True Patriot Love - Alberta Voted to Stay in Canada — So Why Is Ottawa Worried？

00:00:00.000 the people of alberta have spoken and spoken with a loud voice to yes to steen in canada by a wide

00:00:11.400 margin especially in edmonton and calgary but questions remain about this referendum and the

00:00:17.140 other nine questions in the ballot to talk more about it the guy who's now personal friends with

00:00:22.200 premier smith in alberta mike wixson and the guy wearing a jacket bonded alberta paul macucci i i

00:00:28.620 feel like I'm with Mike yeah you know what Paul in spirit with that jacket on you are I remember

00:00:34.200 the day you bought it uh here in Calgary it definitely is your referendum jacket it is I

00:00:39.580 I knew this was coming I knew this day was coming so I bought it Mike uh to celebrate the win the

00:00:45.220 victory for Alberta staying in Canada um because we're all happy that absolutely happened so I

00:00:51.300 think we've said that multiple times on the show but there are some things to dissect about that

00:00:55.560 victory, Jim and Mike. And I think we got to kind of break it down for our viewers. Because it's

00:01:02.140 not a smooth win. It's not one where, quite frankly, all 10 questions were voted against

00:01:10.700 and voted down. It was one where kind of what we predicted, nine out of the 10 questions came back

00:01:17.240 and Alberta still wants some change. They want some things to change. And so that's the challenge. 1.00

00:01:25.560 now for daniel smith and i think mark carney absolutely minister yeah he's got a little bit

00:01:31.260 of a wake-up call um sorry jim no no i you know what i just wanted to piggyback on what you said

00:01:38.580 and mike you're on the front lines in alberta and for the rest of canada i think this is where the

00:01:44.380 confusion lies where they believe well the whole thing was just about the referendum but our oldest

00:01:50.280 daughter lives there in Alberta and for people in Alberta the big question was the other nine

00:01:55.300 questions not just the referendum so yes the referendum the actual stay in Canada overwhelming

00:02:01.800 victory but those other nine questions raised a lot of red flags in that province where you're

00:02:06.720 at right now Mike what those questions really did was delay the election process to the point where

00:02:12.120 we probably could still be voting this morning if they didn't push it along last night uh you're

00:02:18.100 right, Jim, a lot of discussion about those other questions. But really think about it, guys. That's

00:02:23.960 been the questions or the complaints or the list, the shopping list of issues that Alberta's had for

00:02:28.640 a long time. I think that's what Daniel Smith was co-signing on. I don't think the referendum really

00:02:34.820 was even a question in the hearts of anybody here in Alberta. What they really want is change. And

00:02:41.960 And like you guys both pointed out, okay, this has now netted some results, some of which we genuinely thought we knew and expected.

00:02:51.280 But now Daniel Smith and the prime minister have a lot to answer to.

00:02:56.860 And, you know, like they said last night on almost every broadcast and the politicians locally talking about how this was a non-politicized event,

00:03:07.500 that there was no polarity between the parties, that there was one major concern.

00:03:12.860 Okay, but now act that way. Now execute that way. You've got the answers that you wanted. You got

00:03:19.480 the answers that you needed. Now what will become the result of it? And yesterday, Paul and I said,

00:03:25.620 it looks like Daniel Smith's going to have to open an office in Ottawa to take care of

00:03:29.780 getting all of this done. A very quick favor before we continue. A large percentage of you

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00:04:01.600 Now back to the show.

00:04:03.180 100%.

00:04:03.840 Mike nails it.

00:04:05.160 this is this is a real new era paul for alberta politics and their relationship with the federal

00:04:11.360 government oh yeah yeah well so let me break down some numbers because this is you know again i always

00:04:17.520 go to the numbers you know whatever we do um so question 10 so this was the question that asked

00:04:24.420 about separation yes so and it and it was interesting which is the big question option

00:04:29.480 one was remain and option two was referendum to move forward, right? And it turned out that 1.8

00:04:38.040 million people voted. So they cast a ballot for that question. 1.37 were option one and 438,000

00:04:49.800 were option two. So there were 3.1 million eligible voters. You have to remember, for those

00:04:58.100 of you um you know i was telling the story how uh one of my sons is this uh population guru so as a

00:05:04.400 kid when he was little i used to play a population game and so as he's grown up to an adult now it's

00:05:09.480 kind of funny when i see him i always ask him and he he can kind of tell me populations around the

00:05:14.740 world so i was last night i was talking he said how many people live in albert and he says 5.1

00:05:19.140 million people i was like 5.1 million people i wonder how many people are eligible to vote

00:05:24.640 and he said 3.1 roughly and i'm like okay great i would fact checked it with the guys today

00:05:30.480 it's it's roughly the number 3.148 so you know if you look at it um you had 1.8 million people cast

00:05:40.860 a vote or ballot saying they want to remain in the country for 57 of eligible voters which is

00:05:50.060 higher than the provincial election in 2023 right but it's but it's interesting jim because this is

00:05:55.520 you know this tells it's a story of a bunch of tales right um or a tale of a bunch of stories

00:06:01.500 or whatever but it really is you had the prime minister arrive he spent two visits there there

00:06:08.620 are a bunch of people you know jason kenny pierre pauliev pierre pauliev they all went they hit the

00:06:14.080 ground they did all these rallies they weren't very well attended so from what i'm hearing from

00:06:19.620 the grapevine and from friends that live in uh calgary and live in alberta they were moderately

