Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ What would Alberta’s constitution look like after independence？

00:00:00.000 Before I was a Rebel News reporter, I was a Rebel News Plus subscriber.

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00:00:30.000 You're fighting for freedom! 0.96

00:00:42.600 Shame on you, you sensorious bug! 0.97

00:00:54.520 You know, maybe some of them are subterranean. 0.96

00:00:58.180 They like to keep a low profile.

00:01:00.980 But I think I can count the number of freedom-oriented professors at established universities on one hand's fingers.

00:01:09.120 It's so few, and it breaks my heart.

00:01:11.360 And I think it gets us away from the idea of the university as a place of rollicking debate,

00:01:16.060 where young people can go and be exposed to all sorts of ideas and sort of sort things out themselves through critical thinking.

00:01:22.340 I really think the sameness of thinking is one of the worst problems of modern academia.

00:01:28.560 But one of the bright lights in the firmament is our guest today.

00:01:32.040 His name is Professor Bruce Barty.

00:01:33.960 And incredibly, he's a professor of law at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country,

00:01:38.500 namely Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, a wonderful university town.

00:01:43.960 And I don't want to jinx anything, but I always find it miraculous to know he is still gainfully employed there

00:01:50.620 and hasn't been told to walk the plank.

00:01:53.260 What's interesting is, although he's based in the heart of Ontario,

00:01:57.780 he has a keen interest in Alberta, which I find curious.

00:02:02.140 And I know he has dedicated himself to thinking through some of the issues of Alberta independence,

00:02:08.240 including what might an ideal constitution for a newly independent Alberta look like?

00:02:15.840 It's not just an academic exercise.

00:02:17.600 It's a preemption of a legitimate question, and it could be part of a blueprint should that referendum on October 19th pass.

00:02:25.780 Without further ado, let me bring on our friend, Dr. Bruce Barty.

00:02:29.680 Bruce, great to see you again.

00:02:30.640 Great to see you too, Ezra.

00:02:32.860 Thank you very much.

00:02:33.580 That's very kind of you.

00:02:34.520 Well, I don't want to jinx things when I say I find it miraculous that you're still gainfully employed.

00:02:39.460 But there are some places where freedom of speech still would protect a man like you. 0.56

00:02:44.820 And I'm delighted to hear that Queen's is one of them.

00:02:47.380 It is one of them.

00:02:48.280 It is one of them.

00:02:49.860 And, you know, it's important to acknowledge that when you are not told to toe a line, that's important.

00:02:58.060 And so, top marks.

00:02:59.160 Well, you and I got to know each other a little bit during the COVID times because you were one of the professors brave enough to speak out against some of the infringements on our civil liberties.

00:03:09.260 And that was really an important moment for Rebel News.

00:03:12.120 And I think we were ahead of the curve on that story, partly because we weren't government funded.

00:03:16.220 So, I think we could think a little more rebelliously, as our name would suggest.

00:03:21.680 And especially when the truckers started rolling, I knew something was afoot.

00:03:25.260 Well, here we are four years later.

00:03:26.840 And I feel like some other convoy is afoot.

00:03:29.620 But it's not a trail of truckers.

00:03:31.540 I think the people of Alberta, astonishingly, incredibly, unpredictably, perhaps, are going to have a vote on independence.

00:03:41.320 It looks like the vote's going to be on October 19th.

00:03:43.600 And there seems to be a lot of energy out there.

00:03:45.760 Give me your thoughts on what you think is coming in Alberta.

00:03:49.900 And then I'm going to ask you some more specific questions about your thoughts on what its laws should look like.

00:03:55.440 But first, I really, I guess I want to know is, why does a professor in Kingston, Ontario, have such a keen interest in the future of Alberta?

00:04:07.640 Great question.

00:04:08.760 Fair question.

00:04:10.440 And the answer, I think, goes like this.

00:04:14.740 Canada is broken.

00:04:16.820 Second, it's become apparent through the COVID period, but not limited to COVID, that there is something seriously wrong in this country in all different kinds of ways.

00:04:26.840 We can go through a very long list of the very basic foundational problems with this country.

00:04:34.160 And second, it can't be fixed.

00:04:37.540 It seems like we've arrived at a place in this country, both in terms of our constitutional order and the way we are governed and the way that people think, even, that contemplating any serious reform of the way the country works is not on the table.

00:04:56.820 So, if the country is broken and it cannot be fixed, then what else do you got?

00:05:02.760 And what appears to be the case is that in Alberta, there is some kind of critical mass of people who understands both those two things.

00:05:11.320 That Canada is broken and two, it cannot be fixed.

00:05:13.660 And therefore, they are looking for a different solution, and that solution is to leave.

00:05:19.180 And I agree with them about the necessity for doing that.

00:05:22.760 I think to save itself, and for that matter, to save the country, potentially, I mean, it's not their job to save the country, but they could inadvertently save the country also.

00:05:33.080 Alberta has to go.

00:05:33.940 But I should add, though, to achieve the real aims of getting themselves out from under the thumb of what Canada has become.

00:05:47.140 They can't just leave the country.

00:05:49.520 They also have to get the Canada out of Alberta.

00:05:51.960 So, I've been putting it this way.

00:05:53.740 Alberta should escape the Canada that is outside Alberta, but it also needs to purge the Canada that is inside Alberta.

00:06:01.460 And there's an awful lot of Canada inside Alberta.

00:06:04.380 So, it's a thing.

00:06:07.040 And it's, I've put it this way.

00:06:09.620 People have asked me, well, you know, what are the chances?

00:06:11.400 What are the chances of Alberta actually separating?

00:06:13.360 And my answer to them, honestly, is I really don't know.

00:06:16.380 I mean, I can't say.

