Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Western Canadians WANT OUT as Carney campaigns as Trudeau 2.0

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Big talk with Jeffrey Rath, one of the leaders of the Alberta

00:00:03.460 Separatist Movement. I'm going to try and ask him my toughest questions to smoke out his answers 1.00

00:00:08.900 to controversies. And I don't know, I hope you find it interesting whether or not you're from

00:00:13.800 Alberta. It would obviously affect the entire country. I also want to show you a couple new

00:00:18.160 videos from Mark Carney, including an astonishing one about him and American Strawberries. You got

00:00:24.060 to see this one. Anyways, before I go, let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we

00:00:28.800 call Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. I want to show you those videos of

00:00:33.180 Mark Carney in particular. So make sure you've got the video version of our podcast. Go to

00:00:37.380 rebelnewsplus.com. Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And not only do you get great video,

00:00:43.660 but you support Rebel News because we don't take any government money and it shows.

00:00:58.800 Tonight, would a Mark Carney win cause Alberta to separate? Well, Preston Manning thinks so,

00:01:09.260 and so does our guest today. It's April 4th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:13.280 We've got a long interview for you today that I just recorded with Jeffrey Rath, who's really one

00:01:34.060 of the leaders behind the Alberta separatist movement. It's a long interview, and I push back

00:01:39.400 on Jeffrey, who I very much like, on a few questions. I think that it's important that

00:01:44.440 he be challenged because he's contemplating the gravest decision for Alberta to make.

00:01:50.240 I like the guy. I call him a troublemaker, and I guess troublemaker can spot troublemaker. But

00:01:54.800 I think Rebel News's position on Alberta separatism is, first of all, to try and fix the underlying

00:02:01.880 grievances. And second of all, if those grievances cannot be fixed, to be a fair reporter of what

00:02:10.160 happens out there, and not to simply demonize people who want to replace their Canadian citizenship

00:02:16.160 with something else. There's a difference in this country. Quebec and Ontario have a different

00:02:20.860 attachment to Canada than do Albertans. Part of that is for historical reasons, how the West was built

00:02:27.840 and born in Canada. Part of it is that, for some reason, the Liberal Party just loves beating up

00:02:34.140 Alberta for pleasure and cash. And unfortunately, too many provincial premiers like Ontario and Quebec 0.84

00:02:39.880 do too. I ask you, remember a couple months ago when all these politicians, all these premiers were

00:02:46.340 saying, we're going to remove provincial trade barriers? Yeah, you didn't. Not a single one, because

00:02:52.980 of course, that would mean allowing Alberta oil to flow through sacred Quebec territory, and that

00:02:58.260 can't be allowed. Anyways, I'll get to that interview in a moment. I just want to show you two quick

00:03:03.120 videos from Mark Carney. Here's one that's just amazing. And, you know, you can brief a guy, you can give a

00:03:10.240 guy, you know, suggested talking points on 100 things. But unless he's got natural instincts, you can't

00:03:18.180 prepare him for literally any questions. Like this one, from French Radio Canada. Will you stop

00:03:26.020 eating American strawberries? Take a look at this.

00:03:29.320 Est-ce que vous en achetez encore des produits américains? Est-ce que vous achetez des fraises

00:03:32.760 des États-Unis? Vous? Envoyez fraises des États-Unis, là?

00:03:37.460 OK. Je dois vous donner une repense bizarre, dans un sens bizarre, parce qu'étant premier

00:03:52.300 ministre, je n'achète plus des fraises et tout cela. Quelqu'un le fait.

00:03:59.920 Will you continue to buy American strawberries? Oh, no. I don't buy anything. My servants do

00:04:07.860 that. So, fingers crossed, technically, I don't buy American strawberries. My people do. I have

00:04:14.400 people to do that. What an astonishingly tone-deaf answer. And there's a trickiness to it also.

00:04:21.180 It's not, do you hand the credit card over? Do you pay the cash? It's, will you consume it? And

00:04:27.120 that trickiness, that loophole nature, there's an essential dishonesty to the guy. Really weird.

00:04:34.000 I don't know. Here's another Mark Carney clip. Just take a look at this.

00:04:38.560 I told the president that I will be working hard for the next month to earn the right to represent

00:04:43.520 Canada in those discussions, to get the best deal for Canada under the new U.S. approach.