00:06:26.100 attended so they didn't get great turnout but a lot of podium shots you know they did a lot

00:06:30.180 of speeches there was great media they did their thing um you know they fortunately the fire and

00:06:36.740 and the military issue you know delson was tragic and quite frankly it was just a tough time in

00:06:43.220 canada's uh history um so you know we come into this election and we end up with 57 of canadians

00:06:52.980 actually casting or burdens casting a ballot and so there's 43 never showed up yeah so you're like

00:07:00.740 okay all that movement all that focus all that work and 43 of eligible voters in alberta stayed

00:07:10.180 home and i will say this to you paul and to you mike that this is not an alberta problem it's a

00:07:16.500 canadian problem we get worked up on social media and in the news feed in a podcast about certain

00:07:23.140 issues in this country when we have the democratic right to vote municipal provincial federal

00:07:29.060 referendums droves of people don't bother and i think we all we heard was how important this was

00:07:35.860 to alberta and how passionate they were but i mean it's still a good number it's still actually

00:07:41.460 by albert's standards and canadian standards it's a good number but yeah if you're gonna

00:07:45.700 if you're looking at elections across canada right now this was uh a home run this was a grand slam

00:07:52.020 home run for elections yes but you you know to both of your points yes this is an outstanding

00:07:59.380 turnout compared to other elections yeah to paul's point this was meant to be the most important

00:08:04.980 decision in this province's history well in canada's so in canada's history so this is it

00:08:11.540 change the balance of the whole of the whole country absolutely yeah all the focus goes on

00:08:16.740 this province of 5 million people and they can only get 57 of the population to vote now you

00:08:23.280 know in quebec they get much higher turnout rates with critical votes right so you know we've they

00:08:29.580 get up to 88 percent so they get you know we've seen kind of provinces that have had challenges

00:08:35.800 with separation have more people come to vote look at voter turnout in ontario i mean people

00:08:40.720 ontario positively oh it's dreadful dreadful it's like 30 we saw we saw the by-elections to change

00:08:46.960 the majority of the government of the country that didn't even get 35 so it's i'm with it yeah it is

00:08:53.820 a it is a pandemic across the country with respect to voting but here you know this is a very engaged

00:09:00.240 group so one of the things i know mike you're there right now but one of the things when you

00:09:04.080 get to alberta people you know they talk a lot they're very friendly they're consumed with

00:09:09.500 politics of their province and here we are we get 57 which then tells another story and the story

00:09:15.760 unfortunately is if i'm sitting um on the referendum side i'd be saying well you know what

00:09:22.880 the disengagement of people the people who decided not to show up are either sitting on the fence or

00:09:30.180 they haven't made up their mind or they don't want to engage that gives me a little bit of hope that

00:09:35.440 i could go because so you know it does live a window open where we need to be careful and i

00:09:41.860 think that's that's a message that it sends to us as canadians now translate that into the number

00:09:47.220 of people that said yes or said to remain in Canada, right? So out of the eligible voters,

00:09:54.540 only 44% of the eligible voters actually came and said yes or came and voted to remain. So,

00:10:01.660 you know, you had 3.1 million people, you had 3.1 million people that could vote.

00:10:07.020 Only 44% of them showed up and voted and said remain in Canada.

00:10:11.000 However, less than half of the eligible voters either voted for or showed up.

00:10:18.500 Of those who voted, over 80% in Calgary and over 80% in Edmonton voted yes to stay in Canada.

00:10:25.580 Of those who voted.

00:10:26.360 Of those who voted.

00:10:27.700 And that's, I think we have to go by the people actually took the time to vote.

00:10:32.620 And I understand where you're spinning the numbers, Paul, but that's still significantly more people voted than they did at the provincial election.

00:10:40.580 So by Canadian standards, it was a good turnout.

00:10:44.500 Okay.

00:10:44.900 I get the spin, but, you know, the spin also is I don't think you can walk around and say, so this is where I got to be careful because some of the media, especially last night, were saying 76% of Albertans voted, and that's incorrect.

00:11:00.720 76% of the votes.

00:11:03.260 That was the number that was up on the screen, right?

00:11:05.580 So we all followed that.

00:11:06.880 yeah so there's a lot and it's interesting because my conversation with people this morning like

00:11:11.320 oh yeah i see they got an overwhelming majority of people voted no the people who voted you got

00:11:16.960 that but the people the eligible voters and that's all i want to make okay crystal clear so

00:11:21.900 i i don't know if it's a huge victory to get 57 of the people out i think you got to kind of say

00:11:29.000 okay it's okay if it was a life and death situation changing the whole course of the nation

00:11:34.180 that's i mean you would think the people would be a hundred percent a hundred percent but

00:11:39.260 for something like this it's way too low a number that i'll give paul what i'll give you jim uh i'm

00:11:46.300 going to be the the the mediator between you guys i don't want mommy and daddy fighting so what i

00:11:51.580 think is paul to paul's end you can't have a parade saying that i agree you know remaining in

00:11:58.860 canada was an overwhelming sentiment and to paul's point and i'll also say this uh yeah this is that

00:12:07.500 margin that is remaining that says separatism the discussion is not going away there's still enough

00:12:14.000 of this uh of this collective of thought that showed up in the vote to jim's point yeah for

00:12:22.320 the people that showed up, it was a resounding success for keeping Canada unified. However,

00:12:28.680 back to the point of who didn't vote and who was left in the wind, the politicians now really have