00:06:17.260 I'm not on the ground most of the time in Alberta.

00:06:20.800 Other people would have a much better call on that than me.

00:06:23.800 But I do know this.

00:06:27.340 The chances are not zero.

00:06:29.380 And that makes it a better chance than any other thing I've heard, any other idea I've heard for seriously reforming this country.

00:06:39.580 You know, I'm an Alberta boy.

00:06:41.040 Originally grew up there, went to business school and then law school.

00:06:44.240 I came out east about 15 years ago for a media opportunity at the Sun News Network, and Rebel has caused me to stay out here.

00:06:50.100 I do go back fairly often, and I do regard myself as an Albertan at heart.

00:06:53.720 But listen, if you're in Ontario for more than a decade, you can't say, I'm in exile.

00:06:59.200 I mean, you become a bit of an Ontarian, which I am.

00:07:02.160 And so I'm trying to reconcile this within me, because here's something I believe is true about Alberta independence supporters.

00:07:08.320 Paradoxically, they're the most pro-Canadian people.

00:07:14.580 They're the ones who are appalled when Sir Johnny MacDonald is stripped off the $10 bill.

00:07:19.220 They're the ones who are disgusted when the national anthem is changed to make it more woke.

00:07:26.020 They're the ones who are irritated when statues are torn down or defaced.

00:07:33.740 So the people who are for Alberta independence are actually the most Canadian of people.

00:07:41.000 They're the military veterans.

00:07:42.140 They're people who have served at risk to themselves.

00:07:44.280 And I don't think that's a paradox, because I think Alberta independence is, like you say, perhaps the most likely way to solve the corrosion of Canada and deal with some structural problems that good Canada still had.

00:08:01.920 I don't think it's a contradiction.

00:08:04.700 Super quickly, and then I'll throw it back to you.

00:08:06.360 When I was in Medicine Hat last week on an independent speaking tour with Sheila Gunn-Reed, Tamara Leach, our friend Corey Morgan, there was a counter-protest for the first time ever, Bruce.

00:08:18.400 I'd never seen it.

00:08:19.460 And the counter-protest didn't really know what to do.

00:08:21.980 These were people who normally carry Palestine flags and trans flags, and they didn't know how to be Canadian.

00:08:30.440 They had mainly Canadian flags, which I think was the first time they ever held those, because normally they're against Canada as a colonizer, as a genocider.

00:08:39.860 So they were saying, rah, rah, Canada.

00:08:43.440 And these are sort of Palestinian trans activists who have never said those words.

00:08:47.960 They were trying to sort of hurt our feelings by saying, ha-ha, you actually do like Canada.

00:08:52.960 Like, they didn't know what to say.

00:08:55.240 Some of them were just sort of swearing.

00:08:56.840 But I guess my point is, and please react to this, to be an Alberta independence-minded person, you don't hate the rest of the country.

00:09:05.760 You're just saying it's not working, and it's getting worse for everybody, and we think that we can make a go of it alone, certainly economically.

00:09:12.860 Sorry for that long ramble, but there is a duality there.

00:09:15.960 Well, there's also a historical parallel, perhaps, which is that the American revolutionaries, their original complaint was that they were Englishmen, and they were not being treated as Englishmen by the king.

00:09:32.980 In other words, they wanted to be English.

00:09:35.380 They wanted to be fully English.

00:09:36.880 They wanted to have the rights of Englishmen.

00:09:38.520 They wanted to be within the structure of English government, and their complaint was, you are not treating us like Englishmen.

00:09:47.360 And so, of course, that morphed, and they became something else.

00:09:50.780 But it's a similar pattern as the one that you're alluding to.

00:09:56.480 I think in many ways you're right, that Albertans who now want to be independent lament the loss of a nation most acutely.

00:10:05.080 And in many ways, they have been among the most loyal Canadians, and Canada, in return, has not been loyal to them.

00:10:10.860 And they have a whole series of complaints, and I think they're quite valid in terms of representation, in the way the government is structured, in terms of the way the policies have obstructed their primary industries, and the way that their wealth is siphoned off and spread around the country.

00:10:29.120 All of those things are valid, but there's something more concrete, which is that Canada as a nation has morphed into a strange thing.

00:10:38.060 And they and I, and I agree with them about an awful lot of things, they don't want to live in a country, this country anymore, because of what it's become, and how the people in the country, not all of them, but many of them, and probably most of them, now think about things.

00:10:59.800 And so, to me and to them, I think there are no real alternatives now but to figure out a way to get out.

00:11:08.060 You know, there are historic grievances that Alberta has, feeling underrepresented in institutions of power, doesn't have the right seat count in Parliament, the Senate is useless, the Supreme Court is tilted, all institutions of importance require you to be French fluent, and no one in the prairies is, etc.

00:11:28.160 So, I could give you 100 grievances, some of which go back a century, but there's something new afoot.

00:11:34.260 If Pierre Polyev had won the last federal election, I think that the independence movement would be on ice right now, because Polyev would not be making any of the conditions you've just described worse.

00:11:46.020 He wouldn't be antagonizing Alberta, first of all, and he would maybe actually be solving some problems.

00:11:51.000 But with Mark Carney and his plans to transform Canada, you know, unrecognizably, to say he wants to be part of a China-centric new world order, and actually use those words, to absolutely play to deep anti-Americanism, not only are Albertans, in my view, saying we're not comfortable where Canada is right now.

00:12:14.760 Like you say, it's not what we recognize, but holy smokes, if Mark Carney is serious and successful, and Ontario and Quebec certainly want to see him succeed, Canada is going to be changed even more, it'll become even more unrecognizable.

00:12:30.660 We don't want to be a China-centric anti-American country.

