Dennis Kalma is the Principal Author of the Value of Freedom Document for the Alberta Prosperity Project, and a retired corporate executive. He has been involved with the project for a number of years, and is the author of the document that was released to the public in March of 2016. In this episode, Dennis talks about the process of writing the document, how he came up with the idea for it, and why he thinks the document is so important.
00:00:00.000The way I look at it is this would be, the document we've got now would be input into the
00:00:04.960constitutional conference. It would have the benefit of several years work by a number of
00:00:10.160people. It would have been stress tested over the months it's been released by accepting comments
00:00:15.460and feedback. And then you get to the constitutional conference. And one of the things we also are
00:00:22.080trying to do is to start the transition planning for, okay, we win the vote. What happens the next
00:00:28.000morning. Well, one of the things you've got to start doing is planning this constitutional
00:00:31.700conference. And it needs to have a combination of representations and no change to the
00:00:38.240constitution to be adopted without a majority of each of those groups agreeing to it.
00:00:58.000Hi, guys. Welcome back to The Critical Compass. My name is Mike, and of course, my co-host James
00:01:07.280is with us. Today, we are very happy to be joined by Mr. Dennis Kalma. He is the principal author
00:01:13.700on the Value of Freedom document for the Alberta Prosperity Project, and he's a retired corporate
00:01:19.480executive. And thank you very much for joining us on the show, sir. How are you?
00:01:23.780Doing just fine and glad to be on the program.
00:01:25.560Well, right on. James, I know you had some very good questions lined up for our guest here. So I'll let you start and then we'll carry on from there.
00:01:35.720Yeah, it's great to have you on the show. And I guess the value of freedom document has been getting a lot of traction and it's been passed around and people are discussing the numbers, looking at it.
00:01:50.580I'm just curious, and I think a lot of people are curious, how did that all happen?
00:05:18.360number of different taxes and fees. If I got the number correct, it's about 58 different forms
00:05:23.280of taxation that are levied on Canadians one way or the other. And of course, many of them flow from
00:05:29.580provinces to federal government. Near as I can tell, most other countries are more like
00:05:35.56020 or 30 of such taxes. So we have a very extensive and deep tax regime and that is different.
00:05:42.200And so it almost seems in a way I know there's some people that will argue or will talk about equalization and they'll they'll try to they'll do the modern Bailey where they say like, well, Alberta doesn't pay anything.
00:06:02.380But again, they're not looking at net inflows versus net outflows.
00:06:06.820And when you start comparing, from my understanding, even Quebec, the math they're doing for the equalization formula to determine if they – to determine their fiscal capacity is different than what Alberta calculates for our oil revenue.
00:06:23.440The major difference being that their – I guess their hydro is considered a public utility, so the revenues are not counted.
00:06:34.000Yeah, the big difference is, look at Hydro-Quebec, very large electricity production, much of it used domestically to service their industry, but a fair chunk is shipped to the U.S. or connected to the U.S. for that.
00:06:48.880That was not considered resource revenue in the same way as oil and gas is.
00:06:54.600So that made Quebec look artificially less wealthy, you could argue.
00:07:01.180Now, that was a concession made by Harper to get Quebec on side with some of the changes he made.
00:07:08.360But the net of it is, if you put the Hydro-Quebec revenue into the calculation,
00:07:14.320certainly the amount of money flowing to Quebec would go down by quite a bit.
00:07:18.600And that's what they were fighting for, of course.
00:07:20.940So this is essentially, a lot of these programs, they come from a place where, I guess in confederation to you,
00:07:28.280So there's some compassion where you want other provinces to be supported if they're struggling, but where is that line of dependency?
00:07:37.900Because we know that Quebec has a billion cubic meters of natural gas that is untapped.
00:07:50.260And like, why should, if so, if Alberta just kept all the resources in the ground, technically, at some point, we would qualify for equalization.
00:08:02.620We could go from a have province to a have not if we just stopped producing value.
00:10:02.560look at manitoba what is it five billion goes to manitoba for crying out loud what's up with that
00:10:08.520so in the value of freedom you outline um you're projecting based on calculating all these sources
00:10:18.380that leave alberta that if alberta becomes independent that given that there's now a
00:10:25.780a buffer we would be in the green even if we needed to like make our own passport offices or
00:10:31.440Or you factored in these federal services.
