The Critical Compass Podcast - Insider Status Update on the Alberta Independence Movement feat. Martyupnorth

00:00:00.000 Alberta in 2025 is not the Alberta that I grew up in not even close like it's so if I wish we could

00:00:08.480 have done this in 1990 but like I'm worried that the demographics that there literally is a million

00:00:14.300 people that have only been here for two three years like that's that's a fact right like it's

00:00:19.060 a huge percent of our population has only been here a very short time and for them like if you

00:00:24.420 came here from India or God knows where else as far as you're concerned man life is good it's

00:00:29.840 actually surprising how many people I encounter in my day-to-day life to go you guys are worried

00:00:36.300 about nothing man life is good I'm like wow okay so that worries me like you know that and then well

00:00:42.620 that's by design he can just by design right yeah yeah totally totally totally and Carney can say a

00:00:47.880 whole bunch of things without ever having to act on it like he could say he can promise the end of

00:00:53.100 the world for the next 18 months which I think he's kind of doing and then you know and not just Carney

00:00:59.320 I mean I'm deep in that separatist movement the attacks online are vicious vicious vicious

00:01:05.780 vicious like then and we haven't seen anything yet I mean if this really starts to get momentum

00:01:10.520 the other side will mobilize against us from all places from everywhere that's a huge thing that's a

00:01:16.140 huge thing Marty and it's something that we've noticed in I mean take any you know any conservative

00:01:22.160 or libertarian talking point over the last you know decade if there's one thing that's universal it's

00:01:27.780 that when when a leftist gets it in their head that they need to oppose something they will find a

00:01:34.500 way to organize a thousand people overnight to your 100 people that are committed activists for the other

00:01:40.780 and welcome back to another episode of the critical compass I'm James this is Mike and we've got our special guest Marty Boulanger also known as Marty up north here today and

00:01:47.780 today we're going to be talking about a few different things let it be Marty's recent cvc

00:01:54.780 introduction to the critical compass and we're going to be talking about a few different things let it be

00:01:57.780 and welcome back to another episode of the critical compass I'm James this is Mike and we've got our special guest Marty Boulanger also known as Marty up north here today and today we're going to be talking about a few different things let it be

00:02:13.780 Marty's recent cvc interview that never really materialized and we will be unpacking a bit of the advancements in the Alberta independence movements so Marty how how have you been it's been a busy month for you

00:02:31.780 Marty Boulanger yeah actually I've been good I'm I'm uh you know I was a little depressed after the last time we talked I think was right after the election so you know the outcome of the election wasn't what I wanted for it a little bit down

00:02:44.780 but I got past that but right now I'm 100% refreshed I just come back from like a four-day five-day hike so that for me just re-energized so if I'm a little hyper right now that's why

00:02:55.280 you're full of all that mountain air yeah yeah it does actually I'm full of mountain air but I am also a little bit hurting it's a really fascinating thing right when you do these long um uh if you don't mind I'll talk about it for a few seconds I mean like when

00:03:11.540 yeah the hikes I do are pretty yeah the hikes I do are pretty long right so this this hike was like

00:03:16.480 four nights five days and it's you know it's 80 kilometers and and there's definitely a survival mode

00:03:24.260 aspect to it I'm pretty far from my car at some point I mean at some point I'm 40 kilometers from my

00:03:29.160 car and I'm solo so the body knows it and the body's hurting and the mind won't won't let the body hurt

00:03:35.940 like I don't feel any pain it's really cool I could be on day three and and by day three four five I'm

00:03:41.640 actually physically hurting my body but the body but the brain refuses to acknowledge that and you wake up in

00:03:48.960 the morning and you feel good and you keep on going the day after I get back and I sleep in my soft

00:03:55.360 mattress or the day the next day afterwards when I wake up it's like the body it's like the brain finally

00:04:00.300 says okay now you're gonna feel all that pain and all that hurt that I was blocking here it is and so

00:04:06.560 like I'm okay now but yesterday holy smokes I was sore and then the other thing that's really fascinating

00:04:12.660 is is our bodies how they respond to missing certain nutrients because I'm calorie deficient

00:04:18.580 when I'm out there there's no way of sands or butts I mean I'm burning three four thousand calories a

00:04:23.080 day and I can't transport that on my back so I'm deficient and when I get back I don't fight the

00:04:28.460 cravings like yesterday I opened the fridge it's like oh milk and like like my body's like literally

00:04:33.240 saying milk grab the milk and I'm my wife's sitting there looking at me going like what are you doing 0.99

00:04:37.360 I'm drinking milk she's like yeah you just down the gallon I'm like yeah well my body's telling me

00:04:43.000 I need milk so yeah yeah it's really fun it's your vitamin d experience had a vitamin d deficiency or

00:04:50.600 something maybe have you ever I don't know if it's a vitamin d or if it's just the bones themselves and

00:04:55.800 all the micro fissures in my bones and the body's going like you better plug those real quick get some

00:05:00.900 calcium yeah have you have you tried the pemmican route the because you can get basically a day's

00:05:08.320 worth of calories in a pound oh pemmican yeah pemmican and uh you know what I've never made pemmican

00:05:15.480 I don't even think I've ever had it like you're talking real pemmican like uh he's in a make I've 1.00

00:05:20.700 made it before and he makes it he makes it for his long road trips because he's psycho like that but

00:05:25.240 yeah there's times where I'm traveling where I'm just uh I'm like if I just want to have a bunch of

00:05:30.680 meat on me that's good and dried and yeah like it's it's not the most delicious if you like beef

00:05:37.620 well next time we're meeting in person I want some of your pemmican yeah no I mean I you know when I'm 1.00

00:05:41.860 out there on those trails I'm following in the footsteps of David Thompson I've read a lot of the

00:05:45.920 books the history of David Thompson and those those uh trappers and whatnot pemmican was a mainstay 0.83

00:05:52.700 they used to carry it I think it was uh 50 kilogram blocks like giant blocks were made in Manitoba and then

00:05:58.820 they they would cut off a piece of about a pound in the morning soak it in water their days started

00:06:03.920 like four in the morning and start paddling while their pemmican was soaking and then yeah yeah

00:06:09.520 fascinating there's also ways of making soup out of it like they would use it as a concentrated

00:06:15.640 like soup stock and then add in a couple fresh ingredients and then there's plenty of fat plenty

00:06:21.440 plenty of protein and you've got yourself a meal just out of that you know what just weird that we

00:06:26.800 would talk about this because uh so pemmican I think is made with what saskatoon berries generally

00:06:32.360 was that the traditional way of making it um I I think it's yes it's traditional saskatoon berries

00:06:38.700 but you could make it with um um um moose berries and um and right now I read a story the other day

00:06:48.720 like the you know the g7s coming to canada nascis and they're worried about bears and they went and killed 0.96

00:06:53.600 all these plants where that that the bears feed on I'm like oh what are you guys doing yeah what are

00:06:58.440 you guys doing like you know like that's that's so insane so insane yeah just leave it to the 0.96

00:07:04.020 bureaucrats to come up with the dumbest solution to the non-problems that they think are like it's 1.00

00:07:09.100 yeah yeah perfect segue so so you you okay you left that you you were recovering and you jumped 0.86

00:07:19.260 head first into some interviews that's been your week yes actually you recover yeah

00:07:24.640 yeah yeah I guess while I was gone so what happened uh was it Tuesday that there was a minister's

00:07:31.640 meeting here in it was here in Alberta right the big minister's meeting uh or first minister's meeting

00:07:37.600 all the p all the no premiers all the premiers met with carny and then taught the topic the hot topic

00:07:42.500 was pipelines or what did they do they they showed they showed up with their wish list right for

00:07:47.000 carny something like that I think that sounds right yeah they're talking pipelines and Daniel's

00:07:52.500 sitting they put her right on the edge like right on the side like they couldn't even put her like 1.00

00:07:57.860 somewhere in the middle just like you you think uh you'd be more of a you know why they do that I

00:08:03.780 I don't know if I believe it or not but there's a there's a you know it's called precedent right

00:08:08.360 there's an order of how people sit around all tables and so when premiers are meeting together

00:08:13.860 it's not based on seniority like who's been in power the longest or the size of their economy it's

00:08:19.200 in it's based on when the premiers when the provinces joined confederation so Saskatchewan

00:08:24.820 and Alberta joined in 1905 and then uh Newfoundland in 49 I think so then they're always sitting

00:08:31.560 farthest away yeah good observation but that's what the yeah anyway so they even if it's based in that

00:08:38.760 meeting yeah yeah go ahead it's it's it's nonsensical it's it's yeah like it's it's still

00:08:48.560 disrespectful in a way right like so it is what's fundamentally flawed with our country it's like you

00:08:54.700 actually we're going to talk about that I mean you know I I'm I'm a separatist and and because I

00:09:00.180 think we'll never Alberta will never get a fair deal and then you have it right there on display like