00:12:34.260 By the way, 90% of Alberta's trade is with the US, probably more.

00:12:38.220 So I think Carney's antics are making it worse, and especially, I know I'm talking too much here, Bruce, but I want to share with you my thoughts and get your reaction to them.

00:12:50.040 When Matt Jenneru, the conservative MP, crossed the floor for some secret deal that we don't know the details of, to me that sent a particularly sharp message to Albertans, which is, even when you win by the rules, we're going to flip over the chessboard and not let you win.

00:13:06.660 We're going to pull some trick, some schemes, some backroom deals, so you can't win.

00:13:12.140 Even when you win, you can't win.

00:13:14.420 So why, I mean, so the message I think Albertans would say was, why even trying?

00:13:17.980 Because it's so rigged.

00:13:19.660 And the whole regime media are praising Mark Carney for this move of bribing backbenchers to come over.

00:13:26.220 And they're actually saying, ha ha, it's a sign that Pierre Polly have his poor leadership because he can't stop our bribing of his people.

00:13:32.780 I just think all of these things bundled together, people say, you know what, I'm out.

00:13:40.280 I agree.

00:13:42.000 It's validity to everything you've mentioned.

00:13:44.620 I do think that the country has become politically corrupted.

00:13:50.520 Institutions are captured.

00:13:52.580 The economy is basically a collection of cartels supported and protected by governments.

00:13:57.640 I think this is deeper than sort of short-term partisan politics.

00:14:05.340 And I know you're not saying that it is, it's that.

00:14:08.800 But I think we need to take the broad view in mind.

00:14:13.320 But nevertheless, there is something to it.

00:14:15.820 So I think a lot of people in Alberta, and of course, not all Albertans, because Albertans are very split on this as well.

00:14:22.200 But there's a critical mass of people in Alberta, I think, that were incredulous after the last election, having suffered through a decade of Justin Trudeau and seeing the rest of the country.

00:14:34.620 Well, maybe not all the rest of the country, but the voters in the eastern parts of the country elect the same government again.

00:14:44.040 And at the time that Justin Trudeau was elected, the per capita wealth of the country was comparable to the U.S.

00:14:53.600 And now on a per capita basis, Canada is poorer than Alabama and almost as poor as Mississippi, the poorest state in America.

00:15:03.400 And, you know, that's no accident.

00:15:05.100 This is something that we've done to ourselves.

00:15:06.560 And yet it is, it seems to be the determination, especially as a reflection of the way the country is structured in terms of its seats and so on, that the country will, is determined to keep that particular ideology in power.

00:15:24.780 After the last election, I had opportunity to listen to a conservative party strategist talk about what had happened.

00:15:33.100 And, of course, they were unhappy to lose, but they were very happy, he said, with the numbers.

00:15:37.960 He said, we achieved 41% of the vote.

00:15:42.600 And that, he said, is the high watermark for the conservative party in the modern era.

00:15:49.100 And I sat there and I thought to myself, well, just hold on.

00:15:54.260 The high watermark, what you're telling us is that you cannot realistically expect to get more than 41% of the vote ever.

00:16:01.900 Because that's the best you've ever done.

00:16:04.460 That means that we all live in a leftist, progressive, socialist country.

00:16:11.120 But even in the best scenario, best case scenario, you are not going to win unless the left splits the vote.

00:16:18.760 Yeah.

00:16:18.820 And it would have to be a big split because I think, I mean, seeing if I'm going from memory here, got 9% last time.

00:16:24.640 Well, you could see very quickly that's not going to do it.

00:16:27.500 And if the bloc takes a few percent and the NDP takes a few percent, but the liberals get, what was it, 43%.

00:16:32.780 Like, you're just not going to get enough of a split, I don't think.

00:16:36.180 And even if you do, it's a temporary, lucky coalition.

00:16:41.280 Like, Doug Ford likes to think that he's this master of Ontario.

00:16:45.820 It's just because he is blessed to have a perfectly split opposition that he comes up the middle.

00:16:51.160 It's true what Pierre Pauli has said.

00:16:53.160 He did better in Ontario federally than Doug Ford did provincially.

00:16:57.000 Doug Ford's just lucky.

00:16:58.240 He's got this perfect balance of opposition destroying each other.

00:17:03.520 But Doug Ford is a good illustration of the fact that this problem is not partisan.

00:17:09.100 Right.

00:17:09.460 Right.

00:17:09.720 Because, you know, conservative governments and the Ontario government is a good example.

00:17:14.820 They are not able to fix anything.

00:17:17.000 They're not interested in fixing anything.

00:17:18.900 They're on the same kind of bandwagon as all the other kinds of governments.

00:17:23.020 And so I think it's a mistake to think that if we could only change governments or change the color of the governments, that we'd all be all right.

00:17:29.320 And that is just not true.

00:17:31.120 You know, I have a friend.

00:17:32.180 Conservative governments have contributed lots to the problems that we now have.

00:17:36.780 Yeah.

00:17:37.060 I think Doug Ford's closest political relative was actually Justin Trudeau.

00:17:41.340 Well, listen, let's you and me stop talking about politics for a bit, although I really enjoy it.

00:17:45.000 Because I have four questions here suitable for a law professor, which you are.

00:17:49.480 And I'm going to put these to you, and I know that you're going to have a good answer for them, because I think you've been thinking about these more than almost anybody else.

00:18:00.080 Can you tell our viewers a little bit of what the Quebec precedent in the last separatist referendum in that province and the Clarity Act and the Supreme Court reference on secession, tell me where that leaves Alberta.

00:18:16.980 My American friends are surprised that secession is legal in Canada, because that, of course, was the rationale behind the Civil War, because the South was seceding.

