Bruce Pardy on the Myth of Eternal Treaties & Why Alberta Independence Needs a Blank Slate
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 13 minutes
Words per Minute
154.6347
Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Bruce Pardy, Executive Director of Rights Probe and a law professor at Queen's University in Toronto, to discuss the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling in the case of Alberta's independence referendum.
Transcript
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is in flux. The Supreme Court says a successful independence referendum is a repudiation
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of the existing constitutional order. Alberta is no longer part of Confederation,
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and the Canadian Constitution will not apply, except for this section of this Alberta statute.
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The Alberta statute is tying the hands of the Alberta government in negotiating, or will do if
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we get to that stage, will tie the hands of the Alberta government according to its own laws.
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I have to emphasize this. This is a self-inflicted restriction. This is not Ottawa. This is not the
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Constitution. This is not the Supreme Court. This is a made-in-Alberta problem.
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Welcome back, everyone, to The Critical Compass. My name is Mike, and this is my co-host James,
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and we are pleased to be joined again on the show by Dr. Bruce Pardy, Executive Director at
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Rights Probe and Law Professor at Queen's University in Toronto. Thank you, sir, for joining us again.
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Hi, guys. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.
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Great to have you on. Since the last time we talked, we talked primarily about Alberta independence,
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and it was sort of a budding movement. There was a lot of groundswell happening at the time,
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and we've sort of gotten a little bit more sophisticated since then. There's been some
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documents filed, there's been court action, there's been lots of things going on. So
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maybe you can catch us up with kind of the latest that's going on in the Alberta courts.
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Right. Well, so the reason that the court is involved is because of a section in the Citizen
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Initiative Act. Now, so the Alberta government, the Alberta legislature passed this statute called the
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Citizen Initiative Act. And it's a mechanism for citizens to be able to propose questions for
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referendum to the government, which is great, right? It's terrific. You give more power to the people.
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But in that statute, there are a number of requirements for being able to trigger this
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mechanism, which is fair enough. One of those requirements is Section 2-4 of the Act. And Section
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2-4 of the Act is a very strange, strange provision. It goes like this. An initiative petition proposal
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must not contravene sections 1-35.1 of the Constitution Act 1982. Now, that's strange because
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if you're proposing a question, and you're going to hold a referendum on that question,
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the asking of the question, the making of the petition, and the holding of the referendum, those
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processes are not going to violate any sections of the charter. So, sections 1-35.1, that's the charter
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and Aboriginal rights. So, the holding, the making of the proposal, and the holding of the referendum
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are not going to contravene any of those sections, okay? So, you think, oh, fine. In that case, there's
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no problem, okay? But no, that's not necessarily the conclusion. Because when courts take provisions
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and interpret them, one of the presumptions is that every provision serves a purpose. It's there for a
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reason. The legislature has put that provision in there for a reason. So, the question is,
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what does it mean? Now, the chief electoral officer under the statute is authorized to refer questions
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to the court. And so, the chief electoral officer, you know, sees the APP proposed question, sees this
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section of the statute, and says, hmm, you know, I wonder if this is okay. So, he refers that question
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to the court. And the court now has the job of figuring out what this provision means and whether
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or not the proposed question complies with it. So, what does this mean? It's not necessarily going to
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mean nothing. And that's because of the choice of the word contravene. And so, we have to figure out,
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the court is going to have to figure out, but we're trying to anticipate what the court might do
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in figuring out what this section might mean. Now, note this. The section refers to just sections 1 to
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35.1 of the Constitution Act, 1982. It does not refer to all the other sections in the Constitution.
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So, there's something that this provision does with respect to those sections that it does not
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do with the rest of the sections. Okay? Now, I want to make a basic point here. Now, we're talking
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about the charter, sections 1 to 35.1. And some people think, oh, now we're talking about whether
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or not the question is constitutional. Or, you know, whether or not it complies with the Federal
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Clarity Act. Or whether or not it complies with the Supreme Court decision about separation. None of those
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things are happening. This is a question that is contained entirely within the Alberta statute. This
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is a made-in-Alberta problem. Nothing to do with the Federal Government. Nothing to do with the Constitution.
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Nothing to do with whether Alberta can hold a referendum. It can. It can do that. No problem.
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This is an Alberta statute. And Alberta, the Alberta legislature, under the direction of the Alberta government,
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has put the section in the statute that is now an obstacle to getting the APP question approved.
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And we can go further and figure out, trying to figure out, you know, what this thing might mean. But
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that's the context of the problem. Yeah. So, the APP submits their question. It gets referred to the
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court. Correct. The Chief Electoral Officer didn't actually, there's no decision made, and they didn't make
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a judgment call on it. But they said, we want to find out if it does actually contravene sections one
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through 35. Correct. Correct. And so, the fault here, if there's any fault, is not the Chief Electoral
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Officer, and it's not the court. Because the statute is giving those two individuals the role that they
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are carrying out. Okay? This section, let's just make this explicit. This section of the act makes
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no sense. There's no reason for it to be there, and it's not clear. Okay? So, I don't know if it was a
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blunder or not. As I understand it, it was added very late in the process before the bill was approved.
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I don't know what the rationale was. I don't know why they chose that wording. It's not clear,
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and it is causing a problem. Can you go maybe just briefly what the content of that statute is
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that's causing the problem? Sure. This is the Citizen Initiative Act. So, we have,
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there are two statutes in Alberta that are relevant to referendum. Okay? This is the first one. This is
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the Citizen Initiative Act. This is the one that provides a mechanism for citizens to be able to
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propose questions to the government to hold a referendum. The Referendum Act is the statute under
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which the government will hold a referendum. Okay? And that statute has its own requirements.
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And that also has a problematic section, which perhaps we can get to as well. But those two
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statutes are different. The one applies to the citizens, the citizen's mechanism for making these
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proposals. And the other one, the Referendum Act, applies to government referendum. Okay? And so,
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right now, we're still at the early stage of having this APP question approved under the Citizen
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Initiative Act, so it can go to the government in the form of a proposal, petition, and the government
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can hold a referendum. So, I guess one of the questions is then,
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the Alberta government can just create a referendum under its own volition. Yes. And then that is
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under slightly different statutes than the Citizen Initiative Act. So, what if the Alberta government
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submitted something with the identical question as the APP's proposal? Right. Would it still run into
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this same kind of barrier? Or is the barrier slightly different because of the wording of the statutes?
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The barrier is slightly different. And you put your thumb on a very key point, which is this.
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The government of Alberta could hold an independence referendum on its own without any of this
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Citizen Initiative Act any time it wanted. So, it's great to have this Citizen Initiative Act there,
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but on the other hand, it's also a distraction. It makes it look as though this is a necessary process
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to get into a referendum. And that is not so. The government could do this on its own any time.
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It just seems to be that it does not want ownership of that process. It wants the citizens to do it
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so it doesn't have to own it. So, if and when the government of Alberta decides to hold an independence
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referendum, there is a section in the Referendum Act, which is also going to be a barrier. It's not
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the same one. It doesn't have the same wording, but I'll read that one to you. It's not as broad,
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but it is also a problem. It goes like this. This is section 8.11, subsection 3.