00:04:48.800 At the same time, Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy, and to

00:04:57.920 protect our sovereignty. Canada's ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of

00:05:04.240 like-minded countries who share our values. We believe in international cooperation.

00:05:11.280 We believe in the free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas. And if the United States no

00:05:19.120 longer wants to lead, Canada will. But what he said there is not true. Canada is not for the open

00:05:26.800 exchange of goods and services and ideas. First of all, Canada is very censorious. And Canada does not

00:05:33.360 believe in the free trade of oil and gas and coal and anything with carbon in it. And Mark Carney himself

00:05:40.640 has led the charge against that. We do not believe in free trade for dairy or poultry. And that's

00:05:46.640 mainly to protect Quebec. We don't allow American banks to compete with Canadian banks to give us

00:05:52.480 better service. We don't allow American cell phone companies to compete with Bell and Rogers and the

00:05:57.760 other atrocious cell phone carriers who have given Canada the highest priced data packages in the world.

00:06:04.320 Is Canada really going to lead? If you look at the stats, we actually have the lowest, most sluggish

00:06:10.320 economy in the G7. We're actually in a recession on a per capita basis. That is, on a per capita basis,

00:06:19.200 Canadians are getting poorer. It's only because Trudeau has brought in so many millions of foreigners that 1.00

00:06:24.960 the gross number continues to grow. I think it's a bit of a joke to suggest Canada will lead and expand trade

00:06:32.400 elsewhere with our allies, really. It was the liberal government that said, no, there's no business

00:06:36.640 case for selling LNG to Japan or Germany. So those countries have gone ahead and inked massive deals

00:06:42.640 with our competitors like Qatar. Yeah, sorry. I simply don't believe that the liberals know how to build 0.50

00:06:48.000 or lead anything. All right. I wanted to show you those two clips of Mark Carney.

00:06:52.240 But now to our feature interview with Jeffrey Raff. Take a look.

00:06:56.800 I tell you, Western Canada should be scared of Mark Carney, or frankly, anyone who believes in

00:07:14.480 capitalism and developing the natural resources of our country. It would be insane not to develop

00:07:20.960 our resources, but that has been the ideology of Justin Trudeau. And I have argued that Mark Carney

00:07:26.880 is Trudeau 2.0. But just like in the Terminator movies, where the subsequent Terminators were

00:07:33.360 stronger, faster, more bulletproof, that's what I think about Mark Carney. He works harder than Trudeau.

00:07:39.280 He's smarter than Trudeau. He's more networked than Trudeau. He's a much more serious man than Trudeau.

00:07:45.280 He's not obsessed with photo ops and being silly. He's actually deadly serious. And his central focus 0.93

00:07:53.680 has been his job, not just his job making money with Brookfield, but his job as the co-chair of

00:08:00.000 something called GFANS, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which is another way of saying,

00:08:06.000 keep the oil sands in the ground. I think it's actually an existential threat to the

00:08:14.480 prosperity of the West. And Danielle Smith, who I think has been doing a great job trying to tamp down

00:08:20.720 Donald Trump's tariff threat, said something just astonishing the other day. And she said it in such

00:08:26.240 a mild-mannered way. I showed the clip to you last week, but I want to show one more time. Here's Danielle

00:08:30.720 Smith talking about what could happen if Mark Carney wins with his commitment to keep

00:08:38.640 the oil in the ground, to bar any new pipelines or shipping. Listen one more time to what Danielle

00:08:44.560 Smith said. Take a look. I got a mandate to try to fix Canada. I got a mandate to try to make Canada work.

00:08:50.560 And that's what I've been working towards relentlessly over these last two and a half years.

00:08:55.600 As you know, we did put in place a process for citizen-initiated referenda. And I leave it to

00:09:01.680 Albertans who may feel differently to put forward a petition campaign. But I think my job as an

00:09:09.440 Albertan and as a Canadian is to try to put on the table the issues that are causing grave tension in

00:09:16.560 our federation and to solve them. And I'm going to look at it on the positive side, because what I have

00:09:21.440 observed is that it may be that the current prime minister doesn't get it, but all of the other

00:09:26.160 premiers do. And we have consistently, for the last number of meetings, signed on to

00:09:31.200 a communiqués talking about how we're going to build economic corridors. This last one, economic

00:09:36.320 corridors with oil and gas and transmission lines, rail lines, and new highways and other

00:09:44.080 infrastructure in those corridors. And so I believe there's goodwill on the part of the other premiers.