00:10:34.220Yeah, so what we did, I mean, just to walk through the process, the thinking was, let's find all the sources of revenue.
00:10:42.280Let's leave the provincial spending exactly the way it is.
00:10:45.820So the province actually operates most of the things you and I use every day, you know, everything from police forces to education to health care and so forth.
00:10:54.560So we said, we're not going to touch that at all.
00:10:56.580We're not going to try and optimize it, nothing.
00:10:58.000And then we're going to say, okay, there is federal transfers coming back for healthcare, Canada social services and so forth.
00:11:06.980Put those back in, they have to be covered.
00:11:09.920And then we looked at the services that the federal government does provide to us, everything from the military to Indigenous affairs to the courts and so forth, and said, okay, what would it cost to stand them up, to set them up?
00:11:23.640And then what would it cost to operate them?
00:11:28.000All the revenue, less all the expenses, province, and so forth, and what you have left over.
00:11:32.760And that's where the number comes to somewhere between $27 and $45 billion a year net after doing all those things that remains in Alberta.
00:11:43.320And that's the amount of money that's really being drained out of Alberta on an annual basis.
00:11:49.160Yeah, so because you're calculating the services.
00:11:51.460And this document is, I guess it's not exactly prescriptive in saying Alberta is like, this is exactly what we would always spend on each one of these services.
00:12:02.880You are doing a thought experiment to translate what is covered from Canada, if that was covered by just Alberta dollars here in Alberta, if Alberta becomes independent.
00:12:17.080which i guess this is where i think people are curious uh there's almost a tendency to want
00:12:28.320some people want certainty certainty and they want like the full vision crafted out
00:12:34.280right now but you can't do that we don't have a mandate now no you can't like you can't develop
00:12:40.680a whole like design a whole country before a petition's even done before a referendum's done
00:12:46.800but you also can't have nothing to go by because you need you you need to demonstrate that it would
00:12:54.320work yeah that there's enough there and so i feel like this is helping to balance out that middle
00:13:00.220ground and it starts these conversations that we saying that like here what the numbers show
00:13:07.700we can then now talk about well what is an ideal alberta or where to like how are we going to
00:13:15.420allocate this money, let it be reducing taxes, or there are some people that want to advocate for
00:13:22.280more social services. There's some people who want to hybridize systems or have more of a private,
00:13:28.800but that comes when you have that flexibility if money isn't leaving to the same degree.
00:13:35.520Yeah, and the way to look at this document in some respects is more as a feasibility study
00:13:47.020The fiscal plan has got lots of calculations around
00:13:50.080what's the effect of changes in oil price,
00:13:53.280what happens if we optimize government,
00:13:55.880what happens if we take out the effort required
00:13:58.360to support federal regulations, on and on and on.
00:14:00.660That's a much more extensive document.
00:14:02.540It will need to be built at some point.
00:14:05.200But as you rightly point out, that is once we have the mandate,
00:14:08.600once we have the clarity, and most critically,
00:14:11.400once we have the constitution or the structure of the country set and we know who actually will
00:14:16.740make those decisions on you know will we put more into social services will we do tax reduction if
00:14:22.580so how much goes each way so so this is more of a feasibility study and um and that's why we took
00:14:29.420that very very conservative approach of trying to say look what's the worst it could be
00:14:35.260And like, even if we give a lot more to Indigenous people, even if we take the low end of all the ranges, what happens then?
00:14:45.600And we still say, look, we're still $25 billion to the good.
00:14:50.020And in that situation, then you say, well, that money then gives you options.
00:14:55.740And what those options are, that's going to be selected by the people of Alberta in an independent country with its own constitution.
00:15:02.400Uh, Dennis, one of the most common objections we hear to the, not necessarily just the value of freedom document, but the, the Alberta's plan for independence in general is that, well, all of your numbers are, you know, are, are sort of, um, you know, say, say all of your numbers are irrelevant because, um, really what will happen if a, if a independence referendum passes is that
00:15:32.400the international investor confidence in the province will diminish to a point where rather
00:15:39.240than increasing our, uh, economic value, we'll actually decrease with business loss because of
00:15:44.700the uncertainty. Do you, do you have a thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, I have a pretty strong
00:15:50.580opinion about that. And I know there's, there's guys like Trevor Toome out there that, and, and,
00:15:56.120um, Dwayne Bratt who, you know, the place will fall apart, everyone will run away. Uh, you'd be
00:16:01.400left with a shell of a province. I actually want to look more broadly. My view is Canada will be
00:16:09.680hit harder by us leaving than Alberta will. Both are at risk. You have to be honest about that.