00:12:35.900 a responsibility to react to this. They asked a lot of questions yesterday. The one question

00:12:41.520 that remained in the hearts of Canadians, okay, that got a resounding answer. But the response

00:12:47.980 to the other options i don't even know how we're going to begin to see them execute any solutions

00:12:55.660 based on that vote i think that's an important thing to think about that a lot of albertans

00:13:00.820 left some pretty important questions unanswered in that uh by not voting go ahead but mike i'm

00:13:07.540 going to say this in 95 the the yes side one hey let's stay in canada with only 50.58 of the vote

00:13:16.680 right in quebec in quebec so if i'm daniel smith and you're in daniel smith country the premier

00:13:23.640 smith goes to carney and said look you know we had it we got 76 77 of the people who voted

00:13:30.980 decide to stay in canada but we have some issues and i would like to see that hey you know what

00:13:37.260 let's get control of our own immigration like quebec quebec's allowed to control their

00:13:42.120 immigration why not alberta we're being good federal partners and i think maybe she's going

00:13:47.320 to parlay this into some um i guess information and some muscle and some leverage in future

00:13:55.540 negotiations to help the province oh yeah oh you know interesting yeah so just before we get off

00:14:01.720 and i want to go on to the questions but but i really wanted to highlight the advance voting for

00:14:07.440 this was a staggering no but it was over like four days yeah but the numbers were it was like

00:14:13.360 the 13th 14th 15th 16th like it it went on to like the 17th then well the numbers were huge

00:14:19.160 but think about it they only got they opened it up for like four days they only got 57 percent

00:14:24.680 of the people over a weekend while the prime minister was there like this is not like i just

00:14:30.660 want to put in perspective again i'm not trying to i'm happy the outcome but i'm not i don't think

00:14:35.540 we can go away saying wow this was terrific i think you're talking about two conversations

00:14:39.560 here paul canadians in general have become really apathetic towards voting there's why why are they

00:14:48.040 apathetic because i believe there's voter burnout it's federal elections provincial elections

00:14:53.480 referendums municipal elections i don't have time i'm too busy i got two kids and two jobs

00:14:59.500 and i'm struggling feed myself and go to rent i don't have time to vote and a lot of people feel

00:15:04.780 that the vote doesn't matter whoever i vote in liberal conservative ndp they're going to screw

00:15:10.760 me over no matter what and that's where that's a big picture question in the country that people

00:15:15.680 feel disaffected with politics and they can't be bothered to vote i agree yeah well i think it is

00:15:21.800 and i think it's more the latter than the former but i really do and i think but so by them showing

00:15:28.620 up is now repelling the vote by them showing up so in other words they're showing up and they're

00:15:35.380 doing their you know their parades they're doing their speeches they're having their rallies so

00:15:41.160 that's repelling so that that's telling a message jim it's telling them that quite frankly it's not

00:15:45.880 bringing the vote out right right it's not bringing so i think you you got to say to yourself well

00:15:50.320 what would what would what would would be candidates that people can relate to understand

00:15:56.380 their message uh feel have integrity feel that are they can follow like those are the things that

00:16:03.940 will get people to come out and vote people people who feel that they can trust relate and have

00:16:08.400 someone on their side will come out and vote and voter numbers will go up so when you don't have

00:16:12.640 those when you don't have parties that people can follow and and trust and relate to this is what

00:16:17.680 happens and quite frankly i think they got to take i think that's what you got to take to heart now

00:16:22.320 when you see this message in my mind when it's the Quebec referendum was 93% of eligible voters

00:16:28.140 in the province voted yeah 93% so that's okay that's 31 years ago in 31 years think of how

00:16:35.740 many Canadians might have been burned by municipal provincial and federal politicians and are quite

00:16:41.920 frankly just dissatisfied with the whole thing well that's a great point Jim so so now you had

00:16:47.500 you had 3.1 million people sitting there and again you only 43 percent of them decide to sit

00:16:53.820 on the sidelines but they took a pass they took i know it's a win for them but but if your strategy

00:17:00.780 for getting elected going forward in canada is having people not show up to vote paul and i'm

00:17:08.140 not sure that's an open i'm not sure that's a winning strength show up to vote that's a big

00:17:13.660 turn out now i'm just saying i'm not sure that's a winning strategy for the country jim i think

00:17:18.060 that's i think you have to kind of look at it and say hey we got to start to look at this and

00:17:22.300 figure this out because that's once so many people disengage and pull out of i like i agree in that

00:17:28.780 and mike i've i've know you've sort of alluded to it i've heard others say why not give people

00:17:33.580 a half day paid off we'll give you a half day take morning or take afternoon you know it'll be

00:17:40.460 covered so you can vote you know jim you you uh harken back to the uh 30 years ago when we did uh

00:17:47.260 another one of these in quebec now i think about it that was a time where we had local newspapers

00:17:53.500 yes we had local television local radio we had pundits from every community discussing this

00:17:59.740 there was actual discussion now and you trusted them right mike you did because there was discussion

00:18:05.740 in your community with the right people right there was decent coverage now there is nothing

00:18:12.140 there's social media so i think that what what i'm hearing from you guys is that uh our election

00:18:20.060 process is damaged i agree with paul you cannot have an election based on people not showing up

00:18:26.380 and and make that part of your campaign strategy well this is interesting so now i'm going to spend

00:18:32.060 a few minutes on the questions with you guys because that's the other thing that i've noticed