00:18:28.900 Is it legal?

00:18:30.140 I think I know it is, but I'd like to hear you say, what's the legal process for Alberta to leave, should they want to?

00:18:36.980 Yes.

00:18:37.560 Great question.

00:18:38.300 It's a fascinating case, the 1998 Supreme Court reference case about Quebec.

00:18:44.860 It is legal.

00:18:46.940 And essentially, the requirements are a referendum with a clear question supported by a clear majority.

00:18:56.420 If you get that, then the province in question, and they were talking about Quebec, of course, but the province in question has a mandate then to negotiate its departure.

00:19:06.800 It does not attain a unilateral right to leave on its own terms, but nor does the rest of the country, including the federal government, have a right to stop it.

00:19:17.680 What happens at that point is a mandate to negotiate.

00:19:21.080 The Supreme Court was very explicit about this.

00:19:23.520 It said that once you get to that point, the negotiation that transpires is a political negotiation and not a legal one.

00:19:33.340 And it said, at that point, no conclusion is predetermined by law on any issue.

00:19:44.680 In other words, everything is now on the table.

00:19:46.640 There are certain kinds of things you must take into account.

00:19:50.740 That's the phrase they use, take into account.

00:19:53.240 But take into account means that you put it on the table and you talk about it.

00:19:57.980 Yeah.

00:19:58.280 No outcome is predetermined.

00:20:00.200 And so, yes, go ahead.

00:20:02.360 No, I was going to say, so it's like hitting the hard reset button, like everything.

00:20:06.380 Like it's actually how a country could be born.

00:20:09.580 Exactly so, which is why this is worth pursuing.

00:20:13.720 Independence is a repudiation of the existing constitutional order of the country that you're leaving.

00:20:23.080 That means you can start with a clean slate if you're determined to do so.

00:20:27.640 And that's what Alberta needs.

00:20:29.680 That's what this country needs.

00:20:31.100 We need a moment to try to rethink how the country is governed.

00:20:35.320 An opportunity to create a new and different kind of constitution because a lot of our problems derive not solely, not entirely, but to a significant extent from the way our constitution is built.

00:20:53.780 And that has become impossible to change in any sort of fundamental controversial way.

00:20:59.480 A few weeks ago, I went through an Indian treaty, Treaty 6, which I could have chosen other ones, but that was just one of them that covers parts of Alberta.

00:21:13.680 And it's a fascinating historical read how they did it.

00:21:17.600 They went out trying to get groups of Indians together and find elders, and they kept finding new Indians that they added to the treaty as they went.

00:21:25.640 And they used fairly plain language, and they had incredible specificity.

00:21:29.880 We'll give you this many shovels. 0.61

00:21:31.460 We'll give you this many axes.

00:21:33.500 Like, it was done to give a meaningful understanding to the Indians who were signing it.

00:21:40.120 Here's what you'll get.

00:21:41.160 You'll get this much money, this much seeds, this many things to plant.

00:21:47.000 It was actually, it really felt like a history read as much as a legal read.

00:21:51.880 But the words that you just cannot deny that are in there are surrender.

00:21:58.020 These Indian bands surrendered.

00:22:00.880 They happily surrendered.

00:22:02.220 They were Her Majesty's loyal subjects.

00:22:05.580 But it surrendered their claim to the land.

00:22:10.200 Now, they were given certain Indian reserves, etc.

00:22:12.920 I won't go through the whole thing now, but I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read an Indian treaty,

00:22:17.980 they're not that long, and they're a wonderful read, and they'll strengthen your understanding

00:22:22.280 that where those treaties are in effect, Indian title is extinguished other than what's reserved for them.

00:22:29.120 Bruce, take it away.

00:22:31.100 In the case of a yes referendum vote, what happens to these treaties,

00:22:37.060 and what happens to the Indians who are protected, governed, regulated by these treaties?

00:22:43.060 Bruce, take it away.

00:22:45.060 Right.

00:22:45.780 So, some of my colleagues, who are also in favor of Alberta independence,

00:22:52.860 think that the treaties must be honored the way they are,

00:22:59.720 for various kinds of reasons, like they predate Alberta's entry into Confederation.

00:23:06.200 I don't agree.

00:23:07.120 I think if Alberta becomes independent, then it can set its own course.

00:23:13.220 And that means that you can incorporate the treaties or not.

00:23:18.680 The reason that you don't need to incorporate the treaties is, first and foremost,

00:23:23.980 that those treaties are part of the Canadian constitutional order.

00:23:27.900 And they are.

00:23:28.680 I mean, they're guaranteed in Section 35 of the Constitution.

00:23:30.740 But the point of independence is to repudiate the existing constitutional order.

00:23:38.440 All of it.

00:23:39.580 And I'm going to go back to the words of the court.

00:23:42.200 The Supreme Court says, in these negotiations, there are no conclusions,

00:23:48.260 no conclusions predetermined by law on any issue, any issue.

00:23:53.960 That any issue includes treaties.

00:23:55.900 Now, the reason that I think treaties should be placed aside is that at the time the treaties were made,

00:24:03.100 you could have made the case, quite appropriately, in this historical context,

00:24:07.360 that you were dealing with two different peoples.

00:24:11.620 You had the peoples who were there and the peoples who came.

00:24:16.320 And those cultures were distinct.

00:24:19.600 Those days are long gone.

00:24:21.340 The mistake that we make in our law today is to insist that people belong to different groups.

00:24:28.940 And we identify them that way.

00:24:30.940 And by virtue of doing that, we establish different status, different tiers,

00:24:35.180 different sets of rights and entitlements.

00:24:38.740 And it is a fiction.

