The Critical Compass Podcast - Eva Chipiuk： Alberta Has Grown Up & We Don't Need Ottawa's Curfews and Timeouts

00:00:00.000 Hi guys, Mike from the Critical Compass here. We have the pleasure of sitting down with Eva

00:00:06.920 Cipiak, friend of the channel, longtime supporter, both of each other. And so thank you for that.

00:00:14.120 Leading into the last two weeks before the referendum, we wanted to ask you a couple

00:00:18.680 questions, your opinion on how you're feeling, how you think the rhetoric is now in the province

00:00:24.720 in your in your experience and then maybe a couple um you know a couple words of encouragement maybe

00:00:30.160 a couple words to to quell any any fears that you still see um floating around so so maybe we'll

00:00:36.560 start with just kind of how you're feeling with what the situation is 14 days out yeah well the

00:00:41.760 rhetoric is embarrassing um it's unfortunate how the conversation has gone but in some ways i'm not

00:00:53.200 sure if i almost fault citizens for it because this and i don't know whether it was intentional

00:01:00.240 or not but this really seems to have been a partisan kind of referendum and debate and

00:01:08.720 debacle now and that's what it looks like it's turned into so i was so excited about a referendum

00:01:16.000 and citizen engagement obviously because that's like all i preach about um and then to see how

00:01:22.560 it's been manipulated and just like i feel like it's gone wild the conversation instead of

00:01:31.200 focusing on the issues it's just attacks i guess not that surprising because we've been living

00:01:37.680 with that for a while. Just childish rhetoric instead of adult conversations. And that's

00:01:45.560 disappointing. Again, I don't know whether I fault the citizens at this point because I don't

00:01:52.360 see a lot of leaders, those in positions of power and influence, modeling the respectful

00:02:00.320 conversations, inviting conversations, having democratic debates. Yesterday, for example,

00:02:08.380 there was that discussion that CBC was the host with Jason Kenney, Keith Wilson, and Marie Gordon.

00:02:19.280 And that was initiated by the Students' Union, is my understanding. It wasn't the CBC. It wasn't

00:02:26.520 And the government of Alberta or the government of Canada, for that matter, no established media was like, oh, this would be a really good idea.

00:02:35.740 Let's have a debate. A student union said we should have a discussion like they teach us in school and talk about these ideas.

00:02:46.140 So it's just incredibly disappointing to see the way this conversation around a referendum went.

00:02:55.380 I noted right when the nine original questions came out, I didn't particularly think it was the best questions, specifically when something starts with assuming that or that language.

00:03:11.720 It needs to be clearer.

00:03:13.120 So in the end, maybe the questions themselves have impacted and that was a deliberate decision by somebody.

00:03:21.420 And then now we've seen what the result has been.

00:03:24.720 And I would expect in the end now, it seems like most people are either confused or divided or uncertain about the whole point of it all.

00:03:36.360 So that's unfortunate.

00:03:38.780 it. What do you make of the several million dollar investment that the province has made in,

00:03:47.340 they won't call it anti-independence advertising, but pro United Canada advertising? Because we're

00:03:54.780 seeing the commercials and the advertisements. Some people are saying that they're putting their

00:04:01.900 thumb on the scale. Some people say that it's technically they're a provincial party and a

00:04:08.380 federal system so it is their obligation to act as that and not to promote the independent side

00:04:15.100 but what's your take on that yeah a hundred percent new like neutrality but it should be 0.71

00:04:19.900 across the board from all elected officials i find it embarrassing kind of pathetic that any of them

00:04:25.420 are advocating for their position good for you you're in a position of power you get the microphone 0.75

00:04:29.900 all the time this is one opportunity for the citizens to speak so maybe it's one time you

00:04:35.020 you could zip it. You're literally in a position of power. You have your platform. We don't need

00:04:41.340 to hear from you all the time. And this goes back to what I hear all the time. I always try to

00:04:45.660 encourage elected officials to talk with people, with citizens instead of at them. And this to me

00:04:52.020 is just another example of talking at me. I don't want to be talked at. I want to be talked with.

00:04:57.740 i want to be heard from and to me it's just a mistake on the part of the ucp i think they had

00:05:06.540 to do it as a result of everybody else doing it but then like i think you could enact something

00:05:12.780 or like elections alberta laws i think can be limited to disclosing how much you're paying

00:05:21.180 every every citizen has to do it so why aren't elected parties under the same rules like we have

00:05:28.460 to have these rules for everyone or it doesn't even like what's the point then what's the point

00:05:34.620 if we're going to restrict people from fundraising and what they can say or how they can say it in

00:05:40.060 another group of people doesn't have those restrictions at all so yeah it's all i think

00:05:46.540 I think it's just all been a bit of a mess in the end.

00:05:50.420 RAOUL PAL, Your personal Twitter or your ex account, I should say, rather, is just

00:05:58.720 an absolute goldmine of positive and real talk and encouragement to citizens to participate

00:06:10.480 in the political process.

00:06:13.780 What would you say leading up to this referendum for people who are on the pro-independent

00:06:19.840 side?

00:06:21.120 Do you have any words of advice or do you have any encouragement or what would you say

00:06:26.460 to somebody who is either already pro-independence or thinking that they might lean that way,

00:06:32.280 but they maybe need a little bit further of a push?

00:06:35.140 Yeah, I think that a lot of, like there's just been so many analogies and things like

00:06:41.700 The two that make the most sense to me is that a lot of people have come out, obviously, with the pride of Canada and we need to preserve that.

00:06:55.320 But that's not the Canada we remember.