00:18:35.820 so number one no mention of the total eligible voters in the media last night of course because

00:18:43.900 they don't want to highlight this the second thing that no one wants to talk about is questions one

00:18:49.980 to nine that's where my that was my point earlier everyone across the country is so focused on

00:18:57.260 question 10 then they're going to wake up today and and go immigration the senate what is all this

00:19:03.740 all about i didn't know that yeah well but the interesting thing jim for the 3.1 million eligible

00:19:10.860 voters they were actually given the questions in advance but how many of them actually read them

00:19:16.220 and looked at them well again only 57 of them showed up you know what happens when i get those

00:19:21.900 flyers from the government they're into the recycle bin but 3.1 million people got a voting

00:19:27.820 card yeah they got a on that voting card and with that voting card was a list of the questions so

00:19:33.180 they could pre-prepare their answers so they could do it efficiently so that was all in their mail so

00:19:37.840 it reached them or most of it reached them so quite frankly so question one so this is the one

00:19:44.040 about um and i'm going to read it for a minute do you support the government alberta taking

00:19:48.440 increased control over immigration for the purpose of decreasing immigration to more

00:19:53.340 sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration, and giving Albertans first priority

00:20:00.980 on new employment opportunities.

00:20:03.760 Which is the Quebec playbook, which is what they did a couple of years ago.

00:20:07.940 Exactly.

00:20:08.620 So now, 672,000 voted yes.

00:20:13.420 Right.

00:20:15.220 530,000 voted no.

00:20:17.560 Right.

00:20:18.440 So it passed.

00:20:19.240 So it passed.

00:20:20.280 And this is, these are policy decisions now.

00:20:22.820 So this is true.

00:20:23.420 Yeah, so what passed, Paul?

00:20:24.360 Sorry, sorry to stop you there.

00:20:25.420 Sorry, I used the wrong word, pass, Mike.

00:20:27.380 It didn't pass.

00:20:28.460 It was direction to the government to enact policy.

00:20:31.620 That means something that Premier Smith will go to Kearney

00:20:35.300 and try to negotiate like Quebec did with the federal government.

00:20:39.320 Oh, okay.

00:20:40.300 To me, that's how I interpret it is now Alberta has got a mandate

00:20:45.280 under Premier Smith through the voting, like, hey,

00:20:47.500 we would like to take control over immigration we want to control who comes in when and how many

00:20:52.800 people okay so on the first question i'm already i'm enraged there's no result from this these

00:21:00.640 this the the reason that i think there might have been a lack of response was because this is a poll

00:21:08.520 this is not an election this is an opinion poll and people were asked to go out there and give

00:21:15.360 their opinion and how many really understood it how many people think that this is actually

00:21:20.900 doing nothing or this was they were voting no because they're like oh wait i i don't want that

00:21:27.860 to happen without understanding the process like just because you're voting yes doesn't mean it's

00:21:32.300 going to happen right well that's the thing about this entire process yeah exactly you know you're

00:21:38.240 you're bang on so this is you know this now goes into policy then has to go back to government a

00:21:42.840 policy needs to be enacted but you're right there's a federal provincial interaction but

00:21:47.540 the interesting so by the numbers a little bit so we mentioned 1.8 million people voted for

00:21:54.280 question 10 which is the one on separation yeah on question one which we just read out

00:22:00.020 1.2 million people vote yeah so it drops 600,000 so 600,000 people say I'm not going to answer

00:22:08.720 this question or it didn't matter to them I'm out of here yeah it didn't matter to them so

00:22:12.360 they're out of here so to your point so now this is the flip side so this is now so this is the

00:22:18.020 interesting part of your the argument about question 10 so you know when they go and they say

00:22:24.940 you know we got 76 percent of the vote on people who voted the 57 percent of the 3.1 million who

00:22:32.080 came out you know that's great okay no but you lost question one so what question one it went

00:22:38.500 the other way so now so now well I don't know if you lost it it went the other way so quite frankly

00:22:44.400 you need to look at your immigration policies you need to give priority to employment

00:22:49.320 and prioritize and sustainable levels you need to look at all those things so there's the things

00:22:56.020 you need to do now you only had so now 38 percent of the eligible voters voted on this question

00:23:03.500 Only 38% out of 3.1 million people voted on this question.

00:23:07.680 Only 21% voted yes out of the eligible voters.

00:23:12.140 But it doesn't matter now.

00:23:13.440 So whether you wanted to vote or not, that's what you're getting.

00:23:16.320 So don't complain.

00:23:17.540 Now, you can't complain now because you voted it.

00:23:20.280 You put it to the electoral process.

00:23:23.060 Daniel Smith put it on the ballot.

00:23:25.080 It's come back, and that's what you're getting.

00:23:26.680 That what you just said now to me is the most important statement in Canadian politics right now. If you didn't bother to vote, if you didn't bother to take time to be informed, to do a little research, you can't go on social media pages and podcasts and talk shows and complain. You don't have the right to.