00:24:40.280 If we are to overcome this problem and go back to, well, I'm not sure we ever had it in Canada,

00:24:45.620 but if we go back to, or at least establish that idea, which is at the center of Western legal systems,

00:24:53.980 which is the same rules and standards apply to everybody without regard to your parents,

00:25:03.020 your lineage, your group, your race, your color, your sex, your orientation, it doesn't matter.

00:25:08.740 Justice is supposed to be blind.

00:25:10.380 And if you don't have that idea, then you are, your legal system is not truly Western in the way it's working.

00:25:20.780 It means you are not subject to a neutral rule of law.

00:25:24.800 It means that people are being picked out as being special or not special.

00:25:29.480 And that system that we've had under the treaties or under Aboriginal law more broadly in Canada

00:25:37.320 has acted exactly to the detriment of the people that everybody thinks is designed to protect.

00:25:45.740 Yeah.

00:25:46.500 What's actually happened is that this system allows, you know, people that we call indigenous

00:25:52.160 to be, to be oppressed by their own leadership as, as well as by government officials and bureaucrats and lawyers and so on.

00:26:04.060 So, so for my money, this, and this is one of the many ways in which Alberta needs to start again

00:26:13.280 and establish a new constitutional order with a different set of principles.

00:26:18.580 And it will not do to take the Canadian order of things, the Canadian constitution,

00:26:23.900 and just sort of fiddle with it in the margins.

00:26:28.480 That won't do.

00:26:29.400 You have to, you have to get rid of it and start again.

00:26:31.600 Now, I don't mean you might not keep some elements.

00:26:34.060 For example, the Americans invented a new constitution, but they kept the English system of common law and so on.

00:26:41.420 So it's not a, it's not a black and white thing as in everything goes, because that's not, that's not what you want to do.

00:26:46.320 But you do want to think about things fresh.

00:26:51.060 You know, you made me think of when the British Empire banned slavery.

00:26:57.440 For years, indeed, several centuries, slavery had been permitted.

00:27:03.820 It was lawful.

00:27:05.040 In the UK, in England itself, it was de facto not upheld.

00:27:14.300 The judges basically said, we're not going to, I mean, it was interesting where slavery was stronger and weaker in the British Empire.

00:27:20.120 But if I'm not mistaken, in the final disposition of the matter, the United Kingdom, the British Empire, borrowed a staggering sum of money.

00:27:30.300 As a percentage of their GDP, it would be equivalent to a quarter of a trillion dollars by today's GDP in terms of purchasing power.

00:27:38.940 They borrowed a quarter of a trillion dollars in that long ago money, and they bought the freedom of the slaves.

00:27:47.060 Now, some people would say, why didn't you give the money to the slaves?

00:27:50.160 Well, the answer is because you had hundreds of thousands of businesses and business people who had thought that they were following the law.

00:27:59.420 And they maybe would have had a legal case. 0.97

00:28:02.080 So they just bought the, they redeemed the slaves.

00:28:04.360 And by the way, that enormous loan was not paid off until the 21st century, I should tell you.

00:28:10.260 What about, and I'm just brainstorming here, you just made me think of that.

00:28:13.560 That was a way to end slavery without having people say, hey, you stole my slaves. 0.99

00:28:19.040 I invested, like, at the time, I'm sure it was considered quite progressive.

00:28:24.580 What if you said to everyone who is governed by the Indian Act, we're going to, the land in your reserve will apportion to the people there. 0.67

00:28:34.160 That you can deal with, but the ongoing obligations for the, you know, if you read the treaties for seeds and tools and things like that, 50,000 bucks each, a final liquidation of your rights.

00:28:47.860 And now go to school paid for by the government like the rest of us.

00:28:52.560 Go to hospitals paid for by the government like the rest of us.

00:28:55.340 You are free and equal now.

00:28:56.900 We've made a one-time redemption of whatever rights you had emanating from this treaty signed almost 200 years ago.

00:29:05.860 It's just an idea.

00:29:06.820 I'm just brainstorming.

00:29:07.940 Because I think that, frankly, if you said to a lot of people under the Indian Act, would you take 50 grand, by the way, family of four, that's 200 grand.

00:29:20.560 I think you could extinguish an issue that's going to blow up British Columbia, and I think you could have a great fresh start.

00:29:25.960 I don't know.

00:29:26.560 I don't know.

00:29:27.020 Just an idea.

00:29:27.680 I haven't thought of this before until just right now.

00:29:29.500 What do you think?

00:29:30.000 Well, the first idea that you mentioned is an idea that I've suggested myself, which is that people who belong to bands who have reserves, you know, in the event of Alberta independence, one of the ways to approach that is to take those reserve lands and split them up into lots and to assign a lot to each member of that band so that they have their own properties.

00:29:55.980 This is the thing about the way aboriginal law, about the way reserves work, the way aboriginal title works.

00:30:03.480 None of the individual members of those groups have property.

00:30:07.460 It is a group right and controlled by the leadership of the group.

00:30:13.060 And so it looks like, you know, they're getting all these benefits, and they are getting benefits of a sort, but they don't have control.

00:30:19.180 They don't have agency over their own property.

00:30:22.120 And so this is one of the ways to fix that.

00:30:23.980 But in the other respects, though, we should just acknowledge this.

00:30:29.860 It is the case already today that members of aboriginal groups, whether they are treaty groups or not, have full Canadian rights.

00:30:41.880 If you choose, you know, not to live in a reserve, if you choose to live in a city or anywhere for that matter, an aboriginal person has the same rights and privileges as any other Canadian citizen, right, to own property, to vote, to hold a job, to marry, to divorce, and so on and so forth.

00:31:00.680 So it is not that today even that aboriginal people are being denied those rights and have another set of alternative rights.

