The Critical Compass Podcast - A Holistic Approach to Achieving YES on an Alberta Independence Referendum

00:00:00.000 So that means something's got to change.

00:00:02.520 But people are also, to your point, driven by fear.

00:00:05.660 Fear is a greater incentive than rewards.

00:00:08.640 So if you want to continue down this destructive path of paying more for less,

00:00:13.560 then let's keep doing what we're doing.

00:00:15.600 But if we want, you know, better results for less, right?

00:00:20.980 Let's make our money go further.

00:00:23.100 Let's give you all these other things.

00:00:24.840 Then that means we have to make a shift.

00:00:26.280 We have to make a change in how we do things, right?

00:00:29.340 But people are afraid of change.

00:00:31.480 So change is the big obstacle to overcome.

00:00:34.560 But the hard part is, is you got to, the first step to any of that

00:00:37.320 is you got to get somebody who's willing to at least engage with you, listen to you.

00:00:41.280 And I always tell people, rather than you talk, let them do the talking, right?

00:00:46.020 Find out from them, ask them, okay, so what are your concerns?

00:00:49.620 What are you really, truly concerned about?

00:00:51.420 What is it that you want?

00:00:59.340 Welcome back, everybody.

00:01:12.380 We've got a special intro for you today since we are doing a shared episode.

00:01:17.720 For those who don't know us, I'm James.

00:01:21.140 This is my co-host, Mike.

00:01:22.380 We are the Critical Compass podcast.

00:01:26.600 Some of you may know us from there.

00:01:28.400 And we also just recently produced a small documentary on the Alberta UCP AGM,

00:01:35.760 which actually featured our guest, Nadine Wellwood, who joined us in that documentary.

00:01:42.500 She is the author of Alberta Rising, A Principled Vision for a Sovereign and Free Nation.

00:01:48.720 An excellent book, a clear and concise guide, essentially any thought or talking point

00:01:55.160 you may need to know when it comes to Alberta independence from a principled level.

00:02:00.020 This book is a great reference that way, and I would highly recommend it.

00:02:04.720 Nadine, how about you give us a little bit of a welcome?

00:02:09.140 Thank you for joining us.

00:02:11.320 My pleasure.

00:02:12.480 Happy New Year to you guys.

00:02:14.160 New to you.

00:02:14.700 Me too.

00:02:15.700 Yeah, so just for your audience who may not be so familiar with me,

00:02:18.960 obviously the author of Alberta Rising.

00:02:21.180 Thank you for that warm comment.

00:02:23.680 I did not pay him, I swear, to say that.

00:02:26.100 And apparently it's light reading.

00:02:27.800 He's already insulted me, so we're good to go.

00:02:31.960 Real quick read, yeah.

00:02:33.900 Well, most people have short attention spans, and who wants to be lectured to, right?

00:02:39.340 So for me, I wrote the book to be very concise and more just to get people to think.

00:02:44.320 I'm not here to give the answers, just want people to think critically about some of the problems

00:02:49.260 and what they think some of the solutions might be.

00:02:51.980 And I think the book really points out the ability of, you know, there are other places

00:02:57.040 around the world that are doing it better.

00:03:00.180 So why aren't we doing at least, at a minimum, that?

00:03:04.260 And just before we get into too much of that, I've been around the block politically in the

00:03:10.020 turmoil and the fray for about eight years now.

00:03:12.380 And I, prior to that, and still am, a chartered investment manager.

00:03:17.740 So lots of things economically we can bring up tonight.

00:03:20.680 You know, Mr. Carney and Ms. Chrystia Freeland, who's now the economic advisor.

00:03:25.460 You know, I go, I have...

00:03:26.500 That's that Ukrainian chick, right?

00:03:28.280 Yeah, that Ukrainian chick.

00:03:30.160 You know, the Canadian MP that's over-advising Ukraine on how to spend Canadian dollars.

00:03:35.680 Yeah.

00:03:35.900 So a little bit of background on me, you know, I've been working in finance for 20 plus years,

00:03:41.860 chartered investment manager, been around politics now for about eight years, and I owned

00:03:45.980 an aerospace and defense company.

00:03:47.440 So I've been an entrepreneur.

00:03:48.700 Look, you need another drink.

00:03:50.060 You're dropping stuff.

00:03:51.220 I know.

00:03:53.140 Well, we were going to cut that part out, I'm sure.

00:03:55.760 But now, since you've addressed it, I have to pick, find it and pick it up.

00:03:59.240 Oh, I can't find it.

00:04:00.420 Keep going.

00:04:01.000 It's the joys of editing.

00:04:02.240 Yeah.

00:04:02.400 So, yeah, so that's me in a nutshell.

00:04:07.780 It's great to finally have you on.

00:04:09.460 And like we mentioned before, we can unpack any of these things when it comes to the state

00:04:16.180 of Canada.

00:04:16.920 I'm sure as we, even talking about Kearney, the conclusions out of this is Alberta's got

00:04:22.600 to leave.

00:04:23.760 I don't know, I cringe a little bit because Canada does not feel like it's doing well.

00:04:29.300 And 2026 feels like it's going to be a very dynamic year geopolitically, and it's going

00:04:37.540 to get a lot of people talking.

00:04:39.380 And I think we're off to a interesting start already.

00:04:43.260 Nadine, what was the what was your turn of phrase that you said before we hit recording

00:04:47.280 what 2026 is going to be?

00:04:48.600 Well, I did a little video yesterday and I said 2026 is the year of shifts, S-H-I-F-T-S.

00:04:57.180 And I said, feel free to drop the F.

00:04:59.860 Yes.

00:05:01.980 Yeah, it's going to be bonkers.

00:05:03.420 It sort of is bonkers already.

00:05:05.140 It feels like because so much is kind of coalescing all at once and probably maybe the most consequential

00:05:13.080 thing to start the year is that, you know, we've gotten approval from Elections Alberta

00:05:17.300 to start collecting signatures for the petition for the referendum.

00:05:22.420 So what are you kind of feeling going into this this week?

00:05:27.460 How about vote?

00:05:28.040 Yes.

00:05:29.820 That's a good start.

00:05:30.780 Good start there, yeah.

00:05:31.900 Absolutely.

00:05:32.940 You know, for me, and part of the reason for writing the book was is getting more people,

00:05:39.800 all of Albertans involved in the conversation.

00:05:43.060 This is not a left, right.

00:05:44.840 This is not a rural, urban.

00:05:46.200 This is an Alberta decision.

00:05:48.080 And this is what is right for Alberta.

00:05:50.620 And so I don't want people I didn't want people to kind of make a decision thinking that,

00:05:55.060 well, you know, this is about being conservative or NDP.

00:05:58.040 Or it really is a sound economic decision, a sound policy decision that everybody should

00:06:06.500 take very seriously.

00:06:07.880 But here's the reality.

00:06:09.300 Whether you want to stay in Canada and you just simply want a better deal, better terms,

00:06:14.560 whether you want an independent Alberta or the other third option, which I don't support,

00:06:20.980 you know, is the 51st state.

00:06:23.160 But it doesn't matter which one of those three that you want, all of them hinge upon a yes

00:06:30.620 on a referendum vote.

00:06:31.820 Because it's about leverage.

00:06:33.700 Right now, Alberta is very easy to ignore because we have no political leverage to use

00:06:39.700 even to negotiate better terms.

00:06:41.620 So even if Albertans are thinking, hey, I don't want to leave, but you know what, we have to

00:06:45.940 negotiate a better agreement with Canada, then you have to vote yes for a referendum.

00:06:51.460 And my book really was built around exactly that, designing and getting you to think about

00:06:56.800 what does better education look like?

00:06:58.620 What does better health care look like?

00:07:00.380 Do we truly need all the licensing and registration?

00:07:03.100 Is the government the right size?

00:07:04.760 Do you like paying taxes or would you prefer to pay less taxes?

00:07:07.940 So just all these sort of common sense ideas and then giving people some food for thought

00:07:12.800 as to, okay, well, if I was in control, because I do say in my book, I now turn the pen over

00:07:17.820 to you, what would that look like?

00:07:19.700 You know, what are your ideas?

00:07:21.620 What are the things that you would like to see implemented?

00:07:24.440 And, you know, from there, it opens the door to conversation.

00:07:27.300 So now you've got something that you can talk about with friends and family.

00:07:30.460 And hopefully it's a discussion, not a wrestling match, which I have seen that happen.

00:07:38.340 You know, and that's where, for me, Alberta independence is so critically important.

00:07:42.760 I mean, I can talk about the economics all day long, but, you know, for people who want

00:07:46.300 a better future for their children, they want a brighter future for their family.

00:07:50.160 You want better businesses, better service, better products, more innovation.

00:07:54.100 It doesn't matter.

00:07:55.760 Pick any subject.

00:07:57.060 Alberta independence can be the path to that.

00:07:59.000 Yeah, and that's such an important point that you started with, too, about how this

00:08:03.700 is, it shouldn't really be viewed as a left-right issue, because, you know, the fact is that,

00:08:09.500 you know, even if you just want to talk about it from a point of view of, like, do you want,

00:08:13.600 do you want your political opinion to count for something, regardless of where you happen

00:08:17.940 to lie on a line, right?

00:08:21.180 Because we already know from our last election that Alberta's opinion on anything doesn't

00:08:25.800 really matter at a federal level.

00:08:27.500 So, yeah, if you want to have a stronger political voice at all, this is a good thing

00:08:32.040 for you.

00:08:32.580 But also, I like to, I mean, you're the financial expert amongst the three of us here.

00:08:36.780 So, you know, the thing that I always bring up to people is, like, what could you do with

00:08:42.020 an extra, you know, 15, 17, 20,000 bucks in your pocket every year?

00:08:46.080 Like, what, what would you do with all that money that you think is being done?

00:08:51.180 Like, are you happy to look at your paycheck and see 40% of it being pissed away somewhere

00:08:57.160 that you can't, it's not accountable to you, to whatever your interests are?

00:09:01.500 Like, don't you think you could make better use of that?

00:09:03.700 And that's a pretty hard argument, even for a, for a pretty hard leftist to be like, oh,

00:09:08.080 no, I couldn't use any more money in my life, you know?

00:09:10.960 Oh, yeah, of course not.

00:09:12.320 Who needs more money?

00:09:13.300 We have so much of it.

00:09:14.420 You know, we have so much of it now, we're just giving it all the way to Ukraine and,

00:09:17.800 you know, other places around the world because they, they need it more than we do.

00:09:23.160 Yeah.

00:09:23.360 You know, what's interesting that you point that out, the Ukraine GDP is actually higher

00:09:27.980 than Canada's.

00:09:29.100 And yet we're the one giving billions of dollars to them.

00:09:32.020 So, you know, it's financial decisions like that that I look at and I go, I shake my head

00:09:37.600 and I go, we have to get away from this.

00:09:40.220 You know, Canadians are being bled dry in taxation and regulation.

00:09:46.260 So, you know, Canada's problems largely are a lack of productivity, in my opinion.

00:09:51.460 And that lack of productivity is boiled down to the fact that we have a very large government

00:09:55.380 that is trying to control everything and that is over-regulating.

00:09:58.760 And there is no innovation, there is no creativity.

00:10:01.060 You know, we have oil reserves, we have natural resources that we're not developing

00:10:05.100 because of ideology, not because of skill or a lack of knowledge or even a lack of demand.

00:10:12.220 All of these assets that Canada has, they're needed everywhere around the world.

00:10:15.940 And we're not, we're choosing to leave them in the ground.

00:10:19.100 And so if, if, if Albertans want a better future, there is one available to be had.

00:10:25.060 We just have to be willing to vote yes on a referendum and then just hold firm to principles

00:10:32.060 and negotiate better terms.

00:10:34.820 And in my opinion, those terms are independence.

00:10:37.320 It's not better terms with Canada.

00:10:39.180 It is certainly, Alberta wants to be an independent nation.

00:10:43.020 But yeah, what, what could you do with an extra 15, $17,000 in your pocket?

00:10:48.460 You know, that helps alleviate a lot of the affordability issues going on today.

00:10:52.400 And that's just the beginning.

00:10:53.620 It really is just the beginning.

00:10:55.080 Because as we increase productivity and we increase the innovation and the creativity

00:11:00.260 and we start developing the resources we have, you're going to have better paying jobs, right?

00:11:05.440 We're going to have more businesses.

00:11:07.540 There'll be more opportunity for you to become your own business.

00:11:10.800 You know, all these things open up, which right now we don't have the opportunity

00:11:15.700 or even the option to explore because the heavy hand of Canada.

00:11:20.600 Yeah, it seems like very much it's, we're in a bloated state where it's hard to get anything done.

00:11:28.620 That extra red tape just keeps on putting a barrier, even to get a business up and running.

00:11:33.820 Like, well, what's this hurdle?

00:11:35.560 What's that hurdle?

00:11:36.780 And a lot of people will try to start their own business partially as a financial incentive

00:11:42.480 to protect and grow their own wealth.

00:11:44.760 And then you kind of, you have to think about like, well, why do people need to find all

00:11:51.660 these creative solutions to even protect their wealth from dissolving?

