The Critical Compass Podcast - What Kind of Person Wants Alberta Independence？ What We've Heard From the People SO FAR...

00:00:00.000 and it's like are you even listening to the question like your your fear that the overwhelming

00:00:05.180 fear was that they would lose their pensions but i mean i don't know but maybe it's just like the

00:00:11.380 financial literacy of canadians is very low because they didn't seem to understand that like i mean you

00:00:16.820 can screw off to costa rica if you want you know and as soon as you hit retirement age you're that

00:00:21.440 money is coming to you in some way or another like you're it doesn't matter where you are in the

00:00:25.820 world you don't lose your pension so like exactly like you said they didn't come here to that event

00:00:31.860 interested in having a dialogue they just came there interested in demonstrating how they felt

00:00:38.240 about anything that a ucp government could put forward as a potential policy yeah and we were

00:00:45.960 chatting about this right after the event but what would it look like if you had 10 years of

00:00:51.660 federal conservatives and provincially you had the ndp in power and if the ndp was pushing for

00:00:59.840 more sovereignty as a buffer against federal policies would all these ndp supporters be on board

00:01:21.660 and welcome back to the critical compass i'm james this is mike and i would like to welcome many of

00:01:32.300 our new subscribers we've had a couple good discussions about alberta independence lately

00:01:37.740 and that has brought a few of you here so i'd like to welcome you uh last week we actually went to

00:01:45.060 two events went to the alberta prosperities first event in edmonton on tuesday

00:01:51.240 and we were also at the alberta next panel and we'd like to share a couple thoughts today so

00:01:57.240 more than a couple yeah they those were two completely different feeling events no kidding

00:02:05.460 hey yeah they were separated by maybe i don't know what 10 kilometers of actual geographic real

00:02:13.180 estate and they could not be more polar opposite yeah the demographic difference is a little bit

00:02:18.920 different and uh yeah the alberta prosperity project being pretty much people already that

00:02:25.420 have already bought into alberta independence yeah i don't recall really any like hearing any you know

00:02:31.020 whispering or rumbling or any like dissent you know of any type there i think everyone was i mean that

00:02:36.700 room probably had what would you say maybe four or five hundred people maybe a little less three

00:02:41.640 four hundred people and yeah it seemed uh seemed pretty unified and the messaging was pretty

00:02:47.600 uneventful as far as a uh you know there's no dramatics or anything unlike the alberta next

00:02:56.040 panel which was essentially all dramatics yeah the it so the alberta next panel what i got from that

00:03:03.880 is that like the government's trying to get a feel on some key kind of key issues on how the alberta

00:03:11.600 government should proceed with alberta let it be alberta pension plan police service um equalization

00:03:19.080 uh immigration etc but people used the kind of question and answer period which is the whole thing

00:03:28.280 was a question answer they used that as a way to vent yeah yeah there was a lot of um we kind of

00:03:36.440 noted it when we were there it felt like there was a lot of pent-up emotion a lot of um kind of what

00:03:42.940 we heard from i would say probably a safe majority of the speakers was a lot of um really like high

00:03:52.100 level emotion stuff like it wasn't it not a lot of it was calm reasoned like you know point by point

00:03:59.380 discussion because what they tried to do was they tried to guide the discussion i think there was seven

00:04:04.560 point six or seven points they wanted to focus on you know and really by and large no one i mean you

00:04:11.520 can can see if my analysis is right here but no one really seemed to care what the topic was they had a

00:04:17.080 point and they wanted to get the point out and the problem was sort of it's sort of by nature of that

00:04:23.100 type of event where you have people queuing up to to two microphones in a room of i think what do they

00:04:29.300 say there's like a thousand or eleven hundred people in that room you know if they only take questions

00:04:34.000 on a certain topic for 15 minutes or something and but you're in the next one in line and they

00:04:39.460 switch topics well you're not prepared necessarily with a with a new talking point but you want to

00:04:44.360 get yours out because you were waiting you know it's hard to it's hard to really keep a discussion

00:04:49.420 on the rails when it's like in that format right yeah so maybe half the questions were actually about

00:04:55.380 the topic yeah and then as you roll into the second topic there was a couple that were on the

00:04:59.800 previous one because somebody didn't write a new thing and by that time it like it backs up into

00:05:04.600 the next one and then as they went further along it just got kind of out of hand the and then you had

00:05:10.060 a bunch of people where uh i would say these are staunch ndp supporters that um whatever the issue was

00:05:19.160 essentially they were just shouting down everything and they were using that to rant and also blame the

00:05:27.500 alberta government and or say the alberta government's not listening or it's incompetent or it's failed

00:05:33.060 this way and by being off topic that kind of fueled into their feeling that they weren't listening because

00:05:40.500 the moderator is like well first of all you went over your time and you are shouting and or being

00:05:46.260 disrespectful so you kind of cut them off yeah then they get further angry at that very point and

00:05:52.940 he had such a thankless job yeah he's he did great honestly for the situation he was put in

00:05:59.620 like man the the amount like i don't know how many you know even by the end of the you know it's two

00:06:04.960 and a half hours or so you know roughly maybe even a little more and by the end you would think what

00:06:09.880 people would figure out like they got 45 seconds so make a point but people would go up there and

00:06:14.180 they you know first of all i'd like to say so and then they've sucked up you know 20 seconds and then

00:06:18.780 then those they're saying like well i've got two questions that i want to post and they they don't

00:06:22.840 even you know spit out half of the first one before their time's up and then they get mad at

00:06:27.100 you know what we saw was the um it was you know funny like no one will accuse them of not being

00:06:32.640 hypocrites but the particularly loud you know very leftist type of people who are there uh they were

00:06:40.920 pretty quick to shout you know time's up time's up when somebody was actually maybe agreeing with a

00:06:45.940 proposal or or putting forward kind of a conservative viewpoint but when it was one of

00:06:51.160 them that was uh you know over their time they they had all the time in the world to listen to their

00:06:56.960 two-minute diatribe yeah they they very much were thinking about just they have a right to speak

00:07:04.640 because it was very much censoring them if you don't yeah it was like me me me i i i um

