The Critical Compass Podcast - Keith Wilson ｜ Independence Polls Are Designed to DEMORALIZE You

00:00:00.000 Hi guys, welcome back to the Critical Compass. We are very pleased to be joined by Mr. Keith Wilson

00:00:06.740 in person this time in a real studio. So thank you for taking the time to sit with us, sir.

00:00:11.780 By the time this video releases, we'll be about two weeks out from the vote on Alberta

00:00:16.580 independence. Well, sort of the half vote on Alberta independence. Give us a status update

00:00:22.020 from your end. How are you feeling? What is the, in your world, what is the general

00:00:26.700 temperature check on on on the independence discussion well you know the polls they release

00:00:35.800 would suggest that the federalists can just go home there's no need to put up any signs

00:00:42.800 yeah there's no need to release any more scary reports but that's not what they're doing so

00:00:50.100 So what I remind people of is that when we see these polls, a lot of them are push polls.

00:00:58.660 They're very small size.

00:01:00.040 They're intended to create a psychological response, a demoralization tactic, a fear tactic.

00:01:06.600 My focus, just like anybody in a campaign, is just working as hard every day to try and persuade people.

00:01:15.240 and what I think is becoming more clear

00:01:19.180 as we get closer to the vote

00:01:20.880 that this is not a vote on independence.

00:01:23.960 It's not on the ballot.

00:01:25.980 It's two questions.

00:01:28.500 Question 10 has two parts to it.

00:01:30.840 It's option one or option two.

00:01:34.480 Option one is stay in Canada status quo.

00:01:38.720 I'm okay with how Ottawa is treating Alberta.

00:01:42.180 I'm okay with Alberta's place in Canada and everything's fine

00:01:47.520 and Prime Minister Carney can do whatever he wants, I'm good.

00:01:51.960 Option two is no, we need, Alberta can do better.

00:01:56.920 Alberta's an economic powerhouse.

00:01:58.820 We have the youngest population in Canada.

00:02:03.160 We have the third largest reserve of oil.

00:02:05.940 We have millions of acres of fertile agricultural land.

00:02:08.680 We have a diversified economy.

00:02:10.800 We have de Havilland's making airplanes here.

00:02:13.400 We have agriculture value,

00:02:15.940 a value-added food processors that export products.

00:02:20.620 We have forestry, pulp and paper.

00:02:23.320 And we've got so much going for us.

00:02:26.660 It doesn't make sense anymore

00:02:28.300 in the modern setting of Canada and Alberta

00:02:32.120 and our place in Canada

00:02:33.240 to have the politicians who control our lives,

00:02:37.440 determine taxation,

00:02:38.500 criminal justice immigration and other important policies elected by people in Ontario that we

00:02:46.580 have no say over Ontario Quebec it makes sense for us to change our constitutional relationship

00:02:51.780 so that we elect those politicians here so I try and get people to understand that

00:02:57.580 the question on on the 19th of October is really an intermediate step it's how is Canada working

00:03:06.720 for alberta are is everything fine and nothing needs to change stay the same it's funny one of

00:03:13.020 the lead campaigns for the federalist side is vote to stay and i modified their logo to vote to stay

00:03:20.320 the same they didn't like that um but it's true or whether you think alberta can do better and we

00:03:27.940 think alberta can do better and more than most albertans think we can do better even those who

00:03:32.820 think are strongly patriotic and want to stay in Canada. So we're really pushing that message hard

00:03:38.940 and helping Albertans understand what the question really is. And if enough Albertans vote for option

00:03:45.400 two, it will give Alberta leverage to bring Ottawa to the table, to have a serious adult discussion

00:03:51.400 about making meaningful change that's more respectful of Alberta, that addresses the

00:03:56.700 unfairness of us sending 20 to 30 billion dollars a year to Ottawa in equalization payments. So

00:04:03.960 that's where we're at. It's a good point that you bring up about people who are still, you know,

00:04:10.800 if not fiercely patriotic to Canada, at least they hold some level of

00:04:15.240 nostalgia for what Canada used to be. But there are a lot of people who are in that position and

00:04:21.700 they maybe agree with us on the particular points about the issues that Alberta faces

00:04:28.680 in Confederation right now. But the argument that we hear a lot is that it would be so

00:04:33.060 administratively difficult to separate that it's almost not even worth the discussion to have.

00:04:39.340 And actually, you had a debate with a gentleman earlier today where a similar point came up.

00:04:43.720 But to those people who might be maybe on the fence, of which I think there is a not insignificant

00:04:48.580 percentage of people who are kind of on the fence, who feel that it's just, it's too great of a task.

00:04:55.520 How would you maybe assuage those fears a little bit? How would you sell those people?

00:05:00.620 Well, several months ago, I started a group called the Alberta Transition Council.

00:05:05.280 We brought together over 40 subject matter experts, and we've prepared a detailed transition

00:05:11.240 plan that's available at albertatransitioncouncil.com. And I would encourage people to go look at it.

