The Critical Compass Podcast - Mitch Sylvestre ｜ Petition Debrief & Looking Ahead to the Referendum

00:00:00.000 We're going to take every minute of the next four months to educate people and to find

00:00:06.120 out what the message is.

00:00:08.000 I believe that APP is going to knock on every door in Alberta.

00:00:11.300 I believe we're going to have a conversation with every Albertan that answers the door.

00:00:16.420 And I think we're going to have the ability to have two conversations with them actually

00:00:19.560 doing that.

00:00:20.560 And there's nobody else that could do that.

00:00:22.440 We're the only group in Alberta, maybe in Canada, that's big enough to do that.

00:00:26.420 And so I believe that we're starting out with this process here right away.

00:00:31.960 And you know what, we're going to expand on that, we're going to do it right up until

00:00:36.660 October 19th.

00:00:37.660 And we're going to go talk to Albertans, we're going to see what is their concern?

00:00:42.740 What are you worried about?

00:00:43.920 What is it about Alberta independence that scares you versus here's the reality of what

00:00:49.940 we could do for you?

00:00:56.420 hello everyone welcome back to the critical compass my name is mike and this is james

00:01:11.660 and we are very pleased to be joined by mitch sylvester of course the uh president founder um

00:01:17.860 app uh stay free alberta he's a very busy man um we are officially in the post uh petition period

00:01:27.220 uh mr sylvester we got um well well over 300 000 signatures maybe before we even get into the you

00:01:34.100 know specifics of what's been going on lately how do you feel about um how do you feel about

00:01:38.260 the final numbers that you got on the petition and how that sets us up for the coming few months

00:01:43.780 well actually to tell you the truth i was going into this i didn't know how it was going to be

00:01:50.580 um we found it was quite a bit more difficult and uh harder to do than we thought originally

00:01:56.660 uh surprisingly we never had any doubt that we would get 277 000 until we started collecting

00:02:03.460 signatures and then we found that you know the process well what threw us off right off the bat

00:02:08.020 was all those big events that we had there were events were big and they were showing you know

00:02:12.820 lots of people attending and there were lots of people attending but you know over the whole

00:02:18.180 province we weren't getting enough signatures to to get to our goal so we actually had to shift

00:02:22.580 gears a little bit and change what we were doing and put all of our 7 000 canvassers to work and

00:02:28.820 we figured out that 7 000 canvassers at five signatures a day is a lot more people than

00:02:34.500 5,000 people a night at events. We learned as we went. We adjusted. Honestly, between us,

00:02:45.540 I thought that 300,000 was a perfect number. I can share with you why. Even before this started,

00:02:53.780 when all the talk was going around, when Jeff was saying, oh, you know what? We could get a million

00:02:57.620 signatures. That always made me laugh because I'd been collecting signatures for three years.

00:03:02.260 When Jeff came out with that statement, I turned and said to my wife, Jeff's obviously never collected signatures, because that's a really hard thing to do.

00:03:12.260 People don't want to put their name on a list, and people are afraid to put their name on a list.

00:03:16.260 We found that out in spades during this whole petition process, where people did not want to sign because, hey, I don't want to be on that list.

00:03:22.260 I don't want to take a chance of losing my job. I don't want to take a chance that I'm on a list and they're going to come and find me.

00:03:30.260 i don't want to my bank account frozen and all of that played into it so as a consequence to that

00:03:35.700 uh you know the conversation even before was if we get a million signatures are we going to turn

00:03:40.980 them all in um because that would send a very strong message to the other side uh you know and

00:03:47.860 wake everybody up um but you know as it turned out the number that we actually had done for and hoped

00:03:53.940 to get was was 300 000 and uh it was a pretty exciting moment in our account uh process uh up

00:04:00.580 at the store that when we're accounting when we actually passed 300 000 it was a big celebration

00:04:05.300 up there so yes it was great and and that doesn't even uh factor in that it was during one of the

00:04:13.700 coldest winters we've had in a while um and these are 7 000 people that were dedicated enough to

00:04:18.980 stand outside in the cold and sometimes the turnout was great people would drive uh drive

00:04:26.340 and stop and engage and then i i know there are some days where maybe they would go a couple hours

00:04:32.500 with nobody actually stopping and and that takes a lot of grit for those 7 000 people to stick

00:04:38.900 through and one thing i've noticed once once we got out of this petition period it felt like

00:04:45.380 we had all this energy and then we had the court decision and a few hit pieces and a few other

00:04:55.640 things that all seemed to coalesce all at the same time. And that energy for a few weeks there

00:05:01.640 seemed like it went from this real big high to this real big low. So how are you feeling and

00:05:08.720 And how is the APP navigating out of that now?

00:05:12.400 I think from my personal perspective, we were tired.

00:05:17.920 I mean, we worked really hard for that last three months.

00:05:23.120 I did 65 events in 70 days or something like that for the last two months.

00:05:29.440 When we got to the 300,000, we kept working day in and day out to try and organize for the next level.

00:05:35.520 think it was more the people the people that had done all the work uh you know they felt deflated

00:05:41.040 i actually never worried about any of it i'm looking at a long runway here and and an actual

00:05:46.480 fact we're probably as well organized or better organized than ever now um you know we've got our

00:05:52.160 website up and running we've got uh we've got all of our provincial leaders ready to go um we've got

00:05:57.520 everybody's got a plan and here's the plan the plan is simple for us to get out to vote has to be huge

00:06:02.320 like we basically have to get over a million people to get out to vote so uh whether we do it

00:06:10.080 you know everybody says well i got five people in my hip pocket but i'm not going to put their name

00:06:14.320 on a list i would much prefer have the names so that we can make sure that they get out to vote

00:06:18.480 and call them but uh now it's going to be the grinding it's going to go back to you know to

00:06:23.520 those guys that you know you're talking you're alluding to guys i i stopped at a at a pop-up

00:06:29.600 on a 30-below day in a small town in southern Alberta, and they were expecting to get five

00:06:34.640 signatures in eight hours. Imagine, they had this little enclosed trailer, and they had this little

00:06:43.520 heater at their feet, and they were both sitting in there waiting for people. I just drove by,

00:06:47.680 and I saw them, and I knocked on the door. I walked in and visited with them for half an hour,

00:06:52.000 and nobody but me was there. I was going to another meeting. That was happening all over

00:06:58.080 the province and then people gutted it out so now we're going to have to do it again so now we're

00:07:02.800 going to have to do it again we're going to have to have conversation because the one thing the one

00:07:07.840 thing that i know and i've always thought this right from the very beginning i want to get a

00:07:12.880 whole bunch of our people on a phone list or on a list so that we can talk to them directly and

00:07:19.840 we can influence the conversation we can share with them kind of smoke signal from hill to hill

00:07:25.120 and that mainstream media can't get to our people. I'm thinking in my own mind, we're running a

00:07:30.560 campaign just like in the 1770s, back in the day, where neighbors are talking to neighbors and say,

00:07:35.920 hey, this is something that we have to do. I really see that's the path. As much as I'm seeing,

00:07:41.840 you know, guys are saying to me, well, we've got to do billboards, and we've got to do all that.

00:07:45.040 I totally agree with that. We're going to raise money to do all of that stuff, and we're going

00:07:48.720 to do social media, and we've hired professionals to come out with a message and do all the rest of

00:07:53.840 that and i think that's all important but this is going to be one uh one-on-one this is going to be

00:08:01.600 one with a neighbor talking to a neighbor with a dad talking to a son or daughter uh or brother

00:08:06.960 or father uh this this is how this is going to get one this is going to get one with people

00:08:12.080 having conversation amongst themselves and saying hey we're in a real bad spot and it's going to

00:08:17.920 take some real effort and it's not going to come without consequence and the only way that we're

00:08:23.600 getting out of this is if we do it together and that we do the work together and we make up our

00:08:29.280 mind that this is going to be something that we're not going to drop the ball here. We're going to

00:08:34.560 have one shot at this. It reminds me of Genghis Khan. We're like Genghis Khan back in the day

00:08:41.280 when he was trying to conquer the world, and he had his family and all the women and children

00:08:46.480 in his procession, and they couldn't afford to lose a battle. Because if they lost a battle,

00:08:51.120 it would all be done right it would be done so they went through you know years and years and

00:08:54.960 years without losing a battle so that's kind of where we are we can't lose a battle so we have

00:08:59.840 to make sure that we uh you know make sure that we're prepared or make sure that we're ready and

00:09:04.400 and we will be and uh away we go so that's kind of the way i look at it

00:09:10.320 uh mitch i wonder if you could speak briefly or extendedly whatever you prefer uh to the uh the

00:09:17.040 this is a couple weeks ago now but the recently announced um the the referendum question that we

00:09:22.640 will be getting on the ballot in october uh and uh maybe in response to that um kind of your

00:09:30.720 i don't know if it was only your call there seems to be a general call and amongst many in the in

00:09:35.280 the ucp membership to call a special general meeting about um daniel smith uh in response

00:09:41.600 to this uh this referendum question could you speak to that a bit well of course i was very

00:09:46.640 very disappointed. I mean, I was very disappointed in the question. I was very disappointed in the

00:09:52.480 fact that that came out there. Also, the other part that disappointed me probably more than anything

00:09:58.160 is the Premier saying, okay, well, I'm actively going to campaign against Alberta independence

00:10:02.560 now with the rest of them, with the Kazakhs, with, you know, Carney, with the MVP. So here are my 0.88

00:10:11.200 thoughts on that she had every opportunity to stay on the fence here right she could have she 1.00

00:10:18.160 had 400 000 signatures on one side she had 300 000 signatures on the other side 0.97

00:10:23.600 she had a chance to absolutely call the vote decide go with the winner and say you know what

00:10:31.520 we gave everybody had had their chance at this but here's the problem the problem is i think

00:10:36.320 they think we can win. As a consequence to that, they're afraid to let us have a vogue.