00:11:56.240 And that circles back to that, the issue that we do not have sound money.

00:12:02.100 We do not have an economy that rewards people for earning.

00:12:07.420 Essentially, you are penalized in any kind of way.

00:12:10.140 Let it be capital gains, let it be working a little bit in overtime.

00:12:15.960 It's there, the incentives are contrary to productivity.

00:12:20.780 So if you punish productivity, like what would you expect over time?

00:12:24.660 You'd expect pretty much all sectors to become less productive in that way.

00:12:30.620 I can understand how people can get caught up in kind of the empathetic or like in their

00:12:38.520 empathy, like it's misplaced.

00:12:40.820 They will say like, well, it's, I'm a good citizen and it's like, I don't mind if some

00:12:46.360 of my taxes go to helping others in need.

00:12:49.660 And they assume it's being spent responsibly.

00:12:53.260 Maybe they don't look at the layers of bureaucracy, like where it gets wasted, how there's no mechanism

00:12:58.760 to really reduce that bureaucracy.

00:13:02.880 Essentially, when you get this public sector growing and growing and growing, you don't

00:13:07.240 have the same mechanism to reduce a department that is no longer serving its purpose.

00:13:13.440 You essentially have these departments fighting for their own survival.

00:13:16.940 And once you establish it, you just have another layer of bureaucracy or another layer of the

00:13:23.440 public sector, which is just another hurdle for getting things done.

00:13:26.380 And it's a time and like money sink in the government.

00:13:32.180 So if not for intervention over time, you get this corrupt, bloated, like larger and

00:13:40.040 larger public sector that essentially isn't doing the job it's meant to do.

00:13:46.560 So you can still have that empathy and you can say like, yeah, we need to provide the services

00:13:51.000 in some way.

00:13:51.920 And maybe you have the argument, maybe you have the discussion about like what role of

00:13:56.940 the government, like how much government should be involved in it.

00:14:01.520 That's a slightly different discussion than where we're at right now of we're kind of stuck

00:14:09.800 in this bloated state.

00:14:11.300 So and then the question is, how do we get out of a bloated state?

00:14:16.700 Like, can we do it within Canada?

00:14:19.380 Is there any mechanism in Canada that would actually reduce the bloat?

00:14:25.380 Well, there is.

00:14:27.220 But Canada doesn't have the political will to do it.

00:14:30.260 And you're seeing that more and more.

00:14:32.200 So you brought up a number of things there.

00:14:33.840 One I'm going to address quickly is the empathy and the need for Canadians to be what I would

00:14:39.860 call charitable.

00:14:41.140 Well, if you have an extra $15,000 to $17,000 that the government says we're not going to

00:14:45.140 take out of your pocket directly, well, you can choose to spend that however you wish.

00:14:49.220 If you want to be charitable with your own money, then that's what the definition of

00:14:52.620 charity actually is.

00:14:54.080 But when the government takes your money by force, let's be honest, that's called theft.

00:14:59.220 That's not charity.

00:15:00.240 And then when the government makes the decisions as to who is going to receive that money,

00:15:04.660 that's not you being charitable.

00:15:07.760 OK, so, I mean, for me, I would much rather see the individual keep everything that they

00:15:12.660 make.

00:15:13.100 Why?

00:15:13.380 Because it does incentivize you to earn more.

00:15:17.240 And I'll tell you this.

00:15:18.240 It's kind of like I had a conversation with a young man about capitalism and competition.

00:15:23.980 And, you know, it was on the grounds of teaching.

00:15:26.660 And I had proposed that we do vouchers maybe for teachers.

00:15:30.240 And he's like, well, everybody would want to come here then.

00:15:32.540 I said, so what you're telling me is you're afraid to compete, right?

00:15:35.400 You don't want to have to compete with everybody else on an equal scale.

00:15:39.140 And he says, well, no, no, no, no.

00:15:40.260 But I said, no, hear me out here.

00:15:41.880 So I said, here's what competition does, right?

00:15:45.260 Competition creates better products.

00:15:47.740 It creates better services.

00:15:49.120 It creates higher paying jobs.

00:15:50.960 It creates more opportunities.

00:15:52.720 It creates better citizens.

00:15:54.780 And what does better citizens do?

00:15:56.800 Create better nations.

00:15:57.740 So when you talk about the role of government, it is absolutely vital to understand what the

00:16:03.120 role of government actually is.

00:16:04.860 And in my opinion, the role of government right now is truly bloated, not only in the

00:16:10.420 federal side, but even provincially.

00:16:12.500 You know, I was so helpful when Danielle Smith got elected that we would see a smaller government

00:16:16.240 with a smaller budget.

00:16:17.380 She went the opposite direction.

00:16:19.200 That is not conservative.

00:16:21.180 Our public sector right now is way too large.

00:16:24.180 It is consuming 50% of everything.

00:16:28.240 So for every dollar that is being collected in taxes, our public sector, they seem to think

00:16:35.780 that they're contributing to the productivity of the nation.

00:16:40.780 Now, I want to make it very clear to anybody listening.

00:16:44.080 I'm not talking about value that you bring.

00:16:47.800 Doctors bring value.

00:16:50.340 Teachers bring value.

00:16:51.820 No one is disputing that.

00:16:53.100 But when it comes to productivity, you are a liability, not somebody who is adding to

00:17:00.540 the bottom line.

00:17:01.440 Why?

00:17:01.720 Because your positions are being paid with after-tax dollars.

00:17:04.980 Now, people argue, they say, but I pay taxes too.

00:17:07.940 But yes, you're paying your taxes with my taxes I've already paid.

00:17:13.480 So there's nothing new being added to the bottom line here.

00:17:17.020 We need small businesses.

00:17:18.460 We need big businesses.

00:17:19.520 We need less government because government is the drain on all of that.

00:17:25.520 And right now, to your point, they are punishing those who are the most productive and those

00:17:30.420 who contribute to the bottom line.

00:17:32.360 So out of one out of every four worker right now is a direct government employee.

00:17:37.500 Another 25%, so another one out of four, work indirectly, funded by government, whether it's NGOs, teachers, doctors, other organizations.

00:17:48.660 So you have 50% of society that basically is trying to fund the other 50%.

00:17:55.520 That's not sustainable.

00:17:57.720 It doesn't work.

00:17:58.600 It punishes those who are adding to the bottom line, and that's what needs to adjust.

00:18:03.900 Frederick Bastiet did an amazing book, if you're interested, called The Law.

00:18:09.060 Another short one for you, James.

00:18:11.240 Not very long, but it's a little harder to read, I will say.

00:18:15.560 But called The Law.

00:18:17.220 And it talks about the proper role of government.

00:18:19.800 In my opinion, the proper role of government, it serves two purposes.

00:18:22.800 Establish the laws.

00:18:25.600 They should be basic, easy to understand, straightforward.

00:18:29.120 My freedom ends where yours begins.

00:18:31.460 That's the law.

00:18:33.040 Right?

00:18:33.360 You can't harm me.

00:18:34.300 I can't harm you.

00:18:35.980 But we need someone to adjudicate that.

00:18:38.560 So we need a role for the courts.

00:18:40.340 Right?

00:18:40.560 Somebody who, when you and I have a disagreement, we don't have to break out the guns.

00:18:44.020 We can go to an adjudicator, go to the courts, and have it settled in a reasonable fashion.

00:18:49.180 The other one is to protect your and my civil liberties.

00:18:52.800 That's really the function, the role of government.

00:18:55.140 All these social programs, these can all be delivered and would be delivered, honestly, better by the private sector.

00:19:03.400 Right?

00:19:04.240 Keep the $15,000, $17,000.

00:19:06.400 Now you direct where your money should go.

00:19:09.840 Keep everything you earn.

00:19:11.320 I don't believe that people should be paying income taxes, period.

00:19:15.220 Yeah.

00:19:15.820 Not a single income tax.

00:19:17.420 You don't own me.

00:19:18.560 The government does not own me.

00:19:19.960 And by, you know, putting a tax on my labor, that's what you've basically said, is that I own you.

00:19:26.520 I own it.

00:19:27.260 And they believe that they own every dollar that you make.

00:19:30.200 You're just really lucky you get to keep 50 cents of it.

00:19:34.000 Well, and it was a temporary tax to begin with.

00:19:36.680 Always.

00:19:37.680 What's that saying?

00:19:38.320 There's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program?

00:19:41.020 Yeah, the government never does anything on a temporary basis, which is why I always tell people the government is good at putting new programs into place.

00:19:49.200 They're not so good at taking them away.

00:19:50.920 So be very careful what you wish for.

00:19:52.780 I caution my mom and dad in this all the time.

00:19:55.020 They go, oh, the government should do something about that.

00:19:57.120 And I'm like, mom, dad, if you want the government to do something about that, I got an idea.

00:20:01.120 Here, why don't you move back in with your parents?

00:20:04.440 Let them make the decisions for you, because what you've said is you're not capable of doing it for yourself.

00:20:09.160 I said, and leave me out of it, because I want no part of it.

00:20:14.040 Right.

00:20:14.580 I am willing to accept responsibility for the decisions that I make.

00:20:18.760 And so, you know, for people today, we have to be really careful about what we want the government and what we expect the government to do, because it comes at a very, very high cost.

00:20:28.540 The private sector can do things far more effectively, far cheaper, with a far better outcome for everybody than the government can.

00:20:37.780 Yeah.

00:20:38.420 Oh, I mean, and that's sort of by definition, too.

00:20:41.660 I mean, like, we're both, you know, I don't know how deep James has gone into it, but, like, we're, you know, I'm a big fan of, like, Mises and Hayek, and, like, we're libertarian in our general philosophy.

00:20:53.420 Um, but, yeah, there's, uh, I can't remember the book, but Hayek said, it was, it was the book that, or not Hayek, um, Mises said it in his, um, collection of speeches he was giving in Argentina in the 50s, I think, about how there, there really aren't political parties anymore.

00:21:10.260 There are just collections of special interest groups that are represented at a federal level, you know, and so when you, when you realize that, and then you, you look at how society used to be structured before, um, politics became just collections of special interest groups pitted against other special interest groups.

00:21:28.140 You realize, um, I think this was, um, I'm not a huge Ben Shapiro fan, but I think this was him who said, that is a great quote, he said, like, you should be a, um, you should be a communist in your own family, a liberal in your community, and a conservative towards the country.

00:21:43.580 So, like, at each, at each greater level, because that, you know, as, you know, the provider of your family, obviously you have to be in charge of how the resources get distributed in your community, in your immediate community, your neighborhood, your community, you should be, uh, you should be generous with your time and your, and your effort to make sure your community is strong and thriving.

00:22:00.740 And then as far as, once you get as large as on a national level, um, you should just stay out of other people's finances.

00:22:07.320 That's the best way to, that's the best way to approach it, I think.

00:22:10.100 So, um, you know, when you look at how societies used to be structured where, um, you know, churches took care of a lot of the charity, I know, I don't know if the words are related, but it kind of sounds, saying them out loud, it sort of sounds like they might be, um, you know, you didn't rely on governments to, to dole out money to every interest that you, you may or may not have.

00:22:28.700 You know, your community church took care of a lot, um, people took care of each other.

00:22:33.620 And to your point, they didn't rely on, I feel like the way that our system is structured right now, it is really, this is not a knock on your parents because it's my parents too.

00:22:42.720 People just, it, it, it, um, capitalizes on people's most sort of, um, like lazy or like, uh, not my responsibility sort of instincts, you know, cause, oh, well, the government, it's a problem.

00:22:57.160 The government will take care of it, you know, then you can kind of, you've said your bit and you can take it off of your plate and leave it up to somebody else to do.

00:23:03.200 But guess what?

00:23:04.960 They ain't going to do it.

00:23:07.080 Well, you know, a hundred years ago, they didn't do it.

00:23:09.320 So that, that's my thing.

00:23:10.400 So, you know, I always tell people, you don't have to go back too far in history to see, you know, where some major shifts happen.

00:23:18.100 So here's that shift word again.

00:23:20.380 Um, yeah, with, without the F, I'll give you the, without the F version here right now.

00:23:27.220 In 1966, the social insurance number was introduced.

00:23:31.740 Prior to that, you weren't required to have a social insurance number to work.

00:23:35.560 Why do you need one today?

00:23:38.180 Why does anybody need a social insurance number to work?

00:23:42.280 To make sure you're taxed properly, I assume.

00:23:46.880 What, what happened before 1966?

00:23:49.840 They just relied on people's goodwill.

00:23:52.580 Well, you know, what gave the government the right to tax you to begin with?

00:23:56.600 Yeah.

00:23:57.420 Right.

00:23:57.800 When, at what point did you sign a contract or sign over your rights to your labor to the government so that they could tax you?

00:24:06.440 So, I mean, these are all things that we need to start having the conversations because, and I know they're difficult to have, but that's the reality.

00:24:13.160 So, you know, we, we have a healthcare system right now where you have one choice.

00:24:18.480 You go to the doctor, right?

00:24:20.640 He's an MD.

00:24:21.700 You know, that word MD is patented.

00:24:25.660 Nobody else can use that.

00:24:26.820 Right.