00:09:05.000 hey you're Alberta you joined last and so you sit at the end of the table it doesn't matter that we're

00:09:09.480 an economic powerhouse you sit over there like it's there's there's it's not it's not based on

00:09:15.980 fairness it's based on these archaic um traditions and rules so and we're always going to be anyways

00:09:23.620 we're we're digressing or we'll come back to that but um when you jumped into the bellybees you sat down

00:09:29.000 with or like you had a interview with CBC like they called me first of all they they call me I'm

00:09:35.520 I'm just getting home kind of thing recovering I got this message and I called them and they said like

00:09:39.740 you know they I've been on CBC before and I have a background in oil and gas I worked on several big

00:09:45.480 pipelines so they wanted me in studio they wanted to talk to me and I'm like okay sounds interesting

00:09:50.460 where do you want me they said can you make it to the studio so they had me drive to

00:09:55.020 you know just the outside almost downtown Calgary and be in studio for an interview

00:10:00.680 um with a guy and and I thought it was gonna be live on the air but basically they were recording me

00:10:09.320 and recording my disc my dialogue with him uh the famous uh uh journalist from Montreal a guy named

00:10:17.400 Patrice Roy and I knew that the audience was going to be Quebec and and the questions were so I went in

00:10:24.560 and the questions were the questions were leading they were they were they were they had a narrative

00:10:30.040 and but I did my best to answer the questions you know like the questions were were typical like um

00:10:36.040 you know does it make sense shouldn't does it make sense to build pipelines isn't peak oil right around

00:10:41.160 the corner so I'm like I'm I got a great answer for that I'm like no peak oil is like you know you

00:10:46.400 guys have been saying that for the last 40 years as far as I'm concerned we're consuming 100 million

00:10:50.860 barrels of oil a day and it's been climbing since 1970 and I don't see peak oil until blah blah okay

00:10:57.360 well then does it make sense with climate change and I'm like okay well let's talk climate change

00:11:02.320 um you know I'm an engineer and I'm also I just finished doing a hike so uh and my my my life's

00:11:10.400 work has been to uh reconcile the fact that all human activity has an impact on the environment which

00:11:15.680 I love but I'm trying as an engineer I recognize that all human activity will have an impact and

00:11:22.360 and and it's my job to minimize those impact I said and building a pipeline is no different than

00:11:27.580 building a power line or building a hydroelectric dam or whatever I mean I can play their game all

00:11:31.780 day long so I just so the interview was about 20 minutes back and forth and and then and then the

00:11:39.380 producer on air said hey you did a great job uh and and I was alone in my studio and the other

00:11:45.300 party was in Montreal right and and then uh somebody when I opened the door whoever uh got me settled

00:11:52.760 in they were there but then when I opened the door when the interview was done there was actually other

00:11:56.820 people there uh one other guy from Calgary's like holy shit Marty's on the air kind of thing and he

00:12:01.960 came to talk to me and he's like the same thing I heard you you did a great job and I was all pumped

00:12:06.160 up man all pumped up and then uh 24 hours later I saw the documentary that they made from

00:12:13.440 from from on pipelines and I had you know uh whatever uh uh 18 second snippet in there

00:12:22.380 and and then and then they had all these other experts from not even from Canada like their

00:12:28.440 number one expert that was most quoted in the article was a guy from Europe saying that uh there's

00:12:34.360 an overabundance of pipelines or an overabundance of hydrocarbon and people has been hit blah blah blah

00:12:39.760 blah blah blah so somebody who agreed with all their questions was uh was featured what a joke

00:12:47.020 what how long did you say the interview was was for that you were actually recording

00:12:50.480 uh 20 minutes of recording like uh lots of lots of good questions you know be like it in fact like to

00:12:59.640 me it literally felt like I didn't know this I I thought okay we're on air right now like you know

00:13:04.220 I'm talking back and forth right and but no we weren't on air and and then and then the producer

00:13:09.500 who called me who convinced me to go down to the studio I reached out to her like yesterday I'm like

00:13:15.420 you know where's the footage what happened blah blah uh radio silence radio silence which

00:13:22.460 no and and it it is classic but I I want to step back just one thing um that was CBC Montreal CBC Quebec right

00:13:33.660 which weirdly the night of the election maybe you got I don't know if you guys remember this or saw it

00:13:40.280 but the night of the federal election on April 29th in the days the whole six hours before the election

00:13:47.660 and during the election I actually had a crew of three people from CBC in my house so they called me

00:13:54.920 same thing they called me in advance CBC Montreal that that one was in French right I speak French so

00:14:00.800 they they called me and they and and they reached out they're like we'd like to interview you because

00:14:04.920 you're a separatist and we want your reaction on the night of the election and I literally told those

00:14:09.860 guys you know on whatever April 27th I'm like you're out of your mind I'm like you're gonna come to

00:14:14.680 Alberta and record me for like 10 minutes to do a documentary of some sort and and they're like

00:14:21.300 don't worry we've got lots of government money spending that's exactly what they said don't worry

00:14:26.720 about it we got lots of government money and that's part of our mandate and at that time I'm like oh

00:14:30.740 okay so you guys are playing this mandate now like you're gonna you're gonna do a couple of feel good

00:14:35.920 Alberta stories because you know you don't you're you don't want to get uh defunded too quickly

00:14:41.360 but but those guys came over and they were open-minded I toured them through like the beef footage we got

00:14:48.920 I took them through the oil field nearby and we talked then the next morning uh they said you know

00:14:54.400 do you have fellow uh people that you can invite I'm like yeah I reached out on Twitter anyways

00:14:59.240 that documentary was three minutes and 40 seconds and I I texted those guys going thank you thank you

00:15:07.580 thank you thank you like you actually did a proper uh a proper documentary on what it's like to be an

00:15:15.980 Alberta separatist living in the country and so um so you you know you can't paint everybody with the

00:15:22.680 same brush the guys from this week were were definitely on a on an agenda had an agenda and

00:15:29.940 I didn't fit their agenda that's one thing I've noticed with um we were even going to some of those

00:15:35.560 like uh parental rights uh the million arts for kids protests and I was following closely some of the

00:15:42.600 CBC coverage and the local CBC like the smaller the town the better the coverage is generally like

00:15:52.300 it feels like the agenda is not I don't know whatever chain of command they have like they seem to have

00:15:58.480 a little bit more autonomy just like focus on local issues yeah and if they're connected with the

00:16:04.080 community then often you will have somebody just trying to fulfill the role of the media which is

00:16:10.240 share what's going on with the people around you because you're part of one big community and I think

00:16:15.660 when you get to larger cities and larger scopes uh you'll run into more of the the ideological bend

00:16:23.640 where um I know from editing video myself that you can stitch together a lot of words and you can craft

00:16:31.640 a message out of something that was either incoherent or didn't have a message or a totally different

00:16:37.860 thing it's really easy to actually I've seen people uh I've seen people take full-blown movies

00:16:44.300 and just cut the movies and reshuffle the movies and transform a movie into something different you go

00:16:49.580 wow how'd you do that like it's you know it's a shining wick is shining being a inspirational story

00:16:55.580 about a about an aspiring writer there you go exactly so um but back to your point the guys who

00:17:03.980 came here on election day and did the uh three minute and 40 second interview he told me that uh

00:17:09.740 you know the three of them flying out here and staying in hotels and whatever had a ten thousand

00:17:13.940 dollar budget to do a three minute and 40 second video I was like wow I'm like I could do I could do

00:17:21.060 uh Marty up north videos on YouTube for an entire year and then some for that kind of money like wow and

00:17:26.940 that wasn't including their salaries or the gear they brought that was just their the what they expense

00:17:32.880 their hotels and their flights so are that billions being spent really well is what you're saying

00:17:38.820 yeah so I'm so I'm a sucker for punishment no not a sucker for punishment I am a believer in our cause

00:17:45.940 so I am going tomorrow at eight o'clock I had they they call me again CBC and when when this when this

00:17:52.920 one rang I was a little it's CBC Vancouver and pipelines are still it's the big talk right now it's

00:17:59.800 the big big talk and so tomorrow morning on radio live I'm going on with uh CBC Vancouver to talk

00:18:08.640 about uh Northern Gateway and other potential projects nice do you know what time that's on

00:18:13.960 and I mean and it's at uh eight o'clock uh my time seven o'clock their time but that one's in French

00:18:20.580 it's uh far west it's a play on word but uh I will I will rebroadcast that one but just back to the

00:18:27.080 other guys who had me on the show like two days ago I mean I was director of pipelines operations

00:18:32.660 for for TransCanada like it was my team that designed Keystone and Keystone XL it was my team

00:18:38.740 that built you know Keystone and operated it I designed Energy East not me personally but my team

00:18:45.700 designed Energy East and then I worked on the Goldboro project in Nova Scotia like I mean like you

00:18:51.740 literally have in on on air the guy you know you could put my title on there director of liquid

00:18:57.700 pipelines and nope they went to an other expert who had not not even Canadian yeah yeah let's go to a