00:16:16.860But I think that after the first week of anger and upset, I think, and once the hangovers are,
00:16:22.780you know, covered from, I think then the wiser heads both in Alberta and in the government of
00:16:29.940Canada will say, look, we're both going to bleed ourselves to death if we don't get this resolved
00:16:36.880in a pretty good way pretty quickly. And the governor of Canada is going to say, we have to
00:16:42.180stop the bleeding. And Alberta is actually in a stronger position because face it, we'll just
00:16:48.840stop sending money to CRA. We'll just keep it. That'll be act one, literally, of the new government
00:16:54.740to say, no more sending money to Winnipeg, keep it in some Alberta bank. So we'll have the cash.
00:17:01.460And we can, with that authority, say, businesses, we are going to have a lower tax regime. We're
00:17:08.100going to maintain business as usual. We're backstopped by the Americans, as you've heard
00:17:12.300publicly a number of times. Yeah, it's going to be a nervous time, but we'll be okay. We've got
00:17:17.420the cash to do it. Canada doesn't have that. They've lost their economic engine. They now
00:17:23.640have an orphaned province separated by a separate country of Alberta. They've got a bunch of things
00:17:29.760going against them. There's dependencies they have on us as well. Burnaby runs out of gas in four
00:17:35.360days. Line five is ours to turn off or shut off, as we will, and that services much of southern
00:17:43.580Ontario. So if people want to play stupid games, yeah, both sides can play them. So I think the
00:17:49.600wiser heads will prevail and people will sort that out and say, okay, you're leaving, we get it.
00:17:56.480Here's some things we got to have to make it work. Here's what the other party needs. Let's
00:18:01.860settle it, get a structure in place within a small number of months, and then it will be several
00:18:06.500years to disentangle. That's the way I see it untolding. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
00:18:13.740We've sort of, in discussions with other Alberta independence advocates, kind of come to similar
00:18:19.580conclusions that in as much as Alberta would be quote unquote landlocked to get its resources to
00:18:26.980the West Coast, well, similarly, it works the other way as well for BC to get Pacific goods
00:18:34.580through to the Eastern part of Canada, correct? Well, exactly. And 85% of Alberta trade is North
00:18:39.700South already over the Montana border. So we're dealing with a 15% that's different. And I looked
00:18:45.480at the interprovincial flows between Alberta and the rest of Canada. And actually, we're going to
00:18:51.900be probably publishing something on that fairly soon. But the guts of it is most of the exports
00:18:58.060from Alberta are energy, not easily replaceable. It's about half. And most of the imports from
00:19:04.220the rest of Canada are either manufactured goods, which we can buy from the US, or their goods and
00:19:09.520services like banking and consulting, which the Americans would happily provide. And I don't think
00:19:15.260it would make any sense for the rest of Canada to say, we're not going to do those things. We're
00:19:19.380going to cut you off. And they're going to cut off their nose to spite their own face. So I think
00:19:24.940they're going to, like I said, the wiser heads will wake up a week or so later and go, let's work
00:19:29.040this out. That's what I think is going to happen. And when it comes to risk, even, I think people
00:19:35.900are quick to talk about, they look at Alberta, but they don't look at the risk of Canada's
00:19:43.360trajectory. And when they're talking about Alberta, they're looking at risk in this isolated bubble
00:19:51.040where it's more comparative in the nature. So let's say Alberta sets a foundation of
00:19:57.240like an investor-friendly policies, removing bureaucratic bloat or red tape. And it doesn't
00:20:06.380need to be perfect day one. You just need to be a little bit more friendly to investors than Canada.
00:20:13.360So Canada's done everything it can to slow down projects of all kinds of sorts.
00:20:20.240And we can point to even like Kinder Morgan as an example of a certain cost that was going to be adopted by the private sector, which they wanted out.
00:21:48.820The negotiation on what share of the national debt we take.
00:21:54.420All these ones are discussions that will be very difficult.
00:21:58.480Dennis, I'll hit you with another devil's advocate question here because we see this a lot too.
