The Critical Compass Podcast - We Have a Chance to Reclaim Our Democratic Sovereignty ｜ Chris Scott, Let's Talk Alberta

00:00:00.000 Hi, guys. Welcome back to the Critical Compass. We are sitting down in person in studio with Mr. Chris Scott. Thank you for joining us, sir.

00:00:08.140 My pleasure.

00:00:09.760 So you spent the last several months on the road in the Let's Talk Alberta bus.

00:00:16.180 When this airs, we're going to be probably about two weeks or so out from the referendum on a referendum.

00:00:22.700 What are you guys kind of seeing on the ground?

00:00:25.140 What is your feeling about, in general, what the average Albertan is talking and feeling about this vote coming up?

00:00:32.480 Well, what we're seeing is promising.

00:00:35.200 People's feelings, what they've felt, what they've experienced, some of the things that have happened to them,

00:00:39.720 are resulting in their willingness to actually talk about it for maybe the first time in their lives.

00:00:44.860 So as we travel across Alberta, we see piles of blue signs, of course.

00:00:48.880 We see some red signs.

00:00:50.800 And we see a lot of people who are interested in the conversation.

00:00:54.060 At our town halls, we generally, it is a bit of an echo chamber, of course.

00:00:58.460 I'm very vocal on my opinion that Alberta independence is necessary and inevitable. 0.93

00:01:02.780 So there are people that will not attend my events because they believe I'm a dirty, seppy traitor, right?

00:01:08.300 But some very brave and civically responsible individuals do show up.

00:01:13.240 And they challenge us on our opinions.

00:01:14.840 And they share theirs with us.

00:01:17.180 So what I'm seeing is conversations that haven't really been happened before,

00:01:20.800 partly because we've been told that the conversation's kind of taboo and we shouldn't

00:01:24.600 have it in the first place. Can you recall maybe some of the

00:01:28.720 more respectful or maybe the more

00:01:32.480 thoughtful questions that you've had to really contend

00:01:36.780 with from somebody who is against independence and what you maybe responded?

00:01:41.060 Yeah, the most common question or

00:01:44.200 opposing question, I guess, statement is generally from white people

00:01:48.880 about treaty rights. So there's a lot of people who are opposed to the idea of Alberta independence

00:01:53.820 that are using the treaties and First Nations issues as their gotcha. This is why you can't

00:02:01.000 do this. That's one of the more common ones. Trump comes up a lot. People accuse those that

00:02:06.840 are seeking Alberta sovereignty as shilling for the US. One hand, the United States or Alberta

00:02:12.280 over to the United States to Trump. A lot of people, I shouldn't say a lot. Some people attend

00:02:18.640 and they have reasonable questions like, you know, what's going to happen to our pension?

00:02:22.760 What's going to happen to our citizenship? Those kinds of things.

00:02:28.280 In your opinion, for somebody who is going into the referendum in a couple of weeks here,

00:02:33.400 and they're still on the fence and they're still a true neutral, very small percentage of the

00:02:39.220 population, but true neutral, somebody who could be swayed either way. Lots of convincing arguments

00:02:44.820 being made on our side, on the independent side, and then maybe they're feeling like the

00:02:50.080 announcements of some of the infrastructure and pipeline projects and stuff from the federal

00:02:54.420 government, maybe they're thinking, well, you know, well, maybe this has kind of given us what we

00:02:58.620 really wanted. Maybe this will help us out. What would be your pitch to them? You know, maybe

00:03:03.240 they're relatively informed on the issues, but they're just not decided yet. How do you sway

00:03:07.660 that person? Well, specifically on the pipelines, I would say attend a Let's Talk Alberta event and

00:03:12.520 pick up a copy of the trifold called This Was Never About a Pipeline. This isn't about a pipeline

00:03:18.400 for me. Yes, we wanted them for years. The core of this is that we've had to beg and flail and

00:03:23.920 kick and scream for 15 years to get one built. That's the problem. Then you have to ask yourself