00:19:04.820 European cosmopolitan for their uh their insight yeah it was crazy crazy so uh actually maybe now you

00:19:13.880 got me maybe I will follow up I'll I'll cut that interview and say this is the one I didn't do and

00:19:18.920 what do you guys think because yeah it was brutal brutal brutal yeah if you can get your hands on that

00:19:25.600 footage that'd be great or in the future if you don't know if it's live or not um there's hundred

00:19:30.780 dollar handheld recorders that you can just like bring with like to get audio yeah like uncut audio

00:19:38.360 would be well partially like just to have that back up for yourself and then being able to like say

00:19:45.320 well send a link of like here's what CBC posted and here's the the source yeah and for the proof of

00:19:52.860 like that's how well our tax money is being spent like yeah yeah no I I I got caught off guard a little

00:20:00.500 bit there because I I guess I was feeling I was giving the CBC this uh the benefit of the doubt

00:20:06.240 after what the after the crew that came to my house in April but then so tomorrow I'm going to be on a

00:20:10.900 different guard I don't have that software but the phone will definitely be in my pocket on the table

00:20:15.120 and I'll hit record as soon as I'm sitting down so yeah I got I got a free one for you here Marty

00:20:20.480 if you uh if you keep doing these CBC interviews and they keep jerking you around you can change

00:20:26.120 your name for a day too you can just add one letter to it and be you'd be martyr up north 0.93

00:20:30.160 it's just a sucker for punishment is that just one letter marty yeah one letter okay or add one 0.63

00:20:40.260 letter that's right yeah yeah add one they'll be careful messing with your your username because

00:20:45.840 apparently like I think x twitter won't let you like switch it back right away like they don't like

00:20:50.860 you just doing little things every other day so yeah don't don't switch your name and don't change

00:20:56.500 your profile picture you're I think you're allowed once every three weeks kind of thing yeah

00:21:00.500 well okay let's let's uh let's take it to um I know that we're all very curious about

00:21:07.400 this not so secret but sort of secret you know gathering of the minds that happened in in Red

00:21:13.820 Deer very recently regarding some of the leaders uh involving some of the leaders in this Alberta

00:21:18.700 separatism because you shed some light yeah we posted a video I think the day before and our major

00:21:25.820 concerns was where is the crosstalk yeah where's the coordination where's the like there's a lot

00:21:31.680 of slinging between different groups um almost like it's a zero-sum game which is maybe not the best

00:21:39.180 way of thinking about it is like kin okay groups coexist and like all have yes absolutely um so you know

00:21:47.140 I think I think I think most people who followed me for a long time kind of know that I've I do try

00:21:54.040 to stay uh impartial and not affiliated formally with any group right the only group that I'm formally

00:22:01.360 affiliated are the groups that is when I do come time to vote like when I'm going to vote I'm I'm I'm

00:22:08.140 I belong to a group and I'll vote for so let's say I vote conservative but beyond that I don't belong to

00:22:13.480 any party I don't belong to the I'm not a member of the Alberta prosperity project I'm not a member of

00:22:18.680 any of those groups um and that's on purpose because that's still I'm not a journalist I'm a fact

00:22:25.220 checker but I'm right leaning right I'm a I'm a I'm an Alberta conservative um fair to say right now

00:22:34.460 that the the the there's been a growing separatist movement in Alberta for a long time some guys one

00:22:41.960 of the guys in Red Deer can talk about who talked about this very well Michael Wagner was there but

00:22:46.020 before I get there the the separatist movement is growing and there's lots of people that are

00:22:52.080 that are pushing forward with different ways of getting to an independent or sovereign Alberta

00:22:58.560 and so you know roughly speaking there's people who think that uh we can just do it the way

00:23:04.580 Danielle Smith wants to do it a sovereign Alberta within whatever there's people who believe that we 0.93

00:23:09.540 need another party like the the Alberta Republican to challenge there's people like the Alberta prosperity

00:23:18.040 project who believe we should just jump forward with a referendum there's there's lots of groups like

00:23:22.940 that and they're not coordinated at this point and that has me a bit nervous but I it's nervous but

00:23:32.480 I'll say this uh the engineer in me you know when I look at a Alberta separating is a big is a big

00:23:42.120 proposition it's a complicated proposal and in my line of work I was many times I was faced with

00:23:49.640 complicated proposals actually in the oil patch a typical company a big company like CNRL for instance

00:23:56.400 has lots of assets lots of resources and at the end of the day their goal is to just make money and

00:24:02.560 within the organization there could be five six teams that have ideas on how to make money and CNRL

00:24:09.300 will let all those teams do their thing and curate their ideas and keep pushing their ideas and then bring

00:24:16.100 the ideas together in front of a committee once in a while and then and then somebody in elite in a

00:24:22.300 leadership position that CNRL will say oh I like your idea I still like yours but it needs refinement

00:24:27.740 I don't like that one you guys are done and then and then eventually one idea will dominate

00:24:32.560 it will gain the most traction or make the most sense and it'll dominate but the beauty of a company

00:24:38.540 like CNRL is that you have a guy who's the president or somebody or a committee that says

00:24:43.940 that's the one we're going with so what's happening in Alberta right now I kind of view it that way

00:24:49.560 I kind of I'm I'm not prepared at this point to firmly stand behind one idea and to or or to

00:24:56.400 dispel other ideas I'm just happy that they're all progressing but what I'd like to do at this point

00:25:02.060 is start to help people see pitfalls already of some of their ideas so the meeting in Red Deer

00:25:09.140 to be fair was one one one group in particular the the meeting in Red Deer was the Albert was the

00:25:16.880 Alberta Republican Party who is currently led by Cam Davies and it's a group of other separatist

00:25:24.160 parties you know the remnants of the old wild rose party the remnants of uh other parties that have

00:25:29.440 that are kind of formulating their own agreements and then they're doing their thing and their I and

00:25:35.120 their thought is um they have all their reasoning their reasoning is Danielle won't do this for us and 0.79

00:25:41.220 the and without getting into a bunch of detail they think there are ways the best way forward

00:25:46.260 their their their thinking is we need a a a full-blown separatist party to put pressure on the UCP and

00:25:53.480 other groups so that's what that was on red in Red Deer so I went to that and and uh but but the real

00:26:00.020 reason I went to Red Deer is because they they had some interesting guests they had uh Bruce Party from

00:26:06.000 Ontario who's um I think Bruce is a law professor at Queen's University he's an Ontarian but he has a

00:26:14.400 great uh he's pushing for Alberta separation he's promoting it and he's encouraging us and and he goes

00:26:21.360 as far as saying that um you know that the whole western world is going down this terrible path including

00:26:27.200 the US and if Alberta does this properly we can actually show the correction for the rest of the

00:26:33.280 world on how how nations should get back on pat on on track to for prosperity and so that's Bruce's

00:26:40.480 high level pitch is like you guys in Alberta have an amazing opportunity and uh yeah Bruce is is so and

00:26:48.960 he's an eloquent speaker well thought out and and and academic and being an academic also helps because

00:26:55.200 he's got all this background on you know confederation what happened in the past and and then he studies

00:27:01.120 democracies and things like that in other countries so so I went there mostly to listen to Bruce and uh

00:27:08.160 and to listen to Michael Wagner I don't know if you guys have ever interviewed Michael Wagner at all he's um

00:27:14.160 um he's uh he's he's a book writer he's a scholar and same thing he like he he opened it up I wish he

00:27:22.000 could have stayed there longer he was in a hurry he had another commitment but he he he he gave us a history

00:27:27.760 lesson on you know how separatism in Alberta started in like in 1870 before we even joined right like

00:27:34.240 when we were just uh uh uh territory of of the Hudson's Bay or whatever the Northwest company and then

00:27:41.040 somebody annexed us and there and the Louis Riel rebellion and all that and then and then so he gave

00:27:47.440 a great history lesson so I went there to listen to that so I'll I'll just pause for that I've also been to

00:27:54.560 several Alberta prosperity prod events and I've been to other events so I've been to a lot of events

00:28:00.560 and I'm watching how they're all moving I'm a little nervous right now that the Alberta prosperity project

00:28:06.000 is moving really really fast yeah we've heard that sentiment before about them yeah yeah I I I

00:28:12.400 is there a clear majority that's the right now is there a clear yeah yeah is there a clear majority

00:28:19.600 you don't get 15 chances at this right if you do a referendum and you don't take the time to educate

00:28:24.080 people and it fails you have to wait another generation or 20 years and if you do at the

00:28:29.760 timing is important if you do it while Danielle is still the premier and she's kind of expressed an

00:28:33.840 opinion that she's not in she she wouldn't be a very willing negotiator if the referendum goes 0.92

00:28:40.800 our way so uh you know what but if a referendum if a million Albertans come out and say yes we want

00:28:48.480 this then does does that give her the mandate or would she simply step aside and let anyways so 0.99

