The Critical Compass Podcast - The Evolution of Alberta's Independence Movement ｜ Michael Wagner

00:00:00.000 In the eyes of many Albertans, you know, Trudeau was attacking us with the National Energy Program, and he was bringing in this charter without the property rights, and they saw those things as related.

00:00:07.960 The National Energy Program was the main fuel for the fire of Albert independence at the time, but definitely the charter of rights, the constitutional changes was also part of it.

00:00:14.600 And a little bit of background knowledge on the history is so important because so many people will look at the, you know, the 2026, 2025 independence movement and go, this is just a reaction to, you know, you guys hated Justin Trudeau.

00:00:26.720 But they don't realize how much effort, you know, has gone on over the decades to try and even up the system.

00:00:32.580 We've never had this level of support before.

00:00:35.080 So we have people for the very first time in their lives are committed to Alberta independence.

00:00:39.020 The harder the pushback, the more there is a risk of Ottawa creating a shared origin story for more and more Albertans.

00:00:47.320 Right.

00:00:47.740 If they just crack down, you could create like a cultural glue that would be impossible to undo.

00:00:56.720 Welcome back to The Critical Compass. I'm James. Like always, this is Mike.

00:01:15.260 And today we're joined by Michael Wagner, who's an independent researcher, writer with a PhD in

00:01:21.060 political science from the University of Alberta. You may know him from his Western Standard Columns

00:01:27.480 or one of his many books on the Alberta independence movement, or even a recent speech

00:01:32.960 that we posted several weeks ago where he unpacks some ideas at the Shored Park event.

00:01:39.480 So thank you for joining us, Michael. It's great to have you on.

00:01:42.760 Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

00:01:45.280 It's great to have you on, partially because you've been focused on Alberta independence

00:01:49.880 for many years where we're a little bit later to this in our journey.

00:01:58.000 And the first thing I wanted to ask you is what planted that seed

00:02:03.300 and how did you get down on this path?

00:02:06.420 And what motivated you to even explore these ideas further?

00:02:11.280 Well, actually, my original involvement with the independence movement

00:02:14.540 was in the early 1980s.

00:02:15.940 like i was in high school in calgary when the national energy program was introduced by you

00:02:21.120 know pierre trudeau was re-elected in 1980 then a few months later brought in the national energy

00:02:25.000 program and and i had been interested you know as a young person in politics but mostly in

00:02:29.900 international politics originally you know the cold war was going on and those kind of military

00:02:33.980 things interested me i had not been interested in domestic politics until the national energy

00:02:38.120 program came in and like my family was not involved in the oil industry so that didn't

00:02:42.920 affect us personally you know that that harshly but just the community that i was in in calgary

00:02:47.700 in high school you know a lot of people were affected by by what was happening with the

00:02:51.460 national energy program and there was just something about it that triggered me like

00:02:54.420 you know i i thought this was a an injustice being done to alberta and to my community

00:02:59.200 and so i started you know cheering for the independence movement and then um when gordon

00:03:04.040 kessler was elected in that by-election in february 1982 that was the first time a western

00:03:08.400 separatist had ever been elected and i was just so excited about that that i i joined that party

00:03:12.240 right away I was actually only 16 at the time so I couldn't even vote and I think long story short

00:03:16.820 then Peter Lougheed later that year in November called an early election because he could see

00:03:21.400 that the WCC Western Canada concept was growing very rapidly they called an early election kind

00:03:26.380 of to cut it off at the knees and it worked for him because even though the party got close to 12

00:03:30.480 percent of the vote uh provincially that Western Canada concept they didn't win any MLAs that time

00:03:35.000 and the one that they had was lost um but I was that was the first election I ever participated

00:03:38.940 it in like handing out pamphlets because I was 17 by then but I wasn't old enough to vote right

00:03:42.920 so I couldn't even vote but I felt very engaged and it was very important to me but we lost but

00:03:48.060 so I stayed a little bit involved in that party for the next few years off and on and but you know

00:03:52.940 what actually killed the WCC in Alberta was the creation of the Reform Party by Preston Manning

00:03:57.320 because you know by the late 1980s the Reform Party you know Preston Manning had started building

00:04:02.600 that and their idea was the West wants in and he wanted to like he said in one of his books he

00:04:06.660 wanted to take the energy of the independence movement and put it into a movement that would

00:04:09.960 help to build Canada and strengthen it rather than tear it apart so his idea was the west wants in

00:04:14.120 let's send people to Ottawa who can make the changes that we need for so the west's voice

00:04:18.200 could be heard you know within Canada and so that was a very very convincing and very credible

00:04:23.700 alternative and so I think just about everybody in the WCC joined the reform party in fact

00:04:28.040 one of the guys who was leader of the WCC when I was involved there was a guy named Jack Ramsey

00:04:32.020 he would later become a reform party member of parliament from cameras so like a lot of these

00:04:37.560 people who had been involved in independence got involved in the reform party and that kind of you

00:04:41.420 know took the energy of that of that movement so to make a long story short by then i wasn't

00:04:45.460 particularly interested in independence very few people were and i wasn't involved again at all

00:04:50.360 until uh in 2009 i wrote a book the first history of the alberta independence movement you know we

00:04:55.200 call it alberta separatism i call that you know some people don't like that word anymore but

00:04:58.820 That's what we called ourselves before, separatists.

00:05:01.500 And so actually by 2008, you know, I'd seen by that time in researching other topics that there was a lot of material like in magazines and so on from that period in the early 80s when the separatist movement was strong.

00:05:13.940 And I thought, you know, someone needs to write a book about this because I thought if someone, if a leftist wrote a book about it, he would, you know, misportray it and not show the true, you know, motivations and so on.

00:05:24.260 And I thought, well, if someone who's sympathetic to it was to write the book,

00:05:27.380 someone who had been involved, I could really show it as it was

00:05:30.120 from the perspective of someone who'd have been involved.

00:05:32.580 So that's why I wrote that book.

00:05:33.600 It came out in 2009, a word of separatism then and now.

00:05:36.640 But Stephen Harper was a prime minister,

00:05:38.000 and there was just no interest in separatism at that time in the independence movement.

00:05:41.720 So actually, the book got hardly any sales, and the publisher pulled it for a while.

00:05:45.400 And so it wasn't until Justin Stowe became leader of the Liberal Party,

00:05:48.380 I emailed the publisher, and I said, if this guy becomes prime minister,

00:05:52.040 there's going to be a substantial interest in this book.

00:05:54.500 So he brought it back after Trudeau was elected as prime minister.

00:05:57.240 And that's when we first started to get a little bit of traction with that.

00:06:00.720 And anyway, that's kind of a brief history of how I was first involved.

00:06:04.260 So that goes back to, you know, my early years and then that book coming out in 2009.

00:06:10.120 Yeah, certainly no one can call you a poser or you're just jumping on the bandwagon now.

00:06:15.640 So I'm curious, like with your experience in the, you know, in the 80s there and through the 90s

00:06:21.420 and 2000s um what do you notice that maybe sticks out to you as being um the most different and

00:06:29.380 maybe maybe the stuff that's kind of stuck around and feels the same to you um what's different and

00:06:33.620 what's the same of of the the kind of the energy surrounding the Alberta independence movement from

00:06:39.100 then to now well like it's it's much bigger and stronger now than ever in history like like there

00:06:44.120 was a lot of sentiment you know in the early 80s in favor of it but but it didn't have a lot of

00:06:49.440 credibility then like it was starting to get its credibility like it has um like one of the things

00:06:53.920 I talk about in some of my talks is before 1980 whenever there was a survey done on Alberta

00:06:58.140 independence support for that it would only be a single digit support you know like five or six or

00:07:02.400 seven percent but from 1980 onwards because of the national energy program whenever they've done a

00:07:06.900 survey would be double digit support you know in those early years maybe 15 or 16 percent or

00:07:11.420 something and then by the 90s it'd be like 20 or 25 percent and that's you know it's upwards down

00:07:15.340 30 percent or something and so so in those early years it didn't have the credibility that it has

00:07:20.140 now it kind of became part of alberta's political culture after um pierre trudeau was prime minister

00:07:26.060 you know he was the one actually i call him the father of the albert independence movement because

00:07:30.460 before pierre trudeau there was no actual movement for alberta independence or alberta separatism

00:07:35.340 like there would be occasionally you can find occasional historical comments of people

00:07:38.540 you know farmers groups or whatever complaining about this or that and wouldn't it be better for

00:07:42.060 for independent, but there's no actual movement until Pierre Trudeau became prime minister. So

00:07:45.260 he created the movement himself. And it took a few years though, like until the 80s for the

00:07:49.940 movement to have any degree of credibility. And then there was just that credibility just kind

00:07:53.860 of hung in there and it developed and got stronger even more. So after Justin Trudeau became prime

00:07:58.480 minister again, like I said, during Harper's period as prime minister, there'd been very

00:08:02.340 little support for it, you know, because, you know, Harper was an MP from Calvary. He'd been

00:08:06.000 involved in the reform party. So people kind of looked to him as someone who was watching after

00:08:09.840 our interests for the most part you know and so but with with justin trudeau getting re-elected

00:08:14.480 you know especially the trudeau name that carried something with it just by itself but then he began

00:08:19.360 to you know implement his so-called climate change policies that would hurt us the way similar to how

00:08:24.400 his father hurt us and that's what uh gave it a lot more credibility so so i'd say one of the

00:08:29.040 differences between now and then is we have much more credibility now than we had then um and it

00:08:33.600 just it seems to be a bit more widespread i guess that'd be part of the credibility thing too i mean

00:08:37.120 I mean, one of the technological differences, we didn't have, of course, the internet back in those days, right?