00:10:44.000 They're going to try everything they can to delay it and delay it some more. Honestly, I think they're

00:10:49.280 right. I think we can win. Once people understand what's going on out there from Ottawa, it makes

00:10:55.600 it easier for us to explain it to people on a daily basis. Everything that is coming down from

00:11:00.800 them just strengthens our position. I always had it in the back of my mind that I always thought

00:11:07.680 that the Premier is actually on our side of this and that she's going to come through for us in the

00:11:12.960 end and at least allow this to get to a vote and then she's going to end up in a neutral position

00:11:18.880 and she's going to win either way. But apparently that's not the way she wants to play it out.

00:11:24.000 I'm disappointed about it. I said it the very next day and as far as the SGM is concerned,

00:11:29.520 well you know that's going to be a combination that's going to be had in the future i think

00:11:33.920 i think people are looking at it people are looking to see how that's going to go and she's

00:11:38.160 going to be the next conservative leader if that happens that may not make it through her term

00:11:43.600 uh and and a part of it is is that i find it was unnecessary

00:11:48.080 well you know i'm a ucp chair i'm a ucp member i raised more money for danielle smith than anybody

00:11:52.720 in the last three years and i actually uh brought thousands of people to the sdm the last one once

00:11:58.000 she got their 92 approval rating based on the alberta bill of rights and i got a little bit

00:12:03.120 of warning then about what was coming now because that alberta bill of rights turned out to be a

00:12:08.000 disaster for us we were told that we were going to get four things and they backed out on all of

00:12:12.080 them um you know they they if you remember they came out with a bill before the sgm a week before

00:12:18.080 the sgm and i basically was very disappointed with the bill and i i let them know that i wasn't going

00:12:24.400 to support this at the agm and that i was going to flip sides uh because this is not at all what

00:12:29.280 we were told and you know we were told we're going to get um you know gun rights which is a big part

00:12:34.240 of it which i i had all the major the the national gun groups all lined up bringing gun members to

00:12:39.840 this because alberta was going to get a gun rights a bill and it was going to be similar to what we

00:12:45.360 had had coming in you know with with the with the two pal system with the palace system for the

00:12:50.160 restricted, non-restricted, the ability to buy these guns with the proper paperwork, and we were 0.99

00:12:56.080 going to go back to the system that we had before they started coming in with these stupid rules. 0.95

00:13:00.400 And bodily autonomy was going to be part of that, informed consent was going to be part of that, 0.95

00:13:04.000 we were going to get additional property rights, and they backed out on all of it.

00:13:07.840 And I was very angry at the time, and then basically as time went on, you know, we got to

00:13:15.280 this point where we kept getting stronger and stronger, and I think the UCP believed that we

00:13:21.200 were a threat to them. Then they basically floated Bill 14 out there—I think it's Bill 14—and

00:13:26.720 said, you know what, you need 177,000 signatures to get this referendum vote.

00:13:31.840 Well, we knew we had 250,000 people in our intent-to-sign list, so 250,000 people should

00:13:40.160 have been slam dunk for us, but we found out that a lot of those people didn't want to sign a piece

00:13:44.000 As a consequence of that, we ended up getting a bit more, but then when we got the signatures, they were surprised that we got that many, I think.

00:13:57.000 Especially with the process that we had, because we had to check ID, the canvassers had to find, and all that stuff.

00:14:05.000 This list is clean. Believe me, this list is clean.

00:14:09.000 So our canvassers were terrified that they were going to shut the process down by doing something wrong.

00:14:14.000 So they were very, very diligent.

00:14:16.000 And the ladies that were counting them checked every signature, made sure they were verified,

00:14:21.000 made sure everything was on there.

00:14:23.000 So it was a very, very, very well done process.

00:14:26.000 We had them alphabetically ordered by a canvasser.

00:14:30.000 Everything was in the page. Everything was done for them.

00:14:32.000 So it was very, very well done, and I was proud of everybody.

00:14:35.000 It was just a fantastic job.

00:14:37.000 But then, after all that work, from 300,000 people that support the UCP, and then to have

00:14:45.040 the premier basically say, you know what, we don't care, I'm going to throw this under

00:14:48.740 the bus, and we're going to go back to where we were, and we're going to have a question

00:14:52.820 to ask a question.

00:14:54.820 So I was more than disappointed, I'm sure lots of people were more than disappointed.

00:14:58.300 And here's the problem, lots of people look at Danielle, Danielle's very popular, lots

00:15:02.380 of people look at Danielle and say, well, who's going to replace Danielle?

00:15:05.900 you know is she ever going to allow this to get to a vote well the way i see it right now no uh

00:15:11.820 and and that there's the problem and our our and i had been to many many town halls i just explained

00:15:18.380 to you that i did like 70 in a very small period of time there and every night asked the same

00:15:23.900 question if it comes down to to an alberta independent an independent alberta or anybody

00:15:28.700 for premier what's your choice 100 said 100 independent alberta there wasn't there wasn't 95

00:15:36.380 the five it was like 100 saying independent alberta the problem with that is it's easy to say

00:15:42.540 when it's not right in front of you and then now it gets right in front of you people saying well

00:15:46.540 you know what let's focus on the question let's not focus too much on an sgm which i agree with

00:15:51.180 because we have to win the question but however i think all of that's on the table

00:15:55.180 yeah you make a really good point that um what she was doing that's not a neutral stance by any

00:16:04.400 means and um to actively to reassert each time that you are pro-canada and you're trying to

00:16:14.160 prevent the vote from being successful is it that that's her putting up a hurdle where she didn't

00:16:24.660 have to put a hurdle if she was actually neutral she could just say i'm gonna let the people decide

00:16:30.420 and she'll just hands off as the premier um i i could maybe forgive that aspect a little bit more

00:16:38.100 but i am curious on the on the question itself um i think it was actually a really difficult

00:16:46.020 decision to make so whatever decision she'd make she'd get pushed back from any side including her

00:16:52.100 own members in the ucp or just she's going to get pushed back from the ndp and just federal media

00:16:58.660 anyways but um i have a feeling if she pushed the question uh the app question with without the

00:17:08.260 court case being resolved i know that there's some it doesn't directly apply like if it's held

00:17:14.180 under the referendum act then it's not under the citizen initiative act and technically those

00:17:18.500 Those provisions don't, those technicalities don't apply in the same way, but my understanding is that you could still have additional court cases or just have the FESB decision and the one in May weaponized against this question as well, and it may be deemed unconstitutional.

00:17:46.960 And that is radioactive enough that it could have prevented a lot of people on the fence from voting.

00:17:56.520 What are your thoughts on that?

00:17:58.100 Well, here's the thing.

00:18:00.460 I looked at the two questions, like Lukasik's and ours, and I was surprised, actually,

00:18:08.180 because when we went in, the deal was 177,000 signatures to get a constitutional question.

00:18:14.800 Right?

00:18:15.440 Right. That was the understanding. So we got $300,000, and we expected a question to open a clinical constitution.

00:18:23.440 The big picture says to me that if you want—and this is not my position, so let's be clear—

00:18:29.440 if you want a better deal to stay within Canada, you have to threaten to go and mean it.

00:18:37.440 Right? And that's not my position. I think that right now—that was my position a year ago before Carney got elected.

00:18:44.440 But now I clearly understand and I see that the best position for Alberta is to be all by themselves.

00:18:49.640 So would the Premier have been better off to ask Lukaszczyk's question, is my thing.