00:28:55.280 I think it's moving fast but but I thought you were alluding to I had another meeting last week which

00:29:00.880 was fascinating so I can't divulge everything about that meeting because we agreed to follow the uh

00:29:07.200 chatterhouse rules you've heard of those so but let's just say that this was an influence this was an

00:29:13.920 influential person a person with means money okay who just reached out to a whole bunch of people

00:29:21.600 so I get this this call from someone he says hey Marty you know we're getting together a bunch of

00:29:26.880 people do you want to show up at the I don't really remember the name it's kind of like the petroleum

00:29:31.680 club in Calgary but the ranchers the ranchman's club in Calgary an old historic club right do you want

00:29:37.760 to just come out here and have a chat I'm like sure I'm I'm cool with that we'll buy you uh we'll buy

00:29:43.200 you a turkey sandwich and uh give you a diet coke literally that's what it was I show up there and

00:29:49.680 I'm like whoa and I can name some of the people right like whoa Preston Manning well I didn't expect

00:29:55.040 Preston Manning to be here and then okay Cam Davis from the from that group uh Jeff Rath from whatever

00:30:02.080 APP and then I have no idea who you are no idea who you are but they brought 20 of us

00:30:07.760 and all that that person did was facilitate discussion among ourselves and we were not

00:30:12.960 solutioning we weren't doing anything we were just each had a turn to talk and it was about 90 minutes

00:30:19.920 and I had the opportunity to voice some of my concerns and so did everybody else but then we all

00:30:25.520 walked away kind of thinking okay there's many of us on the same page we're all moving there

00:30:30.640 and we kind of have this sort of gentleman's agreement through this benefactor that we need to

00:30:36.080 get together at some point more often and try to find some cohesion and make sure we're all paddling

00:30:42.400 in the same direction so it was really cool there was tempers there was there was there was knives

00:30:48.800 there was there was there was some ugly moments but it was also um it gave me hope like literally I

00:30:56.800 tweeted after that I said for the first time and because because prior to this meeting like just going

00:31:01.520 to the APP events and the other ones my my my gut feeling is like we're gonna screw this up we're

00:31:07.360 gonna screw this up that's my gut feeling right and so yeah so so it's it's it's happening and I'm feeling

00:31:13.840 optimistic about it but it's complicated and there's a lot of moving pieces yeah some of the complexity

00:31:20.960 is that's amplified if you don't have crosstalk so I'm glad to hear that there's at least

00:31:27.520 some dialogue going on and not everybody has to be on the same page you don't need to subscribe

00:31:33.520 to these exact same plan but if you agree on some mute some of the common things that can hurt or

00:31:41.200 detrimental like okay can we all all avoid doing a b and c because that's going to set us backwards

00:31:47.120 um some things for optics like if we do this what's the perception and we need to get more of these

00:31:53.760 moderates on the side like yeah what are what are some of those ideas as well like there's a lot of

00:31:59.760 ways to strategize without having to all be doing the exact same thing yeah and and and and my my

00:32:10.240 current observation right now is that it's going to have to be a combination of all of the above because

00:32:15.600 one can fail right like what if the referendum fails then then the guys who are the separatists will

00:32:21.520 go ahead i told you so now we're option b right but but are they mutually exclusive what if the

00:32:27.520 separate what if the referendum succeeds but there but we but another group managed to elect two or

00:32:32.720 three separatists like what if the republican party gets three members in the house of com in the

00:32:37.840 legislature i think that's a perk right and everybody's worried that oh well they're going to

00:32:42.160 split the vote well you know the conservatives do that to themselves i live in cochran airdrie

00:32:48.480 they just the conservative just kicked out my mla peter guthrie because he spoke out about the budget

00:32:53.760 so they kicked him out so i'm like one group is telling me you're going to split the vote but then

00:32:57.920 i'm like split the vote the the the party just did it to itself so you know as far as i'm concerned

00:33:04.080 the republican party should run a candidate in cochran as soon as possible because

00:33:08.160 it's already a vacant seat and so they're going to run one in uh in disbury um old uh three hills

00:33:18.160 there's no risk i mean there's actually there's a a by-election is a perfect time to elect a

00:33:25.120 a a a a fringe party or or an or an independent because it doesn't change the dynamic the um the

00:33:32.800 balance of power right now so so you know back to my thought i i think all all of them need to move at

00:33:39.200 the same time i also i mean you and i you the three of us were at the agm i'm at the agm because

00:33:46.640 i'm still trying to affect the party from within right i i still think that's one of the most

00:33:52.480 effective things i mean i'm not i'm not really in favor of of another uh you know wild rose another

00:33:58.640 right-leaning party i'd rather work with the existing one but if it doesn't work because i

00:34:03.600 mean some of the things danielle has said lately not even what danielle said i mean danielle said

00:34:08.160 some things that make me worried like that she's um that she's uh not a separatist at heart that she's

00:34:14.880 more of a federalist but i also think she has these huge blind spot i keep coming back to that

00:34:18.960 i think she's being played in a sense so so i just worry about her um so and and then and then

00:34:26.480 when it comes to the app i have a lot of worries about them i mean i i i admire what they're doing

00:34:32.240 their educational campaign they're gathering a lot of uh signatures and stuff like that but then

00:34:38.720 they're not politicians man they're they're lawyers and doctors and whatever else and they're well

00:34:43.760 intentioned but i think they have huge like when i ask them like what happens after it's a bit of a

00:34:49.600 blank stare like you know who negotiates for us are you guys going to form a party so

00:34:54.480 you know i i think all three and maybe there's a fourth option or fifth i don't even know what

00:35:00.000 those might be but i i think we i i think in the end we're going to need all of them if we want to

00:35:06.240 be successful yeah yeah and i'm curious if um maybe if you can speak to in in either of these meetings um

00:35:15.760 when i've had this discussion with with people just you know in my day-to-day life my co-workers my

00:35:20.720 family the the two most common responses i get is from somebody who's who's maybe sympathetic to the

00:35:29.840 to the idea who kind of gets it maybe is a little bit right-leaning anyway is yeah you know sounds

00:35:35.520 good it's but it's never going to happen in my lifetime and then and then the second response i

00:35:40.080 get from somebody who's either on the fence or or not in favor of it is they immediately start thinking

00:35:45.280 about pensions but what's gonna my pension is gonna disappear there the government's gonna you

00:35:49.840 know there's no way they're gonna get that or recover that money from the feds well i don't

00:35:56.160 were either of those topics any sort of major topic of discussion or have you heard that kind of

00:36:01.200 tossed around those those major objections they're all taught yeah they're always tossed i mean

00:36:07.520 those are major objections the other one is what happens to my canadian passport what happens to my

00:36:12.080 citizenship what happens to the currency i mean there's a million questions right um the best the

00:36:17.840 the the two best answers to that is um first of all like the best answer to that is to convince is to

00:36:27.920 try and remind people that you are in an abusive relationship like if you're in an abusive relationship

00:36:33.120 if you're a battered spouse or if you're in an abusive relationship at some point like even if you have

00:36:38.640 money in the bank or whatever there's certain things like you might have to sacrifice something

00:36:42.480 you're you're either in an abusive relationship or you're not if you're in an abusive relationship

00:36:46.880 then all of that is immaterial you got to get the hell out so that's the first thing but all those 0.55

00:36:53.200 things are very minor like they they can all easily be addressed um and i and unfortunately some

00:36:59.840 people address it very hyperbolically right can can the pension be addressed absolutely like how i'm like

00:37:08.640 it the the mechanism already exists right if you're an alberton and you and and you or an ontarian and

00:37:14.960 you contributed to the pension it's still yours even if you go live to the us or whatever so that

00:37:19.520 you know the the examples already exist in place um what was the other one just the general like

00:37:26.160 apathy of you know yeah there's just no way that this could possibly happen in my lifetime

00:37:30.240 no it it can happen i mean it's happened around the world you know uh many many nations have done

00:37:38.560 it scotland did it the you know variations have been done throughout history in in recent history

00:37:44.640 and in long history so it can be done the problems can be solved bruce party has a great answer for that

00:37:50.960 right like bruce always says like you're literally an unchartered territory like it the the the the courts have

00:37:58.080 ruled after the quebec referendum like the clarity act it's called like it's pretty clear if a majority

00:38:03.840 of people in a province decide that they want to separate or do something and give a mandate to their

00:38:10.400 their premier then there is a negotiation after that everything is political everything's a negotiation

00:38:18.480 like the currency the borders the the pensions the the debt everything so they're like when people

00:38:25.600 say you can't do it because it's like nope there's it's black and white if we negotiate it's all

00:38:32.960 negotiable there's no there's nothing preventing it from happening so um but so i i go like i i go back

00:38:41.520 to it can be done my my my my thoughts is is i'm re i'm already i'm at the point where it has to be done i

00:38:49.440 am i really truly believe that we are in an abusive relationship that will never get better