00:07:11.540 yeah some of that was very like you could see the person's just they can only think about these

00:07:18.920 issues from their own lens yeah especially so it seemed like the crowd skewed older um

00:07:27.540 50 and above for the average person's probably older and female i would say too lots of groups of

00:07:34.880 maybe you know 56 year old women there's like a whole row in front of us and yeah there were groups

00:07:40.960 there were some groups there like some social groups i guess yeah and and so there's some

00:07:47.300 issues like the alberta pension plan they were very much thinking about that from like their own

00:07:54.120 experience of like would they receive their money not like how does this affect alberta as a whole how

00:08:03.780 does this affect like the future generation what are our children like what are their pensions

00:08:09.460 going to look like yeah um so yeah it it didn't seem like they were they they were not in a lot of

00:08:19.860 the people there that were shouting down stuff they were not coming there to listen they were coming

00:08:26.220 there to voice opposition yeah and that actually that's a great point on the um on the ap on the

00:08:32.320 alberta pension plan uh i gotta be careful app is alberta prosperity project as well um the uh

00:08:39.920 do you do you remember like the way that the question was worded was like there the topics were

00:08:46.160 worded in ways of like as if they were motions that you were voting on and did you notice how like

00:08:51.780 it didn't matter how um neutral or you know non-partisan or unbiased they tried to write the

00:09:00.180 question that didn't particularly matter to those groups because i remember specifically the the alberta

00:09:06.080 pension plan question was worded in some way that was like would you like to uh re-evaluate the our

00:09:14.300 participation in the canadian pension plan if an alberta pension plan could guarantee the same or

00:09:21.280 better benefits to albertans and the they would just they would be shut like boo and no like they were

00:09:29.180 shouting no and it's like are you even listening to the question like your your fear that the

00:09:34.740 overwhelming fear was that they would lose their pensions but i mean i don't know but maybe it's

00:09:40.780 just like the financial literacy of canadians is very low because they didn't seem to understand

00:09:46.120 that like i mean you can you can you know screw off to costa rica if you want you know and as soon

00:09:51.260 as you hit retirement age you're that money is coming to you in some way or another like you're

00:09:54.840 it doesn't matter where you are in the world you don't lose your pension so you know the fact that

00:10:01.940 they're they're not they didn't like exactly like you said they didn't come here to that event

00:10:06.540 interested in having a dialogue they just came there interested in demonstrating how they felt about

00:10:13.300 anything that that a ucp government could put forward as a potential policy yeah and we were

00:10:22.080 chatting about this right after the event but what would it look like if you had 10 years of

00:10:27.780 federal conservatives and you had like provincially you had the ndp in power and if the ndp was pushing

00:10:37.760 for more sovereignty as a buffer against federal policies would all these ndp supporters be on board

00:10:46.860 what is their contention is their contention that they don't like the ucp so they don't trust

00:10:52.920 alberta sovereign like anything that increases alberta sovereignty they don't trust because alberta

00:10:59.660 is more conservative than it is ndp or do they actually disagree with a province exerting their control

00:11:11.420 over their own jurisdictions yeah yeah we've been so long i mean we've been a decade

00:11:16.000 you know is it a decade plus now i think 2015 yeah i'm trying to think what month it was in 2015

00:11:24.840 at the federal would have been september october probably right at this point a month a month

00:11:30.200 less or more of carnage does not uh really change i know i'm just i'm trying to struggle for the

00:11:36.800 little bit of you know is it a full decade of this james uh yeah i mean i think that's uh that's

00:11:44.320 really uh people have really forgotten what like the diss the political discourse is in the province

00:11:51.700 because i remember so 2015 that would have been when the ndp were in power in alberta too right

00:11:56.660 yeah was it 2015 to 2017 or something like that 2018 they had they had three or four years right

00:12:05.160 yeah there was uh yeah we've kind of like the ndp had their time yeah but it was a very like

00:12:13.180 it was the the the liberal the leftist side of the i'm not going to say liberal because they're not

00:12:19.620 really but the leftist side of the aisle had it really good for a long time and they've had it really

00:12:25.040 good federally for a long time like you know other than you know as close as elections can get you know

00:12:31.120 in like 2019 and 21 um alberta voted how it voted but they never actually have experienced you know

00:12:39.640 there's a lot of people in these in these movements like some of the girls that we have

00:12:43.400 that eva chipia had videos of they a lot of them couldn't have been you know 10 12 years old when

00:12:52.540 you know when the they were they all they know for their young adult life is a is a liberal

00:12:58.360 you know government so as soon as you have these conservative sort of sounding things you know

00:13:04.420 you know emerging in the public discourse that's a big that's a big shift and it's such a good

00:13:10.420 question that you asked right because it's like yeah i mean what what are the what are you actually

00:13:14.560 disagreeing with are you disagreeing with the concept of the policy or are you finding ways to

00:13:20.320 disagree with it because you don't trust the source like i could imagine um

00:13:26.680 if the tables were flipped and conservatives were in control at a federal level and if people did the

00:13:35.560 math on the cpp they would be blaming the conservative government for mismanaging the cpp

00:13:41.020 yeah they would say they rated the cpp they made dumb investments it's their fault we're not getting

00:13:46.040 the returns and they would say well we need our provincial ndp to they're the only ones who can

00:13:53.100 properly take care of us we can't trust the federal government like i can completely imagine

00:13:57.560 the line of reasoning that would justify like somebody wanting more provincial sovereignty as

00:14:06.400 an ndp supporter but it requires that context and i don't think that context exists so what i'm

00:14:14.180 wondering right now is so this alberta next panel it was bringing up these issues on alberta sovereignty

00:14:20.700 but daniel smith keeps on reiterating keeps on making clear that this is alberta sovereignty

00:14:27.540 within a united canada um and we can we can see i have two thoughts on this it looks like

00:14:36.860 in a way this is kind of like a a pseudo like consensus finding slash they're kind of probing the

00:14:47.280 public in a way but it's hard to know like you only get a small sample it's hard for you to get

00:14:55.340 like a full consensus so in a way it is almost you can it is something that the ucp could say like well

00:15:03.580 here's how we advocated for alberta sovereignty within within a united canada here's what we did

