The Alberta Project - Interview with Michael Wagner on Alberta Independence

00:00:00.000 hello hi everyone to everyone who's watching um it's my first video podcast with michael

00:00:06.720 wagner of all people i'm very happy to have him um michael i first saw you at the um legislature

00:00:15.780 demonstration at edmonton on may 3rd um right yeah i just came in at like the tail end of your

00:00:22.260 speech um and i think yeah you were being heckled by the counter demonstrators i remember

00:00:29.160 um and yeah and then you know i i didn't know who you were then at the time and then you know i've

00:00:36.940 i think through cory morgan i heard about your books oh and yeah he introduced and then i first

00:00:44.900 got to talk to you in person at the fort sask app town hall right and yeah and i got two of your

00:00:54.320 books and i'm actually reading through um one of them right now but like i'm going through it like

00:00:59.740 in detail like i'm highlighting and annotating and like trying to get like as many talking points from

00:01:04.940 it as much as i can and it's really good so far like i've yeah even though it's not like a long book

00:01:11.900 and i've been going through it like very slowly um yeah but like i kind of see you as like the

00:01:19.340 like scholar on this issue who you know like you've i feel like you're very knowledgeable not

00:01:27.320 just because a lot of like the like in people's mind i guess like the sort of like separatist

00:01:34.400 movement and maybe that's when it really like got it's like meat and bones was um after you know

00:01:40.680 during uh pierre trudeau's tenure and whatnot but i think you've actually like you've explained you

00:01:47.640 know before that like during like the social credit party and like um yeah back when say like

00:01:55.740 grievance wasn't aimed at like canada or like confederation or mostly like real companies and

00:02:02.880 banks and stuff like that which was pretty interesting i hadn't heard of that but um yeah

00:02:07.400 that's just a little side note but yeah why don't you introduce yourself yeah my name is michael

00:02:13.680 wagner and um i have a phd in political science from the university of alberta and actually uh in

00:02:19.940 graduate school like doing my ma and phd my area of expertise was not alberta and alberta separatism

00:02:26.080 what was it was alberta politics but it was education policy in alberta so um that's like i i was very

00:02:32.760 concerned about um parental rights and educational choice and education when i was doing that research

00:02:37.120 but while i was doing my research um in graduate school i would often come across um historical materials

00:02:42.880 about the alberta separatist movement and i had actually been involved in the alberta separatist

00:02:47.240 movement in the early years like uh that's when i first became involved in politics myself like as a

00:02:51.820 as a young person i was actually uh interested in international politics like me and my circle of

00:02:56.720 friends like we that was back during the cold war we were interested in military things you know in

00:03:01.140 the conflict that like proxy wars in in the late 70s and the conflict between the united states and

00:03:06.460 soviet union but i wasn't really interested in domestic politics canadian politics until uh 1980

00:03:12.500 is when uh pierre trudeau brought in the national energy program and i was in high school at that

00:03:17.600 time and it just seemed like such an attack on alberta like so there's something about that that

00:03:22.700 triggered me to be interested in uh canadian politics and alberta politics and i joined my first

00:03:28.800 political party when i was 16 and i helped out in my first um provincial election campaign when i was 17

00:03:34.460 so i wasn't i wasn't even old enough to vote but i was motivated to um help what was then the

00:03:39.360 western canada concept party of alberta like hopefully um we get someone elected like we had

00:03:44.260 we had um in february of 1982 there was a by-election in old's disbury where the western

00:03:49.740 canada concept party candidate won so that was the first and only western separatist to be elected

00:03:54.660 and it was actually was right after that that i joined the party i was just so excited by that

00:03:58.480 but then in the in november of that year there was a general provincial election

00:04:02.240 election and um none of the candidates for the western canada concept party won and the one

00:04:07.400 candidate that had one previously lost his seat but the reason i bring that up my uh interest in

00:04:12.900 that is um you know over throughout the part of the 80s i remained involved in that party a little bit

00:04:18.740 i mean i was i was very young and naive i didn't know much of what to do or anything but i would go

00:04:23.320 to meetings and things like that and then uh with the rise of the reform party in late uh 1980s

00:04:28.320 early 90s most people who had been involved in the separatist movement drifted over to the reform

00:04:33.280 party and that was actually part of press demanding's purpose of creating the party was

00:04:37.460 he wanted to bring in the separatists into a political party that would help to build canada

00:04:41.860 and you know build the west's influence within canada rather than separate from canada and he

00:04:46.760 was very successful that way and so successful in fact that um the man who was leader of the western

00:04:51.660 canada concept in the mid-1980s when i was still involved his name was jack ramsey he ended up

00:04:55.940 becoming a reform party member of parliament in the 1990s so like that's press demanding was

00:05:00.380 successful in bringing you know people like me into the reform party um so so support for

00:05:06.020 independence in alberta really um dissipated throughout the 90s and into the 2000s and

00:05:11.400 especially after you know when stephen harper became prime minister he had been a reform party

00:05:15.760 and so people in alberta generally trusted stephen harper to look after our interests and so and to tie

00:05:21.860 a couple things together here i you know i'd seen a bunch of materials historical materials on the

00:05:26.420 separatist movement while i was doing research to make a long story short i just decided i would

00:05:30.620 um i would i'd write the first history of the alberta separatist movement like i'd been interested

00:05:35.620 in it i'd been personally involved in it it hadn't been my area of research but i was just very

00:05:40.780 interested when i saw those materials and i thought actually i talked to a couple people about it who

00:05:44.660 encouraged me to do it and i realized you know if somebody else wrote a history of the alberta

00:05:48.280 independence movement it would probably be someone who was hostile and it would probably not come

00:05:53.140 out well and i wanted to write a history of it from the perspective of those of us who were

00:05:57.040 involved and what really motivated us and what was you know really going on and so um i ended up

00:06:02.640 writing that first history of the alberta separatist movement it's called alberta separatism

00:06:05.840 then and now actually if i could do you mind if i show it on here yeah yeah okay this is this is

00:06:11.380 what it looks like yeah yeah yeah good so it actually it came out in 2009 and that's when

00:06:18.720 stephen harper was prime minister and there was no interest in the movement so because there was

00:06:22.200 no interest in the movement there was no interest in that book and so the book had there was no sales

00:06:26.960 there was no interest in that book whatsoever at that time and so it pretty well died to make a long

00:06:31.280 story short so but things began to turn around for that book in 2015 because um first of all uh first

00:06:39.560 of all justin trudeau became leader of the liberal party of course his dad had been pierre trudeau who

00:06:44.240 was the he was here i call pierre trudeau the father of the alberta independence movement because

00:06:49.340 it was because of pierre trudeau's policies that an independence movement arose in alberta so when his

00:06:53.760 son became leader of the liberal party um i could see the potential for that book you know generating

00:06:58.640 interest if if he was to be successful and sure enough in 2015 uh justin trudeau you know won that

00:07:05.060 federal election and became prime minister and suddenly there was interest in that book there hadn't been

00:07:09.180 for all those years previously which was of course disappointing for me but now that was interesting

00:07:13.660 and i was able to start to get books distributed and especially um in 2019 justin trudeau won re-election

00:07:20.360 after he had brought in a bunch of alberta anti-alberta policies so by 2019 he was especially

00:07:26.260 unpopular in alberta and people were hoping that andrew shear of the conservative party would win that

00:07:30.280 election and justin trudeau won and so a new organ well a new movement called wexit uh had

00:07:35.820 generated it um during 2019 because of this move toward and because of justin trudeau essentially

00:07:41.700 winning re-election and there was a number of very large uh wexit move uh meetings in the fall of

00:07:46.960 2019 and i was allowed to sell my books there and so that's when the book first got some kind of

00:07:51.640 widespread distribution it was because of the wexit meetings in the fall of 2019 now the meetings all

00:07:56.200 died out because within a few months of course in early 2020 there's the covid phenomenon happened

00:08:01.140 and nobody was having meetings and you know that and just uh the whole you know the attention of

00:08:05.940 alberta and the world was you know redirected to covid but anyways so that died out but in the

00:08:11.100 meantime uh some people have read the book and they some people asked me if i would update it because

00:08:15.560 it had been published in 2009 and and i decided instead of updating it i'd read a write a brand new

00:08:20.800 book which became actually i'll just show it here uh no other option uh oh yeah this is the one i'm

00:08:27.780 going through right now yeah okay yeah self-determination for alberta so there is one

