%. But, uh, you know,
00:28:25.380
the nice diplomatic approach has unfortunately failed. I was, I, I, I, I've, I've been supportive
00:28:30.900
of her softer, more diplomatic approach here and it's a partial success, but it's obviously not
00:28:36.400
gone far enough here. But if, if Ottawa was to go this route, um, I, I'd, I'd be willing to take
00:28:44.800
some, uh, pretty extreme measures to resist it. It would be, uh, as I said, a detriment to a
00:28:50.940
declaration of economic war against Alberta. And there was absolutely nothing and no, no length
00:28:55.740
to which we should go, uh, to resist it. At that point, Ottawa becomes the much greater threat to
00:29:00.980
Alberta than the United States is if they went that route. You know, it's interesting you say
00:29:04.840
that because Donald Trump, when he talks about the 51st state, and I don't know if you saw Marco
00:29:08.600
Rubio explaining where that whole 51st state thing came from. It was Justin Trudeau who flew
00:29:13.520
down to Mar-a-Lago and he said to Trump, if we were to equalize, like, get rid of our trade surplus,
00:29:20.800
that would mean the end of Canada. So he's the one who used the phrase, it would be the end of
00:29:26.100
Canada, to which Trump said, oh, you should become a state then. So it was sort of Trudeau blurting out
00:29:30.360
that that would be an existential threat to Canada that put it in Trump's mind. And it's like when Trump
00:29:35.660
gets a nickname for someone, he just doesn't stop calling her Pocahontas or, you know, it's,
00:29:41.460
it's his shtick. But whenever Trump talks about the 51st state, he says, you'd be cherished,
00:29:49.740
he says, you'd be loved, you'd be, like, he, it's really odd. It's sort of like approaching
00:29:54.120
someone who's married and proposing to them while they're already married. Like, it's infuriating
00:29:59.380
and it's insulting on a certain level. But on another level, if someone was thinking of getting
00:30:03.800
divorced, they might say, wow, I'm getting a heck of an offer here. And this is my last question for
00:30:07.860
you, Derek. This whole thing is rather unsettling. And I'm in a pickle because I like Canada. I like
00:30:14.860
Trump. I like Alberta. How can I square all three of these things? I'm a loyal citizen.
00:30:19.940
But it's, it's a real, it's a tussle. It's a three-way tussle.
00:30:23.340
So, um, I see that Jeffrey Rath, who is a lawyer who was a bit of a dissonant lawyer,
00:30:31.080
he was active during the pandemic, fighting against some things. He says he's going to be
00:30:35.200
leading a contingent down to Washington to talk up the 51st state. See, there was a billboard
00:30:40.200
in Alberta that got a lot of attention calling for the 51st state. I think that there are,
00:30:47.000
there is a certain sizable number. I don't know if it's a majority, but I'd say it's
00:30:50.340
in the 30s or 40s percent, that if you said to them right now, if you could snap your fingers
00:30:57.000
and Alberta would become a U.S. state, not all of Canada, just Alberta, would you take
00:31:02.440
it? I think a number of people in Alberta would say, you know what? To get rid of all
00:31:07.600
the problems that Eastern Canada's brought to us, to get rid of this pipeline embargo,
00:31:12.260
to have a stronger economy. I think, I think a good chunk of Albertans would actually take
00:31:17.560
that deal. I mean, there's a kind of inception going on, planting an idea that was once unthinkable,
00:31:24.620
the Overton window. What's your feeling for that? Has Trump angered Albertans or has he wooed them?
00:31:34.620
Look, you know, the height of the Wexit movement, you know, the Alberta independence movement
00:31:41.180
came right after the 2019 federal election. I mean, you had the black face and the guy in the East
00:31:49.280
still puts this guy back in office. You just had to say, you know, the conservatives elected the
00:31:54.700
biggest marshmallow liberal light pink conservative you could find. And the East still voted for the
00:32:02.140
liberals. There was outrage here. And it drew into a pretty significant independence movement
00:32:08.080
on an organized level. It had trouble getting going. But, you know, at the same time, you also
00:32:16.380
had the Kennedy government, which was seen as a very weak in dealing with Ottawa. And so you had
00:32:21.780
things like the Wild Rose Independence Party, which came out of nowhere, and got into the, you know,
00:32:26.000
into the low 20 percentile support for independence, depending on how you ask the question. The highest
00:32:32.880
we had seen it in polls, we commissioned, got into the mid 40s. If you ask the question is,
00:32:39.380
should Alberta become independent if it was with the other Western provinces? So not alone.