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Nothing in a referendum held under this act is to be construed as abrogating or derogating from the
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existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada that are recognized
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and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982. That sounds like it means the government
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of Alberta holds a referendum on anything, including independence. No result of that referendum
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can change the status of aboriginal rights in Alberta. That sort of sounds similar to what we've
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been hearing from guys like Jeff Wrath, you know, saying that, amongst other things, the treaty rights
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are not because the treaty, the current treaties are, of course, they're related to the Crown. Technically,
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an independence referendum doesn't actually involve the Crown. Is that an accurate thing to say?
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No, I don't agree with him about this. So that point is a very different proposition than the one
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I'm talking about. This that I've just read out is the Alberta statute, four corners of the Alberta
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statute. If that section was not in there, then that restriction would not apply. The Alberta government
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has had the Alberta legislature include that section in the act. If that section was not in there,
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then as far as I'm concerned, you know, an independent Alberta could do whatever it wanted.
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Like in an independent Alberta, I'm hoping that there will be no Crown. No Crown. And therefore,
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no, not necessarily any deals that the Crown made. You could start with a blank slate if that's what the,
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that's what the country wanted. This proposition that, oh, well, you can be a dependent, but you can't,
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you can't break away from these obligations created by the British Crown. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.
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So I've bounced these ideas around with a couple of different people. And I think the way that I've
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heard it described is that these treaties, essentially, if going down this path and you
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have to address these treaties, either they're going to be upheld by the federal government,
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they're going to be renegotiated by the Alberta, like by an Alberta government as it becomes,
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as independence has moved forward. Or if they just wanted to keep doing their thing,
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they would just put a fence around the reservations and that would be a pseudo state inside of Alberta,
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which is not ideal, but that's currently, that seems like how it is. If nothing moves forward,
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if no conversations move forward on the, on the treaty side of things, because there are current,
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like there's something current that needs to be either updated or upheld based on what was there,
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right? Well, so the Supreme Court of Canada in this 1988 reference case that everybody is referring to
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appropriately, says that in these negotiations that would follow a successful referendum,
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the interests of various groups, including Aboriginal groups, should in these negotiations be taken,
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this is the language that they use, should be taken into account. Now, that's very important language.
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To be taken into account does not mean that their continuation is guaranteed. To be taken into
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account means you turn your mind to them. You put them on the table and the two parties decide what's
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going to happen. So they are very much in flux, like everything else. Everything else is in flux. The
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Supreme Court says a successful referendum, independence referendum is a repudiation of the existing
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constitutional order. That's what we're after. We're after a repudiation of the existing
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constitutional order. Aboriginal rights are part of the existing constitutional order.
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And for my money, and I'm not the only one, an independent Alberta should start with a blank
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slate. And a blank slate means no charter, no Aboriginal rights, no Canadian constitution.
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You start afresh and decide how the country's going to work. And so I do not accept these arguments
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that, oh, well, you know, we can be independent, but these things must are required to continue.
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They are not required to continue. That's a choice. I mean, James, when you say that the federal
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government might uphold the treaties, well, you know, what does that have to do with it? The federal
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government can uphold them. The federal government, the Canadian government is still subject to those
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obligations because that situation does not change for them. What's happening in Alberta is a complete
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change. Alberta is no longer part of Confederation, and the Canadian constitution will not apply,
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except for this section of this Alberta statute. The Alberta statute is tying the hands of the Alberta
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government in negotiating, or will do if we get to that stage, will tie the hands of the Alberta
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government according to its own laws. I have to emphasize this. This is a self-inflicted
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restriction. This is not Ottawa. This is not the Constitution. This is not the Clarity Act.
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This is an Alberta statute saying, Alberta government, you may not derogate from these
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established constitutional rights in the Canadian constitution.
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Do, to your knowledge, do other provinces have these same provisions in their provincial statutes?
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Oh, not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge, no. I mean, I don't know the full
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canopy of statutes that are out there across the country, but not to my knowledge, no.
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So is there, in your opinion, is there any, I guess I don't know the proper legal terminology here,
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but would there be any, uh, room for interpretation in this statute to, um, say if the, if the parties agreed to,
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uh, address in some way, the existing, uh, um, treaties, like if they not necessarily held to the,
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the wording and the formulation of the existing treaties, but just as long as there was a, uh,
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legal acknowledgement and an agreement moving forward, like, is there any wiggle room in
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that or is it, does it have to be linked to a Canadian constitution?
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I'm not sure I understand the question just yet.
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So, uh, maybe to say a different way, um, if I'm understanding correctly, there's a,
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there's a provision in Alberta legislation that is, um, seemingly inextricably linking, uh,
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any further movement towards independence with a Canadian constitution that we wouldn't be
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recognizing as an independent nation. Right. Right. Yes.
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Now, is there any, uh, is there any play in the wording in your legal opinion of that statute
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so that a, a, a person could reasonably interpret it as, well, it's not saying that we have to, uh,
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proceed linked to a Canadian constitution, just that we must carry forward with the same
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obligations, rights, things like this that were present in the Canadian constitution as an
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independent country. Right. Well, so that's a very interesting question. So I'm going to read
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the section again, and you can tell me what you think. What is the answer to the question that you
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just posed? Here's the wording. Nothing in a referendum held under this act is to be construed
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as abrogating or derogating from the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples
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of Canada that are recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the constitution act 1982.
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So, well, I suppose just, just hearing it that way, and you know, maybe this is a,
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obviously a layman's interpretation. Could you not say that if, could your response not be,
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okay, uh, as part of our Alberta constitution, we adopt the exact same wording responsibilities
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rights existent in the, in the constitution of Canada now, but as only applied to the new constitution
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of Alberta and then it's done, then the link is severed. Oh, that's possible. That's quite possible.
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That, I mean, it's, it's feasible that that, that, that action would comply with that section.
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That's quite possible. But, but the question that follows, the question that follows that is,
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um, so that, that question is now being decided for you. It's already being, it's all effectively
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already been decided. But so, so what the statute is saying is to all, all, all the Albertans who
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might vote in this referendum, sorry, you are not allowed to express an opinion about whether
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aboriginal rights as they presently exist are going to continue in Alberta. They are.
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Right. Right. Right. So we're, uh, here, here's one question. Um, and maybe this is more of a,
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the timeline of it. Um, does that exclude any part of the negotiations from reframing those questions?
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Because the referendum itself is one thing, the negotiations, that's another, that's down the line.
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That's downstream from negotiation. So it depends on, this is where like looking at the whole process
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versus these little, these isolated slices. I feel like sometimes it's hard to know how much,
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how much the tone is set from one stage to the next and how much is brought over. Um, but essentially
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I'm wondering, as long as let's say, if it's just the APP's question, um, do you agree that Alberta
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should become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada? Yep. Um, nothing there actually,
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again, says anything specifically about breaking treaties. Right. That, that question is still
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left over. So it's not, it's not actually in violation of that yet because that's left to the
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negotiations. Right. Um, so is it, is it actually hamstringing that, that referendum to the degree that
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like, well, well, let's just, let's just play this out though. I get, I get your question and it is
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logical and it is one of the arguments that the APP is making in the court process to say, look,
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the posing of the question is not contravening the charter or Aboriginal rights. That's not possible.
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So everything is fine. And so let's say, let's say the question is approved on that basis. And then you
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have a referendum held by the government and an independence referendum. And let's say they use
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the same question. And, and that question also doesn't contravene the section of the referendum
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act that I just read out. Cause it's just nothing about Aboriginal rights. So you have the question
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approved, you hold the referendum, the referendum passes, you get into negotiations. And let's say at
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that stage, Alberta says, right, we're going to wipe out the charter, start again with something else.