00:18:55.560 So if she had said, well, you know what, Lukaszczyk, you know, let's just say—and just as she said, it was a nothing burglar—

00:19:01.960 but the problem with asking Lukaszczyk's question was a yes or no question. It was a free shot, right?

00:19:06.600 Which is basically what we have now. So they would have taken a big chance at Lukaszczyk's question.

00:19:13.480 This question is no different, as far as I'm concerned.

00:19:16.440 Albertans get a chance to take a free shot at Ottawa with no consequences.

00:19:20.920 The only consequences we have is if we lose, and then they're going to shut it down for five years.

00:19:25.640 That's the consequence. There's no consequence to them on a nothing but a question.

00:19:30.680 The only question is for us if we don't win the vote.

00:19:35.560 I think we have a very good chance to tell people, 0.98

00:19:38.760 if you want to shoot a shot across the bow of ottawa i think you get an opportunity to

00:19:43.240 do this with no consequences and i think that may be the way it ends up

00:19:47.800 because i really believe that i wonder if you have an opinion on the um we we were on an event

00:19:57.480 a couple weeks ago uh hosted by fergus hodgson with um keith wilson and eva chipiak and it was

00:20:04.360 Keith's contention that he was actually not entirely disappointed with Daniel Smith's question

00:20:11.560 because it was his belief that you may, even though it does seemingly put up a referendum

00:20:19.740 for a referendum, he was thinking that perhaps it would be the case where if somebody is not

00:20:25.300 necessarily ready to vote explicitly for an independent Alberta, perhaps we would get

00:20:32.300 actually more people who would be willing to vote to see the process through he seems to think that

00:20:37.580 that's a bit of a softer uh maybe a softer entry into a uh an uncontestable question later on what

00:20:45.500 do you have any thoughts on that well i think that's a glass half full view of it right i i

00:20:51.260 think that you see the question you're disappointed in the question and then you know you're stuck

00:20:55.500 with it so then at that point you say well you know what this is what we have so let's make the

00:20:59.740 best of it and let's try and rationalize see how this could work out in our favor and i believe

00:21:04.540 that's what keith did and keith has always been uh you know on daniel's side of this and he would

00:21:09.500 have you know done uh you know i i believe and that's part of that uh so you know what he's he's

00:21:15.180 wouldn't be in favor of an sgm i would promise you um but the whole thing the whole thing with

00:21:19.580 that is is that yeah that's the way we're looking at it now because we don't have a choice and we

00:21:24.380 absolutely want to make sure that our people understand that we're not going to focus on

00:21:28.460 on anything but this question and get it won.

00:21:31.800 So, you know what, that may be the case,

00:21:35.300 but we thought we could win it just straight up,

00:21:38.460 this way, with five months to campaign.

00:21:40.880 And I think we could have.

00:21:41.840 And here's the difference.

00:21:43.980 The difference from our perspective is,

00:21:45.980 just think about the money difference.

00:21:47.640 If people know that this is a vote

00:21:49.680 for free and independent Alberta, people are all in.

00:21:52.860 Like, people are going to commit money to it.

00:21:55.120 This is going to be a big battle.

00:21:56.920 The battle is set, the battlefield is decided on, and away we go.

00:22:02.720 This is going to be the battle for Alberta.

00:22:05.760 It will be way easier to raise money, everybody's going to pick a side,

00:22:11.880 the conversation is going to be real everywhere,

00:22:14.920 and as far as I'm concerned, we win if that's the case.

00:22:17.880 If the conversation is real, if people know that this is a fight,

00:22:22.160 if people understand clearly that they're going to have a chance to make a decision on this,

00:22:26.880 let's make sure we understand what's actually going on, what's driving these people to think

00:22:31.120 that we need a free and independent Alberta, and what's wrong with Ottawa, what's wrong with what's

00:22:35.760 going on over there. They would have to explain a new world order. They would have to explain their

00:22:41.040 association with communist China. They would have to explain all the stuff that happened in the last

00:22:45.600 five or six or eight years. They would have to explain the floor crossing, how you give somebody

00:22:49.840 $500 million to cross the floor and you end up with a majority government. They would have to

00:22:54.080 to explain all the things that are happening. I believe that works out for us because here's

00:22:59.800 what we want. We want a better deal for Albertans, and we think it's out there if we don't

00:23:05.640 send $47 billion a year to Ottawa one way. That would give us the opportunity to see

00:23:14.380 an end date to this. Not that that's important as much now as it was two or three weeks ago

00:23:21.860 when we were really tired from coming off of that last battle.

00:23:25.400 But now we're set to go for the long haul, of course,

00:23:28.360 and do whatever it takes to get to the end.

00:23:32.080 Yeah, in an ideal world, you just push to one end point

00:23:35.100 and you'd be all in and we'd be able to consolidate our efforts.

00:23:38.740 And unfortunately, we have to navigate with this question

00:23:42.940 to kind of get a mandate to now hold a question.

00:23:45.940 And one thing I'm wondering is, do we know actually how on board the people in the cities are?

00:23:55.580 Because right now I am living in the middle of downtown Edmonton and the people around me and some friends and family are, yeah, like if I wasn't so close to the river valley, it would be unbearable in some ways.

00:24:12.100 And we'll see if my location changes in the near future.

00:24:15.280 But this is a reality where, in the cities, there's still a lot of people captured by collectivist ideas.

00:24:23.640 They are very much trusting in these large authorities.

00:24:26.660 They're trusting in a federalist system.

00:24:29.160 And I know there's a third of the people that will never be convinced.

00:24:32.600 And there's people that are maybe a little bit more disengaged with politics.

00:24:37.440 Maybe they're absorbing ideas and they're busy with their lives.

00:24:40.420 And I think this is where some of the, let it be billboards or the traditional outlets, that primes them for certain information and certain messaging that once you get to that in-person conversation, you've hopefully had enough seeds planted that it's an easier sell, it's easier to get on the same page.

00:25:04.160 um but i'm wondering what is the um what kind of strategies or what is the plan for reaching more

00:25:13.920 of the people in the cities because i think the small towns are probably already like there's been

00:25:18.700 a every single community hall has been filled essentially at some point in the last couple

00:25:24.480 years so uh the cities are the kind of the next big front yeah call me naive but i really i really

00:25:31.460 think that this whole thing is nonpartisan. I really actually do. I really think that if Albertans

00:25:38.180 understand what we think is coming, I think it would be worth them taking a chance on us going

00:25:43.780 our own way. There's lots of factors here. We're the producers. We're the ones that create the

00:25:50.100 wealth. We're the ones that are going to be okay with healthy other guys. Do the people of Alberta

00:25:58.820 actually want to take a chance on going into communism, if they understand that this is

00:26:04.340 actually going to happen, and it possibly could happen. Do they want to take a chance, or do they

00:26:11.380 not want to take a chance on being much better off? What if in five years we could go with no

00:26:19.140 income tax at all? Because with the numbers that we're seeing, that's a very distinct possibility.

00:26:24.500 uh people have to understand people are going paycheck to paycheck uh the economic side of it

00:26:29.540 people are saying that's not not a really big deal but uh luxury you know that's a luxury of the rich

00:26:34.740 people but but at any rate moving forward we're going to see that you know things are going to

00:26:40.980 get worse not better and mr carney seems to be finding a way to include uh include brookfield

00:26:47.860 in every single financial decision he makes so so if people are understanding that you know the laws

00:26:54.020 that we used to have are not laws anymore that these people are basically lawless um i don't

00:26:58.980 know if even albertans on the other side of this want to live that way um and want you know to give

00:27:03.700 politicians a free reign to you know just to take and take all of alberta's wealth and pay themselves

00:27:09.140 while taxing the heck out of them and not giving them any opportunity to look to a bright future

00:27:14.660 like what I grew up in, and which is the whole reason I'm here. So the thing is, is that I think

00:27:18.900 it would have been incumbent on us to get the message out to those people like, look,

00:27:23.140 there is a problem coming down the pipe here that I think you better start to have a look at and

00:27:29.300 consider. And that would have been the messaging. The messaging would have been, look, you have to

00:27:34.420 take care of yourself here. You have to understand what's at stake. And if we could make it clear

00:27:39.380 what's at stake based on the actions of the people in Ottawa, I believe that that would have been on

00:27:44.580 us to do and so that people would understand that look we're going to try to make every albertan 0.99

00:27:50.820 better off you know from the from the aboriginal that lives on the reserve in a microcosm of what 0.99

00:27:56.100 we got going on they've got political they've got crooked chiefs working over there they've got 0.97

00:28:00.740 corrupt chiefs there and we've got corrupt chiefs here and uh everybody's got to look at this as the

00:28:06.420 best opportunity they'll ever have in their life to actually get ahead when could you and we're

00:28:11.380 We're talking about cutting half the federal income tax off right off the bat and lowering

00:28:17.040 the corporate tax rate to be the lowest in North America.

