EZRA LEVANT ｜ Western Canadians WANT OUT as Carney campaigns as Trudeau 2.0
Episode Stats
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Summary
Would a Mark Carney victory cause Alberta to separate from Canada? Well, Preston Manning thinks so, and so does our guest today, Jeffrey Rath. I also want to show you a couple new videos from Mark Carney, including an astonishing one about him and American strawberries.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Big talk with Jeffrey Rath, one of the leaders of the Alberta
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Separatist Movement. I'm going to try and ask him my toughest questions to smoke out his answers
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to controversies. And I don't know, I hope you find it interesting whether or not you're from
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Alberta. It would obviously affect the entire country. I also want to show you a couple new
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videos from Mark Carney, including an astonishing one about him and American Strawberries. You got
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to see this one. Anyways, before I go, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we
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call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. I want to show you those videos of
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Mark Carney in particular. So make sure you've got the video version of our podcast. Go to
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rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And not only do you get great video,
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but you support Rebel News because we don't take any government money and it shows.
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Tonight, would a Mark Carney win cause Alberta to separate? Well, Preston Manning thinks so,
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and so does our guest today. It's April 4th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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We've got a long interview for you today that I just recorded with Jeffrey Rath, who's really one
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of the leaders behind the Alberta separatist movement. It's a long interview, and I push back
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on Jeffrey, who I very much like, on a few questions. I think that it's important that
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he be challenged because he's contemplating the gravest decision for Alberta to make.
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I like the guy. I call him a troublemaker, and I guess troublemaker can spot troublemaker. But
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I think Rebel News's position on Alberta separatism is, first of all, to try and fix the underlying
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grievances. And second of all, if those grievances cannot be fixed, to be a fair reporter of what
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happens out there, and not to simply demonize people who want to replace their Canadian citizenship
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with something else. There's a difference in this country. Quebec and Ontario have a different
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attachment to Canada than do Albertans. Part of that is for historical reasons, how the West was built
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and born in Canada. Part of it is that, for some reason, the Liberal Party just loves beating up
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Alberta for pleasure and cash. And unfortunately, too many provincial premiers like Ontario and Quebec
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do too. I ask you, remember a couple months ago when all these politicians, all these premiers were
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saying, we're going to remove provincial trade barriers? Yeah, you didn't. Not a single one, because
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of course, that would mean allowing Alberta oil to flow through sacred Quebec territory, and that
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can't be allowed. Anyways, I'll get to that interview in a moment. I just want to show you two quick
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videos from Mark Carney. Here's one that's just amazing. And, you know, you can brief a guy, you can give a
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guy, you know, suggested talking points on 100 things. But unless he's got natural instincts, you can't
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prepare him for literally any questions. Like this one, from French Radio Canada. Will you stop
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eating American strawberries? Take a look at this.
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Est-ce que vous en achetez encore des produits américains? Est-ce que vous achetez des fraises
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des États-Unis? Vous? Envoyez fraises des États-Unis, là?
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OK. Je dois vous donner une repense bizarre, dans un sens bizarre, parce qu'étant premier
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ministre, je n'achète plus des fraises et tout cela. Quelqu'un le fait.
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Will you continue to buy American strawberries? Oh, no. I don't buy anything. My servants do
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that. So, fingers crossed, technically, I don't buy American strawberries. My people do. I have
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people to do that. What an astonishingly tone-deaf answer. And there's a trickiness to it also.
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It's not, do you hand the credit card over? Do you pay the cash? It's, will you consume it? And
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that trickiness, that loophole nature, there's an essential dishonesty to the guy. Really weird.
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I don't know. Here's another Mark Carney clip. Just take a look at this.
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I told the president that I will be working hard for the next month to earn the right to represent
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Canada in those discussions, to get the best deal for Canada under the new U.S. approach.
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At the same time, Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy, and to
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protect our sovereignty. Canada's ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of
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like-minded countries who share our values. We believe in international cooperation.
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We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas. And if the United States no
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longer wants to lead, Canada will. But what he said there is not true. Canada is not for the open
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exchange of goods and services and ideas. First of all, Canada is very censorious. And Canada does not
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believe in the free trade of oil and gas and coal and anything with carbon in it. And Mark Carney himself
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has led the charge against that. We do not believe in free trade for dairy or poultry. And that's
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mainly to protect Quebec. We don't allow American banks to compete with Canadian banks to give us
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better service. We don't allow American cell phone companies to compete with Bell and Rogers and the
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other atrocious cell phone carriers who have given Canada the highest priced data packages in the world.
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Is Canada really going to lead? If you look at the stats, we actually have the lowest, most sluggish
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economy in the G7. We're actually in a recession on a per capita basis. That is, on a per capita basis,
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Canadians are getting poorer. It's only because Trudeau has brought in so many millions of foreigners that
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the gross number continues to grow. I think it's a bit of a joke to suggest Canada will lead and expand trade
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elsewhere with our allies, really. It was the liberal government that said, no, there's no business
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case for selling LNG to Japan or Germany. So those countries have gone ahead and inked massive deals
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with our competitors like Qatar. Yeah, sorry. I simply don't believe that the liberals know how to build
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or lead anything. All right. I wanted to show you those two clips of Mark Carney.
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But now to our feature interview with Jeffrey Raff. Take a look.
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I tell you, Western Canada should be scared of Mark Carney, or frankly, anyone who believes in
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capitalism and developing the natural resources of our country. It would be insane not to develop
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our resources, but that has been the ideology of Justin Trudeau. And I have argued that Mark Carney
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is Trudeau 2.0. But just like in the Terminator movies, where the subsequent Terminators were
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stronger, faster, more bulletproof, that's what I think about Mark Carney. He works harder than Trudeau.
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He's smarter than Trudeau. He's more networked than Trudeau. He's a much more serious man than Trudeau.
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He's not obsessed with photo ops and being silly. He's actually deadly serious. And his central focus
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has been his job, not just his job making money with Brookfield, but his job as the co-chair of
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something called GFANS, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which is another way of saying,
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keep the oil sands in the ground. I think it's actually an existential threat to the
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prosperity of the West. And Danielle Smith, who I think has been doing a great job trying to tamp down
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Donald Trump's tariff threat, said something just astonishing the other day. And she said it in such
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a mild-mannered way. I showed the clip to you last week, but I want to show one more time. Here's Danielle
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Smith talking about what could happen if Mark Carney wins with his commitment to keep
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the oil in the ground, to bar any new pipelines or shipping. Listen one more time to what Danielle
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Smith said. Take a look. I got a mandate to try to fix Canada. I got a mandate to try to make Canada work.
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And that's what I've been working towards relentlessly over these last two and a half years.
