Western Standard - Alberta Independence petition meets threshold

00:00:00.000 I'll see you next time.

00:00:30.000 winter there you go okay i got sound now thanks john uh public service announcement folks keep

00:00:49.920 your winter tires on a little bit longer um i'm like i just drove you know i live in the northwest

00:00:55.920 of calgary just drove down here and uh what is this april 2nd and counted about five or six cars

00:01:02.560 in the ditch i think a lot of people are pulling their tires off a little bit too early um and then

00:01:08.960 the other thing you know park downtown and walking through downtown it it looks like the city workers

00:01:15.360 have sort of given up on trying to remove snow or maybe more accurately maybe they ran out of

00:01:20.080 of budgets to remove snow i don't know but uh i haven't seen this much snow in a long time uh

00:01:25.900 in april even though i know april's often a good snowy month definitely nobody talking about

00:01:30.960 droughts this year actually i i remember uh i remember you know i do a lot of hiking i remember

00:01:37.180 april uh sometime during covid when kenny was still premier remember that year he instituted

00:01:42.920 a province-wide fire ban like starting on april 1st so uh i think we're uh probably pretty safe

00:01:50.040 assumption that we won't have a province-wide fire ban not for a while anyways all right um

00:01:56.120 you know every morning before i come into the studio i send john a couple of suggestions of

00:02:00.760 things i want to talk about uh i said i wanted to perhaps uh and then i told him today i said

00:02:06.760 here's the things i want to talk about you pick the topic and so right at the top of the list

00:02:10.760 you can see the one he picked there uh the petition the big news about the petition the

00:02:16.360 independence petition that came out on monday actually maybe it came out officially on

00:02:22.040 tuesday but i i knew about it on monday so you guys know i'm a canvasser and um there's like

00:02:28.120 six thousand canvassers across the province monday uh during the day we all got an email

00:02:33.960 telling us to make sure we call into a Zoom call on Monday night for a big announcement

00:02:40.980 from Mitch Sylvester directly.

00:02:43.380 I was in on a Zoom call, 54 pages of people, you know, 25 or five by five, like what's

00:02:50.200 54 times 25, I don't know, like 1,300, 1,200 people on the call.

00:02:56.200 And Mitch announced very matter-of-factly that the threshold for the Citizens Initiative

00:03:03.280 act had been met so the way it works right now there's writings across the province there's

00:03:08.800 canvassing is across is organized across the provincial writing so there's 87 writings so

00:03:14.200 there's 87 little canvassing organizations captains and whatnot and then each write each

00:03:19.620 canvasser submits their forms uh their sign their completed signature sheets back up to

00:03:24.580 a coordinator who gives it to the captain who then sends him on to mitch sylvester and um so mitch

00:03:32.340 told us that he had in his possession enough to meet the threshold and then more than that

00:03:39.080 to meet potential spoilage and and this was what uh wasn't even april 1st so he was done

00:03:44.880 he announced that uh march 28th or whatever and the reality is there's still an entire month you

00:03:51.900 know we have officially until may 2nd to collect signatures and and and i think i'm pretty sure i

00:03:58.240 know why mitch did this uh but maybe mitch can call in if he wants to tell us otherwise i haven't

00:04:02.920 seen him on a press conference since but you know there there is this injunction that is looming over

00:04:09.260 the horizon there to be heard the the six uh chiefs that filed an injunction that's going to

00:04:15.100 be heard uh i guess in edmonton on on tuesday next week on the 7th and mitch wanted to send a clear

00:04:21.280 signal to the judges to the judge and people involved in this uh um injunction that perhaps

00:04:28.880 you know you're it's a moot point we already have the necessary signature so so that was good to hear

00:04:34.880 alongside that announcement from mitch um and and i can vouch for myself like when he announced that

00:04:41.520 he had the signatures i knew that there's more to come in the next month because even my personal

00:04:46.880 you know i've been canvassing i had some in my possession i had like a whole stack of

00:04:51.360 of sheets that i hadn't even submitted and i know so so i'm guessing probably at this point there's

00:04:56.880 probably two 250 000 signatures collected and then we have another month to keep going

00:05:01.920 the other good news that was announced as part of that um you know the legislature in edmonton

00:05:07.180 has been busy and we'll talk about a few things along those lines but uh danielle smith introduced

00:05:12.540 bill 23 uh i believe that was also on monday or maybe friday last and you know bill 23 is what

00:05:20.300 we call sort of like an administrative bill it's just one of those bill that fixes problems with

00:05:25.400 other bills so bill 23 fixed about uh little issues fine-tuned for other bills but one of

00:05:32.900 the bills that fixed is the citizens initiative act and and the voting act and uh under bill 23

00:05:40.180 mitch sylvester will be allowed to have a scrutineer or more than one i don't know uh

00:05:47.160 in present when elections alberta starts counting the signatures and uh quality doing their quality

00:05:54.200 control on the signature so that was good news because i i was worried about that a lot of people

00:05:58.740 were worried about that right i mean it's it's a sad state that we are now uh lacking trust in

00:06:06.020 institutions especially one as crucial as elections alberta but that's the reality people

00:06:12.100 have lost faith in uh in in our senior bureaucrats and their ability to run fair elections and fair

00:06:18.100 processes like petitions and recalls so so danielle it was cognitive danielle smith was

00:06:23.700 cognitive of that and she's made some quick announcements adjustments by the way happy

00:06:28.500 birthday premier smith it was her birthday yesterday uh our premier our lovely premier

00:06:34.180 turned 55 yesterday and i had to go verify because you know almost every story you see on april 1st

00:06:39.940 you kind of double check because you think it might be uh a joke but no that's no joke uh

00:06:45.460 danielle smith is birthday is april 1st i imagine she's had quite a few jokes played on her um

00:06:52.580 um anyways so yeah um you know and just just staying on the uh independence movement i'll

00:06:59.860 i'll share my personal experience i am canvassing so i was on the road last week uh as uh you know

00:07:05.780 i did the presentations in uh lethbridge uh drumheller leduc red deer and one here in

00:07:13.060 calgary all well attended but that took me away from my main duty of canvassing and so i went

00:07:19.620 back to canvassing uh earlier this week and the first two days immediately after mitch announced

00:07:25.300 that i was personally a little bit worried i thought oh maybe some people will take their

00:07:29.500 foot off the gas and not go sign and quite the contrary we you know monday tuesday were nice

00:07:34.180 days and uh at my usual pop-up all of a sudden i had a nice influx of people coming to sign

00:07:39.680 and i was curious i asked them like the does the did you hear the announcements and all of them

00:07:45.060 had heard the announcement and all of them still said no i want to sign um so you know i think that

00:07:50.880 a fear that a lot of people had that once we met the threshold perhaps some people would no longer

00:07:55.840 sign or would no longer feel the need to sign but uh no that seems to be to not be the case people

00:08:02.160 are still signing uh everybody's got their reasons and and they're all generally you know very um

00:08:09.680 very broadly it all has to do with carney uh and what's going on in ottawa like he's definitely

00:08:15.040 Albertans are fed up with that um all right so what were some of the other stories oh and again

00:08:21.800 please so this we're trying to make this into not trying to I want to make this into a call-in show

00:08:26.860 this is about you so uh please feel free to call in don't be scared uh there's nothing brave about

00:08:33.300 it like I said I'm just a guy and uh call in and maybe you just got a comment maybe you got a