00:28:19.700 That would be a $23 billion cost to Alberta and to everything else.

00:28:26.140 That would be half of our $47 billion surplus.

00:28:30.400 But when was the last time that you ever saw 20% or more, 30% or half of your federal

00:28:36.940 income tax tax reduction?

00:28:40.560 That would be the equivalent of giving people somewhere on $160,000 household income $13,000 net every year right off the bat.

00:28:51.600 If you take away the carbon tax and all the rest of that kind of stuff, well, then it makes things cheaper as well.

00:28:56.680 So you'd have been looking at a net gain of $1,100 a month per household.

00:29:04.440 In today's world, that's just the start of it, too, by the way.

00:29:09.080 And in today's world, that could be the difference between making it and not making it.

00:29:13.220 And it doesn't matter which stripe you're on.

00:29:14.960 I always allude to the fact that Trudeau won by promising people that he was going to legalize marijuana.

00:29:21.820 So what do you think the odds are that even people on the other side of this would vote

00:29:25.520 for a $1,000 a month pay increase?

00:29:32.240 says to me, oh, Mitch, you can't make this just about money. Well, the funny thing is that the

00:29:37.920 other side makes this all about money. This is all about money for them, and everything they do

00:29:44.720 is designed to make them richer and us poorer. They're clearly trying to do that by everything

00:29:50.800 that they do. But we can't go down that path and say, well, you know what, this is about money,

00:29:55.920 because that's a shallow way to look at it. It's got to be more about the pride

00:30:02.240 be a canadian and nobody was taught her to be a canadian up until last year than me uh so i'm

00:30:07.520 just saying that you know i never started out this way this is the way i ended up uh after i got

00:30:12.240 involved and i started seeing what was happening yeah it's a similar story to us to us mitch

00:30:17.680 actually i mean we um i say it on every episode but and it's always a new guest so we james and

00:30:23.920 i often describe ourselves as recovering leftists because we used to be you know live like james

00:30:28.720 said you know we're just liberals in the city we're musicians and we grew up in you know crowds

00:30:32.560 of people that you know essentially when you're when you're having to contend with um questioning

00:30:40.320 your entire life's belief systems up to a certain point it's it's actually quite a painful thing for

00:30:45.920 a lot of people and i i often wonder like you know you're exactly right people want to say like oh

00:30:51.840 you know you're just making this about money you guys are just greedy but absolutely right you

00:30:55.920 You know, the response from what we're seeing from these groups emerging on the left now, NDP adjacent groups and, you know, former, you know, liberal cabinet members and stuff is all about the money aspect.

00:31:07.980 They just are attempting to refute our claims and say that actually this is risky.

00:31:13.820 Actually, businesses will pull out of the province.

00:31:16.120 Actually, this, actually that.

00:31:17.200 But it does end up ultimately coming down to a monetary issue.

00:31:20.580 I wonder for the people in your life, Mitch, that maybe are a little more left leaning or were left leaning and are having to kind of contend with, you know, well, actually, Canada isn't quite what we thought it was or what, you know, what it used to be or were nostalgic for a country that no longer exists.

00:31:39.260 Do you kind of have something, maybe other than the money aspect, maybe a cultural aspect or some sort of response like that, that you would say to those people to try and kind of wake them up, I guess, to the reality that we're dealing with?

00:31:53.500 Well, that's really hard to do, right?

00:31:55.160 It's really hard to wake people up to that reality.

00:31:58.780 And I still have one holdout in my family.

00:32:01.160 I've got all the rest on my side of this. 0.97

00:32:03.760 But the one particular lady daughter-in-law that I have, I don't like to talk politics at the house because I'm not talking politics 24-7.

00:32:13.760 I said to her, I said, you know, I'm going to ask you a question because they're both professionals, her and him.

00:32:22.760 I said, if you guys ended up with $2,000 net more money a month, would that be enough to convince you to support our side of those?

00:32:32.760 And she said, absolutely.

00:32:36.760 We're seeing, even though we're both professionals with three little kids,

00:32:42.760 that we have to be more careful than we've ever had to be.

00:32:47.760 They own their own home. They're both professionals.

00:32:50.760 They both have a vehicle.

00:32:52.760 They're not broke by any stretch of the imagination.

00:32:54.760 But now what's happening is they're seeing that their taxes are continuing to go up.

00:32:59.760 And the funniest thing is that we're seeing that in our lives.

00:33:04.560 I mean, the two retired people, my wife and I, and my wife's still working full-time running the business,

00:33:08.560 but our paycheck doesn't go as far as it went two or three years ago, and we're clearly seeing it.

00:33:16.480 Because we're in a position where we're both collecting pensions, so there's a max to how much we can take out of that business,

00:33:21.360 and so we clearly see what we can end up with after all that's done, and it's not what it was three or four years ago.

00:33:29.760 and we're seeing everything go up all over the place. It's just crazy what's going on.

00:33:36.160 And we're wondering how people are affording it. How are people affording to do this?

00:33:43.360 And the funniest thing for me is I have a friend that went to the premier's entourage,

00:33:49.200 and he went to Dubai with them. And he said, I hate to say this out loud, but holy cow,

00:33:56.480 We should look at a monarchy. These guys are paying no tax, federal or provincial.

00:34:02.960 They get a check every month from the government. Their healthcare system is absolutely awesome

00:34:12.640 and not crowded like ours. The whole system there is completely different than what we have going on.

00:34:20.480 Why can't we do that for Alberta? We have more than them. We have as much oil as them.

00:34:25.920 We can produce as much oil as them. If they're producing 11 million barrels of oil a day,

00:34:29.920 we can produce 11 million barrels of oil a day. Absolutely we can. We can sell natural gas. We've

00:34:34.320 got trillions and trillions of units of natural gas to sell. But in addition to that, we have

00:34:40.560 farming. We have forestry. We have all manner of things here. We have tons of fresh water. We're

00:34:46.960 one of the richest land masses anywhere in the world, and yet the government that we have has

00:34:52.560 been spending the last 10 years literally sabotaging industry. There's another thing.

00:34:57.600 I never ever thought in my lifetime that I'd ever see a Canadian government trying to hurt its own

00:35:03.280 people. That's just what they're doing. Through COVID and now through policy to shut us in and

00:35:10.640 stop us. What happens when we lose that kind of investment and when they try to shut down the oil

00:35:17.520 patch is is for future generations and for people coming up when we were growing up there was you 0.72

00:35:23.840 know as a 20 year old and and this happened a bit back in those days where girls got pregnant in

00:35:30.160 high school and they ended up getting married and but the thing of it was is that back in those days

00:35:35.840 you could stay home as a mom and your husband could go out as a 20 year old and buy a house

00:35:42.400 so that you could live in a house with the baby and stay home and have the rest of your babies 0.82

00:35:45.920 and then go to work or whatever was required after that. That's impossible today. That's impossible

00:35:51.760 today. So that's the benchmark for me, looking at how that is working out. And now I'm seeing,

00:35:58.320 you know, my son and the elder phoned me the other day and said, since when is, you know,

00:36:02.080 $120 an hour not enough to live on? Because, I mean, that's what they get paid and then they

00:36:06.240 got to take all their expenses and all the rest of that. It's a brand new reality for people.

00:36:11.760 and you know these guys work you know 12 hours a day in the dead of winter laying on their back

00:36:17.160 welding pipe it's not as if it's a glamorous job but it's a well-paying job but but the whole thing

00:36:22.500 is is that if if they're no longer developing and are no longer pulling that resource out of the

00:36:27.820 ground then as a consequence to that it takes away opportunity from our people and they're

00:36:33.360 hollowing out the middle class on us is what they're doing and as a consequence to that you

00:36:38.100 You know, at some point, they're going to accomplish what they're doing for sure. 0.86

00:36:42.160 And there's going to be two classes of people here and a lot of poor people and a very few rich people.

00:36:47.620 And that's what I'm afraid of.

00:36:49.040 And that's what I don't want for Alberta and Albertans.

00:36:52.880 Yeah, it's not about the money until people are struggling to live.

00:36:57.200 And then they realize, well, money at this point, it's changing their lives.

00:37:05.520 And if their money evaporates year to year, that is, like, how do you look forward to the future?

00:37:13.700 How do you plan 10 years ahead, 20 years ahead?

00:37:16.980 How do you raise a family?

00:37:18.640 You don't know how much your dollar is worth.