00:32:44.460
That got pretty high, never got in majority territory, but it got damn close to it at its
00:32:48.360
height. That collapsed really as soon as Danielle Smith became premier. And it kind of took the road
00:32:55.460
of the sovereignty act of fighting for more independence within Canada, but not very, not in a very friendly
00:33:01.160
way. We liked that. There's never been a particularly large movement for Alberta to join the United
00:33:09.900
States and Canada. I mean, I mean, independence was often seen as a crank idea, but it grew into the
00:33:15.660
relative mainstream for a time. But as usual, it receded back down as things change. And people have a
00:33:21.860
hope that, you know, a conservative government inaudible will fix everything. It doesn't. It just,
00:33:28.000
you know, kind of pads over some issues. Look, if there was a vote tomorrow, I don't think that no,
00:33:35.520
it would absolutely not. Alberta would not vote to join the United States. But I can see a set of
00:33:41.440
circumstances under which it is conceivable. One is the most important is that the Liberals are
00:33:49.360
reelected. If the Liberals are reelected yet again, for whatever reason, I think there'd just be a sense
00:33:57.620
of desperation in Alberta that no matter what, the East is not going to vote for someone friendly to
00:34:02.660
the West. If Pierre Polyev gets in, I think a lot of the root problems, like he said, he won't even
00:34:07.980
fix equalization. He's not going to touch it. You know, he's going to, he'd be an improvement on
00:34:12.620
things like energy and pipelines. But some of the big core unfairness issues for Alberta in Canada
00:34:17.280
are not going to really get fixed with the conservative government, but it would be a
00:34:22.640
relief valve. So if the Liberals were to get reelected, and we had a period of prolonged,
00:34:28.500
very significant economic pain from the trade war. And then Trump made a big, made a, made a deal,
00:34:38.780
like one for one currency exchange. You know, when, when, when West Germany absorbed East Germany,
00:34:43.800
they allowed one for one currency exchange, even though the Deutschmark was worth several times,
00:34:49.020
whatever the, the junk currency of East Germany was. And so, you know, it wouldn't be a big deal
00:34:56.140
for the Americans to give one for one, you know, you know, if you had states, federal government
00:34:59.400
absorbs the entire Alberta debt, things like that. I, I think it's conceivable in a very, very specific
00:35:07.980
set of circumstances. Also, at the same time, you know, you have the Liberals reelected, and they put
00:35:12.540
in place an export tax on Alberta's oil, which would just completely melt our economy down even
00:35:18.560
further than the trade war by itself would. So there is a set of circumstances, I think it's a very narrow
00:35:24.560
path to get there. But it's a path that, you know, even thinking out loud, I'd have, I'd have,
00:35:31.960
you know, put you in a big onesie wrapped up in a bubble wrapped room. Just six months ago, I'd commit
00:35:39.340
you if you even thought the idea out loud. And if you're, if you're writing science fiction, I'd say
00:35:44.260
you're just totally nuts. They wouldn't even believe it in a sci fi book. But I, yeah, with a very specific
00:35:51.040
set of circumstances, I think it is possible now, not likely, but possible.
00:35:55.860
Yeah. Well, the last three months in Canadian politics have been crazy. And Donald Trump has
00:36:01.400
added oil to the fire, kerosene to the fire. You know what, I was listening to you different
00:36:06.240
scenarios there, and I think you're right. I remember when Stephen Harper was elected, that
00:36:10.480
took a lot of the energy out of the separatist movement, because he attended to some of the
00:36:15.720
things that were bothering the West. If Mark Carney becomes, Mark Carney will become the Prime
00:36:22.600
Ministry of Canada, most likely, in about a week. If God forbid he wins the next election,
00:36:29.020
I put it to you that separatism will hit the 50% mark. And remember, the Supreme Court of Canada has
00:36:36.260
said separatism is legal. As long as you have a clear question with a clear majority, unlike the
00:36:43.560
United States, which fought a civil war over secession, excuse me, secession, it is completely
00:36:51.220
legal in Canada, according to nothing less than the Supreme Court. Mark Carney winning a general
00:36:57.140
election, I'll predict it to you, Alberta would join America.
