Western Standard - Alberta’s referendum is over. Now the UCP faces the real test

00:00:00.000 hey folks welcome back happy thursday

00:00:30.000 October 22nd, depressing to think that it's only two months until Christmas.

00:00:37.820 Two months until we hit the shortest daylight day of the year.

00:00:43.780 The good thing is that after that, the days get longer.

00:00:47.460 So enjoy, I'm enjoying these last couple of days of nice warm weather.

00:00:52.620 Forecast for Alberta, I think it's calling for snow.

00:00:55.840 Some of you guys who've been following me lately know that I've been struggling to,

00:00:59.780 I have a couple of jobs I need to do come back from hunting

00:01:03.060 and I got to service my quad.

00:01:04.740 It needs a pretty thorough service.

00:01:07.460 And then I also had engine troubles on my truck coming back

00:01:12.540 and I diagnosed it, diagnosed it?

00:01:15.180 Yeah, diagnostic, whatever.

00:01:17.320 And I need to do a simple spark plug job on my truck.

00:01:21.440 But nowadays, remember the good old days

00:01:23.120 when you'd lift the hood up on the truck

00:01:25.520 and you'd look down at the engine

00:01:26.960 and you could see the pavement on both sides of the engine block.

00:01:32.040 And there was nothing in the engine compartment.

00:01:34.320 You know, you had your engine, you had your alternator,

00:01:37.120 you had your battery, you had your distributor cap

00:01:39.400 and some wires and a couple of things.

00:01:42.420 Nowadays, you lift the hood up on your truck

00:01:44.320 and you're looking down, it's like,

00:01:46.440 where the heck is everything, right?

00:01:47.760 And just to get to the spark plugs on my truck,

00:01:49.760 I have to remove a lot of plastic and parts

00:01:52.420 and screens and stuff like that.

00:01:54.980 some trucks nowadays are are barely designed to be serviced i mean you almost have to lift

00:02:00.960 the engine out of the bay to to get to the spark plug so uh all right so lots to um as again it's

00:02:10.380 a call-in show phone number down on the screen there 866-479-9378 uh please call in share your

00:02:18.320 thoughts i think today we're probably going to talk mostly about the referendum that we just had

00:02:25.440 And I want to talk about it.

00:02:28.340 I mean, you know, some people are saying, okay, let's pause.

00:02:31.160 Well, we can't pause just yet.

00:02:33.020 I mean, one thing for certain, I just checked the website,

00:02:40.000 and Elections Alberta is not done counting, right?

00:02:42.740 Like Elections Alberta, by their own rules or by the rules,

00:02:47.820 we're supposed to have the preliminary count.

00:02:49.520 I get it.

00:02:50.160 Nothing's official until whatever, like October 29th,

00:02:53.320 But it is now 56, like the polls closed.

00:02:57.720 The polls were supposed to close at 8 o'clock on Monday.

00:03:01.860 And then throughout the day, they started announcing that polls were staying open because they opened late.

00:03:07.580 Generally not because there was lineups.

00:03:09.980 They kept the polls open because a lot of them opened late for all sorts of technical reasons.

00:03:14.940 And then officially, the last poll closed at 10.59 p.m. on Monday.

00:03:20.440 So Tuesday at 10.59 is 24 hours.

00:03:23.960 Wednesday at 10.59 is 48 hours.

00:03:28.100 And now we are, you know, so 48 plus 10, we're into 58 hours and the count is not complete, which is why we still need to talk about this.

00:03:39.080 And out of the 5,557 polling stations, 100 still haven't reported.

00:03:46.460 So there's stuff to, we got to keep talking about it because some of the discussions now that have happened are already wrong.

00:03:55.360 And I'll hint on that, not I'll hint, I'll touch on that in a minute because like Premier Smith sort of did a victory lap yesterday or the day before, you know, everybody's doing laps claiming some sort of victory.

00:04:10.080 Smith claimed a victory along the lines of, you know, I got what I wanted.

00:04:15.860 I got yes to the first nine questions.

00:04:18.760 Well, sorry, Premier, but at this point, the last four questions, five, six, seven, and eight, have now flipped to the no.

00:04:28.520 And, you know, I'm pretty good with the stats.

00:04:32.400 And with only about 1% of the polling left to be reported, there you go, John's got it on the screen.

00:04:38.100 with only 1% left to be reported, I can do the math in my head.

00:04:41.440 So 2 million votes, 1% left to be reported is 20,000 votes.