00:09:49.280 The problem is, unless we solve those federal barriers, it's just words on paper. So I'm going

00:09:56.960 to continue to use sort of that newfound sense of esprit de corps with my fellow premiers. We're

00:10:02.560 going to do what we can after the election to make sure that we address those issues. And I'll keep an

00:10:06.720 open mind. But so far, I'm dissatisfied with what I'm hearing out of the new prime minister. He doesn't

00:10:13.120 seem to understand just how foundational these are if we're going to reset the relationship.

00:10:18.240 That's not actually the clip I had in mind. That's a very interesting clip, though,

00:10:22.080 because it shows that Danielle Smith believes that the other premiers are her allies. I think

00:10:26.400 that's probably true in the case of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. But it is definitely not the

00:10:32.320 case of the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, who has suggested that export taxes be put on Alberta

00:10:38.720 energy. And Francois Legault, the Premier of Quebec, who has said that no pipelines are passing through

00:10:44.800 his province. So all the talk about stopping interprovincial trade barriers, all this

00:10:49.520 Team Canada talk, it's just a ruse. It's just a temporary fad. The rest of the premiers resent

00:10:56.000 Alberta for its wealth. And if they have any opinion on it, they want that wealth through equalization.

00:11:00.640 That was an interesting clip, and I'm glad we showed it. But let me show the clip that really,

00:11:04.800 I think, I want to spend some time discussing. And it's in response to criticism that she's standing

00:11:13.280 up for Alberta too much. I want to show you when she says Canada has to start working for Alberta,

00:11:21.120 and it's not right now. So that first clip we showed was interesting. I think she's being too

00:11:27.920 generous to her fellow premiers who look at Alberta as a milk cow. But take a look at her. There's a bit 0.99

00:11:35.920 of an or else starting to form. Take a look at this. What would you say to those who criticize you

00:11:40.880 for sort of entertaining the idea of Alberta independence as Canada faces a trade war and

00:11:46.240 threats of annexation from the U.S.? Well, I love Canada, and I want Canada to work. I've been

00:11:52.240 on Team Canada from the beginning. It's part of the reason why I've been relentlessly going to

00:11:56.960 the United States and trying to advocate for all of our industries, for all of Canada,

00:12:01.760 in every venue I possibly can. But I'm also Premier of Alberta. And quite frankly, at some point,

00:12:08.720 Canada has to start working for Alberta. And it's not right now. We have a number of policies that

00:12:14.720 came in over the last 10 years that have been damaging to Alberta prosperity. It's been damaging

00:12:19.680 to our freedom as a province. And if they persist, it is going to continue a dysfunctional relationship

00:12:25.440 that harms Alberta. So I put forward the nine major policies that I think have to be repealed after the

00:12:31.200 next election. Unfortunately, the current prime minister, despite what he said to me privately when

00:12:36.720 he was here, has now gone public saying he supports export taxes, he supports Bill C-69,

00:12:41.760 he supports emissions caps. That is moving in the wrong direction. So we will get through this

00:12:46.720 election. We'll see who ends up winning. And I will continue to advocate for those.

00:12:50.800 And that's part of the reason why I will do a What's Next panel. We did that when my predecessor

00:12:56.960 came in to hear some of the concerns that Albertans had about how to repair the relationship with Canada

00:13:02.480 at that time. And it'll be time for us to do it again. Well, that's very interesting. I'll get to

00:13:06.640 that panel in a second. But I just thought it was incredible. At some point, Canada has to start

00:13:11.600 working for Alberta. And it's not right now. She talked about a What's Next panel. And I saw an

00:13:17.040 essay in the Globe and Mail by Preston Manning, the former leader of the Reform Party and the Canadian

00:13:22.000 Alliance, the son of Ernest Manning, the longtime Alberta premier. I remember when Preston Manning

00:13:27.760 first got going in the 90s. I was a kid. I was excited about it. It's actually the late 80s.

