00:08:03.360I don't think anything's going to come of it, but there's a lot of people who don't know that yet, and they want to see if that will happen.
00:08:10.000So I think we have a better chance of getting a larger group to vote option two than we would if it was a binding, citizen-led question at this stage.0.90
00:08:17.780But I think the other nine are dumb, but number 10, I'm not so bad with.
00:08:23.180Actually, I can't improve on anything that these guys have said, so just to pick on one of the words you mentioned there,0.97
00:09:13.920And is it the wound that's pushing this movement,
00:09:22.360or is it a symptom of the bigger problem?
00:09:25.200um it's in the top 10 uh but i don't think it's in the top five um because quite frankly
00:09:33.140sending money to other provinces is from the people i speak to is an issue but um saving our
00:09:41.240culture is a little bit higher on that one uh saving our children is higher up on that one
00:09:46.440because as they're passing uh some of the things through our schools and i think uh saving our
00:09:53.440freedom of speech and some of the things that we actually hold as our values here in Alberta,
00:09:58.380which is directly an attack. And the last one I'll put on, which is higher than equalization,
00:10:02.720is our faith with Bill C-9 and direct attacks on Christianity, burning of churches with no
00:10:08.520consequences. So when I'm talking to people, those issues come up a little bit more than the
00:10:14.000financial conversation around equalization. And I may even throw in there that as we're seeing with
00:10:19.980the conversations with Trump and the tariffs and turning our backs on our best neighbor historically
00:10:27.180where most of our trade goes has opened up a lot of people's eyes on the economic level above and
00:10:32.660beyond just equalization. Because if we are breaking our economy and we have our best trading
00:10:38.120partner go away, equalization will be one of our least concerns at that stage. So it's in the top
00:10:44.74010, but I don't think it's in the top five from the people I'm speaking to.
00:10:49.200I'd say equalization is big as a symbol. It really shows the inequity of the country and
00:10:54.060how poorly it serves Alberta. I was in the oil field 20 years and I went through three cycles
00:10:59.120of almost going broke when the oil prices dropped. Now, the part of that's due to bad
00:11:02.740provincial governance that we become so reliant on that particular revenue. But if this is supposed
00:11:08.440to help us where was the equalization in 97 where was it in 2008 where was it in 2014
00:11:14.680we never receive it we only give how broke do we have to get before we become somebody who gets
00:11:22.220something out of this obviously we will never become broke enough i mean the early 80s we never
00:11:27.240got a penny of it and people know that they realize that they see the unfairness and it's
00:11:32.840not that albertans are heartless but i think albertans would agree with a system of we'll
00:11:37.660deal with things as they go. If there was a big natural disaster that hit New Brunswick and we
00:11:41.620were doing okay, we'd be happy to help out and to help our neighbors get better or even south of
00:11:46.200the border. But this baked in system that so clearly is stacked to serve central Canada gives
00:11:53.740exemptions to Quebec on their resource development and punishes us for our success. It's an important
00:12:01.080symbol for people because I mean, longer discussions of economics are difficult at the door
00:12:05.140when campaigning. But equalization, when we could talk about a program where some provinces have
00:12:10.260raked in tens of billions of dollars over the years and we've never gotten a penny, it's a good
00:12:15.180symbol to remind people of the entire setup of this federation that does drain us. Yeah, like
00:12:21.400Corey said, excuse me, I don't think Albertans are necessarily in principle against a basic idea
00:12:27.080of equalization. Like if there's other parts of country that are poor and need help, like and we
00:12:31.760have extra we can help them like it's not that we're not generous or something it's the way the
00:12:35.900equalization program has worked and as Corey mentioned about Quebec like Quebec is is not a
00:12:40.720poor province but they get the majority of the equalization payments not because they're poor
00:12:45.520but because they have political power like that's what I object to that's why Stephen Harper increased
00:12:50.120equalization payments to Quebec not because Quebec was suffering economically but he needed to get
00:12:54.880more seats in Quebec to keep his position as prime minister so the problem with equalization in my
00:12:59.840perspective is it's being used as a political prop to buy votes in eastern canada for the federal
00:13:04.640parties and we have no control over that there's just one other thing i want to throw in and that
00:13:08.200is like we talked about equalization but equalization is just one of the fiscal transfers
00:13:11.820from alberta to uh to canada like equalization like we talked about you know the 20 billion
00:13:17.040dollars or so that alberta gives in net to the federal government every year equalization is
00:13:21.280part of that but there's other transfers like there's the health transfer and social transfer
00:13:25.040i don't know them all but sometimes the leftist criticizes because they say we say we're giving
00:13:29.400all this money in equalization. No, the equalization is just a small portion. So you have to understand
00:13:32.960it's more than equalization. There's a whole bunch of transfers that accumulate to reach
00:13:37.700that 20 billion a year or whatever it is from year to year.