00:04:45.840 So there's maybe 20,000 votes.

00:04:47.480 Most of these differences are greater than 20,000 votes.

00:04:51.320 So it's going to be hard to flip them again. 0.99

00:04:54.340 And so I think Danielle Smith might have to do that.

00:04:57.600 We'll get back to that.

00:04:58.680 So long story short, we can still talk about this, and it's inconclusive.

00:05:04.100 So our analysis is partial.

00:05:08.100 But before I go, before I dive deep into this, I think it's important to give ourselves a quick history lesson because, you know, history repeats itself.

00:05:19.660 And I think we're back into one of those moments in history that's about to repeat itself.

00:05:24.920 So I'm not going to go back too far, but I'm going to go back to 2012, 2013, somewhere around there, right?

00:05:36.160 And conservatives in Alberta at that point had had had had conservatism in Alberta had fractured. Right. And so you had the conservative party and you had the Wild Rose. And the reason for that is because we've said this many times, conservatives are a rowdy bunch. We have all sorts of different conservatives. Right. We have people that are fiscally conservative. We have people that are institutionally or politically conservative.

00:06:03.240 We have people that are environmentally conservative. I could even say religiously conservative, you know what I mean? So you can, you can, there's not just one flavor of conservatism, but generally speaking, we have something in common, which is we're trying to preserve something.

00:06:22.360 We believe in smaller governments. We believe in governments that spend our taxes wisely. We believe in freedom of speech and we believe in, you know, less interference in our lives by government.

00:06:35.920 So we have that in common, even though we come at it from slightly different angles.

00:06:40.620 But where we don't have always commonality is how to move forward.

00:06:48.180 Or we can identify the problems, but we don't have a common path to solving the problem.

00:06:53.600 So that's where we differ.

00:06:55.400 So in the 2000s, 2013, after the Klein era,

00:07:00.220 conservatives got upset in general and started to fracture.

00:07:05.180 And we had two groups. And then then there was the the the floor crossing with Danielle Smith, which at the time she had a valid reason. Right. She thought and we're seeing this pattern again. She thought that she was going to unite the conservatives.

00:07:20.980 She thought that she couldn't be because she was in a wild rose in opposition and the conservative of Jim Prentice were on the other side.

00:07:28.620 And she was basically in her mind, she's like, well, I can't I can't be the opposition when I'm kind of agree too much on things.

00:07:36.780 And so she crossed the floor. Prentice called the snap election being opportunistic and the populace revolted and we voted in the NDP.

00:07:50.240 And I think probably by accident at some point, it can be debated, but a lot of vote splitting because the Wild Rose continued to exist and the Conservatives continued to exist, even though many had crossed the floor.

00:08:05.160 The NDP existed, the Liberal, lots of vote splitting.

00:08:07.860 And we all wake up and holy smokes, we have an NDP government, which turned out to be a disaster.

00:08:14.080 Then fast forward to 2000 and just before 2019, just before the end of the Notley era, comes a savior in the form of Jason Kenney.

00:08:30.920 And Jason Kenney says, I'm going to unite these conservatives.

00:08:35.320 OK, now, and I'll be honest, I'm on the record for this.

00:08:40.420 I held my nose and I voted for Kenny in that once they formed that party and I chose him as a leader because I'd seen his ability to bring people under a big tent.

00:08:55.280 But I did not like Kenny personally.

00:08:57.580 And I also found him opportunistic, right?

00:09:00.580 He had been a small fish, no pun intended, medium sized fish in a big pond in Ottawa.

00:09:08.140 He had had some roles in cabinet and whatnot.

00:09:12.120 But he wanted to be a big fish in a smaller pond, I guess.

00:09:16.060 So he came here.

00:09:16.980 I saw him as opportunistic.

00:09:18.580 Didn't quite like it.

00:09:19.600 But I plugged my nose and I thought, he'll serve one term and he'll have a very specific purpose, which is unite.

00:09:26.680 The purpose at that time was to defeat the NDP.

00:09:29.300 So we succeeded in defeating the NDP with Kenny.

00:09:33.200 And then, poor Kenny, you can say what you want.