00:24:27.820 You can't call yourself a doctor, right?

00:24:30.380 If, if you're not an MD, right?

00:24:32.580 And so all of these things, like, so who gave somebody exclusive license to be able to tell, you know, you and I who we can see, who we can't see, who has got priority over our health, what options?

00:24:46.780 Because the government restricts options because, like you said, it's nothing but a group of special interests and whoever lobbies the government, you know, the loudest and has the most money and offers the most, you know, sweeteners.

00:25:01.840 To those in power, those are the ones who are, you know, benefiting from that.

00:25:07.440 But that's not the average everyday person.

00:25:10.040 You know, I love this idea.

00:25:11.360 The NDP think that you can just tax the rich.

00:25:14.120 Well, I'm going to tell you, you're never going to tax the ultra rich, which is how it's always sold.

00:25:19.620 They don't pay their taxes in the same way that we do.

00:25:23.600 They have expensive lawyers and expensive accounts and offshore bank accounts.

00:25:27.440 You know, sure, they may pay some taxes, but you're not going to catch them.

00:25:30.660 And besides that fact, they'll leave.

00:25:32.920 Money is fluid and it is extremely flexible and it just leaves.

00:25:38.940 It leaves where it's not welcome.

00:25:41.080 It leaves where it has to work.

00:25:42.960 It must be a millennial.

00:25:44.360 It doesn't like to work hard either.

00:25:46.580 It likes easy outcomes, right?

00:25:49.380 And it likes to multiply as quickly as possible.

00:25:53.020 It likes instant gratification.

00:25:55.700 You know, so when you think about things like this, it's not hard to start having the discussion

00:26:00.500 about how we have to reverse things.

00:26:02.780 But we have to be careful too, because Alberta, if we're going to leave, in my opinion, we have

00:26:09.180 to leave all of that behind.

00:26:10.840 We need a blank sheet of paper and we need to rethink about what we want and how we want

00:26:18.060 that to look.

00:26:18.680 Do we want the same nasty fiat currency, you know, financial structure that we have today?

00:26:26.900 Or do we want something different?

00:26:28.540 Do we want sound, solid financial policy and sound money?

00:26:33.100 Do we want a better health care system?

00:26:35.180 And what would that look like?

00:26:36.260 Does it mean better, more choices?

00:26:38.100 You have people that are fighting to preserve a monopolistic health care system.

00:26:44.020 That's what I look at.

00:26:44.920 And I'm like, how about you keep your money?

00:26:47.600 I'm happy to pay the insurance, but give me a choice.

00:26:51.580 Allow me to go where I want, where I choose to get and receive health.

00:26:56.760 I am not somebody who enjoys taking a Tylenol or an ibuprofen, let alone statins and all

00:27:03.560 these other things that they're constantly pushing at the hospital, right?

00:27:07.540 I will, I try to maintain my health, right?

00:27:12.260 Not, I don't want to go to the doctor when I'm sick.

00:27:15.300 I want the doctor to tell me how to stay healthy, you know?

00:27:18.220 So all of these things.

00:27:19.080 So what is it that you want to see?

00:27:21.220 What's important to you?

00:27:22.860 Education, again, do you want just one source of education?

00:27:26.480 Or do you want teachers to be able to freely be able to teach if your child is more geared

00:27:31.860 towards music or more towards athletics or more towards arts or more towards STEM, you

00:27:37.080 know, should they not be able to, you know, fundamentally, they need to be able to speak

00:27:41.840 the language, write the language and do math.

00:27:45.220 That's it.

00:27:46.520 Beyond that, education was supposed to be about pulling out of the child their, their,

00:27:53.000 their strengths, their natural abilities and, and helping them develop those.

00:27:57.680 And today, all we have is an instruction system and a daycare system, in my opinion, right?

00:28:03.520 And that is what I, I'm trying to challenge people to think about is like, what is it that

00:28:07.700 you truly want?

00:28:09.120 Do you want engaged citizens who can critically think the government does not, right?

00:28:15.080 But if you're brainwashed through the university system, you don't even know what's a boy or

00:28:18.880 a girl anymore.

00:28:20.100 It's going to be really difficult to have really challenging, critical conversations about the

00:28:26.060 tough things when we can't agree on the simple biological things.

00:28:30.040 Yeah.

00:28:30.720 Yeah.

00:28:30.940 There, there's a demoralization that's kind of inherent in that, like people can't make

00:28:35.700 sense of their reality.

00:28:37.360 So they're more easily influenced by kind of a centralized authority at that point.

00:28:43.900 A confused brain.

00:28:45.560 Yeah.

00:28:46.240 Right.

00:28:46.620 Is easy to control.

00:28:49.280 Yeah.

00:28:49.480 And so there's a couple of points I wanted to unpack.

00:28:52.920 One of them being, um, you often have criticisms of capitalism that is not actually criticizing

00:29:00.180 the free exchange of capital.

00:29:01.780 It's criticizing these pseudo monopolies, um, these oligarchies, these, uh, like these cases

00:29:10.700 where companies are woven into the public sector or into the government that they have the sole

00:29:17.620 contract for something and then there's no competition.

00:29:20.520 So that's not a capitalistic system by any means.

00:29:24.460 And you can still have welfare-based systems.

00:29:28.700 You look at even like Sweden and Denmark that are, they're actually not, they're, they still

00:29:35.760 have robust capitalists, capitalistic systems, and they generate the wealth needed to actually

00:29:42.300 pay for a welfare system.

00:29:43.600 Um, so I think it's for anybody having some of these conversations, cause you'll, you'll

00:29:48.740 have Norway and you'll have these, um, these kinds of examples pop up and it's worth actually

00:29:55.680 kind of dissecting a few of those points because people conflate a welfare-based system with

00:30:01.560 a, like heavy regulation or a, they, they think of it as inherently a socialist system.

00:30:09.620 Well, it's really funny that you bring up Sweden cause I talked about Sweden in, uh, one of my

00:30:16.000 podcasts because a lot of people will bring up Sweden, they throw it in your face, like, ha, gotcha.

00:30:20.440 They're a socialist country.

00:30:21.940 Sweden themselves will tell you they are not a socialist country.

00:30:24.880 Go listen to their, uh, leaders speak.

00:30:27.520 They will tell you straight point blank.

00:30:29.420 We are not a socialist country.

00:30:30.800 They went down that path.

00:30:32.140 And they almost destroyed themselves in the process to the point where they completely

00:30:38.220 reformed everything.

00:30:39.600 They reformed their entire government structure.

00:30:42.100 They reformed their pension plans.

00:30:44.160 They reformed all their social programs.

00:30:46.240 And when people talk about their social welfare programs, you know, who pays for them?

00:30:50.420 The middle class.

00:30:51.880 That's who pays for them.

00:30:53.040 And they know it.

00:30:54.240 And they're happy to pay for it.

00:30:56.140 Right.

00:30:56.580 Because they can run their businesses in truly a capitalistic way.

00:31:00.520 Canada does not have capitalism.

00:31:02.340 We have fascism is what we have.

00:31:04.700 We have corporations that are in bed with the government.

00:31:08.300 Brookfield, um, sorry.

00:31:10.020 Sorry.

00:31:10.320 Didn't mean to say that out loud.

00:31:11.940 Right.

00:31:12.440 But they're in bed with the government.

00:31:14.840 And like I said, it's lobby movements.

00:31:17.000 I have always advocated that there should be no such thing as a lobbyist.

00:31:22.600 Why?

00:31:22.880 Because law, but here's the better thing.

00:31:24.800 If the government didn't have the power to make the decision, well, you wouldn't have

00:31:28.580 lobbyists because there'd be no reason for them to exist.

00:31:31.500 Yeah.

00:31:32.080 Right.

00:31:32.400 So again, going right back to the beginning of all of this is like, um, what is the proper

00:31:37.380 role of government?

00:31:38.220 And if the, if, if government, people want government to do social programming, you have

00:31:42.800 to stop and think about why can't we, the private sector do it first?

00:31:47.160 Because they will most likely do it better, cheaper, with a better outcome.

00:31:51.340 Right.

00:31:51.800 Before you ask the government to do something.

00:31:53.420 And if you want to pay for it, it's okay.

00:31:55.340 That's like, even in my book, I do propose if people want to keep, continue with healthcare,

00:31:59.380 they want to continue with, um, then let's just look at different places around the world.

00:32:04.340 Japan from a healthcare perspective does it for less money, but it too has a public healthcare

00:32:10.180 system, but it's not monopolistic.

00:32:12.740 You can walk into a doctor.

00:32:14.300 You can walk into any specialist.

00:32:15.700 You can get service immediately.

00:32:18.720 You don't need to be referred.

00:32:19.800 You know, wait times are not months or years.

00:32:23.060 They are literally days.

00:32:24.960 So how is it that they can do that, but we can't?

00:32:28.460 So what are we missing?

00:32:30.640 Yeah.

00:32:31.440 Well, and with Sweden too, I mean, that's, uh, uh, Aaron Gunn did a really good documentary,

00:32:35.740 uh, maybe about a year or so now, maybe a little more, uh, about some of Europe's healthcare

00:32:40.240 systems.

00:32:40.720 That's what was a real eye opener when you realize how much of the Nordic countries that,

00:32:45.600 um, leftists, you know, liberals will, will, um, point to as like, well, this is an example

00:32:51.160 of socialized medicine, how it could be.

00:32:53.040 Actually, they have very, very robust private systems, very strong private systems that lift

00:32:58.360 a lot of burden out of the public system and both function better.

00:33:01.180 And, and kind of to your point, I mean, there's a, um, there's a very strong millennial aspect

00:33:06.580 to this.

00:33:07.060 You're right.

00:33:07.860 Uh, our generation with James and I are like smack dab in the middle of the millennial generation

00:33:12.580 in our, in our mid thirties.

00:33:13.840 Now it's hard to, it's weird to think of us getting, being in our mid thirties and being

00:33:17.580 millennials, cause you just think of them as stupid kids, but we kind of still are stupid

00:33:21.020 in general.

00:33:21.880 Um, but I was having a discussion with a colleague of mine about, um, that I think kind of cuts to

00:33:27.860 the point, like the, the, the really, really sharp end of the discussion here is, uh, when

00:33:34.140 you're talking about capitalism and you're talking about the market doing things better

00:33:37.020 than the government can, which is of course true.

00:33:38.920 But what her argument was from a, from a very, I mean, she's a self-described communist.

00:33:44.160 She thinks she's a communist anyway.

00:33:46.240 Um, I was given the example of how, like nowadays, I mean, you look at, you look at the fruits of

00:33:51.940 capitalism where, um, kind of a rising standard of living lifts all boats.

00:33:56.440 And you look at how like homeless people nowadays have smartphones, like literally homeless people

00:34:01.680 on the streets have iPhones that they can, you know, throw a few bucks at their phone

00:34:05.520 plan every month or whatever.

00:34:06.960 I mean, that's crazy to think about.

00:34:08.580 Right.

00:34:09.260 Um, her argument was that, and so I was saying like, basically you got to look at what, what

00:34:14.940 we're doing, even if there is income inequality, which of course there is, there's wealth inequality.

00:34:19.480 There's, you know, that's a, that's another, you know, discussion, but you look at where

00:34:24.540 the floor is and with capitalism, the floor is so much higher than any other economic system

00:34:31.580 that's ever been proposed or executed in human history.

00:34:34.740 Her response was, which I think you might find interesting.

00:34:37.860 I wonder what your response to this would be, was she said, well, it's not something to

00:34:42.920 the effect of it's not, um, what you shouldn't look at the, what the situation is, but what

00:34:50.040 you could have something to this extent.

00:34:53.380 So she, she's using an example of say like an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos or somebody in

00:34:57.960 like, look at all the wealth that they have, why shouldn't I have that sort of standard

00:35:03.400 of living?

00:35:04.280 You know, and she said, it's, it's a very, like, it's a, it's a thought process.

00:35:07.800 And she was, she said this unironically, like this is a very, uh, to me, it was a very like

00:35:12.140 envy sort of based, uh, way of, of viewing the world, not constructive to like actually

00:35:17.520 having the discussion of why are people's lives better?

00:35:19.980 How can they get even better than they are?

00:35:21.280 But it's just purely looking at what the top 1% has.

00:35:24.600 And it's not saying, how can I be like them?

00:35:28.040 It's how can I take from them so that they don't have so much more than me?

00:35:33.040 Yeah.

00:35:33.300 So it's, it's the debate around, um, you know, the, what I, so the opportunity versus outcome,

00:35:42.480 right?

00:35:42.860 So it's, it's, do you want the opportunity to be able to compete equally, right?

00:35:47.920 And on your own merits, you know, you will determine your own value or you can take that

00:35:53.940 approach and go, well, they have it.

00:35:55.280 So I should have it.

00:35:56.420 Right.

00:35:56.720 And envy is a nasty, nasty, uh, emotion because envy is very destructive.

00:36:03.360 I don't even mind jealousy.

00:36:04.800 Jealousy is, oh my gosh, that's a great hat.

00:36:07.120 Where do I, where did you, I got to get one of those.

00:36:09.620 Right.