00:08:41.600 And so the internet has made a way for the ideas to spread more quickly and more rapidly.

00:08:47.880 So I'm not sure all the technical details of how that affects politics generally,

00:08:52.360 but it does give the ability to spread that message more quickly.

00:08:55.400 Because back in the early 80s, we had what was called then a magazine called Alberta Report.

00:08:59.440 I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.

00:09:01.480 It was a very widespread Alberta news magazine called Alberta Report.

00:09:04.340 It went from 1973 to 2003.

00:09:06.660 sometimes under different names but it was best known as alberta report and that was it was um

00:09:10.860 operated by the byfield family like especially ted byfield was like the patriarch and they were

00:09:15.220 very pro-alberta and some of the sons um were involved in the independence movement like the

00:09:19.440 the son who wrote the forward to my first book alberta separatism in the now that was link by

00:09:23.320 field he was kind of took over from his dad and running the magazine and he in the early 80s had

00:09:27.840 been a separatist like me and he wrote the forward to that and um like uh another with the youngest

00:09:32.640 brother, Vince Byfield, wrote the forward to one of my more recent books on independence called

00:09:36.980 No Other Option, Self-Determination for Alberta. And Vince is committed to the independence option.

00:09:40.940 But I was saying that to say the Alberta Report magazine represented Alberta, like defended

00:09:45.360 Alberta as a major part of the media in the 1980s in Alberta. Like it was a widespread magazine.

00:09:52.460 Everybody knew it. It had tens of thousands of readers. And so that was the way we get our

00:09:56.700 message across to some degree, you know, through Alberta Report. But the bigger point is we didn't

00:10:01.320 have the internet. So it wasn't as easy then as it is now to spread the arguments and the

00:10:06.040 information to people. So yeah, the internet gives us that opportunity to give the information,

00:10:09.620 even like a podcast like this, right? People will watch it and learn. I mean, podcast is

00:10:14.220 relatively new technological development. I mean, I'm older than you, so I saw the change more than

00:10:18.480 you guys maybe grew up with the internet. But I can see that.

00:10:22.600 Pretty close to you, yeah.

00:10:23.320 Yeah, it definitely helps when being able to explore these ideas in a way that doesn't happen in isolated pockets. And if we're just looking back at the 120 year journey of Alberta itself, it feels like that was born out of a will for wanting the West was wanting in to confederation.

00:10:47.500 So that's a thread that's consistent over this period.

00:10:52.260 And there are some people that will mention separation even in 1905, but it doesn't seem like that was the case because there was a will to want to make it work and Albertans wanted the same kind of deal.

00:11:07.380 They wanted a province that had the same kind of, let it be, resource rights, control over taxation and everything as the existing provinces in confederation, which didn't happen until the 1930s anyway.

00:11:24.920 So there was already a lag period on the West wanted in and they're like, okay, well, maybe you will get what you want. And if you kick the can down the road, that kind of reduces some of the momentum that could boil up, if not for something that is able to fizzle it out.

00:11:45.080 So that's a cycle that we're seeing over time. And so you're describing that it wasn't until the 80s that this kicking the can down the road seemed to lose a little bit of its effect. And now that we're into further down the road, people are starting to realize we're running out of road. Is that an accurate kind of description of this?

00:12:14.940 Yeah, that's one way of putting it.

00:12:16.480 The separatist movement as such

00:12:17.940 kind of had its first organization about 1970.

00:12:20.860 There were organizations in the 1970s,

00:12:22.640 but they just didn't get the traction

00:12:24.360 that they would get

00:12:25.100 after the National Energy Program came in.

00:12:27.200 But you do make a good point.

00:12:28.340 There was actually the first book on separation

00:12:30.820 actually came out about 1911.

00:12:33.140 I can't remember the guy's name,

00:12:33.980 but he was a liberal MLA

00:12:34.880 in Alberta's legislature.

00:12:36.060 But he didn't want really Alberta

00:12:37.280 to become independent.

00:12:38.000 He wanted Alberta to pull out of Canada

00:12:39.680 so that it could renegotiate its way back in.

00:12:42.040 So his goal wasn't an actual country on itself,

00:12:44.440 But he was really angry that we didn't have control of our resources.

00:12:48.480 You know, that's like a point you made, like Alberta, Saskatchewan,

00:12:50.700 I think Manitoba didn't get the resources until 1930 or so.

00:12:53.760 So he just wanted to, he wrote a book advocating Alberta would pull out of Canada,

00:12:57.980 you know, celebrate our independence and then renegotiate our way back in

00:13:00.660 and get our resources that way.

00:13:02.500 But yeah, that's like in 1911 or something like that.

00:13:04.820 So those kind of ideas floated, but there was no movement per se.

00:13:08.320 And then, you know, like say about 1970, I think that was the first organization

00:13:12.320 that started and the first real credible organization started in 1974 was called

00:13:15.520 the Independent Alberta Association. And that had some prominent oil men and lawyers and stuff

00:13:19.800 involved. Like they didn't say they didn't have a mass membership, but they produced some, you

00:13:24.420 know, academic reports in support of Alberta independence. And, you know, and so that's,

00:13:28.220 that's going back quite a ways, but it, but it was, you know, the nationalization program that

00:13:31.680 really gave it traction for the 1980s. And that kind of coincided with the

00:13:37.900 constitution is like the change as well so you have two major changes that kind of now have

00:13:46.920 changed the fabric of canada and as well as alberta within confederation that's actually a

00:13:53.240 really really important point because um you know i mentioned the western canada concept party of

00:13:57.140 alberta one of the founders of that party was a lady named dr ruth gorman and she was one of

00:14:02.120 alberta's most famous female lawyers up until that time and she was involved in that party because of

00:14:06.740 the constitutional change like that was her main issue she was very strongly opposed to what was

00:14:11.660 then proposed charter of rights and freedoms from Pierre Trudeau because you know Pierre Trudeau

00:14:15.640 deliberately left out property rights from the charter and she saw that as a huge threat to to

00:14:21.040 you know our ownership of our resources and so she actually traveled around Alberta and wrote

00:14:24.820 you know columns for uh you know they mentioned journal and the Calgary Herald saying we've got

00:14:29.000 to stop this charter thing from happening because the west is going to lose big with this charter

00:14:33.420 Anyway, it does tie in, like in the eyes of many Albertans,

00:14:37.020 Trudeau was attacking us with the National Energy Program,

00:14:40.080 and he was bringing in this charter without the property rights,

00:14:42.280 and they saw those things as related.

00:14:44.440 And so both of those things, like the National Energy Program

00:14:46.880 was the main fuel for the fire of Alberta independence at the time,

00:14:51.060 but definitely the Charter of Rights, the constitutional changes,

00:14:53.060 was also part of it because we thought we were under,

00:14:55.580 like Albertans realized that the charter wasn't necessarily

00:14:57.940 going to be a good thing for Canada.

00:14:59.160 Yeah, I was going to ask you, you know, maybe for a kind of a, if you could give a broad, like a, like a reader's digest overview, because we've, we've got a lot of, um, uh, subscribers on our channel and followers on, on, on X who are, you know, maybe in the, I guess you'd classify in the millennial or even, even some into the Gen Z kind of demographic of the, in their twenties and thirties who they're interested in Alberta independence, but they maybe don't, you know, have, have, uh, as, as a broad of a

00:15:29.140 history basis what actually consolidated that movement in the 80s and that's something that

00:15:33.760 you're very knowledgeable about and very passionate about so could you kind of give them um i don't

00:15:39.340 know just just give them like what what were you like in the same sort of thing that we're feeling

00:15:43.920 now in our 30s and 20s what were you guys feeling in your 20s and 30s in the 80s um well like like

00:15:51.700 for me um like the trudeau thing was really big i mean it was big in the in the um minds of many

00:15:57.400 many Albertans, you know, because he'd done so much to Alberta.

00:16:00.360 But if I could just go back a little bit, like, you know, as James mentioned, like Westerners

00:16:05.740 and Albertans, you know, have felt kind of conflict with Central Canada going back right

00:16:09.960 to the very, from the very beginning, right?

00:16:11.440 So, I mean, and part of this is because in any large country, when you've got a large

00:16:14.880 country with different regions, their interests are going to sometimes conflict.

00:16:17.980 That's just kind of an inevitable thing, right?

00:16:19.580 And so, all throughout the first few decades, you know, there were different conflicts in

00:16:24.060 Canada, but Canada sort of worked, even though the system wasn't perfect.

00:16:27.400 And we had conflicts and stuff, every country will, right?