00:09:36.380 he got hit by covid so that was unfortunate he didn't have the ability to show exactly what he

00:09:41.560 could do in the beginning of covid but uh covid dragged on and i think he dragged on with covid

00:09:49.000 and he did some draconian things right he locked us down he did the vaccine mandates he arrested

00:09:54.500 pastors he did all of that stuff so uh we had a leadership review he got like 52 percent or 51.3

00:10:03.780 whatever it was and I was surprised he did the the proper thing and he stepped down okay and I

00:10:11.780 thought perfect that is the natural evolution Kenny came in united us and as a united conservative

00:10:19.560 party and then the party had uh we'll have other phases along the way we'll we'll transform itself

00:10:24.940 it's a new party right the united conservative party exists since whatever 2018 so it's a

00:10:30.040 relatively new party so we we we get rid of kenny we bring in danielle smith through a proper

00:10:36.420 leadership race and things seem to be going according to plan and smith is got elected

00:10:43.900 and so smith first she got appointed premier then she got elected in 2023 okay so she got elected

00:10:50.440 in 2023 and um at that point the conservative party the united conservative party had become

00:10:58.040 a pretty active party through the efforts of a lot of people over time and groups like Take Back

00:11:04.980 Alberta and others had appeared and the citizens of Alberta, especially in the UCP, became very

00:11:13.580 active. And in 2023, 2024, 2025, we had UCP annual general meetings in Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary,

00:11:24.540 not in that order that were extremely well attended like five six thousand people attending

00:11:30.200 those events and and we were discussing policies on the floor and we were uh and and in my opinion

00:11:38.100 i think and i think many people think this way and it is the way it's kind of structured parties

00:11:44.420 have a board of directors like the members elect a board of directors and then debate on policies

00:11:50.480 and things like that and then and then candidates appear candidates are elected in the election but

00:11:57.280 they take they're supposed to sort of adopt and and and promote the policies of the party but they

00:12:04.620 also represent their constituents that's the democracy we live in right you rep you you choose

00:12:09.420 which party you're going to be on depending on your personal values and then you run but you

00:12:15.840 ultimately represent your constituents and and so the party that was working for the party things

00:12:21.980 were and and we were giving guidance to the party to danielle smith to the mlas and they were moving

00:12:28.340 the province in a direction now while all of this is going on we are constantly under attack

00:12:40.820 by the liberals, right?

00:12:43.500 So Trudeau came in power in 2015.

00:12:46.520 So Trudeau was in power at the same time as Notley

00:12:49.520 and that made for a terrible duo and they attacked us

00:12:52.580 and they hurt our economy, they hurt Albertans.

00:12:57.880 We rejected Notley, but we were unable to necessarily reject Trudeau.

00:13:04.840 So Trudeau kept on doing what he did while Kenny was in power

00:13:10.620 And then he's doing what he's doing while Smith was in power.

00:13:15.040 Now, Smith recognized that.

00:13:17.160 And Smith, remember, the first thing she enacted when she got in power was her Bill 1, the Sovereignty Act, which is a weird document, right?

00:13:30.580 It's like it almost has no teeth, but it's basically saying that whenever Ottawa interferes, whenever laws from Ottawa interfere in what in provincial jurisdiction, that we will fight Ottawa.

00:13:45.040 That's basically all that act says, because the way our constitution is written, Ottawa can do what they do.

00:13:51.280 And all we can do is fight them back. There's no guarantee.

00:13:54.080 So we're always going to the courts. That's a that's a that's a mechanism of going to the courts.

00:14:00.080 And by the way, we all know the courts after Trudeau have been stacked with liberals, right?

00:14:04.300 They're just stacked.

00:14:06.380 So, but Smith adopts this doctrine of sovereignty, a stronger Alberta within a unified Canada.

00:14:14.700 So that's her personal doctrine.

00:14:16.460 She's said this all along and she doesn't want to go down in history as the leader when Alberta separated.

00:14:24.680 She wants to go down in history as the person who got Alberta a better deal within Confederation.

00:14:30.080 But in the beginning, her job was just to fight Trudeau, which she did nicely.

00:14:35.680 But I'll, and I want you guys to call on this in a minute, but let me finish my little monologue here.

00:14:42.500 So she wants to go down in history as the person who will get us a better deal.

00:14:47.400 I personally think, I've always thought that that's kind of naive because we've been trying to get a better deal since 1905. 0.98

00:14:55.420 and there have been we've had grievances with ottawa forever some of them are very structural

00:15:02.480 right it's pretty straightforward we don't have the right number of seats proportionally in the

00:15:08.880 house of commons or in the senate or in the supreme court so we're misrepresented statistically

00:15:13.780 even if we had the right number of seats we'd be misrepresented because we're outnumbered

00:15:18.620 We don't like the transfer payments. We don't like several processes that exist, equalization, transfer payments. We're getting shortchanged on CPP, EI, things like that.