00:15:10.720 we had this kind of response in these different places here's all the different thoughts we had

00:15:15.740 and based on this this is how we're moving forward regardless if that actually represents

00:15:21.840 a good like a good representation of the population or not they can lean on that and say this is what

00:15:28.500 we're doing so what what could happen is if all the things they're proposing to ottawa fall through

00:15:35.840 and nothing happens they could say well based on these alberta next panels this is how like maybe

00:15:44.000 we're going to take a step further and maybe they lean into alberta independence or it could go the

00:15:50.960 other way and they just play this game of we're going to have another letter and another panel and

00:15:56.340 we're um like it's our mandate to do this but we're sticking to the like within a within a united canada

00:16:05.000 and maybe they just this is their way of trying to appease alberta independent supporters

00:16:11.580 they're kind of playing this like we're still we're solving it from within i don't know what

00:16:18.460 your thoughts are on that well you know you kind of said it in a way that was interesting before we

00:16:23.720 hit record where you said you know are you are they shooting down the middle you know they got two

00:16:27.540 targets and they're shooting down the middle it was like well you know you you're doing that you risk

00:16:32.600 you know it's like that old uh not old but i've mentioned it several times because i like it so

00:16:38.280 much that uh chris voss book that never split the difference you know if you do that you know if

00:16:43.880 you're if you're too if you're too into like splitting the difference well then you just end up

00:16:47.420 a lot of the time with two unsatisfied parties you know so maybe you you know yeah i there's

00:16:55.660 daniel smith is an interesting one because the people who know her and the people like people who

00:17:00.840 we've interviewed like bruce party and you know um like marty up north you know guys who know

00:17:05.860 her on a more personal level kind of they're a little coy about it because they i don't know if

00:17:12.020 they maybe want to say too much but they get the idea that she's kind of like a true you know she's a

00:17:17.320 true libertarian like independent at heart and um she could just be playing the game right now but

00:17:23.800 it's hard to know it's hard to know because there's so many politicians you know in canadian history but in

00:17:29.500 in just you know in recent north american history really where there's such hope surrounding them

00:17:35.120 and there's such like oh man this guy's gonna really shake up the system or this this girl's

00:17:39.840 gonna really shake up the system and then they they get in you know to some position of influence and

00:17:45.160 they just get so mellow and so like comatose with their like what happened to all the fire you know

00:17:51.260 so i don't know i i would like to think that yeah she's being cautious she's collecting data

00:17:58.760 and then you know when an actual referendum vote happens then she can point to this and say listen

00:18:04.100 we did our due diligence like you say we collected the information this is what we were hearing from

00:18:09.120 albertans and you know if if the federal government wants to say well that's not a it's not a convincing

00:18:15.100 enough majority or whatever they might want to try and throw our way if we get a uh if we do get a

00:18:21.040 uh convinced what we believe to be a convincing majority vote for independence then she can point

00:18:27.020 to all of this documentation of like here's the here's the video evidence of of what we had and you

00:18:34.040 know we've been talking about kind of some of the crazies at the uh at the alberta next panel but if you

00:18:39.700 want to contrast that with the things that we hear at the more uh alberta independent focused events

00:18:45.620 the alberta pension or i'm sorry the alberta prosperity project event i mean that's a clear

00:18:53.160 that's a clear message too i mean there's so many people who are like you know maybe the type of person

00:18:57.960 who goes to one event doesn't go to the other because they don't want to you know it might be

00:19:03.240 something about they don't want to you know get into a they're not confrontational enough you know for

00:19:09.160 it they're not like us where we thrive on shit like that but you know it's hard to say where where

00:19:16.320 the more passion lies right now like do you have a feeling on that because for me when i left the

00:19:21.680 app event i was feeling like this is a done deal like this is a sure thing like look at how many people

00:19:28.020 are so in line with this and then we go to the the uh alberta next panel and that was a split room

00:19:35.540 maybe even skewing skewing left so a heart it's hard to say like well i i think that speaks to

00:19:41.560 the dangers of trying to build your idea of consensus based on samples yeah and echo chambers right so

00:19:51.960 when we talked briefly like even chatting with jeff rath and even just our brief meet with

00:20:00.180 uh dennis modery they seemed pretty confidence confident that the numbers were there

00:20:07.140 yeah alberta independence yeah they're also using the uh sorry to interrupt modery was using the result

00:20:13.460 of the uh um uh slipping my mind the uh the equalization payments referendum how how clear of a majority that

00:20:23.600 was so yeah so there's other polling that suggests maybe it's only at like 30 40 percent maybe um

00:20:31.640 and if you are in your mind you're taking these samples of like look at the energy look at how

00:20:38.340 many people came to this event that event even if we look at one of our own videos and we have

00:20:42.920 somebody watching a video with jeff rath that has 99 likes versus dislike ratio like it has this many

00:20:50.320 comments that are positive and if we are basing our internal like consensus based like if we're trying

00:20:58.040 to get an idea of what people actually feel based off of something that would bias towards a certain

00:21:03.840 type of person watching it we're probably going to get a skewed idea because there's a difference of

00:21:09.680 the types of people that go to the alberta prosperity project events and watch these videos

00:21:17.400 they're kind of already bought into it we do have a good number of comments that people are on the

00:21:23.920 fence or maybe people pushing back on specific points and that that's great i love seeing where

00:21:30.740 that's coming up but even just chatting with friends and family and those in the city it's city skews

00:21:40.280 more left than the rural areas but i don't feel there's a clear majority in the cities what is that

00:21:47.160 when you're washing out and you're trying to balance out like all the rural areas versus the cities or

00:21:51.420 even in the upc or like united conservative party right now um i feel like there's still quite a few

00:22:03.220 conservatives that are federalists so it's not even a it's not even a fully united consensus

00:22:12.260 like even on those on the right yeah yeah yeah it's a it's a perfect subject this is the problem is

00:22:20.880 that it's a it's a perfect topic to uh disunite conservatives and liberals almost won't even

00:22:30.600 consider it you know because they there is a and and you know it's funny because when we interviewed jeff

00:22:35.660 you know his this you know fits with his personality he's you know he's he's very much