00:23:47.840 so so and i'm not going to read all the questions but you know basically they're they're almost the

00:23:54.440 same results so questions one to five uh i'm not even gonna but paul i'm not even gonna get into

00:24:01.400 question five because it doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of people were so focused and mike on

00:24:05.880 the the separate the referendum question the separation question they just sort of did like

00:24:10.700 almost like the uh multiple choice tests we used to have in school oh yeah a b a b a b or they

00:24:16.120 didn't really pay attention to it or it was like you were filling out your customs form right no i

00:24:20.580 have no arms no i have no bomb take care but the majority of people in alberta look like they just

00:24:25.920 really didn't care about the other questions so you went also those questions were so leading

00:24:30.060 that it's right it's like me saying jim you like it warm outside right you know jim you you'd rather

00:24:38.760 wear no sweater and just a pair of shorts right jim yeah yeah what do you think should we vote

00:24:42.820 for better weather so the questions leading up to the question were almost just precursors

00:24:49.860 yeah no i'm with you i'm with you mike but you know it's it's it's interesting because

00:24:55.720 it goes to question four is the lowest actually uh number of votes and it actually 16 percent of

00:25:04.460 eligible voters voted yes to it so only 16 it only had uh 800 i think 898 uh thousand people vote

00:25:16.380 so it went from 1.8 to 898 000 for question four and this is the one where they're going to charge

00:25:22.780 for education health care for new immigrants and yeah and so but you know these are policies now

00:25:29.500 this is an interesting thing because you basically if you again following the logic of the question

00:25:36.800 10 you had to vote the number of people who showed up and now quite frankly you're going to try to

00:25:43.000 enact policy based on the number of people who showed up even though the voter turnout for those

00:25:48.440 questions or the the response to those questions is like Ontario it's in the 20s and the 30s right

00:25:55.540 so 20 percent of the population that are eligible to vote are going to make decisions for everyone

00:26:00.700 else now the thing that i and we can get into in a minute guys but the thing that i right away i

00:26:06.420 kind of uh shrugged my shoulders and i thought i wonder how many and having been to calgary with

00:26:12.300 you a couple times this year mike i wonder how many albertans like i mean homegrown albertans

00:26:17.520 are going to work in the 7-eleven are going to work in the tim hortons are going to work in

00:26:21.580 because quite frankly, if I'm sitting there now and I'm a new immigrant, just arrived, went to

00:26:26.000 school, trying to get my permanent resident, and you tell me that you're going to do some of these

00:26:30.760 things, I'm on my horse and I'm out of town. I'm out of Dodge. I'm leaving Alberta. A lot of

00:26:36.460 Albertans want that. Well, that's fine. But then good luck getting a coffee, good luck getting

00:26:42.280 gas, good luck. But Mike, this is interesting because one year from now, in October, 2027,

00:26:48.260 And it's the next provincial election in Alberta, one year after the referendum.

00:26:52.500 And you wonder how these questions, this debate, these different sort of guideposts that were voted upon shape the narrative a year from now, building up to the provincial election.

00:27:06.120 Can I share my conspiracy theory with you, please?

00:27:08.900 So let me put the tinfoil hat on.

00:27:11.420 If I'm Daniel Smith, and I've got this problem, and I see that maybe I'm going to have to have a discussion vote about whether to have a referendum in my province, and I need to package that up properly, okay, well, I'll tell you what.

00:27:26.160 Give me six points of things that you want changed.

00:27:29.220 In that next election, in the next provincial election, in the next federal election, those are the only points anybody's going to focus on.

00:27:37.320 Right.

00:27:37.440 So she made the list of things that she can answer to, anything outside of that probably won't get any attention.

00:27:45.180 And if you could attend to just six things or eight things on a list and answer to them as a politician, well, you're kind of set.

00:27:53.640 You only need eight answers or ten answers to the most pressing questions, but you wrote the questions.

00:28:00.040 You created the discussion, and now you as that politician should have all the answers.

00:28:07.440 it seems to me like she wrote her own campaign story but mike but he nailed it and paul after

00:28:13.580 what mike just said this is where election burnout comes in again so they went through all this

00:28:18.640 trouble in alberta with the the leader of the opposition the prime minister all these prominent

00:28:23.680 members of the province saying hey you know vote in the referendum and now a year later people are

00:28:28.580 going to be inundated with another campaign for another election like i'm just not sure like this

00:28:33.400 is where people like another election because there may be a federal election between here and

00:28:37.520 there too multiple choice elections have got to stop you know i am so sorry but what happened

00:28:44.020 yesterday the amount it was uh i think 11 30 before the final voting got in yeah they had

00:28:50.480 allegedly uh set it all up that everything could be done by eight o'clock by nine o'clock we were

00:28:56.020 hearing it wouldn't be 10 but by 11 o'clock we were finding out that it we wouldn't get answers

00:29:00.320 to almost midnight.

00:29:02.340 So on that note, yeah, I think that this kind,

00:29:07.080 if we want elections to really have meaning,

00:29:09.380 if we want elections to really have an impact

00:29:12.540 and we want the numbers that, you know,

00:29:15.140 Paul, you and Jim are talking about would be good,

00:29:19.060 we can't have multiple choice, multiple elections going on.

00:29:22.760 We need people to have the time to focus.

00:29:25.040 And yes, maybe we even need a new way to have elections.

00:29:28.500 Nepal just did an election in the past year in three days.

00:29:33.580 It was all sewn up.

00:29:35.060 They did it on WhatsApp, I think.

00:29:38.360 Discord.

00:29:39.480 That's fantastic.

00:29:40.940 You know, there are ways to have elections that are not so cumbersome,

00:29:44.180 but we want them to be cumbersome because then it gives the politicians

00:29:47.920 an opportunity to stand up, to cheer, to get behind the podium

00:29:51.440 on a cause that they really don't have a huge impact on.

