00:00:05.300I had no use for him, and he wasn't a serious leader.1.00
00:00:08.920But what gives you hope for the future of Canada?
00:00:11.060So our productivity from 2015 to 2025 basically remains stagnant,
00:00:16.120whereas the United States continue to do this.
00:00:19.480Bring in the new leader that we have now with Carney,
00:00:21.740he's a serious player, and you can say what you want about him philosophically.
00:00:25.460That although I disagree with the Liberals policy-wise,
00:00:28.640I'm being open-minded enough to say, we're getting screwed by what's going on with the tariff thing in the States.
00:00:35.500I don't disagree with what you say about the notion about being a good neighbor.
00:00:41.040But what does it mean if we're constantly being told that we have to be good neighbors to the east,
00:00:48.360when the east, at every opportunity, over-regulate us, over-tax us,
00:00:53.200and at the same time, they won't allow eastbound pipelines.
00:00:56.800You know, they saddle us with fake environmental policy that we've never once hit, while simultaneously importing 150,000 barrels of oil a day through the Halifax port of Saudi dictator oil.
00:01:09.840We've got to ask ourselves, do we want to be a resource colony for the United States, or do we want to be part of Canada?
00:01:15.120Right now, we're a resource colony for the east of Canada.
00:01:18.280And to answer, like, what's this optimal size of government, people are constantly deciding that amongst themselves.
00:01:24.000whenever people come together and unite over certain cultural heritage desires and dreams
00:01:31.020and hopes of the future and whatever then they become unique in their own right and then they
00:01:35.180want to be independent from other groups that are different and I feel like Alberta's at that point
00:01:39.320now where we we are we feel we're unique enough and different enough that we're not represented
00:01:45.060by the other group and we want to be we want to be different by the way my name is John I
00:01:51.620I talked to Albertans about this topic, and this is Mike.
00:02:14.840We give about $70 billion, and we receive about $50 billion in federal contribution.
00:02:21.620So immediately upon an independent Alberta, we have $20 billion surplus to apply to our institutions, our hospitals, our schools, our infrastructure, whereas otherwise that would have been given away to be maybe distributed to the Ukraine or something like that by Ottawa.
00:03:10.660I don't want to be working our ass off and handing all our money to a province like Quebec.
00:03:14.700It doesn't support our oil and gas industry.
00:03:17.640which we do which we do which we absolutely do yeah and so philosophically you got to step back
00:03:22.680and say well at what point is equalization better for the Canada at large and it just comes down to
00:03:29.420philosophical argument of where does that border end yeah you know and you can make the argument
00:03:34.080that Quebec is the villain because they don't they bite the hand that feeds them they don't
00:03:39.000support the industry they get money from the industry that they don't support so in that sense
00:03:44.180you're you're 100 right but if when you step back philosophically and say at what point do we stop
00:03:50.660helping our neighbor yeah you know from a socialist you know ideology and just eat what we kill yeah
00:03:57.260then we turn more into like trump's philosophy of just everything's you know the stronger guy's the
00:04:04.180predator he wins the other guy doesn't because we can stomp on him yeah same with this idea of like
00:04:09.060well how much money do we transfer to ukraine great question that's the same philosophical
00:04:13.680argument where where does that border end again where we're supporting people that we don't know
00:04:20.020across seas and so you got to say well what happens to Ukraine if they get swallowed up
00:04:24.160and all of a sudden Russia starts attacking Poland which is a NATO ally that through article
00:04:30.980five we've got to go over and and help through you know you attack one of us attack all of us
00:04:36.260next thing you know we're fighting Russia over there and so we've got a proxy war going on that
00:04:41.720we're supporting and we're not throwing people in because we don't want nuclear bombs thrown around
00:04:45.480so at some point i'm saying to myself yeah i'd rather have that money stay in canada
00:04:50.540and help build roads and hospitals and infrastructure yeah but there's a part of
00:04:55.100me that says supporting ukraine also has benefits outside of just helping me as an individual and so
00:05:01.040that's to me what the whole argument is is is where does our border end does it end at edmonton
00:05:06.900does it end at the alberta border does it end in canada yeah you know and that's that's that's my
00:05:11.300perspective on the whole thing and and you know us becoming an independent country because we're
00:05:17.380pissed off at the way ottawa treats us and i agree with you 100 we get treated poorly
00:05:24.100relative like the decision on what government is you know federal government what the federal
00:05:29.940government is going to be ends at the ontario manitoba border yeah our vote is okay it doesn't
00:05:35.780it doesn't come in i think we are alberta because the question is is like what is the optimal size
00:05:43.220of government or like because okay we could grow bigger we could go the other way philosophically
00:05:48.100we could bring back the british empire where it's like now we're part of a system that includes india
00:05:52.980and singapore and hong kong and south africa and it's like okay i don't think that that was way too
00:05:57.780big india should have definitely been its independent country right maybe india should
00:06:02.260even be divided a couple of times that's a different conversation but like okay canada in