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We're going to remove Aboriginal rights, start again with something else. And, and people turn
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around and say, but hold on, the question was approved on the basis that you couldn't contravene
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the charter and Aboriginal rights. And the referendum proceeded on the basis that you, nothing, nothing
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that we were voting on could abrogate from Aboriginal rights. Right? So what you've done now is you've
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undermined the legitimacy of your negotiating position. Right? If you just ignore those two sections and say,
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well, this is not the stage where that's relevant. It's not possible at the stage of proposing a
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question to, to, to, to contravene the charter. And it's not possible at the stage of holding a
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referendum to derogate from Aboriginal rights. Well, therefore the, the, these sections don't mean
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anything and sections mean something, right? The court is not likely to say, ah, don't worry about it.
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The section doesn't mean anything. Let's just carry on. Okay. The court is going to look for
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what is the section supposed to be doing? And, and so one, so one of the, one of the possibilities is
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that the section is supposed to be restricting the question to amend, you know, it's all back a step.
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This citizen initiative act lists three different kinds of proposals, policy proposals, legislative
00:24:10.640
proposals and constitutional proposals. Okay. So if you're doing a constitutional proposal, which is
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what the AP question is doing, you are proposing to amend the constitution. And that's the question
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that you're asking, whether it's full blown independence or whether you're, you know, suggesting
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to amend some other, you know, small piece of it. What does the section mean? What's it, what is it
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trying to do? What was its purpose? And one of the possible answers is it's trying to restrict
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questions that propose to amend those parts of the constitution. You can amend any part of the
00:24:50.880
constitution you want, but not those, right? Those are non-negotiable. In other words,
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you can propose to amend the division of powers between the province and the federal government
00:25:02.320
because that's in section 91 and 92, but you can't propose to do away with free speech
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and you can't propose to do it with Aboriginal rights because those are listed in the section.
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That's one of the most likely conclusions that the court is going to come to because the section's
00:25:18.320
got to mean something. Would, would you, um, I don't know if you would know off the top of your head,
00:25:26.160
like what, what the process might be for amending the referendum act in itself to modify or remove that
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clause. Not in, not in a way of saying, no, now you can, you can remove Aboriginal rights, but rather you just,
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you unlink the requirements to be, you just unlink the requirements. You know what I'm asking?
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This is exactly the case I'm trying to make that the Alberta government, number one,
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those two provisions shouldn't be there. And number two, to get around them,
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the Alberta government needs to repeal them. Those sections, not the statutes, just those sections.
00:26:07.520
Right. Do they have the power to do that without? Of course they do. Easily, easily,
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because they have a majority in the legislature. They can do it fairly easily because they just
00:26:17.920
did that by putting the amendments into the statute in the first place. Right. So this is a real
00:26:25.280
inflection point, if you like, or a test. They can get rid of those sections. If they choose not to,
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it's because they don't want to. Okay. So, and sorry, James, I'm sort of stacking questions,
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but I'm on a, I'm on a thing here. I'm on a, I'm on a train. I got to go with this. Um,
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is it, would it be fair to say that if you were maybe in the mind of Danielle Smith, you would be
00:26:51.440
looking at it in a, in a context of, well, uh, we're going to lose more. We're going to lose the,
00:26:58.880
the public argument. We're going to lose the support of the public if we are seen to be
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amending this because it's going to be twisted into a anti indigenous argument. And so what they're
00:27:10.400
hoping is let's just do the referendum. Let's hopefully get that passed. And then we can figure
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out constitutionally how we have to figure out this subsection. I, that could well be,
00:27:22.240
I would not be surprised if that was part of the reasoning at all, but, but they're setting
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themselves up for a problem, right? So let's say, let's say, you know, you hold the referendum and
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the referendum passes and you're now thinking of negotiations with the federal government.
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And the Supreme court has said, this is a political negotiation rather than a, you know,
00:27:42.000
strictly legal one, but you're at the table and at the table, you say, right, well, you know,
00:27:47.760
we're going to do away with Aboriginal rights. Okay. What's the response going to be? It's like,
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hold on your own law says that that will not be one of the results of the referendum.
00:28:00.880
So our position is that you are obliged to carry on the regime that exists in the Canadian constitution.
00:28:07.920
Right. I mean, and that's a good response. Like how come now you can,
00:28:13.680
you can change the goalposts that you set up yourself. We did not impose these goalposts on you.
00:28:19.280
You did it yourself. You held a referendum. You are now endangering the legitimacy of your own question
00:28:27.200
because you have, you're now proposing essentially to, to breach your own statute.
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And once you're on, once you're there, it's going to be very, I mean, if you're scared
00:28:39.840
of repealing the section now, why would it be any different when you got to the negotiating table
00:28:47.840
and you have to say out loud, we are going to end Aboriginal rights. Okay. That's that,
00:28:55.680
that sounds very unlikely to me. In other words, the question about Aboriginal rights, I think,
00:29:00.880
I think needs to be confronted now. Hmm. So it does seem like it is a game of chess
00:29:10.480
where each one of these moves, there's, there's no like simple, oh, we just do this one move and
00:29:18.480
everything works out. There's like, it's muddy along the way. Things are going to be contested.
00:29:25.280
Um, we're going to have disagreements and there's different interpretations as well. And so the,
00:29:33.120
this is also the stress test of, if you're going to build a nation, you have to go through these
00:29:38.880
growing pains. This is part of the process. If it was easy, then everyone would do it.
00:29:46.000
And these, you know, and these could be quite minor in the scheme of things. You know,
00:29:50.080
we haven't even gotten to the stage of the, of those interests that oppose the whole project of
00:29:55.360
being, you know, in the game yet. This is the irony about this, this court process and so on.
00:29:59.920
As I said earlier, this is all self-inflicted. This is all made in Alberta. The federal government's
00:30:06.400
not even involved yet. There haven't been any objections to the process yet from, from that quarter.
00:30:15.760
So, um, I've two, two points. I, I, it does sound like the, from kind of what I've heard from the APP,
00:30:26.320
it almost seems like the way that they would phrase it or they would propose or frame the situation is
00:30:33.200
that, um, if anything was to change with treaty rights within Alberta, they would say they can
00:30:42.400
be upheld with your existing cause they are currently existing within Canada. And again,
00:30:50.880
let's listen, let's, we've both, we've all seen the brief that the APP has submitted to,
00:30:58.480
you know, with respect to the court hearing, let's just read what they say on this question. Okay.
00:31:05.360
Okay. This is a section, uh, paragraph 143, 144. Should Alberta lawfully pursue independence in the future,
00:31:18.960
the obligations arising from these treaties, that is Aboriginal treaties would continue to exist
00:31:26.400
under both domestic and international law. Just as Britain imposed binding obligations on Canada,
00:31:36.240
Canada in turn can impose such obligations on Alberta in favor of Indigenous peoples.
00:31:45.360
These obligations are tied to the crown itself, not the provincial government, and are not diminished
00:31:54.560
by constitutional or political change under the Constitution of Canada. Accordingly,
00:32:00.000
treaty rights will remain their full legal status, whether held by Canada or a future independent
00:32:11.120
Alberta. That is the APP position, according to its brief.