00:16:30.560 But we were able to kind of muddle through one way or another.

00:16:34.160 And then in the 1960s, that began to change,

00:16:36.880 partly because of Quebec nationalism.

00:16:38.440 And that was one of the reasons that Pierre Trudeau got involved,

00:16:40.800 was because he wanted to make Quebec feel better,

00:16:44.080 more comfortable within Canada so that it wouldn't leave kind of thing.

00:16:47.360 But Trudeau's idea was to centralize Canada more.

00:16:50.480 Like we had a sort of decentralized system before Trudeau,

00:16:54.920 But he thought the way to keep Quebec in Canada is to tie the country together more tightly with more power in Ottawa.

00:17:02.000 You know what I mean?

00:17:02.840 So that was kind of his agenda.

00:17:04.260 And that kind of fueled his constitutional changes in the Charter of Rights.

00:17:07.660 Like part of the Charter of Rights idea was to tie the country more centrally together so that all Canadians would look to this one particular document, you know, in Ottawa where the Supreme Court was in Ottawa.

00:17:19.160 That would be, as Canadians, we'd all have that shared identity of looking to the Charter as the source of our rights.

00:17:24.480 So that was kind of part of his agenda was to make the country tied together more tightly.

00:17:30.580 That's kind of the opposite of what a big country needs.

00:17:33.260 Like a big country, like a federal system, you want to have the provinces with as much power as possible because the purpose of federalism is local communities can rule themselves.

00:17:42.760 You know, we give the federal government, you know, responsibilities like foreign affairs and military, you know, banking and finance, stuff that's needed for the whole country.

00:17:51.760 But then other things we can leave to the provinces like the resources and education, things like that. And so if you have a truly federal system with decentralization, and the provinces are powerful, you can keep the country together that way. But when you try and tie it together tightly like Trudeau did, then you get, you know, some of the regions, some of the regions and provinces are, are don't like that in Quebec, especially like Quebec never liked that. And Alberta too, you know, even, you know, Danielle Smith likes to try and emphasize, you know, our constitutional rights and responsibilities.

00:18:21.760 responsibilities as a province. And so the kind of just the general picture I'm trying to point is

00:18:26.200 a paint is that it was Trudeau's desire to centralize Canada more, that is part of the

00:18:31.740 root of the problems that we have with the different regions, because, you know, we're too

00:18:35.960 big of a country to try and tie together centrally, we need to have provincial responsibilities,

00:18:40.920 like we need a decentralized federation, where the provinces are powerful. And then they can, 0.81

00:18:45.700 you know, local communities can run their own, you know, with if Quebec wants to have everything

00:18:50.440 primarily in French they can do that you know what I mean and if we don't want French we don't

00:18:53.600 have to have that it's up to our local communities to decide and not for a centralized government and

00:18:58.420 of course one of Pierre Trudeau's first major programs was to bring in you know compulsory

00:19:02.920 bilingualism for all of Canada you know it was the official languages act and that was actually

00:19:07.020 the spark that first sparked the first talk of Alberta independence like even before the oil

00:19:11.380 thing there's people out here who just felt they were having French shoved down their throats you

00:19:14.920 know what I mean like I mean and again it was trying to make rather than having French and

00:19:18.620 Quebec and English out here, let's have both languages right across the country. It was kind

00:19:22.060 of like homogenize the country, right? Tie it together that way, rather than let the regions

00:19:26.740 have their own specialties, their own ways of doing things and stuff. So in my view, it was

00:19:33.080 Trudeau's desire to centralize the country that's at the root of a lot of the problems that we've

00:19:36.860 had since then. And of course, the Charter was part of that. And there's different reasons why

00:19:41.100 the Charter won. I think it's too centralizing like that. And also, you know, the provinces had

00:19:45.700 to give up some of their powers in order for the charter to be to be accepted in the constitution

00:19:50.260 before the charter we had the bill of rights from 1960 the bill of rights was just a federal

00:19:54.840 piece of legislation it only applied to the federal government because the federal government

00:19:58.260 couldn't you know pass legislation that would of that kind that would apply to all the provinces

00:20:02.700 but trudeau wanted it in the constitution so all the provinces would have to be under the charter

00:20:07.820 if it was introduced into the constitution and the provinces actually resisted that

00:20:11.600 The Charter was not popular at first.

00:20:13.500 Trudeau first proposed that in 1968 when he was Justice Minister.

00:20:17.400 And so it was several years of him advocating for the Charter before it actually came into effect

00:20:22.080 because there were various, many premiers were opposed to the Charter.

00:20:25.960 And there were other scholars who would produce papers or give talks about why the Charter should not be adopted.

00:20:31.720 And part of it was, it does, I mean, this was part of Trudeau's agenda too,

00:20:36.140 was to transfer more powers to the judges.

00:20:38.360 That's actually mentioned in his original proposal.

00:20:40.720 because the charter gives power to the judges they never had before and of course we have

00:20:44.640 you know so many policies and laws that have been struck down since the charter came into effect you

00:20:48.800 know in 1985 or so so there's just the charter does so many things that i think um are harmful

00:20:54.400 to canada and i think it's part of you know the root part of the root of the problems that we have

00:20:59.440 so actually i'm probably just drifted from your question there sorry no i don't think so actually

00:21:04.320 i think that's that's actually really fascinating insight and i i couldn't help but think like how

00:21:09.520 How interesting is it that in this quest to centralize power and authority in Ottawa as a, you know, I won't, you know, mind read motivations into him.

00:21:20.980 But, um, and then culminating in his son, you know, 30 years late, 40 years later, um, getting to the point where actually I think probably the, the main feeling that most Albertans have nowadays is that rather than being so centralized, everything feels it's completely opposite of that.

00:21:42.660 so decentralized there we we have a no national identity we don't have a uh you know canada's

00:21:48.260 a post-national state we're a a cultural uh mosaic and and you know we're we're welcoming

00:21:54.660 to newcomers from everywhere and so much so that it feels like everything is diluted to the point

00:21:58.900 of just not existing anymore yeah yeah like like i i say in some of my talks the trudeau's really

00:22:05.460 had it out against uh our historical canadian identity you know like our historical identity

00:22:10.740 like we were proud like of the RCMP like when I was a kid the RCMP was like one of those things

00:22:15.060 that Canadians were proud of like this would be the best police service in the world as far as we're

00:22:18.460 concerned we're proud of that we were proud of the Canadian military and you know talking about

00:22:22.300 you know the achievements in World War I and World War II there's just kind of this identity

00:22:25.820 that tied us together but um as you mentioned you know the post-national state idea that's in a

00:22:30.700 interview that Justin Trudeau gave with the New York Times shortly after he became Prime Minister

00:22:35.280 he told the New York Times that Canada has no core identity you know that's what he mentioned

00:22:39.080 We're a post-national state.

00:22:41.140 And the New York Times went on to say that in saying these things,

00:22:44.940 Justin Trudeau was the avatar of his father's vision.

00:22:47.700 You know, Pierre Trudeau did not like the Canada he became prime minister of.

00:22:52.660 He was trying to bring in fundamental changes.

00:22:54.840 Like when you change the constitution, you change the country.

00:22:58.460 Because the constitution is the foundational document.

00:23:00.800 So when a guy comes in and says, I want to completely redo the constitution,

00:23:04.520 he's changing the country.

00:23:05.580 And that was his goal.

00:23:06.360 And he achieved that.

00:23:07.020 I considered Pierre Trudeau to be like an evil genius because he was as intelligent and as

00:23:15.820 determined a prime minister as we ever had in all of our history. He was brilliant and he was

00:23:21.640 hardworking. He had all the personal virtues. If he'd been on the good side, he could have made

00:23:26.100 this into a better country, but instead he was going in the wrong direction. You think of Johnny

00:23:31.500 McDonald as the founder of Canada. Johnny McDonald brought in his constitution that

00:23:34.860 created the original version of Canada. And then you have Pierre Trudeau bringing in a new

00:23:38.560 constitution and, you know, creating a different country in 1982. So it's like our 1982 was like

00:23:44.780 a seminal year for Canada. Like we changed as a country from being one kind of a country to

00:23:49.200 being another kind of country. And that was because of the way Trudeau was able to change

00:23:52.500 our constitution and bring in the charter of rights and freedoms. Yeah. And it does dilute

00:23:58.320 over time and um that's a difficult conversation with some people is they hold on so tightly to

00:24:05.420 this idea of feeling canadian and then if you try to ask them what it is to be canadian they will

00:24:11.200 usually default to a surface level description or the not american approach or the we're nice

00:24:17.800 without actually going any deeper than that um i have wondered though it almost seems like

00:24:26.240 this centralization and this putting more power into the federal control seems to align with

00:24:35.340 those who view collectivism as a virtue and who trust a large government to take more control of

00:24:45.380 their lives. And it's kind of ironic because that's only possible right now for that to really

00:24:53.300 exist in this forum because with so many that are left-leaning, they have trust in a left-leaning

00:25:00.840 large government because it's the same team as them. I imagine they might have a slightly

00:25:09.320 different view of the potential downsize to a large government if the conservatives have been

00:25:16.920 in power for 10 years and passed policy after policy that didn't align with their worldview.