00:06:07.140my opinion is too big to be effectively governed okay because if you make quebec happy alberta's
00:06:12.420mad if you make alberta happy quebec and that's just one big example but actually regionally
00:06:17.780there's probably 25 different economic social regions like you could call edmonton to calgary
00:06:24.900is one economic region but then like the peace river region into bc is another kind of social
00:06:30.500million dollar question that i was talking about is how do you decide either geopolitically or
00:06:36.340culturally what's a you know quebec distinct society okay they speak a different language
00:06:41.700that's a unique region well what about what about alberta and saskatchewan well we're kind of
00:06:46.420similar bc they're pretty green so where do we create those boundaries and it's it becomes opaque
00:06:51.940you know what i mean there's no right there's no right answer what i do is i when i'm trying to
00:06:56.100decide what's good for me as I step back and say okay so I spent a whole pile of time over in Asia
00:07:03.920and third world countries that were poorly managed poorly run low taxes and that translated into
00:07:11.220shitty health care corrupt governments poor infrastructure the list just goes on and on
00:07:16.600I grew up in Saskatchewan where I was like everything was about the world that I grew up
00:07:21.620in saskatoon right but then i spent time that's where i'm from too by the way okay so then i
00:07:26.500spent time in my early 30s over in asia and i came home with a different perspective and that was
00:07:32.600you know yeah i get it i was bitching about taxes before but now i'm actually i get it a lot of our
00:07:38.900taxes get wasted yeah but assuming our taxes were used our tax dollars were used effectively and
00:07:44.600the government was run as a as a business from a philosophical perspective i have no money paying
00:07:51.54050% of my income towards all of the infrastructure required to keep my family safe, my community
00:07:56.680safe, healthcare, the roads, hospitals, police, firemen, etc. Is 50% the right number? I don't
00:08:04.460know. So I step back and I say, well, how does Canada rate in the world community in
00:08:09.120terms of equality of life? So there's about 10 to 12 metrics that are traditionally used
00:08:15.340to determine quality of life. And where do we rate on that? The Nordic countries typically
00:08:20.080do well okay are they considered better than canada well they're they're typically more
00:08:25.340socialist than we are in terms of in terms of taxes in terms of the government taking care of
00:08:31.000them but when you actually look at those people like in finland and sweden and and you know some
00:08:36.800of those countries and up in there how does canada rank well we're in the top 10 in the world right0.97
00:08:41.560we hit the we hit we're hitting it out of the fucking park you guys in terms of0.59
00:08:45.260we're growing up in the best place, or you guys, or my son, in my opinion, top 10 country in the0.99
00:08:51.720world. When you look at eight and a half billion people, we've got, what, 40 million people or
00:08:56.460something. And we're in the top five percentile of quality of life in the world. Yeah, we probably
00:09:03.140pay more taxes, and we get fucked over by Quebec in terms of transfer payments. And you could go0.96
00:09:08.300and chicken pick all the things that we should be pissed off about. But when you go and you travel
00:09:12.640to third world shitholes you come home with a different perspective to say yeah there's a bunch0.99
00:09:17.100of things that i don't like and they could be better and we can improve upon them um but when0.81
00:09:22.420i'm comparing myself to lao or cambodia a bunch of platelet burma how do you feel about mass0.99
00:09:28.340immigration from third world countries i i don't like that it's like that's what's happening in
00:09:32.820canada racist no it's not i don't i don't want to be racist i don't think it's racist but like
00:09:37.380what i think is i'm really worried about it i feel like everything needs to be measured
00:09:41.720so so we don't have control over that and i don't think that's a little thing i think we've moved i
00:09:47.580think we've moved a few years ago we were letting in way too many immigrants and it wasn't being0.90
00:09:51.560measured and it's taxing our social systems and we've trimmed that back and it's better now but1.00
00:09:56.200we've got to actually look at it and say okay what if we let in nobody what would happen that well
00:10:00.440we're we're a country that actually doesn't make enough babies so our population just goes into
00:10:05.860decline well it was followed by economic decline so i think everybody would agree just cold turkey
00:10:11.920this binary stop letting people in isn't going to work for us would you guys yeah i don't i think
00:10:17.540albertans should be able to decide about our own immigration policies but right now we have no
00:10:22.280control i don't disagree quebec or sorry the federal government tells us what our immigration
00:10:26.980policies are we have to accept so things that could be fixed yeah sure so but for me that's
00:10:30.940not just a picky little thing but I feel like there's an ebb and flow in history where borders
00:10:36.420change people move around and to answer like what's this optimal size of government people
00:10:42.600are constantly deciding that amongst themselves whenever people come together and unite over
00:10:47.940certain cultural heritage desires and dreams and hopes of the future and whatever then they become
00:10:54.020unique in their own right and then they want to be independent from other groups that are different
00:10:57.920And I feel like Alberta is at that point now where we feel we're unique enough and different enough that we're not represented by the other group and we want to be different.
