Western Standard - Alberta's federalists may vote 'yes' to independence referendum

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:20.560 of the Western Standard.

00:00:22.000 It is Thursday, June the 18th.

00:00:23.720 Joining us today is David Knight-Legg, a strategic advisor to the Alberta Government, Energy

00:00:29.700 and financial services firms, and he is no stranger to the Western standard.

00:00:34.520 Good to have you back, David.

00:00:36.180 Great to be back.

00:00:37.880 David, I think you're coming in to us from Abu Dhabi today.

00:00:40.980 I won't ask you what you're doing there, but did you manage to stay safe

00:00:43.840 during all the recent nastiness? 0.57

00:00:46.660 They threw more missiles and Shahad drones at the UAE than any other country, 0.66

00:00:52.700 including Israel.

00:00:54.480 This country is phenomenal and very resilient, so you're pretty safe

00:00:58.480 in Abu Dhabi or Dubai.

00:01:00.360 Okay, good. Glad you're in one piece.

00:01:02.780 David, polls suggest more than half of Canadians would like to join the European Union.

00:01:07.560 Do you buy that?

00:01:09.660 No.

00:01:11.620 Okay, so what do you think makes Canadians say yes to a question like that?

00:01:19.800 I think because it's a very low-risk question, and I think it's a sentimental question.

00:01:24.260 I think that Canadians are getting more tired of the anti-Americanism, of the elbows up concept.

00:01:32.840 And I think that the idea of being positive about being united with countries through trade makes a lot of sense.

00:01:41.460 And I think if you ask a lot of people, what do you mean when you say you like the idea of being joined to the European Union?

00:01:47.080 They probably think about an economic community very similar to the EEC.

00:01:51.040 I don't think anybody wants Brussels making any decisions about anything happening anywhere in Canada ever.

00:01:58.200 So I think it's a classic kind of polling question.

00:02:01.100 It's an informed question.

00:02:02.320 I think if you ask people, you know, do you want Canada to be on the first manned flight to Mars?

00:02:07.960 They probably say yes, too.

00:02:09.160 But there's cost to that.

00:02:10.300 There's preparation to that.

00:02:12.000 Like there's a series of things that I think we aspire to as a nation, which are good things.

00:02:16.940 And what I sense is that the nation wants to move out of the malaise and the decline of the last decade that they feel and see every day. And I think they are also frustrated by feeling like we're under the thumb of the United States as it goes through a more assertive positioning on defense, energy security and trade security.

00:02:37.460 And I think that the government has has sort of fueled, you know, sadly, I think a sense of insecurity in people that is now being tapped when you're asked, do you want to be part of the European Union?

00:02:50.820 Do you want to be part of look, if you ask people, do you want to be part of the largest free trade corridor in the planet with the lowest taxes?

00:02:57.020 I think the vast majority would say yes. All of these things have costs. And I prefer and I think our natural geography, history, legal system, economy, politics, structure, culture, educational backgrounds, integration of military and logistical assets.

00:03:17.820 There's only one country we have to be integrated with. There's only one country we can be integrated with in any functional way.

00:03:23.000 the United States. The problem is you need a philosophy of governance and you need a philosophy

00:03:27.760 of personal and cultural identity as a nation and as citizens that will lead to a sense that that

00:03:34.160 can be done on positive, healthy, you know, peer-to-peer terms. And I think that the dialogue

00:03:40.980 needs to be raised on that front. And I think, you know, President Trump has thrown down the

00:03:47.580 gauntlet in ways that have turned off Canadians. And I think the reaction has been one that I

00:03:52.020 to have disagreed with. And frankly, one that I see changing now, I thought Mark Carney's speech

00:03:56.680 to the Economic Club of New York and his interview with Nader Moussavizadeh there was a smart change.