00:36:09.900 You can't have it.

00:36:10.920 I need one.

00:36:12.140 I have to.

00:36:13.160 Now here's the envy comes in.

00:36:14.720 If I can't have it, well, then you can't either.

00:36:16.860 Take it off.

00:36:17.920 Exactly.

00:36:18.540 Right.

00:36:18.880 And so that's, that therein lies the, the difference.

00:36:21.780 Like I want equality of, of opportunity.

00:36:24.800 I'm willing to compete on my merits.

00:36:27.360 This is where competition comes in.

00:36:29.360 She's not willing to compete.

00:36:30.700 She wants it all.

00:36:31.560 She thinks she, you know, is entitled to it because somebody else has it.

00:36:35.580 Well, is she willing to sleep on the sofa in the office?

00:36:39.860 Right.

00:36:40.400 Because, you know, Elon Musk often does that.

00:36:44.040 Um, is she willing to risk everything she owns?

00:36:47.920 Right.

00:36:48.460 This is, this is the whole thing about, even the government does this.

00:36:51.120 They do this with small businesses all the time.

00:36:53.340 Small business owners work and slave.

00:36:55.760 They risk everything.

00:36:57.360 More sleepless nights.

00:36:58.780 More stress than you can possibly imagine.

00:37:02.020 Not knowing whether they're going to put food on the table tomorrow, whether or not they're

00:37:05.260 going to be able to pay the rent.

00:37:06.180 And I know because I'm an entrepreneur, depending upon the day, ask me.

00:37:10.600 Right.

00:37:10.880 Then the government will put some stupid regulation in place, which makes my life a living hell

00:37:15.300 and an even greater nightmare than it already is.

00:37:17.680 That affects my business, but doesn't affect them.

00:37:20.560 And everyone else is like, I don't know what the big deal is.

00:37:22.540 And it's like, well, it is a big deal.

00:37:24.420 Right.

00:37:24.760 Because if I can't compete fairly with the skills, the knowledge, the expertise and the

00:37:29.280 tools I have at my, my resources, then I am now constantly having to readjust.

00:37:34.940 That costs me time.

00:37:36.080 It costs me capital.

00:37:37.100 It costs me resources.

00:37:38.000 That means I can't pay people as much.

00:37:40.040 That means I can't, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that people don't see.

00:37:43.840 And so when you're a business owner, you assume all of that.

00:37:49.440 It's very, very, it is not for the meek.

00:37:52.140 Let me tell you, being a business owner and these kids that think the way that she thinks,

00:37:59.280 well, she doesn't think that, she doesn't see any of that.

00:38:02.000 She's never lived through any of that.

00:38:03.120 She doesn't experience any of that.

00:38:04.260 She doesn't know any of that.

00:38:04.980 She just thinks that she, you know, what, he woke up one night and he was a billionaire?

00:38:08.660 Yeah.

00:38:09.200 No.

00:38:09.540 Well, what about the mom and pop who, let's say they slaved away and they put away 2 million.

00:38:14.020 Now the government comes and says, well, hey, you made 2 million bucks.

00:38:16.740 We're going to take it all.

00:38:17.880 Well, they don't get paid a pension along the way.

00:38:20.620 They don't get healthcare benefits along the way.

00:38:23.740 They were the ones who had to pay for their dental, their eye care.

00:38:26.500 You know, when the kids got sick, somebody had to stay home, all of these things.

00:38:31.520 And they finally squirrel enough away to retire, maybe sell their business.

00:38:36.580 And now that individual goes, well, the government should take half of that and give it to me.

00:38:40.580 Yeah.

00:38:41.520 Really?

00:38:41.980 Well, I didn't take half of everything that you had as you went along the way because you got to work

00:38:47.140 only nine to five in a nice cushy government job where you got all your benefits paid for

00:38:51.480 and you never had to worry about, you know, paying the mortgage or the, you know, this

00:38:54.840 is the problem I have with some of the unions today, right?

00:38:57.660 They're making demand for more wages, but wages are not the problem.

00:39:01.840 Affordability is the problem.

00:39:03.980 And they, therefore, because affordability is a problem, they themselves are part of the problem.

00:39:08.720 Right, because the productive part of society just cannot keep up with the demands of those

00:39:16.460 people who, you know, don't understand what the small business owner, the medium-sized

00:39:21.020 business owner goes through.

00:39:23.260 So, you know, for me, when I look at individuals like that, it's like, you want equality of

00:39:28.380 opportunity.

00:39:29.400 You do not want equality of outcome.

00:39:32.060 Because if you want equality of outcome, you know what happens?

00:39:34.960 The lowest common denominator will all be on the street living in the, all the same

00:39:39.980 square little 300 square foot box that they're going to put you in.

00:39:43.780 That's where equality of outcome gets you.

00:39:47.180 And that's been proven in history time and time and time again.

00:39:50.420 Any and every time communism has been implemented in any country, that's exactly the outcome.

00:39:57.600 Oh, but it wasn't real communism, Nadine.

00:40:00.060 But, oh, of course, you can always do it differently, right?

00:40:02.500 We're going to do it different this time.

00:40:05.620 I did want to say, for those who would want to be a billionaire, you can move to Zimbabwe

00:40:11.760 and easily become a billionaire there.

00:40:14.980 So if it's just the number of zeros, yeah, like you just want more zeros behind your dollar

00:40:22.040 than perfect.

00:40:23.880 Or can you get more for the each dollar that you, that, that you spend?

00:40:28.820 So there, there's a couple ideas.

00:40:30.660 Like why are people penalized?

00:40:32.680 If you work for 20 years and you work 80 hours a week, you're going to lose more of that than

00:40:38.160 if you were decide to work for 40 years, but only 40 hours of like half that amount of time.

00:40:45.140 So there, there is a, essentially it's like, if you're trying to work super hard to establish

00:40:55.160 like a good plan for retirement, essentially like you're in a higher tax bracket, you are

00:41:00.540 penalized.

00:41:01.280 Uh, it's harder to save that money and you've got to like, you essentially got to gamble and

00:41:07.800 invest it in ways to keep it going, which that's your whole field.

00:41:12.500 I don't know if gambling is the right way to, to describe that there are safer ways to gamble

00:41:16.960 and there's less safer ways to gamble, but it feels like right now there's nothing sound

00:41:22.080 that actually saves our dollar and it's penalized from the government in multiple ways, but it's

00:41:28.340 also, you've got this soft, like it's eroding through just the expansion of the money supply

00:41:35.100 as well.

00:41:36.100 So it, like, there's no way for people just to store the value of their labor.

00:41:44.240 Um, and I think that's the first problem because it, um, we've kind of talked about this before.

00:41:51.920 It shifts people's time preference.

00:41:53.300 So if you wonder why people are so stressed and they can only think in the next six months

00:41:58.260 or year, partially because the language that we communicate over decades is now being eroded.

00:42:04.300 You cannot plan for the future.

00:42:07.900 If your money is worth 90% of what it's actually worth that far into the future, it's hard to

00:42:14.720 make those long-term decisions.

00:42:16.460 So it shifts the population to a short time preference.

00:42:19.900 And essentially these things make it easier for people to be controlled by the next buzz policy

00:42:26.300 or instant little bandaid solution.

00:42:29.840 So it's hard to go down to the base layer of it all.

00:42:35.060 Um, and I, I think that's maybe a difficult conversation for a lot of people, especially

00:42:40.000 the more collectivist based ones that are stuck in this pseudo empathetic kind of state.

00:42:47.920 It's kind of like the climate change conversation though.

00:42:50.980 I always, I've had this conversation with many people and I always ask them, so what are you

00:42:55.180 doing about it?

00:42:57.060 And then you get this blank look, oh my Lord, what do you mean?

00:42:59.660 You're asking me what I'm doing about it?

00:43:01.600 Well, I'm not doing anything about it.

00:43:03.540 Right?

00:43:03.960 That's usually the result.

00:43:05.240 So if you want to be a billionaire, you can be a billionaire.

00:43:07.460 But are you willing to do what it takes to be a billionaire?

00:43:13.300 Like I can tell you right now, I'm not willing to do what it takes to be a billionaire.

00:43:17.720 I know some of them.

00:43:19.220 I do.

00:43:19.880 I've met them.

00:43:20.560 I've, I've heard their stories, man.

00:43:22.240 It's hell.

00:43:23.760 And it does take a little bit, a lot of luck.

00:43:26.260 You know, some of them just get lucky and at the right time, right place.

00:43:29.660 Right?

00:43:30.140 And sometimes it's who, you know, not necessarily what, you know, but those, it doesn't matter

00:43:34.980 along the way, it doesn't matter which of those courses, if you just kind of locked into

00:43:39.540 it or whether you had to work for it, it's, there's, there's a price to be paid to have

00:43:44.680 that kind of money.

00:43:46.160 Right?

00:43:46.660 And they're often, some of them are very lonely along the way.

00:43:49.900 They lose relationships, not only, you know, friends and family, but they lose wives and,

00:43:54.960 and, and, you know, sons and daughters.

00:43:57.640 You know, you have to miss out on a lot.

00:44:00.080 So for me, I want to be wealthy enough to afford the things I want to do.

00:44:03.900 Take, you know, the regular vacation, you know, put my kids through school, um, you

00:44:09.460 know, have enough to get through retirement, but that takes some effort, right?

00:44:14.480 And a lot of people today are not even willing to say, well, I'm willing to put the effort

00:44:17.920 in to do that, right?

00:44:19.400 You can't sit at home and play lotto and expect to get wealthy.

00:44:23.380 It doesn't work that way, right?

00:44:25.540 It's like, it's like saying, well, you know, and we're, we're seeing this with, with bodies,

00:44:29.480 you know, and, and wait, everybody wants to take the pill.

00:44:33.980 Ozempic.

00:44:34.520 I need Ozempic.

00:44:35.560 I got to lose 20 pounds.

00:44:37.520 Nobody wants to go to the gym and put the discipline in that's required to lose the 20

00:44:44.040 pounds.

00:44:44.580 So making money is the same way.

00:44:46.560 It requires discipline.

00:44:48.760 And you have to ask yourself, how much is enough?

00:44:51.200 What is it?

00:44:51.780 And I always tell people, it's not about money.

00:44:53.960 It's about what it is that you want to do in life.

00:44:55.760 Are you investing in yourself?

00:44:57.920 You know, the best investment any person can make is in yourself.

00:45:01.820 My dad taught me that a long time ago, and that is consistent with every wealthy individual,

00:45:06.740 individual I've ever spoken with.

00:45:08.720 They're like, Nadine, the best investment you are going to make is in you, your education.

00:45:12.740 Nobody can ever take it away from you.

00:45:14.380 The skills that you acquire.

00:45:16.240 It's because why?

00:45:17.080 Because if you make yourself valuable to somebody else, then you add value.

00:45:23.280 It's when you sit at home and you do nothing but whine and complain.

00:45:26.700 Nobody wants to listen to a whiner and a complainer, right?

00:45:30.480 They want people who are going to get out and do stuff.

00:45:32.820 You know, one time I was at an event, this was many, many years ago, and I had this little

00:45:38.180 cowboy, he was an older gentleman, cowboy come up to me, he was much shorter than me,

00:45:42.060 and then he's wearing a cowboy hat.

00:45:43.520 His hat was much nicer than yours, by the way.

00:45:46.440 Should have taken it from him then.

00:45:49.020 There you go.

00:45:49.880 And he would have given it to me.

00:45:51.460 He was a gentleman.

00:45:53.260 But he said to me, he says, you know, he says, do you know Beth?

00:45:57.000 And I went, Beth?

00:45:59.020 Went, and then it dawned on me, he's thinking Yellowstone Beth.

00:46:02.880 And I'm like, oh, good Lord.

00:46:04.420 It's like, yes, I know Beth.

00:46:06.060 And he says to me, he says, you remind me of Beth.

00:46:09.300 And I just, I had to take a moment and I said, please tell me it's not the bat shit crazy part.

00:46:14.080 And he says, no, no, no, it's the get shit done part.

00:46:20.640 Right?

00:46:21.320 That's nice.

00:46:22.080 That's good.

00:46:22.720 People of value get things done.

00:46:27.000 Right?

00:46:27.540 We don't sit and complain about it.

00:46:29.780 You know, now I do my fair share of complaining about government.

00:46:33.260 Government is the hardest thing to work around because you have no control.

00:46:36.660 Right?

00:46:37.100 They implement a regulation or a policy.

00:46:39.540 You're just subjected to it, whether it works for you or it doesn't.

00:46:43.640 So, you know, this is why I always tell people, please, if you want the government to do something,

00:46:48.480 it's like, don't ask, you know, on behalf of everybody.

00:46:52.300 Because I really would rather the government do less.

00:46:55.880 Just get out of my way.

00:46:57.020 And I think that's how most conservatives are.

00:46:58.920 Just get out of our way.

00:47:00.300 Leave us alone.

00:47:01.440 We can take care of it.

00:47:02.820 You know, we'll get her done.

00:47:04.120 That's the Albertan way.

00:47:05.160 We'll just get her done.

00:47:07.240 And that's what we have to get back to a little bit more is realizing.

