00:01:54.400If you are so determined to put this question to Albertans, why not just call an election and make
00:01:59.800it the central issue? Because this is a process that seems to satisfy neither of the parties
00:02:04.640agitating on this. That is quite possibly the worst question that has ever been asked to Danielle
00:02:13.380Smith on this subject. Forever, that will be the worst question. If you are so determined to put
00:02:19.480this question to voters, why don't you just call a provincial election? She's not determined to put
00:02:25.880it to voters. She is, you know, she is honoring the fact that the Stay Free Alberta people have
00:02:33.000collected over 300,000 signatures, and the Forever Canada people collected 400,000 signatures.
00:02:39.320And yes, the Forever Canada leader, Thomas Lukasik, can keep claiming, oh, I never actually
00:02:44.320collected the signatures to have a referendum. I wanted a legislative vote on this. Now we
00:02:49.460didn't. No, he didn't. He's lying. He previously said he wanted a referendum, and he just wanted
00:02:54.800a pro-Canada version of the question, just as the state-free Alberta people wanted a pro-Independence
00:03:00.020version of the question, where saying yes would be leaving, or in the case of the Forever Canada
00:03:05.280people, saying yes would mean staying. She's just putting forward a question, because that's what
00:03:12.180the petitioners wanted, and they easily passed the threshold to have the referendum. And then he goes
00:03:19.240into, why don't you have a provincial election about this? Because she's a federalist. She's1.00
00:03:23.780not in favor of leaving Canada. She is not pro-independence. She is simply doing her job,
00:03:30.660which seems to elude David Cochran, who is abysmal at his own job, but is apparently trying to tell
00:03:38.040Daniel Smith what her job is. Well, I would say a couple things. I mean, the position of my
00:03:44.660government is that we want to remain in Canada. It's part of the reason I've been working
00:03:48.160collaboratively with the federal government to try to address some of the legitimate grievances
00:03:52.640that arose over the last 10 years but i would say that we have a citizen initiative petition process
00:03:57.600400 000 albertans signed that they wanted to hold a referendum to remain and 300 000 signed a
00:04:03.360petition saying that they wanted to hold a vote on whether to leave the court does not allow for
00:04:08.480a binding referendum because of a recent court decision which we're appealing but i want to get
00:04:13.360an indication from albertans about are we going to have this debate which direction are we going to
00:04:17.600go and let's get the debate the uh the vote over with on october 19th and move on and i hope that
00:04:23.280that vote is to remain and that we can move on with fixing canada and by the way the thing the
00:04:29.120reason why the media and her political opponents are so elevated about the subject has nothing to
00:04:34.880do with independence it all has to do with partisan political games they didn't want this referendum
00:04:41.440to be held in 2026, because they wanted it to be held in 2027 and be included on the exact same
00:04:48.900ballot that Danielle Smith was running on, because the only way the Alberta NDP and the
00:04:53.580Heed Nenshi can beat Danielle Smith is by falsely implying that if you support remaining in Canada,
00:05:00.540you have to vote NDP. And so they wanted to run on the same ballot as that question, as it was
00:05:06.520going to be very polarizing and the NDP could maybe find UCP canvassers who are pro-independence
00:05:13.520on tape saying that that's what they believe in. And people in the public will falsely get the
00:05:18.220choice or falsely get the impression that the UCP is pro-independence and vote NDP to save the
00:05:23.520country or something like that. That is why they don't like that Daniel Smith is doing this in 26
00:05:28.080because she basically flipped the board and said, we're not going to be screwing around with having
00:05:34.040this at the same time as a provincial election to try and disrupt people's normal voting patterns
00:05:38.840anyways let's get into david cochran's follow-up here canada forever initiative though was sort of
00:05:44.380started as a preventative measure against the separatism referendum it is i don't think thomas
00:05:49.940lakasik would have done his thing if the threat of a referendum to leave wasn't a material thing
00:05:56.260under your law so i don't is he just admitting that thomas lakasik was just doing the other
00:06:00.920petition to block a pro-independence petition that's that's called fraud that's using electoral
00:06:07.820like mechanisms in order to block democracy just getting a petition signed but then not actually
00:06:14.320submitting it but because it's in the works the other people can't submit theirs like what that's
00:06:19.900not a also that's not a counter to what to what daniel smith said the forever canada people or
00:06:25.680the sorry the state free alberta people still had over 300 000 signatures they only needed like
00:06:30.140177,000 to trigger an election. We can't just say, well, the forever Canada people don't want to do
00:06:35.020it. Let's just pretend that's true, even though their own statements contradict themselves now.