00:32:17.040
So that makes me, that's, that's the key thing is if they're not upheld by, there, there is the part of
00:32:27.520
Canada imposing, but it's, does that mean that they're upheld by Canada or the Alberta government? So could there
00:32:35.920
be a situation where you say like, if you want your reservations to be up, like these treaty rights in
00:32:45.360
these reservations to be upheld, would that just be facilitated by the, by Canada federal government?
00:32:51.680
And, and, and you draw out, like you have a fence around the reservation and it exists as that pseudo state. Like, this is where some of this language is like, well,
00:33:00.720
it again, it's possible, right? I mean, it's not practical, but it's possible. It's theoretically
00:33:10.000
possible, right? So let's just say that's, that's where they get to. So, you know, the reserves, reserve
00:33:17.600
land is going to continue to be Canadian territory. And the people who are on that territory are going to
00:33:23.760
continue to be Canadian citizens. And it's going to be a, you know, pieces of little pieces of land
00:33:28.720
inside the territory of Alberta, and there's going to be border borders and border checks at the entrance
00:33:35.920
to every reserve, because those people don't belong to the same country. You have passport checks. I
00:33:41.520
mean, that, sure. You're not saying it's ideal. No, no, it's not ideal. Some of these things.
00:33:46.480
It's very unlikely. And so, but the, but the alternative that's being cited there is that the, that Alberta
00:33:55.600
is required to take on the obligations that the Canadian crown holds. Okay. Don't agree.
00:34:06.800
It makes it sound actually even like, I don't know, maybe I wasn't, you need to get deeper. I need to get
00:34:12.800
deeper into the wording, but it makes it sound almost like that even the, even the, the bands that are
00:34:19.600
subject to those or that are the subject of those treaties, it makes it sound like even they don't
00:34:24.240
necessarily have the, the power to amend them. I don't know. I don't know about that. Yeah.
00:34:34.400
But you would think that they would have the ultimate authority on it, or, you know, that's
00:34:38.080
how, at least how it's being presented that they, this is why it would be an issue in the first place,
00:34:42.800
but. Right. But, but so, but I think it's important to, to articulate why, from the point of view of
00:34:50.160
those of us who think that this has to end, why that is so. It's because people should not be
00:34:59.200
treated by the law as members of groups. They should be treated as individuals. And so,
00:35:04.640
as long as we are thinking of people as members of groups, that is, you know, this group can negotiate
00:35:09.840
with this group. And if they negotiate together that this is going to be the resolution, well,
00:35:14.320
then, okay, no, that is embracing the problem. The problem is treating people as members of groups.
00:35:22.640
The fact of the matter is that if you are in a country, a free country ruled by the rule of law,
00:35:29.200
then the law applies equally to everybody. And we don't count genes or lineage or ancestors or
00:35:34.640
histories or group belongings. We are all people. And this group negotiation thing is
00:35:43.280
not appropriate. Yeah. It's a non-starter, at least from, from,
00:35:47.920
from a first principle standpoint anyway. Yes. Um, but I would, I guess I would ask, um,
00:35:54.800
you know, there are like, we can see, you know, in any, any neutral objective observer can see
00:36:01.520
that the treaties do not actually provide much of value to a modern day indigenous person on a
00:36:07.600
reservation. In fact, they may actually act as an, an, an, an impediment, uh, to their flourishing.
00:36:13.920
Yeah. Now for the, and, and a lot of, uh, indigenous people would agree with that.
00:36:18.960
Yes. Uh, but for the, for the, maybe the, the band leaders or the, the chiefs or, or people in the
00:36:26.160
reservations who do seem to have some sort of, uh, remaining, uh, loyalty or allegiance to Canada
00:36:33.840
in general, what would your sales, what would your elevator pitch be to somebody like that to sell them
00:36:39.760
on an independent Alberta? But you see, but you've put your finger right on it. That's exactly the
00:36:44.800
situation that there is going to be a constituency of Aboriginal people whose interests are consistent
00:36:51.920
with the status quo because, and, and of course it varies from community to community, but, but, but
00:37:01.360
there, there, there, there is a community of Aboriginal elites that control because this is a communal
00:37:07.040
thing and because the money comes in, you know, communally, the people who control the, the, the
00:37:13.840
territory and the money are in positions of power. And I don't know if there's a pitch you can make to
00:37:19.680
persuade them that they ought to give that up. I'm not sure that would work, but that's not the point.
00:37:24.080
The point is, is, is it the most important point is the first point you made, which is,
00:37:28.400
this is not in the interest of the, of the ordinary rank and file apparitional person.
00:37:34.000
Yeah. They'd be much better off to, to, to escape this bad situation that's bad for all of us,
00:37:40.160
except those individuals that happened to profit from it.
00:37:43.200
That's going to be a constant threat. It's going to come up in different forms, this battle. Well,
00:37:53.040
as soon as you have entrenched interests in any part of a system, um, there's almost a immune system
00:37:59.840
that you are, you're fighting against in different ways. Let it be unions popping up and unions doing
00:38:06.400
what unions do. And I'm still waiting for the union to protect people against the union.
00:38:15.360
James, you're a hundred percent right. But this is what I mean when I say,
00:38:21.200
Alberta needs to escape the Canada that is outside Alberta, but it also needs to purge the Canada that
00:38:26.320
is inside Alberta. You know, the Canadian systems that exist inside Alberta are systems of vested
00:38:31.680
interests. And this is going to be the hardest fight. I mean, you think your major fight is going
00:38:36.960
to be with Ottawa and that's not going to be easy, but the main, but the most difficult fight is going
00:38:41.920
to be inside Alberta between Albertans, between those who want a fresh start and those who want to
00:38:47.520
maintain their status in the old order. And part of that is convincing, convincing people
00:38:55.120
that are, they, they view the system in a current way. And some of those are still moderates. They still
00:39:02.160
have trust in some of these systems. And a lot of the Alberta independent supporters view those,
00:39:09.200
um, those systems or the unions or the, any of these on any level, they, they seek to reform that
00:39:15.760
or seek to build it from the ground up to prevent corruption. And I, I've had conversations with friends
00:39:25.360
and family that they look at one area and they think that there's corruption and they think like,
00:39:30.880
well, yeah, we can't trust these people because they're corrupt. And then you ask them, well,
00:39:36.640
what enables that corruption? What's preventing anybody else from any, wearing any other colored
00:39:42.240
shirt from being corrupt in that same position. And just because that person wears a different colored
00:39:48.080
shirt than you votes a different way, like you're against them in this form, but you're not like,
00:39:54.000
what would it be different if the tables were like, if, if everything was flipped and we, we talk
00:40:02.160
like my, Mike and I, we, we were talking right after the Alberta next panel, when you had NDP hecklers
00:40:09.520
and you had everybody upset over that. And nobody seemed to be voting for increasing Alberta sovereignty.
00:40:15.600
And I can kind of understand that because right now there are liberals in power at a federal level
00:40:23.920
and these evil conservatives, the UCP, that they can direct all their anger towards on a provincial
00:40:29.760
level. But I was really curious on would they have the same position at a principal level if the
00:40:37.600
conservatives were in for the last 10 years at a federal level and you had NDP with a
00:40:44.560
five or 10 year rule in Alberta currently, would they now think that more, um, more autonomy,
00:40:53.360
more sovereignty at a provincial level is a good thing?