00:06:57.420 So I think what I see people on the independent side are doing, they're actually trying to preserve those values and those beliefs that we had growing up with a safe country, safe streets, affordable houses, clean streets, hospitals that you could get into.

00:07:20.200 all those things that we're clinging to but literally if our eyes are open and you look

00:07:26.200 around are not in front of us so that's one thing that i would hope the message would come out a

00:07:34.120 little bit more again there's just so much noise everywhere that that's getting lost and then the

00:07:39.960 other thing how i view alberta independence and this conversation is let's say you're in a family

00:07:48.040 and that analogy comes up all the time and we have to stick together that's what families do

00:07:52.120 but also kids grow up and canada is a young country it's had a bit of you know hurdles and

00:08:03.720 and we've been figuring things out and alberta is different obviously and i think it's grown up

00:08:11.560 and growing up is not necessarily a bad change it's reality it's evolution it's that's what

00:08:22.660 happens when you're a kid you have your parents help you out when you're young then you go to

00:08:31.360 university you might still rely on your parents stay in their house or you might just go cold and

00:08:38.140 and not rely on them, but ultimately you grow up.

00:08:43.240 And I think that's Alberta right now. 0.65

00:08:45.940 Alberta doesn't want to have the curfews from Ottawa.

00:08:52.660 It doesn't want to have the timeouts from Ottawa.

00:08:58.000 And it's to me such a similar analogy

00:09:01.540 where Alberta is just in a position right now

00:09:04.420 that it's like, okay, I think I kind of get this,

00:09:09.160 like what's going on.

00:09:10.360 I think I can figure out how to take care of now my family

00:09:16.140 and my siblings better.

00:09:17.700 And it was something I did hear a little bit earlier today

00:09:21.140 is at least, I think Canada ultimately

00:09:25.480 could even be better off.

00:09:27.600 If Alberta becomes successful on its own,

00:09:31.480 The conversation is always that's going to hurt the rest of Canada, possibly temporarily, but maybe it also pushes other provinces to be stronger, to be more entrepreneurial, to be less reliant on the government and push people to be more self-sustained.

00:09:53.780 so I don't know why it's always this doom and gloom scenario like we've never lived through

00:10:00.540 anything hard and maybe that's exactly it because Canada really hasn't lived through anything hard

00:10:05.800 and particularly I find it offensive when I hear literally elected officials that are governing

00:10:14.360 every day day to day dealing with foreign governments and all this stuff it would be

00:10:21.140 just so hard it would be so hard to have an independent Alberta I'm like perhaps you're not

00:10:27.700 meant to do this job then if it's so hard for you to govern literally that's your job that you

00:10:35.580 ran for that you put up your hand and want to do so this would just be another like structure

00:10:42.540 institution country but still you're still governing so I just find that a very strange

00:10:50.920 conversation that we've been seeing and to hear it from elected officials i'm just like

00:10:55.360 just stop do something else then if this is too difficult for you i don't know yeah something

00:11:02.240 being difficult isn't an argument against doing it yeah especially if that's your job yeah yeah

00:11:07.060 some people might say it's an argument for for doing it because good things are are often

00:11:11.220 difficult to achieve last question before i let you go uh a few months ago in february at the big

00:11:17.200 before here in Calgary, you did a speech on what,

00:11:22.940 and it's, I don't know if you knew this,

00:11:24.820 it's the highest performing video on our channel.

00:11:27.600 So thank you for that.

00:11:30.900 About what would happen the day after a successful referendum

00:11:34.440 for independence, what that would look like.

00:11:38.220 Of course, it's not exactly what we're voting on

00:11:39.980 in this referendum, but I'd like to ask you the opposite.

00:11:44.980 for people who are for independence,

00:11:47.480 very proactively independence for Alberta,

00:11:51.160 what is the day after an unsuccessful referendum

00:11:54.520 look like for us?

00:11:56.020 Okay.

00:11:57.400 Well, I spoke about this earlier today.

00:12:01.020 I turn you to the person's case in 1927.

00:12:05.440 So five Alberta women challenged the law at the time

00:12:10.240 that said women were not persons available 0.98

00:12:13.600 appointment to the senate they lost at the supreme court they didn't stop they didn't back down

00:12:19.920 they continued to organize and they fought they had to go outside of canada to england

00:12:26.000 that's where the highest court of appeal in canada was at the time and they were successful

00:12:30.800 then and now as we know women are eligible for the senate so it gives me two areas that are very

00:12:39.280 relevant to this conversation one is why would you give up if you believe in something

00:12:44.880 clearly things do change like what a person means according to the law in 1927 and also

00:12:55.040 how the institutions were different at the time the supreme court of canada

00:12:58.640 was not the supreme court of canada it is today the the highest court of canada was in england

00:13:03.840 so things changed since then and things can change now again going back to the last question

00:13:11.680 what are we fearing when we're trying to develop when we're growing up when we're evolving these

00:13:19.260 aren't things to fear these are things to embrace learn from like to me I just find it incredibly

00:13:24.680 exciting like let's see what we can accomplish let's see what we can achieve if it's possible

00:13:32.180 or not but not start with fear mongering and saying it just can happen or shut up we don't

00:13:38.340 want to hear with you hear from you is just the worst and that's what we're getting at this point

00:13:44.820 Eva Cipiak thank you for your time thank you for being a voice of reason

00:13:48.500 and a chaotic time and uh we'll uh we'll look forward to casting our vote for you

00:13:54.500 for the first president of the Republic of Alberta.

The Critical Compass Podcast - October 13, 2026

Eva Chipiuk： Alberta Has Grown Up & We Don't Need Ottawa's Curfews and Timeouts

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