00:22:03.460There is some discussion about an independent Alberta potentially having, if not no income tax for Albertans, at least a very significantly reduced income tax burden for the average Albertan.
00:22:18.900One of the common objections we hear to that as well, the numbers in the value of freedom document require or are being based on the current tax burdens being sent to the federal government.
00:22:35.140And so if that's the case, then don't those tax burdens have to stay the same just going to the provincial government, which then, you know, by default becomes the national government, and therefore the tax burden on the average all burden remains largely the same?
00:22:55.040So that's why we took the approach saying, okay, well, let's say we did exactly what you said.
00:22:59.400We'll just keep the tax rates exactly the way they are, keep collecting what is now the federal portion and putting it in the Alberta bank account.
00:23:08.160But we have that $25 billion surplus, $25 to $40 billion surplus.
00:23:13.620Well, yeah, the government can just keep it sitting in the bank if they want, but I don't think they're going to do that.
00:25:18.700I can talk to some elements of it pretty clearly, but yeah, it's something that's been drafted.
00:25:25.600Dennis, for the parts of it that you can speak to, what are maybe some of the standout things that you have liked to see that they came up with?
00:25:34.880The main thing that people really, really want to see is the accountability for government is with the voters.
00:26:37.640It can't be eroded over time by just reading a little different.
00:26:42.600And that's the kind of things really people want to see.
00:26:46.000So the other aspect they want to see is balance and that people realize there's interests of the majority. There's also regional interests. I mean, rural Alberta is not the same as Calgary. Calgary is not the same as Lethbridge, so on and so forth.
00:27:05.120So they want to have a balance between essentially the majority and the region.
00:27:32.660I mean, when you get buried in it, you know, I could probably talk for an hour just about the constitution, but it's, I'll stop there and see where you want to take this.
00:27:40.820Well, I think just as a comment on that before James asks you the next one, I think that that's been a common refrain amongst Alberta independence advocates that we've spoken to and we've interacted with over the last few months that they're very concerned that whatever constitution that an independent Alberta comes up with, they don't want it to just be a slightly modified, essentially, copy of what we have now.
00:28:07.580They want significant changes and they want to, like you said, and I think is very reassuring, enshrine some things that the Canadian Constitution, for what it's worth, simply just hasn't.
00:28:22.180Yeah, and actually there is a school of thought amongst the people working on the Constitution that we should actually just go back to the Westminster system like it was prior to Pierre Trudeau.
00:30:10.480So we look at a bunch of different options.
00:30:12.700I think the one we're going to land on is the Constitutional Republic,
00:30:15.700more like the American system than any other.
00:30:18.000And I think that's what a lot of people want,
00:30:20.740and that's likely where we're going to end up.
00:30:23.940And so this is a draft, this is a framework,
00:30:27.920And essentially, if Alberta becomes independent, then there would have to be a constitutional convention of actually deciding on these ideas.
00:30:40.860And rather than starting from zero, we're already like you've already stressed out some of these ideas.
00:30:49.000You're already kind of mapping out, seeing which ones are like make the make the most sense.
00:30:57.160And I guess this also gives somebody clarity that, let's say this releases like late spring or early summer that the APP publishes it, that gives multiple months of now these ideas out in the open to give people something to orient towards.
00:31:15.360Rather than an aimless vision, it's a, well, this is a positive vision of the future in a way.
00:31:22.320Yeah, and that's what I'm hoping APP decides to do.
00:31:25.600So the way I look at it is this would be, the document we've got now would be input into the constitutional conference. It would have the benefit of several years of work by a number of people. It would have been stress tested over the months it's been released by accepting comments and feedback.
00:31:45.080And then you get to the constitutional conference.
00:31:47.300And one of the things we also are trying to do is to start the transition planning for, okay, we win the vote.
00:31:57.600Well, one of the things you got to start doing is planning this constitutional conference.
00:32:02.540And it needs to have a combination of representations to make it work.
00:32:07.540So obviously the existing provincial government would need to be there.
00:32:10.960So some of the UCP people, indigenous people need to be there, representation from them, probably some from academia, some from business, so on and so forth.
00:32:20.700So the way I'm imagining it is it would be six or seven different groups or contingents, including maybe a group of just normal citizens almost selected at random, like a jury.