00:38:54.800 so it has to be done that's that's my opinion it has to be done and then and then i tell people

00:39:00.640 don't worry about the pension that that that's peanuts dream big like dream big like what can

00:39:05.680 we do like bruce said we can lead the way like you're worried about a pension like your canada

00:39:10.960 pension 790 a month right now if you contributed the maximum for the last 30 years what if we live in

00:39:16.720 a country what if we are alberta and we prosper and we don't have to waste 40 you know 60 of your taxes

00:39:23.840 are going to ottawa imagine if they all stayed here you could literally be we could i can literally

00:39:29.120 imagine a province where we pay almost no taxes and everybody gets a pension so like that's that's

00:39:36.560 the that's the better answer right dream big don't don't we're in an abusive relationship let's get the 0.96

00:39:41.520 hell out of it yeah um and and then let's dream big because the big dream that's that's the cool stuff

00:39:48.720 and then and then the other thing i don't like about some of the groups right now they're making

00:39:53.360 it almost all economic right like oh you you know uh you'll get to save your pension and you'll save

00:40:00.080 a few bucks you'll have more money in your pocket at the end of the day it's like man i'm i'm that's

00:40:04.800 secondary to me i need to get out of this abusive relationship because i'm losing my identity yeah i'm

00:40:10.400 i'm literally in a province where i have to beg for my money back from those guys and it comes back

00:40:16.720 with conditions that i don't even agree with they want me to do net zero they'll only give me a pipeline

00:40:21.680 if i do it their way they'll only let me keep certain guns so that i can barely go hunting they'll

00:40:26.720 like i'm like wow like okay like so one-on-one i can you know we got to get to that point where

00:40:34.320 one-on-one we can all win over people who are skeptic that yeah sorry james i'm describing as

00:40:41.040 a just reminds me of just like too quick your marty your experience is in is in pipelines and

00:40:46.480 engineering and i'm in i've always been in sales my my basically my whole working adult life and just

00:40:52.080 two things you said reminded me of two two sayings i've heard in the business over the years of um

00:40:58.080 uh the the first one being that just because it's not for sale doesn't mean it can't be bought

00:41:03.600 and uh and the other one being never never be so sure about what you want that you wouldn't take

00:41:09.120 a better deal right and that that we can apply to the uh to the indigenous bands who are are currently

00:41:15.680 some of them are are very vocal right now oh my god like and that's where guys like keith wilson

00:41:20.400 and jeff rath have actually great idea great answers and and bruce party like you know like

00:41:25.680 really you want to stay like i'm in an abusive relationship which you think the first nations in

00:41:30.640 this country are like you guys are you're you're so abused and and you want more which is uh that's 0.51

00:41:36.960 where the psychologists actually come in right a lot of people are i've been so abused and now

00:41:41.280 they're into the stockholm syndrome they don't want to leave yeah that's right so um yeah yeah

00:41:47.040 you guys got to get bruce on your show like i'll i'll facilitate the introduction i'll tell him like

00:41:51.760 you got to have him on the show because i would love to chat with bruce like uh he explained some of this

00:41:56.240 and uh he he he uh actually i i was on a space with bruce the other day and uh and i kept saying

00:42:04.880 like god shame on me like i'm so i'm such an albertan that i've forgotten i've almost forgotten

00:42:11.760 what i was fighting for and then he would remind me of what i was fighting for i'm like oh my god

00:42:16.400 thank you for reminding me like i was like i forgot about that you know like he's the one who brought up

00:42:21.520 the dream big thing and i was like yeah you thank you it's a positive vision for the future that's

00:42:27.760 that's the key is yeah if we're focused like you could spend a lot of time just talking about grievances

00:42:34.800 but what is what is the vision and you can have different visions you could have

00:42:39.360 the app with their vision if they develop more of a vision other than just saying the benefits

00:42:45.280 benefits and we're talking about a vision we're like well what are the values like

00:42:51.120 potentially like what's the actual is like is it a are we still a west minister have we departed from

00:42:56.800 that like what's the foundation um and then i guess it's more that if you're selling people on the

00:43:04.000 vision that is the hope for the future more than just stopping the hurt it's the like how do we get to

00:43:10.480 a place that we're flourishing yeah the the the divorce analogy or the the the marriage analogy

00:43:19.360 is very good in this situation it it it resonates very much with a lot of people right like you you

00:43:26.080 you you at at some point you're taking you're talking talking talking about divorce you've been

00:43:30.560 unhappy for years you just gotta jump in with you know and throw caution to the wind and and get

00:43:36.080 divorced you you you you you'll figure out where you're gonna live you'll figure out who you'll

00:43:40.800 marry down the road you'll figure out what will happen but you can't overthink about it you gotta

00:43:45.360 do it and right now a lot of people are still overthinking it and and you know what kind of

00:43:50.720 constitution are we gonna have what kind of this what kind of that it's like no we gotta that's why

00:43:56.320 i'm excited about the referendum the referendum i'm excited about the referendum because it is that

00:44:01.280 it is throw caution to the wind and get it done but i'm scared of the referendum because

00:44:06.080 when i look at recent recent i mean when i look in the last 80 years and in alberta and in canada

00:44:13.040 there's there's rarely ever been any issue that has garnered uh 50 of the you know the popular vote

00:44:20.880 no it's it's been it's been not since the 1970s i think that we've had a an actual federal party win

00:44:27.600 the popular vote like with a real majority and then even issues locally like um like we we had a

00:44:34.880 referendum here on uh should you know should we end equalization and we still didn't get 60 on that

00:44:40.240 i'm like wow like you'd think that that would be a no-brainer you know i i guess the only thing we all

00:44:46.320 agree on is climate change apparently 97 of us agree the man-made climate change but yeah you know that

00:44:51.840 that worries me that getting if the referendum rule is 50 or or higher like most referendums in in

00:44:58.320 recent history in the us have required super majorities which is like 66.6 i mean or if that

00:45:05.520 was the rule i i would say pump the brakes like it's gonna the break it's gonna take some more time to

00:45:11.280 brew um and yeah i i just had a couple key kind of observations of the dynamic that's going on so

00:45:17.520 you've got the alberta prosperity project and they're kind of they're paving the way they've got

00:45:24.720 a lot of support they've got a lot of communication going on they've got some good messaging

00:45:29.520 uh decent framework with their website they're maybe pushing a little bit too fast they seem a

00:45:34.720 little confident overconfident on a few things that they're jumping in without maybe giving that full

00:45:41.680 time for for that support to build outside of these town halls which may give them a perspective that

00:45:49.440 the support is actually higher than what it actually is and i don't see the alberta republicans being

00:45:58.160 something that can't coexist beside i i think there's a place and if people are worried about

00:46:04.160 the alberta republicans hurting the movement they should be concerned about the ucp hurting the movement

00:46:10.880 or the ucp doing things that will ultimately hurt conservatives or

00:46:15.760 or change the the perception of of what conservatives like if we should trust any of them

00:46:24.800 that's an argument that that's a a great argument that's brought up frequently like if you're worried

00:46:30.000 about if you're worried about uh if you're worried about the republicans splitting the vote and the ndp

00:46:36.480 getting in then you've just told me then we're not ready for a referendum and we might as well forget

00:46:41.440 about it altogether because if if generally speaking the ndp will not vote for uh a separation so if

00:46:50.320 you think that ndp are still a threat and you use that as an excuse to discount one or the other

00:46:55.760 options you're dead in the water so um yeah no i i think this is my observation there's still

00:47:03.040 personalities at play right there's like in both groups there's there's personalities that have been at

00:47:08.160 this now for 20 30 or 40 years and many have done this and have gotten and are still doing it and

00:47:15.280 those personalities the egos are getting in the way that's that's one of my biggest fear right now is

00:47:20.800 the egos are going to get in the way and and the personalities with baggage or somebody will say

00:47:25.840 like i've been doing this 20 30 years and we saw this 20 years ago in it and this kind of looks like

00:47:31.920 what happened 20 years ago therefore it will automatically turn out the same way or like

00:47:36.560 they they may attribute patterns from before to what's happening now but we are in a different

00:47:43.280 landscape so these things have to be addressed kind of on a case-by-case basis you can't um yeah

00:47:50.720 and we're just spitballing the other thing that worries me right now is uh you know i was looking at

00:47:55.200 this this week a lot the demographics of the country of the province right alberta in 2025 is

00:48:02.240 not the alberta that i grew up in not even close like it's so if i wish we could have done this in

00:48:08.640 1990 but um like i'm worried that the demographics that there literally is a million people that have

00:48:14.480 only been here for two three years like that's that's a fact right like it's a huge percent of our

00:48:19.840 population has only been here a very short time and for them like if you came here from india or

00:48:26.000 god knows where else as far as you're concerned man life is good it's actually surprising how many

00:48:30.640 people i i encounter in my day-to-day life that go you guys are worried about nothing man life is good

00:48:37.520 i'm like wow okay so that worries me like you know that and then well that's by design you can just