00:47:10.260 And I think a lot of that boils down to self-worth.

00:47:12.260 People need to understand that you do have value.

00:47:15.380 You do add value.

00:47:17.220 But you know what?

00:47:18.300 Nobody adds value to anybody sitting at home playing video games.

00:47:21.320 You got to get off the sofa.

00:47:22.620 You got to get out there.

00:47:23.480 You have to put yourself out there.

00:47:25.020 How many people are willing to do to share their ideas and to have somebody tell them that

00:47:30.860 they were wrong publicly on a Facebook or a YouTube channel?

00:47:36.280 Right?

00:47:36.760 That's a risk.

00:47:37.620 Are you willing to take the risk in order to get the reward?

00:47:42.440 Yeah, that's a really good kind of the theme that I'm getting.

00:47:51.740 And we've sort of talked about this on the show before.

00:47:54.140 And it's kind of a matter of like when you're talking about performative behavior versus

00:48:00.940 actual, like you say, like getting shit done.

00:48:04.000 You know, that's perfectly encapsulated when you mentioned the climate change discussion

00:48:08.580 because you got guys in like, you got guys driving Teslas like thinking that they're

00:48:12.820 changing the planet as they're plugging into a charger where the energy from that charger

00:48:18.060 is coming from a coal plant.

00:48:19.200 So like there's no, you know, they don't take it to the logical, you know, to the logical

00:48:24.760 ends of what they're actually doing.

00:48:26.180 They just know this is the final product.

00:48:28.400 I get to drive around in an electric car and I get to feel like I'm having an impact.

00:48:32.960 So I guess, you know, another one of the things we say all the time here, and it's probably

00:48:40.180 getting boring for the, you know, subscriber number 20 that we had that watches all our

00:48:45.000 videos.

00:48:45.660 But, you know, you'll have a hundred by the end of tonight.

00:48:49.860 Well, that guy that's been watching us for a year and a half who hears me say this every

00:48:53.240 other episode, but like a lot of the political discussion now is so cartoonish in its depictions

00:49:01.160 of, you know, you've got, you know, the far left and the far right.

00:49:05.540 I talk about horseshoe theory all the time where you think of rather than thinking of

00:49:09.320 politics on a line of the left and the right, you think of it as a horseshoe where the furthest

00:49:14.820 left and the furthest right actually tend to resemble each other more than the vast bulk

00:49:20.300 of, you know, the majority of people in the country who are generally pretty reasonable

00:49:24.740 people.

00:49:25.200 They all want the same things.

00:49:26.920 So in your opinion, when we're having these discussions in the coming weeks and months,

00:49:32.600 you know, leading up to this referendum, what we've been asking all our guests this, what

00:49:37.140 is your, like, what's your pitch to a leftist who views, and I'm using leftists a little

00:49:42.800 bit derogatorily, but a liberal, more liberal minded person who sees the idea of independence

00:49:48.600 as a starkly right-wing idea.

00:49:52.860 We want to break up the country.

00:49:54.620 We're selfish people.

00:49:55.940 We're not actually interested in, we just want disunity.

00:49:58.820 We want to be a, you know, subject to Trump and, you know, a 51st state, whatever.

00:50:03.000 Like, it's all these sort of cartoonish images of what being an independence advocate means.

00:50:07.720 What's kind of your pitch to that person to, like, at least get them to have a second thought

00:50:11.840 about, like, you know, beyond the money, beyond any of the real practical things, do you sort

00:50:16.780 of have an emotional plea, because a lot of leftist politics is based purely on gut emotion

00:50:22.460 and instinct that may not be reasoned out yet?

00:50:26.140 So do you have something that you've thought of, or that's worked for you in your discussions?

00:50:30.480 I got so tired of talking, I wrote a book.

00:50:35.120 Same pitch I gave to you guys.

00:50:38.160 Read this.

00:50:39.440 Yeah.

00:50:39.740 When you're done with it, give it to a friend, right?

00:50:43.880 And then give them a deadline, because nobody does anything without deadlines.

00:50:47.920 So give them a deadline.

00:50:49.100 That's true.

00:50:49.300 Say, I'm coming over in a week for a coffee.

00:50:52.280 Tell me what you disagree with.

00:50:54.120 So really, it's just about opening the dialogue, right?

00:50:57.480 So when you tell a leftist person, you give them a book and you say, tell me what to disagree

00:51:02.000 with.

00:51:02.380 And this is a book that they think, because this is not a book necessarily about Alberta

00:51:06.180 independence.

00:51:06.960 It's about sovereignty.

00:51:08.120 It's about freedom, right?

00:51:10.120 And they comply to anybody.

00:51:12.040 And so, but they're going to scour through this.

00:51:14.480 I promise you, they will be like, I will find lots in here to disagree with.

00:51:19.020 But you guys have read it.

00:51:20.780 Is there really a lot to disagree with?

00:51:22.560 Why?

00:51:22.720 Because it talks about better education, better health care, lower taxes.

00:51:27.060 You know, it talks about, you know, more choice, more opportunity, more freedom, right?

00:51:33.500 So I don't know too many people who are opposed to those things.

00:51:36.140 And if you are, well, then there are other countries around the world that would be happy

00:51:40.220 to accommodate you.

00:51:41.140 Feel free to move.

00:51:42.560 Yeah.

00:51:42.680 Interesting how they just never seem to make the trip to North Korea, hey?

00:51:46.660 No.

00:51:47.100 It never seems to come up.

00:51:49.120 It just, yeah.

00:51:50.060 I don't know why.

00:51:51.320 It's such a great place to live.

00:51:52.940 You know, when you look at it on a map at night, it's black.

00:51:55.540 Meanwhile, South Korea is all lit up.

00:51:59.140 Imagine that.

00:52:00.820 Prosperity.

00:52:02.220 You know, so for me, my pitch is really transitioned into that.

00:52:06.560 And I give my book to lots of people.

00:52:08.660 I do.

00:52:09.060 And I say, read it.

00:52:10.080 Tell me what you disagree with.

00:52:11.700 And I've had a lot of people.

00:52:13.100 I started this with even my first cousin.

00:52:15.940 And she said to me, Nadine, I'm going to be honest.

00:52:18.100 She said, I took another book with me because I didn't think I'd get through it.

00:52:21.440 Because she knows my political views.

00:52:23.220 She's a little left of center and from Newfoundland.

00:52:27.080 And God love her.

00:52:27.780 I'm sure to hear that.

00:52:28.220 She wrote me.

00:52:29.720 No, it's okay.

00:52:31.040 It's okay.

00:52:32.520 She wrote me back literally after she read it.

00:52:37.500 She got to the place.

00:52:38.020 She says, I was sad to see it end.

00:52:41.180 She's like, I couldn't believe it.

00:52:43.900 Because if you can at least convince somebody to, look, just take a listen.

00:52:47.960 Take a read.

00:52:48.600 That's the hard part with the left is the conservatives always come at them.

00:52:54.520 We always want to preach, attack.

00:52:57.120 And it's like, just stop for a moment.

00:52:59.300 Listen.

00:53:00.480 What's important to you?

00:53:02.840 Do you want more money in your pocket?

00:53:05.160 Do you want better health care?

00:53:06.560 Do you want more opportunities, right?

00:53:10.320 For you, for your children, your grandchildren, whomever it may be.

00:53:14.400 And then they're going to go, well, of course.

00:53:16.340 Well, here, read this.

00:53:17.620 And then tell me what you disagree with.

00:53:20.800 Right?

00:53:21.280 Because as a finance person, I'm always looking at patterns.

00:53:24.940 I'm always looking at trends.

00:53:26.000 I'm looking at trajectory.

00:53:27.120 Which direction are we going?

00:53:28.780 Is Canada improving or are we, you know, disintegrating?

00:53:33.000 You know, which direction on that scale is it going?

00:53:35.080 Are we getting better or are we getting worse?

00:53:36.760 We're spending more money for worse results.

00:53:39.440 So money's not the problem.

00:53:41.560 Right?

00:53:41.960 So that means something's got to change.

00:53:44.580 But people are also, to your point, driven by fear.

00:53:47.700 Fear is a greater incentive than rewards.

00:53:50.680 So if you want to continue down this destructive path of paying more for less, then let's keep

00:53:56.440 doing what we're doing.

00:53:57.260 But if we want, you know, better results for less, right?

00:54:03.040 Let's make our money go further.

00:54:05.140 Let's give you all these other things.

00:54:06.880 Then that means we have to make a shift.

00:54:08.320 We have to make a change in how we do things.

00:54:11.220 Right?

00:54:11.480 So, but people are afraid of change.

00:54:13.500 So change is the big obstacle to overcome.

00:54:16.500 But the hard part is, is you got to, the first step to any of that is you got to get

00:54:19.880 somebody who's willing to at least engage with you, listen to you.

00:54:23.080 And I always tell people, rather than you talk, let them do the talking.

00:54:27.560 Right?

00:54:28.060 Find out from them.

00:54:29.020 Ask them, okay, so what are your concerns?

00:54:31.640 What are you really, truly concerned about?

00:54:33.460 What is it that you want?

00:54:34.820 This is another problem.

00:54:36.140 Most people don't know what they want.

00:54:37.780 If I gave you a blank sheet of paper tomorrow and said, what do you want?

00:54:40.540 You wouldn't know where to start.

00:54:42.140 Which is why, again, I wrote a book.

00:54:44.580 Because most people don't know where to start.

00:54:47.140 They don't even know where to look.

00:54:48.700 So give them a starting point.

00:54:50.700 And then say, now, how would you make this better?

00:54:53.560 How could you make this better?

00:54:56.180 And the history tells us that the government doesn't make things better.

00:55:00.760 The government only makes things worse.

00:55:02.880 So we have to start getting people to start thinking enough, open enough to basically expose

00:55:07.440 them to reality.

00:55:09.640 You know, and that's, in my opinion, that comes through history.

00:55:12.140 And we don't teach history anymore.

00:55:14.620 Right?

00:55:15.340 We're rewriting history.

00:55:16.720 We're erasing history.

00:55:17.860 But it's all right there for us to just take the time to do it.

00:55:23.960 Yeah.

00:55:24.620 And James, I know you wanted to come in with a point, but I just, just a quick comment on

00:55:28.820 what you said there.

00:55:29.460 The, um, that's a really powerful psychological tool that you are using.

00:55:33.420 I don't know if you know that you're using it.

00:55:34.780 Uh, when you give people your book and you say, tell me what you disagree with, uh, because

00:55:39.480 you're, you're, uh, you're beginning with the negative.

00:55:42.440 Like it's much easier for people to, like they say, when, you know, you're, you're a salesman

00:55:46.900 calling somebody, it's rather than saying like, do you have a few minutes to chat?

00:55:50.660 You know, the, the best actually question is, did I catch you at a bad time?

00:55:55.500 Because it's much easier.

00:55:56.600 You give people permission to say, uh, yes, I, you did catch me at a bad time, but let's

00:56:01.980 chat when, you know, at this time, if you're saying, if you're coming at it with, what do

00:56:06.540 you disagree with?

00:56:07.260 Well, that gives them permission to be like, Oh, I disagree with.

00:56:10.080 And then, and then they may not find anything to you rather than you saying, here's a belief

00:56:14.700 that you should have, and then they can react with, no, they can just, they can just say

00:56:19.440 no, that allows them, it puts them in the driver's seat.

00:56:22.780 In my, my, I told you I owned a defense company, my aerospace and defense company was modeling

00:56:28.540 and simulation and human factors engineering.

00:56:31.580 So psychology, psychology is something that has been used on people for a very long time.

00:56:36.840 And I don't use it from a manipulative perspective.

00:56:39.360 Um, but the reality is Edward Bernay is the master of spin.

00:56:45.280 I don't know if you guys know who that is, but he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud.

00:56:50.320 So Sigmund Freud learned about the subconscious and wanted to implement that from a good perspective.

00:56:56.300 Well, Edward Bernay realized that, yeah, you can manipulate people subconsciously.

00:57:01.340 And he is the father of spin.

00:57:05.060 And so all the marketing stuff that you see, that you feel you have to have something now,

00:57:10.180 it's not a want anymore, it's a need, um, all of these things.

00:57:14.000 You can thank Edward Bernay for that.

00:57:15.520 And, and, you know, these are the things that are being used.

00:57:18.600 Mass psychosis.

00:57:19.500 You saw this with COVID, right?

00:57:21.280 Everybody's saying the same thing.

00:57:22.520 If you say something enough times, all of a sudden it becomes truth because it is said by authority

00:57:27.640 enough times people believe it to be true.

00:57:29.640 Nobody takes the time anymore.

00:57:31.820 And part of that is by design as well.

00:57:33.940 They keep people so busy, so distracted, so occupied, and so stressed, you know,

00:57:38.840 trying to put food on the table.

00:57:40.140 Some people are working two, three jobs to do that.

00:57:42.420 You know, you come home, you're exhausted.

00:57:43.760 You just want to escape the world, really.

00:57:46.780 That's not, that's not living.

00:57:48.380 That's existing.

00:57:49.820 Right?

00:57:50.360 And so for me, my hope is that I want people to want to live life, enjoy it to the fullest.

00:57:56.720 I want people to love what they do and not do what they have to because they have to put food on the table.

00:58:03.080 But that means we have to revamp some of the systems that we have.

00:58:06.540 And in order to do that, that means you have to be willing enough, open enough to explore other options.

00:58:12.160 Doesn't mean we have to do all of them, but you at least have to be willing to have the conversation.

00:58:16.380 And what are they trying to do right now?

00:58:18.760 They're trying to shut all the conversation down around all and any narrative that does not conform with the government's official narrative.

00:58:28.580 That's very dangerous.

00:58:31.200 That is probably the most dangerous thing I have seen in my 53 years on this planet.

00:58:36.820 Right?

00:58:37.220 Now, thoughts are dangerous.

00:58:39.420 Ideas are dangerous.

00:58:40.480 And you're not allowed to discuss them openly.

00:58:43.520 This is where, this is, this is communism.

00:58:46.900 Right?

00:58:47.440 When you can't express yourself.

00:58:50.340 Yeah.

00:58:50.540 You don't have to hypothetically, you know, theorize about it anymore.

00:58:54.560 We're living it.

00:58:57.140 Right?

00:58:57.700 And everything is always done under the guise of, it is for your safety.

00:59:02.820 Well, I don't want safety.

00:59:04.740 What I want is freedom.

00:59:06.340 I want to be free to take calculated risks, right?

00:59:11.760 That I know and understand and I'm willing to accept the consequences for a better tomorrow.

00:59:20.040 Right?

00:59:20.600 And the government is saying, well, sorry, no, you're not allowed to take that risk.

00:59:24.560 And that's the problem.

00:59:28.060 Government is force, right?

00:59:29.900 You and I can have that conversation.

00:59:31.360 Nadine, you want to jump off the cliff?

00:59:32.600 Hey, go ahead.

00:59:33.120 I'm not following you.

00:59:34.380 You go jump and I will watch you from up here.

00:59:37.380 But when the government says everybody's going to jump off the cliff, you don't get a choice.

00:59:42.980 Right?

00:59:43.600 And so therein lies the problem.

00:59:45.580 Government is force.

00:59:46.400 It's the gun to your head that says you will do this that I object to.

00:59:54.520 Exactly.

00:59:55.320 The not having a choice is the big thing.

00:59:57.700 But I think people get around that by sometimes they'll feel like, well, this current government, well, they've got my best interests and hearts.

01:00:07.440 Maybe they agree with the liberals because they're wearing the same colored T-shirt as them in this moment.

01:00:12.960 And these same people are so quick to point out other people in the government that they hate, that are corrupt and are doing bad things.

01:00:23.620 And they've wasted money and they've done this and that.

01:00:25.940 And what I ask them is if our system allows those people wearing that different colored shirt to become that corrupt.

01:00:33.240 And if it allows that corruption to mess with our country or mess with your life, that is too much power.

01:00:42.600 Then what would a system look like that prevents anybody from wielding that power from becoming corrupt and with messing with your life?

01:00:53.240 So if they wouldn't trust this power with somebody that hates them, then why have we given so much power away as a simple question?

01:01:03.900 Well, ask yourself, would you trust yourself with that kind of unlimited power?

01:01:09.920 You know, most people know themselves well enough to know that, yeah, no, I need some checks and balances in my life too.

01:01:16.040 Right? Discipline is hard.

01:01:18.980 And so, you know, and the other thing is, is if the one side's doing it, you know the other side's doing it.

01:01:23.820 Because if the system allows it, then the system allows it.

01:01:27.100 It doesn't matter who the player is.

01:01:28.820 The game says that's part of the rules.

01:01:31.640 So everybody plays to the rules.

01:01:34.320 Right?

01:01:34.960 So, you know, for me, we used to be naturally suspicious of the government.

01:01:40.380 I'm not sure what happened to change there.

01:01:42.480 But the government, it was at Ronald Reagan, right?

01:01:46.440 Nine most dangerous words you could ever hear in the world today was what he said.

01:01:51.900 And he says, I'm here from the government or I'm the government and I'm here to help.

01:01:58.160 He wasn't lying.

01:01:59.880 Right?

01:02:00.120 If you look at does the government make things better or worse?

01:02:03.280 Right?

01:02:03.600 Does the money get to where it's supposed to go?

01:02:05.800 Typically not.

01:02:07.620 You know, has, and I'll talk about a hot subject here right now in Alberta, the indigenous.

01:02:12.920 People, right?

01:02:14.420 All the billions upon billions of dollars that are spent.

01:02:18.860 Where's the money?

01:02:19.980 Get to.

01:02:20.960 Doesn't get down to the people living on the reserves.

01:02:24.080 They're still living without potable water, for heaven's sakes.

01:02:27.700 It's going to some chiefs and some hereditary.

01:02:30.180 It's going to accountants.

01:02:31.200 It's going to lawyers.

01:02:32.120 It's going to bureaucracy.

01:02:34.060 That's where it's going.

01:02:36.260 Right?

01:02:36.780 It's not flowing down.

01:02:38.780 Poverty has, we declared a war on poverty.

01:02:41.480 Have we successfully defeated poverty?

01:02:44.480 No.

01:02:45.020 We declared a war on cancer.

01:02:46.500 Has cancer gotten better or worse?

01:02:48.360 So it seems like every time the government declares a war on something, the outcome gets worse, not better.

01:02:54.240 You've created an industry at that point.

01:02:57.700 Right?

01:02:57.960 Pick a subject.

01:02:58.900 Any subject.

01:02:59.660 Education, health care.

01:03:01.820 Homelessness.

01:03:02.300 Doesn't matter how benign.

01:03:03.860 Pick a subject.

01:03:04.400 If the government gets involved, the outcome is worse, not better.

01:03:08.200 Yeah.

01:03:08.600 Yeah.

01:03:09.560 Really great book on this.

01:03:10.860 I don't know if you've read San Francisco by Michael Schellenberger.

01:03:15.200 I've heard of it, but I have not read it.

01:03:18.220 Great book.

01:03:18.820 Yeah.

01:03:19.000 Really, really good read.

01:03:19.980 Michael Schellenberger, for anyone not familiar, is a California-based writer.

01:03:25.100 His book before then, it was called Apocalypse Never.

01:03:27.800 It was about climate change.

01:03:30.080 He started off essentially as a California liberal that just educated his way into being a California-like libertarian because he saw how corrupt everything was.

01:03:40.380 And, you know, he approached the, so San Francisco is about like, you know, obviously all the homelessness.

01:03:45.900 I think the subtitle is like, how progressives ruin cities or something like that.

01:03:50.880 And, and it just explores like San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, all these cities that have seen huge rises in drug crimes and drug problems, homelessness, crime.

01:04:02.000 Um, and why the, the, the progressive establishment surrounding that is actually, it's perversely incentivized.

01:04:10.260 Um, you know, they, they use precisely the opposite tools that you would want to use to actually solve the problem in order to perpetuate an industry that allows them to keep pretending that they're always just around the corner from being able to solve the problem, you know?

01:04:26.740 Um, and that, that's why we see things in-

01:04:28.760 Never let a good crisis go to waste.

01:04:30.540 A hundred percent.

01:04:31.140 So the best way to make sure you have a crisis is to be the one who creates it.

01:04:35.620 Yeah.

01:04:36.100 Yeah.

01:04:36.540 Yeah.

01:04:36.880 I mean, that's like any, any like normal person prior to like 30 seconds ago would say that, you know, what's the, what's the worst thing that you could possibly do to a drug addict?

01:04:46.620 And of course that's to give them free drugs.

01:04:48.900 Right.

01:04:49.600 But somehow, you know, we've been conned into thinking that this is a, this is a empathetic, you know, compassionate government program that's, you know, saving lives.

01:04:58.560 And it's like, it's, it's exactly 180 degrees opposite bizarro world.

01:05:03.940 And I mean, I'm just, I don't know.

01:05:06.560 Mike, did I tell you my idea on safe consumption sites for people with peanut allergies?

01:05:12.740 It, it, like we can just set up a government supervised sites.

01:05:17.160 We hand out the peanuts, we have EpiPens, medically trained professionals with EpiPens standing by and that's harm reduction.

01:05:27.900 So.

01:05:28.880 James, that's genius.

01:05:30.560 That's, that's really good.

01:05:32.420 I'm going to, I'm stealing that by the way.

01:05:34.600 You're welcome.

01:05:35.060 You're welcome to, to use it.

01:05:37.020 I'm writing it down right now.

01:05:39.640 Peanut safe.

01:05:42.720 That's good.

01:05:43.440 Yeah, that's good.

01:05:44.020 Yeah.

01:05:44.120 I mean, it's like, and so I'm just, I'm just tired of like, you know, I think we're all in the same boat at this point.

01:05:50.060 Like, I'm just kind of sick of living in this, you know, I don't want to be told up is down anymore.

01:05:55.260 And, uh, uh, yeah, so this is, this is a crazy, I'm going to just tire right back in here because we've, we've been going for over an hour.

01:06:01.840 Uh, Alberta needs to separate because of X, Y, and Z.

01:06:07.020 And I think we, we've gone through, through the X, Y, and Z, but, um, I think probably the, the most, the more, the most pressing issue for people involved in this movement.

01:06:18.780 And you can tell me if you agree with this right now, people like us who are involved in this movement, the most pressing thing is, I think it's two sides of the same coin.

01:06:27.700 No more infighting.

01:06:28.860 We, we cannot be like arguing with each other publicly on Twitter.

01:06:32.020 Like some of us are doing, you know, people already in, in this movement, nitpicking over the exact right wording or the exact right policy for things that haven't happened yet in a, in a country that doesn't exist yet.

01:06:45.000 Uh, that's, that's really disheartening to see.

01:06:46.960 And we need to be very unified because if the left is anything, it's unified.

01:06:50.800 Um, and the other side of that same coin, I think is, you know, James has particularly been concerned about this with a couple of videos that he, he, uh,

01:06:58.840 recorded on the channel leading up to Christmas, how to talk to your family, how to talk to your leftist, your liberal family members, your friends about this in a way that doesn't start arguments because we cannot be turning people off at the idea.

01:07:12.400 And it needs to be, we need to be a positive, like we're fun, positive people.

01:07:17.200 We're likable.

01:07:18.040 God damn it.

01:07:18.520 We have friends.

01:07:19.860 And, uh, and people need to see us as this.

01:07:22.120 Yeah, exactly.

01:07:24.100 Yeah.

01:07:24.460 So like people need to see this side of it and not just think of it as like the most cartoonish caricature of a rural Alberta farmer that, you know, you might think is the only guy in favor of this.

01:07:35.780 You know what I mean?

01:07:37.220 Yeah.

01:07:37.700 So, I mean, the thing for me is ask questions, ask the questions, you know, what, what, what, what is your hangup?

01:07:44.240 Like, what is it that you, that you're really concerned about with Alberta independence?

01:07:47.940 Like, oh, well, you know, I love these people.

01:07:50.340 Daniel Smith is going to take away my pensions.

01:07:52.680 Daniel Smith is going to take away this.

01:07:54.400 And well, Dan, I'm, you know, glad you think that she has that kind of power.

01:07:57.140 She doesn't, but, you know, and, and people, you know, what was really funny for me?

01:08:00.660 I had, when I did the Alberta pension plan presentations, I did, I had people go, you know, Nadine, by the end of my presentation, they were coming up to me.

01:08:07.940 And these were people who trust me, I knew were on the left.

01:08:11.200 Um, and they would come up and they go, okay, so I agree with you.

01:08:14.660 I agree with you.

01:08:15.300 The best thing we could do is get an Alberta pension plan.

01:08:17.440 Let's get out from under the Canada pension plan.

01:08:19.740 But I don't trust Daniel Smith.

01:08:22.360 You know what my response to them was?

01:08:24.480 I don't trust her either.

01:08:26.240 Yeah.

01:08:26.600 Right.

01:08:27.120 Right.

01:08:27.860 It's like, let's find some common ground.

01:08:30.360 Let's find some commonality.

01:08:32.500 Right.

01:08:32.740 It's like, I agree with you.

01:08:33.580 I don't trust Daniel Smith.

01:08:34.700 I don't trust anybody in the government.

01:08:36.800 Yeah.

01:08:37.300 Nor should any of you.

01:08:39.340 Right.

01:08:39.660 And if the talk doesn't match up with the outcome.

01:08:44.320 Right.

01:08:44.760 Because I hear a lot of talk and it sounds really great and a lot of promises, but they

01:08:49.660 don't get kept.

01:08:50.660 And then I don't see the results.

01:08:52.840 Right.

01:08:53.280 So I call that out and I call it out on either side.

01:08:56.340 I don't care which side of the fence you're on.

01:08:58.580 Left, right, center.

01:08:59.460 It doesn't matter to me.

01:09:00.700 I'm in this because I want a principled approach.

01:09:04.220 Here's my principles.

01:09:05.480 Here's the outcome I'm looking for.

01:09:07.040 And if you promise me that outcome, I'm going to hold you to that outcome.

01:09:10.360 And if you don't deliver, I'm going to call you out for it.