00:32:31.720and no change to the constitution could be adopted without a majority of each of those groups
00:32:39.540agreeing to it. So imagine you put a sentence up on the screen, says clause 27, and people say,
00:32:48.680take a vote on it. It's got to get a majority of each of the groups to pass. And if not,
00:32:54.540crack it open and start debating it again. And that way it ends up being a broadly based
00:32:59.320constitution, hopefully largely based upon what we were able to give to it.
00:33:03.960And then the next step after that, of course, is now you have the structure of
00:33:08.560government, you have to run an election, you have to vote them into power, and
00:33:13.340then that's when the lawmaking really starts.
00:33:15.300So it's a fairly logical process we're imagining, but it's got some complexity to it.
00:33:21.160One thing that we've, um, sort of become familiar with over the last, uh, five, six years is a concept, um, that's referred to as, uh, uh, the tyranny of the majority.
00:33:35.120And what I think, uh, speaking about Bruce Party, who we, big, big fan of Bruce, we've had him on the, on the show a couple of times.
00:33:42.520We really appreciate his mind as well. Like we tend to lean, me and James, you know, fairly libertarian in our thinking as well, sort of, you know, Mises Hayek style libertarianism.
00:33:54.600And I suppose one of Bruce's main claims, and this is where he differs with the APP's general stance, is on Indigenous rights, where he believes that an independent Alberta must start from a blank slate of not recognizing any unique individual rights based on group membership.
00:34:18.460Now, regardless of your position on that or how you want to speak to that on behalf of the organization, in an event where a group or a consortium of groups is voting on a new constitution on propositions,
00:34:37.800How would you, in your mind, how would we avoid, say, if you had, you know, 60% of the groups brought to the table wanted to abolish Indigenous, unique Indigenous, you know, continuation of treaties or things like this?
00:34:53.040How do you, have you thought about how you would approach a situation like that?
00:34:56.960Well, I understand Dr. Pardi's point of view, and it's actually, the outcome is something that he and I agree on.
00:35:07.020I think we all want to end up with a country where all are equal before the law.
00:35:16.820And people are equal and can be equally successful as well.
00:35:21.880The part where I begin to diverge is there has to be a recognition that, like it or not, we inherit those agreements that came from the 1850s or so.
00:35:36.740And we have to discharge that contract, as it were.
00:35:40.920That was an agreement that was made with them.
00:35:43.180And one of the options, of course, is we just tell them,
00:35:45.700okay, you stay with Canada, you're under the Indian Act.
00:35:48.480But I'm actually dealing with a couple of Indigenous folks
00:35:50.980and actually was talking to them to our phone call a few days ago.
00:35:57.060And they're saying, look, we get that.
00:36:01.020We don't want to have a special status anymore either,
00:36:03.700but we need to discharge that obligation.
00:36:05.860And so I suspect my personal bias would be something like, okay, what did the treaty say?
00:36:13.740The treaty said you're entitled to reserve lands.
00:36:16.580Okay, they're your lands, you know, forever, you know, and you own them.
00:36:21.980They're yours to do with as you see fit.
00:36:24.580The second thing I would see is, okay, we promised you trade goods.
00:36:28.600We promised you farm implements and so forth, a certain amount of cash in perpetuity.
00:36:33.320okay, let's figure out the net present value of that contract and say, pick a number out of the
00:36:39.560air, $20 billion. Here's a $20 billion trust fund for your nations to manage. Do what you want with
00:36:46.660it. That's the payout of the contract. Now you guys are citizens like all of us. Now you have
00:36:54.920your own land. You have equal rights to everybody and let's go forward and be successful. That's
00:38:19.240They don't get the equity in that home.
00:38:21.840They're not building generational wealth.
00:38:24.120and like any other system when the incentives align with behavior you get an outcome that's
00:38:32.600quite predictable if you do not own your own house and you have no incentive to improve it
00:38:38.080to invest in it then it'll go into disrepair you'll be given another one and so like what
00:38:46.580What does a system do to behavior? That's what I'm always curious of is when a system is structured in one way. The other thing that kind of pops up is people, you'll get different voices, some on the left saying that, well, they'll say the UCP is corrupt or this group's corrupt.
00:39:09.620Or they'll point to something and say, look at what happened in this system. It's corrupt, therefore our team needs to go in. And what I push back on is saying, if you truly believe that these corrupt people have been able to do these corrupt things in a system, what you're speaking to is you're basically admitting that the system is so fundamentally flawed that enables corruption at any level.