00:08:38.780 question it doesn't have to be on the topics that are on the I mean there's no topic on the screens

00:08:43.500 but you can call in it can be about independence you know what are the other stories that broke

00:08:49.260 this week i mean we still have the story about the gun grab we still have uh april fools we have

00:08:53.940 other bills that passed in the house of commons we got a canadian on his way to the moon so

00:08:58.160 anything you want to talk about phone numbers down there give a buzz and when you do um you know name

00:09:04.040 where you're calling from question sometimes i'll ask you to stay on the line and we'll have a little

00:09:08.300 bit of a back and forth and sometimes i'll ask you to uh you know hang up after you've made your

00:09:14.000 comment so that others can call in because right now like i said we don't have a a proper proper

00:09:18.700 switchboard where we can just take in 15 calls and have them all on wait you're calling on one

00:09:23.520 number and when that line is busy you got to keep dialing right uh actually so yeah uh man on the

00:09:31.060 moon i i don't oh okay i was going to jump on man on the moon let's go to the caller i that's my

00:09:36.000 favorite part. So go ahead. Who's on the line? Where are you calling from? Oh, hi. Good afternoon,

00:09:44.620 Marty. Good afternoon. It's Gordon calling. I've called in before and I just wanted to express

00:09:52.200 the good news that Mitch has let out. There was no doubt. I felt strongly that we were going to

00:10:00.580 get there exceed the target and we're going to move forward and I didn't do

00:10:05.980 any canvassing but today I signed up with the Centurion project I'm going to

00:10:11.820 help them out as much as I can I have no experience with that but I am going to

00:10:16.360 try excellent I'm a little familiar with the project I won't talk about it too

00:10:23.160 much today maybe I'll save that for another show but there is a zoom call on

00:10:26.200 that tonight so uh make sure you uh make sure you patch in on that zoom call to hear more details

00:10:31.580 all right uh where are you calling from gordon and you've told me before i'm calling i'm calling

00:10:38.640 from edmonton edmonton yeah and i just wanted to add too as we move forward now and as these

00:10:44.020 numbers continue to grow uh it's you know people gotta understand the role of mainstream media

00:10:51.780 it's not going to be kind to the independence movement they are going to really go have a

00:10:58.240 hit list of people we're going to go after and unfortunately marty you're probably one of them

00:11:02.620 and jeff and sylvester mitch sylvester and others like that uh there's going to be a lot of dirt

00:11:10.520 and a lot it's going to be a lot of skill degree is going to start up so albertans need to know

00:11:16.560 that this is what's going to happen.

00:11:19.640 And who knows what's going to come out of Ottawa

00:11:21.720 that wants to at least see the strength of the movement.

00:11:25.800 Yeah, well, okay.

00:11:27.120 So thanks for that, Gord, if you don't mind hanging up.

00:11:30.020 But I'll address a couple of things you mentioned

00:11:32.120 because you bring up a couple of points that are interesting.

00:11:34.780 So Gord just said he signed after he heard the message.

00:11:40.580 And that's good news.

00:11:43.000 And I'm also confident that in any event like this,

00:11:46.440 whether it's canvassing, collecting signatures, selling chocolate bars, selling tickets to an

00:11:50.720 event. You do have people that rush in at the beginning and want to be part of the early buying

00:11:57.260 and movement. Then you got the middle period that sometimes is slow. And then you get that last

00:12:01.220 rush at the end. Humans by nature like to procrastinate. And so I think that we're going

00:12:08.640 to see that. People are going to sign in the last couple of weeks. And then the other thing that

00:12:15.060 happened with uh i don't know if mitch intended to do this but the there's two other things that

00:12:19.740 i think happened after he made this announcement a you know up until now um independence was

00:12:26.620 basically the voice were all the proponents so people like myself people like mitch uh people

00:12:32.440 like cory morgan we were the ones talking about we want to separate and here's the reasons why

00:12:37.300 and the other side was being quiet so the people against us or who want to stay they've been quiet

00:12:42.920 the media has been quiet right and a lot of people were hoping that this was just a fringe

00:12:47.560 movement that would go away so by making his announcement mitch forced the other side to

00:12:53.260 finally acknowledge that something's happening and by the other side that includes the mainstream

00:12:58.620 media so the so that was one of the things that was affecting the ability to collect signatures

00:13:03.680 is that it was hard to get the message out because the message was only getting out through

00:13:07.360 private voices but now you're going to hear more talk about independence because the mainstream

00:13:12.660 media is going to start getting in on the action because it's it's now it's really news they can't

00:13:17.940 avoid it and and and then the other thing that i think is going to be interesting is um it's pretty

00:13:24.700 certain now that there will be a referendum right we met the threshold uh danielle said that if we

00:13:29.840 met the threshold she would respect the citizens initiative act and that there would be a referendum

00:13:34.180 on october 19th the only thing that could sort of hinder that right now is if is if somehow or

00:13:39.740 whether an injunction was successful or the courts stepped in or elections.

00:13:44.140 Alberta said there wasn't enough signatures or something like that.

00:13:46.740 But barring something weird, we're going to have a referendum,

00:13:50.620 which means we're almost starting to go into the campaign mode here.

00:13:54.260 And now those who want us to, those who want Alberta to stay in Confederation,

00:13:59.500 they can't be silent anymore because if they're silent,

00:14:02.060 they're running the risk that the, you know,

00:14:05.020 the leave side will dominate and get the votes necessary.

00:14:09.740 So you're going to see a more dialogue on the subject, which is what a lot of people wanted.

00:14:15.440 A lot of people just want a discussion on this. Right.

00:14:17.960 I mean, I talk about separation all the time and I got people who immediately jump into telling me why I'm wrong, but they never stop and ask, you know, why are you upset?

00:14:26.780 Why would you want to leave? So I think we're going to see a lot of dialogue.

00:14:30.460 And on that line, you know, there's already now we've already seen who the pro, who the no side is, who the stay side is.

00:14:39.540 And Jason Kenney's already sort of stepped up and, and others.

00:14:43.540 So it's going to be interesting in the coming months to see how that all

00:14:47.080 starts to play out.

00:14:48.100 I think there's going to be some interesting debates.

00:14:50.240 Kenny in particular, by the way, Kenny, I think he's pretty brave.

00:14:54.080 Kenny's going to go up against Keith Wilson here twice.

00:14:57.940 He's agreed to debate Keith Wilson in, in Edmonton and Calgary.

00:15:02.660 I can't remember which, which one goes first, but I'm going to be,

00:15:07.020 i'm going to be a betting man here and say that uh keith is going to win the first debate pretty

00:15:12.060 handily and i don't think jason kenney will stick around for a second fight but uh we'll see we'll

00:15:17.660 see what happens um so so speaking of uh so we were where was i gonna go i was gonna go uh let's

00:15:26.220 go to a fun one let's go let's go to the moon story let's go to the moon story real quick um

00:15:31.340 you know i was canvassing yesterday and i rushed home because i knew that uh artemis 2 was launching

00:15:39.180 yesterday at 4 30 and man they were almost spot on like that i think they launched at 4 36.