00:48:43.360 by design right yeah yeah totally totally totally and carney can say a whole bunch of things

00:48:48.560 without ever having to act on it like he could say he can promise the end of the world for the

00:48:53.200 next 18 months which i think he's kind of doing and then uh you know and not just carney i mean

00:49:00.560 i'm deep in that separatist movement the attacks online are vicious vicious vicious vicious like then

00:49:06.400 and we haven't seen anything yet i mean if this really starts to get momentum the other side will

00:49:11.280 mobilize against us from all place from every that's a huge thing that's a huge thing marty and it's

00:49:16.720 something that we've noticed in i mean take any you know any conservative or libertarian talking point

00:49:23.280 over the last you know decade um if there's one thing that's universal it's that when when a leftist

00:49:30.160 gets it in their head that they need to oppose something they will find a way to organize a thousand

00:49:35.760 people overnight to your 100 people that are committed activists for the other side it's just something

00:49:41.680 that they really really excel at and it's going to be a constant hurdle it's like when you're watching a

00:49:45.360 hockey game marty and and you see you say oh man our our team is is fighting against the other team

00:49:51.200 and the refs tonight you know that that's what it's like to try and be on this side of the argument right 1.00

00:49:55.520 now well they they've already shown some of those strategies i mean they're they're already trying to

00:50:01.920 get their own petition right there if they get a petition that says we want to stay it's the same as

00:50:07.600 a petition that says we want to go but if they're faster than us and they get more people to come out and

00:50:13.600 and and vote for it then they take the wind out of our sails and that and that's that's underway the

00:50:19.920 petition rules are going to be tough man the petition rules you know i live in cal close enough to calgary

00:50:26.240 and i helped to raise the to try and get petitions and signatures for the uh you know to recall gondec last

00:50:34.080 year and i think like in 90 days we got 140 000 paper petition and then they were all rejected at the last

00:50:41.120 minute because we failed to follow certain little protocols i mean they have to be notarized they

00:50:46.480 have to be written in a certain kind of bank on a certain size paper blah blah blah like it you know

00:50:51.040 they're they're more valuable than ballots and there's actually the stricter rules and voting kind

00:50:55.840 of thing uh yeah there's like fascinating two raindrops on one of the forums and you're like nope it's

00:51:01.760 invalid now so invalid gone yeah yeah and then uh yeah so it'll be interesting so i'm um i'm i'm still

00:51:10.080 open-minded following i i mean i i see i mean in the short term i i i hope that the the one meeting

00:51:17.200 that i went to with that benefactor i hope all the groups come back and and and re uh re-energize or

00:51:24.240 re-coordinate uh i i i truly love what the alberta prosperity project's doing i i just want them to slow

00:51:31.600 down a little bit and focus on education during the summer um and then and then and then i'm i'm

00:51:39.360 gonna throw my backing behind the alberta republican parties in in this by-election i mean i i i'm i'm

00:51:47.440 adamant about that there's nothing to be lost in uh in uh old's uh three hills if they elect uh cam

00:51:55.600 davies like what do you got to lose i mean it's not going to change the balance of power and it's going to

00:52:00.640 it's going as and it's just going to send a message to um to to the current premier like it yeah i you

00:52:08.880 know having that political pressure i think will be really good yeah so uh yeah no interesting times

00:52:15.200 yeah for sure maybe maybe as a just a final note here before we go on to our our super super secret

00:52:21.280 final topic unrelated to all of this uh one thing that um we i don't know if we've mentioned this

00:52:26.720 before in any of our other interviews there's a quote that i really love from you know who michael

00:52:30.240 malice is marty i heard the name but remind me he's a podcaster he um he's written he's an author

00:52:37.200 as well he's written some good books he's a you know political guy um but he has a um he had a quote

00:52:42.560 about how how leftists and conservatives communicate and and he was talking about how leftists uh they don't

00:52:51.600 use language to communicate or to educate they use it to manipulate and if there was a message that i

00:52:58.560 could get along through you to to this benefactor or for anyone else who's you know influential in

00:53:03.040 this movement is that we have to be aware of that because that's something that we're going to be up

00:53:07.600 against is that we're going to be we we tend to have and you know this is not meant to you know pump

00:53:12.800 any of us up you know boost our egos at all but generally speaking it's been my experience having been

00:53:18.000 on both sides of the political aisle in my life and now being where i am that people on the very

00:53:24.240 hyper liberal end of the spectrum they view they sort of view their their causes and their pet projects

00:53:29.200 as like very kind of biblical and very like good versus evil and like they take it as a very it's

00:53:35.280 hard it's hard to be objective when it's so emotional for them and they will do whatever it takes to

00:53:40.720 try and scare people and manipulate them into not into not allowing you know people to go to what they

00:53:46.400 view as you know an evil outcome it's not a matter of right and wrong it's a matter of good and evil

00:53:51.360 so that's something that we need to watch out for it and kind of be you know it's you you never want

00:53:55.920 to necessarily you know sink to the level of your opponent but you you do want to be aware of how to

00:54:00.960 how to counter that sort of very emotionally charged rebuttal that we're going to get

00:54:06.000 yeah yeah no i'm certainly aware of those kinds of dynamics i mean uh you know the the there are

00:54:12.080 definitely distinguishing traits between the two sides the one the one you mentioned i mean you

00:54:18.080 know the the the other issue we have on our side these days is um the the separatists slash

00:54:26.560 conservatives by definition are are individuals and so boy when you and individuals that are almost you

00:54:35.280 know self-reliant and so bringing together individuals by by by definition is is is not

00:54:42.960 going to happen because they're individuals they don't belong to groups so um yeah it's uh

00:54:49.520 yeah i'm feeling optimistic good is one even the word separatists is one that like i've started using

00:54:58.480 alberta independence more than over separation partially just to help reinforce that positive

00:55:05.120 vision because i i think the people will start using separation more in a negative connotation

00:55:11.600 even though we don't use it in that way from the outside like it will be turned into a slur

00:55:19.920 and independence has a bit of resistance to being turned into yeah i i'm i'm trying to so help me out on

00:55:28.240 this one because i'm i'm i've 100 agree i'm trying to get away from the word separatist but

00:55:33.520 what's the what's the adjective for independent yeah um is that because i i i hate i hate to say

00:55:41.040 i'm an independent so i it's like am i an independentist or whatever so i want to come

00:55:46.000 up with a i want to come up with a good uh or is it an adjective or noun or whatever but i you know

00:55:51.120 what i think adjective is right instead of yeah i'm gonna you know what we're gonna ask grok you guys you

00:55:56.320 guys talk yes so uh because sovereignness rings well right yeah i'm a sovereignist i'm a separatist

00:56:04.240 but i'm not i'm an independent hiss so what's the what's the proper terminology for uh yeah you kind

00:56:10.320 of need something sellable yeah in an elevator like no that that was brought up at that benefactor meeting

00:56:16.080 where uh by the way that was the first time i i've been to a meeting where somebody said uh you know

00:56:20.400 before the meeting like they they they shared a little piece of paper and said we're gonna we're

00:56:25.120 gonna share the chatter house rules or whatever the hell it is and i agreed to it then i read it and i

00:56:29.520 was like oh i can't talk about it

00:56:33.040 no i can talk about what was discussed but i can't attribute to whom i can't say which party or

00:56:43.520 which group said what but i can definitely say that you know that gives a little bit of insulation

00:56:48.640 from the egos as well like yeah it avoids the finger pointing and avoids um this back talk afterwards

00:56:55.600 let's just say we had a few lawyers in the room and man like they're lawyers they're just like holy 0.97

00:57:00.640 shit like you know they they they call each other uh my brother or my colleague or my 0.95

00:57:08.320 respected colleague and they still carry on that way but then they're just okay so guys uh grok seems 0.98

00:57:15.920 to think that some good alternatives would be to say that you're an alberta autonomous or an alberta

00:57:21.040 sovereign test yeah both of those are good autonomous like it i'm gonna have i'm gonna pre

00:57:27.360 autonomous i like i like autonomous sovereignty i don't like the the reason i don't like sovereignness

00:57:33.520 is uh like what happened last week just pissed me off to no end like when the king of another country

00:57:41.520 comes here to help uh reinforce our sovereignty i'm like can you folks not see the complete insanity of

00:57:50.880 what's going on here like that whole i i i was on the treadmill running downstairs instead of going

00:57:57.040 outside i stayed indoors to watch the throne speech and i wanted to throw everything at the tv that i had

00:58:03.520 i was like did you guys watch it i mean like it's it's you know you got you got the nine supreme court

00:58:10.640 judges with their red and white seal fur coats and then you got 13 lieutenant generals and you got all the

00:58:18.880 former prime ministers and you got all the indian chiefs with their feathers and you got like just

00:58:24.800 just a giant crowd of of people that are sucking off the government tit that that are that are

00:58:30.880 congratulating each other for doing nothing and then the the host constantly talking about you know in a