00:05:17.440 and what we really found to be surprising is you know some of the federalists will say

00:05:25.540 oh well you're going to be starting a new country from scratch no we're not

00:05:29.260 we don't need to build two international airports we have them right everything we need to run

00:05:36.440 Alberta as a country is already here we have two passport offices we have two passport printing

00:05:44.540 machines. And what we really found was most of the changes would actually be administrative.

00:05:52.460 So the border and customs agents that currently work at the land borders with Montana and at the

00:06:01.660 two international airports, their chain of command ultimately reports back to Ottawa.

00:06:08.300 If Alberta would become independent and take over that function, those people would all keep their

00:06:13.640 jobs they would still have the same pens and chairs and we know how many chairs and pens they

00:06:21.880 have so it's not uncertain and they would uh what would change is if they had to go for a meeting

00:06:30.840 in head office instead of flying to ottawa they would drive to edmonton right so it's really most

00:06:36.520 of the things we found are really administrative in nature and they're all knowable one of the

00:06:41.640 One of the things I like to emphasize is former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously

00:06:48.500 one time said, there's known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

00:06:55.760 While Elon Musk trying to put humans on Mars has unknown unknowns and known unknowns.

00:07:03.020 Alberta seeking to take over administratively each of the functions of the federal government

00:07:09.120 that they provide today in Alberta is known.

00:07:13.700 We know exactly how many CATSA screeners at the airport

00:07:20.560 you need to put on in Calgary during spring break.

00:07:25.660 We know the staffing levels, right?

00:07:28.400 We know exactly how many border agents

00:07:30.840 need to work the customs desks.

00:07:33.180 We know how many chairs they have

00:07:34.420 and we know how many big pens they use in a year.

00:07:36.920 The only thing is an administrative change.

00:07:39.600 They keep their job, their uniform changes,

00:07:42.780 their business card changes, that's it.

00:07:44.980 So we're not starting things from scratch.

00:07:47.700 The scary reports that have been coming out

00:07:50.240 assume we're starting from scratch.

00:07:53.000 They assume, for example,

00:07:55.020 that we would need to build new courthouses.

00:07:57.980 We have courthouses, so we don't need to build new ones.

00:08:01.360 And they're provincial, so they're already paid for.

00:08:04.080 They assume that Ontario would stop trading with us.

00:08:09.800 That would be economic suicide.

00:08:12.120 Ontario's third most important market, third most important customer for jobs in Ontario

00:08:17.080 is selling goods and services to Alberta.

00:08:19.780 So $39 billion a year.

00:08:22.320 They could not afford to do that, particularly when they're losing access to the Americans.

00:08:26.680 And the reports assume they're going to stop taking our oil and gas.

00:08:31.860 it's absolutely absurd so i'm encouraging people not to fall for the fear and to recognize that

00:08:39.760 even if at the future the decision is made to hold a second vote for independence an actual

00:08:48.100 one on independence so little would have to change i had a reporter say to me last week

00:08:53.880 and he was a really sharp guy and he said well if alberta eventually moves to independence

00:08:58.660 he said the person at the passport office we're going to have to pay their salary and I

00:09:08.360 I intentionally kind of whispered into the phone we already do we already do right it's what's so

00:09:15.700 remarkable now of course we would have to build up a military and it's not like you know we can

00:09:22.020 say wow look at that Canadian military man whoa you know they couldn't even shoot down a slow

00:09:28.080 moving chinese spy balloon oh no i forgot i don't think they should have had like the roy green show

00:09:34.640 or whatever it is the guys go up into cessna and guy open a window with like a paintball gun and

00:09:39.200 you know take it out but no we had to rely on the americans and you know we've had currency experts

00:09:46.400 uh bond market experts international trade experts and they've recommended on a transitional basis if

00:09:54.640 Alberta way into the future after we get through this first vote if there's a second vote and it's

00:09:59.520 successful you would we would adopt we would continue to have the Canadian dollar and then

00:10:04.320 in time we would we would shift we looked at banking you know one of the things that surprised

00:10:09.600 me is um the five chartered banks they all they all provide banking services to Americans TD Bank

00:10:16.480 alone has 10 million personal banking customers in the United States wow double the population of

00:10:22.480 of Alberta yeah right so they're like the critics will say oh well the banks

00:10:27.080 well they won't know what to do without are you kidding me they operate in

00:10:30.640 multiple countries already so and the chartered banks hold according to the

00:10:37.300 Bank of Canada two hundred and fifty three billion dollars of Alberta money

00:10:42.280 in our personal bank accounts our business bank accounts on deposit here

00:10:46.180 those chartered banks cannot afford to lose us as customers now it is true that

00:10:51.880 federally the chartered banks have the deposit insurance corporation and that guarantees the

00:10:58.600 federal government guarantees up to a hundred thousand dollars of your deposits well did you

00:11:03.160 know that alberta has a deposit guarantee corporation and it's for the the the alberta

00:11:08.200 treasury branch and our credit unions and guess what the limit is unlimited your money's more

00:11:14.040 secure in alberta in a credit union or atb than it is in any federal chartered bank and what it shows

00:11:20.600 is we already have the institutional expertise on how to do that. We have a regulator in Alberta

00:11:27.080 of banking institutions. There's a federal one. We would just need to transfer administrative and

00:11:34.540 legal responsibility from Ottawa to Alberta. Conversely, to that last question about somebody

00:11:40.280 who is potentially on the fence but thinks it's too much of an administrative task,

00:11:44.880 and maybe this will be the last one that I ask you here, just to respect your time.

