The Definitive Guide to PRODUCTIVE Family Conversations on Alberta Independence This Christmas!
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Summary
Over the holidays, it's a perfect time to have conversations with friends and family about Alberta's independence from Canada. In this episode, James talks about how to navigate these conversations and how to have a productive dialogue. He discusses three main types of conversations and the talking points of those conversations.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm James and welcome back to The Critical Compass. Over Christmas and the New Year's,
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this is a perfect time to have conversations with friends and family about Alberta independence.
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Today I wanted to give you a few ideas on how to navigate these conversations and how to have an
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effective productive dialogue. I'm going to go over three main examples and some of the talking
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points of those conversations. One being somebody a little bit more ideologically rigid. Another
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for somebody more moderate. And the third is somebody who thinks Canada's broken but it's
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best fixed from within. To even have a productive conversation, you might have to shift your
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expectations. For a lot of people, politics is just a casual spectator sport that somebody
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occasionally watches. It's not something they've deeply engaged in. They haven't watched hours of
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podcasts. They haven't read the books. They haven't gone to rallies. Essentially, they've exported their
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thinking to an expert class, to the legacy media. They've memorized surface-level talking points.
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But they haven't really gone deep to the foundational layer of the logic. You can't expect to change
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somebody's mind in just one conversation. But you are planting the seeds that will grow over time.
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To have a productive conversation, you need to know how to listen, how to ask good questions,
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and you need to know the limits of that discussion. You need to know who you're having a conversation
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with. It's also good to get a sense of when to bring something up, when to unpack something,
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and when to wait for another moment. So if you're at a dinner and there's five diehard NDP supporters,
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there's a good chance that any discussion about Alberta independence will devolve into rants about
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the UCP or even Donald Trump. You'll have five different people chiming in and venting in real
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time. So it might be better to hold off and save your thoughts for a one-on-one conversation with
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another family member. And in that case, you can ask questions and kind of unpack the logic
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one by one. In either case, you can just give a little disclaimer to set the tone for any
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conversation. You could say, well, I know these discussions sometimes get heated and people have
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very strong opinions on these topics, but disagreements are how we navigate forward. It's
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how we stress test ideas. So if you disagree with an idea, that's not a attack on a person,
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and I won't take that as such. I want to hear your ideas. So even that framing can help ease some
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potential frustrations. It can help people feel a little bit more comfortable in sharing their
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ideas, but it's also best if you truly believe that. So try not to get frustrated if they push back
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on your ideas. In our last video, I mentioned the Socratic method of questioning, where instead of
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telling somebody what to believe, you are asking what they believe and why, and then asking follow-up
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questions to go a level deeper each time. So for a cold open, you could ask a family member,
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did you hear that there's likely going to be an Alberta independence referendum in October? The answer
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you get might be different depending on who you're asking. So let's explore these different examples.
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For a more ideologically motivated family member, they might say something like,
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yeah, I heard that these traders are trying to break up Canada and they just want Alberta to become the 51st
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state. Well, there's a few different ways you can approach this and there's several misconceptions
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baked into that answer. You can tell them that the Alberta Prosperity Project has nothing to do
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with Alberta becoming the 51st state and they have specifically advocated for Alberta to become a sovereign,
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independent country. Next, you could talk about the traitor aspect. You could ask them if going through
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the democratic process to advocate for your self-determination through a citizen-led petition and a
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referendum, does that make you a traitor? Then you could ask, well, what about Norway when they became
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independent from Sweden in 1905? You could also ask about Czechoslovakia and how that transition went
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through. As you can see, rather than taking the bait, you've prevented that from becoming more emotional.
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And just by returning to the logic, you can unpack that layer by layer and force that person to actually
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back up their statements with any evidence. But keep in mind, if you do that long enough,
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some people will still get frustrated or they'll get tired and at some point they might just want to
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Asking a more moderate person might yield a more practical answer. They might say something like,
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yes, I heard there might be a referendum, but there's never going to be enough support.
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And even if there was, Alberta would be landlocked without a military and would not be able to finance
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itself without transfers from Canada. As you can see, there's a few assertions baked into that answer.
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You could say that Alberta is already landlocked both by geography and by politics. But in an independent
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Alberta, it would still be landlocked, but it would be able to advocate for itself and control its own
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federal regulations. As well, under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, a country may not
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lawfully block or landlock another country by preventing access to the sea.
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So if BC did refuse port access, Alberta also has more leverage now. It could say, well,
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you're not letting us send our goods through your province, so you can't send your goods through our
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province via train. So it's unlikely to get to that point. There would be political ramifications,
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but you can see that there's at least some leverage that Alberta did not have before.
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You could then follow up with another question about transfers, asking if they actually think that
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Alberta relies on the welfare from Ottawa. Then ask them, well, where does the federal government,
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where does Ottawa get its money from? Did you know that Alberta taxpayers are a net contributor
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to confederation? Meaning that out of all the money that's collected, more money leaves Alberta than
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comes back in all services and all transfers? And some estimates say that's over 40 billion per year.
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For our third example, let's look at somebody who thinks that Canada is broken, who might agree with
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a few things that you say, but thinks that we should fix it from within. The first thing to mention is the
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results of the last federal election. How is Alberta supposed to have any influence when a federal
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election is called even before polls are closed in Alberta? Why do some provinces have more
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representation than others? Why is there disproportionate representation in the House of Commons and in the
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Senate? Do Albertan voices matter less than other provinces? So how do we fix Canada when you need a
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majority government? And you need the cooperation of seven or more provinces just to make a change in the
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constitution? Is that going to happen anytime soon? And finally, you could ask, do you think Canadians
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will have a better quality of life in 10 years? Will Canada feel more Canadian in 10 years?
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Or will it just be pockets of different concentrated groups from different countries, all speaking their own
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language, with their own culture, each with grievances against each other, not assimilating?
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So that opens up some additional questions about what it means to be Canadian.
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And if somebody is patriotic, what does it mean to be patriotic in 2025?
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To finish off, I want to unpack a few more universal talking points. It's worth considering that most people
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just want to get by. They want to make their money, they want to work, start a family, get a home,
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and build a life. What many Albertans are realizing is that the freedom to choose that life is being
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compromised as the government is making more and more choices for you. So somebody may be okay with
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this government because they agree with their policies right now. But as you've given more and more
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power to that government, the question is what happens when somebody else gets in power that has
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different ideas from you. You might not be happy with them telling you how to live your life.
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Alberta independence is a chance for us to chart a new path forward and to build a system that does not
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succumb to that same corruption. I think this is why so many people in the movement feel hope.
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They are invigorated by a sense of purpose. Like their actions today can help change the future.
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And I hope you found a few of the tips in this video helpful. And we'll be making a few more like
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this as well. And if you haven't already, we filmed a 14-minute mini documentary on the 2025 UCP AGM
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that highlights the rise of the Alberta independence movement and some of those big moments. So it's
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worth checking out. We're going to be filming more content like that in the future. And if you'd like
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to support us, please like, share, comment. That helps boost the algorithm more than you possibly can know.
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And if you want to actually support us for any equipment and are filming, we've got a buy me a coffee
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as well. All right. Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next one.