00:13:32.880 I was a teenager. And here's this guy who said, No, Albertans, don't separate. Let's reform

00:13:39.360 the Confederation. The West wants in because the separatists, of course, have been saying the West

00:13:44.420 wants out. Well, let me contrast Preston Manning in the late 80s and early 90s with his The West

00:13:50.900 Wants In nationalism. With Preston Manning in 2025, I'm looking at an article published in the Globe and

00:13:57.560 Mail a couple days ago called, Mark Carney poses a threat to national unity. And I'm only going to

00:14:03.580 read to you the last two paragraphs of this because it'll just show what a transformation

00:14:09.320 Preston Manning himself has gone through. Remember, 30 years ago, Preston Manning, 40 years ago, Preston

00:14:14.880 Manning really stopped Western separatism. Here's how he's talking today.

00:14:20.380 If the liberals, employing the fear of U.S. President Donald Trump to secure the support

00:14:27.280 of easily frightened voters, should be returned to office, then the agenda of the conference,

00:14:33.000 he was talking about a where to go next conference, should be to consider ways and means of peacefully

00:14:40.280 seceding. The next Prime Minister of Canada, if it remains Mark Carney, would then be identified

00:14:49.080 in the history books tragically and needlessly as the last Prime Minister of a united Canada.

00:14:56.860 You know, I got to tell you, I used to work for Preston Manning. I'm talking 30 years ago now,

00:15:01.200 20 something years ago. He's frankly a moderate. He's not a radical. His purpose was to unify Canada,

00:15:11.480 to fix Canada, to moderate Canada. He really was a nationalist. The West wants in.

00:15:17.040 And now he is saying, if Mark Carney is reelected, get ready for peaceful secession.

00:15:27.340 Joining us now to talk about that possibility is Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer, activist, and a teeny tiny

00:15:33.240 bit of a troublemaker who joins us now live from the Alberta District of Foothills, one of the best

00:15:39.800 places in the world. Jeffrey, welcome back to the show. And I remember when you spoke at our

00:15:45.320 Rebel News Live conference in Calgary, you were one of the hit speakers. You've recently expressed

00:15:52.120 yourself that the future for Alberta is becoming, as Donald Trump would say, a cherished 51st state.

00:16:00.000 Where are you now? Do you think Alberta should stick in Canada, be separate but independent,

00:16:05.660 join America? Is it possible to fix Canada? Give me your thoughts on things, because I know you're

00:16:11.500 right there on the leading edge of this. Well, I'm 100% in favor of Alberta statehood. And when I say

00:16:17.940 statehood, I'm speaking as a political scientist. And what that means is a free and independent

00:16:23.600 country that we're going to call the Commonwealth of Alberta, separate and apart and independent

00:16:28.500 from Canada. So that's what we're advocating. I mean, the benefits of that are manifold.

00:16:35.040 No more federal income tax, no more carbon tax, no more excise tax, no more capital gains tax,

00:16:41.560 no more $70 billion a year going to Ottawa to only get ostensibly $30 billion in services back from

00:16:49.060 Ottawa. Well, we continue to fund gold-plated social services programs in Quebec that Albertans

00:16:56.000 can only dream of. I mean, the day Alberta declares independence, the fuel prices for everybody in

00:17:01.360 this province will be cut in half. We'll go from $1.60 a litre to $0.80 a litre. I mean,

00:17:05.900 that's enough to get, you know, a good number of my fellow Albertans voting on that basis alone,

00:17:11.200 let alone thinking about if you're a police officer, a fireman, you know, nurse, teacher,

00:17:17.620 you know, whatever, you know, making a decent middle-class living of $100,000 a year,

00:17:23.520 where you pay, you know, 35%, 40% in federal income tax, all of a sudden, you don't have to pay

00:17:28.540 federal income tax anymore. So instead of having take-home pay of $50,000 or $60,000 a year,

00:17:33.380 your take-home pay jumps up to $80,000 or $90,000 a year. I mean, that's the future we're

00:17:38.520 talking about for Alberta. And I mean, what I challenge all of these people that say, oh,

00:17:43.100 how can you talk about leaving Canada? This is nonsense. Your fellow Albertans aren't going

00:17:48.020 to come along with you, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, we're at 40% in the polls now

00:17:52.360 without taking the time to fully educate our fellow Albertans, or, you know, we're taking the time,

00:17:57.180 but without our fellow Albertans fully internalizing the benefits of Alberta independence.