00:15:44.940 artemis 2 is the second artemis mission to go to the moon the first one went to the moon

00:15:51.020 uh without a crew they just sent the capsule it went around the the moon and came right back

00:15:55.980 didn't actually orbit the moon and that was about two years ago they learned a few things they

00:16:01.260 weren't too happy with the capsule design they weren't too happy with the heat shield blah blah

00:16:05.580 blah but now they they got it all fine-tuned and they were and now they launched another one but

00:16:10.700 to me i mean there's two stories there i a personally i'm an engineer and i'm fascinated

00:16:14.940 by the moon and i think it's a you know it's from an engineering point of view it's pretty cool that

00:16:19.740 humans are trying to go back to the moon but i think the bigger story for me in the last couple

00:16:24.940 of months is the complete and almost total lack of coverage of this story i bet you some of you

00:16:31.660 guys are probably almost watching right now and saying huh we're going to the moon because um

00:16:36.620 it's a big story in the us but here in canada nobody's talking about it which is and and i

00:16:41.900 think i know why there's a canadian on the spacecraft right so there's a there's a canadian

00:16:47.100 named uh jeremy hansen uh jeremy is like uh you know born in born about a decade after me maybe

00:16:55.420 he's 55 years old ex-air force guy uh cf-18 pilot probably you know uh ontario born but did some

00:17:03.020 training here and in cold lake and places like that and by all by all means a really really

00:17:08.780 intelligent man been practicing got chosen to go on this mission like almost a decade ago been

00:17:15.900 practicing non-stop and he's on the mission right so they're sending four people we haven't humanity

00:17:21.800 has not sent people to the moon not just the surface but around the moon nobody's nobody's

00:17:28.340 seen the dark side of the moon in like 50 years and we're sending it and the americans are going

00:17:33.300 and they're taking a canadian with them which makes jeremy hansen the first non-american ever

00:17:41.120 to go to the moon and nobody's talking about that because i honestly think it's about trump

00:17:47.460 derangement syndrome right this is an amazing collaboration between canada and the united

00:17:52.160 states and the media doesn't want to talk about it because it doesn't fit the narrative they're

00:17:56.440 trying to remember they're constantly trying to portray trump as evil but here's here's the

00:18:01.220 americans doing something absolutely wonderful john did we have a caller and they they left or

00:18:05.980 they back on. Hi there. Hey, Marty. My name is Rob. I'm calling you from Dog Pound. First

00:18:19.860 of all, thanks very much to you and everyone else that's volunteering their time and the

00:18:24.440 independence movement. It's really appreciated. Thank you. I want to take you back to the

00:18:31.660 LNG ship that showed up in Eastern Canada, liquefying natural gas, for those of the listeners

00:18:38.660 that don't know what LNG is. So a couple of things, you know, the average folk may not

00:18:47.480 know that you need to reduce that gaseous material down to 161 degrees centigrade to

00:18:55.620 liquefy it. So there's a cost involved in that. And then, you know, you've got to put

00:19:00.260 on the ship and the ship's got a certain fuel to get here you know whether it came around the horn

00:19:05.460 or to the panama canal i don't know it doesn't matter it's too far and it's just it's absolutely

00:19:13.140 nonsensical that this country would even think about importing lng when we should be

00:19:20.180 the exporter back to your enterprise that was trying to sell canadian natural gas

00:19:27.060 You can look by state to Germany, that's another story I guess.

00:19:33.380 My question is, and again, I only know this because I was in the industry like you, LNG

00:19:41.600 is required to be re-gassed or requires re-gast the patient equipment, and I don't think I

00:19:47.500 heard you talking that not only did we sail a ship halfway around the world, but it doesn't

00:19:55.900 get here and then just automatically feed that gas into a system that has to be regasified so

00:20:01.880 my question is is that a portable regasification unit is permanent in either case again like it

00:20:09.720 didn't just magically yeah yeah no up and all of a sudden yeah yeah great like who owns it yeah

00:20:15.260 yeah great question rob um yeah so yeah of course back to the original statement we we we should be

00:20:23.260 we should be an exporter of lng i agree so we should be exporting it on the east coast

00:20:27.340 and on the west coast uh i i guess carney did approve one of the major projects will be a

00:20:33.420 west coast lng uh facility but but even if we aren't in exporting um it's ridiculous that

00:20:41.900 we're importing and especially when we have so much natural gas so the people in new brunswick

00:20:46.220 should be using uh canadian natural gas and like i said in an earlier show there is a path to get

00:20:52.300 canadian natural gas all the way to nova scotia new brunswick and places like that quebec so uh

00:20:58.460 it's political willingness we we can do it to the technical answer uh i worked on an lng facility

00:21:05.340 and if we if i was going to do it again today they'd be it'd be much more small and they would

00:21:10.460 be on a boat i mean i think uh that's to you know the the the regasification facility uh they're

00:21:17.420 they're portable now they're on boats and i think there are even boats that have it built in you

00:21:21.580 you know, they do both storage and transport. So but but good question. But I also know that there

00:21:26.920 are some regasification facilities in Quebec and places like that. So yeah, it's still

00:21:33.340 absolutely a travesty that that that we're missing out on on that market right now,

00:21:40.460 especially when we're seeing what's going on in Iran and places like that. And Rob brings up a

00:21:47.380 great point uh lng has to be i think he said minus 162 like you have to really chill it so that it

00:21:56.120 becomes liquid and and the reason you want to do that you you can get a gas liquid in two ways

00:22:01.520 either you increase the pressure and squeeze it and then it stays liquid or you chill it and it

00:22:07.100 will become liquid um so the the the technology these days is to chill it to extreme temperatures

00:22:13.420 some of the boats that are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz right now with liquefied natural gas

00:22:19.280 or helium apparently helium like all these things that are becoming critical right so we talked

00:22:23.720 about it last week petroleum how many countries are starting like there's a time there's a clock

00:22:30.140 now ticking there's a half a dozen countries that are going to run out of gasoline in a couple of

00:22:34.880 weeks in the next couple of weeks helium is becoming in short supply because I guess Qatar

00:22:40.040 makes a lot of helium actually that's another draw uh advantage of uh liquefying our own gas

00:22:44.840 when you liquefy huge quantities of natural gas in the process you liquefy things like carbon

00:22:50.840 dioxide and helium and so we could have created a market for helium with our with with our own lng

00:22:56.680 but uh yeah there's there's uh tankers full of this stuff all over the gulf right now and i

00:23:01.400 guess they're going to have to start venting that stuff because uh if if uh if a big storage tank

00:23:06.040 full helium starts filling up, you know where that's going to go.

00:23:10.800 So back to… are you still there, Rob?

00:23:14.280 Yeah, sorry, I'll just ask you this clarifying question, Marty, then I'll hang up so

00:23:21.740 I don't take over the whole call here.