00:39:39.620level of government enables corruptions in the reservations with banned chiefs not having the
00:39:44.560accountability for where the money's going. It affects pretty much you have people, you have
00:39:51.480this trickle-down effect where the people under it are getting the short end of the stick.
00:39:57.340But if the system allows that, then wouldn't this be a good opportunity
00:40:01.820to revise a system, put checks and balances in place, and to make a system that's
00:41:37.620don't make the system force them into behavior that's not consistent with what they believe.
00:41:44.340So I think if we, I think this is a real opportunity for us to really rethink the
00:41:50.980relationship with Indigenous people, get them into a situation they're comfortable with and
00:41:56.820we're comfortable with, and let them live their lives successfully. That's where I see it going.
00:42:02.080needs to go um maybe maybe switching a little bit um sort of related to that last point you know
00:42:10.460there are so many uh little things like that in canadian bureaucracy that we find you know when
00:42:15.600you really look into like you can't do this you got to build to this code into that you know every
00:42:20.280little example we find of this and every uh federalist complaint about the uh the alberta
00:42:26.300independence movement seems to in and of itself kind of justify why we have to be doing this
00:42:32.060Um, in your, in your, uh, time writing this document and, and studying and researching these issues, what were maybe some of the more egregious examples that you can recall of, um, not even necessarily just, uh, uh, economically, but, but just Ottawa's encroachment into Alberta's affairs that just doesn't need to be there.
00:42:53.140Well, I, I mean, I just ended up quoting all the various C type bills, the anti-tanker ones.
00:42:58.560The one that completely blows my mind is, you know, we don't allow tankers on the West Coast, yet the Americans sail them by every day.
00:43:06.600Same water, same issues, same risks, and yet we have a law against it, but on the East Coast, it seems to be fine.
00:43:13.780You know, what happened to the baby seals on the East Coast?
00:43:16.400Are they suddenly much tougher and could take an oil spill better than they used to be able to?
00:43:20.600So I think that, I mean, I just go through the whole C-list and just see the crossover where the government is starting to impair the province's ability to act.
00:43:32.280And that's where I support Danielle saying, look, we're going to start pushing back.
00:43:36.520Another one is this stupid blanket zoning you see in cities.
00:44:18.380So, you know, I mean, it's sort of weird.
00:44:21.600So I think if we can relax those laws and, you know, people say, what would you do if you were in the government or part of the negotiating team?
00:44:33.560Probably the number one choice is to become the equivalent of Elon Musk and Doge.
00:44:38.700I would want to go through those regulations with an axe and just clean them up and get rid of, just erase them, get rid of them.
00:44:48.380So you're kind of describing that as more as there's more money flowing into the government bureaucracy and more of its handing back, essentially, it becomes a tool of whatever ideological force occupies that arm of the government.
00:45:10.380um and so if you wanted resistance against ideological capture what you do is you limit
00:45:20.860how much funnels through this apparatus yep you'd want to sever that tie so it can't be
00:45:27.540wielded by people that don't share the same views as you and it shouldn't matter if you're left or
00:45:32.840right, you should want the same thing of preventing that power from being abused against you because
00:45:41.240you can't always guarantee that the people with the exact same views as you will stay in power.
00:45:47.660No, but we can put some structures in place to make it awfully hard for an ideology to take over.
00:45:52.520So I'm going to pick a couple of them that I really like. One is term limits. I mean,
00:45:58.420One thing where Dr. Party and I agree completely is get away from the managerial state where you've got professional politicians who essentially manage the country for you frequently without us knowing what they're doing.
00:46:10.500When you put in term limits, including for senior civil servants, and say, okay, you can be a senator for eight years, one term of eight years, you're done.
00:46:20.640Well, what's that going to attract then?
00:46:24.500It's going to attract retired businessmen or successful people who say, let me give back to the country, put in my eight years as a senator or whatever office they hold, and then they're done.
00:49:40.920This was something that Mises identified, Ludwig von Mises identified in the 50s. And he talked about how in the US, like, people have this fraudulent idea that they're voting for a Democrat and against a Republican or for a Republican and against a Democrat. And really all they're voting for is a representative of a particular set of special interests.
00:50:05.200You know, the like I think the example used in one of his books is like I think it was maybe like you're voting for a member of part or a congressman in Arkansas.