00:40:56.640
So is this, do they care about those principles or they, is it more that they're fighting against
00:41:03.120
those that they perceive bad? And if that's the case, you still have to frame it in the way of,
00:41:10.800
well, rather than just directing it towards this group, bad, that group, bad, can we look at what
00:41:18.160
system enables these groups to become corrupt and have these kind of, uh, have these negative effects
00:41:25.680
of that group being in power? Cause you, you, you don't want your enemies to have the power of that.
00:41:31.520
Sure. It feels great when your, your guys are in power and they can pass something and shift things
00:41:36.800
for your benefit. But if somebody else gets in now you're screwed and, and this is what we need to
00:41:44.400
Exactly. It's exactly right. It's a very, it's a good way to articulate the test about whether your
00:41:49.280
system works to protect you. If you, if you, if your system is in place and you assume that the people
00:41:57.040
who occupy the powerful positions are your opponents and the thing still works,
00:42:03.760
then you got something. If not, it doesn't work yet.
00:42:09.040
Are you, uh, uh, Bruce, are you familiar with the, uh, gel man amnesia effect? You heard this
00:42:16.560
term? I don't, I don't think so. It's, uh, it's named after a physicist named Murray gel man,
00:42:21.840
gel hyphen man. It was coined by Michael Crichton. Oh yeah. Michael Crichton. And he says, um,
00:42:27.600
he says, uh, it's, it's the gel man amnesia effect. And he says, it's, um, you read a newspaper
00:42:33.120
article about a topic that you happen to be familiar with. You have to, oh yes, I've heard
00:42:37.280
of this. Carry on, carry on. Yes. Go on. Yeah. And so, and so you read it and you see that,
00:42:42.000
you know, not only has the author completely gotten it wrong, they don't have the actual,
00:42:45.920
any knowledge on the subject, but they're so ill informed on it. They've actually reversed cause and
00:42:50.480
effect. Right. And then you read that and you, and you, you, you acknowledge that and you turn
00:42:55.600
the page and then you read an article on Israel, Palestine, and you assume that author knows exactly
00:43:00.080
what they're talking about. That's right. You, you, you immediately forget the lesson you just
00:43:04.080
learned. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And that seems to be like, like James was pointing out, uh,
00:43:08.480
a, a very serious problem that we're going to have to overcome. Right. I agree. Yeah. Well,
00:43:14.400
maybe we can, uh, uh, transfer that into another serious problem that we're going to have to
00:43:19.920
overcome in the form of, uh, Thomas Lukasik. Right. And, uh, he, uh, he maybe somewhat
00:43:27.120
ironically just had his, uh, his own, uh, referendum question approved, which he's now
00:43:33.440
saying wasn't really a referendum question, but, um, it appears that, uh, maybe legally it
00:43:39.200
have to be considered a referendum question. Do you have, um, maybe any insight, any opinion on,
00:43:44.400
on, on the forever Canada, uh, contingent? Yeah, right. Well, this is also, you know,
00:43:53.760
strange stuff, but if I understand correctly, that proposal was framed as a policy proposal,
00:44:00.400
even though it sounds like the reverse of the APP independence question, it was framed as a policy
00:44:08.240
proposal for a referendum. And so what policy is it then? Well, the, the policy of the policy of
00:44:16.720
like not doing anything, like just leave things where they are. Right. Right. But of course,
00:44:21.600
if you held that referendum and the answer turns out to be, no, we do not want to stay in Canada.
00:44:28.400
Well, then the question is, well, what are the implications of that? Does that serve
00:44:32.000
as an independence referendum in the same way that the other question would serve if the answer was
00:44:40.080
yes? And right. But so, but this, but the, but this, this sort of question and controversy
00:44:47.120
underlines where we started, which is the Alberta government can hold an independence referendum
00:44:55.040
anytime it wants. And it can choose the question as it wishes, right? It doesn't have to fool around
00:45:00.640
with this. It doesn't have to say, oh, well, we have this, you know, stay question. We're going to,
00:45:05.680
we're going to use that, uh, you know, to hold a referendum. And then maybe we're going to hold,
00:45:10.080
you know, use that, like, you don't, you don't have to play this game. You can choose to do it
00:45:15.040
yourself with a proper question. And that's why I'm a, I'm a little bit cynical about, about all this
00:45:21.680
playing around with that. It seems like maybe it's not actually, well,
00:45:27.440
the forever Canada was meant to, and it's been stated like in public, they've mentioned that
00:45:36.160
it is meant to combat the APP's question. It's meant to be a deterrent because they want,
00:45:42.720
they want to stay in Canada and that's the purpose. So it's already a, not a good faith
00:45:49.840
exploration. It's not a good faith use of a petition, but they did mark it down that they want
00:45:55.680
a referendum and then they walked that back. So on the petition, it's marked with that. So,
00:46:01.280
again, not a genuine, if they're able to change their mind on there, but what it almost seems like
00:46:07.920
is that the UCP might just look at that and like, okay, well, they collected signatures. We, that was
00:46:15.120
meant for referendum. And then we have this other group, we have large interests on both sides. We're
00:46:20.080
going to frame, we're going to create a question that is clear in alignment with the 1998 Supreme
00:46:26.400
Court ruling. And here's our question to satisfy both, both parties and we'll, we'll sort it out,
00:46:32.880
let the people decide and whatever answer is. Sure. The result is the result.
00:46:38.480
But back, but back to this main point though. So if the government chose to go ahead and hold a
00:46:45.600
referendum, which it is entitled to do, it doesn't matter how many signatures you get,
00:46:51.600
you don't have to do a petition. You don't have to do this. You don't have to do any of this.
00:46:57.280
These, the number of signatures and the mechanism in the Citizen Initiative Act is only there for the
00:47:04.000
purpose of establishing a mechanism for a citizen to lay a proposal before the government.
00:47:09.200
If the government wants to do this, it can just do it. No signatures required. There's the government.
00:47:18.160
They can hold a referendum. One more thought on the petition though.
00:47:21.920
Uh, sorry to interrupt. Is that a interest gauging mechanism potentially? Like,
00:47:28.480
well, sure. But it's other than like, yeah, other than the Alberta next panels, but those are
00:47:34.320
snapshots. Well, sure. But that's the rationale for the, for the signatures required under the act.
00:47:39.440
Yeah. If there is a large enough movement, um, you should be able to get the signatures and that,
00:47:46.640
that is a proxy for the democratic will needed for. Okay. But so, but the, but the, probably the
00:47:55.840
rationale in the act for requiring signatures is so that the government doesn't get, you know,
00:48:01.200
hundreds and are thousands of proposals coming in for referendum question. You have to show that
00:48:06.640
there's at least a degree of interest in the question before you're allowed to access this
00:48:11.200
mechanism. Right. But, but the government still can do what it wants. It, and surely it has the
00:48:17.520
wherewithal to gauge the, the, the interest and support for this kind of a question for a referendum.