00:37:20.840 So part of what makes this so difficult is that, like, when you unpack these ideas with people, especially with people that are already stressed, they're busy,

00:37:34.040 they don't have the cognitive space to dive deep into all these different topics but to really

00:37:41.920 understand this you have to well talk about confederation you have to talk about the cultural

00:37:46.700 elements talk about the economy you have to talk about well what about what's our constitution like

00:37:52.560 what could it be what's our monetary policy like why has fiat currency existed in the way that it

00:38:00.020 has over the last 50 years and that's a lot to unpack but um so even with some of my friends

00:38:08.980 and family i'll chip away at a couple of those ideas depends who they are and it's i realize

00:38:16.980 our podcast is it's not going to be watched by people primarily that are like on the fence it's

00:38:23.780 going to be people that are watching it and then maybe learning something and then reaching out to

00:38:28.580 maybe friends and family and they're going to take what they've learned or some of the ideas

00:38:33.460 that we've unpacked and they're going to they're going to propagate that within their circle

00:38:38.580 one thing that comes up is i hear this idea that they'll say well the ucp is corrupt or these guys

00:38:45.620 are corrupt and you you get from all sides you have this common theme that government is bloated

00:38:53.300 and corrupt but it's usually that they're just saying their teams the good ones and the other

00:38:58.180 teams the bad guys and my biggest question to that is if that is true if what you're saying is true

00:39:05.940 then why are we in a system that enables that level of corruption would would wouldn't this

00:39:12.420 be a great opportunity to revise the system in a way that puts strict limits on uh bureaucratic bloat

00:39:21.940 spending, all these things that you are saying that is currently corrupt.

00:39:28.620 So I think that's a big point that can be made with anybody without disagreeing with

00:39:33.660 them, because you can say, yes, given what you say is true, what does that mean for Alberta

00:39:38.620 independence?

00:39:40.060 And then the same thing is that will go hand in hand with the Constitutional Convention.

00:39:44.740 So I think the work that Dennis Kelma is doing and then the newly formed Alberta Transition Council, just laying out, giving some legitimacy to people who are interested about there being like a solid plan or having these ideas kind of structured in a way that we can discuss.

00:40:07.220 But when I was born, I had zero opportunity to engage in a constitutional convention for our own constitution, and this is a unique opportunity now.

00:40:20.220 So I think those are a couple things worth, if we were trying to like steer away from just the money argument or if we've exhausted that in a conversation, these are some other avenues that I feel like are almost as or even more important when it comes to what an independent Alberta will be.

00:40:44.240 What we want to do is defang the politicians. That's basically what we have to do. We have to take away their ability to bite.

00:40:52.240 Switzerland's done it. It's not as if it's not been done out there. 0.57

00:40:59.240 The Westminster system is corruptible and is corrupt. It's an honor system.

00:41:05.240 We're clearly seeing that politicians have no honor. Absolutely, we have to change the system.

00:41:11.240 And you missed a very important point, and I'm going to share with you.

00:41:15.660 We started out talking about it.

00:41:17.660 People are scared.

00:41:20.240 People are scared.

00:41:21.480 And being in business my whole life, I've always said to my staff,

00:41:25.940 don't be afraid to succeed either, because here's the problem.

00:41:30.240 You have to look at this, and yeah, there's going to be bumps and things on the road.

00:41:35.440 But if you look at the entire situation, we have trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars worth of saleable assets.

00:41:44.440 We have all manner of arable land.

00:41:48.440 We can raise enough food in Alberta to feed every Albertan forever without a question.

00:41:57.440 And when we run out, there's lots of wild game moving through the area that you can actually access as well.

00:42:04.440 So what I'm saying to you is, if you stand back as an individual and look at Alberta as a business investment, you couldn't find a better business investment than Alberta.

00:42:15.760 And the rest of it, you have to understand, is we have educated people that understand how to use those resources and how to sell them and how to take them out of the ground and how to produce wealth.

00:42:28.860 That's what Albertans do.

00:42:29.940 Albertans produce wealth.

00:42:31.820 Albertans are hardworking.

00:42:32.940 They have a definite identity, and they're conservatives.

00:42:36.940 The thing is with the Liberals and all of the NDP people in this province is,

00:42:42.940 if we are not producing that wealth, what happens to their programs?

00:42:47.940 That's clear. It sounds very simple, but the whole thing is,

00:42:53.940 at some point, you can't pay people money if you're not producing money,

00:42:56.940 and there's nobody in Canada that produces more money than Alberta.

00:43:01.580 so if you're looking at taking a chance on a business i would suggest that this is going to

00:43:05.740 be the chance of a lifetime for all of you and the chances of a lifetime are things that you remember

00:43:10.140 10 years 12 years 15 years down the road is things you should have done and i think this is what

00:43:15.100 we're this is where we're at right now mitch i wanted to ask you um we uh we've been seeing

00:43:22.700 quite a bit of um quite a bit of groups popping up on the left uh that are um pretty united in

00:43:30.060 in their messaging and in their, in their goal to, uh, have Alberta remain in Canada.

00:43:34.220 And they're, they're using, you know, I guess I would say, you know, rather dubious means

00:43:38.300 and, and, and rather, um, simplistic arguments that are very easily debunked, but they sound

00:43:43.820 good on a, uh, you know, on a, on a nightly news clip or whatever.

00:43:47.480 Uh, one gentleman in particular, uh, Charlie Angus was out, uh, the other day, uh, there's

00:43:52.540 a clip going around and we'll, we'll link that in our, in our description, but he specifically

00:43:57.020 was mentioning some fairly egregious accusations at your group.

00:44:02.460 I'm wondering if you would speak to that and maybe respond a little bit to his claim.

00:44:07.200 The first thing Charlie did was he said that he's not very happy with, you know,

00:44:10.740 the fact that we're breaking up Canada.

00:44:13.320 And I would like to wonder, as a lifelong NDP MP who spent his whole life trying to

00:44:21.060 sabotage Alberta oil, how he could be angry with the fact that the people of Alberta

00:44:25.880 are not happy with what's coming down from Ottawa. I find that totally hypocritical, 0.96

00:44:32.120 and he's not understanding how we could feel that way. The rest of the thing is that these guys are 0.91

00:44:38.120 talking about Dennis Modry saying that they were offered $500 million from some foreign entity,

00:44:44.760 the Americans in this case. He has no proof of that because it never happened.

00:44:47.800 The conversation that he's alluding to is actually, and I was in the room when Dennis Mowdry brought this up,

00:44:58.120 he said $400 billion, not million, and it was for a line of credit alone to float Alberta

00:45:07.400 in the chance that Alberta became independent so that the people wouldn't have to worry about money. 0.85

00:45:13.000 Now, I want to explain to you how silly this is.

00:45:16.680 So, Dr. Dennis Modry, who is a retired cardiothoracic surgeon, 0.76

00:45:23.640 if he was sitting across the table and he was asking for $400 billion,

00:45:29.720 you would ask him for, well, what gives you the right to think that you can negotiate for $400 billion, first of all,

00:45:36.280 and what do you have for security? Because if you've ever been in a bank,

00:45:39.640 Unless you have more security than a loan, they're not going to lend you any money.

00:45:43.960 The other part of it is that we could very easily do that in Canada, which I think would be the way to go with the assets that we have.

00:45:52.920 So you know what? Yeah, they're looking to say, oh, and there's Russian interference.

00:45:58.760 I've got to share something with you guys. The worst thing for them is exactly what we have.

00:46:06.360 And they're trying to pin all this fundraising and stuff on one big entity that's going to give us $500 billion.

00:46:13.080 Well, what's really happening here is hundreds of thousands of Albertans are donating $20 to $50 to $70 to make this run.

00:46:23.080 We're not beholden to any big group. We never took any money from Americans.

00:46:27.960 And yeah, so unfortunately for them, this is a big movement of people that feel very strongly about a free and independent Alberta.

00:46:36.280 So, like it or not, that's where we are.

00:46:39.620 So, they can try to put us in jail, which I'm sure that's the point of this whole thing,

00:46:45.780 for treason. 0.78

00:46:47.400 But why are we not talking about the Communist Chinese and the involvement with the Liberal

00:46:51.340 Party?

00:46:52.340 I mean, CISA said already that Communist China is our biggest enemy, and we have all this

00:46:58.680 election interference going on in the Trudeau era with 11 MPs saying they were aided by

00:47:03.380 the Communist Chinese.