00:04:06.320 I thought Mark Carney's recent comments on the Iran war just today out of the G7 meeting in

00:04:12.380 France were a welcome change. I think that the prime minister's office is getting a smarter team

00:04:19.280 together and i think they're doing a better job of defending canadian interests in in bringing us

00:04:24.160 to a place where hopefully we can achieve a much better economic and energy security and military

00:04:28.760 deal with the americans well let's hope that's the case he certainly has paid a tremendous amount

00:04:33.720 amount of attention to europe in the um in the 15 months he's been in office he's been there nine

00:04:39.740 times he's been to great britain a couple of times and as you mentioned he was just there in france

00:04:45.340 earlier this week of the G7.

00:04:48.520 Now, this is just Dr. Grok speaking,

00:04:51.500 but it looks to me like he spends as much time in Europe

00:04:53.780 as Toronto or Western Canada.

00:04:55.380 Now, we understand he's doing this to spite President Trump, I think.

00:05:01.060 But Europe's a mess.

00:05:02.980 Their combined debt in U.S. dollars is like 15 trillion U.S. dollars,

00:05:08.600 and they have three times that in unfunded liabilities

00:05:11.800 because they all retire at 50, and then there's the pension liabilities

00:05:16.560 to fund a 30-year holiday at the end of a 25-year working life.

00:05:21.920 So a lot of them, their national debt is more than their GDP.

00:05:26.540 Greece is 146%.

00:05:28.280 So I don't want to sort of go into a long list of numbers and ice glaze over,

00:05:33.200 but really, Europe is a mess.

00:05:35.440 Is this actually a smart place for Canada to be anyway?

00:05:38.260 Look, I think there are places and ways that we do deals with everyone in the world. I think there are places and ways we do deals with China without wanting to be like China. I think we do deals with Europe where it benefits Canadians. 0.92

00:05:53.040 I think that the problem with the prime minister's trips to Europe is not that Europe isn't an important partner or set of partners. It's that it's disproportionate to the biggest economic opportunity, which is, you know, if you look at the numbers, depending on how you count them, between sort of 77 and 80 percent of, and sometimes it's up and down a little bit,

00:06:21.760 But marginally, 80% of all of our trade is with the United States.

00:06:25.800 The next largest trading partner we have is China, and that's 4.5%.

00:06:30.480 After that, everything is fractional.

00:06:33.920 And so the point of the last sort of year and a half has been, if you know that you

00:06:41.020 have to do the best deal of your lifetime with the United States, and the United States

00:06:47.000 has released three or four very key documents

00:06:50.300 in the last year and a half.

00:06:52.120 The National Security Strategy,

00:06:54.580 they've talked about their trade strategy.

00:06:57.080 You have the Hudson's Bay Capital strategy paper,

00:07:04.140 Margalago, back in November of 2024.

00:07:09.940 It's very clear what their agenda is

00:07:12.860 and it's very clear where Canada can fit into that agenda.

00:07:15.700 And there are a dozen things that we can do positively and constructively to prepare for a game-changing generational opportunity for a freer trade relationship with the United States.

00:07:27.380 So I don't begrudge the prime minister making the choices that he and his team make of where he spends his time.

00:07:32.740 I think the most important thing is, what is the strategy for building the best generational opportunity for economic progress in Canada's history with the Americans?

00:07:42.560 And, you know, I, as you know, I live in DC part of the time, the reputation of the Canadians there is very poor. I think it will improve under Ambassador Wiseman and under the person they brought in now to do the, to do the, you know, some of the negotiation strategy, but we're late to the game, very late to the game.

00:08:00.540 The Mexicans have been at it. They have big teams in multiple places. They're working very hard.