00:23:25.040 But I guess it's one thing for the ship to show up, but the actual fact that somebody

00:23:32.160 in this government has planned ahead to have regasification equipment

00:23:38.720 and then buy or maybe they floated it over with

00:23:41.600 with the lng ship i don't know but my point is

00:23:45.280 this is how philly this country has become when we

00:23:50.560 spend money not just to get it here but to actually

00:23:55.680 have the equipment available to be able to consume the product that we already

00:23:59.600 have under our own feet right including internet so anyway with that i'll hang up thanks very much

00:24:04.800 yeah yeah 100 no no it's uh silliness all around but then our governments keep doing silly things

00:24:10.160 and you know you yeah i'm not gonna go there uh so i i guess i was finishing then the story on

00:24:18.400 the astronauts so that that was my theory is that um this is an amazing story we amazing collaboration

00:24:25.280 between our two nations and the poor canadian astronaut you know jeremy uh hansen is has been

00:24:32.360 preparing this for well basically his whole life i'm sure he's probably one of those guys who

00:24:36.320 dreamed of being an astronaut when he was a kid actually he would have been one of those guys

00:24:40.220 because uh he was born after the last man went to the moon so i'm guessing that's part of his uh

00:24:46.440 persona but he's getting unfortunately almost no attention just because orange man is bad and we

00:24:52.540 can't give uh you know we can't we can't set aside our differences even for a couple of days

00:24:57.400 we should have been this should have been a monumental moment probably didn't help that

00:25:01.880 they launched on april fool's day i talked about this yesterday with somebody else and they thought

00:25:05.860 they actually thought it was an april fool's joke that the the the launching of the rocket was an

00:25:10.420 april fool's joke um yeah what a what a what a sad day when when that kind of thing happens

00:25:17.400 Actually, speaking of April Fool, hopefully none of you got caught by too many jokes.

00:25:25.880 I saw a couple of stories yesterday that I thought – I got caught by one.

00:25:29.820 I saw a couple of stories that I thought were real.

00:25:32.440 The one that I thought was real was that this hour's 22 minutes by the CBC was being canceled.

00:25:39.640 But again, you know, that's not really an April Fool's joke when it's that close to being reality.

00:25:45.080 i mean i i've watched this hour i remember watching this hour is 22 minutes it wasn't the

00:25:49.960 funniest thing but they were a little bit they were okay they were relevant at a time past but

00:25:54.360 these days are completely irrelevant and so when i read the story that i thought they were being

00:25:58.520 canceled i honestly thought that was a real story i had no idea it was just an april fool's joke

00:26:04.200 did i see again john a flash on the screen we got a caller or somebody left okay no worries um but

00:26:10.280 speaking of so yesterday was april 1st and uh apart from the april fools jokes there were some real

00:26:16.840 news stories that uh that affect all of us right so yesterday here in alberta it was a deadline

00:26:24.760 for that mou so that mou between danielle smith and mark carney that was signed just before the

00:26:31.640 agm there back in october 2025 they had an mou that they were gonna you know work on pipelines

00:26:37.480 and work on uh in exchange for alberta negotiating a change to the carbon the industrial carbon tax

00:26:44.040 and a few other things well that date came and went and gone uh i i i don't think we're going

00:26:50.440 to see a pipeline anytime soon i don't think carney's going to commit to anything significant

00:26:55.560 to alberta not with this uh not until he has his by-elections in a couple of weeks and not until

00:27:02.840 keep seeing where this referendum is going so that passed yesterday the mou um you know let

00:27:10.080 me know your thoughts on the mou do you guys think we will ever get a that carny serious about uh you

00:27:15.640 know promoting pipelines as part of the infrastructure projects the other thing that

00:27:20.080 happened yesterday um alcohol taxes went up for everyone about uh you know not a huge amount

00:27:28.060 minimum wage for industries affected no sorry minimum wage for industries regulated by the

00:27:34.300 federal government went up i mean i don't know anybody who works in an industry regulated by

00:27:39.380 the federal government who makes minimum wage right what are those industries telecommunications

00:27:43.840 banking the airline industry um you know i i don't see that being a big one and um but perhaps

00:27:51.560 the most offensive thing about April 1st yesterday was that the MPs and senators and

00:27:58.680 judges and all those people gave themselves a big raise. And, you know, they gave themselves

00:28:04.380 Carney's, Carney got an extra $14,000 a year and the average MP got like an extra $8,000 a year.

00:28:13.140 And there, and again, you know, their raises are automatic and indexed inflation and things like

00:28:20.000 that. So politicians and senior politicians, federal politicians in this country have no

00:28:24.340 incentive for keeping inflation down under control because they don't care. They get a raise and you

00:28:30.140 pay for it regardless of their performance. So I thought that was, you know, that's one of the

00:28:35.300 lousy things about April 1st. And it's almost a sick joke that they use April 1st as the date

00:28:42.000 to um to to to pass those races um okay let's go we got another one uh caller on the line

00:28:50.960 please go ahead name where you're calling from uh yes my name is jerry and i'm calling from calvary

00:28:58.000 hey jerry what's on your mind how are you good good um yeah the petition um i know we've already

00:29:08.640 got the numbers already but you know a lot of things a lot of times when i'm speaking to a lot

00:29:14.160 of my friends and just co-workers and stuff you know a lot of them aren't seeing any positive

00:29:19.600 stuff about the referendum like most of them don't even know what's about to happen

00:29:24.480 it's like is there any way you could probably put a positive ad on mainstream media in order

00:29:30.640 to get more of the information out there um yeah good point um yes i think let me uh let me explain

00:29:42.000 it the way i i i see it unfortunately in this province and across the country um there's so

00:29:48.640 many rules around advertising and raising money during elections right and and so and yeah and

00:29:56.480 at this point the petition is basically a private effort right so it was a group called the alberta

00:30:02.400 prosperity project pretty much on their own dime going around volunteering and getting the word out

00:30:08.720 now ultimately once they triggered once they triggered the petition they were allowed to

00:30:12.480 start advertising and spending but their budget's only 500 000 that's the limit so um yeah yeah so

00:30:19.280 they're they're they're spending their money by going and doing speaking events and and they're

00:30:24.560 being frugal with their money let's put it that way um but i think i think you and i are kind of

00:30:30.080 on the same page right okay they've they've been frugal now they're gonna have to for the referendum

00:30:34.960 they're gonna have to start spending a little bit more and and let's also be realistic like um

00:30:42.000 they're we're not gonna get cheap ads on ctv or cbc right like that they're literally gonna block

00:30:48.240 us they're not gonna they're not gonna allow us to average so no you bring up a good point and

00:30:52.560 it's a challenge um keep doing what you're doing right talk to friends nothing beats that

00:30:57.360 yeah no it's just that like the fed that you know and like the last 30 days alone

00:31:04.460 i think i've spoken to maybe a dozen people i think one or maybe two of them actually have

00:31:10.380 been listening to what's going on the rest are not catching it they're too busy with their lives

00:31:15.140 the kids and everything else going on but you know the two minutes they get to sit down in

00:31:21.140 front of anything informational it's usually you know ctv cdc whatever all the guards ones

00:31:28.080 you're watching so yeah it'd be nice if we got a message out there a positive public message of

00:31:34.740 course yeah we're going to keep trying i mean i say we i use the royal we i'm not a you know i'm

00:31:40.120 not a leader in that in the movement i have a strong voice but i'm not the guy who decides how

00:31:44.720 to spend the money but i um you know like i said the the announcement yesterday i i watched the

00:31:50.680 news curiously i watched the news and i saw you know ctv had to speak about it a little bit and

00:31:54.760 global did so there's a little bit more voice but i'll also say this um there were a lot of people

00:32:00.340 scared to sign the petition in the first month and a half you know it's it's sad that people are

00:32:06.440 fearful of their own government they're fearful of the perception of their friends so people were

00:32:11.400 hesitant i can tell you my again my observation in the last two days uh i told you a lot more

00:32:17.680 people suddenly came out to sign and i even uh i even put it out on x on on my own platform you

00:32:25.060 know i i asked people like did you sign and people commented more than i expected people

00:32:30.560 suddenly came out and said yes i signed so um yeah yeah no great question uh what do you think