00:47:04.980 is legitimately treason. How come Mr. Angus's government that propped up the Liberals doesn't 0.99

00:47:13.540 want an investigation into that? I find that very curious. The other thing that I want to know is

00:47:20.500 that our Prime Minister, who this group props up, just went to Communist China. He said in January,

00:47:27.700 Mr. Krennic came right out of his mouth and said, hey, the biggest enemy we have in the world is

00:47:32.420 communist Chinese. Eight months later, he's in Beijing negotiating a New World Order, which is 0.84

00:47:38.340 communism in my world, with the head of one of the biggest communist states in the world,

00:47:44.100 in his hometown, explaining to us that, you know, we've come to an agreement and we're going to join

00:47:51.140 in the New World Order. So what exactly is the New World Order, please, Mr. Kearney, or for that

00:47:56.820 manner our premiers left please explain to us what the new world order is going to be and i believe

00:48:02.500 that if you have to do that that will bring a lot of the people that we're talking about over to our

00:48:06.900 side of this conversation and and just one more point too that i'd say about that interview from

00:48:13.060 from charlie angus uh he was asked very specifically about um i i think that interviewer that was

00:48:20.020 asking questions was sort of maybe on our side or at least trying to trying to stir something

00:48:24.740 yeah because he says um he asked charlie like would would you would you have said the same thing

00:48:30.100 to the um to the quebec separatists in the 90s uh and he said well you know to to charlie said well

00:48:35.940 to my knowledge the um the party quebec didn't uh didn't go to any foreign nations asking for

00:48:40.980 funding or recognition or something and actually that's literally exactly what they did to the

00:48:45.380 french they asked for funding and recognition from the french or at least a line of credit and

00:48:48.980 recognition from the french so yeah no there is no difference and and none of that is is uh

00:48:54.180 class 5 yeah but there is one big difference the flq

00:49:00.340 an actual terrorist organization there is one big difference there uh the flq and uh back in those

00:49:06.660 days when they declared a national emergency uh based on what they were doing and the funny thing

00:49:11.460 is if you have looked through that historically um our former prime minister trudeau uh was actually

00:49:17.620 involved uh with most of the people that were in the flq uh so you know what um that makes that even

00:49:23.940 more interesting and if you go back and look at the history of it there's very direct lines between

00:49:29.700 all of these people and uh and you know the former prime minister trudeau but but the whole thing is

00:49:34.420 is that we're trying to do this absolutely within the rules within the law and we are we absolutely

00:49:40.260 are so as a consequence to that they have a problem with that i'm sure so we're going to continue to

00:49:45.700 do that and you know we've been trying to find a place to have a rally uh for a month there's nobody

00:49:53.940 letting us go do anything, anywhere. They're giving us, oh, six, eight months to a year before you can do this.

00:50:00.680 Roger's Place turned us down. Commonwealth turned us down.

00:50:04.100 Telus Field turned us down. The ledge is under repair.

00:50:08.060 You know, we're having all manner of trouble. We tried to organize a street parade,

00:50:12.460 but they're telling us that you need a permit to do it, and it's going to be a year down the road, basically,

00:50:16.000 before you can get a permit. So now we're still looking for options.

00:50:20.700 So keep the faith that, you know, maybe we'll just have to march around Bonnyville.

00:50:26.800 So we'll get 100,000 people to send on Bonnyville.

00:50:30.520 We'll go around Moose Lake.

00:50:31.700 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:32.820 100%.

00:50:33.620 So yeah, so that's kind of where we are with all of that.

00:50:37.280 So you know what?

00:50:37.800 We're working hard to make sure everything's done.

00:50:40.480 But just to further the unified message point, when we were SFA and we were the proponent of the question, we were running the whole thing.

00:50:50.020 Okay?

00:50:50.420 and it was easy to do because there was only one proponent, and we were dealing with one question,

00:50:56.420 and we were all focused on doing one thing. And we knew that the minute these TPAs came into play,

00:51:02.740 that we would not necessarily lose control of it. But the whole thing was that there was going to be

00:51:08.660 a whole bunch of people with a whole bunch of different messages out there. And truthfully,

00:51:14.420 you can't collude with them. So if you're a member of a third party, you can't collude with another

00:51:18.900 third party those are the rules and the rules are definitely there so that we can't win so just

00:51:24.900 understand that those third party rules are ridiculous uh there's just absolutely the

00:51:29.460 government has no rules they're using our money to campaign against us and we gotta raise five

00:51:34.500 thousand dollars per person at max um and and put them all in a place and we can't if and if you're

00:51:40.340 not a third party you you have you cannot have an opinion about which side of this you stand on and

00:51:45.860 And if you spend $1,000, then you have to become third party.

00:51:49.240 But what I'm going to say to everybody out there

00:51:52.260 is that for an individual,

00:51:54.440 that $1,000 is a lot of money to spend.

00:51:57.080 You know, keep track of your receipts.

00:51:59.240 If anybody says you can't do this,

00:52:00.940 you can't support one side of this,

00:52:02.740 or you can't support our side of it,

00:52:03.880 is who I'm most concerned about.

00:52:06.140 Just keep track of your receipts,

00:52:07.720 and until you're over $1,000,

00:52:09.020 you can say whatever the heck you want.

00:52:11.260 And I absolutely want you to do that.

00:52:14.420 Every single one of you out there that canvassed for us and did all the rest of that kind of stuff, if you need to print paper, you've got $1,000 leeway there.

00:52:22.200 You've got $1,000 runway, and paper's not that expensive to do, and you can keep track of your receipts.

00:52:27.540 And as long as you're not over $1,000, you can hand out as much paper pro-Alberta independence as you want, and please do it.

00:52:33.280 yeah and um yeah the third party advertising rules get they get complicated because i know

00:52:42.680 that they could be weaponized at any time even like weekly reporting and what if you missed

00:52:48.780 something and one little detail and now you're slapped with administration fines and that's one

00:52:55.040 thing if you're a massive political party and like what's a five thousand dollar fine what about a

00:53:00.360 smaller creator what about people like that five grand could could ruin somebody um if they are

00:53:07.660 attempting so even this just this notion that this is all foreign funded is hilarious we we actually

00:53:13.580 discovered that we we got a hit piece against us it was actually it was in january and it was the

00:53:19.620 prairies exposed people and they did a hit piece and they said we were part of a shadowy network of

00:53:25.380 foreign funded um propaganda which is funny we're just driving to these events and like we're

00:53:32.420 bringing our own gear and we're filming and like we're editing we just happen to have some skills

00:53:36.900 like we're volunteering our time just like hundreds of and thousands of other people that

00:53:42.340 are just they they see value in advocating for change which means you don't need to be paid to

00:53:50.900 do that if it's an important goal like this idea that there's no other re there's no other explanation

00:53:58.580 than foreign funding assumes that nobody would advocate or nobody would be pushed to a point

00:54:05.780 that they would actually stand up and volunteer their time in a manner like this so it's

00:54:13.060 i find it hilarious but it doesn't really match reality at this point they tell on themselves

00:54:18.020 don't they oh yeah and the whole thing is is that this is their worst nightmare having big groups

00:54:22.980 like app organizing and talking to each other and growing and and the part about the russian thing

00:54:28.980 i find hilarious is that i say well here i'm going to pick up the phone and call and say hey vlad uh

00:54:35.220 why don't you come over here to alberta uh he probably said where's alberta and give us a hand

00:54:40.260 here because we could really do we could really use your help and uh what and and they use the

00:54:45.940 same thing all the time. Trump went through that forever, and everybody else is going through that

00:54:51.780 on our side of this. I'm not saying that we're on the same side as Trump because he's a foreign

00:54:56.260 leader, but here's the thing. They're using the same playbook all over the place. I was talking

00:55:01.540 to a gentleman from New Zealand today, and he says they're doing the same thing there as here,

00:55:04.660 except they're further down the road than we are. So what we're saying is that we're not in control.