00:48:25.280
I mean, what, what is sort of happening is that the, the government is, I don't know,
00:48:31.440
seems to be pretending to hide behind this citizen initiative act process to say, oh, well, you know,
00:48:37.120
these two things are on the go. Well, let's see what happens. Let's see if these get the right
00:48:41.440
signatures and maybe, you know, maybe one of them will, will come to us and we'll, maybe we'll have
00:48:45.600
to use it as a, you don't need any of that. If you don't want it, you can just go and hold your
00:48:52.640
own referendum under the referendum act. Now, uh, forgive me if this is a silly question, but,
00:48:58.720
uh, presumably even if, uh, even if the provincial government just decided to, to call their own
00:49:05.760
referendum with no citizen initiative act involved, they would still be, if it were a, if it were a
00:49:12.560
past referendum, let's say for Alberta sovereignty, uh, they would still be hamstrung by section 8.11,
00:49:19.600
correct? 8.11. Yes. Correct. They would be. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. That's why it needs to be
00:49:26.720
repealed. Okay. This is a way around it from a, you know, if you avoid the citizen referendum
00:49:32.480
and it's called by the government, then you can bypass or there's nothing like that.
00:49:35.760
No, this is a section, um, designed by the Alberta government passed by the Alberta legislature to tie
00:49:44.800
the hands of the Alberta government. Yeah. Right. Why are you doing that?
00:49:54.400
This was written in the eighties. You said originally that this subsection. Oh, no, no,
00:49:58.160
I don't actually, I don't know. I don't know when it was written. The, the, the section two,
00:50:02.000
four section two, four of the citizen initiative act was, was put in, in, in the most recent, uh,
00:50:07.520
allotment, apparently very late in the process. I actually haven't looked at when the,
00:50:12.320
that the referendum act, uh, section was, was put in place. I was assuming it was fairly recent,
00:50:16.800
but I don't know. Hmm. Yeah. It seems like, um, part of this is that the UCP didn't run
00:50:27.200
exclusively as an independence party. So that that's a little bit different than maybe you, some of the,
00:50:32.960
the, some of like how Quebec's political landscape evolved, they have more outspoken independence.
00:50:45.520
And so maybe you don't get this kind of tight rope walking in the same sense that Alberta,
00:50:53.040
the UCP is doing right now. And I can see, again, you have in, you have self-interest and you have
00:51:04.800
And I, I feel like this is almost the, uh, maybe a good analogy is like, um,
00:51:14.800
it's like women will often choose the guy who's already made it in life in the way like, oh, he's
00:51:21.760
got all this money. He's done great. Like when they know for sure it's, it's like a solid deal.
00:51:27.360
And they're like, yeah, you put in all this hard work and like, look at where he's at now.
00:51:31.360
Now you want to know where the parade is going before you get to the front of it.
00:51:36.480
Yeah. So I, uh, it's not surprising that they would type rope or they would walk this type rope,
00:51:43.280
but still like the Alberta next panels kind of still feed into it. It's also still kind of gauging
00:51:50.720
the temperature. It could also still be used. I've wondered if the Alberta government, because all this
00:51:58.560
again gets down to politics and the image and you've got to maintain, like you're fighting against,
00:52:05.520
uh, messaging and narratives and all this. And I, I feel like the Alberta next panel could be used
00:52:13.120
as another justification and or evidence in conjunction with, um, maybe they're waiting,
00:52:20.720
uh, with these demands that they sent to Ottawa saying, okay, we gave some clear demands of things that,
00:52:26.800
that Ottawa can do. And they didn't do those things.
00:52:30.400
And then we had these Alberta next panels and here, here's the result that we got from those.
00:52:36.320
And they're all tell like we have the recordings, we have them, we have multiple pieces of evidence.
00:52:42.640
Now we're going to proceed with this. So I don't know if they were just trying to
00:52:49.280
like, maybe they're just trying to keep Alberta in Canada, or maybe it's a, uh, it's more strategic
00:52:58.640
in the sense that they want to be careful before over, like before jumping ahead.
00:53:03.360
Well, you said Bruce, you said last time we talked, like, I remember asking you, you know, what your,
00:53:10.960
what your general read on Danielle Smith was, if you kind of got the vibe that she would,
00:53:15.360
this would be something that she was interested in. And I think you kind of without saying it
00:53:19.200
explicitly, you sort of, you thought that she was, she was more complex than maybe she's letting on.
00:53:27.280
I can't, I think so. I can't really tell, but I think that would be consistent with what James
00:53:32.880
just described. I think that's quite accurate. It's a, it's a trying to gauge, you know,
00:53:41.200
where the solid ground is without showing your hand. Um, you know, maybe it's 3d chess, but I,
00:53:50.240
you know, I, I, I'm not sure about that. I, my perception from afar is that she's surrounded by
00:53:59.440
people who have very different views on this. And there's probably a lot of battles going on
00:54:04.400
behind the scenes. I just to guess on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised. Um, but, but a lot of the
00:54:10.800
activity really is a distraction. I mean, these Alberta next stuff. So you, you know, you send a letter to,
00:54:18.960
to prime minister Carney, you say, here are your nine things that we need to see.
00:54:23.680
Those things don't happen. You do Alberta next panels that talk about, you know,
00:54:28.240
provincial police and provincial pension plans and so on, all of which are already within provincial
00:54:33.600
jurisdiction and you can do it now if you want to. So that's not about independence.
00:54:40.240
And I've heard that there, you know, there might be conceivably a referendum,
00:54:44.880
a government referendum put forward on these various, you know, related Alberta next issues.
00:54:50.800
Okay. And we all know that is not an independence referendum that does not comply with the clarity
00:54:55.920
act or the Supreme court reference. So, you know, all of that, if, if all, if all of that comes to be,
00:55:02.080
if all of that is true, you know, that is avoiding the independence question.
00:55:11.840
Yeah. As like a, um, sort of a bandaid sort of solution. Like, look, we, we couldn't go all
00:55:16.560
the way, but here you got this, you got the APP, you got the provincial police. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:22.080
Yeah. You got, you got Ottawa off your back a little bit.
00:55:24.560
Yeah. Consolation prize. And, and actually you haven't really,
00:55:26.800
you haven't really gotten Ottawa off your back at all. All you've done is take back those things,
00:55:31.600
which you were always able to do anyway. Yeah. I wonder if there's, there's an aspect of it where
00:55:37.040
it's, um, uh, maybe a bit educational as well as like, uh, you know, uh, a temperature check,
00:55:42.880
it's maybe more of an educational piece to have like, Hey, listen, you know, this is,
00:55:46.480
we're not inventing this, like this concept of, you know, we actually do have this within our
00:55:50.640
jurisdiction. Just the, the political literacy of the average Albertan and the average Canadian
00:55:55.600
is so low that we need to put these things in the public consciousness before we can even begin to
00:56:00.720
have a new conversation about it. I don't disagree. That makes sense. But here's the way you could do
00:56:06.960
that. You could be clear about it and say a provincial police force is within our jurisdiction.
00:56:14.320
We just haven't done it until now. Should we do it now? Like, okay, that's clear as a bell.
00:56:19.280
I can't. No, no fussing around. Let's not pretend there's a boogeyman out there in Ottawa
00:56:24.320
preventing us from, you know, insisting upon our provincial jurisdiction. Nobody is doing that.
00:56:30.240
Nobody is saying, even people in Ottawa is saying, Oh no, Alberta, you're not allowed to do that.
00:56:35.520
That's not happening. Okay. This is a boogeyman. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a false opponent.
00:56:41.440
They've got coupled together with other Ottawa problems because there are some things that are
00:56:46.480
Oh, listen, don't get blocked from Ottawa, but including it in the next Alberta next panel
00:56:54.480
kind of shifts it to in the same territory is like, this is an Alberta problem that we have to fix.