00:06:41.280Okay, the other one has it. So Daniel Smith putting the thing forward. But again, David
00:06:45.880can't let it go because he's trying to basically buttonhole Daniel Smith into representing
00:06:51.220independence in the minds of Alberta voters who don't like independence. I don't know if you can
00:06:57.000really use that 400,000 as people clamoring for a referendum, as that was largely an initiative
00:07:02.460to oppose the Jeff Rath, Mish Sylvester effort to get things on the ballot?
00:07:09.000Well, I know that they're trying, the proponents trying to rewrite history on that. But if you go
00:07:12.720back and look at the comments, it was very clear that that was the intention. That's why 400,000
00:07:17.080people signed up. And that's what I've got to be looking at is what was the intention of the people
00:07:20.840who signed those two different petitions? 700,000 people is a lot of people asking for a democratic
00:07:26.100process. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to do it within the limits of the law,
00:07:29.720within the limits of the court decision. But I need to get an indication of whether Albertans
00:07:34.000want to, as I do, remain in Canada or whether they want to initiate a legal process for a binding
00:07:39.620referendum. And that's what we're going to be asking in the fall. You've made clear you disagree
00:07:43.000with the court decision, but we do have a court decision that stands as of right now that said
00:07:47.080the citizens initiative petitioned by the separatists didn't meet the burr. There's been
00:07:50.860a data breach and the sharing of private information that is now still visible on
00:07:54.640american websites and david parker is refusing to cooperate with the elections canada elections
00:07:59.840alberta investigation excuse me so what does this have to do with anything the court blocking
00:08:06.240the petition and not letting it go towards a referendum was an undermining of democracy
00:08:12.080their actual stated reason for blocking it was like oh well you need to do consultations with
00:08:16.720first nations people uh well this could undermine indigenous rights so we can't do it i'm like what
00:08:22.240But based on that logic, you could block literally any piece of legislation because you didn't consult with First Nations people, or this could affect their rights in some way.
00:08:32.760But the thing is that nobody ever actually goes into detail on what the court decision said, because, you know, it would actually make a lot of people ticked off with the courts and the whole reconciliation industry that basically is completely warping our laws around the priorities of Indigenous ban councils.
00:08:51.300Yeah. And again, like the data breach, that's a nothing. It's not that it doesn't matter.
00:08:55.920It has no, it has no, it doesn't bear any weight on the current situation. David Parker and the
00:09:02.740Centurion Project being stupid doesn't mean anything about the overall independence movement.0.98
00:09:08.100It doesn't mean anything about whether the petition should be accepted from Mitchell,0.99
00:09:12.200Sylvester and Stay Free Alberta. It has no bearing on if Daniel Smith should override the court and
00:09:18.660least put some form of a question on this issue to albertans in the in october but with all of
00:09:24.580that swirling around this how is any of this in the best interest of all albertans well it's all
00:09:30.740the reasons why it can't be a binding referendum and why it's being put forward as a policy
00:09:36.260referendum our policy is to remain in canada but there is a group of people who want that policy
00:09:40.900to change and i guess the the question is you you don't have legislation uh called the citizen
00:09:46.180initiative act if people are going to go out in a with a with good will and with good intentions
00:09:51.140get signatures and then ignore it and so i i feel obligated to make sure that we have an opportunity
00:09:56.020for voices to be heard 700 000 albertans is about 25 of our total adult electorate and so we now have
00:10:03.460several months here where we'll be able to go out and make our case i'll be making the case about
00:10:07.860why we should remain in canada my canada is working better now than it has for the last 10 years
00:10:12.340And I hope to help to bring a number of my fellow Albertans on board with that.