00:58:37.360 whispered voice the the uh the the vip gallery or the uh dignitaries i'm like oh my god the dignitaries

00:58:44.880 like and then the king can't go into the house of the king has to read the speech from the senate

00:58:50.720 because the house of commons is where commoners gather and then i'm like oh my god like this 0.90

00:58:57.600 pageantry this is like just that bullshit oh that that circles back to um so bruce bruce has specifically 0.75

00:59:06.960 talked about like part of the canadian identity is the fact that we're not american so we're opposed like 0.97

00:59:13.280 it was a opposition to being american and a vote in the direction of we are going to be subjects in a

00:59:21.280 way it was yes the the identity part of the canadian identity is compliance in a way so a lot of this

00:59:30.160 talk you see daniel smith reaching out and it hinges on well almost like begging the federal government to

00:59:37.360 do something for us or to change the ways rather than us thinking about from the alberta side like

00:59:43.680 from the foundational level of being like well we are asserting our own sovereignty from the ground up

00:59:51.200 as a people rather than trying to ask somebody else to give it to us and i think that's part of

00:59:58.000 the culture shift that needs to happen um because right now we're still waiting for somebody else to

01:00:04.240 give it it's a beta mindset right james bingo and and and and then another way to help people with

01:00:11.280 that thought is you know uh imagine imagine that uh imagine that i'll that there was a country called

01:00:18.480 alberta today and we're super prosperous and everything's going for us and then and then this

01:00:23.760 guy from ottawa comes over and says hey do you guys want to join our confederation and we'd say okay

01:00:28.000 what's in it for us man like what would ottawa offer a prosperous alberta today that would make

01:00:34.560 me want to go yeah we got a king over there and we got these guys dressed in these funny suits and

01:00:38.320 we do this we do that yeah no thanks by the way i also i just want to add this one little bit of also

01:00:43.760 that made you're right so they for for for uh for 50 years you know because we're next door to this

01:00:53.120 giant elephant we had to do something so we convinced ourselves that the canadian identity

01:00:58.320 was we're not american it's it's pretty simple it's it is that plus a few other nuances but

01:01:03.520 the other thing last week that annoyed me of the throne speech is you know we just lived through a

01:01:08.640 decade of trudeau trying to uh push forward you know this post-national state and and they raised

01:01:14.480 the canadian identity you know going as far as redesigning our passports and whatever and while i

01:01:19.840 was right after i watched the throne speech i went and grabbed my old passport i'm like oh look at that

01:01:24.960 the rcmp musical ride yeah that was there yesterday oh um you know um natives jumping around yeah that

01:01:32.480 was there yesterday oh the peace tower yeah oh they didn't have the schooner they didn't have a beaver

01:01:38.080 but anyways like they literally brought out so much over the top symbolism that day suddenly for one day

01:01:45.200 out of the last 10 years they wanted us to go back to being canadian when it was convenient right

01:01:50.400 because and again we're not trump right so we're not and i was like wow why well

01:01:58.320 i should have just brought my passport to the meeting and then just flipped through there while

01:02:02.240 you read the throne speech and i would have been reminded of what it used to be like to be canadian

01:02:06.000 but you guys threw that all out so uh let's change topics okay okay perfect perfect let's let's

01:02:12.240 segue to trump let's talk about yeah speaking about how we're not americans what a show today

01:02:17.760 was on twitter hey holy christ elon musk and donald trump who would have thought their little uh lovers

01:02:24.560 quarrel would would spill over into the public eye as as much as it has so so help me out though so i

01:02:31.280 missed how it started so what happened while i was gone so did trump trump introduced the bill like how

01:02:38.000 did the the trump and elon have a bit of a parting of ways earlier this week i think that's the i think

01:02:44.160 that's the idea maybe james knows a little bit more specifics than i do but i know that there was

01:02:48.000 so in his like big beautiful bill as it's called i think okay that's the word yeah i think i think elon

01:02:53.840 was already suspect of it just because of its uh you know what a massive spending uh you know addition

01:03:00.240 it's going to put into the uh into this into the treasury but uh or take out of the treasury rather but

01:03:05.440 also um i think it removes some protections or some subsidies that uh tesla was receiving for evs

01:03:14.240 i think that's a significant part of it too and and he i don't think he was expecting that trump said

01:03:19.360 today that he already told they already talked about it or he he was already aware of it elon says

01:03:24.160 that he wasn't i don't know james do you know any more about that sort of that preamble there i i did see

01:03:29.680 a quote from a few years ago where elon specifically saying that they should end ev incentives because

01:03:37.760 like partially because like if it's going to survive on its own it should be viable enough so

01:03:44.880 it's hard to know how much of like a factor that is or if if there were was some like ideological

01:03:51.280 differences of like the spirit behind doge was not able to be fulfilled and so yeah potentially yeah

01:03:59.680 there's nuances to it but on the on the very very simple level i mean elon worked his butt off to

01:04:06.080 identify waste and then trump goes and does this big bill that throws a whole bunch of waste back in

01:04:12.480 there including stuff that will affect elon one way or another and then elon fired back with a doozy

01:04:21.680 can you bring up that tweet or can you just put it up for sure find it yeah i mean it was it was

01:04:27.760 right this afternoon like i i did not have that on my bingo card not not not not even like throw

01:04:34.480 throws a bomb into into twitter that's like oh i guess this is the whole timeline now yeah it was a

01:04:41.040 bomb i mean i haven't looked late lately how big is uh elon's following he must be in the 200 million

01:04:48.720 people like around there yeah

01:04:51.440 about a tenth of everybody on twitter follows elon yeah here she is time to drop the really

01:04:57.920 big bomb real donald trump is in the epstein files that is the reason they have not been made public

01:05:04.160 have a nice day djt now wow my i had i had two immediate responses to this first of all i showed

01:05:12.080 everyone around me at the time my phone like holy christ can you believe that and then my second

01:05:16.960 reaction was like well wait like why i guess i had three reactions my second reaction was well

01:05:22.880 wait like if if they had i mean the government's had the epstein files for years so why wouldn't

01:05:27.520 why wouldn't the biden admin have have released it or even prior to that if it was such a bombshell 0.98

01:05:32.560 yeah you know if they wanted to discredit trump rather than making up bullshit like piss tape 0.82

01:05:36.960 allegations from russian hackers or whatever but then my third reaction finally to close off that thought was 0.99

01:05:43.120 oh it's because they're all in it democrats republicans all these animals they're all in

01:05:49.280 in the in the files yeah well uh coincidentally earlier in the day i'd already know i follow the

01:05:58.800 stock markets and i invest so earlier in the day i'd already noticed that twitter or that

01:06:02.960 uh tesla had taken a bit of a dive early in the day so i put out a tweet there you know saying hey

01:06:09.680 maybe it's time to jump back in and wasn't going to is just a tweet and then two hours later i'm like

01:06:16.320 holy i'm glad i didn't jump back in because when i made that comment twitter or tesla was down about

01:06:23.360 14 bucks i think it ended the day down 50 dollars like that's uh tesla is a two trillion dollar company

01:06:32.240 so when it loses 10 like that in a day that's 200 billion dollars in the market like that's

01:06:39.360 that's that's alberta's gdp yeah yeah like in a day gone in a day so now the time to invest should i

01:06:47.120 should i get my shackles out i i i well then so then i did a follow-up post early later in the day

01:06:54.960 which is who's more trustworthy trump or elon and uh my followers gave elon an 80 vote

01:07:02.240 interesting and um you know i think they're attributing that to him being a geek and him

01:07:07.760 being passionate about a mission i think he's been fairly true to himself right he's an innovator

01:07:13.520 with a mission and and finding efficiencies in his dna and so um and trump i i mean yeah as a canadian

01:07:23.120 right now i was a little pissed off at trump and now i'm like okay this is this is interesting so

01:07:27.840 yeah yeah my money's on my money's on elon to to your question yes there's a time to jump back

01:07:34.080 into tesla because everything elon touches he's got the midas touch and and i know he's going to

01:07:41.600 pivot the factory to do something else if it's not evs so be it he built this amazing factory he'll use

01:07:47.280 that factory to make robots yeah or something else well they're making tesla bots right now i think

01:07:51.840 are they so okay so yeah they want to have them in on the market soon but yeah you know the the i

01:07:58.480 guess the the other thought too to consider is that you know maybe all of this is some political theater

01:08:03.680 of sorts that we we're just not aware of what the actual goal is you know so yes to speak to the 4d

01:08:10.000 chess i love this theory because if donald trump is not in the epstein files like right now it's

01:08:17.040 encouraging the democrats are now calling for the epstein files so i'm like well that that could be

01:08:25.440 a way of finally getting them yeah because there hasn't been much traction yeah like i don't know it's

01:08:34.080 hard to know i know i love i love that that's a you know like yeah i think you and i we've talked

01:08:40.480 about this like the the the engineer in me just knows how complicated it is to do stuff

