00:02:49.300And really, it started with the Western Canada Concept Party.
00:02:53.780And they're talking about Western separation because Pierre Trudeau, who got into power in 1968.
00:02:59.000And just let me remind listeners, since 1963, the Liberal Party has been in power except for two long-serving conservative prime ministers, Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney.
00:03:12.920So the liberals are to be blamed for what's really happened in Canada over the last 60 years.
00:03:19.640And it started with Pierre Trudeau when he got elected in 1968.
00:03:23.200He really wished to centralize power in Ottawa, make it a central government.
00:03:28.440Because that's the culture of, really, Quebec.
00:03:32.420And confederation is not in that manner.
00:03:36.780Confederation means we're a bunch of provinces tied together in agreements.
00:03:41.860And the power was not supposed to be in Ottawa.
00:03:45.460But the Liberal Party under Trudeau wanted to centralize it and gain as much power over provinces as possible.
00:03:54.740And if you study these statistics, no country in the world has their central bureaucracy as much as Ottawa does.
00:04:03.800Forty percent of federal bureaucracy is in Ottawa, not anywhere else in Canada.
00:04:09.040So when he introduced official bilingualism in 71, it only gave power, really, a power to a very small minority.
00:04:18.700And in my opinion, one of the most damaging policies Canada has is bilingualism.
00:04:24.760Only 16 percent of Canadians are bilingual.
00:04:28.640And outside Quebec, it's less than three percent.
00:04:31.180We spent two billion dollars a year on official bilingualism in Montreal, where the French language wasn't spoken as much and it was really English.
00:04:41.800Justin Trudeau came along and said, we need to spend more money.
00:04:44.940Well, no, the free market is telling you English is the language.
00:04:48.300So at that point, is that the first thorn in the paw?
00:04:53.020And for the movement overall, does it all seem to coincide around that same era?
00:04:58.620The movement is all, the movement is about, okay, we're contributing about 75 billion dollars in federal taxes and equalization payments to Ottawa.
00:05:14.000So we're contributing a net loss of 47 billion, 45 to 47, every single year.
00:05:22.160That's the basis on which, growing up, I had always thought, okay, Alberta wants their own thing.
00:05:28.460So when you do that for, you know, 60 years, 50, 60 years, there has to be an end result.
00:05:36.880So when this separation, Western Canada separation, started in, you know, the mid-70s, you had Gordon Kessler getting elected in 1982 in the writing of Olds Desbury, which is just north of Calgary.
00:05:48.600And then Brian Mulroney gets elected, and the movement kind of dies down a little bit because he says we need a Western diversification program, gives us a little bit of money.
00:05:59.540But nothing really changes because after, was it eight years, nine years, the Conservatives get defeated.
00:06:15.660I mean, currently, Canadians contribute 45 to 50 percent of their income to taxes, which include, you know, you include all taxes, property tax, liquor tax, smoking tax, airport tax, fuel tax.
00:07:18.980Well, how did he give veto power to Quebec?
00:07:22.060Because they changed a little bit of the law.
00:07:26.080According to the Constitution, you're supposed to have seven of the ten provinces that comprise 50 percent of the population to change any wording in the Constitution.
00:08:22.660So, supply management really introduced, it was introduced in the mid-60s, and the intent was that we need to safeguard the supply, and we need to safeguard people who are farmers in poultry, dairy, you know, those type of farming.
00:08:43.160Well, what the end result is, Canadians pay 30 percent more for dairy and poultry, more than the Americans.
00:08:52.880Well, now, any other province that needs to apply for a permit so they can produce more eggs or more milk, well, that's not going to happen because then it's all under control.
00:09:06.620Well, to me, that's socialism, and I can argue all day against socialism because, you know, being from Kenya, Africa, socialism has ruined Africa.
00:09:21.240So, the end result of supply management is to enrich farmers in Quebec and Ontario.
00:09:30.820While the net worth of- let me just read this a little bit.
00:09:36.200The net worth, I had it written down, is that the poultry farms have, if you just give me a minute, I think the poultry farms have about $4 million in net worth.
00:09:49.520And then the dairy farmers, their net worth is about $5 million.
00:10:31.060The federal government, oh, it's the most resource-rich province in Canada, and one of the most resource-rich places on earth.
00:10:40.480And then the federal government comes in, takes transfer payments, gives very little back, and then puts caps on what can be done environmentally,
00:10:50.340particularly, you know, making oil prices not attractive to the world, limiting oil output, limiting, putting ourselves in a tariff scenario.