00:08:31.760 short chapter in there where i update the previous book but my main purpose in this book was to present

00:08:36.260 my case for alberta independence why i thought alberta should become independent so it's mostly

00:08:40.740 historical and actually in all of my writing and talks when it comes to alberta separatism and

00:08:45.360 independence my focus is always historical like there's other people who focus on economics and

00:08:49.740 things like that like i do mention yeah i do mention financial issues because they're very relevant

00:08:53.960 but my main focus is is the historical aspect so this book is mostly a historical presentation about

00:08:59.840 why alberta should become independent but it also has a chapter in there of course about the

00:09:03.600 the secession reference case and the clarity act because the secession reference case was uh

00:09:09.420 well that arose because quebec had held in uh separatist referendums in 1980 and 1995

00:09:15.020 the 1981 was uh substantially defeated like by a large majority 1995 it barely missed like they almost

00:09:23.040 voted in favor of independence and so because of that the federal government sent a reference case

00:09:27.860 to the supreme court now what that means is um they asked the supreme court its advice on particular

00:09:34.140 questions of constitutional law so the federal government under john christian asked the supreme

00:09:38.580 court of canada could quebec unilaterally secede from canada and the supreme court you know did its

00:09:44.300 research on canadian constitutional law and it released its decision in 1998 it's called the

00:09:49.480 secession reference case and they said no quebec could not unilaterally secede from canada however

00:09:55.080 if quebec held a referendum on independence with a clear question and a clear majority voted in favor

00:10:00.920 of independence then the federal government would have an obligation to negotiate with quebec over its

00:10:06.560 independence and that the clear question uh criteria criterion is very important actually because

00:10:11.920 in both 1980 and 1995 uh the quebec questions were actually like they weren't entirely clear like

00:10:18.520 someone could i mean i think most people probably understood what they were getting at but especially

00:10:23.320 the 1980 question is about a paragraph long and the 1985 question it isn't as long but it's still

00:10:28.480 you know it's not it's not short and to the point if you know what i mean and so i think i think the

00:10:33.620 supreme court was very wise to say a clear question so that everybody knows what they're voting on and

00:10:38.240 there's no misunderstanding and also a clear majority i think a clear majority is also a good criterion

00:10:43.040 because when you're when you're creating a new country you need to have a substantial buy-in from the

00:10:48.060 population you know when you're when you're doing like regular politics like um you know should the

00:10:53.260 roads be repaved or where should the bridge go or what the tax rate should be those things you don't

00:10:57.360 need a really big majority because you can change them like if if people want the road paved you know

00:11:02.960 this year they can always change their mind or whatever when you're creating a country you don't

00:11:06.400 just change your mind the next day you know what i mean yeah it's something so you need a substantial

00:11:10.360 buy-in from the population is just basically my point i don't know what the clear majority percentage

00:11:14.180 would be but and the supreme court didn't say so but still it's generally speaking you know as an

00:11:20.480 abstract concept it's a good idea anyway the supreme court of canada in 1998 created a constitutional

00:11:26.020 pathway for provinces in canada to become independent through a peaceful democratic process and that's

00:11:32.560 really important a peaceful democratic process and so then it's a kind of general principles and so in

00:11:37.920 19 or sorry in the year 2000 the canadian house of commons passed the clarity act which was to fill in

00:11:43.880 some of the details of the principles that the supreme court had created so now there are people

00:11:48.760 who think the clarity act is too strict and that might be true but the but the the purpose of it was

00:11:53.180 you know a good purpose which was to fill in some of those details yeah but but the bottom line is

00:11:57.920 we can become independent if we hold a referendum with a clear question and get a clear majority

00:12:03.160 like that's that's the fundamental thing that people need to understand yeah and it's also i'll just throw

00:12:07.520 this in you know canada is one of the few countries that would allow this to happen

00:12:10.880 like many countries in the world would not allow a particular jurisdiction to separate from them like

00:12:16.240 and one of the more recent examples was catalonia in spain i think was in 2017 the catalonia region

00:12:22.040 of spain voted to separate and instead of instead of being allowed to separate you know the leaders of

00:12:27.820 that movement were arrested i think because spain you know spain's constitution does not have any

00:12:32.920 provision for a jurisdiction to separate from the country and i i think that would be true of most

00:12:37.140 countries of the world and of course you can think back to you know the american civil war where some

00:12:41.380 of the states tried to pull out and that didn't work very well obviously yeah so most countries do

00:12:46.240 not allow that but canada allows a province to withdraw from the country under certain conditions

00:12:52.440 and so that's actually you know something positive we can say about canada yeah for sure yeah

00:12:57.480 they would allow us to peacefully but that came you know that that legal provision was made a long

00:13:03.640 time ago right canada now is a completely different place i think like not just demographics wise but

00:13:10.820 like i guess both in terms of like overreach and like just like the sheer amount of scandals

00:13:17.100 like there's a lot of reasons for alberta to succeed whether it's economic or whether it's historical

00:13:23.740 like in terms of like the very like minuscule amount of say we've had whether it's been like

00:13:30.520 our um like electoral representation or senate or you know only like having like two justices

00:13:38.560 like for like the entirety of the west which is crazy yeah um but like you know the the future

00:13:45.980 trajectory of canada itself is also like a really big deal now like i don't know like every time

00:13:52.160 like day almost like i'm just seeing like you know future like future projection like one after

00:13:58.420 another that's just like paints such like a bleak picture of canada like whether it's like in

00:14:04.460 regards to like um job losses or like the the one about um like social class movement that had like

00:14:13.960 the infamous line about people are going to be like foraging for their own food and stuff that

00:14:19.520 pierre used a lot during hit those like um campaign trail so yeah the way i see it it's there's just so

00:14:27.540 much but i also wanted to ask you because this is something that um i learned about more recently

00:14:32.860 like i think you know when people are introduced to the movement like it's mostly like the economic

00:14:38.960 ramifications that draws them in but what isn't what's sort of understated is just how little um

00:14:46.500 like representation alberta gets and how little we're able to i guess yeah like pull strings in our

00:14:53.120 favor in the way that confederation is set right now so yeah if you could um give like a bit of a

00:14:59.440 summary of that yeah well like that's in terms of representation and you you mentioned already in

00:15:05.540 terms of the supreme court there's nine justices on supreme court three of them are from ontario

00:15:11.120 three of them are from quebec one is from the maritimes and only two from the west so if there's a

00:15:17.420 dispute like say for example with danielle smith's alberta sovereignty act if there's a dispute over that

00:15:21.940 that goes to the supreme court there's seven eastern justices to two western ones so right

00:15:27.020 there you know you see there's a big disparity in the representation and that big disparity also

00:15:32.980 reflects itself in the senate and in the house of commons now in the house of commons there's a

00:15:37.780 certain degree um that that can be legitimized in the sense that the house commons is supposed to be

00:15:41.820 representation by population so we we you know alberta has about 10 to 14 percent of the population

00:15:47.740 so we should have at least that much you know representation in the house commons and i know

00:15:51.520 because of the way um the boundaries are drawn alberta actually does not get as many mps in the

00:15:57.240 house of commons as it is as it ought to get but even then like it still wouldn't be a large large

00:16:03.080 enough number to make a difference on its own but the senate is different because the senate was supposed

00:16:07.820 to be regional representation like originally and in the united states it is a regional representation

00:16:12.280 but the way it's played out in canada um it doesn't give that property like um i know that um

00:16:19.100 uh ontario i think gets 24 senators and quebec gets 24 senators and then there's 24 for the uh

00:16:26.000 four western provinces so alberta gets six and i can't remember the exact number for the maritime

00:16:30.960 provinces but the small maritime provinces get more senators than alberta gets yeah either yeah either

00:16:38.220 like new brunswick or novus they get like either like 10 or 12 like something crazy yeah yeah so um

00:16:45.460 like rather than rather than having a senate like the united states where each jurisdiction gets an

00:16:51.840 equal number of senators we have this lopsided senate where again the west is left out of representation

00:16:57.840 so in none of those three major institutions that we discussed does the west get any kind of a

00:17:03.660 significant representation whereas if we did have a senate that represented us properly we that would

00:17:10.240 kind of offset some of the other uh problems that we have and so there was a huge movement um in

00:17:17.060 alberta in particular but also the other western provinces from the late 70s until um the time of

