The Critical Compass Podcast - February 06, 2026


Alberta Separation is a Consequence of Confederation Working AS DESIGNED ｜ Kathy Flett


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

168.51048

Word count

919

Sentence count

50

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk about the current political system in Canada and why it needs to be changed. We discuss the problems we have with the current system and how we can fix it. We also talk about why we should have 7 premiers and 50% of the population represented in parliament.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 How we were even brought into Confederation usually does it. So we were, a lot of people
00:00:07.840 will argue with us now and say, well, you negotiated this and so too bad, so sad,
00:00:13.060 you signed on the dotted line. Well, no, actually we didn't. The reason that Alberta and Saskatchewan
00:00:19.300 were created in 1905, both of them, there's the Alberta Act of 1905 and the Saskatchewan Act of
00:00:24.700 1905. The reason that they were created at that time was because there was this big boom that was
00:00:30.840 coming over here and the people that were moving here, predominantly from the States, but from
00:00:34.820 everywhere, were saying, you know, it's really hard to get anything done around here when there's no
00:00:38.640 politicians to put their stamp of approval on anything. We need to change this up.
00:00:43.180 And they had this idea to create the province of Buffalo out of Alberta and Saskatchewan that we
00:00:48.300 know today. But Ottawa had a canary over it because they knew that if our numbers, and we were, the
00:00:54.240 people were coming from everywhere, right? They knew that if our numbers, if our population
00:00:58.500 outgrew theirs, then the balance of power would shift to the West from the East, because that's 0.99
00:01:05.460 how the Westminster system is designed. Whoever has the population has the power. And so that's why
00:01:12.820 they divided it in half and literally colonized us. They literally, there was no negotiation.
00:01:20.300 It was, this is how it's going to be. Too bad, so sad. We're appointing you each a premier, a liberal
00:01:27.080 one, by the way. And this is why I'm completely confused. All the folks that are tearing down
00:01:31.900 statues, having a meltdown over colonization, to be on our side. They really should. So when I get to
00:01:41.220 that, and then the light bulb goes off and go, oh my gosh, yeah, we haven't had a say ever since.
00:01:47.100 That's the first moment where people realize it's working exactly as designed. It's working
00:01:53.580 exactly as it's supposed to. And then when I keep walking them through, how are senators
00:01:58.020 are chosen? How are MPs are chosen? Is it supposed to be representation by population? That's the
00:02:04.940 second bit. Well, okay, let's check that out. And then, and you saw that, Mike, right? I show
00:02:09.560 all the numbers of how many people per senator across, what do I pick? Five provinces. And then
00:02:16.620 I do the same thing for the MPs. And in a room of 500 people, you won't hear a noise.
00:02:24.100 Yeah.
00:02:24.860 Because everybody's just looking at the screen in absolute disbelief that this is what we live in.
00:02:31.040 Yeah. It's, that's what I, that's what I was, I mean, I, I, I kind of knew the numbers. I probably
00:02:36.320 could have rattled off something close, but like, just to see it laid out like that, to see the
00:02:39.980 percentages and the average number of people per MP and per senator, it's like you, it's like you kind
00:02:47.360 of, you mentioned it, you cannot negotiate your way out of that. You'll never, you'll never be able to
00:02:53.520 just, just mathematically.
00:02:54.660 Well, you need seven provinces and then the representation of 50% of the population through
00:02:59.480 parliament. And what are the chances of that happening already? Like you've created a power
00:03:05.560 imbalance and then you require power to be leveraged within that imbalance to change the power structure.
00:03:13.400 So you've, you've created a, a no win situation from within. And it seems like the, the other thing
00:03:21.660 I lean on in some of these conversations and you'll, you'll get people who'll get NDP supporters
00:03:26.900 saying, well, the conservatives are corrupt, or this group's corrupt, or they did this, or they did
00:03:33.840 that. And I'll ask them, why is our system designed in a way that enables corruption? If you, if you can
00:03:42.480 agree that they're corrupt, then what you're saying is that right now, the system, it gives full license
00:03:49.180 for people to do that. Or it's so easily corrupt, like it becomes so easily corrupt that we don't
00:03:55.940 have really a way of stopping or holding everything to account. So if that's the case, Alberta
00:04:03.240 independence is a way for us to revise the system, put those safe safeguards and like in place, those
00:04:12.240 checks and balances. And pretty much anybody who's complaining about the corruption, left or right, doesn't
00:04:19.880 matter what colored shirt they're wearing right now. Like, wouldn't that be, wouldn't that be a good
00:04:26.080 opportunity for us to lean on?
00:04:29.480 It should be. Yeah, it should be. The other thing that I also say when I give my talks with regards to opening up the
00:04:36.780 Constitution, and you're right, right? You need seven premiers making up 50% of the population. Imagine what
00:04:42.980 could happen if they said, yeah, sure, we'll do that. And mathematically, we don't have the numbers, and they
00:04:50.380 make it worse for us. What are we going to do? Why would we even risk that? It makes no sense. It makes no sense
00:05:01.260 because we already know how it's going to end. And in the Westminster system that we're in, it's on
00:05:07.200 purpose top down. That's how it's, it's, it's a monarchist type structure, because it's from England. So
00:05:15.040 of course it is. And, and so even the people that have an issue with the monarchy should be on our
00:05:21.140 side, so that we have a chance to correct all of these wrongs that have been done to us for over 100
00:05:26.900 years.