00:22:41.420 this way but like he was like you know what we're never going to get those guys anyway right we're

00:22:45.060 never going to like why are we going to waste time and resources trying to you know convince the

00:22:49.540 lifelong ndp voter you're never going to do it and there's you know there's merit to that it's like

00:22:53.620 you you could you know like we saw at the at the alberta next panel you know you got people there

00:22:58.720 who are they are not they do not care to listen to the to the opposing to the opposing viewpoint of

00:23:04.520 course you have people on the right who are the same way and they'll never you know they'll never

00:23:08.440 consider uh any anything other anything short of like pure you know drill baby drill type you know

00:23:16.900 conservatism right and fair enough to both of them like that's fine but what is the ratio of that

00:23:23.900 right now like are there if you have because if you have a a left say that society skews which we

00:23:30.120 know you know from from basically every federal election in canada we know that these things are

00:23:35.680 like you know 52 48 50 or uh yeah like 51 49 kind of things give you know year to year there's no

00:23:44.260 real clear um while canada definitely overall i'd say skews liberal you know that that doesn't necessarily

00:23:52.140 um doesn't necessarily always play out because as clearly as it does somewhere in the u.s for

00:23:57.820 example where there's very clear left and right you know canada kind of blurs some things like that

00:24:01.740 but if you have a you have a left side of the aisle that is unified against something and then you have

00:24:06.980 a right side of the aisle that there's some debate on you well you're always going to lose because

00:24:11.920 you're because you're always going to the amount that you lose to the people who are unsure on the

00:24:16.820 right will always be overcome by the unity on the left right that's that is a problem that we see in

00:24:21.140 um basically any sort of you know conservative or libertarian politics right now yeah and sometimes

00:24:29.840 it doesn't take much for those on the left to be unified over single issues yeah and this is where

00:24:38.000 god bless them it's what they're best at right yeah and when jeff rath was describing that well

00:24:43.960 he he said two things of note and he already mentioned one of them he said that

00:24:48.900 the diehard leftists they'll never be convinced but the line that that blurs into the more moderate

00:24:56.300 it's hard to know how much of the moderate on the left also get captured by some of those ideas

00:25:03.640 and that will be rigid on that um we were both those guys once you remember right we were both

00:25:09.660 pretty pretty rigid leftists in a lot of ways yeah the and look at us now yeah we we've come a long way

00:25:18.500 i i do i don't know if you saw that one comment somebody was saying like um they're saying like

00:25:24.540 we're former leftists so we must by nature have low iq and then i was like well like where does like

00:25:32.700 classic liberals fall on the like how high is their iq like i wanted to know exactly how he was building

00:25:41.000 his uh framework for um because obviously not a helpful way to like if you're trying to get a

00:25:47.220 majority in alberta just saying anybody left the center's dumb is not going to convince many of

00:25:54.620 those moderates who might actually have some conservative ideas in some ways and they've just

00:26:02.020 been enamored by the left a little bit more like and it's not even true either because it's there's

00:26:08.780 actually there's i i think there's an actual term for it i i can't think of it right now but there

00:26:15.200 there is uh a correlation between high iq and believing in ridiculous things because high iq people

00:26:23.960 are uh are able to rationalize stupid ideas because they can think you know high iq is really all it is

00:26:32.080 is sort of a measure of uh you know of your the adaptability the stretch and you know the the

00:26:37.520 moldability of your mind and uh i mean christ you can have leftists who are brilliant thinkers who

00:26:44.880 come to the stupidest conclusions about stuff and the same with the right you have brilliant thinkers

00:26:48.740 who are like how can you how can you rationalize this and it's because they're smart it's not because

00:26:54.120 they're dumb it's also it depends on where their focus is and what things they export to somebody else

00:27:01.780 to take care of so a let's say like you have a a brain surgeon who's left because he spends most of

00:27:09.680 his time just operating on brains he absolutely brilliant that's like a very small top percentage

00:27:17.640 of people who have that understanding and skill set but when it comes to politics they may not engage

00:27:23.780 as deeply on certain issues so maybe they've only gone to surface level on that they haven't used their

00:27:30.380 full um they haven't used all their hardware yeah to address these kind of issues and maybe that's

00:27:37.900 where you have some catching up of people finally when they apply that intellectual capacity to these

00:27:44.580 other issues and really start diving into things they can see the logical gaps they can see where it

00:27:50.260 falls apart um and that's where people need to stress test these ideas and and that kind of circles back

00:27:56.440 to with the alberta next panel i think there it is a proxy in a way like the reactions to this is gonna be

00:28:04.900 a proxy and it's it's kind of giving us a glimpse into what some of the reaction will be as the independence

00:28:16.120 movement grows because these issues are going to come up let it be pension let it be equalization

00:28:22.140 let it be immigration um and the emotion behind each of these issues means we're we're not up against

00:28:30.720 simply just a number of like here's the fact about this issue oh yep you great you change your mind

00:28:38.320 because you got the right fact like that doesn't really happen no there's counterfactuals to everything

00:28:42.840 and you can find an expert on any side of an issue well but i think what we saw is not even

00:28:50.040 the counterfactual is like the emotion and then the fact that grounds the emotion and making them seem

00:28:56.700 like the the morally and factually correct thing um but half the time that fact is like well it's

00:29:03.840 flawed in its own way yeah yeah these were not the advocates of the left really these are the people

00:29:08.400 who had uh the most you know pent up things to say you know that they felt that they could extract

00:29:13.580 their pound of flesh from daniel smith live you know on video but but you know you you look at like

00:29:18.660 i always think back to a guy like uh like rfk jr when he was you know all lots of podcasts he's

00:29:24.600 mentioned this on where he says like you know listen like i was a you know he was a lawyer for years

00:29:28.540 and when he was litigating um you know um uh environmental cases against uh like pesticide

00:29:34.900 producers and stuff he'd be like you know every expert that i would bring to the stand who had an

00:29:40.920 opinion you know against a company that company had their own expert who you know was just as qualified

00:29:46.480 that had a contrary opinion so it's not a matter of uh you know one side has the the moral and factual

00:29:53.780 and ethical high ground and the other doesn't there's you know there is gonna have to be a lot