00:08:06.460 The Canadians have been known for being missing in action. And that sort of gossip in D.C. is

00:08:11.680 also reflected in conversations that you see in editorial pages as well. So I think the biggest

00:08:19.140 thing, Nigel, is not whether or not the prime minister loves and wants to be in Europe and

00:08:23.640 have good conversations with the Europeans about a variety of things. I just think that it

00:08:28.000 represents the potential for there to be a disproportionate focus on a place uh that happens

00:08:33.940 to have most of the countries are poorer than the poorest state mississippi canada is as poor as the

00:08:39.040 poorest state mississippi if you take alberta out of the equation right like we have a fundamental

00:08:44.200 problem of a welfare state uh society that's built itself up for 20 years on deep deeper and deeper

00:08:53.000 debt commitments and just unparalleled immigration levels, offering people benefits that have become

00:09:04.000 so attractive that there's deep amounts of fraud connected to the benefits process. You see this

00:09:08.400 in Canada, you see it in the UK, you see it in Italy, you see it in France, Germany, Holland,

00:09:12.460 Sweden. Sweden is now starting to reverse it. But I think that the prime minister and his team have

00:09:18.300 got to focus on the most important game. And the most important game is what is going to happen to

00:09:22.800 the world's largest integrated economy of canada in the united states and how will that be

00:09:26.860 prosecuted over the next sort of several months and nothing that we do in europe is going to make

00:09:33.760 a difference uh to this economy of any substance at all nothing so we had a and during the harbor

00:09:40.540 era we've signed a free trade agreement with the european union and you know the terms were good

00:09:46.800 and i don't see that it is that in itself has made much difference either no it's okay these

00:09:52.400 things are all good. There's nothing wrong with them. And, you know, you don't want to get snarky

00:09:56.100 about good accomplishments by people that are trying to make the country work. And I think

00:10:00.840 when you get a win, you take a win. You know, if there are plausible ways for Canada to be

00:10:06.220 integrated in a variety of ways with Europeans. I think the most important integration, you know,

00:10:10.620 there are five or six things that I think are obvious. One of them obviously would be Canada

00:10:15.780 should become a member of AUKUS, the Australian-UK-U.S. Submarine Warfare Integrated Strategy.

00:10:23.140 We have the largest coastline. We have the one that's most exposed to both China and Russia.

00:10:28.860 We have said that we're going to make an increasing commitment to a defense strategy

00:10:32.940 and funding of it. And yet we sit on the outside of something that's got the three most important

00:10:40.120 members of the Five Eyes, and we're missing an action with the largest coastline. It makes no

00:10:44.000 sense at all we are having conversations about you know gripping jets which is fine those are 1.00

00:10:50.000 good patrol jets but they are easily taken out of the sky by the fifth generation chinese and 0.67

00:10:55.380 russian fighters that would be the ones that our pilots would be facing uh in in an air-to-air

00:11:00.500 combat scenario so the question is what why are these conversations happening uh about

00:11:06.540 moving away from an already existing f-35 commitment instead of saying in addition to

00:11:12.500 F-35 commitment, we may have a series of patrol jets. In the UAE, they have a few different sets

00:11:19.100 of military equipment suppliers that are interoperable with the states that they have to

00:11:25.760 have aligned interests with. That makes a lot of sense. Canada can do these things,

00:11:30.880 but somehow the temptation to have an anti-American wrapper or veneer on some of

00:11:37.020 these conversations has become really problematic because it's conveyed a deep sort of cultural

00:11:42.040 political and economic insecurity that i think it dominates on the left in canada and it's created

00:11:47.940 an antagonism that that generates votes uh because uh you know president trump is a very divisive

00:11:54.780 figure so it works quote unquote politically but when you're creating a strategy a generational

00:12:00.900 strategy for a country you can't reduce that strategy to the optics or pr elements of an

00:12:08.120 anti-Trump dynamic in your base well let's just let's just say david that uh like i think i agree

00:12:14.880 with you 100 here but clearly there is a sentiment in canada especially in eastern canada you don't

00:12:20.740 find it out west so much which they they don't they don't understand the big picture all they

00:12:26.820 know is that uh they don't like trump very much in fact they really despise him in many cases

00:12:32.380 And Mr. Carney can hold on to his base by simply echoing that point of view. 0.99

00:12:39.280 So it could be a cynical, stupid little exercise in Canadian politics. 0.99

00:12:44.440 That's one possibility. 0.99

00:12:46.200 The other is, and I think you may have an observation on this,

00:12:50.520 that Mr. Carney actually feels intellectually more at home among European leaders.

00:12:58.160 And so he's got this default to lean in that direction.

00:13:01.660 The problem is between the, you know, the pulling of the eastern base that doesn't like Trump and the pushing of Mr. Carney's own intellectual preferences, we're ending up going down a wrong path and ignoring the main game, which I think is what you're saying.

00:13:18.560 But do you want to just sort of go into, does Mr. Carney actually feel happier talking to macro?

00:13:23.380 look i think i draw a distinction um first first of all i you know you have to be careful i think

00:13:32.600 especially when you're i'm a conservative and obviously prime minister carney is the liberal

00:13:36.460 and so it's easy to sort of uh for me to sit back and and have a perspective that is obviously

00:13:43.160 politically oppositional to his perspective uh but i think the more important question

00:13:48.740 would be if Prime Minister Carney said, David, I want you on the team helping do a trade deal

00:13:54.500 for Canada because, you know, I'm going to be in office for another few years until you guys get

00:14:01.980 better at your own messaging and PR in the conservative side. And President Trump is

00:14:08.380 only going to be in office for a short period of time. And, you know, we are going to be

00:14:16.620 negotiating a trade deal that has the potential to completely change the dynamics of a generation

00:14:23.640 in terms of a more open free trade, integrated energy, integrated military, integrated data

00:14:31.320 system, more closely aligned legal cultural dynamics, greater agreement on creating the

00:14:39.400 largest free trade zone in the planet. That to me is the most exciting single opportunity

00:14:44.300 and anywhere. And to waste that opportunity for small vol political gains or to waste it by being

00:14:51.380 focused on deeply secondary economies that are involved with less than a single percent of our

00:14:58.140 trade is such a lost opportunity for a generational moment. And it's a generational moment that has to

00:15:05.360 be above the specific politics. You have to be a political realist when you're in office. Of course,

00:15:11.180 you have to maintain the support of your base. You have to maintain the integration of your

00:15:14.960 caucus. You have to maintain a tight, smart cabinet. He's got a lot of work to do, I think,

00:15:19.900 in sort of holding his red jersey team together. But at the end of the day, the opportunity that

00:15:25.720 he will look back on in his life, and I think the country will look back on in the moment, is

00:15:30.300 what did you do with the opportunity we had in front of us to negotiate something that could

00:15:34.380 have been generational for Canada and Canadians? And the only place that you could focus on that

00:15:40.000 matters in that respect is the United States. Nothing else is even close. Nothing is close.

00:15:46.060 And so, you know, it's sort of making an argument from proportionality, Nigel. It's saying,

00:15:53.560 if you have a business and 80% of your client base is in one place in dealing with one set

00:16:01.660 of issues, you want to address that. The 4% in China is another crew, but after that,

00:16:07.740 It's very, very fractional. So to answer your question from the outside, you know, I think probably Prime Minister Carney does have a better natural affinity, both ideologically and politically with with people that are part of the center left, you know, crowd that he knows very well.

00:16:28.040 Keir Starmer probably fits that group. Some of the Scandinavian leaders fit that mold. Macron obviously fits that mold. But I think that that's neither here nor there. They don't matter. France is almost irrelevant to Canada, apart from very specific trading issues, if you look at how you're going to spend the next several months negotiating a trade deal for the future.

00:16:51.240 so what are you expecting to see out of the prime minister's office

00:16:55.660 in terms of messaging during the next six months now to christmas

00:16:59.420 i i think there's been an important shift in the prime minister's office i think that

00:17:08.240 there was a there was a i don't know if you saw this but there was a moment i i reacted and posted

00:17:14.140 something on it taking the post down in order to sort of be more focused on what's helpful but

00:17:19.560 I just really don't like the elbows up theme at all. I didn't like the War of 1812 theme with

00:17:25.780 the little figurine that Mike Myers had given the prime minister. I thought it made us look

00:17:31.500 feckless and weak. I thought it conveyed deep, deep cultural and political insecurity. I thought

00:17:36.760 it played to the worst instincts of the center left and leftist base in Canada at the expense of

00:17:43.640 getting things done with a party that is dominant in the House, the Senate, the White House in the

00:17:50.560 United States. And so when you look at those things, you want to say tactically, what does

00:17:55.660 the moment require? And I think that the speech at the Economic Club of New York showed that the

00:18:01.600 Prime Minister and his office, and by the way, I thought it was exceptional speech, has taken

00:18:07.980 seriously the need to focus very directly on the generational opportunity of a great treaty

00:18:14.140 agreement with the united states i think that's happening the prime minister is very good at

00:18:18.480 speaking to the audience he was in new york he was the economic club his interlocutor was uh was a

00:18:23.840 great guy named nadar musivizadeh who i know uh who's a friend and uh and he's a very close friend

00:18:30.600 of the prime ministers and and i thought he asked exceptionally good questions and i thought the

00:18:34.860 the themes and the messages were very strong. The thing is, you've got to translate that from

00:18:40.520 sentiment to terms of a deal. And I think Canada is an incredible opportunity right now to do

00:18:46.460 really good deal, a really good deal with the United States. But it's going to involve energy

00:18:50.940 security, which will obviously involve Alberta. It's going to involve military security, which I

00:18:55.940 think is going to require us to stop revisiting already signed contracts and actually expand some

00:19:02.900 contracts. I think it's going to involve AUKUS at some point and should. I think it's going to

00:19:07.240 involve data. I think it's going to involve quantum systems. I think it's going to involve

00:19:10.760 a lot more integration, operational integration. And through all of that sort of core functional

00:19:17.820 focused military integration, which you don't want to play around with,

00:19:23.620 having an elbows up mentality is the last thing we need. There's not a chance that we can defend

00:19:28.860 this country without the full support of the united states our our armed forces are probably

00:19:32.960 in the worst state they've ever been in the history of the country um we currently have less

00:19:37.620 than less than uh you know 50 force readiness our air force is down to 40 force readiness

00:19:43.960 we're missing absolutely critical parts of our core supply chain you cannot have any of these

00:19:49.920 conversations with the united states of an integrated trade military and energy security

00:19:55.200 strategy without addressing the massive, deep structural problem of a military that's completely

00:20:01.360 falling apart. Same problem that the UK is facing in terms of their contribution right now.

00:20:06.880 So Nigel, I think it's a question of priorities. I think this prime minister is very smart.

00:20:11.780 I understand his affinity for Europe. I think that there's a reason why Canadians like the

00:20:16.620 idea of doing a deal with Europe, but I don't think it's an either or deal. I think if you

00:20:20.860 ask most Canadians, would you like to do a deal, a great open deal with Mexico? Probably a majority

00:20:25.860 would say yes, absolutely. But I think the focus right now has got to be on what we do with the

00:20:31.440 United States. And it's tricky. How does a center left government and someone who is part of sort of

00:20:39.620 the Dallas community do a deal with Donald Trump credibly when there's the deep antithesis around

00:20:49.100 the operating assumptions and some of the governance assumptions

00:20:52.800 of those two political philosophies.

00:20:56.040 Yeah, well, I think, David, actually,

00:20:57.440 the thing that concerns us here in Alberta is how does he do a deal

00:21:01.240 with our own government?

00:21:04.200 There's a lot riding on the relationship between Ottawa

00:21:08.120 and Danielle Smith's government here in Alberta

00:21:12.980 to do the very thing that you're talking about with the United States.

00:21:19.100 Is this good for Alberta?

00:21:21.920 I think there's five or six very obvious quick wins.

00:21:25.120 I posted an op-ed on the National Post recently saying, you know, China lost over 500,000 barrels of heavy Venezuelan crude.

00:21:32.960 It just so happens that Alberta's heavy crude is the chemically identical cousin of that Venezuelan crude.

00:21:39.460 We have already blueprinted and know the 565,000 barrel pipeline that was called Northern Gateway.

00:21:46.360 We know exactly where it would go. 0.99

00:21:47.520 we can expedite that and do a hard power soft power deal with the Chinese it makes a lot of 0.99

00:21:52.520 sense for Canada makes a lot of sense for the Chinese they're desperate for it especially 0.97

00:21:56.580 because their other alternative is Iranian cruise which is in a totally different category now and

00:22:02.540 it's closest it's lowest cost landed and it and it puts Canada position of having you know an

00:22:09.200 important part in the in the Chinese energy security story which the Americans can appreciate

00:22:13.940 And that's what sovereign countries do. We do a deal that we can do with the Chinese for a specific thing that the Americans have taken away from them with what they did by renditioning Maduro and taking over the assets in Venezuela.

00:22:25.860 And I think that, you know, so that's one positive thing that we can move on right away. But what I don't see is I still see the federal liberal party being addicted to the PR sentimentalism of an environmental movement that has done absolutely nothing for global emissions or the planet, but continues to insist on economy devastating moves like C48, C69, and a whole host of sort of consultative ideas.

00:22:55.860 that are effectively blank checks to very, very small minorities that are easily led or bought

00:23:01.760 off by people that are oppositional to the building of global energy infrastructure. And so as a

00:23:08.740 nation, I think we have to get serious about the fact that we are one of the world's largest,

00:23:13.820 most important energy superpowers. Alberta is. Under the Constitution of Canada, Alberta owns

00:23:19.220 the oil and the gas. It does. It is the largest, single, and wealthiest democracy in the planet.

00:23:26.700 Four and a half million people, $12 to $15 trillion worth of these assets. It is wealthier

00:23:32.580 than Qatar. It has as much gas to start. It's got more oil than the United States and Russia

00:23:37.440 combined. It is the single most, it's six times the size of Great Britain. It has a massive,

00:23:45.340 massive deposit every every everything that you can give a country alberta has and it's right

00:23:52.120 next door to the world's largest consuming economy the united states it's literally it's

00:23:57.040 a place that instantly would become ireland with 10 times the cash so david we're out of time

00:24:04.360 last last question just a short shot here will you be surprised if albertans vote in october

00:24:15.180 to have a referendum on independence?

00:24:21.480 I think the most interesting thing

00:24:24.100 will be what happens to the first nine questions.

00:24:26.700 I think that's something people are overlooking

00:24:28.480 and they should look at a lot more closely

00:24:30.960 because I think those first nine questions

00:24:32.700 are questions that most other Canadians

00:24:35.040 and most other provinces wish their premiers

00:24:37.360 would allow them also to vote on.

00:24:39.620 I think the direct democracy as a process

00:24:42.040 is an important consideration and commitment.

00:24:44.660 And I think Alberta is doing a great job doing it. I think the vote to have a referendum is going to be very close to a 50-50. I think that events will determine whether it becomes a 60-40 in one direction or the other. But I think you've definitely got a third that will say no, no matter what. You've got a third that will say yes, no matter what. And you've got a third in the middle that are going to be very sort of considerate.

00:25:09.460 I think there are a lot of people that are federalists that are certainly going to vote to have the referendum.

00:25:15.400 And I think that's the wild card.

00:25:17.460 And I think the prime minister's office is aware of that.

00:25:19.800 And I think they're trying to figure out who the right voices are to have that conversation and talk about it without creating the sort of dynamics that you've seen in some of the other independence movements recently.

00:25:32.980 Well, David, I know it's hot in Abu Dhabi.

00:25:35.460 It's going to be a long, hot summer here in Alberta as well.

00:25:38.000 I want to thank you for taking the time

00:25:39.880 joining us. Your insights

00:25:41.740 are always incredibly valuable.

00:25:43.660 Thank you very much.

00:25:45.360 And for the Western Standard,

00:25:48.240 I'm Nigel Hannaford.

Western Standard - June 18, 2026

Alberta's federalists may vote 'yes' to independence referendum

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