00:55:10.180 if there is foreign people helping us online i don't know anything about it and i'm basically

00:55:16.580 technically illiterate so i couldn't do it myself so as and we're not definitely not

00:55:21.380 paying anybody to do it because we don't have that kind of money so uh they're on their own

00:55:27.540 yeah it's a um like james says i mean it's a it's it's a it's an admission that they they

00:55:34.740 could never see themselves doing anything on mere principle they'd have to be paid for it

00:55:39.140 but also it's a it's a um well i think it's a cope i think it's just a a pure coping mechanism

00:55:45.620 to not have to contend with the very real arguments and the very like i mean i i still

00:55:51.140 have yet to hear i mean we everyone in this movement says it all the time show us an argument

00:55:56.340 like give us a reason to stay give us a real plan give us something that makes sense and that we can

00:56:02.660 actually you know run the numbers on and be like oh yeah you know what we never thought of that

00:56:06.180 you're right but they won't do that they'll just demonize they'll just throw you know fake polls

00:56:12.180 at the wall and i mean it's it's it really is telling that they they truly have nothing to

00:56:17.860 contend with the very real concerns and the very the hard numbers that we've presented them no and

00:56:23.540 and and understand this one you know you've uh keith went with the glass half full thing uh if

00:56:29.060 people understand that we could take a free shot at these guys um i think that with nothing no

00:56:32.980 consequences i think that's going to be a factor of the polls i really do and you know what we're

00:56:39.300 going to take every minute of the next four months to educate people and to find out what the message

00:56:45.540 is um i believe that app is going to knock on every door in alberta i believe we're going to

00:56:50.580 have a conversation with every alberton um that answers the door and i think we're going to have

00:56:56.660 the ability to have two conversations with them actually doing that and there's nobody else that

00:57:01.060 could do that we're the only group in alberta maybe in canada that's big enough to do that

00:57:05.540 and so i believe that we're you know we're we're starting out with this process here right right

00:57:09.940 right away and uh you know what we're going to expand on that we're going to do it uh you know

00:57:14.500 for right up until october 19th and we're going to go talk to albert we're going to see what is

00:57:19.860 their concern what are you worried about what is it about alberta independence that scares you

00:57:26.020 versus here's the reality of what we could do for you so what about if we went to a system like

00:57:32.980 places like they have in the world where they got allopathic and naturopathic medicines

00:57:36.580 available at pharmacies with qualified people to say you know what this drug does this this this

00:57:42.820 this and this herb does this this this and this what would you like we don't have that opportunity

00:57:47.860 here uh you know and what if we were given the opportunity to say well you know what we're going

00:57:54.740 to educate our children in a different way than it's being educated now and we can you know teach

00:58:00.340 them to think teach them to be more independent um and you know have the best education system

00:58:06.500 in the world with uh you know the greatest ability to to foster free thinkers and people that can be

00:58:12.180 leaders in all manner of stuff as compared to what we see is happening now in the school system um

00:58:18.100 you know and we have the opportunity to with extra money to have the best health care system

00:58:22.660 in the world. Understand a billion dollars is a state-of-the-art hospital. We give away 47

00:58:29.060 state-of-the-art hospitals a year every year, and so it costs money to run them as well. I'm

00:58:36.340 understanding that. But the whole thing is that it wouldn't take us long to catch up to all that

00:58:41.780 kind of stuff. And in four or five years, we'd be in a much better position. And also understand

00:58:46.340 this if we've got the lowest tax uh place in the world all of the best professionals are going to

00:58:53.460 come here and stay here right so if we cut people's income tax out and they're able to keep 20 to 30

00:58:59.940 more uh they're going to not want to go anywhere because for people that are making three or four

00:59:05.540 hundred thousand dollars a year that's a lot of money like just understand that so if you're a

00:59:10.420 professional like say for example if you're a teacher if you're if you're a nurse or if you're

00:59:14.900 you know a firefighter and then all of a sudden you're you know nobody's ever going to give them

00:59:18.660 a 20 raise never meant a 30 or 40 raise uh in their lifetimes they'll never see that so so what

00:59:25.060 i'm saying to you is we have the opportunity to actually do build back better and i've said that

00:59:30.740 to that's a two-edged sword uh building back better and we could say to people hey look this

00:59:38.020 is what we're going to do for you and since when has a government ever done anything for you

00:59:43.620 this is what we're talking about here we're me and we mean it like this is something that this

00:59:48.340 is the only reason we're doing it there's no other reason why we're doing this we're doing this to

00:59:53.620 make albertans better off what's better for the people of alberta that's what we're doing for us

00:59:59.620 to keep our resources develop our resources sell our resources so that it would be benefit to the

01:00:05.060 people of alberta we can decide what we want for rules we can decide what we want our politicians

01:00:12.340 to do we can decide what the appropriate punishment for politicians that lie should an institution be

01:00:20.340 allowed to have free speech is my question you know they give they give institutions the same

01:00:27.620 rights as people and these institutions they use them against us and they lie

01:00:32.820 and they spread false messages and then they say well it's against you know mr trudeau's original

01:00:38.660 constitution saying that it's against their freedom of speech. Well, does an institution

01:00:44.500 actually have the right to have free speech? Or should an institution have to tell the truth?

01:00:52.820 So what we're dealing with is all manner of stuff like this. So that institution that we're

01:00:56.900 talking about right now could be journalism, because it was against the criminal code

01:01:03.540 in the 1950s up to 1982 that journalists had to tell the truth that it was a criminal offense.

01:01:11.540 So then they decided—a lawyer took this to court back then—and they decided that it was against

01:01:18.500 the journal's right to free speech to make them tell the truth. So as a consequence to that,

01:01:26.980 and that went through. The judge ruled that that was correct, that they should have the right to

01:01:33.940 have free speech so they could say basically whatever they want, whatever falls in there.

01:01:38.260 And then in 2019, they snuck it in an omnibus bill and then they made the law.

01:01:43.220 So newspapers, even though they say, oh my god, we have to tell the truth or else there's

01:01:50.180 consequences. Well, if anybody ever read that Toronto Star hit piece on me, we'll know that

01:01:55.540 There's a lot of untruths in that one, so that's all I'm saying.

01:01:59.620 But at any rate, should the pharmaceutical industry be allowed to not tell everybody exactly what's going on with their drugs?

01:02:12.660 You know, that's the kind of things that we're talking about here.

01:02:15.940 We're talking about people getting the truth so that they can use their big brains to make the decisions that will benefit them.

01:02:23.460 Right now, what's happening is a lot of that's not happening.

01:02:27.380 There's a lot of stuff going on there that is actually hurting us, and they're consciously hurting us with it. They're doing it on purpose.

01:02:32.900 They totally understand what they're doing. They're not incompetent.

01:02:35.540 Incompetent is not the word I would use for these people.

01:02:38.340 And the fact that they're taking all of our money, like what the 2025 Auditor General Report says that 46% of federal infrastructure projects never get built.

01:02:49.380 so where's the money go so where's the money go is what i want to know so if that's the case if

01:02:56.980 they're you know half of our taxpayer money is like 46 is a big chunk of of 100 is that's not

01:03:03.300 accounted for there's little to no evidence that should show that these things get built

01:03:06.580 where'd the money go and people said to me you know they stopped me at the i at the ucp agm last

01:03:12.340 year and said image what what would it take for you to think that you know what we could make

01:03:16.820 canada work well i said maybe an audit a real one with with teeth and with consequences that if

01:03:24.100 people would go to jail for breaking large student money from the people of alberta and canada that

01:03:28.420 would be good and you know what about our 400 billion dollars in pension money like couldn't

01:03:33.780 spend it here in alberta because we didn't fall into the greener deal but they just gave 100

01:03:39.060 billion of it to india and half of that money belongs to the seniors of alberta and yet we

01:03:45.940 We could have built two or three pipelines and an LNG plant for that,

01:03:52.580 and as a business person, you want to invest your money somewhere where you're going to get a return.

01:03:58.340 So we could be getting $15 billion or $20 billion a year per pipeline net for the people of Alberta.

01:04:05.180 That would mean that if we had spent $100 billion worth of our Alberta seniors' money here in Alberta,

01:04:13.380 Every Albertan would never have to pay tax again.

01:04:17.840 That would have been that simple.

01:04:19.740 But they wouldn't want to do that, right?

01:04:22.680 So that's the kind of stuff we can look at here.

01:04:28.540 Yeah, and in a way, it's

01:04:30.780 and I think people have been drawn like in the movement

01:04:33.840 and the people who have signed up for the APP and donated.

01:04:37.580 They've seen this as a hopeful endeavor, and it's actually a vote.

01:04:43.380 In a way, if you're saying like us Albertans, we are equipped to take care of our own future, let us lie, like let us free and we'll take care of our future.

01:04:55.040 That is a vote of confidence in our own ability compared to the opposite saying that, well, you need Canada.

01:05:03.780 Like if you don't stay within this abusive relationship, you will ultimately fail or the risk is too high.

01:05:11.580 And they don't really think of the risks as a comparative risk.

01:05:15.700 If they'll say like, well, investment will fly because it's like, it'll leave because it's uncertain.

01:05:21.460 You're like, well, uncertain compared to what?

01:05:24.460 It's all relative.

01:05:25.880 Like if Canada is more uncertain, Alberta doesn't need to be perfect day one.

01:05:31.540 Alberta just needs to be a little bit more certain, a little bit more rational in its regulation and its policies.

01:05:40.160 and then investment will flee to whatever is more solid that way.

01:05:44.680 Capital goes where it's invited to go, right?

01:05:48.160 And here's the thing.

01:05:49.560 If you were going to take emotion out of this equation,

01:05:53.780 if you were going to say, okay, I'm going to invest in something,

01:05:57.600 would you feel more comfortable investing in a group of people

01:06:02.920 that you know create wealth on a daily basis

01:06:05.620 or the gatekeepers that spend it?