00:25:23.300 So, that feels like it's still a hurdle to the independence movement in Alberta right now, that there are public sector workers, there are those who are left-leaning collectivists, I'm going to use the word woke, like a neo-Marxist type view of oppression dynamics in society.

00:25:48.300 And they want Canada to continue being this compassionate place with open borders for all to exist in. And that's going to be a tough sell if you're talking about decentralizing power, giving more power to provinces.

00:26:03.020 I don't think they even fully understand like how confederation was supposed to be set up with the federal government being on equal footing with provinces.

00:26:13.580 They're viewing the federal government as a parent and the provinces as a as a child.

00:26:19.280 So my question to you is, what seed, if we're going to plant a seed, to try to shift some of these kind of deeply seeded thoughts, how would you start a conversation with these people to kind of get them thinking?

00:26:38.200 like when i'm talking about alberta independence questions like i i like to focus on history

00:26:43.980 and i focus on how um actually when when pierre trudeau first went after alberta in the early

00:26:49.740 1970s like some of the backstory to this is you know alberta discovered oil about 1947 at laduk

00:26:54.280 and at that time you know that was very helpful like up until that time alberta was one of the

00:26:58.160 poorest provinces in canada so the discovery of oil it brought us up kind of to a middle level

00:27:02.940 like it didn't make us really rich because you know in the 1950s and 60s like the price of oil

00:27:07.160 was about three dollars a barrel or something like that. So it was an excellent resource to have

00:27:10.460 and it certainly contributed to Alberta's prosperity. But it wasn't until 1973, there was

00:27:15.140 a war in the Middle East in October of 1973. The price of oil skyrocketed from about three dollars

00:27:19.940 a barrel to about twelve dollars a barrel in just a few weeks. And this brought on what was called

00:27:23.820 the energy crisis in the 1970s. Now at this time, Pierre Trudeau decided to keep the price of oil

00:27:29.400 within Canada low. So we put an artificially low price for oil sold within Canada. So when Alberta

00:27:34.540 sold its oil within Canada, we didn't get the money we should have gotten because the price

00:27:39.880 was so low. Alberta was already exporting oil to the United States. Trudeau brought in an export

00:27:44.260 tax on oil. It was the first time in Canadian history there was an export tax on a provincial

00:27:48.280 resource because it was a provincial resource that should have been up to Alberta. But the

00:27:52.700 federal government was taking a huge percentage of the revenue that Alberta was getting from

00:27:56.440 selling oil to the United States. So whether we sold our oil within Canada or out, the federal

00:28:00.940 government was cashing in on our oil in the way it wasn't supposed to. Our premier at the time

00:28:05.860 was Peter Lougheed. Famously, Peter Lougheed fought Trudeau throughout the 1970s when it was

00:28:10.180 called the energy wars. Peter Lougheed called that export tax on oil something like the greatest

00:28:14.860 ripoff in Confederation's history because we've never had that before and we weren't supposed to

00:28:19.520 have that kind of thing. I'm mentioning this because what happened to Alberta in the 1970s

00:28:25.740 is unprecedented in Canadian history that no federal government ever attacked a province

00:28:30.560 the way Pierre Trudeau attacked Alberta in the 1970s into the 1980s. Like, it's not like the

00:28:35.360 federal government sometimes fights against one province and takes resources and another one.

00:28:39.200 This is unprecedented in Canadian history before or since, like from the 1970s to the 1980s. Alberta

00:28:43.560 was not treated properly. It was very mistreated for a long period of time. And of course, the

00:28:48.740 National Energy Program came in in 1980, which made things even worse. And that hammered Alberta's

00:28:53.360 economy you know businesses went under and people lost their jobs in fact last year when i was

00:28:57.600 speaking i ended up talking to three different people who claim they knew of people or personally

00:29:02.480 knew people who committed suicide during the national energy program because the financial

00:29:05.780 devastation you know what i mean like that's unprecedented in canadian history like was never

00:29:09.360 like it's one thing for an economy you know provincial economy to be devastated by some

00:29:14.040 kind of international event or a natural disaster but this was a deliberate policy on the federal

00:29:18.600 government to hammer us you know what i mean our government did that to us so um that led so that's

00:29:24.900 kind of you know what led to the upsurge in support for separation at that time right but

00:29:28.760 then comes the reform party and with as i mentioned earlier uh preston manning had a great idea let's

00:29:33.360 elect our guys to ottawa and tell them what we need to do and we can make those changes in ottawa

00:29:37.300 so that our voice as westerners can be heard within canada then we can feel that we're a full

00:29:41.780 part of canada actually like james mentioned historically that's really the sentiment that

00:29:45.840 had out here is we're not being heard we want to be heard in there so the west wants in was kind of

00:29:49.680 a like a perfect summary of what albertans had wanted for decades and for generations

00:29:54.800 but then you know we elected in alberta we elected substantial numbers of reform party mps

00:29:59.200 in 93 and 97 like almost all of our mps were reform party and some of the other western

00:30:03.520 provinces elected some too but what but they were kind of basically ignored you know in ottawa they

00:30:08.160 were not taken seriously they were seen as just a regional party with regional interests you know

00:30:11.760 know what I mean? So the concerns that we had were dismissed, just regional concerns, who cares

00:30:16.120 about you, right? Now, part of the Reform Party too, but partly separate, was the Tripoli Senate

00:30:19.800 movement, which started by early 1980s, because, you know, Canada's Senate right now is still not

00:30:24.640 elected, right? It's appointed by the Prime Minister, and it's regionally disadvantageous

00:30:30.000 to the West, like we're not fairly represented there. So the Senate doesn't work for us at all.

00:30:33.940 So this idea came up of a Tripoli Senate, that would be a Senate where the senators are elected,

00:30:38.200 and there's an equal number from each province and they have effective powers now a senate like

00:30:42.540 that it's like an american style senate right so that would give western provinces power so that

00:30:47.040 our voice could be heard in the national government and so this became a real big thing the triple e

00:30:50.540 senate movement there was a committee for the triple e senate and actually our premier in the

00:30:55.160 late 80s don getty he was a full supporter of the triple e senate idea and in fact he held

00:31:00.380 canada's very first senate election i think that was october of 1989 like the prime minister of

00:31:05.300 retains power to appoint senators but we'd have an election and recommend to the prime minister

00:31:12.100 the person who wins the election as the one to be appointed and so um a guy named stan rogers or

00:31:16.580 stan waters from the reform party he won and brian maroney in fact appointed him to the senate so

00:31:21.380 that was canada's very first elected senator in history right and so i'm just trying to convey

00:31:26.180 the idea of the momentum that the triple e senate movement had at that time because alberta could

00:31:30.100 hold these elections and recommend that the winner of the election be um pointed to senate and

00:31:35.860 stephen harper did appoint some of those to send as well so we're trying to get the senate reform

00:31:39.780 as westerners but then uh but then in in 2014 um to make a long story short there was a supreme

00:31:45.780 court decision that uh well stephen harper as prime minister was trying to get changes done

00:31:50.020 to the senate through legislation in the house of commons in the senate the supreme court ruled

00:31:53.380 that he that none of those changes that he wanted could be done without a constitutional amendment

00:31:57.620 now in canada constitutional amendment is incredibly difficult you know to the point

00:32:01.860 of being impossible so that shut the door on on senate reform any uh possibility of senate

00:32:06.820 reform for the west so our two main efforts to get our voice heard in ottawa the reform party

00:32:12.180 on senate reform and both time both times the doors just slammed in our face and we're not

00:32:16.020 interested they're not interested in any kind of changes so i like to bring that up when i'm trying

00:32:19.700 to convince people because i'm trying to a lot of people say well sure things might not be good but

00:32:23.860 let's just make changes in Canada and then we can you know then it'll be okay but we've tried so

00:32:28.420 hard like that's my main argument as Albertans we've tried for decades to get changes so that

00:32:33.220 our voice could be heard and they don't do anything they won't even like incrementally

00:32:37.060 give us a little bit of something it's just no we're not interested right so so I say you know

00:32:42.100 independence is our last chance we've tried everything else you know what I mean we've tried

00:32:45.940 to fix Canada tried to fix it at the institution there's an institutional level with the Senate

00:32:50.340 We've tried to fix it at the political level with Reform Party, but nobody's interested out there of, you know, helping us in any way.

00:32:56.280 And so if we become independent, then, you know, we've got a government that represents us and, you know, we'll get the kind of representation that we need and we can get the political leadership that we need to do what's best for Alberta rather than, you know, being ruled by politicians elected 3,000 kilometers away who are doing what's best for Montreal and Toronto.

00:33:13.360 You know what I mean?