00:11:48.800 to somebody who was maybe on the fence, but now is leaning against voting option two, because they

00:11:55.640 say, well, look at all these project announcements we've had over the last couple of weeks. We've

00:11:59.900 got a high speed rail, we've got pipeline announcements, we've got, you know, federal

00:12:03.740 investment announcements. See, you know, maybe like your, your, your, your new best friend,

00:12:09.060 Mr. Jason Kenney says, Hey, Alberta, we got everything that we've been asking for.

00:12:13.360 what would you say to that type that that person who who might be swayed by something like this

00:12:20.260 well first of all i'd say three things it shows that when albertans stand up and recognize our

00:12:26.340 worth and say we're not happy with the status quo and we want change things happen and there's many

00:12:33.380 believe that this pipeline announcement would not have occurred if we weren't having this referendum

00:12:36.920 and i believe that to be true number two is the fact that it took so much effort and political

00:12:43.000 capital time and energy and taxpayer dollars to get us to the point of simply having a pipeline

00:12:48.680 announcement shows that canada is broken and doesn't work for alberta so it's evidence of

00:12:54.440 confederation not working that we have to there was a time when pipelines were built by the private

00:13:02.920 sector. Didn't involve any tax money. So the millions, the billions would be put into schools

00:13:10.500 and hospitals or to lowering taxes on your paycheck, right? To let you have more of your

00:13:17.920 paycheck. And what we have with the pipeline announcement is we have, it's going to cost,

00:13:26.900 according to the governments 30 to 40 billion dollars to build the pipeline of taxpayer money

00:13:33.080 and then a 20 to 30 billion dollars for the add-on pathways carbon capture project that the

00:13:38.900 prime minister insisted we have to do to decarbonize our oil despite the fact that the oil

00:13:43.520 industry says no buyer in the world will pay a premium for decarbonized oil so that adds up to

00:13:49.600 about 70 billion dollars of taxpayer money that's the same as the entire budget of the government

00:13:56.540 of alberta and we have some of the highest per capita spending by a government on people on its

00:14:02.980 citizens that's 70 billion dollars the alberta spends each year for this is the combination of

00:14:08.800 health care education social services roads infrastructure everything that's the scale of

00:14:16.200 this just for one pipeline that 15 years ago would have been built by the private sector with no

00:14:24.240 taxpayer money that's evidence of the system failing these are trinkets and they're very much

00:14:32.060 akin to that abused wife who has works hard is bringing in the money is holding the family

00:14:44.580 together and she says to the abusive husband I've had enough I'm going to kick you out I'm going my

00:14:52.800 own way and he shows up with a bouquet of flowers in this instance it was a pipeline and the final

00:14:59.680 thing i would say and this is the most important one we had the national energy program under

00:15:04.120 priel at trudeau absolutely devastated our economy uh bankruptcies suicides just terrible terrible

00:15:13.060 things we fought and fought and fought we kind of recovered from it and then another election

00:15:18.600 And then his son shows up, Justin Trudeau.

00:15:21.320 We have National Energy Program 2.09 ban laws.

00:15:25.160 Tar sands must stay in the ground.

00:15:27.500 Devastates our economy.

00:15:29.600 At any moment, Prime Minister Carney could get pressured from his Quebec caucus in the Liberal Party and say, yeah, or from Doug Ford.

00:15:39.560 Or the Europeans.

00:15:40.480 Or the Europeans now, yes, as our associate membership.

00:15:43.240 and say, yeah, let's fight Trump and put an export tax on Alberta oil, 0.58

00:15:50.000 immediately creating tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of job losses here.

00:15:54.800 A year from now, we could have Ontario, Quebec decide to impose a policy on us that's harmful

00:16:01.080 and there'll be nothing we can do about it.

00:16:03.620 I'm tired of that uncertainty.

00:16:05.980 And most importantly, as a father, 62 years of age, four kids,

00:16:11.320 I don't want my kids to have to live under that uncertainty going forward.

00:16:16.720 I want Alberta to have control of its future,

00:16:19.260 and I don't want the success of Alberta to be dependent upon the ideological,

00:16:24.700 how the ideological winds are blowing in Quebec and Ontario

00:16:28.160 and what the politicians in Ottawa decide to impose on my kids.

00:16:33.020 Mr. Keith Wilson, thank you for your time.

00:16:35.340 Thank you for your efforts in this movement.

00:16:36.880 Thank you.

00:16:41.320 Thank you.

The Critical Compass Podcast - October 08, 2026

Keith Wilson ｜ Independence Polls Are Designed to DEMORALIZE You

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