00:13:41.200Okay, so Jason, again, you argue Alberta has the land, resources, economy of a country,
00:13:49.520and that the only missing piece is control.
00:13:51.820if an independent Alberta kept the same kind of tax and regulate habits under a new flag
00:14:02.860would that still be a win? That's a loaded question if we're removing the justice system
00:14:11.400that's corrupt if we're removing the senate the supreme court the constitution it's a good start
00:14:19.000But Bruce Partey argues this one a lot.
00:14:21.940Like if you're going to do this, you need to really do this right.
00:14:25.660Don't just repeat the faults and the challenges that Canada created.
00:14:31.160You need to actually remove Canada out of Alberta as well.
00:14:34.220And that's going to be the rest of the system.
00:14:36.940So no, I don't think if you just take the Canadian Constitution, do a search and replace and put Alberta in there, we'll be much better off.
00:14:44.380Because I think what you're going to find, it's going to be centralized in Edmonton instead of just Ottawa.
00:14:49.000And we're going to be in the same situation where really the powers that we're trying to fight here will not really have changed.
00:14:56.740We would have just changed where their headquarters are.
00:14:59.200So I think we need to make a more dramatic change, whether it's a republic or flipping the default, as Bruce is talking about around here.
00:15:06.700But I think it would be a big mistake if all we did was just remove the control from Ottawa and put it into Edmonton and kept the rest the same.
00:15:13.980yeah if we go to all the work and the trouble to become independent and then bringing the same kind
00:15:19.540of government we just left we don't deserve good government like we haven't learned a damn thing0.97
00:15:24.220you've jumped out of one pile of crap and it's jumped into another one this is a broken system0.92
00:15:28.140why on earth would you want to replicate it uh this is a grand opportunity this is what we got0.91
00:15:33.680to be talking to people about an independent alberta few people ever in their lifetime have
00:15:39.260the chance to model a brand new system, a brand new way of doing things, and looking at what's
00:15:44.960working around the world, what's not working around the world, and hopefully, presumably create
00:15:49.380something contemporary and better that serves us better. So, I mean, there's very little I can see
00:15:57.260in the Canadian system we would want to adopt in having left it. We honestly haven't learned a
00:16:02.380darn thing if that's what we want to jump back into. Okay, from my perspective, us becoming
00:16:07.020independent, that's a huge step forward just on its own. And I would just, I'm not sure if I'm
00:16:11.660disagreeing or not, but my concern is we become independent. That's a huge change we're doing
00:16:15.700right there. So we want to do changes gradually and incrementally over time. Like that's one big
00:16:20.320one. Like I wouldn't say let's sweep away the entire old system and replace it new right at
00:16:25.060the same time. I would think that would create instability. So I think we first, we become
00:16:28.940independent. Now we're independent. Now we can make incremental changes because people like the,
00:16:33.400say the constituencies and how we run our government these are patterns that we've all
00:16:37.780had all of our lives and other people have had all their lives and you know you want to keep some
00:16:42.000level of continuity with the previous system at least at the beginning so people can get used to
00:16:46.900new ways of doing things and then you can change them as you move on so so my perspective is we
00:16:52.000want to become independent and then we can make subsequent changes over time as we need to which
00:16:56.220would lead to a different system if that's what people wanted but I'd be concerned about like
00:17:00.040wiping the slate clean right from the very beginning and starting brand new
00:17:44.280Okay, so, Corey, let's start with you on this one.
00:17:47.400um if alberta writes a new constitution on day one uh what stops the same decay in 20 years
00:17:58.500only we do uh i'm presuming we're going to have a constitution that empowers individuals
00:18:05.520the battle and and ongoing fight for our freedoms never stops the authoritarians are going to be
00:18:12.160there the day after we become independent and they're going to be heavily working to take away
00:18:16.560the individual rights that we've gotten. This is the cycle of humanity that's been going on for
00:18:21.700millennia, unfortunately. So hopefully we build as good a system as possible. We stay as active
00:18:28.520as possible. It's up to us. The responsibility is ours. And maybe three generations, four
00:18:36.000generations later, the system unfortunately might have bloated and degraded to the point where
00:18:41.180distant, you know, generations after us are going to have to go through a similar exercise.
00:18:47.760Hopefully we just keep learning and improving. But no, there's no guarantee that it wouldn't
00:18:53.300go bad within 20 years. It would just hope that we can maintain that memory. One of the biggest
00:18:59.060things to point out with what went wrong with Brexit was people thought that the process to
00:19:03.760get out was the end of the battle. That's just the beginning. It carries on. They voted, they got
00:19:09.980the vote and then they took their hands off the steering wheel and gave it back to the government
00:19:13.240and went into the ditch. We're empowering ourselves in an exercise, in a referendum,
00:19:18.820through the petitioning, all of these things. It's been magnificent to watch and fantastic.
00:19:22.860But we got to remember that we've got to continue all the time to be vigilant. We got to come out
00:19:28.320to vote. We got to hold our elected officials responsible, no matter what the system is,
00:19:32.640because if citizens stop, if they abdicate their role in holding government responsible,
00:19:37.520it will go bad. It'll just be a matter of when. So it's up to us, I guess.
00:19:44.480Yeah, like I agree with what Corey's saying. And like the constitution is your fundamental
00:19:48.540document of your country. It founds your country, sets up the government. So the constitution is
00:19:53.560the most important institution of your country, but it's not as important as the character of
00:19:58.560the citizens. This is something we've forgotten. Like that's why the United States constitution
00:20:02.820worked so well for so long is you had a high quality of citizenship. Same for Canada to some
00:20:08.100degree. And that's why the reason we get so many bad leaders in our government, because we vote
00:20:13.640them in. The character of the leadership reflects the character of the voters. And as the character
00:20:18.760of the voters declines over time, the characters of our leaders, leadership declines. So we can
00:20:23.340have the best constitution in the history of the world. And if we don't, are not good citizens
00:20:28.040ourselves, the Constitution won't amount to anything, as what Corey was saying. So
00:20:32.040the character of our people is actually more important than the Constitution, although the
00:20:37.760Constitution is the most important institution that we can create. Yeah, I agree with both of
00:20:43.080them. And I think what Michael was talking about there, it's going to be the character of the
00:20:46.200people, is really vital to kind of resonate with all of you. Because if we can't switch our minds
00:20:51.920that we shouldn't hand power over to this large government, instead we should have a small
00:20:57.040government with limited power. And one of the ways to ensure that, you know, outside forces
00:21:02.320doesn't try to infiltrate a government is it doesn't have power. So what's the attraction
00:21:06.900anyways? Like they're just going to come in and just do nothing because the power is still with
00:21:10.640the people. And this is why I echo a lot of stuff that Bruce Party is doing is because that's what
00:21:15.760is going to be set up. Don't build a constitution that relies on the honor of others. You're just
00:21:21.600going to mess it up. You got to make sure that it's set up so that the power isn't with this
00:21:26.080organization called the government it stays with the people so they don't want to or there's no
00:21:30.760reason for them to come in and try and get that power that might be one of the better ways to
00:21:34.220ensure that it's not taken over is because there's nothing to attract them to take over
00:21:38.860okay um oh sorry michael let's start with you on this one um the subject of parallel institutions
00:21:51.380We had lots of conversations on it today. Outside of the campaign, outside of the politics and policy and stuff, what do you see as some of the primary kind of parallel institutions that we can build outside of the Canadian state,
00:22:12.560but also ultimately an independent Alberta state that we can be working on right now separately from this campaign also?
00:22:23.920Well, actually, the thing that comes to mind immediately is what I talked about earlier with the education system.
00:22:28.820Like we can be building an alternative education system through homeschooling and private schools in particular and maybe charter schools,
00:22:35.900but there's so many – the more alternatives we have in education is the greater variety there is,
00:22:41.440and people can choose what suits their family the best.
00:22:44.940So I think building alternative institutions in the education sector,
00:22:49.340for me, that'd be the most important thing
00:22:50.920because the education of our children, those are the future citizens.
00:22:54.380And so if we don't get them with character education when they're that young,
00:22:58.960they won't grow up to be good character citizens.
00:23:01.200And so it's essential that we have a good education system for those children.
00:23:04.560And I think the best systems I mentioned earlier
00:23:06.720is one that prioritizes parental rights
00:23:08.940and makes education in the jurisdiction of the family?
00:23:15.940I take a different approach on this one.
00:23:17.900I don't think we need Pepsi to the Coke.
00:23:20.020I don't think we need to create a parallel one,
00:23:22.140an alternative one, and maybe attract people to it.
00:23:24.700We need to completely do it different.
00:23:26.420We need to go away from a centralized system
00:23:28.420or everything becoming more and more centralized
00:23:30.700to decentralized, a localized system more,
00:23:35.120where it's your community, it's your family,
00:23:36.800it's your church, it's your own kitchen table that you're more focused on. Could you imagine,
00:23:42.080like I know the raw milk came up at one point today, but what if everybody did it?
00:23:49.040Are they going to use all the resources to stop everybody from doing it? Not likely. I kind of
00:23:54.320would like to see us go against the centralized system and become more decentralized. I don't
00:23:59.040think we need a Pepsi to the Coke. I guess I'll talk just more on the
00:24:04.000The tactical end again of trying to win things though and bring us over to that independent side. What can we do in the meantime? What can we bring over? What can we repatriate? I guess you could call it. And a big one is the pension plan. And now we might want to have a new system where people have fully self-directed pensions or they can choose whether or not to opt in and out. Those are things we can discuss later and should.
00:24:26.300But immediately, I'm just talking from speaking at dozens and dozens of these town hall meetings, things that made my hair even grayer, was people standing up saying, I support everything, I'm tired of it, I grew up through, I worked through the National Energy Program, but boy, Lukasik said, they're going to shut my pension off if we go independent and I just can't vote for it.
00:24:45.480And no matter how hard you try and how many charts and graphs and stuff you can show them that your pension is going to be safe, they are not convinced and they won't vote for it.
00:24:56.240We should have our own already anyways.
00:27:14.880But when we're stepping on each other with a
00:27:17.040centralized government that, you know, again, centralizes control, that's where we get the
00:27:20.740problem. Democracy is really a dirty word when you think about it, because it's ruled by the mob.
00:27:30.060And if we lived in a true democracy during COVID, 80% of Canada would have forced the other 20%
00:27:37.040to take it. You got to be very careful with that particular setup, because it actually creates a
00:27:43.360system where there's a two tier society. It's the largest group. And then you get basically
00:27:50.140politics that are more ideologically motivated. So you build your group and it becomes like a
00:27:55.780bully type of setup. A republic is designed specifically not to do that. It's more localized
00:28:02.600and you have your issues become more localized than a national issue. So if Edmonton wanted to
00:28:09.600acts, go ahead. But if the rule didn't want to go ahead, that's up to them. So when you break down
00:28:15.620the centralization, even in a democracy, that's when you have a lot more freedom. But I say be
00:28:23.840very careful. You hear the US pundits say all the time, it's a threat to democracy, it's a threat
00:28:29.520to democracy. They don't have a democracy, they have a republic. But yet people think, well,
00:28:34.040If I vote 51%, we should do that. But the 49% are going to be forced to do something they're not interested in, especially when you're doing it on a large national scale. So when you decentralize, you go more localized, you can make decisions that are best for you, your neighborhood and yourselves. Democracy doesn't play such a big role anymore at that point.
00:28:54.660Yeah, kind of along the lines of what they're saying, and actually, I think Jason mentioned this earlier, that if you strict the role of government to certain key issues, the government is less important in our lives, and it doesn't matter as much who's actually making those decisions, because it affects us less.
00:29:09.300Like one of the reasons politics is so important today, it's like the government does way more now than it did 100 years ago.
00:29:15.500Like the way the government touched people's lives 100 years ago, you know, the post office, they see a policeman or something, and now it's like every part of our lives.
00:29:22.040So who controls the government now through democracy is way more important than, say, 100 years ago.
00:29:27.080And if we go back to where the government has less responsibilities and less to do,
00:29:30.640just focus on its core mandate of, like, security and things like that,
00:29:35.320then we don't have to worry so much about the majoritarian democracy in the sense that
00:29:39.820if we're not in the majority that elects the government,
00:29:43.580it still has so much less power than it had over our lives
00:29:46.700that it can't affect us in a bad way to the same degree.
00:29:49.400okay uh last one and you guys have all commented we vote on that yeah yeah yeah no this is not a
00:29:59.000democracy um and you've all touched on this a little bit um but i want to give you one last
00:30:04.660uh minute to to say it um past the referendum alberta is independent um
00:30:13.780what what does uh failure in an independent alberta look like uh jason start with you
00:30:21.020well i just want to clarify you're not talking about the october 19th referendum i'm not i'm
00:30:25.260talking about an independent alberta we're we're assuming that alberta is independent at this point
00:30:30.020what does a failed independent alberta look like we just replicate ottawa and edmonton
00:30:35.760and we don't do anything else different and and we accept the fact that because it's hard we
00:30:41.240shouldn't do it. So we take a generation in a very slow way to make changes. I think to me,
00:30:48.120that would be failure because we've already learned how the system will fight against us
00:30:53.340and not let us change it. So if we start off with like, say, Ottawa, Edmonton, and we say,
00:30:57.980okay, well, we're going to fix, we're going to have elected senators and we're going to have
00:31:01.280elected judges. And those are the first couple of changes we do, but we're going to keep
00:31:04.500everything else at this stage. We will quickly turn into the same tyrannical government that we
00:31:10.580already had. We have to quickly, within a couple of years, change that. And if we're not in the
00:31:16.580mindset as Albertans during that next step of coming together with the transition and then a
00:31:22.900constitutional convention, if we think we should just do the same thing again, that'll be a huge
00:31:27.440failure in my mind. I'd say failure would be an independent Alberta elects an NDP government
00:31:33.840because I would essentially replicate everything bad about Canada just like that and
00:31:39.720And no use becoming independent if we were going to go that route.
00:31:44.320Well, I guess never underestimate human capacity to screw things up.
00:31:48.680And as much as I love Alberta and Albertans, we can bugger it up just as well as anybody else.
00:31:55.360Just because we're leaving a bad system doesn't mean we can't manage to come up with one that's even worse.
00:32:00.040So we do have to have these discussions.
00:32:01.980That's why I love what happened this weekend, listening to Bruce Party and talking about some of those and other constitutional ideas and notions.
00:32:08.620We do have to discuss this and hash it out.
00:32:11.040It'll be a massive undertaking to make a new system.
00:32:14.740And it's an opportunity to make a brilliant system,
00:32:17.360but it is an opportunity to make a brilliant mess if we do it wrong.
00:33:02.500We were here two years ago, and at that time, as far as I can tell, support for independence
00:33:07.400was in single digits we've easily doubled that i don't really know what changed in that time i had
00:33:13.720no idea back then that the support would grow as it has is there a i don't know maybe you want to
00:33:18.680comment on what was the catalyst between then and now and is there another kind of like shot in the
00:33:23.240arm that we're really going to spike it from then from from what we what the position we're in right
00:33:28.120now the number one thing between then and now was the 2025 election like people expected
00:33:34.280Pierre Polyev to win. He'd been leading in the polls. And then suddenly, Mark Carney becomes
00:33:38.840Liberal leader. Everything turns around. And I guess with the Trump thing, suddenly the Liberals
00:33:42.840win. Nobody expected that. And that was kind of supercharged the independence movement right at
00:33:46.600that moment. Doesn't that concern you greatly that such a short-term little election is really what
00:33:53.180is driving a lot of it? I mean, that concerns me to hear that, to be frank. Yeah, well, actually,
00:33:57.320the biggest jumps in support for independence in Alberta history, aside from the National Energy
00:34:01.920program it was mostly elections like the 1980 election caused a massive increase in support
00:34:06.480and then the 2019 well 2015 didn't cause a massive one but it led to 2019 which caused
00:34:11.900a massive support for independence with the exit so it's actually external factors are huge
00:34:16.380yeah are we supposed to want an ndp prime minister or something i mean i don't i'm confused by this
00:34:21.060i i'm not sure what wisdom to take away from that yeah well we like most albertans hope for a
00:34:26.380conservative government because they will be a reprieve from the terrible policies that we're
00:34:31.040getting. And when we don't get the reprieve, it just makes us angrier and more people are willing
00:34:36.140to consider independence. Did the petition drive itself increase support, just raising the
00:34:41.700visibility for the issue? I would say maybe single digits if it did, but I'm going to build on what
00:34:51.700Michael was saying there. The federal election sure helped, but the decision against even the
00:34:57.340first question that Mitch Sylvester brought forward helped as well, because it showed how the court
00:35:01.940itself was compromised in allowing a referendum to move forward by citizens. The second court
00:35:08.760decision, so the first one was Feesby, the second one was Leonard, that one too showed a lot of
00:35:13.900people, this system's broken. Even having Danielle Smith come out with the question showed more.
00:35:19.460So as we're going along, it's actually, we're getting like single digit bumps all along the way,
00:35:23.800And you're seeing it grow a lot more than that.
00:35:25.360And as far as I'm concerned, our spokesperson of the year is Mark Carney.
00:35:29.020As long as he keeps doing what he's doing, he's going to drive a lot more people to see that Canada is broken and we need to get out of this system.0.99
00:35:36.700Yeah, I mean, some of the events electorally, I mean, we were governed by an abject imbecile for 10 years.0.99