00:29:55.140 Don't forget, this was not an election.

00:29:57.720 this was an opinion discussion no no i'm with you i'm with you mike and you know it's interesting

00:30:04.400 because then you you know you get to then six to nine so now these are the big questions right

00:30:09.640 abolishing the senate uh uh basically selecting justices appointed to providential king benches

00:30:17.460 no that's a full constitutional debate oh no it and it gets better to me so then allowing

00:30:23.620 provinces to opt out of federal programs that intrude on provincial jurisdictions such as

00:30:29.020 healthcare, education, social services. These are very interesting. So six to nine. And now you get

00:30:38.400 to the voting numbers again. So the voting numbers, and I'm not going to go through them all. I'm just

00:30:42.460 going to give you a little bit of the lowlights. So then you get to the, and number nine. So

00:30:48.220 So, well, actually, let's do eight because that's the one that deals with health care, education, and social services.

00:30:56.240 Eight had 775,000 votes, ballots put in.

00:31:02.680 And quite frankly, the yes is…

00:31:04.960 That's less than half of the main vote.

00:31:06.380 Oh, way less.

00:31:07.340 Yeah. 0.96

00:31:08.100 1.8 million people voted to keep them in the country.

00:31:13.600 3.1 million eligible votes.

00:31:16.440 775,000 vote on question 8.

00:31:20.440 So 7,500. And out of the eligible votes,

00:31:25.160 we had 300. So it passed.

00:31:28.780 Oh, no, sorry. It failed at the end of the day.

00:31:32.040 But it only failed marginally. So 377,000

00:31:36.680 to 398. So it did. Okay. So this is one of the

00:31:40.200 this, Paul, kind of leads into your discussion from before.

00:31:43.720 yeah so now we we've got this information and what does alberta do with it okay do we have to

00:31:51.740 great question how how do you respond to this if if in fact you need a solution to this what

00:31:58.560 possibly can the province do on its own that would satisfy this well i mean like when it comes to the

00:32:06.080 senate they can't do that on their own and it comes to opting out of federal programs that's a

00:32:11.720 that's a constitutional conversation that has to be had with the prime minister but she's not

00:32:18.260 going to do that so now she's she's going to say listen i'm not going to have the conversation

00:32:22.560 about federal programs anymore i'm we're going to stay in so the interesting part is the transfer

00:32:29.200 payments and all these things that they're talking about they're not going to have the conversation so

00:32:32.800 all the hubbub about alberta and transfer payments the so out of out of the whole population the 5

00:32:40.100 million the 3.1 million eligible voters question eight they got 775,000 people to vote on it

00:32:47.340 12 percent voted yes the remainder voted no and so now it's done so they they've just leave it as

00:32:54.720 is and to your point on the uh the abolishing the senate and all that stuff they voted yes

00:33:01.280 so they want to do that well so they're they're going to go work with other provinces to see

00:33:06.040 who's willing to go and try.

00:33:07.900 They would need muscle.

00:33:08.880 They would need, like, Ontario and the big provinces

00:33:12.340 to go to Kearney and set that up.

00:33:14.800 But I think about...

00:33:16.860 I'm sorry. 1.00

00:33:17.540 Alberta's going to make a change to how we operate the Senate. 1.00

00:33:21.060 Well, that was on the question.

00:33:22.600 But when you think about what Paul just said,

00:33:25.160 they could have had two questions on this,

00:33:28.060 the referendum and transfer payments.

00:33:30.660 Because I don't care about all the other first questions.

00:33:33.920 Transfer payments is a huge issue in Alberta

00:33:37.180 for people that live there and work there.

00:33:39.900 And the questions were like immigration

00:33:42.420 and health and stuff like that.

00:33:45.040 Well, Paul raised a good point.

00:33:46.060 We're talking this morning.

00:33:47.000 Sorry, Paul, to take us down this path,

00:33:49.040 but you and I are talking this morning

00:33:50.200 and you raised a good point. 0.99

00:33:51.680 What does Alberta do?

00:33:52.600 Create its own passport?

00:33:54.880 Well, yeah.

00:33:55.960 How are they going to operate that?

00:33:58.540 Hey, before we go any further,

00:33:59.660 please hit the subscribe button right now

00:34:02.480 If you want the raw debates, the full uncut conversations you won't see here,

00:34:06.800 head straight to tplmedia.ca, subscribe, and lock in your membership.

00:34:10.840 Trust me, you don't want to miss what happens behind the paywall.

00:34:13.800 All right, back to the show.

00:34:15.860 Oh, and the immigration issues, yeah, the only way they can actually put that in place,

00:34:19.340 it's an ID card or a passport for Alberta so they can identify who gets what services.

00:34:26.000 And that's passed.

00:34:27.380 That's gone through.