00:10:16.880No, I would disagree with Daniel Smith that Canada is somehow working better than it did the previous 10 years.
00:10:23.300Yeah, Justin Trudeau was terrible, but there has been no actual material change with Mark Carney other than the man who now leads Canada is named Mark Carney and not Justin Trudeau.
00:10:33.780Carney was the economic advisor to Justin Trudeau for five years.
00:10:37.600And so we shouldn't be shocked that everything he's going to propose and agree to on pipelines, while rhetorically sounding like he's in favor of it, is never actually going to get us to the finish line of building one because he's ideologically against it and much of his own party is ideologically against it.
00:10:56.120That's why we covered the other day 14 liberals signed a letter against Mark Carney, even signing that fake pipeline agreement with Daniel Smith.
00:11:05.080It won't even result in a pipeline getting built. And that was still rhetorically too much for them.
00:11:10.100They want no agreement signed ever on pipeline because they just fundamentally disagree with the oil and gas industry.
00:11:16.140I know it's technically not constitutionally binding, but you have, in fact, said option B to pursue the legal process to have a referendum on separatism would be binding on your government.
00:21:49.260It feels like Groundhog's Day because David Cochran cannot get off of his first and second question,1.00
00:21:56.300which is just a stupid smear question.0.98
00:21:58.620This interview has basically gone nowhere.0.99
00:22:00.740It's been spinning its tires the entire time because David won't let Danielle Smith go past him
00:22:07.760without basically admitting to being a separatist or something like that.
00:22:12.160So we keep repeating the same couple of lines over and over again, just slightly rephrased.
00:22:17.780It's an Albertans who want to have this question.
00:22:19.520So you raise some very good rationale about why it is that we should vote to remain.
00:22:25.980I think we do have a much higher chance than we ever have before of getting a pipeline to the West Coast.
00:22:30.860I think we have our fellow Canadians on our side in a way that wasn't the case for the past 10 years.
00:22:36.220We've got two national conservative, two parties, the national conservatives and the national liberals who represent 85 percent of the public in wanting to develop resources.
00:22:45.540There's only a small number of extremists in the fringe parties who want to block it.
00:22:50.440So things have. Now, again, I don't quite actually agree with that.
00:22:53.500I think the vast majority of the liberal party is against building pipelines, but she has to kind of put on this slightly naive face of, oh, hey, we're like where it's going to happen.
00:23:02.640because if she doesn't act optimistic, then the liberals will be like, ah, see, it didn't work
00:23:07.160because Daniel Smith was a pessimist. You know, she didn't believe in Tinkerbell enough, and
00:23:10.880Tinkerbell died. Changed dramatically in the last year and a half, and that's part of the reason
00:23:15.380why I have confidence that if Albertans are asked this question, that they can be persuaded to see
00:23:22.160it as I do, that the country is worth fighting for, the country's worth working on. You don't
00:23:25.640necessarily get 100% of the things that you want 100% of the time, but I think that the opportunities
00:23:30.800now are better than they ever have been.
00:23:32.840Nahed Nenshi says you're doing this to pay back separatists like David Parker for helping
00:23:36.640you win the leadership of the United Conservative Party in the wake of Jason Kennedy's ouster,
00:23:40.580and this is ultimately all about trying to save your job.
00:23:44.260Well, it's about trying to hear and respect 700,000 Albertans.
00:23:48.880By the way, guys, David Parker, he's not being paid back.
00:24:00.180For a little bit in 2022, he had relevance when he was going after Jason Kenney, and yes, he was encouraging people to sign up and vote for Danielle Smith. Now, did that get her over the finish line? If he was not involved, would she have not won? I'm not really sure, because at the same time, he also was kind of a campaign liability for her at the same time.