00:03:27.980 why. So for those people that are on the fence, I would just tell them, look, you have access to

00:03:32.100 information in ways now that you never could have even comprehended before. I mean, this is like

00:03:36.440 Star Trek time. We can hold a small computer in our hand. We can talk to it. It will talk back and

00:03:41.480 give us mostly good information. So when people say, like when Thomas Likasik says, you're going

00:03:46.480 to lose your citizenship, you're going to lose your pension. You can easily find out if that's

00:03:50.020 true. You don't have to listen to me. You don't have to believe me. You don't have to believe

00:03:53.740 Jason Kenney, Daniel Smith, any of them. You can access the information yourself. It's readily

00:03:58.240 available. And you can stop letting people tell you what to think. And you can take back control.

00:04:03.860 You can reclaim your democratic sovereignty in that the decision is yours. And the mark that

00:04:10.300 you put on a ballot is not the result of what a politician tells you, but of you weighing the

00:04:15.940 options and using your own brain to come to the conclusion. Do you have, thinking ahead to October

00:04:23.440 20th, say, or maybe 21st, depending on how long they supposedly are going to take to count these

00:04:28.260 votes, do you have any predictions about how you think the vote's going to go? And then

00:04:33.660 follow up to that because I think I know what you're going to say.

00:04:39.860 Let's say it's the other option and we don't succeed in a clear yes. Maybe give your next

00:04:47.880 steps for what you think is in store for the movement after that. So a prediction and then

00:04:52.420 after the fact. I don't have a prediction. I really don't. The polls suggest that there will

00:04:59.360 be a resounding defeat, and when I say defeat, I mean that people will choose option one.

00:05:04.360 We've seen that happen in the past where the polls say one thing's going to happen, and next thing

00:05:07.880 you know, Trump is the president. The polls say one thing, the next thing, the UK pulls out of

00:05:12.220 the European unit. So the polls, I don't know, you can't really rely on them, but maybe they're

00:05:16.760 an indicator, who knows. As for what the next steps are, what we do as individuals shouldn't

00:05:25.900 be governed by the outcomes of things that we think we want to happen. Our goal should be to

00:05:33.660 do the things that we believe are the right and true things to do, to walk the path, less travel,

00:05:39.420 to do the harder things, and to stand up for what we believe in. And those things, it doesn't matter

00:05:44.420 what happens around us, right? The vote could always go the opposite way to what we want,

00:05:50.520 and our job doesn't change. It's still to advocate for what we believe in, try and be that three and

00:05:54.900 a half percent of society that changes the direction of a society and keep doing what we

00:05:59.520 know is right. Very good. Thank you, sir. To this camera here, tell the people where they can find

00:06:06.840 you, what you've got going on in the next few weeks here, and anything else you want to shout out.

00:06:13.060 Sure. So in the next little while, you can find me and the rest of the Let's Talk Alberta crew

00:06:17.080 all over Alberta. We have town halls coming up here and there. You can find that information

00:06:21.640 at letstalkalberta.com.

00:06:23.420 From time to time,

00:06:24.680 if I'm offside of the government,

00:06:26.100 you can probably find me in jail,

00:06:27.660 but hopefully not anytime soon.

00:06:29.780 And you can definitely find me,

00:06:31.860 you know, wherever there's a conversation

00:06:33.440 that needs to be had

00:06:34.360 about the future of Alberta,

00:06:35.840 because I believe it's critically important.

00:06:38.900 Mr. Chris Scott, great choice of words

00:06:40.760 here on the Critical Compass.

00:06:42.260 Thank you again for your time.

00:06:44.700 And yeah, well, best of luck to you.

00:06:46.040 Thank you for what you're doing.

00:06:47.000 My pleasure. Thanks.

00:06:51.640 Transcription by CastingWords

The Critical Compass Podcast - October 12, 2026

We Have a Chance to Reclaim Our Democratic Sovereignty ｜ Chris Scott, Let's Talk Alberta

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