00:33:13.700 exactly and you know that's that's something that we've you know we've kind of noticed in our

00:33:19.520 discussions with people uh uh both that we've interviewed and people that we just talked to

00:33:24.260 you know at events or on the street um a little bit of background knowledge on the history is so

00:33:29.380 important because so many people will will look at the you know the the 21st century the 2026

00:33:35.080 2025 independence moving and go well this is just a reaction to you know you guys hated justin

00:33:40.940 Trudeau and you know you're racist because you don't like immigrants whatever you know like these

00:33:45.020 silly sort of straw man arguments right but they don't realize how much effort you know has gone 0.87

00:33:49.740 on over the decades to to try and even up the system and the and the problem now that we find

00:33:54.640 is that we have a conservative party a federal conservative party that we still you know reliably

00:34:00.160 elect in just about every riding in Alberta but they have also no interest in in adjusting the

00:34:07.640 system at all, because exactly like you say, I mean, their, their main voter base is concentrated

00:34:12.100 in Ontario and Quebec. And, you know, I don't know how many elections it's going to take back

00:34:17.640 to back to back where, where essentially the, the, the election is called before the polls even

00:34:22.280 close in Alberta before people will realize that, you know, actually this is one of the arguments

00:34:27.320 that I use to people is that, you know, when we're trying to convince people in our day-to-day lives,

00:34:31.960 you don't know us that well, but you know, we're, we often refer to ourselves, James and I, as a,

00:34:36.100 recovering leftists. We were recovering liberals. And so, you know, we have a lot of friends and

00:34:41.640 family who are, you know, quite liberal. And I tell them like, listen, even if you're not

00:34:47.060 an Alberta separatist, you actually should be thrilled about the idea for Alberta to be

00:34:51.240 independent because then, you know, we're not all that far removed from having an NDP government

00:34:57.300 in a just switching away from conservative federal government. So if you're an NDP,

00:35:02.680 if you're a leftist you should want your voice to have more power on on you know on an election

00:35:07.420 scale which it just simply doesn't right now yeah like that's interesting way like like there's

00:35:12.440 different people who are you know convinced by different lines of reasoning if you know what i

00:35:15.760 mean like for me the historical thing is what convinced me and so that's what i use but you

00:35:19.960 know i've heard other people talk about different um issues as to what convinced them but like the

00:35:24.020 like you mentioned the election like the federal elections have a big impact on many people and it

00:35:28.060 It was like, there's a sense in which the election of Mark Carney in April, that was

00:35:33.160 a big trigger for many, many people, you know, because there's different people have different

00:35:36.480 levels of tolerance, right?

00:35:37.620 To what they're willing to put up with.

00:35:38.900 And some people were putting up with Trudeau, you know, expecting that Pierre Polyev was

00:35:43.120 going to be prime minister by now, right?

00:35:44.540 That was just, it was kind of assumed because he had been leading in the polls for so long.

00:35:48.080 It just seemed like that was going to happen.

00:35:49.600 So all was going to happen.

00:35:50.740 So we just have to wait.

00:35:51.800 Let's just wait for another year or two.

00:35:53.120 We'll have an election and it'll change.

00:35:54.780 But then with Mark Carney winning kind of unexpectedly with the turn of events, you know, because of Trump and so on, that really triggered a lot of people to be convinced of supporting independence for the very first time.

00:36:08.860 And actually, going back to the 2019 election, that also was a very big election because that was actually just after Tristan Trudeau's first term.

00:36:17.760 By then, he was really coming down on Alberta.

00:36:20.220 And so by 2019, a lot of people were looking for change and hoping for Andrew Scheer to win.

00:36:23.800 And because Trudeau won again in 2019, that led to the surge of what was called the Wagsit movement.

00:36:28.840 You might remember Wagsit.

00:36:29.800 So Wagsit movement, in the aftermath of that election, the Wagsit movement had some very, very big meetings like in Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer at least with hundreds and hundreds of people.

00:36:40.560 that was kind of like the first initial strong resurgence of the independence movement because

00:36:45.860 of you know people were understanding that justin trudeau's policies were hurting alberta but they

00:36:50.740 were waiting for that 2019 federal election thinking that the conservatives could save us

00:36:54.520 and when they couldn't you know that brought in a lot of new people into the movement and then

00:36:58.420 2021 was a little bit different the federal election because of the you know the covid stuff

00:37:02.060 was really big then that was more prominent than the uh fight over alberta's energy uh but then

00:37:07.240 And again, say people were expecting Parapol Yev to win and Mark Carney wins.

00:37:10.980 And for a lot of people, that was just, that's the straw that broke the camel's back, right?

00:37:15.980 So the elections do have a big impact.

00:37:17.820 In fact, I mean, it's the federal liberals, the federal liberal party is the biggest sales force for the Alberta independence movement and always has been.

00:37:26.100 Because, you know, people like me, like I talk to people, I write books, I write articles and stuff, and maybe I can convince some people.

00:37:32.200 but when the liberals get reelected or they bring in one of these policies that convinces

00:37:36.200 thousands of people in one day they could they they're the ones who do the sales job for us

00:37:40.720 basically yeah it's uh marty marty up north we're talking with him and he said he could

00:37:47.800 like on days he got more signatures it was usually coincided with some policy change coming out so

00:37:55.200 He could see the one-to-one correlation in real time.

00:38:01.180 So, yeah, it seems like there's some people that they're already convinced by independence.

00:38:09.080 There's some people who are on the fence, and those are the people that are more swayed when there's an ebb and flow of the movement growing.

00:38:17.820 And then there's people that are going to dig in, and ideologically, they're never going to shift.

00:38:22.620 um and and we've seen the movement ebb and flow and it feels like in 2026 it is a little bit

00:38:30.940 different we still don't know if what this number is actually going to be and a clear majority is

00:38:38.580 still a difficult thing to achieve when the status quo is easy to vote for because the unknown is

00:38:48.400 very scary. Uncertainty is not what somebody wants to jump into if their lives are already so

00:38:55.440 busy and chaotic. And I feel like the more overwhelming the world is, the less brave

00:39:02.560 people are to push against the grain in something that drastic, unless it gets to a point,

00:39:10.120 reaches a breaking point, then people want that change.

00:39:14.880 Yeah.

00:39:15.320 So if not for this October, do you feel like this movement,

00:39:20.880 does it have legs?

00:39:22.120 Is it going to ebb or is it going to flow again?

00:39:24.460 Is it just going to keep on ramping up?

00:39:26.660 What's your feelings on this from what you've seen in the past versus now?

00:39:32.840 Well, just like the general trajectory over time has been upwards,

00:39:35.880 like not consistently upwards all the time.

00:39:37.680 we definitely have you know greater uh support now than ever before so there's just a general

00:39:42.680 trajectory upwards then like let's say hypothetically that the um referendum fails

00:39:47.620 you know gets less than 50 percent and it fails that would you know take a lot of air out of the

00:39:52.800 tires immediately but so much would depend then on what the liberal how the liberal government

00:39:57.620 responded like if they respond like um like with with uh you know a peace offering and say look

00:40:04.120 you know now we realize you guys have you know are discontent even though you know the referendum

00:40:08.620 went down we're going to try and help you out you know that could um alleviate some of the support

00:40:13.160 but if they just keep ramping up their anti-alberta policies it's just going to keep building

00:40:16.480 you know one of the things too is some people say well you know a failed referendum is going

00:40:20.400 to really hurt alberta and i there's a sense in which that's true but when we look at quebec you

00:40:24.220 know quebec had two failed referendums and did quebec you know lose power because they lost those

00:40:29.900 referendums or did they gain power? Like it seems to me Quebec was not set back by the referendum

00:40:35.740 losses. And in fact, one of the things that Stephen Harper did that I'm not favorable towards

00:40:40.020 was that he actually increased the equalization or he changed the equalization program so that

00:40:44.940 Quebec would get more because he wanted more votes in Quebec. You know what I mean? So even

00:40:49.460 though Quebec lost in the referendum votes, they seem to have gained influence and power

00:40:54.200 in relation to the federal government. You know what I mean? So even though I want the referendum

00:40:59.140 to succeed obviously um the if we lose and still have a substantial vote um it won't necessarily

00:41:05.060 um be like something where we'll lose out really badly if you know what i mean like well it'll

00:41:09.660 actually wake up people in the east i my impression from this is just anecdotal from

00:41:14.260 people i've talked to but um a lot of people in the east apparently like don't really know about

00:41:18.600 discontent in alberta and you know that what we've suffered through and stuff and they just

00:41:22.820 don't pay attention to us they don't even like they're not even aware of us really but if we

00:41:26.620 were to have a referendum vote like which we're expecting to get even if we lose it'll they will

00:41:31.400 learn about some of our issues you know whether they want to or not because it's going to be a

00:41:35.080 major thing in the media even if we lose so um i still like even though like i say i want the

00:41:40.940 referendum to succeed but i also see there's a potential for some positive benefits even if we

00:41:46.600 don't you know what i mean so i don't think it'll be a complete disaster but like i say so much will

00:41:50.740 depend on what the federal government does afterwards as to how whether the movement keeps

00:41:54.980 um, growing or shrinking, but as for me, I'm, I'm pretty

00:41:58.040 committed to it now, so I'm still going to be on board

00:42:01.200 with it after, even if we lose that, that referendum.

00:42:04.800 Yeah.

00:42:05.360 Yeah.

