The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - October 21, 2026


Carney and Nenshi Look Like FOOLS After Alberta Referendum!

Hosted by
Wyatt Claypool
Mentioned
Danielle Smith Nahid Nenshi Mark Carney Jason Kenney Rachel Notley Nahit Nenshi Clay Shaw Jody Gondek
Carney Betrays Danielle Smith - Attacks Alberta Referendum

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

169.6

Word count

2,085

Sentence count

74

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

19

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here, coming at you again from the famous bench outside, because I do not have a normal studio space to film in right now.
00:00:09.520 But never mind that, we are here to talk about the results of the Alberta referendum.
00:00:15.340 Now, about 90% of the votes are counted at this point, and I really don't see anything changing with the last 10% of the vote that still needs to be counted.
00:00:24.360 Of course, I will be doing a longer video detailing the results for each of the 10 questions later on, once all the votes are counted, but this video is just about general first impressions on what the results mean.
00:00:38.700 Who are the big winners and who are the big losers coming out of this?
00:00:41.760 First off, I think the biggest winner in all of this is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith because she has been so attacked by the Alberta NDP, by the anti-independence NDP front groups, as well as the media for even allowing for the independence question to be on the referendum ballot.
00:01:01.260 Well, for the independence question, there was only 25% support for having another binding referendum on whether or not Alberta should stay within Canada.
00:01:11.960 So obviously, all of Danielle Smith's opponents look like hysterical fools, considering that they were attacking her for, like, opening up the possibility for Alberta to be ripped out of Canada by the separatist menace. 0.83
00:01:27.000 One, that's not how democracy works. If truly, let's say, 55-60% of the province wanted to leave, well, that's probably what should happen. 0.96
00:01:36.820 It just so happens that there's just not a lot of support for this right now, and everybody attacking Danielle Smith for allowing it to be on the ballot looks really, really stupid today. 0.65
00:01:46.720 And also, Danielle Smith had nine other questions on the ballot, and she got an affirmative yes answer from Albertans on eight out of nine of them. 0.83
00:01:57.000 That's really good for her, especially since a lot of them on immigration got above 60% support.
00:02:03.860 The prime minister of the country, Mark Carney, even came in at the last minute and endorsed the no to the nine stance,
00:02:10.800 where people were supposed to vote no on all nine of the policy-based questions, as well as reject the separatist question.
00:02:19.600 That didn't end up working out, and now Danielle Smith has a renewed mandate to act on some of these other policy matters.
00:02:28.040 Now, the biggest losers in all this are people like Alberta NDP leader Nahid Nenshi, Prime Minister Mark Carney, and people like Jason Kenney.
00:02:38.040 because they wanted to come in, in all of this, and be the saviors of Alberta. By mobilizing over
00:02:44.760 the last couple of months, they ended up stopping the independence forces from taking Alberta out
00:02:50.900 of Canada. Well, that narrative kind of gets shut down when it only gets 25% support, and as ballots
00:02:58.380 keep counting, it may even be less. If the result was like 35% in favor of having another referendum
00:03:06.400 them to separate Alberta from Canada, they could say, hey, if we didn't get involved, it could have
00:03:11.320 been 45%, or maybe they would have even gotten over 50%. But obviously now, because the result
00:03:17.920 was so low, they end up looking like a bunch of hysterical fools. Nahit Nenshi in particular 0.99
00:03:23.980 has been trying to cast himself as, like, Captain Canada within Alberta, that if you support Alberta
00:03:31.100 staying in Canada, you have to vote for the Alberta NDP. He'd been really pushing for the
00:03:36.800 referendum to be cancelled in 2026 because he actually wanted it to be on the ballot in 2027
00:03:44.440 so he could try and force people to vote NDP in the provincial election at the same time. And now
00:03:51.960 in 2027, he has to run on his own merits and he doesn't have any. He was trying to run alongside
00:03:59.080 the referendum question in order to try and pump up the turnout for the Alberta NDP, to try and