00:37:01.380
Let me add to that. So if, in one of the biggest reasons, like, so when we, when we had, when we
00:37:14.740
commissioned polls around independence, uh, for Alberta, uh, independence always was at least 10%
00:37:21.860
lower in support if it was just Alberta, because there's a fear, well, we're landlocked. That was
00:37:26.340
always the big knock against it. You're landlocked, you're by yourself, you're a small country, you're
00:37:30.080
just redneck Switzerland. And, um, it sounds pretty cool, by the way.
00:37:33.780
I think rednecks Switzerland sounds like a pretty cool country. But, um, um, even, but if you ask the
00:37:41.460
question of like, well, you know, if it was like BC and Saskatchewan, maybe Yukon, Northwest
00:37:46.160
territories together, uh, support was, you know, significantly higher. Um, I don't think there's
00:37:52.080
any sense of American patriotism in, in, in Alberta, but there's a sense of Alberta identity.
00:37:56.620
Right. And if people think Alberta identity is actually maybe potentially stronger in the United
00:38:00.700
States, that that's, that gets dangerous real quick. Uh, but the big thing, you know, you were
00:38:05.200
talking about independence and secession of provinces from Canada being illegal. No one's
00:38:10.620
ever really talked about it in the context of joining the United States because, you know, the
00:38:14.900
clarity act says, you know, okay, okay. If there's a clear, clear majority on a clear question, then
00:38:19.440
there's a duty of the federal government to negotiate the divorce at that point. You know, who gets the
00:38:24.040
kids, who gets dog and the house and the car, you know, division of assets and liabilities.
00:38:29.280
And that could potentially get bogged down for a long time and in technicalities. And maybe,
00:38:34.500
maybe doesn't actually end up happening because, uh, you know, Ottawa holds a lot of cards in that
00:38:38.420
negotiation. No one ever considered it in the context of, you know, potentially a province
00:38:44.960
joining the United States. If you had a clear majority on a clear question, uh, you don't even
00:38:51.080
need to negotiate with Ottawa at that point. The United States is simply the next day declares
00:38:55.920
Alberta, a protectorate of the United States and then, uh, and a candidate for statehood.
00:39:01.020
Um, you know, what, what, you know, the U S army rolls up the 49th. What's, what, what, what's
00:39:07.140
all we're going to do, send some, uh, you know, tampon dispensers from the local Canadian
00:39:12.300
military army base. I mean, there's utterly nothing Ottawa could do if that was the case.
00:39:16.220
If Alberta had hypothetically in this circumstance votes to join the United States, there is no
00:39:21.760
negotiation with Ottawa at that time. It's just the United States declares itself. Okay.
00:39:26.060
We're in charge the next day. Hey, you know, you made me think of something I had forgotten about
00:39:30.480
maybe 10 or 20 years ago. Um, way back in the day when I was a young pup like you, Derek,
00:39:36.820
I worked in Parliament Hill for Preston Manning. I was his assistant and I got to know my counterpart,
00:39:42.380
who was the assistant for the Bloc Quebecois. He was the friendliest guy. I still keep in touch
00:39:46.240
of them now. And through him, I learned that when the Parti Quebecois, the provincial party
00:39:53.380
for separatism became the government provincially, they use the mighty resources of the taxpayer
00:40:00.700
to commission, I'm going to call it an encyclopedia of separatism. They basically got leading scholars,
00:40:08.020
economists, historians, military experts, um, trade experts to answer questions like what
00:40:17.120
happens to the debt? What happens to the army bases? What happens to the passport? What currency
00:40:21.880
should we use? Like just, um, because immediately, as you said, well, would it be just Alberta or
00:40:28.040
other provinces? Would it be, you know, independent or would be a U.S. protector? There's a lot of
00:40:33.180
questions that suddenly splinter support. So what the Parti Quebecois did when they formed government
00:40:39.500
is they commissioned the smartest guys and gals in Quebec to answer some of these obvious questions,
00:40:47.020
not only to provide a path should sovereignty happen, but to let people know they were thinking
00:40:52.300
seriously. This wasn't just a joke or a, you know, back then we didn't use the word meme or anything.