00:11:01.340That has to be frustrating for a province that is so dependent on the price of a barrel of oil.
00:13:08.160The law says, according to the Clarity Act, you can have a referendum on independence.
00:13:14.180We are not overthrowing the government.
00:13:15.840In fact, I believe, in my opinion, Eby is treasonous because of his support by the Chinese Communist Party, not allowing our resources to be developed.
00:14:34.700We're just, our focus just is on getting signatures, getting people in the lineup, and voicing where we can sign, where people can sign the petition.
00:14:49.320And I, as a volunteer, you know, we're focused on that.
00:14:52.720We, I mean, the movement wants to get about a million signatures.
00:14:58.460So we've got till May the 2nd to get to that point.
00:15:02.300And you have to remember, we're, we're doing our signatures according to Elections Alberta, right, where Thomas Lukasik could just get signatures from wherever, get to a park.
00:15:15.260But we have certain laws we have to follow.
00:16:06.640So, if we do get the signatures after Elections Alberta verifies everything, yes, that's fine.
00:16:12.920Then, by law, a referendum has to be held, okay?
00:16:17.080And we're only wishing for one question on the referendum.
00:16:20.940And when that question is presented, people vote on it.
00:16:23.900And if it passes, okay, then it's incumbent upon the governing party of Alberta to negotiate with the federal government on how we are going to become independent.
00:16:38.760So, you know, they, they have to negotiate on the military, whether we say, okay, we'll use the RCMP for a couple of years till we get our own police.
00:16:50.120The pension fund has to be negotiated on, you know, tax agency, all of that.
00:16:56.840And let's, and suppose, let's say, after a year or two years of trying to negotiate and it gets nowhere, okay, the federal government is playing very, very difficult.
00:17:10.940Well, then, what I, my understanding is that if another foreign country recognizes us as an independent state, we can declare to be an independent country.
00:17:22.980That has happened in Kosovo, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.
00:17:28.760Well, the first two countries to recognize them were Japan and Canada, and then the UN recognized them.
00:18:46.260And, and it was just stories about how people in the early 1900s, 1920s, 1930s came to Alberta from Ontario for the Maritimes.
00:18:55.600Because, you know, growing up in Calgary, you see all these great names, like, I mean, not now, but like CFC and TV, the Calgary Brewery, you know, founders of the Stampede.
00:19:08.260It just gave you a story how they were able to settle and really what I came away was that, okay, in the early part of the 1900s, people took risk with their capital and labor to produce a product, offer a service, and they made profits.
00:19:25.520They hired more people, so Alberta really became the kingdom of free enterprise over the years.
00:19:32.900And if you examine Western cultures, Western countries, why have they progressed economically so much than other countries?
00:19:41.340It's just because we allowed free enterprise to go.
00:26:59.760Well, listen, the other opinion I think people have out there is, oh, Danielle Smith's dragging Alberta down to the, you know, is aligned with the separatist, sorry, independence movement.
00:27:33.520Why would we choose to have become another province or another state under another federal government, especially when you could have, you know, the Democratic Party with, you know, maybe Gavin Newsom has the president.
00:27:48.780So, when he's down to California, do we wish that happened to Alberta?
00:28:00.380It's very easy to say that you've become the 51st state.
00:28:03.820You know, when you, when you cannot argue logically, you cannot argue with the stats that I presented, with the policies that I presented, you are going to just throw out vile words.
00:28:14.580You're going to throw out false narrative because that's all you have.
00:28:18.180I don't think that I have any surprises in this discussion, to be honest with you, Paul, because in being here over the last year, you feel this.
00:28:28.820You feel this, at least from a portion of the population of Alberta, that this is boiling under.
00:28:45.700You know, I've been to about nine town halls during the last year, and where the independence movement has presented all these stats, and there's some horrendous stats that would make your mind boggle.
00:29:02.220Alberta lost five, you know, Canada lost $500 billion worth of investment when Justin Trudeau introduced all those policies.
00:29:09.200Okay, so the average independence supporter is looking at all this, right?
00:38:30.760I mean, I give a lot of credit to the founding fathers who sat and figured out 250 years ago, you know, can we, like the king, can we just give one person the power?
00:38:41.620You know, they knew that would be trouble.
00:38:44.520How do we divide the power of the country?
00:38:48.840I think their system is working great because there's control.
00:38:54.480And, you know, time to time, it may not be perfect.