00:42:05.620 And there, there are things, sorry, James, that, um,

00:42:08.140 you know, they, they say that there are, there are things

00:42:11.140 worse than losing, you know, sometimes, uh, you know,

00:42:13.900 losing can, uh, can help, uh, um, you know, consolidate

00:42:17.860 a movement even, even more for, for the next try.

00:42:20.420 But, um, I do wonder, yeah, I'm sort of 50, 50 on that.

00:42:24.340 I do wonder if perhaps the federal government will respond with further punishment, you know, for Alberta for embarrassing them on the national and international stage.

00:42:37.860 Although I do wonder as well if, you know, I've often joked with people that like, you know, this is not true, but I joke that like, you know, I'd be happy if Alberta got, you know, 10% of the consideration that Quebec gets in federal politics, you know.

00:42:51.040 But I wonder though, if, if a say, say the independence referendum gets a 40% vote or 45%, something like this, like just shy of a, of a, of a majority. 0.91

00:43:01.600 I do wonder if the, if the federal conservative party at least would respond with, um, at least making a show of, you know, running candidates in Alberta that are sympathetic to Alberta interests rather than running, you know, floor crossers in, in, in Edmonton South. 0.62

00:43:18.220 So, you know what I mean? 0.82

00:43:19.660 Yeah.

00:43:20.160 Yeah.

00:43:21.040 Actually, I was going to say, sorry, go ahead.

00:43:25.480 No, I just, one of the things I want to throw in here in terms of what could happen with the referendum is one of the things Alberta independence movement has always lacked is a real credible leader.

00:43:35.400 Like this is one of the things that was a real turning point for Quebec is, you know, by the 60s, they had all kinds of separatist groups going, but they were divided and they didn't have a leader.

00:43:43.800 But when René Levesque, you know, he had been a Liberal Party cabinet minister in the Quebec government.

00:43:48.280 When he came out of the Liberal Party and said, I'm going to lead the separatist movement in Quebec, that tied them all together.

00:43:53.720 Like the Parti Québécois became the one organization for people to join.

00:43:59.280 And he won, you know, he won elections and became as premier.

00:44:02.760 But it was his leadership that really pulled it together and made that possible.

00:44:06.740 And if we had someone like that in Alberta, that would be a game changer for the whole thing.

00:44:11.300 you know, because people look to leaders, you know, to inspire them and to, you know, give them

00:44:16.320 ideas and direction and stuff like that. And if we had a guy like a René Levesque type figure here

00:44:21.520 in Alberta for independence, that would definitely change things. And it would definitely increase

00:44:25.680 support for the movement and it would increase the possibility of the referendum succeeding.

00:44:30.740 So hoping that a guy like that will come forward.

00:44:36.220 Yeah, I think it's great that we're making these comparisons to Quebec because we can learn a lot

00:44:41.300 by just taking a temperature check of Alberta and the rhetoric around Alberta versus the

00:44:48.620 rhetoric around Quebec. And there's a couple of things to unpack. And one of them is that

00:44:54.160 you get the fear mongering saying that any talks of independence or separation will result in

00:45:02.040 economic decline like it has in Quebec. And Quebec's kind of a paradox because you're

00:45:08.580 describing that Quebec gained political power, gained leverage, and essentially now they have

00:45:16.000 greater equalization payments and all these perks from their separation parties and movement.

00:45:24.260 But they've seen a decline in some sectors, but people aren't talking about the self-restricted

00:45:29.620 policies or the fact that they've hamstrung themselves in developing their own resources

00:45:35.220 or their language laws that are making investment a little bit more difficult.

00:45:41.120 Or if a company had to choose between setting up headquarters in Quebec versus headquarters in Ontario,

00:45:47.340 they're going to choose Ontario just because of ease of deployment.

00:45:51.620 So these things are not talked about in the layers that, in the kind of nuance that it deserves.

00:45:59.200 Yeah, actually, can I just cut in here?

00:46:01.240 Sure, yeah.

00:46:01.920 I just have an important point to make about that.

00:46:03.660 Like, I know people say, well, it was after René Levesque was elected as premier in 1976,

00:46:09.180 and all of a sudden, all these people and businesses started pulling out of Quebec.

00:46:12.600 Now, stated that way, it's true as far as it goes, but that's not the whole truth.

00:46:16.640 The policy that drove people out was Bill 101.

00:46:20.080 Like, right after René Levesque came in, he brought in Bill 101,

00:46:23.840 which was the charter of the French language for Quebec.

00:46:27.080 And because they were going to make businesses in various parts of Quebec society,

00:46:31.780 people were going to have to use French.

00:46:33.660 for the first time.

00:46:35.560 And so the reason that Quebec declined so quickly in the late 70s

00:46:39.160 was primarily because of English-speaking people pulling out.

00:46:42.920 The English community was in control of a lot of the businesses

00:46:47.580 and the financial side of things and stuff.

00:46:50.160 So they pulled out.

00:46:50.820 So Montreal, I think, might have been the biggest city in Canada in 1970,

00:46:54.900 but by 1980, Toronto was the biggest city because Montreal lost so much.

00:46:58.440 Because that's where the English-speaking people were largely concentrated, Montreal.

00:47:01.520 all and so the primary reason for the decline of quebec was not the fact that uh the party quebec

00:47:08.640 was a separatist party but was because the policies they brought in were forcing people

00:47:12.240 to speak french and people didn't want to be forced to speak french it was easier to move out

00:47:16.800 so i guess i want to bring that up because we hear that you know even someone like great jason

00:47:21.360 kenny will say oh the separatist movement is going to chase out businesses and our economies

00:47:24.960 to decline just because we're talking about it and you know if we if we become independent we're

00:47:29.120 we're going to lose everything. Just look what happened to Quebec. Yeah, Quebec did lose that

00:47:32.580 stuff, but it was because they were forcing people to speak French. That was the primary

00:47:36.560 reason by far. You know what I mean? And we're not proposing anything like that. And so the

00:47:41.340 analogy is not correct, because we're not going to do something to chase people away the way they

00:47:46.400 did. And another point that you made that was quite important is that our policies are more

00:47:50.380 pro-business out here than they are out there too. So we don't have to worry about that. There might

00:47:55.240 be people who leave for whatever reason. I mean, some people might do that, but it's not the same

00:47:59.460 as Quebec. Yeah. So there's, again, these analogies get brought up because people don't

00:48:08.180 have any other metric to really compare the situation to because it is, especially in the

00:48:13.960 West, the movement growing to this point to actually force a referendum. This is new.

00:48:17.680 uh and but we could still compare the political rhetoric behind behind this all and if we look

00:48:26.240 at what happened to quebec it was this loving like you're canadian you're one of us like please stay

00:48:33.740 we couldn't do this without you you're like it was such a heartfelt plea for unification

00:48:40.540 and right now we're seeing

00:48:42.480 just like everybody 0.92

00:48:44.680 trash talking Alberta 0.99

00:48:45.980 which makes me think that if a 0.99

00:48:48.540 referendum did fail it would

00:48:50.640 be vindictive

00:48:52.220 it would like

00:48:53.540 it would be a toxic aftermath

00:48:56.660 from the rest of Canada

00:48:58.460 which almost

00:48:59.860 sets the tone for a lot of these

00:49:02.480 assumptions

00:49:02.980 landlock is another

00:49:05.360 it's like the go to

00:49:08.300 argument and it

00:49:10.540 The assumption on that is that if Alberta leaves, the rest of Canada or B.C. would be vindictive and they would they would shoot themselves in their own like they would harm themselves just to spite Alberta in the process, which I think ties into this this rhetoric.

00:49:31.160 So do you think that rhetoric will warm up at all, or do you think we're stuck in this kind of combative us-versus-them kind of atmosphere?

00:49:49.400 Yeah, like I think for now we're stuck in that kind of combative atmosphere.

00:49:52.440 As you mentioned, you described that very well, you know, the comparison with Quebec.

00:49:56.260 You know, I think there used to be a slogan,

00:49:57.860 I think a bumper sticker that says

00:49:59.060 My Canada includes Quebec, you know, back in the 90s

00:50:02.180 because it was, you know, say the loving feeling

00:50:04.060 towards Quebec, express love to them and so on

00:50:06.080 where it's so different with us.

00:50:08.280 You know, it's so much more hostile with us.

00:50:10.920 So like I say, at this point,

00:50:13.360 I think that's the current trajectory

00:50:14.760 is just kind of the negative vibes towards us,

00:50:18.420 you know, and rhetoric towards us

00:50:20.020 because we're looking like we're, you know,

00:50:23.060 moving towards independence.

00:50:23.860 But you never know, like this can change.

00:50:25.340 It could change if we got a leader, depending on what the leader was like.

00:50:29.580 And it could also change, like, if we're getting closer to the referendum and we're getting really good numbers, polling like we could pull out, you never know.

00:50:36.200 That might cause a rethink among people, and it might change their attitude.

00:50:39.760 So right now, we're definitely on the negative side of things, and it could stay that way, but there's the possibility of something changing.