00:29:58.440 of um i feel like there is gonna have to be a lot of concession you know you can't of course you're

00:30:04.320 never gonna please everyone and kind of what i said earlier i mean maybe you should never maybe you

00:30:08.900 shouldn't be trying to please everyone but the fact is gonna remain that even if we get an a a yes on

00:30:15.920 an independence referendum say it's convincing say it's you know 60 40 or something like that's that's

00:30:21.240 pretty damn big well okay but in a room of 10 people there's still gonna be four of them who

00:30:27.320 hate your guts for doing what you did to this province you know that's that's not an insignificant

00:30:32.000 minority so you know there's gonna have to be a way that we i i feel like with you know as with most

00:30:40.520 things education is gonna be gonna be key but i think um like lowering the temperature on a lot of

00:30:47.380 the stuff is gonna be key like i mean you gotta i don't know how to do it i haven't you know we

00:30:52.620 haven't gotten there yet but there's gonna have to be a way we sit down you know the 56 year old

00:30:57.920 woman who's you know a few years away from retirement she's been a lifelong public servant

00:31:03.120 and she's truly in her heart she truly believes that if alberta became independent every cent of her

00:31:10.680 pension will disappear like she honestly will believe that and we gotta have a way to like

00:31:15.440 you know explain in in in low you know low emotion terms that like listen i know you're worried about

00:31:22.120 this let's if we can eliminate that worry for you how does that change your mind if we can even say

00:31:29.000 listen this is the amount of money we're going to save by not pissing it away to eastern canada

00:31:32.900 and so all that money that you put into a pension well here's x percentage more that you're going to get

00:31:38.860 in your retirement if you can make a convincing case to that person well maybe they maybe they have a

00:31:44.000 second thought how much is the decision based on like some of the fears are based on on money of

00:31:52.640 them losing what they have maybe part of that's not just the dollar amount it's the a lot of what

00:32:00.900 they think about like well what makes a society good is the level of how much the government takes

00:32:07.620 care of us and this is going to be an issue with the independence movement is

00:32:12.560 trying to advocate for freedom and freedom from a government is scary to those who put trust in the

00:32:22.860 federal government there's still some that very much if you look at the percentage of edmonton that

00:32:28.740 voted for mark carney there's a certain level of trust despite 10 years of liberals doing what they did

00:32:36.900 there's still enough trust that this new person will get us through uh the waters and we're seeing

00:32:44.780 this in our comments of um issues of like well if alberta separates you're gonna run out of oil

00:32:52.980 and you're gonna be poor and you're gonna fail and well it like the united states is gonna try to

00:33:01.020 annex you and you're gonna be defenseless don't threaten me with a good time yeah like well or like

00:33:08.160 you join the states will be like like they they won't give a shit about you like they don't they won't

00:33:15.180 care about you if you join the states and then we say like well right now this movement's not about

00:33:20.260 joining the states there's a couple that do want to join the states but the the alberta prosperity

00:33:26.040 project question is shall like alberta see like cease to be a province of canada and become an

00:33:33.960 independent country yes yeah yeah so these are all ideas and misconceptions and or a lot of them with

00:33:42.560 emotionally like heated emotionally attached bombs yeah um which are waiting for you like

00:33:51.420 mate let's call them conversational landmines yeah that

00:33:56.040 if you start navigating these discussions you will eventually come across these things that

00:34:02.580 maybe they're not they're not the most rational because they've been you have years of messaging

00:34:07.900 loading a certain idea in in creating this kind of powder keg well and the fundamental sort of like to

00:34:16.620 to piggyback off that on the last point i was making is that yeah i mean that's i that should be

00:34:23.840 clarified that it's not just it's not just a matter of education it's just not just a matter

00:34:27.660 of like selling somebody on a case right because there are there are fundamental ways that um you

00:34:33.360 know liberals and conservatives view the role of government so i i don't know if you remember this

00:34:38.000 one person who was at the alberta next panel was saying i don't mind if my taxes go up because uh you

00:34:43.940 know if uh if it helps a firefighter in new brunswick you know have a better salary or whatever and it's

00:34:49.080 like okay i get that you think that but like what are you like are you personally you know making

00:34:55.360 donations from your take-home pay to the you know new brunswick firefighters association or whatever

00:35:02.180 like are you doing that or are what you saying is what you're saying that you're happy with the

00:35:09.040 government to make decisions about other people's money to support the things that you think are

00:35:13.340 valuable because that's a very different conversation that it comes back to the thomas soul quote of um

00:35:20.280 i'm gonna butcher it but essentially along the lines of like how much how much do you think you're

00:35:25.560 entitled to of what somebody else earned you know and that's what that's what a lot of these people

00:35:30.380 are saying is like i don't mind i mean my own family says it you know it's it's a tough discussion

00:35:34.200 because they're like i don't mind that my taxes are high because i know that you know they're going to

00:35:37.960 fund this and this and this and it's like well okay really like is it efficient yeah first of all

00:35:43.320 are they and second of all do you trust that even let's say even it's true that all the you know

00:35:49.340 percentage of funds is going where they say it's going do you trust that the government is making

00:35:54.120 the proper decisions about how much to fund certain things versus others like why what makes you think

00:36:00.940 based on the economic condition that we have in canada right now with uh with our debt with our cost

00:36:07.100 of living the cost of goods trade deficits with major trading partners like what what about

00:36:13.200 this suggests to you that your funds are being put to good use by the government that you are

00:36:19.880 implicitly placing trust in and you actually say that you want to give more money and trust and power

00:36:24.740 too you run into these paradoxes of well those at the event they're even complaining that the ucp

00:36:34.020 mismanages money and then they want more they somebody's like well in addition to surplus yeah like

00:36:41.140 we have a surplus right now but we also have the highest spending in public sector that we've like the

00:36:47.700 public sector has increased in the last year from my understanding so what is it is it the ucp

00:36:55.880 they have mismanaged money or they have underfunded like are they both just are they funding the wrong

00:37:04.240 things it's not like they like many on the right are complaining that daniel smith has not been as

00:37:12.300 libertarian has not ran the ucp as a small government yeah she promised cuts i think to the