00:50:15.460But really what you're voting for is like a representative of the silver lobby in Washington.
00:50:20.340You know, like it's you know, these aren't necessarily correlated things.
00:50:24.020So why should you know, why should my representative be so heavily invested and funded by these people that don't have to do with how things are being run in my writing?
00:50:32.860You know, well, so imagine we put in a system the way I imagine.
00:50:40.640So let's say there's a riding in where I live and I want to run for office.
00:50:47.260Well, why do I need a big political machine to run for office?
00:51:19.200And then you get real, I think, representative people who people know what you stand for.
00:51:27.000So just like we're talking here and, you know, I say I believe this and believe that and don't believe this, you have the same point of view.
00:51:33.820Well, people can hear that and say, yeah, I like Dennis better than I like Mike or, hey, James is the best of the three of them.
00:51:40.580And I think if we do that kind of thing, that kind of structure, I think then the need for strong political parties disappears.
00:51:48.260And it really becomes, goes back to, hey, this is a member of that community, representing that community, its interests and its objectives and trying to solve its issues.
00:52:00.600If you get back to that, I think it'll be a stronger formal government.
00:52:05.080Yeah, and having more just a series of people collaborating.
00:52:10.860collaborating. And this is maybe one thing I'm excited about for Alberta Independence is that
00:52:19.080we're seeing an origin story develop. And the more we're fought on this and the more pushback
00:52:25.500we get, we are gluing Albertans together with more of a shared purpose as well. And I think
00:52:32.900if we realize that this is not like nothing's going to be a cakewalk um there's going to be
00:52:40.720difficult questions some muddy answers there's going to be things that are going to take a lot
00:52:46.340of work um but in a sense anything good should not be it should not be easy like if it's worth
00:52:55.780doing and it's hard then yeah it doesn't matter if it's hard like if alberta independence is worth
00:53:02.000it. If this shift in governance structure is worth it, because we look at the benefit that
00:53:07.780this would have with everybody in Alberta, with our children, if we want to build a better world
00:53:13.460for our children, then it doesn't matter how difficult this is going to be. So I think
00:53:19.040if we can use this referendum, this petition, this referendum, the negotiation process as a
00:53:26.240demonstration of our ability to come together and work, that's going to set the tone for
00:53:35.220I completely agree. I mean, I'm frequently blown away by just how Albertans have stepped up to
00:53:42.680this referendum. I mean, I spoke at a number of events prior to the referendum being called,
00:53:47.640or the petition being called, and I mean, these weren't professional organizers. These were just
00:53:53.960average people saying, hey, I believe in this, what can I do to help? I mean, I'll pick my own
00:54:00.100case. I've never done anything political in my life. You're perfect for the job.
00:54:06.780Thank you. But the guts of it is, when I was talking to Jeff Rapp, that first phone call,
00:54:12.220he said, well, can you write a business plan? I said, yeah, of course. He says, well,
00:54:15.240we were having trouble finding someone who can. And I said, well, I've got a million of them.
00:54:21.240He says, well, what are you willing to do?
00:54:22.360And I thought, well, if I don't do it, who else will do it?
00:54:25.640And that's the way a lot of people think.
00:54:27.360And that's where this thing really has some strength.
00:54:30.240And I think it'll just continue after we win the referendum.
00:54:34.520And even the Constitution, you say it's not going to be easy.
00:54:38.040It's not going to be easy because we're trying to find balance that'll last for 200 years.
00:54:44.240And really trying to work that through.
00:54:46.380And I've read a lot about the American Founding Fathers and all their challenges and meetings and discussions and documents and all the stuff they went through.
00:54:55.640But they came through with something that survived 250 years.
00:54:59.840And I think we can do at least that well.
00:55:02.820The difficulty aspect, it translates to these other areas where people say, well, you need to make a border and you need to make a passport office and you need to like set up ambassadors and this and that.
00:57:17.200No, that's, my point is that when citizens see the direct connection, when their elected representative is not 4,000 kilometers away in Ottawa,
00:57:26.360where they're literally a drive down the street
00:58:20.840And then that kind of seeps down into provincial and municipal.
00:58:26.360Um, and I do feel like there's a lot of blame that goes towards federal, but if you look at what's actually under municipal and provincial, there's a lot there, but the tone is set because of the, our confederation structure of what falls under and or how things need to be structured from a provincial and municipal standpoint.