00:15:31.360 So we have structural problems that are extremely complicated to fix.

00:15:35.480 And we have it and not we, but people, I think, better than Smith have attempted to fix these problems.

00:15:42.520 And we have had periods in our history where the provinces, other provinces had similar grievances and other provinces were willing to try and work together.

00:15:51.900 So we had the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord attempts to fix the Constitution because the Constitution was repatriated in 1982.

00:16:00.500 It's flawed.

00:16:01.320 Quebec hasn't even signed on to it.

00:16:03.080 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:16:04.500 But, and so those attempts happen.

00:16:08.320 People tried and it failed.

00:16:10.640 And most provinces don't even want to touch that anymore.

00:16:15.440 Because most other provinces, I would say,

00:16:18.500 have found a way to benefit from Confederation.

00:16:21.580 And Alberta, I'll argue, 0.85

00:16:23.940 doesn't really benefit from Confederation,

00:16:26.060 especially when you have guys like Trudeau

00:16:27.680 who've been trying to push us down

00:16:29.020 and shut down our oil industry.

00:16:31.280 You know, he clearly said, I want to shut down oil sands

00:16:33.600 and so forth and so forth and so forth.

00:16:35.700 So then in the history, Daniel Trudeau got punted.

00:16:41.400 Now, Daniel can take some credit for punting Trudeau,

00:16:44.300 but the reality is the country, the liberals themselves

00:16:47.840 realized that Trudeau was a liability and they got rid of him.

00:16:53.260 Okay, we don't know the deal that was made,

00:16:55.080 But remember, it started it started unfolding for Trudeau when Chrystia Freeland stepped down as his finance minister and his deputy minister.

00:17:03.980 And he brought in other people and then he had to prorogue parliament.

00:17:07.520 And suddenly he magically comes out of that and says, I'm going to resign as soon as a new leader is selected.

00:17:13.720 And then there's this weird process and Carney gets selected.

00:17:17.620 I still think to this day that the liberals got rid of Trudeau because he was a liability.

00:17:22.100 They saw it in the polls and they replaced him with Kearney.

00:17:25.740 So can Smith take full credit for getting rid of Trudeau?

00:17:30.320 Absolutely not.

00:17:31.420 She fought him, but she's not responsible for getting rid of him.

00:17:35.540 She's not responsible for getting rid of Stephen Gilboa.

00:17:40.540 Kearney or Smith can, sure, genuinely make the claim that she's been working better with Kearney.

00:17:50.240 But I think Carney is responding to overall pressures and he's pivoting. But Carney has told us very clearly in a 600 page book called Values what he plans on doing.

00:18:02.620 So he still believes in climate change. He believes that that capitalism out on uncontrolled capitalism is bad, that it will serve the interests of the capitalists only and not serve the broader purposes of society.

00:18:16.980 And he believes that capitalism needs to be reined in with a lot of rules by government. And he believes that government should choose the winners and losers and the companies and the projects that go forward and all that kind of stuff.

00:18:30.180 So he's exhibiting that. And he also believes, I'd say to a certain extent, that a lot of industries should be nationalized. So we already have a ton of national companies like Via Rail and Canada Post and whatever. And now he's in the process of nationalizing, let's say, Stelco and others. And then he's even thinking of getting us in bed with the EU.

00:18:53.260 So, now back to Smith.

00:18:56.540 So, okay, I'm going to take the caller because I value the callers,

00:19:02.920 but I really wanted to finish this, but I'll take the caller.

00:19:05.540 Try and be quick caller because I don't want to get distracted.

00:19:08.860 Go ahead.

00:19:09.140 What's on your mind?

00:19:09.700 Where are you calling from?

00:19:12.280 Hi, Marty.

00:19:12.980 It's Ken Kong, Central Alberta.

00:19:15.540 How's it going, Ken?

00:19:16.340 What's on your mind?