00:31:10.560 It is that everybody has the same basic rights, and then there is this other thing going on.

00:31:17.280 And what I'm suggesting is that the other thing should stop, because it is creating dependency, it is creating oppression, it is creating grift.

00:31:27.360 And all those things are to the detriment of the people that it's designed to protect.

00:31:33.500 But if we have time, there's a problem lurking with respect to the independence quest, and that is that the referendum that Danielle Smith has announced for October looks to be one thing and is actually threatening to be quite something else.

00:31:54.300 On October 19th, Alberta will hold a referendum that will ask the people of Alberta a whole series of questions, a series of policy questions, and a series of constitutional questions.

00:32:06.420 Those questions look to be very important to, you know, the way, the track that Alberta chooses to be on.

00:32:14.540 Here's the problem.

00:32:15.220 So, that referendum, as it has been framed, in my opinion, is the way to defeat Alberta independence.

00:32:26.120 And why is that?

00:32:26.740 Here's why.

00:32:27.640 Here's why.

00:32:28.920 So think of the Alberta population right now basically as in thirds.

00:32:34.980 And I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but let's just do it this way.

00:32:38.480 Let's say roughly a third are strongly in favor of independence.

00:32:42.060 A third is strongly against.

00:32:45.600 And the outcome of a referendum on independence will depend upon that middle third.

00:32:50.480 There are an awful lot of Albertans who are not happy with the status quo in this country, but they're not quite convinced that independence is the way, yet they're not quite ready to ditch the country.

00:33:03.440 So here's how the referendum will work.

00:33:06.040 They are going to be given a whole series of questions that look like Alberta has a third choice.

00:33:14.140 And the third choice is that we'll fix these policy areas, and then we'll vote on these four or five constitutional amendments, like one of them, for example.

00:33:24.580 How about we abolish the un-elected senators? 0.97

00:33:29.000 And this middle third of Albertans may well think that there is a third choice.

00:33:39.100 We can fix things, but not have to leave the country.

00:33:43.300 So let's do that.

00:33:45.040 Problem is this.

00:33:46.240 Those choices don't really exist.

00:33:50.900 If you vote in favor of constitutional amendments like this, nothing is going to happen.

00:33:58.640 Alberta held a referendum in, I think it was 2021, on equalization.

00:34:06.220 And 62% of Albertans voted in favor of removing equalization from the Canadian Constitution.

00:34:14.060 What happened?

00:34:14.620 Nothing.

00:34:17.960 Alberta has been talking for decades about a triple E Senate.

00:34:21.240 What has happened?

00:34:23.200 Nothing.

00:34:24.540 It is essentially impossible to amend the Canadian Constitution in any way that is remotely controversial.

00:34:32.840 The appearance of these questions on the ballot may well make it look as though this is actually a choice.

00:34:41.520 And it's a choice I'm sure that a lot of Albertans would prefer.

00:34:44.620 They don't actually want to leave the country.

00:34:46.600 They want the thing to be fixed.

00:34:48.620 But my message to federalists has been, if you think you can fix the country, then fix it.

00:34:57.020 Stop talking about it.

00:34:58.420 Fix it.

00:34:59.320 You can't.

00:35:00.080 You can't do it.

00:35:01.080 You can't fix it in the way that Albertans are talking about.

00:35:04.400 So this is just a lot of noise.

00:35:07.000 There's one other aspect of this as well.

00:35:09.920 Danielle Smith, just after announcing this referendum, confirmed that the independence question,

00:35:16.760 for which right now signatures are being collected for the petition, she said, if enough signatures are collected,

00:35:24.640 that independence question will be added to the ballot in October.

00:35:29.700 Here's the problem with that.

00:35:31.220 Now, the Supreme Court said that one of the requirements is a clear question.

00:35:40.160 And that's what the Federal Clarity Act is about, requiring a clear question in a referendum.

00:35:44.940 Now, the fact that the question is going to be put into the ballot in October doesn't change the question.

00:35:51.200 The question itself is still as clear as it was.

00:35:54.240 But when you combine it with the other questions, well, now you've got a mess.

00:35:59.340 Because some of those other questions are questions that imply that the voter wants Alberta to stay in Canada.

00:36:07.020 So, for example, here's one of the constitutional questions.

00:36:09.860 Do you agree that provinces, including Alberta, should be able to decline to participate in federal programs within provincial jurisdiction,

00:36:22.160 that is, for example, health care, while maintaining their access to the federal funding?

00:36:29.960 You might well want to vote yes on that question to give Alberta control over health care with the federal dollars.

00:36:35.800 But if that question is approved, and somehow the independence question is also approved, now you've got an interpretation problem.

00:36:45.180 All right, now, do those voters want to stay in Canada to get the federal funding for health care, or do they want to leave?

00:36:51.940 You know, which of those is first priority?

00:36:54.280 Which of those is last resort?

00:36:56.100 Here's the thing.

00:36:56.840 If the result of a referendum requires interpretation, then the questions are not clear.

00:37:10.320 And so this is a way to muddy the waters about whether or not Albertans are choosing to leave or not.

00:37:20.100 I want to – those are very interesting points, and I didn't consider that before.

00:37:28.980 I don't want to take up all your time, but I do want to ask two more questions.

00:37:33.540 One is – and I know you've done a lot of work on this – if Alberta were to be independent,

00:37:40.760 what do you think the main differences would be in the Alberta constitution from the existing Canadian constitution?

00:37:52.320 I suppose you could say what is the same, but I'm more interested in what would be different.

00:37:57.280 Yeah, I think you have to – I think you have to start thinking about it fresh.

00:38:03.820 I don't think you can take the Canadian constitution and tweak it.

00:38:09.320 You want to get rid of the Westminster system of government.