00:37:20.740 the government's still quite large right now so now the then you run into the question of

00:37:28.100 well if these left leftist supporters are upset with the ucp mismanaging money and or not funding

00:37:38.460 the services that they want or they don't trust a ucp to do it and they're not happy well then why are

00:37:45.220 we putting so much reliance we're putting so much trust into a government this is where like a part

00:37:52.440 of me i hope this can resonate with somebody if like if you hate these people in the government so

00:37:57.880 much wouldn't you want to build a system where you limit their ability to become corrupt like

00:38:04.780 wouldn't that benefit like all sides you can't always guarantee that like the people that love you

00:38:12.860 are that love your ideas are always in power in the way that you exactly want them to be yeah so

00:38:20.780 well people are very that the the problem with that james my my sweet summer child is that you are

00:38:27.740 you are requiring people to think longer term about their political uh positions because yeah i mean we

00:38:35.400 saw it during we saw it during covid you know we don't necessarily have to get even partisan about stuff

00:38:42.060 like that but if you regardless of what how you think the government acted especially if you're

00:38:46.500 somebody who doesn't agree with these were ndp provincially this was conservatives provincially

00:38:51.680 they were all abusing unified completely unified what brought us together is the unified of humans

00:38:58.000 rights abuse yeah yeah so so what is that what is the the counter to that well like you say you build

00:39:04.020 a system where it's impossible for whatever government is in power to abuse their powers and yeah i mean

00:39:10.840 that's but the way that uh you know i i don't know it's hard to say it's i mean obviously i'm going

00:39:17.300 to be biased in a certain way but i feel like it's hard for people who don't have libertarian leanings

00:39:22.320 to understand this and really like really conceptualize it because honestly people just

00:39:27.840 want to they just want to feel that like what they want to have their cake and eat it too they want

00:39:32.760 to be like no i want when my when my people are in power i want to give them more power to make the

00:39:38.220 decisions that i like but also if they ever get voted out of power i don't want my political

00:39:43.220 enemies to have those same positions see they want it both ways and i just can't have it i think i've

00:39:49.180 cracked it and i'm gonna put myself in their shoes um their argument against anything more libertarianism

00:39:57.680 is that they they feel like corporations will abuse them even more than they do right now

00:40:04.560 and then somebody on the left right now especially in alberta will say well look at the conservatives

00:40:10.020 they've they're in bed with the corporations and that's partially how they're abusing their power

00:40:15.380 but they don't put that same lens towards themselves and like the insider baseball that's

00:40:20.960 happening with all these rebates and like solar panel companies and brookfield and

00:40:25.320 so go foundation and shit like that yeah yeah they the things that they're criticizing

00:40:31.560 happen on all sides yeah it's in an oligarchy you have you get to a certain point and they are

00:40:38.660 like people are in bed with each other just to make deals for things that benefit their interest

00:40:46.240 and i feel like that happens regardless so it's just hoping that those people

00:40:54.380 like apply that same criticism to their own side is key probably won't happen

00:41:01.160 no i i feel like that's their biggest contention with they they feel like less government would

00:41:08.140 automatically mean like no regulation to prevent monopolies or environmental abuses or

00:41:16.420 corporate dysfunction that way but you can still have certain rails to guide things like it doesn't

00:41:24.580 need to be uh like full an acro capital anarcho capitalist yeah yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna recommend

00:41:32.760 a book here uh he's written quite a few um you're familiar you must be with uh ludwig von mises

00:41:41.500 yeah austrian but haven't haven't read the entire his corpus yeah i know that yeah me neither but

00:41:49.380 yeah ludwig von mises he's a he's a was an austrian uh economist wrote a lot of books let me let me

00:41:55.680 pop his um let me pop share my screen here for a second

00:41:58.940 i would suggest everyone watching this who might be a little bit on the fence with what we're talking

00:42:08.720 about uh regarding you know just basic libertarian uh economics and politics

00:42:14.340 yeah so i would suggest uh everyone watching this who's you know maybe um curious you know about

00:42:23.140 libertarian ideology or has you know they think maybe they have a problem with it uh take a look

00:42:29.440 at this book yeah a clearer explanation of the basics of economic policy private property free trade

00:42:34.480 exchange prices interest money and inflation socialism fascism investment and much more uh so yeah this

00:42:41.280 is actually a like a like a lecture series uh and he um uh it was then later compiled i think it was

00:42:48.800 possibly compiled uh by his uh by his widow i think after he passed away into a into a book you know

00:42:56.460 but the parsley transcribed and yeah exactly to for that format yeah and um so essentially i mean like

00:43:05.020 you can the reason i thought of that is because you mentioned about you know people think that oh it's just

00:43:10.160 going to become an unregulated hellhole and everyone's going to be abused by corporations

00:43:14.240 it's actually it's literally 100 the opposite what you want is more market control of regulation

00:43:21.780 because when you have that you actually have uh you actually have recourse for when people screw up

00:43:28.940 government has no recourse i mean we saw that we we literally saw it a government can do whatever

00:43:35.400 they want to it's people they can put it in however much debt it wants it can devalue the currency it

00:43:40.700 can uh you know double or triple in some cases the cost of living and and market prices or things and

00:43:47.300 and they face no repercussions for they get reelected but if you're a private company if you're if you if

00:43:53.880 i'm a plumber and you're a plumber and i charge a hundred dollars an hour for my services and i do a

00:43:59.120 poor job and you charge eighty dollars an hour for your services and you do a better job

00:44:02.620 well i have two options either i can charge less to at least compete with you on price or i can

00:44:08.420 increase my service level so that the actual um the actual pressure when you remove the government

00:44:16.060 involvement only ever leads to increasing because as you know people worry about like oh we're gonna

00:44:22.380 have no water quality or our fisheries are gonna you know whatever you know like all our food is gonna

00:44:29.120 have toxins in it or whatever it's like well actually your food could still have toxins in it

00:44:33.880 now like those those accidents can still happen even with government regulation the difference is

00:44:38.860 if a private company does that and screws up really bad well they're gonna go out of business

00:44:43.720 and they're the the risk from them will not will not exist anymore because there will be companies