00:19:16.880 so i just want to state that i'm uh i'm conservative on so many levels but i'm

00:19:24.760 disappointed with the results of this referendum however um i'm more disappointed with daniel

00:19:32.360 smith and her victory lap i feel she's a bit of a chameleon with her base to get elected from

00:19:38.420 the get-go and now it seems like she's evangling that base to cater to a potential new base of

00:19:46.140 uh you know forever canadian crowd that supported the nine questions

00:19:52.220 yeah um i just i just feel that uh we're really being let down on all levels of government here

00:20:00.060 i i can't disagree ken i'll i'll um i'm not going to respond to your comment directly unfortunately

00:20:06.060 i want to just finish what i was talking about but but uh but i agree ken thanks for that call

00:20:10.780 okay thanks have a great show you thank you john i i don't know if they i could hear it but barely

00:20:18.520 just you know maybe we needed a fine tuning but anyways okay so i'll i'll rush through my comments

00:20:23.400 and then and then we can open up the floors and really have some discussions right so um so so

00:20:29.300 so then so we we still have issues so danielle believes that she can get us a better deal and

00:20:34.120 danielle believes that in her mind confederation works and can work okay that's fair that's her

00:20:39.640 that's her strategy i disagree with it i don't think so and and i'm not unique in my thinking

00:20:45.220 there's a lot a lot a lot of people so i would say based on the election the referendum results

00:20:51.220 so far i would say about 50 of the members of the ucp think like i do which is um this constant

00:21:02.820 having to fight for everything with ottawa is unhealthy and there's other problems over the

00:21:07.820 horizon immigration's out of control we can see what's happening in europe carney wants to join 0.88

00:21:12.780 the eu um you know the economy's tanking wokeism is still alive and well in the east and we see

00:21:19.640 all these other problems so we can agree on some of the existing problems we don't necessarily

00:21:24.980 all agree on the path forward but there's kind of two camps right now the status quo camp and

00:21:31.180 the we need to get out of here camp and then so then which brings us to this weird exercise we

00:21:39.820 just had we the two groups uh use this and danielle is so danielle is a conservative 0.92

00:21:46.340 but she's also believes in democracy and based on all sorts of events that have happened in the last

00:21:51.980 couple of years you know failures of the recall uh like recall legislature and things like that

00:21:57.700 she gave us a brand new tool called the Citizens Initiative Act, which allowed us supposedly to 0.54

00:22:03.800 petition and demand things from the government, such as a referendum. Well, that turned out to be

00:22:10.460 a piece of legislation that needs a lot of fine tuning because it came out too quickly and any

00:22:17.440 law that comes out needs to be tested. That's normal, right? So this law came out and it failed

00:22:22.720 its first test because the court said you can't do a referendum on separation without first

00:22:28.960 consulting with First Nations. And there was other issues and other issues and other issues. And the

00:22:33.020 courts were adjudicating on this. And there's an appeal and there's a process with the courts

00:22:39.080 that's going to take time. But there was a window. And I think the window is important, right? There's

00:22:44.780 an election coming up in a year from now. And so I think there's a reason why we just had this

00:22:50.060 referendum. This referendum was just not, it wasn't just about giving a consolation prize

00:22:56.220 to, um, to the separatist. Okay. Or to the people who started the petition. There's something more

00:23:04.380 to that, but I'll get back to that in a second. So, so Danielle gets elected, does a few minor 1.00

00:23:10.100 things. Okay. Well, not so minor. I mean, you know, gives us a new bill of rights, um, change, 0.99

00:23:17.240 She, you know, curtails all this DEI and wokeism that's going on in Alberta.

00:23:23.720 But she still runs high deficits and so forth.

00:23:27.560 And she, you know, as a politician, you're supposed to do the big unpopular things in your first year, do a few of them in your second year.

00:23:34.300 And then your third year and fourth is spent doing nothing.

00:23:37.160 And your fourth year is spent trying to get reelected.

00:23:39.520 See where I'm going with this?

00:23:40.880 So now we just had the third year.

00:23:42.360 And what did she do in the part of the second and third year? 1.00

00:23:45.420 She did this nonsense Alberta Next panel. 0.98

00:23:48.660 We've had three or four of those in the past.

00:23:50.860 She polled Albertans.

00:23:53.000 We told her pretty clearly what we wanted.

00:23:56.760 But she said, I need a further mandate.

00:24:01.900 And so she put questions on a referendum,

00:24:04.340 which questions which aren't even the ones that came out of her Alberta Next panel.