00:17:21.980 stephen harper to get senate reform in canada which would and in particular that the favorite

00:17:26.620 favorite form of senate um would be what was called a triple e senate which would be like the

00:17:31.820 american so so there'd be one of the e's was equal number of senators from each province uh one of

00:17:37.400 the e's was elected because even now we don't have elected senators like the senators the senators pass

00:17:43.240 legislation federal legislation and yet they're appointed by their prime minister you know they're

00:17:49.000 not elected and then the final e was effective so you have elected senators an equal number from each

00:17:54.020 province with effective powers to block the house of commons that would be like similar to like

00:17:57.900 american-style senate that way even though we don't have good representation in the house of commons

00:18:03.720 the senate would be our way of getting proper representation and we could block legislation

00:18:08.060 in the west that was harmful to the west right now and that's the thing right now we have no

00:18:12.820 way of blocking harmful legislation and that's why pierre trudeau could get away with what he did in

00:18:17.700 the 1970s and early 80s and why justin trudeau could get away with with what he got away with

00:18:22.560 for almost 10 years yeah no harmful policies to alberta and we have no way of stopping them they

00:18:27.460 they know we don't like those policies and yet they put them through anyway and there's nothing

00:18:31.780 that we can do and so because we tried these things like the senate reform movement was very very strong

00:18:36.920 in the west for for many years and even stephen harper when he was prime minister he introduced many

00:18:42.360 bills to try and he wouldn't be able to get us a triple e senate just from having uh you know a

00:18:47.740 majority in house of commons but he was trying to get reforms like he he was trying to get

00:18:51.520 consultative elections like alberta has held at various times in the past consultative elections

00:18:56.020 because the prime minister does have the power to appoint senators yet alberta could have elections

00:19:01.280 and then those who the the candidates that had the most votes could be offered to the prime minister

00:19:06.620 um you know to be appointed and that happened in uh 1989 with senators with uh stan right stan

00:19:13.300 waters of the reform party he was the very first elected senator in canadian history yeah you know he

00:19:17.980 won that senate consultative election in 1989 and he was prime minister brian morny appointed him to

00:19:22.740 the senate then when stephen harper was prime minister he also appointed a handful of people

00:19:27.300 to the senate from alberta who had been elected in those consultative elections so that was the kind

00:19:31.720 of reform he was trying to bring about that if every province held these consultative elections

00:19:35.660 and then the prime minister could appoint those who got the most votes so at least they would have

00:19:40.460 democratic legitimacy which they don't have right now but that would be a move in the right

00:19:44.100 direction so stephen harper was trying to move senate reform forward um and he also wanted term

00:19:49.720 limits on the senators so they'd only be in for nine years rather than be in for life you know what

00:19:53.720 i mean so those are the kinds of reforms he was trying he was trying to make incremental uh reforms

00:19:58.540 to the senate but to make a long story short um in another reference case at the supreme court level

00:20:03.240 the supreme court ruled that none of those changes were valid they could only be made by a constitutional

00:20:07.860 amendment as you probably know constitutional amendments in canada are very very difficult because you have

00:20:12.860 to have a minimum of seven provinces representing at least 50 percent of the population plus house

00:20:18.400 commons the senate uh you know to to pass these amendments so it's they're unlikely to get made

00:20:23.020 these amendments so and then so that gets a veto i think too right well they they think they should

00:20:30.120 have a veto and that's actually why they never signed on to the 1982 constitutional changes like you know

00:20:35.160 pierre judeau brought in you know our our constitution until 1982 was the british north america act which was a

00:20:40.400 you know british legislation and for several generations canadians had wanted to change that

00:20:45.440 but when the provinces would get together to negotiate uh you know a new constitution one of

00:20:50.320 the big problems was quebec wanted a a veto on constitutional changes and the other provinces

00:20:56.240 wouldn't agree to that and so they couldn't get an agreement but to make a long story short then

00:21:00.640 in 1981 when these negotiations were again happening nine of the ten provinces agreed with the federal government

00:21:06.480 finally like they'd been negotiating for a long time they finally reached an agreement quebec was left

00:21:10.400 out and quebec never did sign on and and a big reason for that is they think they should have um

00:21:15.920 you know a veto so technically they don't right now as of right now they don't like i guess if you

00:21:21.840 were to amend the constitution um like i know like a lot of the stuff on the alberta next panel like

00:21:28.080 i know smith wants to get a lot of the like a lot of the reforms that harper was also planning to

00:21:33.440 get um so but like that could go through that like the hurdles just are like the house and

00:21:40.960 you know the legislative branches of the seven provinces and like some other stuff but not quebec

00:21:48.320 yeah like um it's hard to see how quebec would agree to anything yeah and um technically like

00:21:53.600 theoretically the amendment could go through without quebec but realistically it's hard to see how they

00:21:58.240 could because like you said the amendments would have to pass the house of commons and the house

00:22:02.960 has a big quebec representation and and uh any political federal party that wanted to win seats

00:22:08.480 in quebec which is all of them yeah it's not going to support it's not going to support a change that

00:22:12.640 quebec would oppose you know what i mean so it's really hard to see how that could be done and that's

00:22:16.880 actually part of my argument for independence is we've tried all these different things for several

00:22:21.360 decades and we can't get them done and they're not going to get done yeah and so the only option we

00:22:26.320 have is to move towards independence that's kind of my fundamental historical argument when i i recount the

00:22:30.880 history of all these different things and say they don't work yeah and that's i definitely want to

00:22:35.840 bring up that point to the alberta next panel i'm actually going to be attending uh one they're going

00:22:41.360 to have one here in edmonton on the 14th so of august so i'm going to be there and i'm going to make

00:22:47.120 the case i think yeah like um like becoming independent from canada is like is like a smaller like

00:22:56.880 legal can of worms per se than like trying to amend the constitution which is which that says a lot

00:23:03.760 right yes which is like you know we can you know be stuck in this process for like another 120 years

00:23:09.920 right yeah of you know trying to amend the constitution with all this um you know house

00:23:16.240 representatives that aren't necessarily friendly to these amendments or you know other um like

00:23:22.720 provincial jurisdictions like they they benefit from the status quo right like especially quebec and

00:23:28.160 the mayor times like they don't want well i guess some separatists in quebec they want equalization to

00:23:34.400 end or like like the whole proposal of having more of like uh like the the tax like the split that goes

00:23:42.400 to the provinces be larger than what goes to the federal government but like on like a whole bunch of

00:23:48.560 other like constitutional amendments that alberta would need to make in order to have a better voice

00:23:53.200 i don't think like we could ever get them done it's just like it's just a brick wall it's really

00:23:57.760 impossible yeah and like that's the important point like you mentioned independence is something we can

00:24:04.160 do like within alberta like we we hold the referendum in alberta and it's up to albertans to decide

00:24:10.560 you know and assuming we get a positive outcome you know we've pushed to we're pushing in that

00:24:15.440 direction on our own because the other options all involve getting the cooperation of many other

00:24:20.320 provinces yeah and that's not going to happen whereas this is something we do ourselves we

00:24:25.120 have this referendum we don't nobody can say you don't get the referendum you know theoretically the

00:24:30.320 referendum could be defeated like there could be majority who are opposed to it so that would

00:24:34.000 again though that would be an albertan decision right that would be albertans deciding it

00:24:37.280 so the independence option is the one thing alberta can move towards on its own without

00:24:42.320 getting permission from the other provinces which we need with these other constitutional

00:24:45.360 amendments so it does seem easier that way like you said yeah and um yeah i i wanted to

00:24:53.600 like go back to a little bit of history again so like this whole thing of you know the west

00:24:59.920 especially british columbia actually i think they have like the least amount of like in proportion to

00:25:04.640 their population they have like the least amount of representation in all of canada right like if you

00:25:10.080 considering both like you know house of commons senate um you know supreme court justices and

00:25:17.280 everything but i was wondering like is like you know once like before um i guess alberta was absorbed

00:25:25.040 into canada well i guess formed under canada i should say like was this sort of like by design like

00:25:32.320 like i know there's that like infamous quote from uh clifford where he kind of like proposed the west

00:25:39.120 be like a kind of resource colony for you know eastern canada but like did that was like even if

00:25:48.400 he may have said that out loud like was that like their true intention or did they have to i guess kind of

00:25:53.040 like like shimmy around it and give like a bit more um like control over like provincial jurisdictions