00:11:07.700When they have this referendum though, so do you guys believe in the sense of, you know, democracy is messy, I get that.
00:11:14.160You've got a bunch of people with different perspectives.
00:11:16.360They vote, the majority wins, they get to make the rules for a period of time, it ebbs the other direction, new leaders come in.
00:11:22.780And that doesn't matter where you go, democracy is messy.0.99
00:11:25.900It's a it's a shitty system. But to me, I don't see a better system. But that's, you know, the issues that we have that you guys are talking about. And they're all fair. I don't disagree with a lot of them. But when we live in a democracy, we're not always going to get what we want. And that's the reality of we could live in a dictatorship. And if we had this perfect, benevolent dictator who made all the right decisions, it'd be much more efficient to run a government. But we don't.0.98
00:11:52.300we, it's not like we're never, we've never gotten anything that we want.
00:11:57.100And in fact, we're getting dragged in opposite directions.
00:12:17.580He actually was a big part of developing the oil sands.
00:12:20.860So we've developed, we've got a little bit here, but I feel like culturally, Canada is so different in different regions that it makes sense for people who are different to be able to govern themselves.
00:12:38.380So I think the difference between Alberta and the countries that you mentioned in Southeast Asia is that the countries in Southeast Asia don't have the third largest oil reserves per capita on the planet.
00:12:48.920So immediately that's an advantage for us. And when you talk about, I don't disagree with what you say about the notion about being a good neighbor, but what does it mean if we're constantly being told that we have to be good neighbors to the east when the east at every opportunity stifle our industry, over-regulate us, over-tax us, and at the same time, they won't allow eastbound pipelines.
00:13:17.260They won't allow, you know, they saddle us with fake environmental policy that we've never once hit, while simultaneously importing 150,000 barrels of oil a day through the Halifax port of Saudi dictator oil that they'd transport up the St. Lawrence seaway.
00:13:35.740I 100% agree with you on all these things.
00:13:37.740I work in the oil sands industry, and a big part of my job is the regulatory side of things.
00:13:42.520department of fisheries the alberta energy regulators trying to pass trying to make
00:13:48.080revisions to the mines that we're working in up there to expand our pits to alter rivers to mine
00:13:53.620through things and and every day is a battle and it's frustration and it's difficulty but i look0.77
00:13:59.620at the alternative i could be living in a under the rule of a third world despot trying to get0.60
00:14:04.600shit done where it's just done with corruption and and and bribe so i i take our situation and
00:14:10.080all the points that you guys are making I agree with them in principle they are frustrating and0.96
00:14:14.440they're difficult but then I step back and I have the perspective of I can just chicken pick the
00:14:19.300things that I don't like that piss me off and focus on that and live in this echo chamber with
00:14:23.760people that have the same opinion or I can step back and say you know what there's a lot of great
00:14:28.680things as well in this country that on the balance if I put them all in a pot stirred them all up
00:14:35.040Am I in better shape than, you know, 95% of the rest of the planet?
00:19:48.300But I, but I think that like when we're, when we're talking about the future of our, of this province and the long-term success of our industry and of our economy that we've, that we, you know, 90% of our economy, I don't necessarily think it's helpful to focus too much on Trump.