00:24:08.780 But so she put these questions on the referendum thinking,

00:24:13.120 i'll get my mandate she wanted a mandate this year so that from this referendum so that she

00:24:21.500 can have some so she can know what to campaign for next year so then as the caller just said 1.00

00:24:28.060 elections alberta sucks we get partial results and danielle goes out on stage and starts doing

00:24:34.420 a little dance yay i got my mandate i got yes to questions whatever one through uh nine 0.92

00:24:40.400 she got yes for questions one through uh five which were mostly around reform of immigration

00:24:51.700 laws which i think are going to be complicated and and then voter identification but she got a

00:24:58.060 she at this point she has a no on anything to do with opening the constitution opting out of federal

00:25:03.720 programs appointing judges um i can't remember i'm drawing a blank but she got a no on that

00:25:10.940 and and what's important here is that i think danielle has been on a short leash no matter

00:25:19.500 what because we didn't she came in telling us she's gonna do get us a better deal and there

00:25:26.420 is no evidence that she's gotten us a better deal as much as she sings right now she's like i got

00:25:30.980 you the mou i don't care about the mou it's an mou it's a memorandum of understanding there's no

00:25:35.780 pipeline pipeline is years down the road and and even if it it gets built it's not the pipeline

00:25:41.440 we wanted it's going to the west coast we need one that the industry wants one to go south and

00:25:46.940 we want one built by the private sector not by the federal government and not owned by the government

00:25:51.280 not paid for by tax dollars and so forth she'll say she got uh you know the the emissions caps

00:25:57.880 reversed and a few other things whatever victory she's claiming right now are pretty

00:26:02.420 pretty minor pretty nonsensical who cares about them right so now she's running out of time and

00:26:09.340 she knows that we're impatient and and she was hoping that she'd have a clear mandate on something 1.00

00:26:14.540 and she doesn't even have a clear mandate after this election the only thing she has now is that

00:26:20.220 that she got to go on is immigration, which thankfully, uh,

00:26:24.600 the conservative party of B of, uh, Quebec, uh, Eric dream reached out, uh, uh,

00:26:30.720 uh, an olive branch to Alberta and said, Hey,

00:26:33.060 maybe we can work together on this one. Cause they're frustrated with, uh, with, 0.99

00:26:36.400 um, with immigration. 1.00

00:26:38.360 But Carney came here and said no to the nine and Carney is touring the world 0.99

00:26:43.060 right now. 0.96

00:26:43.680 He went to India and he's talking about bringing immigration levels back up. 0.61

00:26:47.820 He has to because it's a flawed solution, but it's the only solution he has right now to a crashing GDP, a crashing productivity, people that are dropping out of the workforce because they're aging and people and a tax and a shrinking task base that is necessary to keep paying all these lavish benefits that we are lavishing upon ourselves.

00:27:13.660 So Carney is not going to go zero immigration, which is what the only thing that's left for Danielle right now. And so I got to I got to calm down a second. So now Danielle. So then the voters, if you can you can interpret these results in any way you want.

00:27:36.700 There's a lot of ways to interpret them, and there's going to be some data to come out still and to be analyzed.

00:27:42.380 But one of my interpretations of this result is similar to the one in Quebec,

00:27:48.360 which is the voters rejected a single solution and then gave a clear mandate

00:27:58.300 and just sort of sent a signal to the politicians to continue to working together

00:28:03.820 and try and advance something forward.

00:28:06.700 So they're basically saying to Danielle,

00:28:08.840 you better work fast with Carney and try and do something.

00:28:13.100 Otherwise, there's going to be another election in 12 months

00:28:17.160 and now we're going to demand some real change.

00:28:19.560 That's my thoughts on this whole thing so far,

00:28:23.440 which now brings me to the last little bit

00:28:26.980 that I want to talk before we open the line.

00:28:29.040 Sorry, I took 30 minutes to talk,

00:28:30.720 But while Danielle was doing her victory lap, she said something that I found alarming.

00:28:37.800 And Kenny repeated the same thing, which is she said, A, I'm not having another referendum and I don't want to talk about this anymore.

00:28:45.960 She basically said she doesn't want to talk about independence.

00:28:48.440 And she basically said that anybody who wants to represent the party, whether it is through running for a role in the board of directors or running as an MLA, has to get behind, quote unquote, her and the party and stop talking about independence.

00:29:06.160 Well, that's a crazy thought, crazy comment from her, even crazier from Kenny, who said the same thing, because there are 515,000 people who voted for option two, only 990,000 people voted for Danielle Smith in the last election.

00:29:29.880 But beyond that, I'm not a separatist because I'm pushing an ideology. I'm a separatist because I think that's the solution to our global or core problems. And she's not a separatist because she thinks she has a different solution.

00:29:50.320 We're both conservatives. Everybody who voted, everybody who's a member of the UCP is a conservative. Being separatist is not a reason to exclude us from a party. Being separatist is because we have different solutions to the problem.

00:30:09.160 but the party needs to stay together and talk and that's and that there's a lot of talk going on

00:30:16.820 lately about i don't want i don't want to see what happened so this is where history repeats

00:30:23.760 itself we're back to where we were in 2013 with two parties that disagreed on a path

00:30:32.960 two groups that disagreed on the path forward we agreed on the basic problems we need better

00:30:39.600 government we need smaller government we needed to be fiscally responsible we needed to respect

00:30:44.440 our rights we need this this this but we disagreed on the path forward we fractured we let the NDP in

00:30:51.860 we got back together we're about to fracture again so can we finally realize as a group that

00:31:00.100 we can have different solutions and we need to talk about that those differences behind closed

00:31:07.860 doors on the floor of the agm and in all sorts of places but if danielle just strictly excludes

00:31:15.760 a group of people because their solution is not the same solution as others she's going to say

00:31:21.900 we already talked about the solution and and my solution is the right way no it's not because

00:31:28.160 50 percent of your party chose one a different solution so when you got a 50 50 you don't have

00:31:35.960 a victory you can't claim danielle that your solution is the only path forward there are two

00:31:41.320 path there are clearly a difference in of opinion on the path forward and right now my olive branch

00:31:49.540 to you is don't kick me out and people like me but embrace us bring us into the party and don't

00:31:57.140 try and quiet me. We're going to keep having that debate. But I think that the solution going

00:32:02.140 forward is not to try and open the constitution and get us a better deal. The solution going

00:32:06.940 forward is to put a heck of a lot of pressure and ultimately separate. But I'm open. Maybe

00:32:14.060 there's a third solution or a fourth solution, but we don't know that solution if we don't get

00:32:18.600 together and talk about it. So right now we're stuck on two solutions that are 50-50. And that's

00:32:24.820 the problem that i have right now so wow i'm amazed that i was able to keep that straight

00:32:31.280 in my head so please now let's chat so somebody give me a call because i mean i got other topics

00:32:38.520 on here i don't even want to go into them i think they're boring right now i mean do i want to talk

00:32:43.440 about the parliamentary budget officers report sure i'll always love talking about that france

00:32:47.680 is in chaos inflation's going up the incident at wainwright tragic by the way but let's talk about

00:32:53.600 what i just said so go ahead caller where are you calling from what's on your mind

00:32:56.780 are you talking to me right yeah yeah absolutely oh i wasn't sure if there was someone else ahead

00:33:07.480 of me okay uh the question on the point um i certainly have is that i agree with you as far

00:33:15.020 as our perspective on canada i think alberta looks in canada's cup to see if they have enough

00:33:22.040 And Canada looks in Alberta's cup to see if we have more than them.

00:33:28.400 And that's kind of the difference between most Canadians and Albertans.

00:33:34.840 But I understand the frustration right now within our province and within the party.

00:33:45.580 And I fear that, like you said, we're going to head back to 2013 where we were.

00:33:52.040 And that is, if we don't get on board with what we just saw and get behind Ms. Cramer, who is a strong leader and has done plenty of things and tried to lead from the middle, we are just heading towards an NDP government.

00:34:10.380 And I understand that you agree or that you think, and I do agree with you, what the solution would be for us, but there isn't enough support for it.

00:34:21.120 And I understand that you're frustrated that she wants to shut down that open conversation on that within the party for now.

00:34:29.940 But in order to maintain the coalition of the different, the big tent, we'll say, we have to not have that distraction or we are going to end up with an NDP government.

00:34:46.280 because you can say that it's a 50-50

00:34:48.660 flat process right now

00:34:50.380 or ideas, but it isn't.

00:34:52.400 It is three to one.

00:34:54.920 We're in the 25%

00:34:56.220 because there are other Albertans here

00:34:58.140 that are on the other side, and right now

00:35:00.140 all the polls,

00:35:02.340 some polls have the NDP slightly ahead,

00:35:05.020 and most of them have us

00:35:06.400 kind of neck and neck with, you know what I'm saying?

00:35:08.560 Yeah, yeah. That's the risk I think we have.

00:35:11.000 No, I've...

00:35:12.380 Stay on the line.

00:35:14.080 I mean, that's what I want to do, right?