00:26:03.440 like to like the western provinces or was that always the intent to just kind of um have western

00:26:10.640 canada to be like a subservient to eastern canada um like uh like i don't take a strong view in saying that

00:26:20.720 it it was the intention to be subservient like i like when you look at canada as a national

00:26:26.080 historical project like in those early years i think it makes sense because i mean canada first

00:26:31.040 purchased rupert's land which you know was uh which contained mostly that well the prairies were a large

00:26:35.600 part of that and their intent you know was to create you know this northern uh this country on

00:26:40.160 the northern half of north america and i think it was kind of a glorious project really you know they

00:26:45.200 purchased this territory um of course they didn't ask the people who were here before they annexed to

00:26:50.160 canada that's kind of a grievance right there because that contributed to the first rail rebellion

00:26:54.480 but generally speaking you know they were trying to create this large country and uh they brought in

00:26:59.360 settlers then you know to to settle the land and to create an agricultural economy and and back in

00:27:04.400 those days you know being a farmer was a high status profession like like being a farmer wasn't like

00:27:09.920 uh some kind of lowly thing that was like a very um like a held in high esteem when you were a farmer you

00:27:15.520 were held in high esteem so in turning the prairies into um this these this vast area of farmers and

00:27:20.880 stuff it was actually it was it was a good intention like they weren't that wasn't a harmful thing

00:27:25.280 now now they had purchased uh this area like that rupert's land was purchased you know with money they

00:27:30.000 had to go into debt and stuff so there was some sense that they felt they should get some return

00:27:35.200 on their investment if you know what i mean and actually ontario and quebec got a very large return

00:27:39.520 in terms of territory because northern quebec and northern ontario were originally part of

00:27:44.240 rupert's land and they were added to those provinces from that so ontario and quebec actually got a big

00:27:49.360 payback from their investment in terms of large territory much of which has resources but the

00:27:53.680 maritime provinces they didn't get any territory like they contributed financially to the purchase

00:27:58.800 and so they felt that they should get some uh you know revenue as a return for their investment so

00:28:03.840 that was um part of their uh motivation actually and i should have mentioned too that

00:28:08.960 the three prairie provinces were disadvantaged as provinces when they were when they entered

00:28:12.800 confederation because they were not given control of their ownership and control of the resources like

00:28:16.960 the other provinces had and i i was kind of getting ahead of myself because that's part of the reason

00:28:21.440 they weren't is because the maritime provinces wanted some of that um revenue as you know payback for

00:28:26.720 their investment um and another reason was actually it was feared that if the prairie provinces were

00:28:32.640 given control of their natural resources at the beginning at their land and resources that they would um

00:28:38.960 they would be not as favorable to more um uh settlers coming in like the federal government

00:28:43.840 wanted to bring in like millions and millions of settlers to create these provinces right and

00:28:47.360 there but there's always a thing when you bring in some that the first ones there might not want

00:28:50.560 more people to come in after if you know what i mean so there was the federal government part of

00:28:55.360 the reason they kept control of those resources was to make sure that they had control of the lands

00:28:59.360 and that they could make sure then that those lands were were settled and not you know blocked by earlier

00:29:04.000 people so there is some kind of justification for these things i'm not saying that that was

00:29:07.920 necessarily done properly and right all the time but there were reasons for that so in 1930 then

00:29:12.400 though the prairie provinces were given control of their natural resources and they became equal

00:29:16.880 provinces but they were not equal provinces you know until 1930 because they didn't have the same

00:29:22.400 control of their land and resources like the provinces had yeah but i could say there from the eastern

00:29:27.520 perspective from a central canadian perspective there was reasons for that so i kind of i don't take um like a

00:29:34.000 like i i kind of i can see that as part of the national project as making sense if you know what

00:29:37.600 i mean and so but you know of course the people in the prairies they did have grievances right from

00:29:41.920 the very beginning and they did form alternative political parties like they within a short few

00:29:46.880 years like alberta's first provincial government was liberal party because the liberal party back in

00:29:50.640 those days like when alberta was formed was was pro-farmer pro-west pro-free uh trade and so it was

00:29:57.440 very compatible with the prairies interest so the liberal party was quite popular in the very beginning you know on the

00:30:03.680 prairies but eventually like in alberta especially the mainstream parties whether it's liberal or

00:30:08.880 conservative were rejected by the people and so by 1921 we had the united farmers of alberta were the

00:30:14.480 provincial government a farmers organization and also federally the progressive party was the main

00:30:19.040 party here and that again was a farmers party because we didn't feel we were you know we didn't

00:30:23.040 feel we're being treated properly and so we we resorted to alternative political parties to fight

00:30:27.920 against the injustices and just to some degree you know that that worked to a certain degree

00:30:32.160 so so there were grievances right from the very beginning on the prairies you know but i and um

00:30:36.960 and some of the grievances of course would be legitimate and the farmers fought back

00:30:40.320 but no one really started talking seriously about independence until pierre chido became prime

00:30:45.200 minister um so i just want to so i i just want to communicate that there definitely were grievances on

00:30:50.160 the west right from the very beginning throughout that time and as i as you mentioned you alluded to

00:30:55.040 earlier when the farmers you know in the in the early years the the 20s and 30s they didn't see

00:31:00.400 central canada as their problem they saw the banks as the problem or the railways or other big

00:31:04.880 businesses and so a lot of the farmers movements and like even social credit and 30 years they

00:31:09.600 thought they were fighting these big corporations more than they thought they're fighting central

00:31:13.600 canada and so it wasn't until actually world war ii when more people in the west and in alberta

00:31:18.320 started saying wait a minute you know it's it's not these companies and like the banks that are

00:31:22.640 fighting us so much as it is um the federal government who which is controlled by central canada because the

00:31:28.080 major uh central canada is the main population base it has more than 50 of the population

00:31:33.280 so they control the federal government so when we're fighting the federal government it's that it's

00:31:36.720 it's um it's essentially central canada that we're fighting it's a geographical fight as opposed to you

00:31:41.680 know um fighting businesses or whatever kind of thing so that kind of emerged after world war ii

00:31:46.800 and so um and even then you know the prairie provinces were relatively poor um were relatively poor

00:31:53.040 provinces uh until you know alberta discovered oil in 1947 the big leduc discovery like we'd had

00:31:58.000 a bit of oil at turner valley before that but it wasn't in the huge amounts that were discovered

00:32:01.760 from 1947 and afterwards and that's when alberta you know really began to get on its feet economically

00:32:06.960 so before that time the idea of alberta being an independent country would not make sense

00:32:11.280 economically because we were poor problems and we lose out right but once we had oil and as oil became

00:32:16.880 a better resource over time we had more discoveries like into the 60s and stuff like that that's when alberta

00:32:21.680 you know could really feel its own so to speak economically and could start thinking about

00:32:25.840 um independence as an option where it never could before so i guess there is kind of a tie-in then

00:32:31.200 with this economic strength and trudeau becoming prime becoming prime minister you know they they

00:32:35.840 kind of the timing is kind of similar there so that that you know the the ability to become independent

00:32:41.680 um did not materialize until the 60s and that's when trudeau became prime minister and so they kind of

00:32:46.320 worked together and that's in terms of people being able to seriously think about independence yeah

00:32:50.640 so i hope i didn't hope i didn't drift away too much from your question no it's all good um yeah

00:32:54.880 and like from what i understand like pierre like saw this sort of you know alberta's gaining like this

00:33:03.520 massive economic power as like a kind of threat right to like the central powers that be and so i think

00:33:11.440 you know yes a lot of what the nep was um you know designed around yeah was to subsidize the eastern

00:33:18.480 provinces but like alberta itself was like seen like alberta having you know all these um natural

00:33:25.760 resources at their disposal and like being this economic superpower like you know thousands of

00:33:31.520 miles away from where the rest of canada is governed is like yeah i feel like yeah we could go into like

00:33:38.080 a little more a little bit more of that and yeah why they felt threatened and like all like the

00:33:43.600 measures they took even before like um the nep like there were so many like taxes that were like

00:33:50.240 imposed on our oil so yeah um maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that

00:33:57.200 yeah well actually you know it really began in 1973 the conflict over oil because you know up until

00:34:02.880 1973 the price of oil was relatively low like it was plentiful and cheap you know roughly around three

00:34:08.640 dollars a barrel but in october of 1973 war erupted in the middle east you know war between israel and