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As you know, we did put in place a process for citizen-initiated referenda. And I leave it to
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Albertans who may feel differently to put forward a petition campaign. But I think my job as an
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Albertan and as a Canadian is to try to put on the table the issues that are causing grave tension in
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our federation and to solve them. And I'm going to look at it on the positive side, because what I have
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observed is that it may be that the current prime minister doesn't get it, but all of the other
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premiers do. And we have consistently, for the last number of meetings, signed on to
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a communiqués talking about how we're going to build economic corridors. This last one, economic
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corridors with oil and gas and transmission lines, rail lines, and new highways and other
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infrastructure in those corridors. And so I believe there's goodwill on the part of the other premiers.
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The problem is, unless we solve those federal barriers, it's just words on paper. So I'm going
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to continue to use sort of that newfound sense of esprit de corps with my fellow premiers. We're
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going to do what we can after the election to make sure that we address those issues. And I'll keep an
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open mind. But so far, I'm dissatisfied with what I'm hearing out of the new prime minister. He doesn't
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seem to understand just how foundational these are if we're going to reset the relationship.
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That's not actually the clip I had in mind. That's a very interesting clip, though,
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because it shows that Danielle Smith believes that the other premiers are her allies. I think
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that's probably true in the case of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. But it is definitely not the
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case of the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, who has suggested that export taxes be put on Alberta
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energy. And Francois Legault, the Premier of Quebec, who has said that no pipelines are passing through
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his province. So all the talk about stopping interprovincial trade barriers, all this
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Team Canada talk, it's just a ruse. It's just a temporary fad. The rest of the premiers resent
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Alberta for its wealth. And if they have any opinion on it, they want that wealth through equalization.
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That was an interesting clip, and I'm glad we showed it. But let me show the clip that really,
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I think, I want to spend some time discussing. And it's in response to criticism that she's standing
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up for Alberta too much. I want to show you when she says Canada has to start working for Alberta,
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and it's not right now. So that first clip we showed was interesting. I think she's being too
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generous to her fellow premiers who look at Alberta as a milk cow. But take a look at her. There's a bit
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of an or else starting to form. Take a look at this. What would you say to those who criticize you
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for sort of entertaining the idea of Alberta independence as Canada faces a trade war and
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threats of annexation from the U.S.? Well, I love Canada, and I want Canada to work. I've been
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on Team Canada from the beginning. It's part of the reason why I've been relentlessly going to
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the United States and trying to advocate for all of our industries, for all of Canada,
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in every venue I possibly can. But I'm also Premier of Alberta. And quite frankly, at some point,
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Canada has to start working for Alberta. And it's not right now. We have a number of policies that
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came in over the last 10 years that have been damaging to Alberta prosperity. It's been damaging
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to our freedom as a province. And if they persist, it is going to continue a dysfunctional relationship
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that harms Alberta. So I put forward the nine major policies that I think have to be repealed after the
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next election. Unfortunately, the current prime minister, despite what he said to me privately when
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he was here, has now gone public saying he supports export taxes, he supports Bill C-69,
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he supports emissions caps. That is moving in the wrong direction. So we will get through this
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election. We'll see who ends up winning. And I will continue to advocate for those.
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And that's part of the reason why I will do a What's Next panel. We did that when my predecessor
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came in to hear some of the concerns that Albertans had about how to repair the relationship with Canada
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at that time. And it'll be time for us to do it again. Well, that's very interesting. I'll get to
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that panel in a second. But I just thought it was incredible. At some point, Canada has to start
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working for Alberta. And it's not right now. She talked about a What's Next panel. And I saw an
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essay in the Globe and Mail by Preston Manning, the former leader of the Reform Party and the Canadian
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Alliance, the son of Ernest Manning, the longtime Alberta premier. I remember when Preston Manning
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first got going in the 90s. I was a kid. I was excited about it. It's actually the late 80s.
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I was a teenager. And here's this guy who said, No, Albertans, don't separate. Let's reform
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the Confederation. The West wants in because the separatists, of course, have been saying the West
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wants out. Well, let me contrast Preston Manning in the late 80s and early 90s with his The West
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Wants In nationalism. With Preston Manning in 2025, I'm looking at an article published in the Globe and
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Mail a couple days ago called, Mark Carney poses a threat to national unity. And I'm only going to
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read to you the last two paragraphs of this because it'll just show what a transformation
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Preston Manning himself has gone through. Remember, 30 years ago, Preston Manning, 40 years ago, Preston
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Manning really stopped Western separatism. Here's how he's talking today.
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If the liberals, employing the fear of U.S. President Donald Trump to secure the support
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of easily frightened voters, should be returned to office, then the agenda of the conference,
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he was talking about a where to go next conference, should be to consider ways and means of peacefully
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seceding. The next Prime Minister of Canada, if it remains Mark Carney, would then be identified
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in the history books tragically and needlessly as the last Prime Minister of a united Canada.
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You know, I got to tell you, I used to work for Preston Manning. I'm talking 30 years ago now,
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20 something years ago. He's frankly a moderate. He's not a radical. His purpose was to unify Canada,
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to fix Canada, to moderate Canada. He really was a nationalist. The West wants in.
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And now he is saying, if Mark Carney is reelected, get ready for peaceful secession.
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Joining us now to talk about that possibility is Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer, activist, and a teeny tiny
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bit of a troublemaker who joins us now live from the Alberta District of Foothills, one of the best
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places in the world. Jeffrey, welcome back to the show. And I remember when you spoke at our
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Rebel News Live conference in Calgary, you were one of the hit speakers. You've recently expressed
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yourself that the future for Alberta is becoming, as Donald Trump would say, a cherished 51st state.
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Where are you now? Do you think Alberta should stick in Canada, be separate but independent,
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join America? Is it possible to fix Canada? Give me your thoughts on things, because I know you're
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right there on the leading edge of this. Well, I'm 100% in favor of Alberta statehood. And when I say
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statehood, I'm speaking as a political scientist. And what that means is a free and independent
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country that we're going to call the Commonwealth of Alberta, separate and apart and independent
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from Canada. So that's what we're advocating. I mean, the benefits of that are manifold.
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No more federal income tax, no more carbon tax, no more excise tax, no more capital gains tax,
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no more $70 billion a year going to Ottawa to only get ostensibly $30 billion in services back from
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Ottawa. Well, we continue to fund gold-plated social services programs in Quebec that Albertans
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can only dream of. I mean, the day Alberta declares independence, the fuel prices for everybody in
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this province will be cut in half. We'll go from $1.60 a litre to $0.80 a litre. I mean,
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that's enough to get, you know, a good number of my fellow Albertans voting on that basis alone,
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let alone thinking about if you're a police officer, a fireman, you know, nurse, teacher,
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you know, whatever, you know, making a decent middle-class living of $100,000 a year,
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where you pay, you know, 35%, 40% in federal income tax, all of a sudden, you don't have to pay
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federal income tax anymore. So instead of having take-home pay of $50,000 or $60,000 a year,
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your take-home pay jumps up to $80,000 or $90,000 a year. I mean, that's the future we're
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talking about for Alberta. And I mean, what I challenge all of these people that say, oh,
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how can you talk about leaving Canada? This is nonsense. Your fellow Albertans aren't going
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to come along with you, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, we're at 40% in the polls now
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without taking the time to fully educate our fellow Albertans, or, you know, we're taking the time,
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but without our fellow Albertans fully internalizing the benefits of Alberta independence.