00:38:12.040 You want to get rid of the crown.

00:38:13.760 You even want to – one of the most fundamental changes for me is this.

00:38:19.880 The Canadian constitution, as well as the American and others that we know of,

00:38:24.440 establishes a default position, which goes like this.

00:38:27.900 The state – and by the state, I mean all its bits, the provinces and the federal government together,

00:38:35.820 the legislature, the executive branch and bureaucracy, the courts, all the bits of the state together.

00:38:42.260 The state as an entity has a jurisdiction over everything.

00:38:49.840 It has unlimited power.

00:38:51.120 It is the power to provide for the general welfare, the public good, peace, order, and good government.

00:39:01.700 And so we think, well, that's not a good idea.

00:39:04.280 So what do we do instead?

00:39:05.100 In the Canadian constitution, we establish exceptions.

00:39:08.320 And what are those exceptions?

00:39:09.500 Well, there are several, but one of them, for example, are the rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:39:15.820 So the state can do anything except – except it can't infringe your freedom of speech.

00:39:22.440 Of course, it can, but that's what it says.

00:39:26.940 My suggestion has been in order to fix the way we are governed, in order to establish an actually free country,

00:39:33.980 in order to defeat the managerial state, you have to flip that default.

00:39:39.800 And by that, I mean this.

00:39:40.840 You establish a constitution that says, first and foremost, instead of the state being all-powerful,

00:39:47.840 the state is powerless.

00:39:51.480 The state can do nothing.

00:39:56.240 Except.

00:39:58.660 We're going to have some exceptions, but those exceptions now are the ones that are going to be listed.

00:40:04.340 You can do nothing except you can keep the peace.

00:40:06.440 You can keep the peace.

00:40:09.600 You can have police.

00:40:11.140 It flips the presumption.

00:40:13.020 So now the presumption is the government can't do it as opposed to the presumption is the government can do it.

00:40:20.180 And there are some things you want the state to do, but if you want the state to do those things, it's got to be in the list.

00:40:24.500 And if it's not in the list, it can't be done.

00:40:26.500 Yeah, very interesting.

00:40:27.300 By the way, I think, just speaking as a politically minded person, I think having the continuity of being part of the British Commonwealth,

00:40:36.700 the king, the queen, the trappings of a governor general, I think that would give people a security.

00:40:45.320 And it would be enough to deal with the sentimentality and the nostalgia and the history, which is, I think, the most valuable part of Canada.

00:40:57.980 I think you have to make a break.

00:40:59.720 Okay.

00:41:00.060 I think you have to make a break.

00:41:00.820 I think that that kind of security blanket is the thing that will turn on you in the end.

00:41:07.620 So I think you have to reject the way things have gone until now because the way things have gone right now, they've gone very badly, very, very badly.

00:41:16.360 And all of those protections – our constitution and the American one is a better example, a much better model.

00:41:23.920 But these constitutions are based upon a checks and balances model.

00:41:28.560 You know, we'll keep – we'll protect ourselves by creating, you know, different powers within the state to check and balance each other.

00:41:37.980 You know, courts against executive, executive against legislature and so on.

00:41:41.740 That worked pretty well for a while, especially in the states.

00:41:45.980 You know, when I was –

00:41:47.100 It's not working well now.

00:41:48.680 When I was tracking down some of Mark Carney's holdings for Brookfield, like I went to these tax havens of the Isle of Man,

00:41:56.400 which is this little island between Ireland and the UK, and I went to Bermuda, which is this little speck in the North Atlantic actually.

00:42:06.380 And both had their own currencies and both had a bit of a vibe of the Commonwealth, but they were pretty free and they were small and very independent-minded places.

00:42:16.540 They were very expensive to live.

00:42:17.820 I don't – and they're small.

00:42:18.900 I don't know if I would ever want to live in the Isle of Man or Bermuda.

00:42:21.700 But they had a peppiness because they were small and free, but they also, I think, felt like they were part of a longer history.

00:42:29.420 I don't know.

00:42:29.760 So I just – in my very brief visits to those two places, I saw wouldn't that be fun if Alberta had a currency with the king on it

00:42:41.560 and other things that told us we were part of a longer tradition, but like the Isle of Man or Bermuda, we had our own freer rules.

00:42:49.340 Like the one thing about both those places is they have more freedom, at least economically, which is why Mark Carney stashes his dough there.

00:42:57.140 Anyways, that was just a personal anecdote.

00:42:58.820 Let me ask you one last question.

00:43:01.160 Sure.

00:43:03.480 It's my view that most of the things in anyone's lives, daily lives, would be unaffected by independence.

00:43:10.420 When you think about it, what's your interaction with government?

00:43:13.360 Well, government services like garbage pickup or paving or police forces or hospitals or schools.

00:43:20.100 Like I think that just encapsulates so much of an ordinary person's life and all of those things are subject to provincial jurisdiction.

00:43:27.060 There really wouldn't be a lot of changes.

00:43:29.120 A lot of the stuff the feds do is just irritants, like they're foreign policy.

00:43:33.700 It doesn't – we don't actually have any, you know, horses that can do anything, which just – and so we would be free of a lot of the crap of the feds.

00:43:42.440 But one of the things is our legal system.

00:43:46.080 Some of our courts in Alberta are appointed by the federal government.

00:43:51.720 The judges – I was just reading a stat the other day how all but – a great proportion of our judges on the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Appeal are liberal appointees.

00:44:03.320 It's sort of crazy that a foreign – a foreign – a faraway place like Ottawa ruled by – 0.97

00:44:09.180 Not foreign yet, but soon.

00:44:11.240 Gets to – and that is hearkening back to the American independence, a distant and partisan king, et cetera.