00:34:13.920 arab countries and um western countries generally supported israel and arab countries a lot of them

00:34:20.320 had oil and so they decided to um you know cut off oil to the western countries that supported israel

00:34:26.960 so that's i mean that's just putting in a nutshell but basically what happened was the price of oil

00:34:30.640 skyrocketed so within a few weeks it went from three dollars a barrel to about twelve dollars a barrel which

00:34:35.600 was a huge huge increase like nothing the world had ever seen before you know for oil and so suddenly

00:34:42.240 alberta's oil resources were worth much more than they ever were before like i mean you know oil

00:34:47.040 before was a good resource for alberta and you know brought prosperity to a certain degree but now

00:34:50.880 we could really cash in but it was around that time uh in the fall of 1973 here trudeau brought

00:34:57.040 in an export tax for alberta's oil because alberta was already exporting lots of oil to the united states

00:35:02.400 and oil like natural resources are a provincial jurisdiction provincial resource uh they're owned

00:35:07.280 by the provinces and so um what trudeau was doing with an export tax on oil was he was taking for the

00:35:12.720 federal government something that belonged to the provincial government and so it was it was

00:35:17.440 unprecedented in canadian history and our premier at that time peter lougheed called it the biggest rip

00:35:22.640 off of any province in confederations history you know peter lougheed was a progressive conservative

00:35:26.960 premier from alberta he throughout the 1970s into the 80s he fought hard against trudeau you know to

00:35:31.760 defend alberta's interests so anyway any oil alberta exported which was lots a huge portion of the

00:35:37.680 revenue would go to the federal government that belonged to alberta but within canada alberta

00:35:41.520 sold a lot of oil too and so trudeau brought in an artificially low price of oil uh for canadian

00:35:46.960 oil for alberta oil sold within canada so whether we sold our oil within canada or exported it we were

00:35:52.240 not getting you know the the benefit from it that we should have and so that was kind of the root cause

00:35:56.880 of pierre trudeau fighting trudeau um throughout the 1970s now it's interesting like even into the

00:36:01.440 mid late seven even into the mid late 70s alberta was not the richest province like i think ontario

00:36:06.240 was richest province so so it's not like we were a threat at that point but uh i mean alberta getting

00:36:12.400 more and more money that you know trudeau did not like that idea i mean we have to remember pierre

00:36:16.400 trudeau his vision for canada was a very centralized country like canada was you know we've got all these

00:36:21.760 different regions and provinces and any any large country you're going to have um you know differences

00:36:27.040 of interests between certain regions that are different from each other you know what i mean

00:36:30.800 um and so by having a federal system though where the provinces have so much jurisdiction

00:36:35.280 that kind of works that out because you know quebec could have certain laws one way and alberta can have

00:36:38.880 certain laws a different way like we're not forcing on each other trudeau didn't like the federal

00:36:42.800 system so much you know that kind of decentralized he wanted more central power in the federal government

00:36:46.960 in ottawa and so we didn't like the idea of provinces getting more power you know economically

00:36:51.440 and politically which was happening with alberta getting more oil and he also kind of had a more

00:36:55.840 socialistic perspective like he believed you know rather than the free market um taking care

00:37:00.400 of things the government should have a bigger role in what's going on so alberta's growth uh

00:37:05.120 the energy industry and alberta's growth and wealth that way contradicted trudeau's basic vision

00:37:09.680 of the country and so you know like i said he throughout the 70s peter la he was fighting trudeau

00:37:15.360 about those things but you know something very big happened like in 1979 there was a federal

00:37:19.600 election that uh pierrot lost and joe clark of the progressive concert party won a minority

00:37:25.760 government he did not have a majority but he he got the most mps so he became a minority government

00:37:30.720 and he was from alberta so it was believed that alberta would get a better deal from the federal

00:37:34.080 government but after just a few months you know there's a there was a vote in the house of commons

00:37:38.160 that brought down um joe clark government and there was a new a new election for february february of 1980

00:37:43.760 and so during that uh federal election the liberals decided to uh campaign you know to

00:37:50.160 increase regional divisions to encourage regional divisions through their campaign they can't they

00:37:53.600 campaigned essentially against alberta saying if you know if the eastern provinces will vote us back

00:37:58.320 in we'll put alberta in its place we'll make sure you know um you get your proper or your subsidies

00:38:03.360 for your um you know for your energy and things like that so this was very unique in canadian history

00:38:07.680 because generally speaking the federal parties try to uh enhance national unity like to discourage

00:38:13.520 regional divisions and bring the country together like that's what they normally would do but here

00:38:17.440 we had you know the liberal party of canada deliberately exploiting regional divisions

00:38:22.000 and encouraging regional divisions as a way of getting back into power and at work

00:38:25.680 and so you know because of that visit very divisive campaign when pierrot was re-elected in february of

00:38:30.640 1980 people in the west were very angry about that especially alberta we knew what was coming

00:38:34.240 something bad was coming and a few months later in october pierrot brought in the national energy

00:38:39.360 program which just devastated alberta's economy you know it was it was basically a federal power grab

00:38:44.480 over the energy over the energy industry more than ever before and so they they claimed that they were

00:38:49.920 you know they had reasons for doing this they claimed they were doing this to uh enhance um canada's

00:38:54.880 energy self-sufficiency and to canadianize the industry like most of the oil companies were american and

00:38:59.280 there's there's good reasons for that but anyway they thought there was too much american control and

00:39:03.280 the national energy program would help to america to canadianize the industry they brought in reasons

00:39:07.840 like this but they but um the energy minister of that time mark lalland he would later admit like

00:39:13.200 years later when he was out of power he admit that those weren't the real reasons that the real reason

00:39:17.200 was they wanted to reduce the revenue that alberta was getting and transfer that revenue to the federal

00:39:21.840 government so the federal government would increase its economic political power at alberta's expense

00:39:26.720 and alberta's economic political power would decline so they would admit that later but at the time

00:39:30.960 of course they were giving other reasons why people should support their policy but it really

00:39:34.960 devastated alberta's economy like thousands of businesses were lost thousands of people lost

00:39:39.440 their homes thousands of people well i don't know exactly how many people lost their homes but it

00:39:43.200 was a very large number but thousands of people did lose their jobs and actually just this year

00:39:47.600 you know when the traveling and speaking have done i've run into people who can tell personal

00:39:51.600 stories about how devastated their family was or people they knew by the national energy program in fact i

00:39:57.200 i was in an event last week where the organizer told me he like he was a child at that time he said

00:40:01.360 he remembers his father weeping over the financial losses of their family due to the national energy

00:40:06.080 program and like this is like this is kind of malicious on the federal government's part you know

00:40:10.400 they knew that they were harming alberta you know when people lose their jobs or their businesses

00:40:14.480 because of a national disaster natural disaster or something like that you know you can understand that

00:40:18.400 but but this was a deliberate policy of the federal government to hammer alberta and people were hurt and

00:40:23.040 like i say you can talk to people today some people who were hurt personally or their families

00:40:27.040 were hurt like their dad lost their job you know this harmed a lot of people and you know it's burned

00:40:32.160 in the memory of a lot of people and it should be because like i said if it wasn't deliberate if it

00:40:36.080 was kind of an accident you know you could kind of say well you know they didn't really mean it but

00:40:39.200 they did mean it this was intentional and it was very vicious yeah um yeah like the the quote the keith

00:40:46.800 davy quote comes to mind right of uh screw the west we'll take the rest like it just which is kind of

00:40:53.680 funny like you hear um like carney sort of um campaigned against the sort of like bringing divisive

00:41:00.000 american style politics into canada even though it's like divisive politics very much like a canadian

00:41:06.480 thing like especially if you look at like pierre's um campaign at that time and you know how he basically

00:41:13.040 gobbled up all the votes in the east well i think yeah i was actually looking i i made like my first

00:41:18.640 the first video on my channel i was looking at the um electoral map of canada like they didn't get like

00:41:23.920 a single um riding west of manitoba in the 1980 election which is crazy and you know for that

00:41:32.080 government to come in and then just decimate um the west's industry is yeah it's very like

00:41:38.000 like i don't know there's definitely like evil powers that be and i don't know what got into them

00:41:46.080 at that time like hopefully you know alberta can separate and this sort of thing comes and like

00:41:53.280 bites them in the ass right many years later like the kind of vengeance that i'm looking for but um

00:42:01.040 yeah like also what i think about like the nep like obviously i was i wasn't born then um but

00:42:07.600 what really upsets me is like you know during the peter laheed years like we had like our royalties

00:42:13.280 on oil was much higher right so just imagine if you were able to like cash in like on those like

00:42:19.840 extremely high oil prices like how like crazy our um like wealth fund would be like i think the pc

00:42:28.080 conservatives they had to sell off the fund because like it was like it was very like minuscule

00:42:34.160 i think um what's yeah smith brought back the heritage fund again but like you know making

00:42:42.320 like a comparison between like what um like norway has with much smaller reserves but you know 1.3

00:42:49.600 trillion dollars and you know that's because they were able to like cash in on like the boom and bust

00:42:56.800 cycle of the oil industry right and so to be robbed of that is like to be robbed of your future

00:43:03.360 sort of like we could have had like much like you know to the socialist's point i guess we could have

00:43:09.040 had like so many like so much better like social programs and lower tuition like here in alberta had we

00:43:16.640 like built a fund you know through the royalties we would have gotten from the very high oil prices at the

00:43:22.400 time but you know that never materialized because of trudeau so yeah yeah yeah sorry go ahead i just

00:43:30.800 gonna say no like it was peter lahir i think it was 1976 he created that heritage fund yeah because he

00:43:36.000 did see uh you know that we had this extra wealth coming in that he wanted to save for the future

00:43:40.080 and it's also important to point out like back in the 70s like they didn't have the technology we have

00:43:44.400 for extracting oil and so as far as they knew alberta only had maybe 10 maybe 10 years of oil reserves

00:43:50.480 like they didn't know it was going to last so long to be so much right so peter lahir was saying look

00:43:55.200 we've just got this short window of opportunity to bring in this massive amount of money to put in

00:44:00.240 a fund that well you know we say have that money you know for the future for future albertans and so

00:44:06.320 that was part of the incentive of his incentive for trying to fight trudeau like you know we were

00:44:10.160 getting all this money and i'm sure it was like a windfall profit in a sense at that time but but as

00:44:14.640 far as they knew the oil was going to run out in just a few years and so they had to get as much as

00:44:18.320 they could right away and they weren't able to do that like he he did have that heritage fund

00:44:22.560 and it started out okay and like you say i mean it kind of i think i think it's existed all this

00:44:26.800 time but um they stopped putting money into it and they just would take money out so it wasn't very

00:44:30.800 big yeah yeah but the reason you know norway was able to do it and get like 1.3 trillion or whatever

00:44:35.680 like you said and alberta would have been able to do that if it wasn't for the fact that the federal

00:44:39.760 government was pulling out so much like um robert manzel of the university calgary an economist there

00:44:44.720 he studied these transfers over years and he is in a paper published in 2021 he said that from 1965

00:44:52.160 until uh 2018 alberta had made a net contribution of 630 billion dollars now if that money instead

00:44:59.200 had gone into the heritage fund you know with interests and investments and stuff that would be

00:45:03.520 you know it's hard to say how much that'd be it should be a lot more than that yeah and you know

00:45:06.880 that was up to 2018 that he calculated and we've been putting in billions more every year since then

00:45:11.120 too so it would even be more but there so the reason we didn't get a norway type fund was because

00:45:16.560 we were having that that money was being vacuumed out of our province and you want to set somewhere

00:45:20.640 else right otherwise perhaps the heritage fund would have grown to that the size that um something like

00:45:26.080 norway's right but the idea was there the idea was there it's just the federal government wouldn't

00:45:29.760 allow it essentially you know for their taxation right yeah which is just like such a massive

00:45:35.360 like over breach of like the constitution itself of canada it's like we're not even safe under like

00:45:41.360 a constitution that like guarantees us like rights over our resources which is crazy to me like what's

00:45:47.520 funny about the you know bill c69 whether i think it was 2023 or 2024 like the supreme court like

00:45:54.560 deemed it as being like unconstitutional and so they you know the government sort of took it is like

00:46:01.360 okay you know steven guibo was like oh we'll make amendments or whatever to it and nothing's like

00:46:06.240 come out of it there's no timeline there's like nothing's changed like the bill is still in place

00:46:11.920 it's still having like its impact and now it's there's been like what since 2015 like 500 billion

00:46:18.400 dollars of investor like investment flight from alberta like specifically which is like crazy to me

00:46:25.440 yeah so yeah sorry go ahead the thing i mean the the liberals were bringing in these you know

00:46:33.680 policies that were supposed to address climate change and mostly they hurt alberta you know it's

00:46:38.800 like the no more pipelines bill like you mentioned and the alberta tanker ban and and other other

00:46:43.360 things like this and actually there's a professor at the university of calgary named uh ted morton he

00:46:49.200 was actually finance minister of alberta for a while but he wrote an article saying how you know we've

00:46:53.680 got these constitutional guarantees of the provinces controlling the resources but trudeau was bringing

00:46:58.560 in these policies that were kind of whittling away at that they were eroding you know that like alberta

00:47:03.520 would constitutionally have these rights but then like one bill after another would would chip away at

00:47:08.720 those rights you know what i mean so kind of cumulatively they really undermined our rights as a

00:47:13.040 as a province to control those resources whether it's the normal pipelines bill that the uh yeah the tanker

00:47:18.000 ban and very and like um just um just transition there's just various policies they brought in

00:47:23.120 that in various ways we're eating away at what you know what should have been our rights yeah and

00:47:27.680 like it's isn't it sort of funny how like all these environmental regulations and bills and policies

00:47:34.320 like specifically undermine alberta's economy that's like the most carbon intensive and at the

00:47:42.400 same time we don't have like we basically have like no control over it like no representation in

00:47:47.920 in the senate essentially to like oppose anything and you know again we don't even vote in these

00:47:53.440 people or at least well i think we elected like one ndp and two um liberal mps uh the april election

00:48:02.640 but like otherwise like we're not voting these people in you know like we like within the current

00:48:08.720 system that we're under we always try to oppose these policies and everything but like nothing comes out of

00:48:13.840 it that's right and you know this is so unfair because um these policies the ones we've been

00:48:19.520 talking about from the world government they're very popular in places like toronto and montreal and

00:48:23.200 ottawa and so those are the people who are electing you know the the politicians who are doing this

00:48:28.160 but it's not hurting them it's hurting us like it's easy to vote for a politician who's going to hurt

00:48:33.600 someone else like two or three thousand kilometers away you know what i mean because you're not feeling

00:48:38.080 and so like like you said we're not voting these people and it's almost like a similar to make an

00:48:42.400 analogy the taxation without representation like it's not necessarily but policies being imposed

00:48:47.200 on us that we don't even get to vote for we're like we vote in those elections but we're not the

00:48:51.440 what we have such a small voice that we don't we're not the ones who electing the people who are hurting

00:48:55.840 us and again that's one of the arguments i use when i'm talking about independence is if we were an

00:48:59.680 independent country all the politicians we elect would do what's best for us now the federal politicians

00:49:06.160 are doing what's harmful to us yeah and we voted for them but if we got to vote for our own in a

00:49:11.360 new country got to vote for our leaders they would do what's well for us would do what's best for us

00:49:15.200 or else they'd be thrown out immediately you know yeah yeah exactly and like the icing on the cake

00:49:20.480 of like all these bills is that then they haven't made like an actual impact in terms of the environment

00:49:26.800 which is like it like they're purely like virtue signaling and like sort of like putting up a facade

00:49:32.080 of like canada being this like environmentally conscious place like even though like in practice

00:49:37.200 they've literally done nothing like the regulations that we have here compared to like what what's in

00:49:43.200 like the us say for example um and like the differences in like emissions like say per pipeline

00:49:49.360 or whatever like it's minuscule like you can't even like it's not something that you can like

00:49:54.240 quantitatively like put down which is just i don't know like i guess like the last 10 years like every

00:50:02.480 like sort of policy that's been introduced like all the like bans on like handguns for example

00:50:09.200 um like all these like restrictions on like personal liberties like it's all been to like

00:50:16.880 like there there isn't any sort of like actual impact assessment to see you know what sort of effect

00:50:22.720 they've been having but like the third parties that have come in and like seen you know what their

00:50:27.520 effects were what their harms were whether they were actually beneficial or not or not or whether

00:50:32.240 they would actually reach like the end goal that they were um like designed for like it's all gotten