01:06:08.360 where would you want to invest your money like if you were going to say okay i've got to make a bet

01:06:13.820 here on who's going to survive and who's not going to survive here these people have zero

01:06:18.860 skills as far as making the world work like producing oil and gas making things work making

01:06:28.560 sure your cars run making sure everything works planting the food harvesting the food putting it

01:06:33.440 the table butchering the animals uh planning all that these are our people what they do is they tax

01:06:41.200 us to the you know that we work for them doing anything we want and we're blessed to have to

01:06:47.120 give them 40 to 55 percent of everything we earn so what if we just continue to do what we do and

01:06:55.680 don't give them 40 to 55 percent of what we own who's going to hurt more us or them really

01:07:05.040 i mean if you don't know how to fix a car go ahead and try and do it if you don't know how

01:07:10.720 to grow a crop go ahead and try and do it and uh you know it's the same thing with raising animals

01:07:15.520 it's the same thing with pulling oil out of the ground that's very specialized skill set and our

01:07:21.200 Our people have it in spades.

01:07:22.500 We go all over the world as experts on oil production and pulling natural gas out of

01:07:28.400 the ground and doing all the stuff that we do.

01:07:31.060 We have a very supercharged, very intelligent, very competent populace here.

01:07:37.820 We have everything we need to be better than good.

01:07:41.320 We have everything we need to become great and to do something.

01:07:44.380 And here's the rest of it.

01:07:46.280 If they let us go, the rest of Canada and the rest of the world are going to see how

01:07:49.760 good we are.

01:07:51.200 don't want that they don't want that and i know i know they will see it because it's no choice 1.00

01:07:56.800 our people have got here 125 years ago and they lived in those little sod shacks and they broke

01:08:03.040 that land by hand until they could grow a crop on it and then they produced and they continued to

01:08:08.880 produce and all the same all the time auto has been taking everything that they've been producing

01:08:13.920 that was that was the constant between 120 years ago to now but these people are still these are

01:08:18.720 are the children of the people that did that and the grandchildren of the people that did that

01:08:22.320 these are the people that have the courage to do what needs to be done so that we could succeed so

01:08:26.400 i would bet on them yeah the more that they um the more messaging that comes out the more i just seem

01:08:34.000 to think that it's like the the federalists and the leftists are just kind of going through the

01:08:39.840 stages of grief you know start off with denial you know by saying well you'll no one cares but

01:08:45.680 but this you'll never get the signature as well we got the signatures uh i don't know all the in

01:08:50.460 order but there's anger in there and you know of course they respond you know well you can't because

01:08:54.580 the treaties or your pension or the passports or whatever nonsense and then those get all

01:09:00.040 knocked down and then they switch to bargaining right well you know we're better canada's better

01:09:04.440 together and look at all the you know they send uh polyev on the apology tour and you know like

01:09:10.280 this is it seems to me that it's just a they're throwing whatever they think can stick as a as

01:09:17.080 talking points but really all it is is just admitting that actually this like you say has

01:09:23.000 a very real chance of winning and it would be devastating for auto off it happened it wasn't

01:09:27.480 the same case with quebec in the night in the 80s and 90s because quebec was more of a feels like it

01:09:32.760 was more of a um you know seen as a cultural loss rather than any sort of um real financial

01:09:39.960 a cause of any real financial harm but this would be a cause of real financial oh absolutely and and

01:09:46.200 not only that the net worth of alberta resources would be of uh would be a book like a bottom line

01:09:54.760 change to their to their ability to earn like forever and ever quebec would have to actually

01:10:00.120 start producing its own natural gas which it has in abundance and uh it it could actually do that

01:10:05.320 so and and we would encourage them to do that very thing and there's the rest of it now if this

01:10:10.920 country actually cared about alberta why is quebec buying a million barrels of oil a day from from

01:10:16.280 the from the far east but how does that work that a million barrels of oil a day is a game changer

01:10:23.320 like even right now if quebec said to alberta here we're going to take you we're going to buy

01:10:28.520 all of our oil from alberta and produce a million it would create a boom here for 10 years

01:10:33.720 and and the money that would be generated because they're paying they're paying world prices for

01:10:37.240 oil the money that would be generated from that would be absolutely huge and it would be a game

01:10:42.200 changer for everybody especially down here and the funniest thing is is that we're giving half

01:10:46.680 of that royalty money to the feds so obviously they don't need it so it it doesn't make any

01:10:53.080 sense to me that why are we not selling to ourselves? And yet, Mr. Carney, you could see

01:10:57.960 him going out there saying, oh, we're going to sell to ourselves now, but we're not going to sell

01:11:01.960 that big thing to ourselves. You know, we're not going to do that because that would benefit

01:11:07.320 Alberta too much. And you know what? It would make the rest of Canadians better off, which is not

01:11:10.680 their goal. So if their goal is to make you poorer, then understand what they're doing.

01:11:16.680 That's basically all. There's no other explanation for it. If you have a built-in

01:11:21.720 marketplace and you don't take advantage of it um you know it's uh in business that's you know

01:11:28.200 that's the equivalent to um being very very silly didn't they spend the last year saying like buy

01:11:37.960 canadian i'm like except for except for oil yeah except for here yeah buy canadian but don't buy

01:11:43.960 alberto oil and not only that how about bringing lng in from australia like all the way from

01:11:51.960 brookfield's plant in australia by boat which burns i don't know we we actually looked up how

01:11:57.480 much oil that boat burns uh to get here it's insane and they could have just eye watering i bet yeah

01:12:04.440 what's the carbon footprint if you want to play that game what's the carbon footprint of shipping

01:12:09.640 that across the ocean and they just kind of loaded those rail cars up in alberta full of whatever

01:12:14.560 they needed and got it sent over there but no we'll buy from brookfield but we're not going to

01:12:18.720 buy from ourselves and that just basically sums it all up yeah it's the inverse at this point yeah

01:12:27.160 yeah mitch um let's end this on a positive note what uh what do you think let's you know they say

01:12:34.420 if uh if you want to be taken seriously you got to make a prediction so let's let's hear a prediction

01:12:39.120 from you sir how do you how do you envision the next few months going and and you know despite

01:12:44.960 what we're what we've been given for october do you still think that we have a good chance of

01:12:49.760 getting a guess on that and then maybe what do you expect from that from the referendum for a

01:12:55.360 referendum what's what's kind of your your best case scenario for how the next few months go well

01:13:01.120 i think i think we're going to win this because we're going to make sure we do

01:13:04.320 And I actually think that if we do win that, then according to the question, they're going to be forced to have a vote on it.

01:13:14.320 And if they don't have a vote on it, well, then we'll deal with that when the time comes.

01:13:19.320 But I think sending a message to the rest of Canada and to the world that Alberta—

01:13:24.320 you know, the Premier could declare independence unilaterally after that vote, you know, you're aware of that.

01:13:30.320 And they could say, look, Alberta is in a situation where it's untenable, they can't deal with Ottawa, and we're going to declare independence for Alberta.

01:13:40.320 And that's within the Premier's power to do that.

01:13:42.320 It's also within the Premier's power to call this vote right now, regardless of the Aboriginal situation.

01:13:47.320 So just as long as you're aware of that, you know, that's part of the equation here as well.

01:13:52.320 So what I'm saying is, we're going to work really hard to win this vote, and we're going to do our very best to make sure that happens.

01:13:58.800 We've got 131 days left to go before the vote.

01:14:03.620 So just understand that we're going to do our very best to use all 131.

01:14:07.540 We'll be going back on the road again very soon.

01:14:10.600 We're going to start here in a week or two, and then it's going to be flat out until October 19th.

01:14:16.600 Well, Mr. Sylvester, we sure appreciate your time.

01:14:20.460 We appreciate your energy and your enthusiasm.

01:14:22.620 You have the gumption of more energy and passion than men half your age.

01:14:29.940 So we really appreciate that.

01:14:31.960 Thanks for getting us the signatures.

01:14:33.940 And, you know, we'll obviously shout out anything you've got going on.

01:14:38.320 We'll spread the message.

01:14:39.820 Hopefully we can have you back shortly.

01:14:41.400 And maybe we can be talking about next steps after a successful referendum.

01:14:45.620 So thanks for all that you do.

01:14:46.560 Oh, you're very welcome.

01:14:47.300 And you know what?

01:14:47.680 I really enjoyed this tonight, guys.

01:14:49.200 It was fun.

01:14:50.820 Thank you very much, sir.

01:14:51.560 Yeah, it's great to have you on.

01:14:52.660 Yeah, you bet.

01:14:53.280 Cheers.

The Critical Compass Podcast - June 17, 2026

Mitch Sylvestre ｜ Petition Debrief & Looking Ahead to the Referendum

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