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I mean, the day Alberta becomes independent, we become the country in the world with the highest
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GDP per capita, right? So, you know, certainly the benefits of Alberta independence are manifold.
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I would challenge anybody to list off five benefits to Albertans of remaining in Canada
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that would exceed the value of the benefits that I just listed for leaving Canada.
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And, you know, the other thing that I'm involved in, obviously, is our delegation to Washington.
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We're in contact with the U.S. administration at this point in time. I'm advised by contacts
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that we have in the United States that our correspondence has literally landed on the
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President's desk and is being reviewed at the highest level in the United States, favorably
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and with much interest. You know, obviously for the United States, a free and independent
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in Alberta with strong economic ties to the United States, you know, that embraces President
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Trump's policy of reciprocal tariffs, where if we have zero tariffs on the Alberta side
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of the border, they'll have zero tariffs on the U.S. side of the border, a negotiated open
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border with the United States, you know, a much more robust economic union that the Americans
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can count on security of supply of Alberta oil and gas without people like, you know,
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Mr. Carney imposing emissions caps, production caps, interfering with our ability to ship
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oil by rail to the United States like Trudeau did by changing the tanker specifications so
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that only Berkshire Hathaway can supply train cars for Alberta oil to move south. I'd like to
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know what the deal is between, you know, the relationship is between Brookfield and Berkshire
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Hathaway, by the way, but I'm sure Carney is making some money somewhere. But anyway,
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I'll let you jump in. Sorry. Thanks very much. So, I mean, we recently did a poll. We hired
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Leger, which is a pretty mainstream pollster to test the appetite for becoming a 51st state. And I know
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you're talking now, you mentioned an independent state. I think there's two different conversations
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going on, if I may. One is a financial, it's like a, it's a quantitative conversation. You've talked
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about some of that, the ability to save money, not ship money to other parts of Canada, to have a
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stronger relationship with the U.S. And Trump has talked about that too. You know, I think he's alluded
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to exchanging the Canadian dollar at par. There was a lot of finance, it was like a checklist of
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benefits, most of which you could quantify, and others like military, which you could, I suppose,
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quantify it too. But on the other hand, there's a reaction, and I think it's particularly strong in
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Ontario, because remember Ontario, a lot of people in Ontario, they are descended from people who left
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the United States after the Revolutionary War. They were called United Empire Loyalists. They were folks
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who were fans of the king. They didn't like this George Washington upstart. So they just moved to
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British North America. And obviously, that was more than 200 years ago. But there still is
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a strain of anti-Americanism and a strain of we're different. And so when you say break up Canada,
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you're not just talking about dollars and cents. You're talking about emotional ties, patriotism,
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loyalty, loyalty, the king, the queen. And those are all emotional things that you can't sort of
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counter with financial things. Is it a difference?
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Well, thankfully, people in Ontario don't get a vote, Ezra.
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I mean, I guess that's the difference between our...
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They're not going to be voting in our referendum.
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You know, you could have all the Trump derangement syndrome you want in Ontario. I mean, I'm sure
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it goes hand in hand with their vaccination rates and the fact that they had such a huge
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amount of support for the COVID Nazism that a lot of Albertans thought was just completely
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out to lunch. You know, I myself am descended from a Lieutenant William Graves of the British Army
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who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. So, you know, I mean, I understand that.
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I mean, we're not necessarily, you know, that's why we call our project the Commonwealth of
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Alberta Project. I mean, you know, an independent Republic of Alberta, we would imagine, would
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remain a member of the Commonwealth. We would certainly continue to have congenial relationships
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with His Majesty the King. You know, there's no reason that any and all of those things
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wouldn't be on the table. You know, we're aware that our fellow Albertans share some of
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those sentiments. But, you know, our feeling is, and I saw your poll, to be clear, the polling
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that we are looking at now has support for Alberta independence approaching the level that voted
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yes in the first Quebec referendum of 40.44%. And again, that's without Albertans internalizing
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how much better off they're going to be and their families are going to be from an economic
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perspective, let alone from the perspective of being free from all of the childish, arbitrary
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regulations that have been opposed on Albertans by Ottawa. You know, everything from all the stupid
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COVID regulations to Justin Trudeau, you know, seemingly every two or three months, coming
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up with another list of firearms that he found too frightening to consider allowing people to
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continue to own, you know, all of those types of things. You know, like last, like 40 days,
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you know, within 40 days of him leaving office, he came up with a list of firearms that he was
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going to confiscate and ship to the front lines of the war in Ukraine that included people's 22
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caliber semi-automatic gopher rifles. I mean, it's this level of stupidity that Albertans
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are fed up with. I mean, not 40 days ago, we had Doug Ford thinking that he could cut off
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Alberta oil to the United States without understanding that Ontario's oil comes up through, you know,
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comes up from line nine through the United States. So, I mean, Albertans are just done with
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being governed by idiots who don't even know where their goddamn oil comes from.
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You know, it's my observation that different separatist movements around the world or
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independence movements around the world, a lot of it comes down to men of history. I look at the
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United Kingdom, where Nigel Farage, I think, was the personification of the Brexit movement. And that
00:24:17.760
wasn't to break up the UK, but it was to break away the UK from the European Union. And I think his
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relentless campaigning, I think he was a man of consequence, and he made it happen. And I think
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of Lucien Bouchard, who championed Quebec secession. And he was like, and René Levesque in his own way
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also. These men personified the project. They lived it. It was so clear it was in their heart,
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they bled it. And they had a deep connection culturally with the people they were seeking
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support from. Preston Manning, it's very interesting to me that he's talking about secession. But I just
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checked, and he turns 83 in a couple months. So he's not the man to lead it. I mean, I'm sure he's
00:25:10.100
still bright, but you're not going to launch a vigorous campaign when you're 83 years old, I don't
00:25:15.540
think. Although, these days, I don't know. Who, like, I think you need a seed crystal, you know what
00:25:23.680
I mean? A crystal around which other crystals form. Who would be the leader of that? I think that's so
00:25:29.340
essential, because that person would immediately be attacked by the entire establishment, the media
00:25:37.800
establishment. There would be investigations of them. The CBC would go to war against them.