00:58:50.060I think also people will argue that maybe at least the municipal, even in small towns, some of them are starting to become a little bit more captured by certain ideas where they want to turn everything into a European city of like transit and high density and electric this and above and beyond what the actual people living there really want.
00:59:18.380And so, are there any thoughts on what kind of reforms would also translate down at the provincial and, well, municipal level?
00:59:30.960Because now, I guess we don't need like…
01:00:12.880That all operation of the city is subject to the Constitution, like anywhere else, and really transformed the cities into just the operating arm that manages the city on behalf of the country.
01:00:28.100It's a funded department in many ways, more than an actual separate political entity.
01:00:33.700That's the kind of structure that's in play right now.
01:01:11.520And something that I have been thinking about too that, and I can't recall off the top of my head if it's really ever been, if it's in the document or if it's been discussed much by the APP.
01:01:23.860Would there be a, are there any plans or has there been any discussion about what like, so assuming Alberta is an independent nation.
01:01:32.000Do we then have an idea about what smaller provinces or states within that nation might look like geographically?
01:01:43.540I think there's no provincial structure imagined.
01:01:46.980I think what it is, is a bicameral legislature.
01:01:50.660So one population-based and one region-based and probably much smaller.
01:01:56.500So imagine you might only have like 20 senators, 20 regents in the whole province, the whole country, and probably a similar number of elected legislators.
01:02:10.840So the total sitting government would certainly be under 100, probably more like under 70 or 80 maximum.
01:02:18.500And now you've got a much tighter group, and that would be the end of the structure.
01:02:24.000Now, I've discussed with one fellow about Saskatchewan, and my starting place for Saskatchewan is
01:02:31.280when they leave, we don't set them up as a separate province. We just roll it into a
01:02:36.720single country. And we just have more representatives, of course, to cover that area.
01:02:43.600But I mean, it's reduce and simplify. I mean, my corporate experience, and I mentioned to you at
01:03:19.680if you, if you don't mind. Oh yeah, go for it. This is, uh, maybe just slightly going back to
01:03:26.040the economic side of things. I am curious about your thoughts. Um, I know the general idea is
01:03:30.480that, excuse me, on a, um, on a successful referendum. And then when, when we're deciding
01:03:37.260how to deal with our, uh, money supply, I know the general idea is that we start, um, by, uh,
01:03:45.920employing a swap line in USD. In your opinion, is the ultimate long-term goal an Alberta dollar?
01:03:55.780This is actually, I guess, a three-part question. Is it an Alberta dollar in the long term?
01:04:00.940Is it a commodities-backed currency? And how long do you think that trend, if so, for those,
01:04:08.420how long do you think that transition period is between USD to an Alberta currency?
01:04:13.020So there's a plan been developed, not by me, but I'm much smarter than me.
01:04:21.720Essentially, it's a one to two year plan.
01:04:24.420So the reason why Alberta would change the U.S. dollar immediately would be because we think the Canadian dollar is going to drop like a stone.
01:05:06.860And the discussion in play was some combination of our proven reserves, our precious metals, you know, for example, gold stash, and some elements of modern cryptocurrency.
01:05:21.920And I don't know enough about that last one to support it or not, but that's the kind of concept that's there.
01:05:27.680And then you can only create more dollars, more Alberta dollars, if the value of those assets actually goes up in real terms.
01:05:34.560and uh so it should make it a very stable currency um people say well you're too small
01:05:40.880and i go we're about the same size as new zealand uh new zealand seems to have no trouble with being
01:05:46.320in a currency you know why not yeah you know so it it's this is all doable um we are i think the
01:05:55.540general consensus is not a big fan of a really fancy central bank that sets interest rates and
01:06:01.960whatever. Let that be market set. You need some sort of central authority, but that's about it.
01:06:06.440So some of this is, again, the reduce and simplify approach. Excellent. James, what do you think?
01:06:14.280Got anything else for our distinguished guest? Oh, I'm just looking forward to
01:06:21.140the constitution coming out. I'm looking forward to the discussions. I'm looking forward to
01:06:27.060how these ideas will be stress-tested in public.
01:06:32.100And yeah, we appreciate you coming on today.
01:06:35.940This sheds a lot of light on these things.