01:09:12.880 So that's what we have to get back to.

01:09:14.560 And on this side, you know, you put a good thing there because we do have a lot of people

01:09:19.920 that are fighting.

01:09:20.680 You know, I and, you know, people that say like, oh, no credible separatist agrees with

01:09:27.740 this.

01:09:28.180 And it's like, I wait a minute.

01:09:30.020 I'm the one who said that.

01:09:31.080 And I think I'm a very credible separatist.

01:09:33.360 You know, I don't we don't all have to agree on everything.

01:09:36.580 This is the thing.

01:09:37.740 Right.

01:09:38.020 The whole point is to have the conversation, to have the debate so we can get to the truth.

01:09:42.400 Right.

01:09:42.800 To get the best result.

01:09:44.860 And if we're going to attack each other, though, and make statements like that, then

01:09:48.000 no, we can't even get there.

01:09:50.500 So but the other thing, too, is focus on the next task at hand.

01:09:54.580 The next task is to get to yes on a referendum.

01:09:57.420 Right.

01:09:57.560 Well, we got the petition, but the point is to get to yes on a referendum.

01:10:01.180 There's talks about indigenous and how we're going to deal with treaties or talks about,

01:10:04.760 you know, how we're going to deal with this or how we're going to deal with that.

01:10:06.980 Well, one step at a time, like, let's not put the cart before the horse.

01:10:11.920 Let's focus on the task at hand.

01:10:13.920 And right now that is let's get to yes on a referendum.

01:10:16.760 There are people out there who are saying a whole bunch of things that I completely disagree

01:10:19.960 with.

01:10:20.440 But you know what?

01:10:21.260 We all agree that we need to get to yes on a referendum.

01:10:24.400 So am I helping them?

01:10:25.800 Heck yes.

01:10:26.900 How do I get those signatures on that piece of paper?

01:10:30.440 And how do I help?

01:10:32.020 Right.

01:10:32.720 And again, it doesn't matter if you are Albertan and you want the best possible future

01:10:39.080 for not only you, but your children and your grandchildren.

01:10:42.380 You have to take this seriously because you are not the trajectory.

01:10:46.060 Again, finance, everything is patterns, cycles.

01:10:51.280 Everything runs cycles.

01:10:53.080 Things getting better.

01:10:54.120 Are we getting worse?

01:10:55.820 Right.

01:10:56.620 Shifts have to happen.

01:10:58.840 So let's create the positive shift that is in our favor, that puts us back in the driver's

01:11:05.580 seat, us in control of our destiny, our futures, not in the hands of Ottawa.

01:11:11.440 So, yeah, I think it's a balance when it comes to having these kind of conversations because

01:11:16.420 we can't be stuck in minutia.

01:11:18.760 We can't figure every single thing out.

01:11:20.860 The ultimate goal is a yes vote on the referendum.

01:11:25.280 But if we have zero conversations, then anybody wondering, they'll claim that we haven't thought

01:11:34.060 things through enough and there would be too much uncertainty for them to even want to

01:11:37.980 support a referendum.

01:11:39.620 So there is a careful balance in the middle where we're having respectful conversations,

01:11:45.240 respectful brainstorming without kind of this infighting that's demonizing each other in

01:11:52.420 the process.

01:11:53.080 If we demonize each other, then who's going to join a movement that feels negative and

01:11:59.800 toxic?

01:12:00.580 We need to be presenting a positive vision for the future that's welcome enough for people

01:12:06.080 that are on the fence that they would want to actually join.

01:12:11.340 So plug that book.

01:12:14.900 Plug that book.

01:12:15.740 A positive vision, you know, be a part of the conversation, be a part of the solution,

01:12:23.080 not just talk about the problems.

01:12:27.100 Yep.

01:12:28.240 It's a good read.

01:12:29.340 Conservatives can be like that, right?

01:12:30.260 We've talked about that before, too, where it's like conservatives tend to be like, I like

01:12:34.400 to think of it like a relationship.

01:12:36.060 You know, as a man, sometimes I'm kind of stupid when it comes to things with my wife.

01:12:40.140 You know, sometimes she doesn't want me to inundate her with solutions to her problems.

01:12:44.580 Sometimes she just, like you said, Nadine, just want somebody to listen, you know, ask

01:12:48.700 questions, see how you're feeling about something.

01:12:51.120 So it doesn't always have to be, you know, I'm not, you know, getting my toolbox out and

01:12:55.520 solving every problem in Alberta.

01:12:56.820 We're just talking about like, here's some, here's some positive visions that we have

01:13:01.600 for what our future can be.

01:13:03.420 Right.

01:13:04.580 Yeah.

01:13:04.820 Well, I mean, to bring Sweden back up is a perfect example.

01:13:07.840 Are we willing to make the changes that Sweden made in order to have what they have today?

01:13:13.560 Because I'll tell you, we're on the wrong track, right?

01:13:16.920 We're on the Venezuela track that they now have to fix.

01:13:20.640 Sweden was on that track and they had to fix it.

01:13:23.380 And, you know, it was really interesting when the government came to fix it, all levels of

01:13:29.300 government, it was a completely nonpartisan decision and they reformed everything.

01:13:35.020 And I mean everything.

01:13:36.440 Like, it's a really interesting case study.

01:13:38.260 And it's one that people should take the time to at least investigate, even just slightly

01:13:42.920 because they risked, well, actually they didn't have anything to risk.

01:13:46.740 They had nothing left to lose.

01:13:48.120 And that's the path Canada's on right now.

01:13:50.540 Canada's on the, you know, we're on the, we got nothing left to lose path, right?

01:13:55.240 Except, well, I mean, we do have a little bit more we can lose.

01:13:57.340 We're just, you know, Carney talks about foreign investment.

01:14:00.280 We're giving away our natural resources for pittance.

01:14:03.400 Why aren't we developing things at home?

01:14:05.420 Why aren't we processing things at home?

01:14:07.140 We need to become producers, manufacturers, not just seller of, you know, raw materials,

01:14:12.500 right?

01:14:13.600 That's not investment.

01:14:15.700 That's a one-time sale and gone, right?

01:14:18.460 We have to start thinking bigger and better.

01:14:21.740 And there's many examples around the world.

01:14:25.020 Sweden just being one, Japan's another.

01:14:27.060 So, you know, you can have social welfare programs if that's what you truly want.

01:14:30.900 I don't particularly believe that's the right role for government.

01:14:35.160 But if you want them, you can have them.

01:14:37.380 But that means you have to be willing to pay for them.

01:14:39.500 That means they also have to be structured in a way that they're sustainable, right?

01:14:43.500 And we can have those conversations.

01:14:45.060 People go, oh, my God, it's too much to take on.

01:14:47.180 It's like, seriously, I had people tell me that a pension plan was too complex for people

01:14:51.820 to start in Alberta.

01:14:53.000 There are pension plans all over the world.

01:14:55.620 There are people like me and many, many others who are very well qualified to run them.

01:15:02.340 It's not hard, right?

01:15:04.560 It's not hard.

01:15:05.340 It's just new.

01:15:06.240 It's an investment fund.

01:15:07.060 Well, it's new to you, but it's not new to the people who do it every day, right?

01:15:12.120 Healthcare is not new to the people who do it every day, right?

01:15:16.320 So, you know, these solutions that I proposed in my book, for example,

01:15:19.660 they're, you know, they're solutions that we could implement easily enough tomorrow.

01:15:23.460 Well, I ask people that, too, about, like, the pension plan bit is easy.

01:15:28.340 I mean, oh, we can't have a provincial pension plan?

01:15:31.740 How has Quebec done it for the last 60 years?

01:15:34.680 And they get relatively similar up years, some down years, you know,

01:15:38.860 but relatively in line with the Canadian pension plan.

01:15:42.560 It's plus or minus two to three points a year.

01:15:45.520 Yeah, well, I mean.

01:15:46.600 We're allowed to demonize Alberta now.

01:15:48.300 When it's Quebec, they're like, well, yeah, it's Quebec.

01:15:50.800 They get to do what they want.

01:15:52.320 So, yeah.

01:15:53.620 Well, the Alberta pension plan is a whole conversation in and of itself,

01:15:57.180 but people have to understand what things are,

01:15:59.380 but they also need to understand what they're not.

01:16:01.720 And your Canada pension plan is not a pension.

01:16:03.660 It's a tax.

01:16:04.660 It's a payroll tax.

01:16:06.420 And, you know, we can do it so much better.

01:16:09.000 Why is it that, you know, if you have a spouse that dies,

01:16:12.260 that you were relying on that pension,

01:16:14.380 why is it that that pension then goes back to the government?

01:16:16.980 Why is it that you don't get to keep it, right?

01:16:20.440 Like if you just look at just a pure numbers perspective,

01:16:23.500 if you had invested the same amount of money that you gave the government

01:16:27.320 and your company matched, right, just the exact same program, dollar for dollar,

01:16:33.240 you would have, you know, $1.3 million in your bank account, right,

01:16:39.180 at a 5%, so just a modest percent interest that you would have been earning

01:16:44.360 if you had invested it.

01:16:46.340 And that money is yours.

01:16:47.860 You can spend it if you got sick.

01:16:49.580 You can give it to your kids if you happen to outlive it.

01:16:52.560 And that's a $6,000 to $8,000 a year or a month,

01:16:56.960 $6,000 to $8,000 a month pension that you get to live on.

01:17:01.020 The maximum that you can get is $1,374.

01:17:07.120 Yeah.

01:17:07.560 Right?

01:17:08.580 And people knew it was such a racket.

01:17:10.540 $1,374 and $8,000 a month.

01:17:13.920 Like one you can live on.

01:17:15.280 The other one is like, okay, the cat food is on sale this week.

01:17:18.960 Yeah.

01:17:19.720 Yeah, if people truly knew how little you actually get from your pension

01:17:23.340 versus what you've put into it over your lifetime,

01:17:25.760 I mean, it's just purely ignorance.

01:17:28.100 And to what you said, I mean, my father passed away a few years ago

01:17:31.760 and my mom had to deal, like, if you want to look at it,

01:17:34.720 there's a few events that, like, you know, what radicalized you, Mike?

01:17:38.300 Well, COVID won.

01:17:40.540 And then also my mother having to fight with the government

01:17:43.620 to get survivor benefits from my dad's pension that he paid into for,

01:17:47.140 you know, 60 years.

01:17:48.120 It's like, it's a complete joke.

01:17:49.920 It's an absolute joke.

01:17:51.120 And it's, yeah, it's criminal.

01:17:53.240 I mean, if people understood, you know, I don't know, people have called it,

01:17:57.460 maybe you disagree because you know more about this,

01:17:59.640 but people have called it, it's essentially gone from being a pension plan

01:18:03.780 to being actually more of a Ponzi scheme because the funds just truly aren't there.

01:18:08.200 And that's why they have to keep pumping people into the country.

01:18:11.140 And it's just a, it's a system that can't survive on its own.

01:18:14.100 And that's partially why there is so much opposition from the Laurentians

01:18:19.280 to Alberta separation, because they know that if, you know,

01:18:22.860 we took out what is ours of the pension, the whole thing would,

01:18:27.260 the system would collapse.

01:18:28.720 Oh, it's already collapsed.

01:18:29.700 It's just, you know, this whole idea that it has 75 years of sustainability,

01:18:33.640 all that's based around immigration and people continually paying into it.

01:18:37.880 But the reality is, it's not a pension.

01:18:39.620 And people even say, well, it's an annuity.

01:18:41.540 No, it's not an annuity, right?

01:18:43.780 And, and we can do so much better.

01:18:45.780 We could have set this up as individualized pensions.

01:18:48.080 We could set this up where there's a larger lump sum that's made up front

01:18:51.620 and then never paid into again.

01:18:53.280 And then it just continues so that you're not the one that has to do it.

01:18:57.140 You know, there's so many amazing opportunities that exist

01:19:01.920 around the Alberta pension plan that, you know,

01:19:04.180 and that seems to be a big hangup for a lot of people

01:19:06.320 on the independence conversation, which is why, you know,

01:19:09.340 I think it's important to bring it up.

01:19:11.440 And, and I did a full, you know, presentation.

01:19:14.320 It would be an hour long presentation and all the data,

01:19:16.820 all the facts, all the information are there.

01:19:19.060 Alberta is so much better off, so much better off,

01:19:22.820 because right now what we do have is a Ponzi scheme.

01:19:25.160 It's a pay as you go.

01:19:27.180 Yes, there is a little small bit, you know, that the, the, the CPPIB,

01:19:30.560 which is now CPP, um, you know, Canada Pension Board, um, manages.

01:19:36.380 But, you know, even that amount is, people were shocked this year to see,

01:19:41.080 oh my gosh, pensions are down as a government asset.

01:19:44.760 It is a government asset.

01:19:45.940 You don't own it.

01:19:47.120 You don't control it.

01:19:48.060 You don't make the rules.

01:19:49.200 They can change the rules anytime they want.

01:19:51.340 It is not your money.

01:19:52.600 It is the government's money.

01:19:53.880 You talk about, you know, survivors.