00:50:47.060 And if we do become independent, though, like you said, you know, people are thinking that other parts of Canada are going to rather,

00:50:53.080 they'd rather shoot themselves in the foot than, you know, work with us. And I don't know that,

00:50:57.960 for me, that doesn't make sense. Like, would you, you know, take a lower paying job just so you

00:51:02.500 could, you know, politically spite someone, you know what I mean? Like, you know, most people are

00:51:06.520 going to do what's best for themselves economically. I mean, there will be always, you know, a certain

00:51:10.980 percentage of people that are just nasty and are going to be nasty. But I think if Alberta became 0.97

00:51:16.680 independent, I think BC would be willing to negotiate with us good terms for both sides.

00:51:21.780 Like that just, that just makes sense when both sides are benefiting from an economic agreement, that kind of makes sense.

00:51:27.200 You know, if they wanted to cut us off, we can cut them off and, and both people in both communities are going to lose money and be worse off, you know?

00:51:34.680 And so it's just not very rational, but I guess with politics, not everything is rational, I guess.

00:51:39.520 Right.

00:51:40.260 But my view would be, is there more likely to be reasonable than unreasonable?

00:51:44.660 Cause it would work out best for everybody if they were reasonable and we could make good agreements.

00:51:48.700 yeah it's sort of like uh when we you know we've had long drawn out discussions with people about

00:51:56.060 how like you know well actually according to this statute of this you know subsection of this like

00:52:01.300 Alberta actually can't do and it's like it just it further reinforces why this is necessary you

00:52:05.920 know it's the same thing here it's like oh you know really you you just you know you view us as 1.00

00:52:10.620 a bunch of silly rednecks and we're just we're all so stupid and you don't okay well I you know 0.99

00:52:15.240 I guess we'll leave then and like, you know, disabuse you of the problem that, you know, 1.00

00:52:19.120 you're so, uh, you're so concerned about here. So yeah, I, I tend to agree with you. I mean,

00:52:23.280 I think that a lot of people, when they're speaking emotionally on this issue, which it's,

00:52:27.380 I don't actually think it's that emotional of an issue. I think, uh, uh, media rhetoric and,

00:52:32.880 and, and how politicians from, you know, federal, federalist politicians talk about it. And,

00:52:37.560 and to be honest, even, um, you know, people within our own independence movement,

00:52:41.380 you know speak on certain issues they tend to up the the emotion to a level that it may not

00:52:46.380 necessarily be helpful uh i i think primarily it is a business decision it's an economic decision

00:52:52.860 and i think that when people realize that this is not a zero-sum game this is actually a very firmly

00:52:59.720 a non-zero-sum game where if everybody benefits from something you know we can we can find a way

00:53:05.000 to work out the details you know so i i kind of tend to share your optimism there i do wonder

00:53:09.180 do you um and i don't want to put you on the spot though i kind of do do you have a uh an idea in

00:53:15.600 the back of your mind of like who that person might be to spearhead the movement to kind of

00:53:20.120 take us over the finish line i kind of do but am i i don't know if i want to well i mean i've been

00:53:26.160 really impressed by keith wilson lately i think a lot of people have so i can't help but say that

00:53:30.300 i mean he he just speaks so clearly he's so smart i mean he just seems to hit all the bases you know

00:53:36.000 i mean um he's very reasonable and so um i mean so i'm hopeful for him he's like he's emerged more

00:53:45.360 than someone other like there's other there's guys in the movement that i know like that are

00:53:48.560 prominent that are really good guys you know what i mean but some there's just something about keith

00:53:52.640 wilson that people that appeals to people because as you know just in scuttlebutt talk among people

00:53:57.680 people are looking keith wilson he's just emerged recently and now he's quite prominent and um

00:54:02.640 And yeah, like I said, he just, he seems to kind of encapsulate the kind of person that we need for this movement. So I'm hoping for that, but I mean, who knows, maybe somebody else would come forward too.

00:54:14.340 Yeah. And it's almost that I think he's been hesitant to, like, he doesn't, from what he's said even last year, he doesn't want to be a leader. So he's just trying to further the message.

00:54:27.840 He's perfect for it.

00:54:29.060 Exactly.

00:54:29.420 Exactly, yeah. 1.00

00:54:30.460 That's what my wife said to that.

00:54:31.560 My wife said that, you know, she's heard that he doesn't want to be a leader.

00:54:34.600 And I said, well, that's what makes him qualified.

00:54:36.880 Yeah, but he's cutting through the noise.

00:54:40.920 And then he has the knowledge base and the understanding across multiple, like obviously as the constitutional law side.

00:54:52.520 But he's worked within businesses and land and titles and he understands all that.

00:54:58.940 And this is exactly what we're finding with independence is it can be an intellectually exhausting thing to talk about for just the average person because you unpack one area and now you're talking about, well, what is the nature of confederation or what does it mean to be this and that?

00:55:19.140 And it's never just a single topic, like it unfolds into many things. And to be a leader, you need to be able to pivot and navigate each of these areas with precision and almost be a deep generalist in that sense of not so hyper specialized that you are blind to everything outside of that specialty.

00:55:45.200 You need that, um, a systems level understanding across multiple domains.

00:55:53.420 So would you guys agree?

00:55:55.320 Then, uh, yeah.

00:55:56.820 Yeah, we would.

00:55:57.700 Yes.

00:55:58.360 Yes.

00:55:59.400 Yeah.

00:55:59.800 A hundred percent.

00:56:00.380 Actually, I was, I was almost hoping, I knew you weren't going to say it, but I was almost hoping that like you were going to say like, oh, you know, maybe when her term as premier is up, maybe Daniel Smith might, you know, take a firm stance on something.

00:56:14.080 but I don't know what your thoughts on, uh, on her are necessarily.

00:56:18.000 Well, I mean, like if you compare politicians in Canada, like she'd be probably my favorite,

00:56:23.380 I guess, you know, you know, if you just do a comparison, cause I can't think of anybody

00:56:26.720 I like better, but like, I'm not, like I don't, I'm not a rah, rah, rah, Daniel Smith supporter.

00:56:31.360 And I've, you know, I've heard from people conflicting accounts of what she really believes

00:56:35.620 about Alberta independence.

00:56:36.560 And so, you know, it's hard, like I can't get on the, on board with, you know, fully

00:56:40.620 supporting her, but I do like, I do respect her.

00:56:42.660 And like I say, when I look at elected officials across Canada, I don't see anybody who I respect more than her.

00:56:49.160 You know what I mean?

00:56:49.960 You kind of just have to go with, you know, who's available, who's there.

00:56:53.380 And she kind of stands, you know, head and shoulders above most of the other elected officials.

00:56:58.220 So I appreciate her in that sense, but without being completely on her bandwagon.

00:57:03.720 Yeah, well, I think we tend to agree, you know, that's a fair way of describing her.

00:57:08.400 Like I, I understand the, um, like some, some people are, are very, um, upset with

00:57:14.440 her that she doesn't take a firmer stance either way.

00:57:16.360 And that's from both sides, you know, but I kind of get it, you know, being a, uh, an

00:57:20.180 elected official of a, of a, of a provincial party, you can't really, you know, come out

00:57:24.700 on the side of a, as being purely a federalist or purely a separatist because you have, you

00:57:30.000 represent people who are both right.

00:57:31.860 Yeah.

00:57:32.080 Um, so I get it from that perspective and yeah, I've, I've sort of heard, we we've

00:57:36.280 heard the same sort of thing you know certain people in the movement will go like no no no you

00:57:41.280 don't get it like she's she's totally on board with independence and then then you hear from

00:57:44.760 another person who you respect just as much and you know knows their stuff just as much as like

00:57:48.720 nah she's gonna do everything she can to you know can this movement so it's like i don't know what

00:57:53.520 to believe man yeah let's get keith on on board like like what you say with like she's in a really

00:57:58.980 really difficult spot i mean the ucp the ucp party itself has huge division between federalists and

00:58:05.520 independence-minded people, right? And she has to keep that party together, you know, for the sake

00:58:09.960 of the province and for the sake of her premiership. And so, like, I would not want to be in her

00:58:14.100 position. Like, that's really, really difficult. So, you know, she's doing a, you know, from that

00:58:18.100 perspective, she's doing a pretty good job keeping things together. And like you say, if she took a

00:58:21.520 harder stand one way or the other, that could easily divide the party completely. And, you know,

00:58:26.460 before you know it, we'd have the NDP in power, right? So that's something we have to consider as

00:58:30.760 Wow. Yeah. And, uh, she got a standing ovation or Jeff Rath got a standing ovation at the AGM.