00:04:06.220 wrap himself in the Canadian flag in order to get a bunch of artificial votes, despite the fact that
00:04:11.600 the normal Alberta NDP agenda pulls like rat poison. Prime Minister Mark Carney also looked
00:04:18.980 really dumb in all of this, because again, he threw so many resources out there into opposing 0.95
00:04:25.060 the referendum question on separation as well as the other nine questions and he ended up missing 0.98
00:04:31.640 on eight out of nine of the policy questions because he wanted to rip away the mandate for
00:04:37.740 danielle smith to be more active and to take more power away from the federal government
00:04:42.900 that didn't end up taking place and he ended up kind of kicking danielle smith in all of this
00:04:49.380 it didn't end up working but now he looks like the uncooperative one when it comes to the pipeline
00:04:54.620 Danielle Smith for the Pacific Link Pipeline has been very generous in not attacking him, she has been making sure to be very cooperative, very complimentary towards him, and in all of this, he ended up attacking her effectively by going on a forever Canada stage in order to stump against not just the question on whether Alberta should stay within Canada,
00:05:19.520 a question where Daniel Smith agreed with him and the vast majority of the population wanting to
00:05:24.420 stay, but he then stumped against all the policy questions, which was just such a nasty thing for
00:05:29.680 him to do. So he looks really bad in all of this. And then Jason Kenney, the former premier of
00:05:36.400 Alberta and former UCP leader, he looks particularly pathetic in all of this because he was palling 0.93
00:05:42.900 around with Rachel Notley, driving around and doing rallies, trying to mobilize Albertans 0.96
00:05:49.820 against the separatist menace. And again, because the separatist vote was so minimal, he ends up
00:05:55.860 just looking like a fool for having done all this, and there's no angle for him to try and run for
00:06:01.800 federal conservative leader anymore, or for the UCP leadership again, if he was ever attempting 0.96
00:06:07.400 to do that. Danielle Smith, despite the fact that the media and the NDP are going to attack her as
00:06:14.780 being a secret separatist and having a secret separatist party, clearly can say, hey, I let the
00:06:22.320 vote take place because I believe in democracy, there was easily enough signatures for it to be
00:06:27.480 on the belt, and Danielle Smith can now say that by allowing for the independence question to go
00:06:34.240 forward, I was also able to demonstrate to anyone concerned that the separatist movement could
00:06:39.880 actually win and the jurisdiction they live in could change overnight, that it's just not going
00:06:45.060 to happen. And now she can go on the offensive at Alberta NDP leader Nahid Nenshi and say this guy
00:06:51.920 wanted it to be a forever boogeyman issue in order to scare people into voting for the NDP.
00:06:57.800 I let the question get onto the ballot and we saw there's about a quarter of people who support it,
00:07:03.240 mostly in rural areas, and many of them have good reason to be mad at the federal government,
00:07:07.920 but at the end of the day, there's just not enough Albertans to actually vote for Alberta to leave. 0.97
00:07:13.400 So, Nahid Nenshi, running around claiming she's a secret separatist, just looks moronic. 0.99
00:07:19.420 Really? Danielle Smith is for the 25% and not the 75%? 0.96
00:07:24.960 It's just illogical in anyone's minds that Danielle Smith is actually trying to play to a quarter of voters
00:07:32.480 who are concentrated in very, very safe ridings for the UCP and will still be voting UCP anyways. 0.97
00:07:40.280 That's not to dismiss people who are in favor of independence.
00:07:43.620 They have many good arguments.
00:07:45.120 Some of their arguments I do not agree with.
00:07:47.420 But the idea that this is actually going to happen anytime soon is kind of foolhardy.
00:07:53.280 It's just not.
00:07:54.240 And anyone claiming that we all need to mobilize and unify in order to stop it,
00:08:00.080 we need to especially vote NDP to stop it. 0.99
00:08:02.480 no, no, they all look stupid now, Danielle Smith looks like she now is in charge, no longer being 0.98
00:08:09.860 assailed by the independence menace, not that that's how she ever viewed it, but that's the 0.99
00:08:14.860 way the media played it up, that she was being held hostage by the pro-separatist forces, well,