00:57:00.240
So I don't know if this is the calculation and don't get me wrong. There are some huge,
00:57:05.680
real problems emanating from Ottawa. No, no question about that. But by mixing them in,
00:57:12.320
in an unclear way, I mean, maybe the calculation is, well, you know, we can, we can end up here with,
00:57:20.160
you know, a decision to do our own police force and to do our own pension plan. And it will look like
00:57:26.480
we've had two victories. Okay. Those are not victories. Yeah. You are always able to do that.
00:57:33.440
No one is saying otherwise. And your real problems are, have not budged one bit.
00:57:42.320
Um, would it be your, okay. So maybe, maybe to put it in a nutshell here. So it, are you,
00:57:53.360
are you saying that before we even start to really consider like laying the groundwork for when the
00:58:00.480
referendum is going to happen? Is it your opinion that the, the, uh, uh, Alberta government needs to
00:58:06.640
essentially just sit down, suck it up and say, we are repealing these sections that are standing in
00:58:14.080
our way, you know, we'll take the, the public backlash as necessary and deal with it so that
00:58:20.400
we can proceed with a clean referendum and have, and not have this hanging off our backs. Yes.
00:58:25.760
There's no reason the likelihood of that is no reason not likelihood. Well, I, you, you might be
00:58:34.400
right politically, but this is, this is one of the litmus tests along the way, right? You have these two
00:58:39.520
sections, one in each act that are simply obstacles to, to a clear question. They're, they're a complication
00:58:48.160
you don't need. Well, why have them in there? It's a litmus test. If the government, the Alberta
00:58:53.040
government is not willing to get rid of these two sections, that, that is telling you something.
00:59:00.720
So in a couple of weeks, uh, depends when this episode actually full episode gets out. So, uh,
00:59:07.760
maybe a week from now, but when the, the APP's submission gets reviewed and the court's going to
00:59:14.880
make a decision, um, I almost see that there's like three possible ways it could go. They could say that,
00:59:22.080
okay, your question is unconstitutional and you cannot proceed. Well, not, not unconstitutional though.
00:59:27.280
No, not unconstitutional. It's invalid based on, yeah, sorry. Right. It would be,
00:59:33.920
yeah, it would contravene therefore be invalid. So they might say your question's invalid.
00:59:38.560
Let's say it would be, it would be inconsistent with that section of the statute.
00:59:42.160
Yeah. Okay. Um, or they might say everything's good. Your, your arguments were solid and you,
00:59:51.680
you clearly laid it out and we did the, yeah, we, we did the double check. Right. Or there could be
00:59:57.040
somewhere in the middle where they say you can proceed, but with these constraints. Right.
01:00:01.520
And until we see what of those that, what kind of results we get, um, we're not quite sure yet.
01:00:09.760
Uh, like that might also give us a little prediction of the answer on this would also give
01:00:16.960
us an idea of the section. What is it? 811? 8.11. Yeah. 8.11 as well. Uh, if the Alberta government
01:00:27.680
submits something partially, this is down to interpretation. And if they're leaning in that
01:00:33.600
way on the interpretation, it's possible, but, but keep in mind though, that the section two,
01:00:41.120
four in the citizens initiative act is, is, is much less clear than the section in the referendum
01:00:48.720
act 8, 8.11 that, that section in 8.11 is, is actually pretty explicit.
01:00:55.040
Yeah. So yeah, the, I guess then moving forward again, with it being a chess match and you've got
01:01:10.000
all these moving pieces, we have one component, which is just getting the, getting the democratic
01:01:16.560
will. So just having these conversations, uh, spreading the word, getting people thinking
01:01:22.480
about these things partially because, um, even I, I try to balance out optimism with pessimism because
01:01:31.360
yes, these kind of roadblocks when identified. Yeah. Almost paint the case for the need for
01:01:38.400
independence. Yeah. On the way of you're like, you're, you're seeing these entrenched bureaucracy
01:01:44.720
fight this in real time. And you're like, okay, well we need to fix this. Right. And the more it pushes
01:01:50.640
back, the more you're seeing, it will help convince people as well. So I think it's good that we're
01:01:56.320
having these conversations. Um, the, uh, gotta balance out the black pills because they're,
01:02:05.200
I know sometimes these hurdles come up and people, uh, when people are burnt out from COVID they're
01:02:11.120
burnt out from the election and they see these things as a very much defeatist. Um, and I, I know you
01:02:16.640
treat these things kind of more through an academic, you're, you're looking at first principles and
01:02:21.120
you're saying like, given this, that, and these other principles, how might this interfere? I did
01:02:27.920
see you got a little bit of pushback with your article. Um, but that was right when the like APP
01:02:34.480
was still working on their submission and, um, there's still some unknowns. So it's,
01:02:41.600
and of course, you know, it's, it's actually very difficult to predict what a court is going to do.
01:02:49.920
So nobody, including me knows exactly what's going to transpire. Um, and, and the job that the APP
01:02:57.920
has been given in this court process is, is unnecessary and unfair. I mean, this, this, as I said,
01:03:05.520
this section shouldn't exist. And to try to argue about, you know, why it doesn't mean this and it
01:03:11.120
means this instead is given the wording is very difficult for them to do. So, uh, I mean, I hope
01:03:17.280
it goes well. I, I, I would, I would like to see a different result than I expect.
01:03:22.960
That's what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask what you're, uh,
01:03:26.240
like what you're, if you had to make a prediction, well, I was going to ask you two things.
01:03:30.320
I was going to say, cause I kind of think I know the answer, what your prediction is
01:03:34.560
for how this, uh, what the court is going to say. And then a follow-up question, uh, to maybe
01:03:42.160
just to be respectful of your time. Cause we've had you for over an hour now,
01:03:45.120
what would be some, uh, parting thoughts of positivity for the movement that you can
01:03:51.680
inject into this otherwise very, uh, academic and maybe a little bit bummer of a conversation?
01:03:56.240
Oh, sorry. What was the first part of the question? Well, what you're, what you anticipate
01:04:03.360
the court's response to be, and then, and then follow up of what, what the hopeful response would
01:04:08.960
be. Right. Okay. So, so the, the amicus brief in the hearing, which I would, which I've read,
01:04:15.680
I mean, and the, and the individuals who are the friends of the court
01:04:19.440
have a much different perspective on independence than, than, than, than we do, than I do.
01:04:23.360
I disagree with them about the desirability of independence completely, but their legal
01:04:30.160
argument that the way they set it out in the brief does make some logical legal sense.
01:04:35.840
They're making the case that, that this section actually does prevent
01:04:45.440
the proposing of questions that would have the result of doing away with the charter and
01:04:50.800
Aboriginal rights, probably because it's very difficult to think of anything else it can mean.
01:04:58.400
And so that's, that's, that's a possibility. It's a good possibility.
01:05:02.880
The other possibility is, uh, James, as I think you said earlier, is that, that the court will say,
01:05:09.200
well, okay, it can go ahead, but it has certain strings attached, which is that the results of the
01:05:15.120
referendum, if it comes to pass, cannot result in getting rid of the charter or Aboriginal rights.