00:25:43.240
Who could be a leader to take Alberta, in your vision, to take Alberta from an unhappy part of
00:25:52.340
confederation to this independent republic part of the commonwealth? Who would be that? Because
00:25:58.160
history needs great men and women. It just doesn't happen. Well, Dennis Muldry and I co-founded
00:26:04.920
the Alberta Prosperity Project for this very reason, which was to teach Albertans about the
00:26:10.160
benefits of independence. Last night, we had a meeting that was, you know, attended by no fewer than
00:26:15.840
four retired members of parliament, some of whom served under Preston Bennett, retired NHL hockey
00:26:22.160
players, you know, other members of Alberta society, presidents and CEOs of Alberta financial
00:26:27.680
institutions, etc. I mean, this is the movement we are putting together. You know, I'm very much,
00:26:33.620
I'm a barrister. I'm a very much a project-oriented kind of, you know, person. You know, when I was on
00:26:38.740
Fox News, they were jokingly, you know, referring to me as the governor of Alberta. I stated at the
00:26:44.180
end of, you know, of that program that I have no interest in running for politics ever. But that
00:26:49.600
having been said, I'm a very project-oriented individual, and I'm committed to carrying this
00:26:54.880
project across the line. It'll be the, you know, it'll be one of my greatest professional
00:26:58.480
accomplishments as a lawyer, which is to give effect to the independence of Alberta. So,
00:27:03.840
you know, we're certainly leading the charge. I'm, I'm with the front edge of this, as you've
00:27:07.640
indicated. I mean, they've already started making fun of me on this hour has 22 minutes. Somebody
00:27:12.420
started a campaign with the law society to have my law license suspended because I've somehow
00:27:18.460
violated my oath to his majesty, the king by advocating a peaceful democratic process where my
00:27:24.420
fellow citizens have a say in their futures and the futures of their family. You know, I mean,
00:27:29.980
it just goes with the territory. So, you know, currently I'm out front. Will another leader come
00:27:34.680
along and take my place and I'll happily go back to doing what I do best, which is, you know,
00:27:39.200
working in the background and making sure that this thing happens? You know, who knows? You know,
00:27:44.720
right now I, you know, for good or ill, happen to be the face of the movement. And I'm happy to carry
00:27:49.300
the ball forward and continue to do what we're doing, which is to vigorously pursue an independent
00:27:54.480
referendum, an independence referendum this year through APP. We're halfway to getting the
00:28:00.160
signatures that we need for that referendum. Certainly I'm advocating...
00:28:04.160
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I got to stop you there. Hang on a second. So we heard Danielle Smith,
00:28:08.660
the premier, talk about a referendum. You needed an enormous number of votes. Are you saying
00:28:13.380
that you've collected hundreds of thousands of names to call... APP has 66, over 66,000 committed
00:28:22.560
volunteers and supporters that are visibly, visibly because of the period, the referendum period that
00:28:28.380
Kenny put in, which is fairly short, a 90-day period. We're putting together databases of all
00:28:32.940
of the names that we're going to need so that we can get those names all put in place with live
00:28:36.560
signatures during the 90-day referendum period. So we're working diligently to get...
00:28:42.020
What's the number you need to get? How many... We need 300,000 currently. And there's some talk
00:28:50.060
that the Alberta government may, in fact, pass legislation to lower that threshold.
00:28:53.700
I think that's an enormously high threshold, but, I mean, daunting. I mean, I looked at the...
00:28:58.740
It's been a while since I've looked at the legislation. I remember seeing it for recall,
00:29:02.000
which is the ability to fire an MLA. And it's extraordinarily high. It's higher than could ever
00:29:08.080
possibly be achieved. I don't know what it's like.
00:29:10.840
Just to give you a feeling for how realistic this is, the National Firearms Association
00:29:16.000
has over 100,000 members in Alberta alone, right? And, you know, so there's 100,000 signatures
00:29:23.440
right there, because I'm sure most members of the NFA have no interest in remaining in a country
00:29:28.840
that just arbitrarily declares property that they own peacefully and legally, you know,
00:29:33.940
to be prohibited and not, you know, not being able to be used anymore. You know, then we also have
00:29:38.760
all of the people that are very capable of looking at their tax return and going, boy,
00:29:43.220
wouldn't my life be so much better off if I didn't have to pay federal income tax anymore?
00:29:48.180
And that the, you know, that I was... The only taxes I would pay would either be a flat Alberta,
00:29:52.660
you know, 10%, you know, Alberta tax or a flat 10% Alberta corporate tax, both of which would be
00:29:59.540
eminently affordable to the Commonwealth of Alberta once we were no longer sending $71 billion a year
00:30:05.600
to the rest of Canada. So, I mean, from our perspective, this entire project is eminently
00:30:11.440
doable. Whether we get the signatures or not, the other thing people need to keep in mind is that
00:30:18.400
as the Alberta Prosperity Project membership grows by 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 people a week,
00:30:26.740
so is the membership of the United Conservative Party of Alberta. So, you know, there's, you know,
00:30:33.620
currently I would estimate that APP has over 65% of the membership of the Alberta Conservative Party,
00:30:42.380
the United Conservative Party. So, you know, one way or another, we are going to have a referendum
00:30:47.100
this year. And quite frankly, from our perspective, and this is the meeting that I attended last night
00:30:52.540
with, you know, retired MPs and other very prominent Albertans, we're committed to doing
00:30:57.240
this, whether Pierre Pauly wins the election or not. So, I think Danielle isn't really keeping up
00:31:02.080
with her base when she's thinking, oh, everything's going to be lovely once Pierre is elected, because
00:31:07.200
Pierre will not end transfer payments. He will not stop the bleeding of money from Alberta to Quebec.
00:31:12.560
He may get rid of, you know, the list of nine things that Danielle put forward, you know,
00:31:17.940
in and around, you know, in and around oil and gas. But that doesn't solve our problems.
00:31:22.700
Our problems are structural. And the problem that Alberta has with Canadian Federation
00:31:26.980
is the fact that we are effectively a colony of Western Canada, and we do not have adequate
00:31:32.780
representation. You know, Western Canada has been pounding its head against a brick wall for 30 years.
00:31:39.440
And I think this is why Preston's had a change of heart under the slogan,
00:31:42.580
the West wants in. And we're sick and tired of Quebec and Ontario saying, screw you, we're not
00:31:48.240
interested. We like the status quo, and go back to being our dairy cow, because we're just going to
00:31:53.320
keep squeezing all of you dry. And to hell with you, and to hell with your families, and to hell with
00:31:57.700
your aspirations. We don't care, because Canada works very well for us, and to hell with Alberta.
00:32:04.540
I just looked up the stats, and in the last provincial election,
00:32:07.620
Danielle Smith's government received 929,000 votes. So if you're saying the threshold for a
00:32:15.520
referendum is only 300,000, I want to put my eyes on that to double check myself, because that's
00:32:23.100
much lower than I thought it was. I should tell you that the opposition New Democrats got an additional
00:32:29.460
777,000 votes last time. The reason I mentioned that is that these two parties had 1.7 million votes
00:32:36.100
between them. And if you're saying that you can trigger a referendum on the separation of Alberta
00:32:42.920
for just 300,000 votes, that's only one-sixth of the voter turnout, let alone the total eligible
00:32:51.320
voting, which was, election turnout was only 60%. So I'm not going to try and do the math live on TV,
00:32:58.900
I'll get hurt. But there's, let's say, about 2.5 million voters. If you're saying that you really
00:33:05.680
only need 10% of eligible voters to say we want a referendum on secession.
00:33:11.500
That's only 177,000 votes. Or 177,000 signatures. 10% of 1.77 million. It's currently 20, I think it's
00:33:20.500
currently 20% is the referendum threshold. So it's, you know, it's over 300,000. But, you know,
00:33:28.420
if that threshold was lowered to 10%, we could have those signatures by next month.
00:33:32.120
I'm not talking about lowering it. I'm trying to figure out exactly how many are needed and what
00:33:36.520
that proportion is compared to voter turnout. And I'm sorry, I should do some deeper research on this.
00:33:42.140
I'm just sort of going in real time here. Because if you're saying you can trigger a separation vote
00:33:48.240
with just 300,000 names on a signature, I think that is something that can be done. And I think then
00:33:55.220
the next question, and then you're going to see an astonishing thing. In my view, the Bloc Québécois
00:34:01.380
and the Parti Québécois in Quebec are treated extra good. What I mean by that is when they threaten to
00:34:08.120
leave, they don't get a tit-for-tat response from Ottawa. They don't get threats. It's not like,
00:34:14.700
you know, countervailing tariffs or anything. It's the opposite.
00:34:18.960
They get appeasement. They get, what can we do to make you happier? Can we guarantee you three seats
00:34:25.860
on the Supreme Court? Quebec voted 40% in favor of independence in the first
00:34:31.200
Rene Levesque referendum. And that 40% vote resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars
00:34:37.220
being sucked out of Alberta by a vacuum. Right. And what I'm saying is that was the result of that.
00:34:43.140
If Alberta tried the same thing, it would not get the same reaction. It would not get loving bribes.
00:34:50.400
It would get rage and attacks and defamation. We do not care. We are beyond caring about anything
00:34:57.000
Canada has to say. And let me, you know, let me, you know, explain that. I mean, when we were locked
00:35:03.480
up in our homes, when we were told we couldn't fly on airplanes because we're not going to get an
00:35:07.540
experimental shot put in our arms, you know, when, uh, you know, Trudeau had indigenous women
00:35:12.760
trampled in the streets by horses because he couldn't stand the idea of Albertans protesting
00:35:17.860
in Ottawa. Um, we didn't, we were in a constitutional crisis. We're still in a constitutional crisis.
00:35:25.140
And in fact, Canada said, from our perspective, Canada separated from Alberta when that happened.
00:35:30.420
So we're just basically, um, you know, going through the motions of making it official as far
00:35:35.920
as we're concerned. So, you know, that's how everybody that I'm working with and everybody
00:35:40.540
that's on our team, you know, looks at this project that we've undertaken is that Canada
00:35:45.140
itself isn't the Canada that any of us grew up in. Um, everybody can talk about all this elbows up
00:35:50.900
nonsense and team Canada crap that Danielle's mouthing, but she's, I think she's completely out of
00:35:56.720
touch with her base on that. And I think she'd be, I don't know that she'd really be shocked,
00:36:00.420
but I think she understands that at least 65% of the UCP base now fully supports independence.
00:36:06.780
So, you know, there's one other, there's one other mechanism, you know, towards, uh,
00:36:13.380
independence as well. Um, you know, all of the people that are members of APP take back
00:36:18.920
Alberta, et cetera, they all got together and got rid of Jason Kenney. And, you know, and I think
00:36:24.320
Danielle needs to remember that, you know, if her base doesn't like the fact that, you know,
00:36:28.420
she's making statements about separate, you know, independence being nonsense and not, um, you know,
00:36:33.660
supporting the aspirations of her base, uh, you know, a new leader could be easily selected.
00:36:39.160
I mean, there's enough support for independence within the UCP right now to do it.
00:36:43.460
You know, she got 91% in her leadership review just a few months ago.
00:36:47.980
And a lot of that was whipped by people, including myself, not whipped, but it was encouraged by
00:36:52.320
people like myself who, you know, at the time did not want to see a change of leadership within
00:36:57.380
that party. And a lot of the, a lot of us, you know, got, you know, got on board with Danielle
00:37:02.540
on the promise that she was going to amend the bill of rights to ensure that the property rights
00:37:08.360
in the bill of rights were enshrined as being a substantive right rather than a procedural
00:37:12.600
right. And we were all stabbed in the back by the Alberta bureaucracy, who in fact...
00:37:16.980
All right, let me, let me push pause here. I want to get back to the other...
00:37:19.660
...after promises that it would be strengthened.
00:37:21.860
I, I, one of, um, the interesting things in my life was I, I sort of grew up at the same
00:37:28.260
time the Reform Party grew up. I was, I joined the party when I was, the day I turned 18 really.
00:37:33.780
And, um, and I watched it grow and I went town by town throughout Alberta and I saw Preston
00:37:39.200
Manning, you know, being on the road 200 days a year, uh, in every church basement doing
00:37:44.360
the rubber chicken circuit, grassroots building up an organization. He built up a political
00:37:49.600
party. So, you know, he, and I, and I remember before that, one of the things he built the
00:37:56.160
Reform Party in response to was the Western Canada concept, which was a separatist party,
00:38:00.580
which actually elected a seat in the Alberta legislature. Um, and, and I guess I would ask
00:38:08.140
you, do your plans include setting up a new provincial party?
00:38:15.200
We don't need to set up a new provincial party. You know, APP and the independence movement
00:38:20.380
of Alberta is the UCP now. So that's what people need to weigh down.
00:38:25.040
Do they agree? Are there any sitting MLAs who attended your meeting?
00:38:29.860
We're, we're, we have a number of sitting MLAs that are very in favor of what we're doing
00:38:34.460
and are very friendly towards what we're doing. So, you know, the meeting, the meeting last
00:38:38.800
night didn't include any sitting MLAs, but there were several sitting MLAs that would have
00:38:44.160
come had they not had previous commitments. I can tell you that.
00:38:48.480
What would the question be? Because, you know, whenever you start talking about Alberta leaving
00:38:55.120
Canada, there's a certain amount of support, but then you get into, well, would you join the
00:38:59.580
States? Would you be independent? Would you join with us?
00:39:02.120
The question is very simple, Ezra, and it's already been drafted. The question, you know,
00:39:05.500
the question is, do you support Alberta leaving Canada and becoming an independent country?
00:39:12.240
Period. That's the question. And all of these other things, I mean, like your poll is an example
00:39:17.220
on, you know, support in Alberta for Alberta becoming, you know, an American state. I'll, you know,
00:39:23.540
I'll tell you right now within the independence movement itself, there's less support for full
00:39:28.580
blown American statehood than there is just for Alberta independence. And I'll tell you one of
00:39:33.480
the biggest reasons for that is simple. It's two words, income tax, right? If you become a full
00:39:39.460
blown American state, you're trading, you know, the depredations of the CRA and the Canadian Revenue
00:39:45.420
Agency for the IRS. But if Alberta were a standalone independent country, you know, we could have a
00:39:52.300
constitutional limit on the amount of taxation levied on Albertans that, you know, we think a feasible
00:39:58.200
number of consulting with financial experts is 10% of a flat income tax of 10%, flat corporate tax of
00:40:05.100
10%, no other taxes, and Alberta would be able to well afford that. So, you know, why wouldn't people vote for that?
00:40:14.460
Who's the leader? And the reason I say that is I'm imagining if you actually got the, the votes,
00:40:20.360
sort of the, the petition signatures, you would have every leader from Ottawa come out. But I think you
00:40:27.020
would have a number of Alberta leaders, you would have mayors, you would have MLAs, you would have MPs,
00:40:34.780
you would have, and by the way, I think you would have the Conservative Party of Canada oppose it. I think you
00:40:41.580
would have the People's Party of Canada oppose it. I think every single Canadian political party
00:40:47.100
would oppose it. And I think that Danielle Smith, I, herself, and, and, and maybe I'm not following
00:40:54.140
it closely enough, I think she would oppose it. So you would have every instrument of the establishment,
00:40:59.900
politically, every media outlet with, with maybe one or two independent exceptions, every financial
00:41:06.860
establishment. Oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go so far down that road, Ezra. I mean, there's,
00:41:12.300
you know, like I said, we, you know, we had a, we had one of the people at our meeting last night was
00:41:16.220
the CEO of a major Alberta financial institution. He thinks it's a great idea. You know, I think what
00:41:21.740
you need to get your head around, and people need to get their heads around, Albertans are a very
00:41:25.980
independent bunch. And especially when you look at rural Albertans, who are sick and tired of the
00:41:31.500
status quo, who do not trust any of our politicians anymore, who do not give a, you know, as far as
00:41:37.340
most Albertans are concerned, Jason Kenney is a Trudeau liberal. So, you know, you can say whatever
00:41:42.380
you want about the Conservative Party. I mean, Pierre Polyev, you know, for a lot of us is really a
00:41:47.660
Trudeau liberal. He opposes an end to transfer payments. He supports the Dairy Mafia. You know,
00:41:54.540
we're done with it. I mean, you know, most true Albertans are completely done with Canada and just want
00:42:00.460
to get the hell out. And I think that our project, I think, can be highly recommended to our fellow
00:42:06.540
Albertans from an economic basis. And if people want to say, oh, but I love my Canadian passport,
00:42:11.900
well, guess what? You know, nobody's going to lose their Canadian citizenship when Alberta becomes
00:42:16.380
independent. Canada doesn't recognize the renunciation of Canadian citizenship. So everybody
00:42:21.580
that's really attached to their Canadian passport can keep their Canadian passport. There will also be
00:42:25.900
an Alberta passport. So, you know, we're, you know, we're really excited about this project.
00:42:30.860
We're moving it forward. And, you know, we're not going to let, you know, the establishment forces
00:42:38.060
that literally treat Alberta citizens like subjects and pee arms, which they have done for decades,
00:42:44.380
you know, if not since, you know, 1905, stand in the way of independent Albertans standing up and
00:42:50.380
saying, we've had enough, we want out, we want our new constitution that gets us out of the
00:42:55.660
Westminster system of governance, where we elect effectively, you know, a dictator, an elected
00:43:01.420
dictator for five years at a time with no checks and balances. I mean, people want a real substantive
00:43:07.660
change to the way that we're governed and the relationship between citizens and the government.
00:43:13.900
You know, I, I'm just trying to smoke out different questions, because I've been thinking about some
00:43:21.260
of these issues for my whole life. And I've also observed Quebec, for example, and how it tried to
00:43:27.180
deal with these things. I mentioned to Derek Phillip Brown of the Western Standard, that when I was in
00:43:31.340
Ottawa, I became friends when I was a young man, I worked for Preston Manning out in Ottawa. I became
00:43:36.300
friends with my counterpart, who worked for the Bloc Québécois. And it was sort of an interesting
00:43:42.220
friendship, people from different parts of the country and different parts of the ideological
00:43:45.820
spectrum. And one thing I learned was that the Parti Québécois, that is the provincial separatist
00:43:51.100
party, when it formed the government, so when it had the access to the resources of the state,
00:43:57.020
it put together a multi-volume sort of encyclopedia on how to separate. And they got the smartest people
00:44:03.420
in Quebec to write different essays. What will we do about our currency? What will we do with our
00:44:08.140
military bases? What will we do with our debt? Because as soon as you say separate,
00:44:15.660
then people start to think about things they're worried about. And this project, and I actually got
00:44:23.100
a set of this sort of, I forget what it was called, it was in French, it was big volumes of thoughtful,
00:44:29.260
scholarly answers to genuine questions. Everything I just said there, it's a real question. And what
00:44:35.980
happens to our passports? What happens to our, there's a lot, and some of them have really easy
00:44:41.420
answers. Some, there's different kinds of answers. And I think what that did is that was an attempt by
00:44:48.300
the Parti Québécois to show that they had an answer for those things. And it was a kind of planning
00:44:54.140
document too, in case they ever did get the referendum successful. And they had a network of academics
00:45:03.340
and people in the cultural community. I mean, so much of the Quebec cultural community, artists,
00:45:09.420
songwriters, poets, novelists, so much of the artistic community, because it was so romantic,
00:45:16.300
the idea of Quebec independence, were on side. So it wasn't just politicians. It was lawyers,
00:45:22.620
it was economists, it was professors, it was artists. And, and it was a movement.