00:44:19.200 Right.

00:44:19.640 What would you do?

00:44:20.720 You've got these buildings called courts.

00:44:23.100 You've got these people called judges.

00:44:25.180 For years they ruled the roost.

00:44:27.140 They were appointed by a proper legal process, but now they're disconnected to that.

00:44:33.440 What do you do with all those federal judges?

00:44:37.300 Well, one of my proposals in this proposed constitution that I've drafted is that everybody who works for the state in any capacity, whether they're judges or politicians or bureaucrats or consultants, employees, ambassadors,

00:44:54.040 only work for the state for a very limited amount of time.

00:44:59.940 You can pick a random number, six years, eight years.

00:45:03.360 But when you've done that time, you're finished.

00:45:07.320 You come in, you serve, you get out.

00:45:10.020 So if you've been a judge for eight years – let's use eight.

00:45:13.820 If you've been a judge for eight years, then your term is finished.

00:45:17.720 And then you do not be a judge anymore.

00:45:21.040 You're not now a politician.

00:45:22.220 You can't be a bureaucrat.

00:45:23.380 You can't be a consultant.

00:45:24.240 What we're trying to do there, what I'm trying to do there, is to create or to prevent the creation of a professional ruling class.

00:45:35.220 Our judges who are appointed until age 75 to the Supreme Court of Canada, those nine people in the Supreme Court, can dictate the meaning of the Constitution and sit on that bench for years in some cases.

00:45:51.040 You've established an authority that is untouchable by voting, by dismissal, by review, whatever they say goes.

00:46:01.400 That's the nature of Canadian law.

00:46:02.940 And so in order to prevent the creation of a professional ruling class, you create instead a revolving door where people come in, they serve, they get out.

00:46:13.040 There is nobody entrenched inside the state, whether it's in the courts or the bureaucracy, the deep state or the legislative chambers.

00:46:20.340 There are no interests to go and appeal to that have their claws into the machine because they're there and then they have to leave.

00:46:29.180 And so in this way and so many other ways, what you're trying to do is dilute, dilute the power of people who act on behalf of the state to prevent them from dictating to the rest of us, you know, what the story is going to do.

00:46:45.380 Well, that'll be interesting because one of the things a judge might argue is the longer they're on the bench, the more like being a judge, the older and the wiser, perhaps.

00:46:57.860 I mean, it could also be, well, they're immune from democratic accountability.

00:47:02.040 But sometimes, I mean, one of our difficulties, if I can just insert this, one of our difficulties that has arisen in the modern era, in this era of the managerial state, one of the problems that we have embraced is a belief in expertise.

00:47:24.000 In other words, those people who know best should be the ones deciding for the rest of us what to do.

00:47:32.320 And that's not just in the courts. It's also very much in the bureaucracy.

00:47:36.960 We think that people who know best should be making the rules and the policies and the decisions about how people should behave.

00:47:43.780 That is one of the sources of our problem.

00:47:47.140 There's an original idea about judges, and that is that one of the reasons a judge is, you know, is well-placed to make decisions about all kinds of things is that they know nothing about them, nothing about them.

00:48:04.960 You can make a decision in a case about a contract for seeds because you know nothing about seeds.

00:48:12.480 And everything that you know about seeds by the end of the case, you've learned from the witnesses on the stand in the room and nothing else.

00:48:19.740 And so one of the good things about judges is it's supposed to be, you know, blank slates.

00:48:25.440 But more and more, we look to expertise to man our courts, to man our tribunals, to man our bureaucracies, and so on.

00:48:34.800 And for my money, that's the wrong track.

00:48:38.980 Well, it was William F. Buckley Jr. who said he'd rather be ruled by the first hundred names in the Boston phone directory than the faculty lounge at Harvard, which was an interesting thing for him to say a generation ago.

00:48:49.880 Last question. It's not a legal question.

00:48:53.060 It's sort of a hunch.

00:48:55.600 If you had to predict the future, do you think Albertans will vote to secede in October?

00:49:02.460 Oh, my.

00:49:03.880 I'm not sure I can give you a call on that.

00:49:06.640 I think with my concern is that with the referendum as it is presently conceived, the way that Danielle Smith has announced, my concern is that the answer to that question will be no.

00:49:19.040 Because there will be enough Albertans persuaded that there is a third way so that they can fix Alberta's problems but not have to leave the country.

00:49:30.900 I'm afraid that they will be taken in by that possibility and they will avoid providing Alberta with the leverage that is required to actually get serious reform to the country.

00:49:45.440 The powers that be in this country, and there are a lot of them, and they're very deeply embedded, will not allow any kind of serious, fundamental, basic reform to the way this country works.

00:50:00.320 And to believe that that's possible, I think, is a bit naive.

00:50:05.180 Is there a website where people can see your stuff?

00:50:08.280 Oh, indeed there is.

00:50:10.100 Rightsprobe.org.

00:50:12.540 Rightsprobe.org.

00:50:14.080 Rightsprobe.org.

00:50:15.640 And they can follow me on Twitter at Party Bruce, and I also have a sub stack.

00:50:20.780 Great to see you.

00:50:21.600 Thanks for spending so much time with us.

00:50:23.060 It's always good to talk to an Ontario law professor about Alberta independence, but I'm delighted that you're bringing your intellectual firepower to the matter.

00:50:31.780 Thanks for taking so much time with us.

00:50:33.920 Thanks so much, Ezra.

00:50:34.820 Always great to talk to you.

00:50:35.760 There he is, Professor Bruce Pardee of Queen's Law School.

00:50:40.020 That's our show for today.

00:50:41.640 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:50:46.800 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:50:48.040 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - March 09, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ What would Alberta’s constitution look like after independence？

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