00:20:03.620So I guess we got to ask ourselves, do we want to be a resource colony for the United States or do we want to be part of Canada?
00:20:09.180Well, we're right now, we're a resource colony for the East of Canada.
00:20:12.480Because that's actually a talking point that we use.
00:20:15.060We're like resource colony for Ottawa.
00:20:16.720So you want to be one for Ottawa, which I don't disagree.
00:20:20.360The amount of money that leaves this province for other areas of Canada through equalization,
00:20:25.500again, we can debate what the right mix of that is.
00:20:28.860I have trouble personally sending money to Quebec seeing as they bite the hand that feeds them
00:20:34.360because they're not allowing us to run pipelines through their territory.
00:20:38.580But in the next token, they're holding out their hand for $10 plus billion in transfer payments.
00:20:44.040If they were a little bit more appreciative of what they're getting from us and they want to work with us and we're, you know, reciprocating a bit, then it would be a different story.
00:20:53.900But I think that's what voting option two does.
00:22:36.520And so what's the last thing anyone's going to do in terms of throwing huge CapEx spend on something when there's uncertainty?
00:22:44.440They're going to say, well, two years from now, they could be a different country.
00:22:48.760And we have no idea what the tax regime is going to be.
00:22:51.160We have no idea what this, that and the other thing are going to be.
00:22:54.120That uncertainty causes financial players to pause and say, let's just hold and wait.0.88
00:23:00.160And I watched that happen in the early 90s with Quebec and their economy fucking tanked because of that.
00:23:05.600And I don't want, you know, I'm pragmatic, if anything, I don't want that happening to Alberta.
00:23:09.520So with Quebec, a lot of people will associate the referendum is what caused the business flight from there.
00:23:17.600What I understand it to be more related to is the implementation of really draconian dual language laws that forced a lot of industry to leave.
00:23:27.780They just didn't want to comply with the dual language laws that were being applied.
00:23:31.540I'm pretty sure actually the banks left before the referendum.
00:23:35.180is that true i'm pretty sure that they actually they left before and they did they just didn't
00:23:39.060want to comply with the french laws but but do you think canada is is business friendly right
00:23:44.200now to heavy industry i think we're i think there has been a step change since carney came in office
00:23:50.020and it was you know a lot of a lot of it was um by necessity he's realizing that um we're gonna
00:23:57.680have to change things with a lot of the stuff that's going on uh with the states and so the
00:24:03.800change that's been happening in the past year and a half relative to the prior 10 years
00:24:08.360is is monumental like basically like i said our productivity stayed flat for 10 years from 15 to0.99
00:24:14.68025. yeah because we had a fucking retard running our country now we've got a serious player who0.97
00:24:20.680stepped in is acknowledging what's going on in alberta is acknowledging what's going on federally0.99
00:24:26.920with the whole tariff situation and he's saying okay we're gonna make some changes here we got
00:24:31.640got a separation issue going on in Alberta. We've got a tariff issue going on nationally. Let's
00:24:38.000start doing some projects. Here's what I'll tell you is I can actually see it day to day in the
00:24:44.100job that I do working with the federal government. Department of Fisheries is an example.
00:24:49.000I wasn't getting anything done in the prior five, six years to 2025. In the past two years,
00:24:56.360we've accomplished more in working with the Department of Fisheries than the prior five
00:25:00.360years behind in terms of coming up with designs and changes that they support that we support
00:25:05.580working with stakeholders coming up with sensible alignments on plans implementing those plans
00:25:11.080having approvals put in place there's a red tape reduction that's going on whether you believe it
00:25:16.940or not i see it and i live it every day because i i work in the industry and it's improving our
00:25:23.420ability to actually get shit done so i would like to think that that change that i'm seeing
00:25:28.520on a small scale up in my area of work0.63
00:26:15.840We're paying a bunch of extra money, but you've got to decide.
00:26:18.420With the world's biggest economy south of our border, right?
00:26:21.300So at some point, again, it's a philosophical discussion, an argument as to where is the line to where we roll over and take it and be compliant with a guy who says in the agreement, we're going to tariff you at X and we have at any point, we can go and just change that.
00:26:35.640Anything that you negotiate with Trump isn't worth the paper that it's written on.
00:26:38.600Anything that you would negotiate with the Americans is the same thing, though.
00:26:41.840Like they're like 30 times our economy, maybe more our economy.1.00