00:45:28.700
But I don't think what you seem to be giving credit to, Ezra, is that a lot of that work is
00:45:33.020
being done by APP and has already been done by APP. We're certainly aware of a lot of the work that's
00:45:38.060
been done in Quebec. And a lot of us have read it. So, you know, I mean, a lot of, and a lot of
00:45:42.860
the questions are fairly simple, are fairly simple in the answer. I mean, one of the, one of the biggest
00:45:46.940
questions we get is, oh my goodness, what's going to, and this is for a serious, serious issue for
00:45:52.700
people on fixed incomes and people that are looking at retirement. And we have a big segment of our
00:45:57.180
baby boom population, you know, that's heading that way. Oh my goodness, what about our Canada
00:46:01.100
pension plan? You know, and the simple answer is there's going to be a constitutionalized guarantee
00:46:06.620
of people's pensions in, you know, the independent commonwealth of Alberta, guaranteed by the full
00:46:12.860
resource wealth of the province of Alberta, that, you know, those pensions will be payable in US
00:46:18.700
dollars or whatever the new currency of Alberta will be, the Alberta dollar, you know, guaranteed until
00:46:25.500
Alberta negotiates the repatriation of the 300 and some odd billion dollars of Alberta money that's
00:46:31.820
parked in the Canada pension plan. But the great thing about Alberta and Alberta's wealth is we can
00:46:37.500
afford to self-fund those pensions very easily. I mean, we're only looking right now, we send 9 billion
00:46:43.740
a year to CPP, we get 3 billion back. So we're looking at 3 billion dollars in pensions that have
00:46:49.900
to be covered off by the, you know, by the commonwealth of Alberta the day that, you know,
00:46:53.820
we declare independence. I mean, that's not a, that's not a, that's not a problem. And that's
00:46:58.140
only if Canada decides to try to play some stupid little hardball game and say, oh, if you're going
00:47:02.940
to be independent, we're going to cut off your pensions. Or alternatively, in the likelihood that
00:47:07.100
the Canadian dollar starts trading on par with the Polish Lottie after Alberta and all of its oil
00:47:12.300
revenue and resources leave Canada, you know, again, the Alberta government would guarantee the
00:47:17.420
pensions of Alberta pensioners, you know, at the same rate on, you know, peg to the US dollar. I mean,
00:47:23.740
we're discussing all of those things. I mean, that's why we have, you know, CEOs from financial
00:47:27.820
institutions that are part of our movement and part of our group. I mean, you know, we're, you know,
00:47:31.980
we have experts that are involved, you know, in, you know, subject matter experts in these areas
00:47:36.220
that are working with us. So, you know, all of this is serious as a heart attack and we're
00:47:41.020
serious about moving it all forward. I think that a fear-based campaign
00:47:47.820
that would unlock genuine concerns of people would be devastating.
00:47:53.340
Oh, I don't think so. I mean, they're already trying it already.
00:47:56.060
How do you, how do you allay concerns and fears? I think there's a huge fear of change
00:48:04.940
and things are bad in Alberta, but things could always get worse.
00:48:08.940
Oh, and they're going to get, they're going to continue to get worse whether
00:48:12.140
probably the fear of change, and especially if Cardi is elected. So from our perspective,
00:48:17.900
you know, a lot of that fear, you know, first of all, is completely misplaced. So, you know,
00:48:22.540
if, oh, what would happen if BC cut off our pipelines? Well, you know, BC needs to have,
00:48:27.660
you know, all of its goods moved by rail through Alberta to Ontario. So nobody's going to be
00:48:32.460
cutting off their nose to spite their face. And once Alberta leaves Canada, there's going to have
00:48:36.540
to be a responsible discussion between responsible adults to make sure that everything continues to
00:48:41.980
work for everybody's mutual benefit. On the basis of our preliminary discussions with the US, we have
00:48:47.180
no concerns whatsoever with regard to the United States recognizing Alberta independence in the same
00:48:52.860
way that they intend to recognize the independence and self-determination of Greenland. So, you know,
00:48:58.460
we don't see any of these things as being an insurmountable obstacle, other than, unfortunately,
00:49:04.700
in a post-COVID world after Trudeau sicked the Canadian Army Psychological Warfare Division on Canadian
00:49:10.380
people, you know, people have been very, you know, trained to respond to fear-based arguments.
00:49:19.660
We think that the benefits far outweigh, and the case we can make for all the benefits, far outweigh all of the
00:49:25.420
fear that they're going to be pouring all over us. That's the only argument they have. Oh,
00:49:29.580
worry about this. Worry about that. We're going to do this.
00:49:35.500
I know a little while ago, I saw news that you were going to lead a delegation to Washington.
00:49:39.660
Did that proceed? And if so, who did you meet with?
00:49:42.140
Well, no, we're moving forward. We're in the process of confirming meetings and so on.
00:49:46.060
I'm going to be heading down to DC in a couple of weeks to do some advance work for that.
00:49:49.420
The feedback that we're getting from the members of the administration that we're in contact with is
00:49:55.100
overwhelmingly positive. And we're moving forward with that project. So we'll be going down, our
00:50:01.100
delegation will be going down probably in four to five weeks. And what we hope to do is have some
00:50:06.620
meetings with the US administration, confirm some of the things that President Trump has teased out with
00:50:12.620
regard to various forms of Canadian independence, including the conversion of Alberta assets and
00:50:20.780
savings and so on at par with the US dollar, those types of things. Find out what level of support
00:50:26.620
would be forthcoming from the President Trump administration. All of those things are going to
00:50:32.380
make independence that much easier. And I think we are at a tipping point in history. I mean,
00:50:37.340
we have a hundred and, you know, I'm well aware as both as a political scientist and a lawyer that,
00:50:41.420
uh, you know, there's a hundred and some odd years of, of history where the US has not, um,
00:50:46.700
you know, overtly interfered in the internal affairs of Canada. But that having, that having been said,
00:50:52.620
we think that we're in a, there's a new administration, there's a new day. And we think
00:50:57.180
to the extent that President Trump was willing to support self-determination for Greenland,
00:51:01.500
he should be, um, even more willing to support self-determination for Alberta because of the
00:51:07.340
benefits that would bring the United States from a national security perspective and completely
00:51:12.380
eliminating the ability of Ottawa and buffoonish premiers like Doug Ford threatening, uh, US
00:51:19.180
security of energy supply, threatening export tariffs and cutting off US oil and, you know,
00:51:24.540
exports from Alberta and all of the stupidity that we've heard in the context of this phony tariff
00:51:30.060
where the Trudeau started for the electoral benefit of Mark Curran.