00:44:48.380 that step in who are better and who people can trust so read the book it's short it's like

00:44:56.280 maybe a i don't know six or seven hour read um yeah and i think like honestly people talk about

00:45:04.660 things like what radicalized you that'll radicalize you but in a good way because it'll it'll radicalize

00:45:09.280 you in the way of like well actually i have more control over my life than i think and i should

00:45:14.660 actually want more control to of of my own finances and where my money goes rather than offloading

00:45:22.180 that responsibility to whatever elected official you know because people do that you know they've

00:45:27.720 they not everyone has time to sit and pontificate about stuff on podcasts like we are lucky enough

00:45:33.040 to do so yeah yeah and that that you you touched on a few things and i guess the difference being

00:45:40.640 like the voluntary choices that people are able to make on it of like well

00:45:47.160 everything when it's funneled through like services through a government that is mandatory

00:45:55.020 at the threat of you having your assets seized by force because government ultimately has a monopoly

00:46:02.640 on force um so the voluntary cooperation is a huge part of that there can still be other ways

00:46:10.260 you can still have third party trusted like um almost like pseudo checks and balances by other

00:46:19.220 companies that okay well you'd get like well we we trust the water quality checks from this company

00:46:28.060 that tests this and they have their standards and that's visible to see and well the companies that use

00:46:34.900 this standard for their testing um maybe they gain enough popularity and like the people buying it

00:46:42.300 they're like well we will only buy from this because look at look at their checks and balances

00:46:47.040 so there are ways of it doesn't mean that it's just a hundred percent a free for all

00:46:53.740 no it's not and i mean and then you you take into account as well the roles that families and churches

00:46:59.520 and stuff used to play in society that have totally been co-opted by government services where

00:47:03.660 you know you have uh another great book that talks about this a lot i've talked about it before is

00:47:08.480 san francisco by michael schellenberger you know where he actually went onto the streets of san francisco

00:47:13.080 and interviewed the homeless population and the drug addicts and the the uh the people with you know

00:47:18.340 severe mental health problems and like what you know how did you get in this position what has helped

00:47:23.540 what hasn't like what do you need what is what are you getting you know and you can see a perfect example

00:47:29.080 about when when government gets involved with um uh you know call it you know the homelessness epidemic

00:47:37.460 actually what you find is government and the and the related government funded organizations that get

00:47:42.980 involved this well where's the incentive structure for them you actually find a perverse incentive

00:47:47.060 structure because these are organizations that are paid for through government funds

00:47:50.700 who if they were doing their job properly they should be seeking to put themselves out of business

00:47:55.560 but then you have people working for profit by government fund and that completely eliminates

00:48:02.360 any need to actually provide a a proper service because you would actually you would put yourself

00:48:07.020 out of business so you you look back to you know how did how did this these you know homelessness and

00:48:12.420 food banks and stuff well they always all used to be run by churches you know the catholic church

00:48:16.340 had the longest history of um and the the greatest reach in the world of of uh charitable services so

00:48:22.420 but those are organizations that are they're self-contained in a way right because they are

00:48:26.660 they survive off of the the donations and the you know the the tithing of their of their members so

00:48:32.120 there is no you know the catholic church doesn't doesn't profit if there's more homeless people that

00:48:37.320 are using their services and then they get to apply for more grants or whatever like it's it's

00:48:40.820 actually a proper incentive structure in that case so yeah there's you know people think

00:48:46.340 like you said earlier that you know well the role of government is to take care of me and other

00:48:51.800 this thing and that thing well actually maybe it should maybe it should not that should not be

00:48:56.500 the role of it then the question is are these kind of revelations going to convince people

00:49:05.280 that alberta should be an independent like that's where i'm i love these kind of conversations but at

00:49:12.080 the same time i'm like there are layer there are levels that people have to get through for

00:49:20.340 shifting their views and even a simple one of like maybe somebody doesn't want alberta to separate

00:49:26.920 because they're like well we don't want to be dependent on oil and that's scary and or the

00:49:32.420 climate crisis is such a big crisis that we need to be diversifying and we can only do that through

00:49:38.040 government grants and somebody said this at alberta next and i'm like i installed solar panels and

00:49:44.300 i got a big grant from the federal government i got nothing from the alberta government literally

00:49:50.360 and that's what he said that is thought process yeah so in that way like even to get

00:49:57.840 to some of these conclusions about the where do you start with that guy right yeah so i would love to

00:50:04.120 still do an episode i might have to collect some thoughts of like how to best unpack some of these

00:50:11.260 ideas maybe we go issue by issue of like how we chat with friends and family we can role play a

00:50:16.480 little bit you know you can be the you can be the representative of the app and i'll be the i'll be

00:50:22.800 or or maybe we uh i'll be the solar panel installer maybe we we uh extend our reach and talk with

00:50:31.660 jj uh jj mccullough yeah or somebody like i would love to i've yelled too much on twitter i don't

00:50:38.780 think you'll talk to the yeah maybe somebody that we haven't freshly dropped any spicy takes um

00:50:47.160 yeah it would be it would be nice to like we get a little bit of like back and forth with some of

00:50:52.800 these comments and um there there's some interesting ones i've learned a little bit of like where people

00:50:58.420 are coming from um what i did want to briefly talk about is somebody was saying in the comments that

00:51:04.920 we alberta can't separate because we're going to run out of oil and then part of that was that well

00:51:12.060 we've already mismanaged our oil because look at norway they have a sovereign wealth fund

00:51:18.900 and it's at like 1.5 or plus trillion yeah and then alberta's only saved what 40 billion

00:51:27.320 in the wealth fund yeah and so on the surface you're like big number versus small number

00:51:34.680 because they were comparing like well alberta has a similar population and who think who thinks of

00:51:39.740 norway as like a oh this like conservative shithole full of like oil barons and stuff nobody

00:51:44.620 yeah it's the thing is this whole discussion was like well are we able to make a good comparison

00:51:53.640 because people point to these things i guarantee you norway will come up again because uh the

00:51:59.180 economic side of independence will come up and then people will want to be putting blame of like

00:52:03.860 well this is how alberta has messed up its own position so key things from that discussion was