00:08:21.340 how was that narrative today? And now Danielle Smith can move forward with the more positive
00:08:27.000 agenda of trying to implement the eight of nine questions that she got a mandate on. And now the 1.00
00:08:32.700 NDP, without the referendum to fearmonger about, need to run on their own policy ideas. Things like
00:08:39.700 banning coal, trying to take money away from charter schools, having a very pro-drug agenda
00:08:46.740 when it comes to injection sites and safe supply, raising taxes. They're not going to win a provincial
00:08:53.620 election on these issues their best chance was being on the same ballot as the referendum and
00:08:58.960 that's completely gone that's how they won the by-election in Calgary Shaw the referendum was
00:09:04.380 kind of exhausting a lot of the UCP voters there was just kind of a haze of chaos around the UCP
00:09:11.140 because of it not because of anything they actually did but it was the media spin about
00:09:16.500 the referendum and how Danielle Smith has been captured by the independence forces it ended up
00:09:22.980 kind of distracting from the real policy issues that the province is facing. And now Danielle
00:09:29.380 Smith can talk about her record on things like drugs, crime, job creation, and Nahid Nenshi is
00:09:35.760 going to just try and hit her on what? There was a referendum last year where the independence 0.98
00:09:40.600 people got 25% of the support? Like, you can't really hit her on that anymore. It just seems
00:09:47.160 juvenile at this point, and Danielle Smith can counterpunch him really hard because, remember,
00:09:52.320 he used to be the mayor of Calgary for 12 years, and there are constant water main breaks all over
00:09:58.060 the city, mostly because of the neglect from when he was the mayor. You actually can't even blame
00:10:03.600 former Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek or current Mayor Jeremy Farkas for this at all, because they
00:10:10.080 actually started trying to fix it because the water main break started under their watch because
00:10:14.720 of the neglect from Nahid Nenshi. Nahid Nenshi is going to lose hard in the next provincial election.
00:10:21.420 So to bring it all home, it's been a big win for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
00:10:26.000 and a loss for Naheed Nenshi, Mark Carney, and Jason Kenney.
00:10:31.580 Danielle Smith can move past the referendum, she has a big mandate on multiple policy issues now,
00:10:38.100 and the separatist menace was proven to not really be much of a thing, 0.99
00:10:42.940 and all these guys who were mobilizing voters to vote against it look like a bunch of morons 0.99
00:10:47.860 pretending that they were saving the country by stopping the separatists from winning. 0.99
00:10:52.260 They got 25% support.
00:10:54.200 If none of these people mobilized, maybe they get 30%.
00:10:57.560 That's about it.
00:10:59.660 I'm not naysaying the perspectives of pro-independence people.
00:11:03.220 I get your perspective.
00:11:04.680 Many of the things you say absolutely make sense to me.
00:11:07.760 I agree with a lot of it.
00:11:08.960 I just disagree in a couple key areas.
00:11:11.160 That's why I'm not pro-independence.
00:11:13.620 But for Danielle Smith and the UCP, this is going to be a very good thing for them.
00:11:18.680 Let's say if independent support was at 50-60%, of course they would support it.
00:11:23.000 But you're never going to take the 20% side of an 80-20 issue.
00:11:28.140 That's like parental rights in schools.
00:11:30.280 The NDP are against it.
00:11:31.480 The UCP are in favor of parental rights.
00:11:33.920 That's an issue they get absolutely crushed on.
00:11:37.300 It's at the end of the day, the independence leaders who have to make a better case to especially suburban Albertans on why they should want to separate from Canada.
00:11:47.420 I find so many of them just kept doubling down on the support base they already had in rural Alberta, and they never even won these ridings anyways.
00:11:56.540 they just kept sort of only messaging to those who are already on board rather than figuring out
00:12:01.920 okay who's not on board and what do they need to know before they'd be confident in voting for
00:12:07.180 this they just never did it anyways with all that being said thank you guys for watching today make
00:12:12.760 sure to like share subscribe leave a comment with what you think and i'll see you guys all next time