00:24:18.700So I think in a lot of ways, as many votes as he added to UCP or Danielle Smith causes, he often took the same amount away. The man used to literally be the hatchet man for Aaron O'Toole. He literally blackmailed Pierre Polyev into not running in the 2020 Conservative Party leadership.
00:24:37.500I know this because I used to only do print journalism. I used to only do online reports. And my friend Daniel Boardman and I did a report on the fact that David had basically blackmailed Pierre not to run him because he used to be a red Tory hatchet man and now he's like some savior of Alberta.
00:24:55.140At one point, he even tried to sue us for that article of posting his text messages bragging about causing Pierre Polyev not to run in 2020.0.96
00:25:04.660He filed the lawsuit, we filed our defense, and then he immediately ran away because the man's a complete coward.
00:25:11.180Now he probably doesn't have more than two nickels to rub together.
00:25:14.360But the fact that Nohid Nenshi and the media are trying to bring up David Parker as a boogeyman here is just embarrassing.
00:25:20.540when when you start a process that affirms that you believe in citizen initiative referenda and
00:25:26.820democracy then you should follow through on it so i want people to see that that their efforts
00:25:31.560in going through this process um give them an opportunity to have a say it doesn't necessarily
00:25:36.560give you the opportunity to have your way but we will have the say and we'll have it on october the
00:25:40.70019th and i think that that's just being respectful of the citizens who went through that process and
00:25:45.300being respectful of democracy and i would hope that the uh that that the leader of the opposition
00:25:50.740would work with me on on persuading more albertans to remain and identifying the problems that are
00:25:56.660causing the division part of the problems causing the division is his national leader avi lewis
00:26:00.660who got elected saying he wants to keep all fossil fuels in the ground that's part of the reason
00:26:05.700why we have had this division in our province and in our country so if he wants to be constructive
00:26:09.940then i would say that he should be talking to his federal leader first right look avi lewis doesn't
00:26:13.780have a seat and he has a caucus of five so i'm not sure how much that is moving the needle in
00:26:17.460alberta politics with all due respect with all due respect david david use whatever brain is in your
00:26:26.900bald head to think about how much better of a point danielle smith's point about avi lewis was
00:26:34.260than every single attempt that you have made to imply that danielle smith is secretly a separatist
00:26:39.540And you, you're the one choosing to put this on the ballot.
00:26:43.140Avi Lewis is literally the leader of the federal NDP party, a party you are automatically enrolled into if you buy a provincial NDP membership.
00:26:53.940That is a far stronger connection between Nahid Nenshi and radical anti-oil and gas left-wing politics than there is a connection between Danielle Smith and separatism.
00:27:05.840But he comes in, oh, Mr. Mr. Premier, I think that's a bit of a wild speculation you're making right there.
00:27:11.880And I know you say you want to respect the wishes of the 700,000 people who signed these petitions,
00:27:17.680but neither Thomas Lukasik or Jeff Rath or Mitch Sylvester seem happy with the option you've chosen.
00:27:23.480So they say it doesn't actually respect their wishes.
00:27:26.260Oh, it's almost like she's not a separatist and she's not bending over backwards for them.
00:27:30.180She put up a referendum question that satisfied nobody, which is actually the right thing to do.
00:27:36.140If one side was satisfied, the other side would be screaming mad.
00:27:39.180This option, basically both sides aren't quite satisfied.
00:27:42.520Probably perfect from her perspective.
00:27:45.580And now David Cochran's saying, well, you know, the separatists don't like this.
00:27:48.760It's almost like she's not a separatist, David.
00:27:50.800It's almost like the first half of this interview was complete nonsense.