01:19:55.520 If you're 55 years old, you've paid into this thing your whole life.

01:19:59.100 You die tomorrow, you have no kids, no wife.

01:20:01.920 Guess what?

01:20:02.400 Who keeps it?

01:20:03.320 The government.

01:20:04.040 Every penny of it.

01:20:05.280 So what is it?

01:20:05.920 It's a tax.

01:20:07.040 And then there's a little benefit tacked onto the end of it.

01:20:09.380 When it started, 7.9 employees for every one person retired.

01:20:14.840 Now today we have three to one.

01:20:17.100 Does that sound sustainable to you?

01:20:19.600 Jesus.

01:20:21.000 Right?

01:20:21.660 It's not sustainable.

01:20:23.360 So, you know, and there, Alberta can get out.

01:20:26.240 We over contribute by the tune of about three to five billion dollars each and every year

01:20:30.920 to the Alberta, to the Canada pension plan.

01:20:33.240 That's three to five billion dollars we could keep here.

01:20:37.360 That's another equalization payment.

01:20:39.680 So we had a referendum on equalization and 67% of Albertans said, get rid of it.

01:20:45.280 We don't want to be paying equalization.

01:20:46.920 The Alberta pension plan should be absolutely no different because the benefits don't have

01:20:52.460 to change.

01:20:52.900 If anything, they'll get better.

01:20:54.120 They won't get worse.

01:20:55.420 And we get to keep an extra three to five billion dollars right here at home in Alberta

01:21:00.260 to either A, lower your taxes, build more schools, build more hospitals.

01:21:05.380 It's our money to decide what to do with, not Ottawa's, to fund other people's retirements

01:21:10.040 in other provinces.

01:21:10.800 I think you'll remember the actual quote of who said this.

01:21:16.340 I'm bad with the remembering names, but nobody spends your money as carefully as you do.

01:21:22.480 And I know that was in your book as well.

01:21:24.340 I don't know.

01:21:24.720 Like, as soon as it's somebody else's money, like, you are not, like, you don't really,

01:21:32.200 you don't think about, like, well, what did I actually put in to earn this?

01:21:37.140 Like, what is the actual value of things?

01:21:40.160 And this pension plan right now, it's more redistribution of wealth.

01:21:47.740 You aren't getting back what you're paying in unless you are under earning.

01:21:52.860 Now you're getting somebody else's, the result of somebody else's labor.

01:21:56.340 And so if somebody feels like, yeah, they want to keep, they want to get what they put

01:22:03.460 into this, then the way to do that would be through an Alberta pension plan or an independent

01:22:09.960 Alberta.

01:22:10.980 Well, the way to do that would be to have no pension plan at all, but to actually take

01:22:14.780 that money.

01:22:15.620 I would even be okay with if we wanted to say, you know what, the government said, okay,

01:22:19.720 you have to have a savings account or an investment account, you know, and then let's even set

01:22:26.400 it up, like, why is it that it has to be taxed and then taxed again, right, when you draw on

01:22:32.220 it?

01:22:32.940 So, like, there's all these things that we can do to improve, to make it better.

01:22:37.300 You just need the political will to do so.

01:22:39.740 And so this was one of the things for me with Danielle Smith and this UCP government, I was

01:22:43.860 very hopeful when they came out.

01:22:45.060 If they had just did this the day that they made the announcement, would people be collecting

01:22:50.220 checks very shortly, right?

01:22:52.920 And they would realize that, oh, wow, wait a minute, I'm not losing anything here.

01:22:57.620 I'm actually gaining, right?

01:22:59.440 And the proof would have been in the pudding.

01:23:00.900 So let's stop playing the political games and, like, let's start taking the actions that

01:23:05.240 are necessary to do it.

01:23:06.840 So, you know, with respect to the Alberta pension plan, absolutely.

01:23:10.220 Best thing that Alberta can do, it's another cog in the wheel that we could just check off and

01:23:14.240 say, hey, it's one less thing that we have to worry about as a result of independence.

01:23:19.800 And it's something that should have been done a long time ago.

01:23:26.160 Yeah.

01:23:27.280 And we can do it, by the way, without ever taking a dollar out of the Canada pension plan

01:23:31.360 if we really, truly wanted to.

01:23:32.640 I want my $350 billion that Canada owes us back here in Alberta, but at the $120 billion

01:23:41.220 that, you know, Trevor Tome and that group said, that's quite workable.

01:23:45.700 But we don't need to collect a single dollar.

01:23:48.120 Why?

01:23:48.460 Because it is a pay-as-you-go system.

01:23:51.440 And we are paying $3 to $5 billion more.

01:23:54.820 So we could turn around tomorrow, not get a dollar from Canada, pay every retiree we

01:24:02.200 have here in Alberta, save and invest our $3 to $5 billion and let that grow, and we

01:24:10.480 wouldn't, we would still be fine.

01:24:13.480 Albertans would still be better off.

01:24:14.940 Now we're building a pension for Albertans.

01:24:20.280 Yeah, that is such an indictment of the system.

01:24:22.440 Hey, that is, that's crazy.

01:24:23.000 It's amazing what can be done when you don't waste money.

01:24:27.780 But you have to use it wisely, right?

01:24:30.060 And I mean, and, but that means you have to know, and then you don't know the answer,

01:24:33.720 but it doesn't mean the answer doesn't exist.

01:24:35.640 The answers are out there.

01:24:37.160 Now I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

01:24:39.600 The answers are out there, right?

01:24:41.440 If you're willing to look for them.

01:24:42.760 And there's expertise, there's talent, there's people that are already doing this.

01:24:46.960 It's not hard.

01:24:48.180 It's, you know, somewhat complicated.

01:24:50.060 You may not understand all the moving parts and pieces, but it, there's people doing it

01:24:54.400 every day.

01:24:57.180 Yeah.

01:24:58.000 Yeah.

01:24:58.440 Government thrives on, on opacity, you know, and, you know, just don't worry about it.

01:25:04.860 Don't think about it.

01:25:05.560 Let, you know, let us take, you know, take care of it and handle it.

01:25:08.580 But yeah, this is a, um, this is a very cool moment we're in right now.

01:25:14.000 Um, I feel more and more empowered every day and I feel more confident every day that I,

01:25:18.100 I see people like you, um, you know, on the scene guys like, you know, Bruce party, Jeff

01:25:23.200 wrath, all the APP guys.

01:25:24.900 Like, you know, we, we get more and more confident with the messaging every day rise of Alberta

01:25:30.020 on, on Twitter is awesome for like infographics and stuff, you know, take the, um, who else?

01:25:36.720 Uh, uh, Keith Wilson, of course we had him on the show recently.

01:25:39.740 I mean, there's so many like really, really intelligent voices in this movement, Eva Chippyuk.

01:25:45.160 Um, and so, yeah, I just feel like more and more confident every day.

01:25:49.060 Nadine, is there something that we maybe didn't touch on or, or didn't ask you that you wish

01:25:54.000 we did that you, you wanted to mention?

01:25:56.640 Um, no, I mean, there's so many things going on in the world and so many conversations that

01:26:01.440 we could have, like we are going to have to do this again.

01:26:03.940 We will.

01:26:04.660 Yeah.

01:26:05.100 Absolutely.

01:26:06.220 Um, I don't know if we want to share a little bit about the fundamentals of truth that's

01:26:09.640 happening in Red Deer on, um, Saturday.

01:26:12.480 That might be a good thing to bring up.

01:26:14.500 Um, Saturday, you know, great lineup of speakers, including Bruce party, who you just mentioned,

01:26:19.080 Dr.

01:26:19.340 Jack Mintz is coming to talk a little bit about the economics of things and things that,

01:26:24.000 people overlook or misinterpret or, you know, make assumptions that, um, don't always align

01:26:29.740 with reality.

01:26:30.940 And, uh, you know, I think it's just going to be an amazing day.

01:26:34.940 Um, I'll be there as well.

01:26:36.560 You know, my books will be there if people are interested in buying those.

01:26:39.500 And, and of course, Leighton Gray will be there with his book as well and, and, and chatting.

01:26:43.660 So you talk about all these brilliant minds.

01:26:45.340 Well, you don't, instead of chasing them all down one by one, they're all going to be in

01:26:48.940 the room, right?

01:26:50.220 Yes.

01:26:50.420 For you to be able to engage with, talk to, ask your questions.

01:26:53.960 We're going to have a full hour of Q and A that I'm going to facilitate.

01:26:56.660 Um, you know, so I think it'll just be a spectacular day.

01:27:00.180 If people are interested, you know, Red Deer on the Saturday, January the 10th starts at

01:27:05.380 two o'clock.

01:27:05.860 I think doors open at one.

01:27:07.320 So come check us out.

01:27:08.940 Eventbrite tickets, $20.

01:27:10.620 Don't let the money, you know, if you can't afford $20, just come, come.

01:27:15.340 We'll, we'll find a way.

01:27:16.580 Right.

01:27:16.760 We'll get you in there.

01:27:17.940 Of course, we are going to have, um, um, the separation, um, independence petition.

01:27:24.540 I think that will be set up outside as well.

01:27:27.020 So for people who just want to come and have a place, you know, where things are going on

01:27:31.900 and they can sign their petition for independence or for the, uh, yes on the referendum.

01:27:38.000 Uh, I do believe that will be, uh, available as well, just outside the door.

01:27:42.120 So you don't have to pay to come in to do that.

01:27:44.420 You can just come, stop by, sign your petition and leave if you want to.

01:27:48.680 I'd hope you'd stay, but.

01:27:50.300 Yeah.

01:27:51.020 Of course, that's hosted by another heavy hitter of the, of the movement.

01:27:54.120 Of course, Jason Levine, who I forgot to mention, but he's awesome.

01:27:57.340 Definitely a great follow on, on X as well.

01:27:59.740 Lots of great information.

01:28:00.640 Um, yeah, come out January or yeah, January 10th, the Saturday, um, in Red Deer.

01:28:05.980 It's, you know what, pretty much equidistance, you know, between Edmonton and Calgary guys,

01:28:10.200 you know, we've got a lot of viewers in Edmonton and Calgary.

01:28:12.540 So just come on down.

01:28:13.420 We'll be there.

01:28:14.580 Um, James, I've been talking a lot.

01:28:16.620 Which one of the 20 lives in Edmonton?

01:28:19.080 What's that?

01:28:20.080 Which one of the 20 lives in Edmonton?

01:28:22.220 Oh yeah.

01:28:23.680 At least eight.

01:28:27.040 Um, James, uh, sign us off, man.

01:28:29.940 I've been talking too much.

01:28:30.880 Sorry, dude.

01:28:31.380 Yeah.

01:28:31.640 It's, uh, well, it was great to finally actually, uh, sit down and have a full length conversation.

01:28:37.800 I know we've had a couple short ones meeting in person.

01:28:41.600 Um, it was great to have you on the documentary.

01:28:44.100 If, if anybody have not, if you haven't seen it, we did.

01:28:49.360 Yeah.

01:28:49.600 15 minutes on the, uh, UCP AGM kind of contrasting, um, the official messaging from the UCP and then the rise of Alberta independence at that event and kind of how that kind of stole the show.

01:29:03.760 And, uh, there was some interesting moments that we were able to document and we'll be filming some more as the months unfold.

01:29:12.200 Um, some projects in the works.

01:29:14.600 We, we're not fully ready to announce.

01:29:17.460 We're not at liberty to say.

01:29:18.160 We are working on.

01:29:20.280 So, um, so if you're curious about that, uh, follow us for, for more kind of polished content as well, not just our, our, our podcast.

01:29:31.780 And, uh, we will put, of course, Nadine links to your book, uh, in the description here and links to your socials.

01:29:37.420 Um, yeah, that's, um, awesome.

01:29:40.500 Well, thank you so much for your time.

01:29:41.960 We've had you for an hour and a half.

01:29:43.100 So super appreciate you, you taking this time to chat with us.

01:29:46.140 We will do it again.

01:29:47.600 We're excited to see you on Saturday.

01:29:49.660 We'll have a brew or two.

01:29:51.480 And, um, yeah, this has been great.

01:29:53.660 Thank you again.

01:29:54.860 Oh, you guys are rocksters.

01:29:56.000 I'm happy to do this anytime.

01:29:58.060 Awesome.

01:29:58.800 Cheers.

01:29:59.700 Cheers.

01:30:00.160 Bye.

01:30:00.280 Bye.

01:30:00.340 Bye.

01:30:00.360 Bye.

01:30:00.420 Bye.

01:30:00.920 Bye.

01:30:01.340 Bye.

01:30:02.280 Bye.

01:30:02.340 Bye.

01:30:04.340 Bye.

01:30:04.960 Bye.

01:30:05.340 Bye.

01:30:06.340 Bye.

01:30:07.340 Bye.

01:30:08.340 Bye.

01:30:09.340 Bye.

01:30:10.340 Bye.

01:30:11.340 Bye.

01:30:12.340 Bye.

01:30:13.580 Bye.

01:30:15.580 Bye.

The Critical Compass Podcast - January 23, 2026

A Holistic Approach to Achieving YES on an Alberta Independence Referendum ｜ Nadine Wellwood

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