00:32:37.960 of all the snow around town am i am i imagining things or did the city give up on trying to remove

00:32:42.440 the snow no i think they just blew through the budget the first month and now they're just

00:32:48.820 probably getting the last guy who's still on the payroll to go out and do the road yeah yeah

00:32:54.200 yeah thanks for that rob okay cheers yeah you know uh i was joking at the beginning of the show

00:32:59.960 leave your snow tires on i have a feeling some of the city uh crews probably took the sanding

00:33:04.400 equipment off the back of the trucks and started parking the plows and yeah yeah excellent okay

00:33:09.960 thanks for calling yeah oh i appreciate it you're welcome yeah yeah um yeah that was uh

00:33:19.960 uh interesting um okay well i'll uh i guess i'll just keep going down my my list i i know

00:33:27.640 you know the the top three topics that i had suggested actually i i just realized i was

00:33:33.960 talking about danielle and i was talking about uh bill 23. i want to continue along those lines

00:33:39.400 danielle smith introduced this week two really really interesting bills and i think uh and i

00:33:45.000 and i'm i'm really happy with them and that's bill 25 and bill 26. now bill 25 i i'm sure you guys

00:33:52.360 had more of a chance to uh hear about that one that one came out two days ago i can't remember

00:33:58.200 john can you find a title somewhere or a new story on bill 25 it's broadly labeled as a an act to uh

00:34:05.400 to reform education or take politics out of the schools or something like

00:34:10.180 that. It's got an interesting title. I know Corey's talked about it a lot,

00:34:14.840 but I, but I also, I, I want to talk about it a little bit and take,

00:34:18.520 and give you my spin on it. What's it called?

00:34:22.240 An act to remove politics and ideology from classrooms and amend the education

00:34:26.060 act. So, you know, pretty black and white.

00:34:28.080 It tells you exactly what it wants to do.

00:34:29.860 There's a lot of people here in Alberta. I heard this, this kind of message.

00:34:33.520 I think actually I think this is a direct result of the AGM this this is a topic that was talked

00:34:40.220 about at the annual general meeting of the UCP back in October November people are getting are

00:34:47.340 upset about education in this province you know teachers going on strike some of the some of the

00:34:55.000 ideology that's being taught and the level of of critical thinking that the kids lack when they

00:35:00.440 come out of school and so danielle is addressing a few of those things and and here's here's my

00:35:06.660 take on it you know she's been elected one she one of the things that she was elected on that

00:35:12.440 she promised to do was to try and bring the budget under control right there i that's one of the

00:35:17.620 things i'm really upset about i think i think the government spending in this province is outpacing

00:35:22.620 population growth and inflation and and i think danielle went in there well intentioned but

00:35:27.820 realize that the two big unions the teachers union and and the health side which are the two

00:35:32.720 biggest portfolios right like i don't know between between education and health care that's probably

00:35:37.600 60 to 70 percent of alberta's budget right there so and that's where you'll make the big gains

00:35:43.120 right if you're trying to cut costs you don't try and cut costs in the smallest little departments

00:35:47.340 you go to you go to health and you go to education and that's where you cut costs if you got 10 of

00:35:53.740 the health budget and by the way and by cutting doesn't necessarily mean reducing service like i

00:35:58.540 think you can reduce the spend and keep the efficiency at the same level and not affect

00:36:03.340 the service delivery and and so she's having a hard time getting the government size under control

00:36:10.860 and she has to tackle the unions and i think she picked the right one so she's tacked to me

00:36:15.660 she's she's kind of going after the teachers union first which is perhaps a smaller union

00:36:21.020 and i'd say it's the more vulnerable union right the that union tried to hold the country the

00:36:26.300 province hostage last year by holding that strike and danielle uh regulated them back to work but

00:36:33.180 also they were unsuccessful people were upset with the teachers trying to hold us hostage

00:36:38.700 and so their bargaining power is limited their bargaining power of the teachers also diminished

00:36:45.180 considerably during covid when when we sent all the kids home during covid and they started

00:36:51.500 learning from school i thought that that was showcasing what's possible that ai can replace

00:36:56.860 people that online learning that zoom calls can replace the classroom and teachers so you know

00:37:03.100 that's a double-edged sword so teachers i think are kind of vulnerable so danielle's going after

00:37:08.060 them first and and she'll kind of bring them under control and maybe send a message to the

00:37:15.740 healthcare unions but i also think it's a win-win two birds with one stone by going after the

00:37:21.900 teachers union because there is a real problem which is they are i feel this honestly some of

00:37:27.900 the teachers in some of our schools are indoctrinating the kids i've talked to teachers

00:37:32.220 i've talked to too many teachers who are at their wits end and self-censoring in their classrooms

00:37:36.540 because they don't fit the they they're they're not wanting to teach the ideology and so um so i

00:37:44.060 think it's important that we bring this under control so the act addresses that directly right

00:37:49.820 that that under this new act teachers are to keep their political and and whatever ideology out of

00:37:56.780 the classroom and stick to the curriculum and and and the curriculum is meant to create young adults

00:38:04.780 ultimately who are capable of critical thinking and so um and if you're a teacher who's opposed

00:38:10.800 to this act that kind of tells me that the reason you're opposed to it is because you're pushing

00:38:15.080 your ideology because if you're not pushing your ideology and you're simply teaching the curriculum

00:38:19.380 there's nothing in this act that will upset you but there's already a lot of teachers that are

00:38:23.900 upset about it i mean and the act brings up a few other things you know bringing back the national

00:38:29.200 anthem in the class and one another important one is like getting rid of of of non-approved

00:38:35.420 symbols right you can't like the pride flags in the classroom they're they're going to be gone

00:38:39.620 if once this act passes right the only flags that should be in a classroom is is the alberta flag

00:38:44.520 the canadian flag maybe the city flag and if you know and and depending on a few events the the

00:38:51.020 metis nation or uh things like that but you know do we do we fly the the the pride flag or the

00:38:57.240 Palestinian flag i mean you can have the Palestinian flag if it's part of a of a teaching curriculum on

00:39:03.060 on geopolitics but not to be hanging up there as a political statement definitely no black lives

00:39:09.280 matter flags or stuff like that so so but but the other part of that like i said it's two birds with

00:39:14.640 one stone it's bringing the unions under control it's stopping in the indoctrination but the

00:39:21.140 important thing about stopping the indoctrination is that you're also preparing uh future voters

00:39:25.860 because that's one of the problems we're facing right now as you know it's um um the schools are

00:39:33.140 indoctrinating future people and that are literally turning against the province so

00:39:40.500 i thought that i thought that was i'm happy to see danielle going down this path with that

00:39:46.420 um it was voted on very um by the um um by the membership at the ucp and and and then the other

00:39:56.740 bill that came out yesterday and i haven't i haven't had a chance to really go into this one

00:40:01.300 because this one is really really hot off the press but that's bill number 26 which again built

00:40:06.980 and bill 26 now uh immigration oversight is one uh it's kind of um again it came out at the agm

00:40:16.180 these were things that the membership wanted right at the agm she got an earful from people

00:40:22.340 saying that immigration was out of control and and and by the way immigration is a federal mandate

00:40:26.980 so somebody comes ottawa decides who comes in and out of the country so ottawa decides but but the

00:40:32.660 reality is once they're in and let's say they land in toronto or they land in montreal or vancouver

00:40:37.540 even in calgary once an immigrant lands in the country they're free to go wherever they want

00:40:43.220 and a lot of them are choosing to come to alberta so that so we don't choose who gets to come into

00:40:48.900 the country and then they come into the country and then they overwhelmed us and they seriously

00:40:52.900 overwhelmed us in the last couple years right we grew our population by about four percent which

00:40:57.380 is a completely unsustainable level uh it stressed our schools it stressed our hospitals

00:41:03.540 our other infrastructure our housing and all sorts of things like that and danielle was told clearly

00:41:09.060 to start addressing that and and and that's what this act does so and as an example in this act

00:41:16.980 there's something in there that says um if a if an alberta business wants to take advantage of

00:41:24.020 of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and potentially hire – I could get into so much there.

00:41:31.700 But if somebody wants to take advantage of that, they have to register and get permission from Alberta to do it.

00:41:38.180 That's just an example, right?

00:41:39.520 And there's a couple of other examples like that.

00:41:41.640 So Danielle is going to use every tool at her disposal to take control of immigration even though it's not her total purview.

00:41:52.000 Go ahead, caller.

00:41:53.240 Where are you calling from and what's on your mind?

00:41:57.960 Good morning.

00:41:58.940 I'm calling from Battle River Crowfoot.

00:42:01.500 My name is Sylvie.

00:42:03.540 The famous Battle River Crowfoot, home of the Poiliev by-election that cost $2.3 million.

00:42:11.260 I'll talk about that, but what's on your mind, Sylvie?

00:42:14.040 Okay, my mind is Bill 25.

00:42:16.340 I was fortunate enough to be a child of the military who spent a decade in Germany, in what was West Germany at the time.

00:42:26.780 So I learned from old fascists, reformed fascists.

00:42:31.120 I learned from Hitler youth.

00:42:33.500 Then I went over on the USSR side and I learned all about communism and I saw the wall fall.

00:42:38.660 The problem is, is the teachers for the last 30 years have been pushing communism good, socialism great.

00:42:47.080 What we've done is bad.

00:42:49.980 We can't have this capitalism.

00:42:53.580 It brainwashed a whole youth.

00:42:56.960 Sorry, did you say you're a teacher yourself or no?

00:43:01.520 No, no.

00:43:02.200 I wasn't a teacher.

00:43:04.100 i said what the teachers have done i pulled my children's early 2000s from the school good yeah

00:43:12.020 yeah actually that'd be an interesting statistic i wonder if uh albert i i kind of have a sneaking

00:43:17.060 suspicion that albertans uh more more kids in alberta are homeschooled per capita than probably

00:43:22.740 any other province it seems to be is that what you did you homeschooled a hundred percent yeah

00:43:29.220 yeah okay no um yeah i agree you know an interesting perspective that you bring it up

00:43:38.340 so so you experienced it in germany now how come you didn't succumb to it because i well like i

00:43:46.500 said i experienced i talked to so many people i went to all the battlefields i went to the camps

00:43:52.020 i walked through the showers i was in berlin when the wall fell i was actually over in the ussr

00:43:59.140 poland yugoslavia all those areas before and after the wall fell so that was my moment as a team

00:44:08.820 okay so as firsthand you saw the negative devastating impacts of people who promote

00:44:15.060 socialism and communism that's yeah that's powerful that's powerful and what do you say

00:44:21.140 to somebody like i i mean i'm amazed that people still like you know i haven't even talked about

00:44:26.740 the ndp convention this weekend like the ndp convention was basically socialism gone bonkers

00:44:32.500 but what do you say to people who you know one of the arguments you always hear is like well nobody's

00:44:37.300 done it properly you ever heard that argument that it's never been tried and done properly

00:44:43.700 like what do you say to avi lewis who wants to try it again i have heard that um over and over

00:44:52.820 and over again and i give them the last hundred years venezuela cuba north korea ussr japan was

00:45:02.420 even in vietnam is still actually a communist country but there they've got lots of capitalism

00:45:08.980 in it right you know but really it hasn't been done right because you look at over a hundred

00:45:15.220 million people that have died right yeah and then the other yeah and then those countries you

00:45:21.460 mentioned those are countries people are trying to escape nobody ever tries to escape uh you know

00:45:27.220 nobody tries to escape norway nobody tries to escape uh you know the usa but people try to

00:45:32.980 escape those countries thanks for the call that's uh yeah yeah great feedback thank you so much um

00:45:39.220 yeah have a great day uh i i didn't want to talk about uh i didn't want to talk about the ndp

00:45:44.820 convention too much because i think it was you know it's been talked a lot about but let me just

00:45:49.700 mentioned this because that there is a context there is an alberta context first of all if if

00:45:56.180 if you had if a person had never seen or heard of avi lewis and had never seen the ndp and just saw

00:46:01.860 the convention this weekend you would have you would have sworn that it was comedy there's no

00:46:06.420 way it could be real right the the the the ideas that avi lewis has and then watching the comedy

00:46:12.580 of like uh equity cards at the ndp have you shown clips on that john i don't we don't need to show

00:46:18.100 clips on that right maybe maybe show a picture of somebody holding an equity card i mean uh like the

00:46:23.700 ndp that's how uh you know that that's one of their weird ideas is that they they you the the

00:46:31.540 reality of humanity is that we're not all equal okay some of us have different talents some of

00:46:37.060 us have different skills some of us you know some of us can are early morning risers some of us are

00:46:42.580 late evening workers whatever and so we all have different skills different mindsets different

00:46:48.180 talents and this whole idea that you can make us equal almost always fails and so then the ndp

00:46:54.900 their idea for this was they they call it these equity cards right you could walk up to the mic

00:46:59.940 and and rather than wait in line uh to make sure that somebody who who had less equity than

00:47:07.300 somebody else meaning wasn't blessed with the same skills or talents that you got a card and

00:47:13.300 allow anyways it was a i don't want to get into too much of that but i do want to get into this

00:47:18.660 bit um the election of avi lewis causes an interesting problem for naheed nenshi in this

00:47:25.860 province right because the fed the the ndp party across the country is one where there is a parent

00:47:32.740 child relationships so this so the federal ndp does have uh implement policies that that the

00:47:39.860 provincial ndp kind of have to follow and naheed nenshi right here right now he's in he's battling

00:47:46.900 for his political life he's losing popularity you know he's up against smith smith is hugely popular

00:47:53.380 doing things like bill 25 26 and others doing great work and then she's trying to stay relevant

00:47:59.060 and then we've seen nenshi in the last couple of weeks try to move you know try to appear more

00:48:04.260 common sense saying i'm a little i'm okay with pipelines i'm okay with this and then boom he has

00:48:09.860 a new boss right for all intents purposes avi lewis is his new boss and his new boss says he's

00:48:14.660 totally against pipelines he's totally against hydrocarbons he wants to nationalize grocery

00:48:20.500 stores and things like that so it's going to be interesting to watch nenshi danielle's own words

00:48:26.180 was uh you know square that uh hole like he's he's got a uh you got a picture yeah you know they

00:48:34.340 that's that's nenshi's new boss and and by the way and nenshi's pretty savvy politically avi lewis

00:48:41.140 has never been a politician in his entire life he comes from he's he is sort of political royalty

00:48:47.700 his father was uh stephen lewis who by the way passed away i think yesterday and uh you know

00:48:53.540 His father was an Ontario MP, had been ambassador to the UN and things like that.

00:49:00.720 And so Avi is going to have a hard time navigating the political landscape, doesn't have a seat.

00:49:05.680 I'll come back to that.

00:49:06.500 I see I got a call.

00:49:07.220 I don't like to make the callers wait too long.

00:49:08.840 Go ahead, caller.

00:49:09.380 Where are you from and what's on your mind?

00:49:13.200 Hello, yeah, it's Timothy calling here from Edmonton.

00:49:15.880 How's it going?

00:49:16.440 Good, Timothy.

00:49:17.000 How are you?

00:49:18.880 Oh, not bad, yeah.

00:49:19.900 But yeah, I guess touching on the NDP there, it was pretty ironic to see there, after doing

00:49:26.260 all the efforts that they did in order to discriminate basically against men within

00:49:30.420 the convention there, they still ended up, and they also chanted, I believe it was, they

00:49:35.360 chanted at one point, eat the rich, but they still ended up electing a multi-millionaire

00:49:39.580 white guy as the only chair of their party.

00:49:42.640 It's pretty ironic.

00:49:43.680 who became probably richer after his father passed away yesterday not not not wishing that

00:49:50.140 on anyone losing a parent is uh is always a terrible thing but yeah yeah i know what you're

00:49:54.400 saying so yes that's true so um but go ahead oh yeah oh the reason i was calling though mainly

00:50:01.780 was to touch on uh what you talked about with the previous caller earlier just regarding getting the

00:50:07.260 word out about the petition and such.

00:50:10.440 Yeah, up here in Edmonton, I'm obviously paying attention to the Western standards

00:50:15.240 and the news that's going on and such, and quite up to speed on it.

00:50:18.820 But my wife, who's less politically involved, commented that she was like,

00:50:23.860 if it wasn't for you, she said, I wouldn't even know that this petition was going on,

00:50:28.360 which I thought was quite something to say.

00:50:31.840 For you referring to you or referring to me?

00:50:34.900 Yes. No, to myself.

00:50:36.700 So if it wasn't for connection to politics through me, she would have no idea, like, with no advertising going on. Yeah, in some of the bigger cities, and probably especially Edmonton, obviously, because it's a left wing stronghold. It is tough to get the word out, just the average person on the street. And I guess that's a question for you. I don't know, do you think after the petition period, things will kick up more in earnest in terms of advertising and getting word out?

00:51:06.700 you know with third party advertisers and stuff like that because it seems like so far the state

00:51:12.840 free alberta petition campaign has only been doing town halls and these pop-up events and that's

00:51:19.080 about it but there's been no actual advertising on billboards or the news well well stay on the line

00:51:24.660 stay on the line but you know what about this right it could be a double-edged sword right so

00:51:29.240 okay so there's a referendum the referendum is not coincident with any other election so literally

00:51:34.980 it's a standalone referendum so we're gonna there's gonna be a uh people are gonna be asked

00:51:39.860 to go vote on october 19th so there won't be so it's not even a political campaign it won't be a

00:51:45.140 lot of advertising so what if maybe this is a strategy maybe the only people who should promote

00:51:50.420 it are the separatists among people that are already sold on the idea and then just get them

00:51:57.220 out right like if only if only separatists come out um you know what i'm you know you see where

00:52:02.500 i'm going so um that could be a strategy but i also but but at the same time i do think the other

00:52:08.980 side will have to will will catch on to that and they'll get worried and so they'll try and mobilize

00:52:14.180 the stay group and that's where i think it's going to be interesting because like i said at the

00:52:19.460 beginning of the show what are they going to how are they going to sell it right like they'll you

00:52:24.020 know there's a referendum to leave how do they convince people to stay is it just they're just

00:52:28.660 hoping that the people are happy with status quo and will come out and vote on it like i don't know

00:52:32.580 what's your thoughts on that yeah well yeah i mean i think we've seen all that they have to provide

00:52:38.180 so far based on even jason kenny's uh last debate with first party there where i mean what did he

00:52:44.580 offer he didn't offer anything positive any positive vision for alfredo within canada right

00:52:49.700 basically his entire argument was fear-mongering about you know what all could potentially go wrong

00:52:55.140 you know the effort that it's going to take to create new agencies to cover what the federal

00:52:59.380 government has been doing um and outdated nostalgia for a candidate that's long past

00:53:05.540 essentially yeah um but it wasn't a positive vision at all and so i think that's going to

00:53:10.740 become even more clear once he has this debate with keith wilson because keith wilson is very

00:53:16.180 good at at pointing out the the gaps within the federal arguments yeah yeah yeah and the positive

00:53:22.900 vision that alberta presents as an independent country yeah i'll have yeah no great question

00:53:27.940 i'll have to think about that right in a couple in the coming weeks like do we need to really

00:53:32.100 advertise it hard or do we sort of keep it under the radar and then suddenly because i know there's

00:53:36.980 groups there are people like that like we know who the can we we canvass we know there are people

00:53:41.940 well interested in this like and i think we're going to keep focusing on that group which is

00:53:45.940 basically which is why we want to get the 500 000 signatures if we get 500 000 signatures we

00:53:51.460 basically have 500 000 people voting and what if only a million people come out to vote or 900 000

00:53:57.220 right that's that's not out of the possible because uh you know don't quote me exactly but

00:54:01.940 you know there's three million electors and uh if there's three million electors and only 30

00:54:07.140 decide to come out because it's october 19th too close to halloween and they're busy only a million

00:54:11.940 people come out well to win the referendum we need 600 000. like i i i yep you know

00:54:17.860 Well, even if you consider it in the last election, there was only 1.7 million that

00:54:23.540 voted in the last provincial election, and out of that, I mean, it was 930,000 I think

00:54:30.680 that voted for the UCP, which determined the provincial government.

00:54:35.760 So if the same number came out as last time, we would need 930,000 votes, but yeah, if

00:54:42.920 the number that comes out is even smaller, potentially, yeah, we might not even need

00:54:46.740 as many.

00:54:47.740 to say though because in previous referendums you know if you look at quebec for example the

00:54:52.940 turnout was extremely high but that was making major waves across the entire country and there

00:54:58.780 was huge campaigns going on literally everyone was talking about it yeah plus they had something that

00:55:03.420 we don't have which was the the proponent was the party itself right like they elected a separatist

00:55:09.420 party can you imagine if uh yeah if if the ucp was pro-independence boy we'd have a pretty strong

00:55:15.500 voice right so no it's gonna be yeah it's gonna be yeah it's gonna be interesting and then let's

00:55:20.220 not forget i mean i i wanted to talk about it i i think carney is still the wild card in this he

00:55:25.100 could do he can keep pushing people over the over to the separatist side by i i think if he cheats

00:55:31.580 in the coming weeks and wins these three by elections and does uh something silly like pro

00:55:36.700 rogue parliament afterwards um he's going to push more people onto our side i mean that's honestly

00:55:42.780 he's been our best advertising so far has been carny yeah oh yeah everything that he's been

00:55:47.980 doing has been drawing more people towards the independence i think like even this 90 billion

00:55:52.780 high speed rail transit link in the east yeah which is going to be of no benefit to us out

00:55:57.740 here but every canadian taxpayer is going to be shelling out four thousand dollars in order to

00:56:02.700 fund it yeah that's just another case for alberta independence out here like we want our tax dollars

00:56:08.940 to be spent here to actually benefit things that we can use.

00:56:12.940 I mean, how many people in Alberta go to Ottawa regularly or at all?

00:56:17.780 Yeah, it's going to be zero.

00:56:18.640 Pretty much the only time that people go to Ottawa is, you know,

00:56:21.800 for a field trip maybe in school and that's about it.

00:56:24.400 So all this money being spent out there isn't benefiting us at all.

00:56:27.640 Yeah, yeah, and just stay on the air for a second,

00:56:29.620 but I wanted to tweet about this this week and I haven't had a chance to,

00:56:33.180 but anybody, go look up Lakmigantzik, right?

00:56:37.940 So Lac-Mégantic was a rail disaster that occurred in Quebec about 12 years ago,

00:56:43.300 and the government's been trying to build just a bypass, a 12.5-kilometer rail bypass around

00:56:49.060 Lac-Mégantic, and they haven't done it yet. It's been 12 years. The website exists.

00:56:53.860 And they've spent almost a billion dollars doing it. So if the government can't build 12

00:56:57.540 kilometers of rail, how are they going to build a high-speed rail? My God.

00:57:02.420 In the meantime, too, it was also just in the news this week that it was reported in

00:57:10.140 the National Post that the Liberals have $200 billion that they've advocated towards saving

00:57:15.620 the climate, towards their various climate initiatives.

00:57:19.920 And our emissions have barely been impacted at all across Canada.

00:57:24.320 And meanwhile, the rest of the world doesn't care at all about it.

00:57:27.360 Carbon taxes have been removed at various countries around the world.

00:57:30.920 Europe is desperate for energy.

00:57:32.500 They're trying to reverse some of their previous disastrous policies.

00:57:36.260 And meanwhile, Canada is just doggedly hanging on to this idiocy.

00:57:41.260 Again, another reason why Alberta should be independent.

00:57:44.040 Then we could make our own decisions regarding this.

00:57:46.000 We could allocate billions of dollars towards hospitals, for example,

00:57:49.720 instead of failed attempts at changing the climate,

00:57:52.640 which we can't really impact significantly anyway.

00:57:55.780 Awesome.

00:57:56.580 Listen, appreciate the call.

00:57:59.060 Yeah, call next week.

00:58:00.080 tell your friends to come watch the show but appreciate it thanks bud um okay yeah have a

00:58:05.240 great day this is this is awesome uh okay so folks you you know everybody stepped up i got a bunch of

00:58:11.200 calls uh i still have about three or four topics i wanted to talk about that i never got around to

00:58:16.160 i will mention them real quick just because i i did want to talk about you know i mentioned

00:58:21.540 carney potentially pro-roguing parliament right that was a rumor that came out and today he came

00:58:26.940 let me let me put some context real quick um so there's three by elections on april 13th two in

00:58:31.980 ontario and one in quebec and if if carney wins those by elections um he will have a majority

00:58:39.660 by the slimmest of margins but he will have a majority and there was a rumor that he was

00:58:44.860 contemplating proroguing parliament kind of like what justin did which in effect allows he could

00:58:51.260 really go far and not just prorogue parliament and restart it he could launch an election if you look

00:58:56.620 at the polls right now if you believe the polls he's he's leading like in a huge way and so i keep

00:59:02.460 i keep saying this he can taste the real majority he doesn't want just a little majority he wants a

00:59:06.860 big one but but keep this in mind folks that story got uh appeared out of nowhere last week

00:59:14.460 and that's not by coincidence right so the part the the liberals because because afterwards carney

00:59:19.740 came out uh you know violently saying oh i won't prorogue i won't prorogue i won't prorogue that

00:59:26.780 was the mainstream media working for the liberals testing an idea how do canadians how how are

00:59:32.380 canadians going to react to proroguing right and then the other story that came out this week which

00:59:37.100 was interesting and we had a lady call from battle river crowfoot what story came out this week it's

00:59:42.220 a year old story but a story came out this week that the that that that the by-election in uh

00:59:47.980 in crowfoot cost 2.3 million dollars okay why would they suddenly a year later talk about that

00:59:54.060 well again they're testing canadians's appetite for an election because if if carney calls it

00:59:59.900 drops the uh the writ and we have a snap election that's like a 600 million dollar touch so it's no

01:00:06.140 coincidence right so when you see these weird stories that's the media through the liberals

01:00:11.340 testing ideas to see how we react to it so i just want to talk about that real quick

01:00:15.420 uh and that and then i i had two other stories and i guess we'll bring we'll we'll we'll go with

01:00:20.920 those stories next week but uh it was part of the april 1st right yesterday was april 1st well

01:00:27.060 april 1st is the start of the budget cycle for the federal government so you know you and i

01:00:34.560 mostly run on a january 1st and december 31st budget cycle the federal government runs from

01:00:40.520 april 1st to march 31st so uh the 2026 or 2025 2026 year came to an end a couple of days ago and

01:00:49.480 right now we're into the next budget cycle we just got the last budget approved way out of cycle so

01:00:57.300 right now the liberals owe us a budget by all means they should be working on that budget getting

01:01:02.320 ready to present it in may or something like that which is another reason why potentially

01:01:07.000 proroguing parliament changes a whole bunch of things so i just i just wanted to bring that up

01:01:11.980 where the the budgeting is completely out of whack federally and uh and so now we're going to see the

01:01:17.540 books for last year and i'm gonna make a bet here that in 2025 2026 carney blew past the 100 billion

01:01:26.160 dollar deficit that's my bet and we'll see how that goes and then the other thing i was going

01:01:30.480 to talk about uh you know a couple of weeks ago i was i was complaining that we didn't have a

01:01:34.780 parliamentary budget officer a lady named annette ryan was proposed uh brought they brought her up

01:01:42.160 she uh she has a role in finance somewhere in government right now but she's being um uh suggested

01:01:49.520 as a um as a new parliamentary budget officer she has to be approved in the house of commons so we'll

01:01:55.760 see uh the house of commons in a week-long recess right now and then we'll see what happens when

01:02:00.340 they come back in the coming weeks hopefully we have a pbo she comes highly recommended and other

01:02:05.680 people seem to like her so uh hopefully that's the case john was there a call that we're just

01:02:10.740 showing up or that's all good uh i guess we're kind of running out of time hey that's uh that's

01:02:16.760 another show for this week uh hey thank you thank you thank you you're not making me rant as much

01:02:21.900 or not rant but the my monologues are getting shorter so great show thanks for calling in like

01:02:26.820 said man it's it's not uh it's don't be shy call we'll have a chat the show's about you um and and

01:02:35.060 uh you know please continue to call in like this and and and tune in every thursday uh at one

01:02:43.060 o'clock i know some of you guys are working and gals but uh you know call-ins are are important

01:02:49.220 to the show uh hope you'll join me again next week at the same time and and i gotta put out my uh my

01:02:55.860 little uh promotion here thanks to the western standard for letting me have a voice on this

01:03:01.700 platform and using this studio and i got john who's an amazing me and john are learning to

01:03:06.500 work together i'm sure you guys have noticed now we're getting uh i'm not as nervous i'm not uh

01:03:11.620 i'm probably a little bit better organized and so thanks to the western standard and if you're

01:03:16.500 not a member please consider it you know it's uh ten dollars a month or a hundred dollars a year

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01:03:28.920 alright folks hope to see you next week

01:03:30.760 cheers

01:03:51.780 You

Western Standard - April 02, 2026

Alberta Independence petition meets threshold

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