00:34:28.500 So it could be one card, and it's your health card, driver's license,

00:34:32.140 and like citizenship or you know all that in one card in one card like a passport you go in and

00:34:39.320 whether you're in education or any social services you'd have to show it and whether

00:34:44.800 now the interesting part is because all uh one to five have passed they have to they're going

00:34:52.360 to go back and create policies now and debate it right well some of the policies quite frankly

00:34:57.300 won't be surcharges and charges they'll just be total denial right so you won't get health

00:35:01.900 care if if they go to the extreme in the policy uh new canadians who want to immigrate to alberta

00:35:08.060 won't get any health care won't get any education benefits won't get any social services so that's

00:35:13.340 where they'll go if they go to the nth degree of that policy yes if it's somewhere in between it

00:35:17.500 will be a surcharge but you know the interesting part i don't want to lose this point is question

00:35:23.100 six to nine basically the the yes vote the yes vote for six to nine was roughly 12 to 14 percent

00:35:31.580 of the eligible voters voted for it so if again if you look at if you look at question 10 which is

00:35:40.080 when you know not to leave to remain in canada and you use the same kind of criteria and thought

00:35:44.680 process now she's obligated to go to the federal government to mike's point get an office in ottawa 0.95

00:35:50.680 and try to lobby the other other provinces to abolish the senate to change the king's bench 1.00

00:35:57.240 to change the appeals court to change civil rights so that's what they want her to do based 0.95

00:36:02.680 on 12 of the eligible voters that's that's pathetic it's pathetic that we've even harder 0.94

00:36:08.360 for a lot of provinces even if she had 80 of the eligible people voting i'm so now you have you

00:36:13.320 have that that few yes i'm with you jim i'm totally with you but if you go but if you use the same

00:36:20.840 rationale in the conversation that's what she's going to do so it's interesting today at six o'clock

00:36:26.600 pacific time you know she's going to get up she's the one who you know she's the one who let this go

00:36:31.540 absolutely right the premier is the one who said yep we need a referendum on this let's put the

00:36:35.840 questions okay so now it passed it might not have passed by an overwhelming majority it might not

00:36:41.360 have got a lot of people to come out and vote but you knew that could happen like you were you are

00:36:46.480 definitely like when you put this on of course there's no way she couldn't have thought it could

00:36:52.680 happen right but i think she thought she was going to get 70 or 80 percent of uh albertans to come

00:36:58.460 out and vote yeah they just don't do that anymore now i know but i think she honestly you know we

00:37:03.280 see political blunders all the time look at look at what we're looking at snap elections in bc oh

00:37:08.120 so this is this is a blunder because to mike's point or your point jim about putting just two

00:37:13.600 questions on the smart thing would have been to actually put two questions on now and then two

00:37:18.700 questions on when the election came exactly and to gauge exactly reaction but by doing this now

00:37:24.940 she's she's a little bit cornered she's middle because if she says well i didn't get enough

00:37:29.100 for you to come out we're not you can't do it again you've already done it no no but i didn't

00:37:33.420 get enough for you to come out so i'm not going to deal with abolishing the senate i'm not going

00:37:37.100 to deal with so now she's stuck and i would have never done any politically i would have never done

00:37:43.260 any of this it just made no sense well you know what paul but now she's stuck right you're 100

00:37:50.140 right she didn't want to have to ask a question she felt under this is my these are my assumptions

00:37:55.660 you know yeah much to your probably your shock danielle smith not on the phone with me about

00:38:00.460 this stuff but she was she did kind of middle herself paul i agree because she did not want to 0.60

00:38:07.500 make a zero reaction to the separatist movement that was obviously growing and getting a lot of 0.58

00:38:12.540 of press. I think it got a lot more press and got a lot less growth than we all as Canadians felt.

00:38:19.700 But she had to do something. And she didn't want to just get out there with this referendum

00:38:24.020 question because she sits on the fence about it. So my thinking is it was a PR move to surround

00:38:31.700 this question with other options and other questions that hit the top list alongside

00:38:37.120 separatism in Alberta. And what those questions ended up being were unmanageable questions based

00:38:45.220 on the results. If you want a result that is one way or the other on any of these questions,

00:38:50.860 the province often doesn't have much to do with it. The encumbrance of actually taking on these

00:38:58.040 issues without the federal government's backing, not a possibility. So I feel like we were really

00:39:03.820 asking one question in alberta but we were too afraid just to ask that one question so we threw

00:39:09.660 a bunch of other stuff in we'll we'll we'll talk about this whole uh pond of issues all at the same

00:39:15.720 time that are distracting uh dissuasive frankly uh made people walk out of the walk out of the

00:39:22.540 booth without filling out the entire ballot all of these things i honestly feel like we got the

00:39:29.820 answer to the question that we really wanted everything else is uh frivolous discussion

00:39:38.860 but mike i think about what we're doing at tpl local and and this is a great example why we're

00:39:45.940 doing it because the gulf between urban canada and rural canada look at look at 80 plus percent

00:39:53.520 voting to stay in canada and edmonton and calgary but when you go to rural alberta that's where the

00:39:59.540 majority of that 24 percent is we're about to have a federal election probably in the next six months

00:40:04.440 a year i would think alberta is going to have another provincial election uh who knows what's

00:40:08.960 going on in ontario but the point is that the gap between those that live in the city and those that

00:40:14.720 live in the outskirts in the rural parts in the country and farm country i think it's wider now

00:40:19.820 than ever before you know it's interesting there was a great article uh and mike did a show uh the

00:40:26.720 food professors charlotte oh yeah yeah and it was actually uh it was this morning and i thought it

00:40:31.940 was so well timed and it basically it spoke to the fact that uh export agri dollars in canada

00:40:39.560 one in five come from alberta so 17 billion dollars in agri food exports came from alberta

00:40:49.080 last year yeah so and you look at it and 43.6 percent of the national cattle herd at the

00:40:55.100 beginning of 2026 comes from alberta so almost half yeah right we spent all this time on this

00:41:02.320 but we still haven't got um interprovincial trade barriers are still up we're still not doing it