00:18:02.640 I mean, the day Alberta becomes independent, we become the country in the world with the highest

00:18:07.880 GDP per capita, right? So, you know, certainly the benefits of Alberta independence are manifold.

00:18:14.320 I would challenge anybody to list off five benefits to Albertans of remaining in Canada

00:18:20.240 that would exceed the value of the benefits that I just listed for leaving Canada.

00:18:25.420 And, you know, the other thing that I'm involved in, obviously, is our delegation to Washington.

00:18:30.080 We're in contact with the U.S. administration at this point in time. I'm advised by contacts

00:18:35.500 that we have in the United States that our correspondence has literally landed on the

00:18:40.580 President's desk and is being reviewed at the highest level in the United States, favorably

00:18:44.560 and with much interest. You know, obviously for the United States, a free and independent

00:18:49.420 in Alberta with strong economic ties to the United States, you know, that embraces President

00:18:55.240 Trump's policy of reciprocal tariffs, where if we have zero tariffs on the Alberta side

00:19:01.400 of the border, they'll have zero tariffs on the U.S. side of the border, a negotiated open

00:19:06.120 border with the United States, you know, a much more robust economic union that the Americans

00:19:12.320 can count on security of supply of Alberta oil and gas without people like, you know,

00:19:18.680 Mr. Carney imposing emissions caps, production caps, interfering with our ability to ship

00:19:26.380 oil by rail to the United States like Trudeau did by changing the tanker specifications so

00:19:31.640 that only Berkshire Hathaway can supply train cars for Alberta oil to move south. I'd like to

00:19:38.020 know what the deal is between, you know, the relationship is between Brookfield and Berkshire

00:19:42.200 Hathaway, by the way, but I'm sure Carney is making some money somewhere. But anyway,

00:19:46.200 I'll let you jump in. Sorry. Thanks very much. So, I mean, we recently did a poll. We hired

00:19:51.520 Leger, which is a pretty mainstream pollster to test the appetite for becoming a 51st state. And I know

00:19:58.140 you're talking now, you mentioned an independent state. I think there's two different conversations

00:20:03.480 going on, if I may. One is a financial, it's like a, it's a quantitative conversation. You've talked

00:20:10.440 about some of that, the ability to save money, not ship money to other parts of Canada, to have a

00:20:17.760 stronger relationship with the U.S. And Trump has talked about that too. You know, I think he's alluded

00:20:24.160 to exchanging the Canadian dollar at par. There was a lot of finance, it was like a checklist of

00:20:31.420 benefits, most of which you could quantify, and others like military, which you could, I suppose,

00:20:38.360 quantify it too. But on the other hand, there's a reaction, and I think it's particularly strong in

00:20:45.920 Ontario, because remember Ontario, a lot of people in Ontario, they are descended from people who left

00:20:53.600 the United States after the Revolutionary War. They were called United Empire Loyalists. They were folks

00:20:59.540 who were fans of the king. They didn't like this George Washington upstart. So they just moved to

00:21:05.920 British North America. And obviously, that was more than 200 years ago. But there still is

00:21:11.100 a strain of anti-Americanism and a strain of we're different. And so when you say break up Canada,

00:21:18.980 you're not just talking about dollars and cents. You're talking about emotional ties, patriotism,

00:21:23.780 loyalty, loyalty, the king, the queen. And those are all emotional things that you can't sort of

00:21:32.320 counter with financial things. Is it a difference?

00:21:36.240 Well, thankfully, people in Ontario don't get a vote, Ezra.

00:21:39.920 I mean, I guess that's the difference between our...

00:21:41.200 They're not going to be voting in our referendum.

00:21:43.220 Of course not.

00:21:43.560 You know, you could have all the Trump derangement syndrome you want in Ontario. I mean, I'm sure

00:21:49.100 it goes hand in hand with their vaccination rates and the fact that they had such a huge

00:21:53.320 amount of support for the COVID Nazism that a lot of Albertans thought was just completely

00:21:59.320 out to lunch. You know, I myself am descended from a Lieutenant William Graves of the British Army

00:22:06.580 who fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. So, you know, I mean, I understand that.