01:08:46.880 so i don't believe in conspiracies anymore and i don't even believe in three but you don't believe

01:08:51.360 any less never mind yeah but now but but but lately i'm like holy are there people that

01:08:58.400 brilliant that uh actually i watched a movie the other day it was one of those uh well salt was like

01:09:04.000 that and other movies like are there people who think 20 years in advance some people say that the

01:09:09.920 russians and some institutions have been thinking 20 30 years in advance and then at the right moment

01:09:15.600 something is sprung on us you know i've heard that the uh that the military like the very advanced

01:09:20.400 militaries in the world the us uh you know massad like other other super high-tech militaries in the

01:09:26.240 world i have heard that they possess tech that's approximately 20 years like it's not that it's 20

01:09:32.400 years more advanced it's it's just that like the stuff that we have now on the consumer end is stuff

01:09:37.440 that they had 20 years ago you know what i mean no no but yeah that again no i was referring to

01:09:44.560 like people like you know like playing extra russians plant yeah did the russians plant uh

01:09:50.800 you know uh somebody as a as an aid in the white house and let him climb through the ranks for 20

01:09:56.240 years and then in his 25th year he's like hey guess what you know like it may be a combination of

01:10:02.080 things where they're thinking ahead and then also knowing that like things change so you're like well

01:10:08.080 we put a few things into motion and then they're like well that kind of fizzled out but yeah options

01:10:15.120 c and f are still like maybe we try to unload some of the built-up uh like you you almost get these

01:10:23.360 snowball effects so there's like some gravity some like potential energy in these that can be

01:10:29.680 steered in a way you may not always get like you can't predict exactly what that will turn into

01:10:36.320 but there's the potential and if you're able to steer it in like your favor or against your favor like

01:10:43.520 that's a that that's all you need to like make some big shifts on the things yeah and and and then

01:10:51.440 i do admire americans in general and i have worked with a lot of americans and i'll say this like the

01:10:58.880 average american is kind of a dummy but their top brilliant minds are brilliant and so i have

01:11:07.360 worked with brilliant americans and i know that there are brilliant brilliant brilliant americans 0.96

01:11:12.560 working in places like the cia and in government they have strategists that we can't even dream of

01:11:18.240 like you know i i've met i've worked with strategists at work and i'm like and and you go

01:11:24.160 you're barely a strategist you know and so i'm pretty sure there's some pretty skookum american

01:11:29.760 people deep thinkers deep deep deep well and speaking of deep too there's always you know

01:11:35.120 you got to consider the deep state which is one of the like you know that's i think vivek like

01:11:40.800 ramaswamy was talking you know would talk about that a lot we're like deep state is sort of a bad

01:11:44.880 term for it because it's not like it makes it sound like more clandestine than it is but

01:11:49.360 you know we all we all basically found out by the end of i mean some of us knew earlier than others

01:11:53.600 but we all basically found out by the end of biden biden's term that there was just absolutely

01:11:59.760 no way that he was running the government so it would it would be you know just as it would be

01:12:04.320 foolish to believe that he was running the government for four years it would also be foolish to believe

01:12:09.280 that overnight just because of an election the people who are actually controlling the government 0.98

01:12:14.880 aren't still controlling it in at least some meaningful way now right right and then i turned

01:12:20.960 to our canadian parliament and go yeah no there's no deep state here yeah there's barely no there's

01:12:27.200 still there's still a layer of bureaucracy and there's there's teams like the thing is there's

01:12:34.320 you can put different people in the face of it but there's still structures working in the background

01:12:39.360 they may or may not be as brilliant as other countries sophisticated so or maybe 0.99

01:12:46.880 we'll lean into the 4d chess maybe they just appear stupid but they're smarter than they look so by the 0.88

01:12:52.320 way i've heard the term 4d chess but is there actually 4d chess isn't the fourth dimension time 0.95

01:12:59.360 isn't all chess played over time yeah like i'm trying to think how would you play 4d chess do you play

01:13:04.720 with two boards or three boards and then you play with three because i know there's three dimensional

01:13:09.280 chess but would there be yeah 4d chess you have to be uh you have to be on some really special

01:13:15.040 psychedelics to uh fully comprehend it yeah marty speaking of i was i was hoping that you would

01:13:20.720 comment on my whiskey like you always do you you haven't asked me what i'm drinking yet

01:13:26.720 yeah you read my mind i was just about to ask but i thought did i ask maybe i shouldn't ask so what

01:13:32.720 are you drinking i got the bottle ready for i i told my wife she asked me why i'm bringing the

01:13:36.400 bottle in here as if i'm gonna like get pissed on stream with you here but no it's because

01:13:41.360 i wanted to show you my very special bottle of uh i think i'm mirrored right now but this is

01:13:46.560 uh taber corn it says bridge lead yeah this is this is alberta bourbon made with taber corn except

01:13:53.440 it's not actually bourbon if you look it's it's spelt wrong with a b because they can't actually call

01:13:59.040 it bourbon because it doesn't come from kentucky and it hasn't been aged for three years so

01:14:02.880 it's pretty young it's not that good to be to be bourbon it has to be aged in an oak barrel as

01:14:08.400 well yeah that's been burned and we don't have oak here although i guess we could get actually

01:14:12.160 while i was on my hike i brought a bottle of uh three-year-old rum batch number one from uh

01:14:18.400 two rivers distillery in calgary okay i'll have to give those guys a shout out that was was it good

01:14:23.920 yeah marty marty drank a bottle by himself on the trail but that's that's why you weren't hurting

01:14:28.240 no yeah awesome awesome hey i want some pemmican next time we meet like uh i'll have to make some 0.75

01:14:35.440 more i only have i technically have old pemmican but so i've forgotten moose i'll bring you the moose

01:14:42.080 man actually the moose draws are due right now i have to uh i was looking i was talking about that

01:14:47.440 my buddy's coming over tomorrow we're gonna you know there's six of us that go hunting every year and

01:14:52.400 then so we strategize on uh who puts in their draws no sense all of us having a moose draw

01:14:58.800 because we we can't use six moose but i think i think it's going to be my moose and yeah making

01:15:04.080 pemmican real pemmican would be uh if you bring something awesome i'll mix i'll make a fresh batch

01:15:09.920 all i have is uh 200 grams that i forgot about two years ago um because it's been like it's actually been

01:15:16.320 a little while since i've made like a new batch so i had one old batch and then i realized like yeah it's

01:15:21.840 still good it's not technically old is it yeah no and i tried it of like yeah it's still perfectly

01:15:27.600 like it hasn't changed a single bit like and it's uh i made it without berries so it's like

01:15:34.080 that's the stuff that lasts decades like the berry uh when you make it with berries it will

01:15:39.280 reduce the shelf life a little bit but it'll go from lasting half a decade to like multiple well and

01:15:45.520 this will be sort of the closing topic but you know when when i go hiking and people would see me

01:15:50.800 eating cheese on my videos and sausage and they'd be like aren't you afraid it's unrefrigerated i'm

01:15:55.840 like where do you people live like do you not understand that humanity cheese is a way to preserve

01:16:02.240 milk sausage is a way to preserve meat whiskey is a way to preserve corn like or rye i mean you know

01:16:11.360 and and american bourbon like the the the colonists that came here instead of having to give their

01:16:16.640 leftover crop to the king of england suddenly they're here and they're like what i can keep

01:16:20.320 my crop at the end of the year while i have too much corn what do you do with your corn you mash

01:16:24.880 it you turn it into bourbon and you drink it for breakfast like they literally the colonists would

01:16:29.280 drink bourbon for breakfast because it's it's it's energy yeah so when i'm on a hike and i'm drinking a

01:16:35.840 rum or whiskey eating my cheese with a piece of sausage folks i'm i'm

01:16:40.640 i'm living the dream and i'm doing what humans have forgotten to do like god and people ask me 0.86

01:16:48.720 all the dumbest questions like what do you do about water i drink it out of the creeks what like you can 0.78

01:16:54.080 do this it doesn't have to come from a bottle yeah no it can come from a creek i think people are 0.99

01:17:00.640 are a little disconnected to like how canada was even like yeah how how the west was even established in

01:17:08.640 a way like it took some people doing some difficult things putting a lot of miles

01:17:12.960 in tough conditions but these were had plenty of strategies for like how to get your needs met

01:17:19.920 along the way we had tough ancestors who would be who are rolling in their grave looking at what's

01:17:24.800 happening to this country right now and so yeah we got to respect those guys and we got to do

01:17:30.000 something about our country great chat guys like i'm i'm pumped this was an awesome chat awesome

01:17:34.560 awesome thanks man we really appreciate it great to have you on coming and spending some time with

01:17:37.760 us as always yeah awesome go oil yes sir let's go oilers in five all right cheers

01:17:56.560 so

The Critical Compass Podcast - June 16, 2025

Insider Status Update on the Alberta Independence Movement feat. Martyupnorth

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript