The Critical Compass Podcast - Referendum Rising - The Challenging Road Ahead for Alberta Independence

00:00:00.000 uh we've seen a lot of town halls from the alberta prosperity project

00:00:07.040 um they're gathering a lot of um digital signatures with the intent to sign the petition

00:00:14.840 for referendum yeah um and that's in the the hundreds of thousands and they would need only

00:00:21.100 600 000 under the old rules and only like 170 000 yeah they've already surpassed i think they're

00:00:28.420 they're well into the uh well into the actual the range where it would be passed where it would be

00:00:34.720 passed the intent would be passed to sign they are gaining some momentum they've had plenty of town

00:00:39.820 halls uh we've also seen um multiple a couple other little subgroups pop up um so the alberta

00:00:50.700 prosperity project they released their wording they released their question for the referendum

00:00:57.520 yeah it's interesting let's talk about that that came out um and there's some people that said well

00:01:06.040 we like we never voted on this being our official representative of the movement yeah um there

00:01:13.660 doesn't seem to be there is no cross talk between all these groups that i'm aware of um you also have

00:01:21.540 you have you have different voices you have different ideas on the time frames um so

00:01:30.600 where is the coordination and then you also have the alberta republican party

00:01:38.300 um that shows up uh we interviewed cam davies if you're watching this you may have watched that as

00:01:47.120 all or if you haven't we have some clips in a full episode from that um that's on the political side

00:01:54.640 where these other groups are not political and i think people are treating this as a zero-sum game

00:02:00.500 saying that a political group cannot exist with the same goal because it has to be a citizen-led

00:02:06.780 referendum right but then the question's well what does political pressure

00:02:13.580 look like from within the legislator what happens if let's say you get a couple alberta republican

00:02:22.860 mlas does that help push the ucp to better negotiate if there's a successful referendum like what does

00:02:33.560 that actually look like or is the presence of a alberta republican party going to harm the movement

00:02:39.500 because of optics or scandals or any other any other reasons like is it just easy target for media to

00:02:49.180 say well republicans look at those americans maybe the average person doesn't understand what a republic

00:02:55.240 is so they don't even they wouldn't even comprehend alberta becoming a republic they they would think that

00:03:02.040 like a new alberta would keep the west minister or keep monarchy ties or whatever so maybe the average person

00:03:10.460 can't even comprehend why a group would call them alberta call themselves alberta republicans

00:03:17.580 or what principles a republican would stand for they only see it as an american a uniquely american thing

00:03:24.320 even though most uh the like the full names of most countries include republic and some republics

00:03:32.800 yeah they're they're democratic republics most democracies are like a democratic republic if

00:03:38.360 they aren't tied to the monarchy in some kind of way yeah you know refers to a you know a founding

00:03:44.720 document and you know some some way or another yeah uh yeah i i mean i don't know like there's so

00:03:50.980 many ways to look at it and i and i i certainly get the feeling too that there's a you know

00:03:57.560 conservatives have we've talked about this before a little bit like conservatives have this thing where

00:04:01.740 we're like we're just so damn independent that you know and we're so idealistic and and and like

00:04:10.560 i don't know stubborn you know pig-headed in certain ways where it's like you know this is this is my 0.70

00:04:17.760 vision and and screw you if you're not into it because i'll i'll make it on my own yeah you know 0.51

00:04:23.360 we got that entrepreneurial spirit you know in a way and it's and it's great when you're you know 0.99

00:04:28.280 talking about like building a barn or some shit like that but if you're like trying to you know 0.54

00:04:32.500 build a political movement that you know affects how many how many millions of people are in alberta

00:04:37.520 like i said like four or six million people something like that maybe it's maybe it's four or five

00:04:43.260 million people you know um you can't be pissing at each other and sniping and moaning about you know

00:04:51.960 all these little things and so yeah i mean on the one hand i can i can appreciate when people have a

00:04:59.440 they've got a vision you know they they they believe that this is the the best way forward this

00:05:04.960 is the most true to what you know if you if your goal is an independent alberta this is the way we

00:05:11.700 should go but you know if we're just going to fractionate and we're not going to we're not

00:05:16.220 going to pick a you know pick a leader or pick a uh you know platform or an ideology or a party or

00:05:21.720 something you know it's sort of ripe for you know people this is something that the left does really

00:05:28.780 well that the left that the right doesn't you know the the left will i mean we saw it in the last

00:05:33.360 election like who who would have foresaw the ndp you know ndp voters collapsing and like just

00:05:41.300 folding on their principles so easily and just in in a in a complete abandonment of their party just

00:05:47.200 to just to uh ensure that a conservative never won you know like that was crazy but they'll do it you

00:05:54.680 know they'll do it they'll rally behind a cause like that even if they don't agree on the particular

00:05:58.280 so that's i think kind of what we're gonna have to we're not gonna have a choice you know we're gonna

00:06:05.760 have to do that not not that it's even like a full like plug your nose and yeah but the so that i think

00:06:17.180 that already kind of happened with daniel smith and that's why the ucb had as much support as it did

00:06:24.020 they saw enough there they're like okay well maybe she's not the perfect libertarian or maybe 0.75

00:06:28.200 she's like she hasn't downsized the government she's increased the public sector like spending's 1.00

00:06:35.700 gone up and that doesn't really fit within a conservative mindset yeah so there are some that were

00:06:42.440 critical that still supported her despite not being a perfect alignment so we are seeing some

00:06:49.540 some compromise but perhaps it's the i'm worried that some egos or people are too quick to demonize

00:07:00.180 um where you see a demonization of a new party like the albert of republicans there are some people

00:07:11.200 that say like well smith and the ucp will get us to the referendum through the referendum and then

00:07:17.840 will negotiate then there's others who don't trust smith and don't trust anybody in the government so

00:07:25.480 they say we can't trust a new party they're just as corrupt as all the others and they don't without

00:07:31.820 any like full like we haven't seen all their actions they haven't seen everything unfold so you

00:07:37.280 don't really have a base of evidence for that so with that they're saying like well we can't trust

00:07:43.880 anybody any leader any politician we can't trust and we need a citizen-led referendum like well yes

00:07:53.640 maybe it passes what happens then who's negotiating yeah that's right and how are we building a new

00:08:00.960 alberta what is the framework behind that yeah and then the questions what vision of alberta are we

00:08:10.720 are we leaning towards and do people have a clear vision of alberta that resonates with

00:08:18.720 moral burdens is there a group really communicating that um perhaps you can't fully put in a plan for

00:08:28.440 like this is how we would a hundred percent build it because there's so many unknowns that would be

00:08:33.640 discovered during the negotiation process but having something to aim towards would that help

00:08:41.240 convince people is that part of the communication i i can't say for sure like i don't have these

00:08:46.420 answers but i would love to see the leaders of these different groups get together and explore some of

00:08:52.340 these like yeah explore this say like what's our strategy how do we approach it what are the optics

00:08:58.840 what are some no-goes like um yeah what are the things that is here that makes like what are the

00:09:05.580 things that really hurts the movement from an optics standpoint um here are things you say here are

00:09:12.640 things you don't say can we agree on some things and what about time frame what about like there's even

00:09:21.060 no consensus on this so like how early do we want to run one like if we go too early and it fails then

00:09:30.340 we wait five years and like the next one would take a while to do so yeah yeah and and you know the goal

00:09:37.980 should be to to capital like it's such a delicate balance of of wanting to you want to capitalize them

00:09:43.820 on momentum but you want to have enough time to unify the messaging and you know get some converts

00:09:51.460 here like i think at last count i mean so hard to tell you know what polls you can take seriously

00:09:57.960 anymore but it it seemed that early polling was showing about 30 to 35 percent were in favor of

00:10:05.620 separation and then i saw some recent ones that showed up to it up to about 40 to 45 percent so that's

00:10:11.500 that's a nice little jump but you know if you can't really ever tell if that's going to be like

00:10:17.860 is that the the apex of it like are you is the amount of time and energy required to secure that

00:10:24.220 final you know six percent of the votes to to take it over the top is that even possible is that you

00:10:31.800 know is that something that's so it's hard it's so hard to say and and certainly to your point the

00:10:37.460 the way to get there is not to have leaders of these

00:10:43.340 separate movements all aimed all ideologically aimed towards the same goal sniping at each other

00:10:52.660 on twitter you know or calling each other grifters or like you know going after each other like this so

00:10:57.700 i think what this means james is that you and i need to take this as a call to action to get some of

00:11:05.880 these guys on the podcast do a do a big old round table get these guys in a room together 0.98

00:11:10.240 get these big swinging dicks together to sit down and agree to something for once in their goddamn 1.00

00:11:15.140 lives and uh and because i bet they they agree on way more than they disagree and it'd be nice like 0.99