00:52:11.040 um first of all you're trying to compare based on barrels per day and then you're they're trying to

00:52:18.500 compare it that way and saying like well alberta produces more oil and we're saving less

00:52:22.680 and then it's like well it's heavy crude and in alberta and that was priced differently than light

00:52:31.360 crude and the amount of refinement necessary and the amount of refinement and this one guy was

00:52:36.780 saying well well alberta's not selling at spot price it's below market price like there is no one

00:52:43.720 market price there are benchmarks depending on location area benchmarks there's a western benchmark

00:52:49.580 for heavy oil for heavy crude uh there's also the texas one for light crude as well and we're below

00:52:57.320 the light crude because light crude is easier to process and it's in a different location it's easier

00:53:02.560 to access like there are so many dependencies and what i was starting to realize with this is like

00:53:08.620 people don't want to have nuanced conversations they don't want to take in

00:53:13.920 complex comparisons and like they just want simple zingers that they can deliver yeah and i even

00:53:21.600 pointed out in 1900 alberta had 70 000 people in alberta largest city was 4 000 people the largest town

00:53:34.240 it wasn't even a city at that point yeah norway had 2 million people they had a railway for 50 years

00:53:39.880 already um i believe oslo was 200 000 people at that point and they have a very homogenous culture

00:53:48.160 long standing for a long time and institutions that have been there for a while so they were building

00:53:55.440 on a certain momentum their oil really took off in the 1970s but they had the political will

00:54:01.760 and kind of a unified consensus to nationalize an oil program they own like 70 percent of the oil

00:54:10.580 companies and they're able to take a huge amount of taxes and like dividends from that which was great

00:54:17.880 they did a great job on that kind of difficult to nationalize in the 1970s in alberta when you have

00:54:25.280 high risk massive capital investment needed for the for some of these projects that you're not

00:54:31.600 sure if the oil sands is actually going to be profitable there's a lot of risk involved so

00:54:36.120 if there's a lot of risk either either the government takes the risk upon itself and say

00:54:42.720 like well we're going to we're going to borrow all this money and inject all this while people are

00:54:47.800 saying well we need our highways fixed we need another hospital we need this we need that there's

00:54:52.760 pressure to develop so if the political will is not there we're never we're never going to get a

00:54:59.640 unified like publicly owned high risk sector so you have to lower royalties up front to make it

00:55:10.020 reasonable for somebody to invest and that's all existing within a federal environment of

00:55:16.500 like a federal landscape of other regulations and pipelines and we don't control our exports

00:55:23.460 and and there's a whole range of things and so that little conversation taught me a lot like helped

00:55:30.000 reminded me of the limits of where some of these people are actually approaching these topics

00:55:36.640 and there's so much more and i i feel like people just they're looking at big number versus small

00:55:42.500 number look at how incompetent this government was they're not thinking about the layers the differences

00:55:48.960 i mean the the difference between a government that actively wants to exploit its resources for

00:55:54.660 the future betterment of their people versus a government that's been the last 30 40 years

00:55:59.020 artificially limiting production to well really in the last you know 10 15 years artificial like

00:56:06.860 really strongly capping production to peace climate goals and you know other other globalist things that

00:56:14.040 yeah you we don't actually know what we're capable of yet

00:56:18.960 yeah so it's uh you don't know what you don't know until you don't know it until you know you

00:56:27.200 don't know it and if there's one thing that we know is that we don't know what the fuck that's

00:56:34.440 why we're talking about it why we're talking about it and that's why we're gonna be uh surely uh educated

00:56:40.080 uh in the comments we're gonna have some people who agree with everything we say and god bless you we

00:56:45.360 love you please subscribe and we're gonna have people who you know like the guy that you were

00:56:49.460 talking to that you're gonna tell us why we're all idiots and why we need to uh you know pipe down and

00:56:54.660 hey love them too you should subscribe as well if for no other reason than to make fun of us on every

00:56:59.020 video yeah the uh we have some key people boosting the algorithm so yep well hey thanks for the chat man

00:57:06.740 i think we'll uh we'll put some maybe we'll put some photos at uh various points or some clips of uh

00:57:12.800 you know some stuff that we captured at some of these events and uh just a little montage over our

00:57:17.820 yeah we're smiling we'll link we'll link either some stuff on x and or uh put something up on the

00:57:25.520 screen as well so and um thank you everyone again for watching um and if you haven't subscribed already uh

00:57:35.160 help us out yeah you may notice if if you're uh if you're a longtime subscriber you may notice that

00:57:42.340 there are ads in our videos now yes it's true we are uh youtube partners now so sorry if you're

00:57:48.860 seeing ads now but also not that sorry because we do want to make a little bit of money doing this

00:57:53.300 uh so i don't know should they you've done this longer than me and other platforms should they

00:57:58.120 should they watch the ads or skip them does it matter to us i think clicking through maybe they get a

00:58:04.960 yeah click on the ads you don't have to buy anything just click them let them play

00:58:09.680 it's yeah it depends what what the ads are like i i don't know what like if it's a car ad versus like

00:58:16.560 a five dollar thing so i'm curious but i actually haven't seen i i watch everything on my brave browser

00:58:22.880 so i don't see any well youtube ads i don't even know what who's advertising with us yet well the ads

00:58:28.340 do help us out they help us go to some of these events and so it's going to be like as we grow we're going

00:58:34.020 to be staying in tuned and like uh yeah so that'll that'll be part of it as well so okay well james

00:58:42.980 as always thank you sir for your for your wise and reasonable rational takes on everything and uh

00:58:49.960 i'll be sure to try and neutralize all that goodwill on x with my antics and we'll have all our bases

00:58:56.760 covered gotta balance out with some spiciness yeah all right thanks man all right well

00:59:02.820 we'll we'll see you in the next one you betcha cheers cheers

00:59:06.280 you

00:59:07.780 you

00:59:12.740 you

00:59:14.740 you

00:59:16.740 you

00:59:20.740 you

00:59:22.740 you

The Critical Compass Podcast - August 25, 2025

What Kind of Person Wants Alberta Independence？ What We've Heard From the People SO FAR...

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