01:05:22.480
And the third possibility, again, James, as you mentioned, is that the court will just say,
01:05:26.320
you know, listen, don't worry about it, go ahead. But that would require the court to, to conclude
01:05:31.040
essentially that the, that the section doesn't mean anything. Yeah. And, and I don't, it's possible,
01:05:37.760
possible, anything is possible, but I don't think that's likely.
01:05:41.760
But maybe not mean anything. Maybe they clarify what contravenes in what context, like potential
01:05:52.000
versus actual, like, could you, could you imagine a question that would directly contravene at that
01:05:58.960
moment versus the potential? Because then you, again, you're fighting this thing of if, if this
01:06:05.600
contravenes, then why didn't the forever Canada contravene with the potential of the no answer,
01:06:11.920
right? Having downstream effects. Possibly, but let's, but let's play this game differently.
01:06:17.120
Okay. Let's put it this way. Can either of you think of a question
01:06:26.000
that would contravene section two, four in a way that the APP proposed question does not?
01:06:40.080
No, no. Like I could, I could maybe try to like frame a very, like a very deliberate.
01:06:45.840
But, but, but you can be as outrageous as you want because we're dealing with hypotheticals.
01:06:50.800
We're trying to imagine the kind of thing that the court might be inclined to conclude that that
01:06:55.200
was the, you know, that the section is designed to prevent, right? So we put it, put it generically
01:07:00.800
this way. You know, section two, four was designed to prevent the outrageously, uh, unconstitutional
01:07:07.600
proposal going forward that, that does, that does X. Okay. What is X?
01:07:12.080
That Alberta can only be, uh, you can only live in Alberta if your family lineage goes back four
01:07:23.600
Okay. Okay. But good. In, in this sense, that's a good example of a question that would be outrageous.
01:07:31.120
But if that's a constitutional proposal, then what it means is that it would be proposing
01:07:38.480
an amendment to the constitution that would allow that result. So for example, that, you know,
01:07:44.720
one of the sections that would have to amend or repeal is section 15, one, you know, equal application
01:07:51.440
of the law. Okay. If that is ruled to be in violation of section two, four,
01:08:01.120
then so is the APP question because the question that you've identified proposing to, you know,
01:08:09.680
generations is proposing an amendment to the constitution. That's all, that's all it's doing.
01:08:15.200
It's a question. The, the posing of the question doesn't, doesn't contravene the charter. It is the
01:08:21.760
making of the question that is the target of the section. Well, that's right. And then if, if the,
01:08:27.760
if the result is that the court sets a precedence, that it's, uh, it's invalid to propose a question
01:08:34.400
that can modify the constitution, then well then, but then you just can't ever, you can't ever do
01:08:42.080
anything. No, no, not true. Not true. Not true. Because this section, section two, four refers only
01:08:50.960
to the charter and aboriginal rights. If you want to make a constitutional proposal about any other
01:08:56.320
aspect of the constitution, you're free to do. That's fair game. Right. Oh, okay. Okay. So I,
01:09:05.200
Mike, we have to, we might have to like on our own, uh, dive into some of the history. I'm curious on like
01:09:12.000
what role either special interests, like as these things unfold and if something's added in late in
01:09:21.040
the process, they're like, well, we were consulting with this and this group and they, they wanted to
01:09:26.960
be recognized and they wanted this and you get these things added in. Sometimes it's an appeasement.
01:09:32.880
And then sometimes it's just also written in again, just to prevent something from actually
01:09:41.760
invoking change. So you have it sounding like you have power on the outside and then you go
01:09:46.160
down to the weeds and there are things that can be weaponized to prevent a specific result,
01:09:54.480
open to interpretation. And it's hard to know when that interpretation will be,
01:09:59.280
when it will go one way. So. So if I can put labels on those alternatives,
01:10:04.800
James, you're, you're, you're saying that the section could be an appeasement.
01:10:10.560
It could be a blunder or it could be a poison pill. And we don't know which of those things it is.
01:10:18.000
Sure. Be good to know. Wouldn't it? Yeah. Well, I guess we'll, uh, we might get a little
01:10:23.440
bit more information in the next, uh, yeah, let's do some digging into that. But Dr. Pardee,
01:10:28.400
I have to say you didn't answer at all. The second part of my question of leaving
01:10:32.240
us with some positivity to the end of the, remind me, remind me what the part two was.
01:10:38.320
Well, just give us a, give us a little bit of hope here, man. Like what's the,
01:10:42.400
what are we, what do we have to look forward to?
01:10:45.680
Well, what is, but isn't there a UCP general meeting soon?
01:10:51.680
I'm, I'm, I'm hoping that enough Albertans who are seized with these concerns will have
01:10:59.760
the wherewithal to say, look, we are your people. We want a referendum. We want one on independence.
01:11:06.000
You know, I, you know, get with us. We, we want you to lead us, please lead us. And the first thing
01:11:12.560
you have to do is get rid of these two sections. There's no reason not to, if you get enough people
01:11:17.040
who say that, then, then maybe you'll, you'll get a good result.
01:11:21.600
Well, currently 3,500 confirmed coming to the AGM. And I think it's larger than last year.
01:11:32.400
And then, yeah, we'll, we'll have to dive into what things are, are being voted on or like what board,
01:11:39.360
board seats are up and what things that can be like, if you support independence,
01:11:46.240
what things at the AGM do we have that, uh, that control over that, that influence. Um,
01:11:55.040
so yeah, it'll be an, an interesting, it'll be an interesting one because it's a different tone
01:12:01.120
set from last year. Okay. Here, here, here's, here's your good news. Here's the good perspective.
01:12:07.200
Remember, this is happening nowhere else in the country. Okay. No matter the obstacles,
01:12:15.520
this is still the best shot anywhere. It's the best shot for Alberta is the best shot for Canada.
01:12:21.360
It's the best shot for all of us. And these are the, these kinds of difficulties are going to come
01:12:26.240
up and they're going to be more. That's okay because it comes with the territory. This is just,
01:12:34.080
That's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect message. I think to, to wrap her up on here,
01:12:39.360
Dr. Party, uh, was there, I, I, I've been trying to ask this now at the end of interviews,
01:12:45.200
was there anything that we didn't ask you or didn't talk about that you wish we would have?
01:12:49.200
Dr. Well, sure. But you don't, you don't have another hour, dude.
01:12:54.080
Dr. Well, I don't think you have another hour, but we certainly have, uh, another, uh, uh, you're,
01:12:59.920
you're always welcome on the show. We, we really, really appreciate this. Um, you're, uh, you're a
01:13:04.960
really important voice in this movement. Um, and, uh, and yeah, you're like James said, you know,
01:13:10.800
you're the way that you approach this from an academic and first principle standpoint is so,
01:13:15.440
so valuable in a, uh, discussion that can be so emotionally charged. Uh, it's very,
01:13:20.560
very important to have voices like yours. So we really appreciate it. Um, where can, uh,
01:13:25.440
our viewers, uh, if they want to learn more about you or, or see what you're up to, what can they,
01:13:28.960
where can they go? Right. Great. Thank you for the question. Um, the rights probe site is
01:13:34.560
rightsprobe.org. All our material is, is there. I also have my own, uh, sub stack. They can sign
01:13:40.000
up for free and they can follow me on Twitter or I guess X at a party Bruce.
01:13:45.680
Perfect. Thank you very much for having me guys. Appreciate it. Yeah. Great to have you on.