00:40:58.920
It was steps to create a proto state. I got a copy of that insight. It was about this big,
00:41:07.400
like there was a bunch of volumes. It was in French. So I barely understood it. I don't know
00:41:13.300
where my copy is because I've moved several times and my guy is aligned along the way. My wife probably
00:41:19.800
said, get rid of those. You're never going to read those. But that's an amazing thing that Quebec did
00:41:26.520
because they were serious about it. At least some people in the Parti Quebecois were serious about
00:41:31.480
it. I think if you had the biggest thinkers in the U of C, U of A, other scholarly places, think tanks,
00:41:39.620
answering these questions in a quarterly journal. And by the way, you could have debates. There'd be
00:41:47.080
different opinions. I think you would show a seriousness that is currently not there. Anyways,
00:41:52.340
I'm getting ahead of myself because I don't think Mark Carney's going to win the next election.
00:41:56.800
And I think their current frothing of what's happening between Canada and the U.S. will settle
00:42:01.260
down. But God forbid, if it doesn't, if Mark Carney, God forbid, may it not happen, if he wins,
00:42:08.060
I think Albert is going to separate it. Last word to you.
00:42:10.760
I think you're right. I think most likely circumstances, the conservatives are going to win
00:42:15.400
and things are going to settle down. He, you know, Trump, Trump's got a sensitive ego. He's going to
00:42:23.280
be able to deal with, with Polyev. And if Polyev, you know, a lot of Canadians, I don't think want
00:42:29.300
Polyev to be buddy, buddy with Trump, but I think they might now because they're like, be nice to the
00:42:34.200
guy. Or at least don't provoke him. Don't raise the temperature. Don't, don't be a jerk to him. You
00:42:39.400
know, some Canadians want to see that because it feels good. But I think a lot of Canadians are also
00:42:43.220
realizing how dangerous that is with this man. This man, this, he is an unpredictable and dangerous
00:42:48.180
fellow. I think that's the most likely circumstance. But in, in, you know, as, as we laid out, I think
00:42:54.040
there is, there is a, if certain planets line up, uh, I, I don't think the, uh, 10 provinces and three
00:43:02.480
territories of Canada remain intact forever. Very interesting. Well, we're living in times that are
00:43:07.520
not boring. I'll give you that. Derek Fildermann, publisher of the Western Standard. Great to see him.
00:43:12.480
By the way, congratulations to your journalists who are really working hard to keep the liberal
00:43:17.760
candidates to account. I know you've been trying to scrum Mark Carney and he's being abusive to your
00:43:23.900
staff. Keep at it. Keep at it. I think even if you don't get in there and, and we, we get pushed
00:43:28.960
out too, as you know. People are both, uh, standing side by side outside the, outside the doors of the
00:43:35.160
Carney events, not allowed in. Yeah. Well, we keep, you keep it up. We'll keep it up. We got to hold him
00:43:39.300
to account. I mean, he's not at Davos anymore. He's, uh, he's actually got to answer some
00:43:43.600
questions. Take care of my friend. Great to see you. Thanks so much, Ezra. All right. There you
00:43:47.120
have it. Derek Fildermann. He's the publisher of the Western Standard, a great Western source
00:43:52.500
of news. Stay with us more ahead. Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me on the Saks files. I'm
00:44:08.260
referring to Ya'ara Saks meeting with that terrorist. Darlene Ramsey says, it's unbelievable
00:44:13.640
that Ya'ara would do something like this. What would a child think of a mother who had,
00:44:17.900
would have her picture taken with someone that thinks nothing of killing a person just because
00:44:21.960
they're Jewish? Yeah, but that was atrocious and we knew it was atrocious. But now what
00:44:27.220
we know is that in all their briefing notes, 86 pages worth, never once do they call Hamas
00:44:33.720
terrorists. The only time they talk about terrorists is they're calling the Jews terrorists. Isn't
00:44:37.540
that crazy? Fiona Wildman says, well, I guess then it makes sense why nothing has been done
00:44:43.260
about the protests in our streets. What hypocrites. Yeah. I tell you, I'm not even kidding when I
00:44:47.860
say the entire Global Affairs Canada staff working on Israel stuff is as radical as those
00:44:53.120
Hamas protesters in the street. Alan Allen says, considering who Mark Carney lets into his rallies,
00:44:58.880
this isn't shocking. That's a great point. Independent journalists like from Western Standard
00:45:04.520
and from Rebel News are kept out of Mark Carney's events, but he lets in radicals with kefias. It's
00:45:09.480
crazy. Well, that's our show for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:45:15.160
Headquarters, see you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.