00:27:53.660sense. Right. And I know you've singled out Mr. Lukasik for criticism in terms of inconsistency,
00:27:59.500citing six, seven, eight statements that he has made on a referendum. But I know you're trying
00:28:04.860to thread a needle here, but neither side of it seems to think you've done it. Well, I guess we'll
00:28:09.240find out on October the 19th. There's two pretty clear options. Do you want to remain in Canada,
00:28:13.060or do you want to start the process to leave? And so I don't know that there's any way of going
00:28:16.920beyond those two options, but I dispute you in saying that somehow a rump caucus of five has no
00:28:22.680influence um these minor fringe parties for a long time for the past 10 years have dictated
00:28:29.000the agenda of canada and the dictate of the agenda in canada has been to target alberta to landlock
00:28:35.080our resources to take action that would leave our resources in the ground and they are still
00:28:39.480continuing with that agenda so if you want to understand why albertans are frustrated it's not
00:28:44.520enough to say oh yeah well they're irrelevant now they're relevant now because canadians have
00:28:49.320changed their opinion and they changed their opinion because i think albertans have done the
00:28:53.160work of demonstrating that we were being treated unfairly and that's again part of the reason why
00:28:57.480i think that there has been a change in attitude in the last 18 months and people should be
00:29:01.480encouraged that we're going down a process that where canada can work we've got more work to do
00:29:06.280but i think that there's been a real change and we need to acknowledge that but maybe daniel
00:29:09.880smith should just become the host of this show she's so much better at being neutral literally
00:29:13.560as a partisan politician here i was listening to you speak earlier and talk about jagmeet singh
00:29:17.960and talk about Justin Trudeau and talk about your frustrations with the policy direction of the
00:29:21.320country under the prime minister's leadership and then the coalition. And I couldn't help but
00:29:25.900think that you might be voting to separate if Justin Trudeau was still prime minister and still
00:29:29.860in a confidence. Oh my goodness. What is going on here? He cannot drop it. He's now coming up
00:29:38.340with a hypothetical scenario where Danielle Smith is a separatist leader. You know, I can't help but
00:29:43.220think if Justin Trudeau, who's not the prime minister, was the prime minister, that you might
00:29:47.720be a separatist. You got her, dude. You got her. And the alternative reality of Canada where Justin
00:29:56.100Trudeau is still the prime minister, I guess you really just cornered Danielle Smith with that
00:30:01.520gotcha question. Oh my goodness. In a different space-time continuum, Danielle Smith could be
00:30:07.040a separatist. Supply agreement with Jagmeet Singh. Am I right on that, that your federalism is kind1.00
00:30:12.640of conditional on the fact that Mark Carney is there now, not Justin Trudeau? Well, I can tell
00:30:17.500the entire country threw out both of those leaders and i think it was because they were going in an
00:30:22.300agenda that the the country realized that we just couldn't afford them anymore we couldn't afford
00:30:26.940carbon taxes we couldn't afford the increase in prices we were seeing at the pump in our home
00:30:31.420heating in our electricity we couldn't afford to keep on spending money on social programs without
00:30:36.380developing the resources to pay for them so i would say that the that all of canadians rendered
00:30:40.860a judgment on those two leaders and i'm glad that the the current leadership of the liberal party
00:30:45.340has seen that but would you be voting differently on october 19th if it was still justin trudeau
00:30:50.940i can tell you i was trying the same process with the previous prime minister as i have with the
00:30:55.180current prime minister i'm glad the current prime minister uh brought together a team and engaged
00:30:59.980with me in in good faith i the the deal that we we signed in the mou uh that was basically hatched
00:31:06.060in the very first conversation i had with justin trudeau and so that tells you what happens when
00:31:10.380When you have a change with Justin Trudeau, the MOU, when I called Justin Trudeau, I told him I want to start a process where I can we can meet in the middle and we can work on emissions reduction to 2050.
00:31:20.540Will you work with me from the very first conversation that I had with Justin Trudeau and he continued with bad policy after bad policy to go in the wrong direction.
00:31:29.340And I'm glad that the current prime minister has taken a very different approach.
00:31:32.420But that's the kind of approach I take as a leader.
00:31:33.940I don't actually think that Mark Carney is taking a different approach.