00:50:38.000 us like nowhere but all it's done is just hurt us and like hasn't moved the needle at all so it's like

00:50:45.200 yeah it like the the system that we're under now is it's just i don't know it's kind of like

00:50:50.960 like it's all for show like genuinely like that's like all if like i don't really know of

00:50:58.720 any sort of like i guess like policies and bills like especially like regarding to like personal

00:51:03.600 liberties and like climate stuff that's been um that's been sort of like that actually has moved the

00:51:13.440 needle in a positive direction like even if you're like a like an activist like say like you're like an

00:51:18.880 environmental extremist like guibo for example like you you haven't actually like accomplished

00:51:24.800 much like the carbon tax i think it's come out now the like the emission reductions that happened

00:51:31.600 in canada under the carbon tax accounts for some estimates have set 37 hours other set 54 hours of

00:51:39.840 just like what china emits so like imagine like a day or two in china accounts for like every like all this

00:51:49.200 like inflated gas prices and everything that you've caused and like put onto consumers and like it's

00:51:55.840 all been like essentially for nothing and so like a concern that i have um like seeing both in canada

00:52:02.640 and the u.s are these like omnibus bills which i'm sure you've heard of like in the u.s now especially

00:52:11.120 like with the big beautiful bill where it's just clumped in like all of this stuff um but there's

00:52:18.960 also i guess like some positives you could say so that if like a senator or someone like votes against

00:52:24.720 it they can point at them hey be like hey you know you voted against um like giving a pay raise to

00:52:31.360 like soldiers or something and that makes you a bad person even though there's all this other like

00:52:36.400 draconian stuff in the bill and the liberals tried to do this with uh bill c5 too right but

00:52:42.640 thankfully that got amended and so i'm just like wondering like in a new i guess maybe i should ask

00:52:48.560 this maybe like either from jeffrey rath or uh what was the other constitutional lawyer that's like

00:52:56.000 really behind this cause keith keith davis keith wilson sorry yeah keith wilson yeah yeah but i'm

00:53:03.440 just wondering like in a new alberta how can we kind of like prevent this these kind of like omnibus

00:53:09.280 bills or like what kind of like and how would the constitution um like bring a like sort of like a stop

00:53:18.560 gap to how many like different pieces of like how many things you can affect in like one bill

00:53:27.600 yeah like you know a constitutional lawyer would be a better person to ask but generally speaking

00:53:31.680 there's so much that depends on the constitution right because um there's lots of different options

00:53:36.320 you could theoretically have in a constitution so it would really depend on on how strict it is in

00:53:42.240 terms of government operations or how loose it is like for me i would prefer like a shorter

00:53:47.360 constitution that's more general you know principles kind of thing because there's some

00:53:50.720 people who want you know very long and detailed constitution but i'm not sure that that's the

00:53:55.840 best idea because you know kind of you don't want to handcuff the government and you just got to give

00:54:00.320 a lot of leeway to voters like like that's i would say is um like you know voters do change over time

00:54:06.080 like their views change over time and you want to give the government the leeway to reflect you know

00:54:10.320 voters when they change their views and things like that so so yes it's so much is up in the air when

00:54:14.480 it comes to the constitution as to what it would look like and there will be you know disputes over

00:54:18.880 yeah how it should look right when that finally comes around but just to get to your point you

00:54:22.480 know about those bill that the policies the last 10 years that were they didn't accomplish anything

00:54:27.040 like i i think really justin tudeau's goal was to impose his ideological vision so even though the

00:54:33.280 bills might not have accomplished what their stated goals were they still were they still

00:54:37.440 reflected his ideology and he was able to impose his ideology and you know i've seen some comparisons

00:54:42.400 and i can't remember the exact group of nations but among the most developed nations in the last

00:54:46.640 10 years canada had the slowest growth in its economy yeah i think between the g7 countries i

00:54:52.480 think yeah yeah even like that and so like that is a reflection of trudeau's policies yeah and you

00:54:58.400 know that was his intent i mean see part of the climate change thing is the more industrial growth

00:55:02.720 you have the more economic growth you have is the more emissions there are so the the more you

00:55:07.280 reduce the economy is the less emissions you'll get at least compared to the growing economy so

00:55:12.480 so in some sense i see that like i mean for me as a canadian that's a terrible thing that the

00:55:16.960 economy is not growing but from the perspective of someone whose main goal was to reduce emissions

00:55:22.480 maybe that's a maybe that's a win you know what i mean yeah yeah and they kind of you know get you

00:55:27.920 know the people from like the bottom rungs of society to kind of pay for it right like you know all

00:55:33.440 these you know like all this like inflation and like stagnation like economy and stuff you know

00:55:39.840 like the poor hurt the most always right they're the first to get hit and um yeah definitely like

00:55:48.640 what you said about like ideology and like trudeau is like very true like i think there was this um

00:55:55.520 western standard article that actually um like once you accumulate all the spending the overseas spending

00:56:02.880 that the trudeau government did on like um gender programs you know abroad it was like 11 billion

00:56:11.040 like in the last 10 years which is like crazy to me and like some some of this money was going to

00:56:16.720 places like um taliban controlled afghanistan which is like how do you even know where that money is

00:56:23.040 going like there's no way you can assess that like it probably like who knows what portion of that

00:56:29.120 money was pocketed by the taliban themselves right instead of actually going to like disenfranchised

00:56:34.240 women or whatever and so yeah definitely like and just i guess to add insult to injury that you know

00:56:43.520 this same government was put back into power you know under the guise of like a leader that calls

00:56:49.600 himself a pragmatist but is now just going to be running massive deficits like really i guess just shows

00:56:57.840 that like canada can't like even be saved like if you give people that outlet like they're people

00:57:07.440 here are extremely naive and like very easily swayed like in whichever direction um you know the powers that be

00:57:15.600 you want to sway them and so you know obviously people in alberta and saskatchewan and like most parts of bc

00:57:26.400 well not not like vancouver um you know they're i guess like their their core values and beliefs are

00:57:33.680 like more deep rooted and so they're not like not only are they opposed to those like um policies and

00:57:41.760 whatnot but they're also like what the ndp voters did with like the strategic voting which is just

00:57:47.840 like selling out the ndp so that paul yef doesn't come in like it's just kind of like it's just like

00:57:54.960 a showcase of like how spineless people can be and now the ndp is completely decimated right we had them

00:58:02.160 be like the official opposition during the harper years and now like they're down to like seven seats

00:58:08.080 they're basically kind of like just um towing the line for like the liberals to have like a slight

00:58:14.160 majority if they vote with them alongside some things but like yeah otherwise i just like i genuinely

00:58:22.160 think that like there are like albertans and like the rest of canada maybe not saskatchewan we're

00:58:30.240 obviously more aligned with them but like in terms of like values and the things that we stand for

00:58:34.960 like they're in like sort of incomparable like they're only comparable in the sense that

00:58:41.840 like it's both um i guess like they're both like western ways of thinking and going about things

00:58:50.640 but yeah and i want you to touch on that a little bit just how much like we differ from like our eastern

00:58:57.120 neighbors you know actually in my book no other option um i talk a bit about how alberta is somewhat

00:59:03.520 culturally different like it's it's not so culturally different as quebec would be right in quebec

00:59:07.920 you know someone speaks french you know they go different part of the country you can tell they're

00:59:11.600 from quebec right because their language is different and so on like that so it's not that

00:59:15.200 alberta is like that distinct in the same sense of unique language but our history is somewhat

00:59:19.840 different from the other provinces and that um one of the big differences culturally was that in the

00:59:24.480 early 20th century like when alberta was filling up at one point in the early 20th century about 20

00:59:29.360 of our population was american born because the american frontier had closed off earlier and so

00:59:34.160 a lot of those people then funneled north into alberta especially southern alberta and that had a

00:59:38.480 big impact on the like our provinces political culture and its culture generally then um also after

00:59:45.600 the oil boom like after the big luke discovery in 1947 um the united states had the technology and

00:59:51.440 the expertise for developing oil and so to make a long story short a lot of americans came up also at

00:59:56.080 that point like a lot of american oil companies came up and their their workers to develop alberta's

01:00:01.120 oil industry and so you ended up with a lot of um corporate level americans in the calgary oil

01:00:06.080 industry uh you know in the oil patch and they had a big impact politically because they they mostly

01:00:11.040 came from places like texas and oklahoma which were conservative politically and so they brought their