00:41:08.460 food processing food processing investments real all the things we should be working on we spent

00:41:15.220 all this time on this thing that quite frankly was a disaster and and now we're sitting there

00:41:21.480 saying like but if i'm in ontario i can't buy a beer from bc or bottle of wine or a beer from

00:41:27.200 alberta and a bottle of wine from bc but you're you're alberta who's sitting there landlocked so

00:41:33.080 you have to go through one way or the other up down round wherever you go you got to deal with

00:41:37.480 someone else to get through their province yep wouldn't it be great if we would have spent our

00:41:41.380 time dealing with ports transportation infrastructure those things and it's a great

00:41:45.980 article he wrote i thought it was really good you know this is this is where i think in canada right

00:41:50.380 out we just keep wasting a lot of time we there was a real quick there was a hopeful sign this

00:41:55.100 summer i think they had three or four um grain loads from the port of churchill for the first

00:42:02.320 time in years they had the trains with the grain from alberta to saskatchewan go to churchill and

00:42:07.520 those ships made it to europe now the port's closed now because of the weather and all that

00:42:12.460 but they had i think three or four huge uh tanker ships full of grain head to europe from the port

00:42:17.640 churchill and to your point well that's that's a priority in this country yeah like a huge priority

00:42:22.520 that's where we should be going like 24 hours a day not getting sidetracked on all the others

00:42:28.920 we're going to be sidetracked these other questions that can't get anyone even to come

00:42:32.840 out and vote for them jim and then you ask the question why are people disengaged because

00:42:38.440 the grain ship leaving port and going somewhere else employs people who get jobs who work who

00:42:43.800 take care of their families and that's why people are disengaging because the caught the things

00:42:47.960 they're talking about these referendums and i think have nothing to do with them day to day

00:42:52.920 and so they're disengaging from them and as they do that more and they disengage on these questions

00:42:58.120 this is these are the things that happen why don't we spend some time in getting these things 0.84

00:43:02.200 working first rather than asking all these silly questions yeah guys you you hit it on the head

00:43:08.840 the reason that we don't is because talking about the infrastructure that's disintegrating

00:43:13.400 in Alberta and Calgary and in Edmonton and in other parts of Alberta. That's too difficult

00:43:19.960 a conversation. They don't know where to begin. They don't have the money to do it. They need to

00:43:23.880 go to the feds to figure that out. These issues are easily put to bed when you ask, okay, forget

00:43:29.860 what's going on in this hand. Answer these questions. That's, I think, a lot of what

00:43:34.600 happened here. And we do as a nation tend to do this. We want each other's opinions rather than

00:43:41.380 make decisions have a singular vote make it a vote not a not a poll if you want a poll hire

00:43:47.660 angus reed or get nick we have about 10 posters in this country yeah there's enough of them out

00:43:53.820 there and they they're bumping into each other all over the place hire them to do this and let's get

00:43:58.260 on with running the provincial governments and and they just had a story about a month ago in

00:44:03.600 alberta mike that oh by the way because the price of oil has gone up so much we don't have a deficit

00:44:09.160 we'll have a surplus this year yeah right so they can't say they don't have some money to use

00:44:13.640 to work on the infrastructure which which quite frankly could be the reason that we actually meet

00:44:18.680 our operational uh targets for canada as a country because of the price oil increase yeah which you

00:44:25.720 know that is the good news of a bad story yeah but um that we've not heard the last of this story

00:44:31.560 from what happened um monday night in alberta three questions that i think were left off that

00:44:37.560 that I think could have been added.

00:44:39.340 Why are the lineups so long at Tim Hortons?

00:44:41.720 Somebody has to get to the bottom of this.

00:44:43.460 Yes, thank you.

00:44:44.200 You know, why is it that we don't get as many sunny days as Medicine Hat?

00:44:48.940 That needs to be resolved.

00:44:50.920 Somebody needs to take care of that and share the sunshine.

00:44:53.860 And also, do you want more election days on your calendar?

00:45:00.000 You know, those three questions I think would have got some response.

00:45:02.780 And why is the Costco in South End of Edmonton always busy seven days a week?

00:45:06.940 Why?

00:45:07.560 why doesn't matter what time you go there it's packed daniel smith is back at 6 p.m pacific yeah

00:45:14.440 we're going to be back on the air okay from with mike from medicine hat yeah he's actually

00:45:19.060 traveling up today so um we look forward to that conversation i think it's going to be interesting

00:45:25.680 to see how she spins the conundrum and challenge she's got herself into um where does the prime

00:45:31.100 minister go with this he was awful quiet last night he didn't say much he had a statement today

00:45:35.660 how happy he was though but you know there wasn't i think he's just trying to move on

00:45:39.980 i think he needs to back away i will give him a little caveat he's also been dealing

00:45:45.020 um with the inquest what happened at cp rain wainwright he gave a beautiful statement as

00:45:50.780 well as peer poly of give him credit as well about what happened and um so this is sort of

00:45:56.940 weird backdrop to this referendum that this horrible tragedy and all those members of the

00:46:02.860 military are in icu still on we don't know how it's going to turn out so sad yeah very sad hey

00:46:11.180 go tigers medicine at tigers good junior hockey there oh thanks for uh ginning me up on that now

00:46:16.620 i'm going to make a couple of friends in medicine hat thanks jim beauty

True Patriot Love - October 20, 2026

Alberta Voted to Stay in Canada — So Why Is Ottawa Worried？

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