00:31:36.780I think he's taking a different rhetorical approach to seem more moderate while never actually really changing his policy outside of like slightly lowering how high he wants Alberta to raise its industrial carbon tax.
00:31:49.860But that's only to get Alberta to start raising it again anyways, because Alberta previously was freezing it.
00:31:54.600So Mark Carney would see that as him getting at least some limited wins here without having to give up much.
00:32:00.320I put my position on the table and I work darn hard to make sure that we get it.
00:32:04.920I do what we can to do public interest campaigns as we did to change public opinion.
00:32:09.360We did. And here are the consequences.
00:32:11.120We're having a much happier conversation today.
00:32:12.920But on the question, and I know it's a secret ballot,
00:32:14.920but you've told the country how you would vote.
00:32:16.400You are going to vote on October 19th based on things with Mark Carney.
00:32:19.440On my question is that, you know, are you only voting to stay in Canada
00:32:23.960because the posture of the Canadian government has changed?
00:33:00.840I am sorry to ruin your career here at CBC.
00:33:04.200but she's not you cannot concoct or are you can you admit that you're only uh you're only uh
00:33:10.680voting not to leave or leave because uh mark carney's negotiating with you so at least give
00:33:15.320mark carney the credit that the only reason you're not separate is because you had to come to damascus
00:33:21.000moment to come to ottawa moment with mark carney and he told you not he showed you the light and
00:33:26.200you no longer believe in separatism can you give him that can you give him this danielle smith i
00:33:31.560have this little award uh for you to pin onto the chest of mark carney can you pin it onto his chest0.98
00:33:37.640right now it's so stupid this entire interview sucks otherwise i am a proud alberton and a proud0.98
00:33:44.840canadian and i have always been a proud alberton and proud canadian uh sometimes politicians in0.99
00:33:50.520ottawa i think are offside with the the the values that make our country so great and sometimes they
00:33:55.880have to be corrected and sometimes of course correction happens by the people and that has
00:33:59.640already happened. And so I'm encouraged that we can work together to make things work.
00:34:03.800But when you're a leader of a party such as mine and a government such as mine, you got
00:34:07.840to keep working at it. And I'm glad to see that it's going in our direction.
00:34:12.020But you know, you said repeatedly, you're a Federalist, but you've done these things
00:34:15.260to give the separatists their day that they've been looking for.
00:34:18.360No, she's not giving them their day. She's letting them have the day they already earned
00:34:23.560by getting the signatures. Yes, the court tried to block it. And so she came up with0.95
00:34:28.700a meeting in the middle version of the question to honor the fact they had collected the signatures
00:34:33.820we are 12 minutes and 48 seconds into this interview and i think this is about the 17 000th
00:34:40.060time he's tried to put this to her that well you say you're a federalist but you do a lot of
00:34:45.500separatist stuff on october 19th and you've explained your rationale why but a lot of people
00:34:50.460would look at that and say a true federalist would not see guys she's a fake federalist you know some
00:34:56.060people would say some people who don't look exactly like david cochran and have a hacky
00:35:01.660television show would say that uh really you're not a real federalist because a real federal
00:35:07.980federalist would have just executed mitch sylvester by firing squad by now why have you
00:35:13.420not killed mitch sylvester danielle smith are you not a real federalist come on danielle fess up0.56
00:35:19.500you're a separatist i'll go to the lengths you have gone through to put the country on the ballot
00:35:24.140Well, I believe in citizen initiative. And there's a ballot that isn't going forward. It was to end funding for private schools. There's another ballot that they're trying to get signatures for to have a question on coal. A citizen initiative process is not about ideology. It's about giving people their say. And in this case, we've had 700,000 people on two different positions saying they wanted to have this debate.
00:35:47.620So what I stand for is supporting the democratic process, and that's what we're going to see play out over the next five months and have the vote on October the 19th.
00:35:56.320The ballot questions I want to get affirmative are the five questions we have so that we can take more control over immigration and for others to address issues in the Constitution to give me a mandate to start doing that negotiation.