01:00:15.040 political values with them and actually i'll just throw in like um in post-world war ii uh immigration

01:00:20.480 like from like canada had been instrumental in uh liberating holland from the germans

01:00:25.840 and a lot there's a big wave of dutch immigration then also to canada and to parts canada and

01:00:30.960 especially to alberta and a lot of those people were kind of conservative religious people and also

01:00:35.280 to um eastern europe there was a lot of refugees from communism from eastern europe like from

01:00:40.160 czechoslovakia after 1968 and hungary after 1956 and a lot of those people were very conservative

01:00:45.680 because they were very anti-communist so we have these kind of different waves of immigration coming

01:00:49.920 into alberta i mean to some degree it would go into some provinces but it was kind of really

01:00:53.120 disproportionate alberta and all these waves had very conservative influences on our political

01:00:56.960 culture which made alberta different politically and you know you can see that especially when you

01:01:01.200 look at voting voting trends like aside from you know the the accidental ndp government from 1915

01:01:08.000 to 19 sorry uh 2015 to 2019 um alberta has had generally conservative governments for decades

01:01:15.520 and decades and they were obviously they were often overwhelming majorities you know going back to

01:01:20.000 at least um social credit under ernest manning who was very conservative federally alberta looks

01:01:24.880 different like you mentioned if you look at the geographical map of canada you know with the

01:01:29.360 different colors based on the parties going back generations like alberta is solidly voting you know

01:01:34.480 conservative party or reform party or whatever and so just by looking at the maps you can see alberta is

01:01:39.200 different that way because we're voting differently than much of the rest of the country like other prairie

01:01:44.240 areas we're often voting like us but not necessarily and so these are kind of just general things that

01:01:49.040 show that alberta has been different like these political trends and actually uh that just brings

01:01:53.440 to mind too the social credit government alberta was very different from governments in other

01:01:57.040 provinces and alberta was so different in fact that during the 1950s the university of toronto published

01:02:02.720 a 10 volume series of books on alberta to explain alberta to the rest of the country you know what i

01:02:07.360 mean so oh wow it just shows that out yeah yeah i i quote some of like some of them are political and

01:02:13.440 some of them are sociological and some of them are economic but just to show alberta is different

01:02:17.920 in fact one of the most famous books in that series is um democracy in alberta by cb mcpherson

01:02:22.640 and actually cb mcpherson was a very famous political scientist at university of toronto

01:02:26.160 who was a marxist so he didn't like alberta's social credit but that's just one of the volumes

01:02:31.040 like they say was there was many volumes on different topics but but alberta was definitely

01:02:34.400 seen as being different you know and um like probably today in our day and age alberta isn't as

01:02:39.840 different as it was in the past because you've got just got general trends you know towards i mean not just

01:02:45.360 in canada but in other parts of the world just you know with social media and stuff but

01:02:48.720 but um but alberta has historically been quite different in many ways like politically especially

01:02:53.680 you know from the rest of the country and of course there's you know we have the stampede and

01:02:57.760 you know um you know our our industries like we're more um we have more ranching and of course the oil

01:03:03.680 industry has its own impact right these are these are ways in which we're different from the rest of

01:03:07.200 the country like i say it's not as different as quebec would be different and you know if you cross

01:03:11.440 the board in saskatchewan you won't immediately notice there's a difference but um but you know

01:03:15.280 where if you go to newfoundland there's some differences there and and just actually i have

01:03:19.520 heard i mean this is just anecdotally but when albertans have visited um people i know have visited

01:03:24.880 say toronto or whatever they notice a different attitude of the people you know on a lot of political

01:03:29.600 issues and social issues and stuff right so and those are reflected like we say in the voting

01:03:33.760 the federal voting and so we do get different outcomes that way so we are different that to some degree

01:03:39.920 from other parts of the country yeah for sure and yeah you mentioned newfoundland i don't know i kind

01:03:45.120 of think like newfoundlanders are like speaking their own language almost like i feel like they're

01:03:50.960 almost as distinct to quebec as quebec in that sense but um yeah and like like as i've like been

01:03:58.480 like getting like you know accumulating like more knowledge about you know like politics and stuff and

01:04:04.240 like i guess culture in general is that culture isn't just say for example at least as my perspective

01:04:10.640 like say like a set of like language or food or say like traditional clothes or whatever but it's

01:04:17.840 like you know values that are like instilled right in people right now you know my um you know i'm not

01:04:25.200 i wasn't born in alberta right i was born in iran uh my parents they're both um engineers in the oil and gas

01:04:33.360 industry so i guess the biggest hit they took in terms of their jobs was when the ndp got in um

01:04:40.720 and so but like you know they came from like a theocratic government that who's basically been

01:04:47.680 gobbling up so much industry through like the irgc sort of they've been nationalizing everything and

01:04:54.160 like the free market and by extension like the middle class doesn't exist anymore and so you know i

01:05:00.720 guess like in terms of like their spirit and what they were looking for like alberta was like kind

01:05:06.960 of like a perfect fit right they're very like fiscally and like socially conservative so

01:05:14.000 and yeah i think like you know they definitely would have like say if you're like em like emigrating

01:05:21.040 from europe to canada like in most most european countries i guess at least um you you wouldn't come

01:05:27.680 to alberta at least like not as of right now with like a lot of like the i guess social democracies

01:05:33.920 you could say that exist in europe for example uh but yeah even though i think yeah alberta isn't as

01:05:41.360 distinct as they don't say quebec like there isn't like the hard line distinction like you said from

01:05:46.560 like going to alberta uh from saskatchewan like there is from going to like ontario to quebec but

01:05:53.840 you know like i guess yeah like the general vibe that you get and like like the people's demeanors

01:06:00.800 even like quebec is like this sort of like very cold like european style kind of thing like you

01:06:06.800 know like the stereotype of canadians being very nice and you know always apologizing like that does

01:06:12.160 not apply in quebec at all like that's something that like quebec is completely like left out of but um

01:06:19.760 yeah so is there anything else you'd like to touch on or have we covered about most things yeah i

01:06:26.240 think we've covered more things but could i just mention where my books are available uh yeah yeah

01:06:30.000 actually you know what i can um i can also yeah you can name drop all your books and i can also um

01:06:35.760 like put them in like put the amazon links in the description of my video okay yeah i'll just i've

01:06:41.440 mentioned two of my books on independence there's just one there's a third one i'll just throw it short

01:06:44.880 here quickly time to leave this is the most recent one i wrote this one because after i wrote no other

01:06:49.680 option i had a some people say they read no other option they agreed with albert independence but

01:06:53.680 they wanted to try and fix canada one more time and i was i was frustrated by that so time to leave

01:06:58.400 kind of focuses more on look at all the things we tried to do you know look how much everything we put

01:07:02.320 in we don't want to try something again so those books are all available like um no other option is

01:07:07.280 available on amazon directly from amazon time to leave amazon made a page for it but you have to buy

01:07:12.880 through a third-party seller so it's kind of expensive but there is a website there's a small

01:07:16.880 business in didsbury called merchant ship and their website is merchant ship.ca and they're

01:07:21.200 friends of mine so if you just go to that website and put my last name in the search it'll bring up

01:07:25.360 all my books okay so yeah yeah merchant ship.ca okay merchant ship yeah yeah and if you have um

01:07:33.360 other than that so just amazon and merchant ship for your most recent book

01:07:38.560 yeah that's right okay all right yeah i'll be sure to put those links in the description okay and i'll

01:07:43.440 just put your last name in there yeah and merchant ship for searching yeah okay and they they like

01:07:48.640 ship i'm guessing like throughout or do you have to like live in that area no no they send by canada

01:07:56.000 post like okay okay they can ship by canada okay cool well great thank you so much for coming on um i

01:08:01.600 know i'm kind of like a little bit of a no name uh in this movement but you're certainly not yeah like i

01:08:07.760 said you're you know at least i the way i see it you and maybe i guess preston manning who's still

01:08:13.680 around or like the i feel like are like the most for most like scholars on this topic so like it's

01:08:20.720 been a real honor being able to talk to you and ask you all these sorts of questions and yeah dig in

01:08:26.160 your brain a little bit but um yeah anyways i guess thank you thanks for having me it was nice to talk to you

01:08:33.520 yeah for sure

The Alberta Project - July 17, 2025

Interview with Michael Wagner on Alberta Independence

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