00:11:22.440 you say to find out okay well here's here's a policy platform of the alberta republicans that

00:11:29.140 is you know antithetical to a a policy that the alberta prosperity project wants to run with okay

00:11:36.680 fantastic now we've we've found something that we can have a discussion about we both agree what the

00:11:43.120 end goal should be but you know here's our sticking point so if we want to get through this i mean

00:11:48.060 what did cameron davy spend his whole i don't know when this occurred early 2010s roughly what did he spend

00:11:56.420 this whole time doing was uniting the wild rose and the and the pcs into what we know now as the ucp

00:12:04.320 and look at what happened with that so to believe that it can't happen again or that there's you know

00:12:09.820 irreconcilable differences or or you know whatever i i don't think that's the case i think it's just

00:12:14.660 going to be a matter of hashing it out and having these guys sit down and decide how like you said how

00:12:21.440 like okay so we get we get the big win all right now what so they don't even need to be a hundred

00:12:30.660 percent in alignment with all their issues so the thing is the alberta being a not associated with

00:12:37.200 the government the alberta prosperity project they can easily just say like here's our vision for

00:12:43.060 alberta and that vision can be different than alberta republicans um those can coexist like

00:12:51.880 if one vision resonates more with people than the other that's fine it's just that you'd ask like

00:12:59.520 well what is the role of the alberta republicans and if their role if they're saying well we're a

00:13:07.580 alberta independence like an alberta first party and they would support alberta through independence

00:13:13.420 through political pressure then does that still have a role is that splitting votes or if they get

00:13:21.520 some mlas in there is that are they applying pressure to the ucp are they able to hold them 0.98

00:13:27.260 to account do they do they provide a voice in the legislator that is not fully that that doesn't

00:13:36.860 have any volume right now yeah so if any of those things are true then maybe there's some merit

00:13:43.380 if vote splitting in certain key like in edmonton ridings or calgary ridings if vote splitting is

00:13:51.840 an issue then perhaps we just talk to people and be smart and we just say like well we still have to be

00:14:01.560 strategic maybe one party resonates with your values but maybe we'd be strategic

00:14:05.800 um you can still put pressure on them saying like well okay alberta republicans don't run a

00:14:11.460 candidate in here and call it out like these are some vote splitting ridings maybe you maybe you flag

00:14:17.480 that and say like it would be a dick move if you ran a candidate in this particular riding versus

00:14:23.920 safe ridings etc so there there are ways that's a whole other side but like if they get a couple in

00:14:29.580 it feels like it could be a tool in the political side of the spectrum that we don't have in this

00:14:37.400 on the non-political side so is that worth having a discussion or is history with examples they they saw

00:14:47.000 previous movements maybe fail and they they're attributing the failure to these out like to a new

00:14:55.640 party or an independence party there so i i guess maybe the question is like are these are some of

00:15:03.940 the conclusions from the past the correct conclusions so the conclusion being independence parties tanked the

00:15:13.380 tanked the vote or vote split or harmed conservative movements and they gave a bunch of seats away

00:15:20.620 or is the conclusion that conservatives lose seats when they don't stick to principles when they

00:15:27.520 um they do not govern in a way that is very conservative so depending on how you think about

00:15:33.200 it it's maybe a different different equation so yes it would be great to get them together it's just

00:15:40.540 they might not even be talking about the same things true that's true that's what i'm worried about

00:15:48.520 yeah talking about each other well it's maybe the fundamental part of the issue is they don't think

00:15:56.320 there's a political a role for any party in this movement but at the same time they they cheer on

00:16:04.040 daniel smith for making moves in the right direction um which is kind of hypocritical if they're saying

00:16:10.700 it's completely non-partisan well what happens during negotiations you're putting trust

00:16:18.180 in the ucp to carry you through negotiations and will that provide the best like will that

00:16:26.380 ensure a a good framework for building a new alberta or is there enough in the ucp that's maybe

00:16:35.000 maybe there's self-preservation maybe there's maybe they don't apply the right pressure in the

00:16:41.560 right places or maybe they're not firm enough or like there are some risks so is a or a few other

00:16:48.120 stronger voices is that something that can help or is the threat of losing seats enough of a threat

00:16:54.720 that the ucp has to listen more to the people that elect them

00:17:00.320 you

The Critical Compass Podcast - May 28, 2025

Referendum Rising - The Challenging Road Ahead for Alberta Independence

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