00:51:34.540
Well, Jeffrey, it's very interesting to talk about these things. And, um,
00:51:39.900
you know, history, uh, it, I don't know if it repeats itself, but it certainly rhymes,
00:51:45.180
as they say. And I've, this discomfort within Canada predates confederation. I mean, the
00:51:54.460
Alberta and Saskatchewan were supposed to join together as a province called Buffalo,
00:51:59.500
but they were split in half in part to keep them weaker. And when they joined,
00:52:03.820
they joined unequal. They didn't have the same resource rights as the other provinces. And during
00:52:09.020
the depression, the, uh, Alberta was allowed to go bankrupt, uh, by the, by the country. And,
00:52:16.220
and I, and I think a lot of the complaints from William Aberhart were legitimate, even if his solutions
00:52:21.340
weren't. And then Ernest Manning, and then his son Preston Manning, these things have been
00:52:26.060
been an Alberta issue for more than 120 years. And it'll be interesting to see if Mark Carney wins,
00:52:35.100
and I still hold out hope that he won't, um, will he inflame things such that Alberta,
00:52:40.780
as Preston Manning says, secedes. It's great to talk with you. Thank you for
00:52:45.340
answering my questions, which I'm trying to probe the state of things. I want to corroborate
00:52:51.980
some of the things you said in terms of the threshold for a petition, because if it is true,
00:52:58.700
that just 300,000 names is what's needed to have a referendum. That is a very low number
00:53:05.740
when considered with the size of the voting, uh, the list of potential voters.
00:53:11.100
There's something else you have to keep in mind, Ezra, is that the people that I'm working with,
00:53:15.500
whether we succeed this year or not, we're determined to have, you know, to have either
00:53:19.340
have a petition drive every year, to have a referendum vote every year until we leave Canada,
00:53:24.460
or alternatively change the, you know, to put enough pressure on the Alberta government
00:53:28.700
to bring in what I think is necessary, which is an Alberta independence referendum act that would
00:53:34.700
require a referendum on independence every time there's a federal election.
00:53:39.980
So every time Toronto and Montreal elects the next boss of us, Albertans can decide whether
00:53:45.820
or not we want to stay in a country under the leadership of whoever it is that the, you know,
00:53:50.620
that the, that Ontario and Quebec elect to be our colonial master.
00:53:56.060
So, I mean, that's where, that's where we're at. We have a committed movement. We're moving forward
00:54:00.940
and we're looking forward, uh, hopefully to a successful referendum for independence this year
00:54:08.060
Well, I live in Toronto and I can assure you, I have had no role in choosing our national or
00:54:14.940
provincial leaders. Jeffrey Rath, I introduced you as a lawyer and a troublemaker, and I think I was
00:54:22.860
accurate. And, uh, I'm sure we'll keep in touch in this issue. I mean, it has been something on my
00:54:28.780
mind since I was a teenager. And, um, I actually met Renny Levesque when he came to Calgary and I asked him
00:54:35.580
him about Western separatism. He was very shy. He was on a book tour and he didn't want to
00:54:42.460
Well, of course, of course he is, because he wouldn't want to disrupt the laying of the golden
00:54:49.660
You know, I think one of the best Renny Levesque, uh, uh, anecdotes I heard was, you know,
00:54:53.900
why did you hold a referendum when you knew you couldn't win? And Levesque's response was,
00:55:03.180
Jeffrey Rath, great to talk to you. We'll keep in touch.
00:55:05.020
All right. You bet, Ezra. Thanks for having me on.
00:55:07.900
Well, very interesting. I mean, you know, in Toronto, Toronto believes it's the center of the universe,
00:55:15.820
and in some ways it is. It's the financial and business and media capital of the country. But
00:55:22.540
there are other parts of this country that do not feel, uh, like they are truly at home in the
00:55:28.140
country. We, Quebec's dissatisfaction with Confederation certainly gets a lot of airtime
00:55:33.500
and national attention, but anytime Alberta feels abused or, um, looked over, and I'm, and I mentioned,
00:55:41.180
for example, of course, there's no, not a single cabinet minister in Mark Carney's government from
00:55:46.380
Alberta. Not that there's much, uh, lumber to pick from for the cabinet. We'll follow this
00:55:52.380
story with interest. Stay with us. Your letters to me next.
00:56:08.540
Well, Jeffrey Rath is very interesting and he's got a lot to say, and normally I don't find it hard
00:56:12.620
to get a word in edgewise, but he's a good talker. I like him. I like him. I, uh, he's got confidence.
00:56:19.500
I'll give him that. Uh, I worked with a guy who built a national party from scratch. His name
00:56:24.780
was Preston Manning and I was his assistant for a little while and I was head of the youth club for
00:56:29.820
a while and it's hard work. And, um, I don't know if it happens quickly. I mean, some separatist
00:56:37.660
movements around the world do happen astonishingly quickly. I have only briefly studied the separation
00:56:43.660
of Czech, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I think that happened in less than a year.
00:56:48.940
Um, Brexit was an enormous effort. It took years. Um, who knows? Uh, but it's interesting. We'll follow
00:56:54.860
him. We'll treat him fairly. Here's some letters. On Tamara Leach's unfortunate conviction yesterday,
00:57:01.980
as well as Chris Barber's, Jana NDD says, how can she be convicted if the Supreme Court ruled the
00:57:08.620
emergencies act was illegally invoked? It was the federal court that said that you're right. It was
00:57:13.580
unconstitutional and illegal, but what they said about Tamara Leach was not under the emergencies
00:57:19.820
act. It was under the regular criminal code. They charged her with mischief, intimidation,
00:57:26.060
obstruction of police. Now, all of those other charges were acquitted, but they did find her guilty
00:57:31.500
of mischief. I disagree with that for the reasons I've told you before, but
00:57:34.860
the fact that the emergencies act was illegal didn't, wasn't actually the law under which she
00:57:41.420
was charged. Anthony F. talks about Paul Chang, the liberal MP who called for the kidnapping of a rival
00:57:52.300
and says, but Chang threatens an MP's life and walks free. Yeah. I mean, how can it, that's the two
00:57:58.620
tier justice system that I'm talking about. I mean, blocking roads and streets. Well, that's what the
00:58:04.140
pro-Hamas protesters do every week. And many of them aren't even Canadian citizens. The police act
00:58:09.340
as their concierges. Paul Chang threatens to kidnap someone and teehee, it was just a misspeaking or a
00:58:17.580
joke. Next letter from Dang. If Carney is elected, these same charges are bound to be the norm on
00:58:24.220
Canadians. Well, I fear for that because you may recall that during the lockdowns, Mark Carney, who was
00:58:29.820
overseas in the UK, wrote an op-ed in the global mail saying that people should be charged with sedition
00:58:36.140
for supporting the truckers. In fact, he had a lot of misinformation in his op-ed about it being
00:58:40.860
foreign financed and foreign controlled. Mark Carney is an authoritarian man. He's a world economic
00:58:47.260
forum man, and he's not even really a Canadian. He hasn't lived here in over a decade. I am worried
00:58:52.460
about him. Hopefully he won't win, but if he does, maybe Jeffrey Rath will be prophetic. That's our show
00:58:59.580
for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,