00:58:37.800 We filmed all that. We like did our little documentary on that. And then even showed

00:58:43.000 that she essentially disemboweled independent, the independence movement multiple times that

00:58:49.420 weekend. She specifically said that she's supporting a United, like a independent Alberta

00:58:56.300 within a sovereign or like within a united canada yeah multiple times um so you can see that even

00:59:03.640 in that case she got smeared by the media that she can explicitly say that she's trying to keep

00:59:12.340 alberta in into canada in canada and they'll take the smallest little action or mention and

00:59:20.060 paint her as a separatist 1.00

00:59:21.820 anyways which at some point

00:59:23.940 I wonder if she'll just 0.56

00:59:26.040 like lean into

00:59:28.000 it like well you're calling me this

00:59:29.760 like well so what

00:59:32.000 or you might get

00:59:34.020 to a point where

00:59:34.820 and this is maybe a next threshold that I'm

00:59:38.020 curious about is

00:59:38.980 when something moves from being

00:59:41.700 fringe or

00:59:43.020 like it's uncomfortable to

00:59:45.920 talk to in some social circles

00:59:47.720 or it's

00:59:49.820 It's still not something that everybody will discuss to something where it's a socially acceptable thing to talk about.

00:59:57.400 It's socially acceptable to identify with that you don't have social backlash or it's there's a critical mass where any movement, if it grows to enough, it just embeds itself in the culture and or the collective consciousness.

01:00:13.540 is. And that will be an interesting threshold. And I don't know when that might be.

01:00:20.680 Well, actually, since you brought that up, that's an interesting thought because

01:00:23.620 I'd say, even if the referendum is not successful, like you say, we got 40% and we lose,

01:00:28.280 the political culture of Alberta has already been changed. In a sense, we've never had this

01:00:32.800 level of support before. So we have people for the very first time in their lives are committed

01:00:36.940 to Alberta independence. Now, even if the referendum fails, these people have thought

01:00:42.880 about it seriously before and committed to it they might backtrack from it but it's still part

01:00:46.680 of who they are and who they've been you know what i mean so that this part of alberta this idea of

01:00:51.280 alberta will be a bigger part of our political culture even if we lose the referendum like i

01:00:55.740 mentioned earlier you know with the national energy program that changed the support level

01:00:59.700 of alberta independence you know from single digit to double digit and it never went back to single

01:01:03.180 digit it just stayed a double digit and grew a bit so that was a change in our political culture

01:01:07.520 in 1980 or 81. We're having the same thing now, so that even if we lose the referendum,

01:01:13.380 our political culture has changed to such a degree that the independence option is going to be

01:01:17.420 something that's more credible than before. I guess it's kind of like Quebec, you know what

01:01:21.100 I mean? Even though they lost the referendums, there's always a large segment of the population

01:01:25.680 that supports independence, and Alberta would be more like that than it was before, because we

01:01:30.100 can't get away from the political change that's happening right now in our culture because of

01:01:34.240 this issue right now and in a way it's almost a the harder the pushback the more there is a risk

01:01:42.840 of ottawa creating a shared origin story for more and more albertans right because um if they just

01:01:50.500 overplayed their hand and pushed if they just cracked down you could create a like a cultural

01:01:56.460 glue that would be impossible to undo um so in a in a sense they may like it may seem like the

01:02:05.220 rhetoric's harsh on alberta right now but i feel like that's still measured in a certain way because

01:02:12.200 it could be a lot worse but that risks waking up more people faster than the momentum is right now

01:02:19.780 So it might get to a point where, like, if everything just becomes super friendly, that might be an indicator that, like, okay, well, the movement has grown to a point that they can't be tough with us anymore.

01:02:35.100 They have, like, it's past all the other stages of grief into the, like, their bargaining.

01:02:40.880 And so it may, the tone may still shift.

01:02:46.240 Yeah.

01:02:46.320 Yeah, well, it's an important thing to point out too, like along the lines of what you're talking about, that the people who are attacking Alberta verbally, like it's not Mark Carney or his cabinet ministers, because if they were to do that, that would push things more towards independence.

01:03:00.020 If Mark Carney came out and gave a nasty speech against us saying these Alberta separatists are a bunch of so-and-sos, that would actually, a lot of Albertans would kind of circle the wagons and that would kind of build our movement.

01:03:08.680 And I'm sure that they realize that, you know, I'm sure that that contributes to them kind of either not talking about it at all or kind of, you know, underplaying it just because they knew that, I mean, the Liberal Party built this movement and they can make it a lot stronger if they, if they, you know, talk against us more harshly than they've done before.

01:03:31.460 Mr. Wagner, we've had you for about an hour or so.

01:03:33.620 So I don't know if James has another question, but I have one final thought for you.

01:03:36.660 Um, I wonder if you, we, we asked this of, of certain guests, if you had to do like a, an elevator pitch, you know, for the final, like, uh, the, the highest elbowed, uh, liberal in Alberta who thinks like, you know what, this is just impossible.

01:03:54.980 There is no way X, Y, Z, why this won't work.

01:03:59.840 What would be your, your like politically neutral pitch to that person about why it can work, why it should happen and how we can get there?

01:04:10.340 I hope that's not too crazy of a question, but give it a shot.

01:04:14.480 Okay.

01:04:14.980 I'll just go off the top of my head here.

01:04:17.300 Like many people realize that Canada is not in the best situation and we need change and we can make the country better.

01:04:23.560 And if Alberta was to vote for independence, it doesn't actually make Alberta independent the day after.

01:04:28.040 It creates a situation where there has to be negotiations towards Alberta independence.

01:04:32.220 But the negotiations don't necessarily lead to Alberta independence.

01:04:34.560 They could lead to just constitutional change.

01:04:36.740 Like, it'll be up to Alberta to decide if we go independent or if we accept a new proposal from the federal government.

01:04:42.400 Like, this could be an opportunity for Canada to change in a way that's beneficial for every province.

01:04:48.120 Like, we could change the constitution and give the provinces more powers,

01:04:51.500 give Quebec more power so that Quebec's happier.

01:04:53.880 I mean, right now the independence movement

01:04:55.260 is growing in Quebec.

01:04:56.220 You know, the Parti Quebec was leading in the polls.

01:04:58.360 We could create a new constitutional system

01:05:00.180 that would be positive for all the provinces

01:05:03.580 and we could keep the country united

01:05:04.920 under a different form of government

01:05:06.260 and be beneficial for everybody.

01:05:08.020 So voting for independence in this, you know,

01:05:10.340 this would be a way of making the whole country better.

01:05:14.640 Interesting thought.

01:05:15.620 That's very...

01:05:15.880 I think that's a good elevator pitch, yeah.

01:05:18.640 Yeah, no kidding.

01:05:19.500 well um mr wagner um where can people find you uh online where can they uh get your books we'll

01:05:28.740 link to them but but uh what do you got going on lately and and do you have um do you have

01:05:33.940 any speaking engagements anything like this that that people can can look out for in the near

01:05:37.680 future yeah actually um toward the end of this week or i guess um by the time this goes up on

01:05:42.540 internet it might be over but i do have some coming up really quickly but um over the course

01:05:47.240 of the spring and summer I'm expecting that there'll be more opportunities to speak in certain

01:05:51.900 locations because there's many organizations right now that are having organizing meetings all over

01:05:56.160 the province that's one of the good things about the movement is being so decentralized there's

01:06:00.040 people doing stuff all over you know what I mean so there's lots of opportunities for speaking so

01:06:03.320 there will be things coming up the best place to get my books is actually a small business based

01:06:07.680 in Didsbury Alberta it's a homeschooling business and we're friends and they sell my books it's

01:06:12.640 called Merchantship. And so the website is just merchantship.ca in lowercase. If you go there and

01:06:18.500 you search my last name, my books will come up. You know, they sell lots of stuff there, but my

01:06:22.440 books are there too. So merchantship.ca. And if you buy there, you're supporting a local Alberta

01:06:26.720 business. So that's the best place to get my books. I also have a website that one of my

01:06:31.120 daughters operates. It's just drmichaelwagner.com. But for the most part, it directs people to

01:06:35.600 Merchantship to get my stuff there. I mean, I'm also on Western Standard. I do write columns

01:06:40.680 are like not regularly, but occasionally.

01:06:42.580 So that'd be another place.

01:06:44.980 Seems like we might have to go on a road trip, Mike.

01:06:47.600 So I think so.

01:06:48.520 Yeah, why not?

01:06:49.100 Let's get some books.

01:06:49.760 Yeah.

01:06:50.540 Well, thank you very much.

01:06:51.520 I really appreciate your time.

01:06:53.200 That was so insightful.

01:06:55.300 I mean, there's stuff that every time we have conversations like this with people, like,

01:06:59.340 you know, we think that we know, you know, we know a lot about stuff and we really don't

01:07:03.160 know much about anything.

01:07:04.320 So we always appreciate the opportunity to learn and you have a great way about you.

01:07:10.120 I feel like you should be more public, actually.

01:07:12.620 I would like to see you on more podcasts.

01:07:15.320 So maybe we can have you on again, maybe leading up to the vote and hopefully after a successful vote.

01:07:22.180 Great.

01:07:22.380 Thanks.

01:07:22.640 I'm glad you guys invited me on.

01:07:23.840 It's really fun to talk to you.

01:07:25.580 Yeah.

01:07:26.160 Thank you very much.

01:07:26.880 Thanks for joining.

01:07:27.960 You're welcome.

01:07:28.760 Cheers.

01:07:40.120 Thank you.

The Critical Compass Podcast - April 28, 2026

The Evolution of Alberta's Independence Movement ｜ Michael Wagner

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