00:22:12.500 I mean, we're not necessarily, you know, that's why we call our project the Commonwealth of

00:22:16.840 Alberta Project. I mean, you know, an independent Republic of Alberta, we would imagine, would

00:22:21.820 remain a member of the Commonwealth. We would certainly continue to have congenial relationships

00:22:26.800 with His Majesty the King. You know, there's no reason that any and all of those things

00:22:31.120 wouldn't be on the table. You know, we're aware that our fellow Albertans share some of

00:22:35.240 those sentiments. But, you know, our feeling is, and I saw your poll, to be clear, the polling

00:22:40.860 that we are looking at now has support for Alberta independence approaching the level that voted

00:22:47.600 yes in the first Quebec referendum of 40.44%. And again, that's without Albertans internalizing

00:22:55.480 how much better off they're going to be and their families are going to be from an economic

00:23:00.020 perspective, let alone from the perspective of being free from all of the childish, arbitrary

00:23:05.860 regulations that have been opposed on Albertans by Ottawa. You know, everything from all the stupid 1.00

00:23:11.360 COVID regulations to Justin Trudeau, you know, seemingly every two or three months, coming 0.99

00:23:16.820 up with another list of firearms that he found too frightening to consider allowing people to

00:23:22.300 continue to own, you know, all of those types of things. You know, like last, like 40 days,

00:23:27.820 you know, within 40 days of him leaving office, he came up with a list of firearms that he was

00:23:32.040 going to confiscate and ship to the front lines of the war in Ukraine that included people's 22

00:23:37.280 caliber semi-automatic gopher rifles. I mean, it's this level of stupidity that Albertans 1.00

00:23:42.620 are fed up with. I mean, not 40 days ago, we had Doug Ford thinking that he could cut off 1.00

00:23:48.400 Alberta oil to the United States without understanding that Ontario's oil comes up through, you know,

00:23:54.140 comes up from line nine through the United States. So, I mean, Albertans are just done with

00:23:58.920 being governed by idiots who don't even know where their goddamn oil comes from. 1.00

00:24:02.780 You know, it's my observation that different separatist movements around the world or 1.00

00:24:06.860 independence movements around the world, a lot of it comes down to men of history. I look at the

00:24:11.960 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

00:24:23.780 relentless campaigning, I think he was a man of consequence, and he made it happen. And I think

00:24:31.140 of Lucien Bouchard, who championed Quebec secession. And he was like, and René Levesque in his own way

00:24:39.080 also. These men personified the project. They lived it. It was so clear it was in their heart,

00:24:46.340 they bled it. And they had a deep connection culturally with the people they were seeking

00:24:54.020 support from. Preston Manning, it's very interesting to me that he's talking about secession. But I just

00:25:01.020 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, 1.00

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 0.84

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 1.00

00:31:57.700 your aspirations. We don't care, because Canada works very well for us, and to hell with Alberta. 1.00

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. 0.98

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 0.74

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 0.80

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, 0.96

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 0.96

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.

00:36:47.420 She had the largest...

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.

00:37:21.320 Sorry, go ahead.

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

00:47:02.940 to be independent, we're going to cut off your pensions. Or alternatively, in the likelihood that 1.00

00:47:07.100 the Canadian dollar starts trading on par with the Polish Lottie after Alberta and all of its oil 1.00

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 0.99

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.

00:49:17.740 Did you wind up going down to Washington?

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.

00:49:32.220 Well, it's human nature to worry.

00:49:33.420 It goes both ways.

00:49:34.300 What's that?

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, 0.99

00:51:24.540 exports from Alberta and all of the stupidity that we've heard in the context of this phony tariff 0.97

00:51:30.060 where the Trudeau started for the electoral benefit of Mark Curran. 0.99

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

00:54:05.900 and American recognition of our independence.

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

00:54:41.180 weigh in on the subject, but I actually...

00:54:42.460 Well, of course, of course he is, because he wouldn't want to disrupt the laying of the golden

00:54:46.860 eggs for Quebec, right?

00:54:48.460 Yeah, he had, he was retired.

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,

00:54:57.980 I have 16 billion very good reasons.

00:55:00.700 Oh, I didn't hear that.

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.

00:55:07.340 All right.

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,

00:59:04.060 goodnight, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - April 04, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Western Canadians WANT OUT as Carney campaigns as Trudeau 2.0

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