00:35:16.080 i want to explore this i hear your comment and i heard it in 2013 and i heard it uh after ken

00:35:21.760 after kenny right i heard the same thing i mean basically what you're what you're saying i think

00:35:29.620 if i paraphrase is hold off for a year and the most important thing right now is not letting the

00:35:37.020 ndp in the in in power so that's more important than than the threats of ottawa and so i can wrap

00:35:43.540 my head around that i can wrap my head around that and i can hold my nose and or hold my my my 0.51

00:35:50.080 my talk and my and and just sit back and do nothing and just to make sure that the ndp

00:35:57.040 doesn't get elected i can do that but i'll tell you it's difficult because i've done it once

00:36:01.160 and now i'm going i'm being asked to do it a second time and the first time i did it you know

00:36:05.200 everybody said let's just worry about not getting rid of notley and then we'll make changes we got

00:36:10.780 rid of notley but i dare say nothing got better not dramatically afterwards so i i hear that but

00:36:17.680 the other thing it's hang on but the other pushback i also present to that argument is that

00:36:23.140 do we exist like it do we exist is is just like is let's not let the ndp get in power a a goal

00:36:33.520 like is that a valid goal what am i preserving what am i being conservative if that's all i'm

00:36:38.500 doing you know what i mean i understand what you're saying but what are the chances

00:36:46.100 of accomplishing the goal we do have if the ndp do win yeah yeah no that is actually that is the

00:36:57.780 um what do they use for a term right now existential threat the existential threat

00:37:04.960 is that because you have abby lewis as the national leader of the ndp right as the no no no keep all

00:37:14.420 the oil in the ground and regardless how much nah he wants to separate himself or distance himself

00:37:20.500 from that that's just the policy of that party yeah that's just you know that's what they're

00:37:26.340 about and they'll just say yes we'll do more pipelines but mark carney what we'd like to do

00:37:31.640 is bring in full ESG as well.

00:37:34.620 We would like to make sure that we put a full carbon score

00:37:38.100 on every single thing and make sure that everyone's paying

00:37:41.340 higher carbon taxes, but we want the pipeline.

00:37:44.460 We really do, but we want to make sure.

00:37:47.020 You see?

00:37:48.100 Yeah, yeah.

00:37:48.520 So, okay, so here's the compromise that I was going to get to

00:37:52.860 and that I'm proposing, right?

00:37:54.520 What I'm proposing is that somebody like Danielle Smith has to say,

00:37:58.900 she has to kind of retract some of the comments

00:38:01.240 that she made this week and she has to say

00:38:03.100 I will accept

00:38:04.180 everybody, all conservatives into

00:38:07.200 this party, she has to say that

00:38:09.420 and then if she said

00:38:11.340 to me, if she said I will accept you

00:38:13.220 into this party and I recognize

00:38:15.400 that your way forward is

00:38:17.320 different than mine and I'm

00:38:19.460 asking you to pause

00:38:21.140 this battle temporarily

00:38:23.200 while we fight the NDP

00:38:25.580 if she phrases it that way

00:38:27.460 then I'm on board

00:38:28.500 But if she phrases it the way she did, then I'm going to say, let's go the way it is, and I'm going to blame her for splitting the vote, not me.

00:38:44.740 Okay, so the question I have for you is that if Daniel Smith comes out and does exactly what you just said,

00:38:51.660 hey, guys, what we really need to do is just put this to bed for a bit

00:38:57.820 until we get reelected.

00:38:59.940 What do you think the CDC means? 1.00

00:39:02.320 And then she comes up to the, we told you she's a secret separatist. 1.00

00:39:06.360 She has a hidden agenda for down the road. 1.00

00:39:08.900 She was lying about being a Federalist.

00:39:11.680 And what do we get out of that?

00:39:13.220 We just get another, and you get it.

00:39:16.160 They're going to say that stuff anyway.

00:39:18.180 But they'll have something to point to.

00:39:20.900 Now you're playing the what ifs.

00:39:23.120 I like what you're doing, which is okay.

00:39:24.700 You're trying to, you're making, before you move your chess piece,

00:39:28.440 you're trying to figure out what the other side is going to do.

00:39:30.860 I like that.

00:39:31.420 I get that.

00:39:32.640 But I'll just push back this way.

00:39:35.340 No matter what she does, CBC and CTV will criticize her.

00:39:39.660 You know what I mean?

00:39:40.180 Like it's a zero-sum game for her.

00:39:43.180 Like so in that mindset, me personally, in that mindset,

00:39:48.520 I move ahead with what I think is right.

00:39:50.900 regardless of what the CTV...

00:39:52.660 I do understand that.

00:39:53.780 Yeah.

00:39:54.720 Yeah, no, I do understand that.

00:39:56.480 I just don't want to give them the fuel

00:39:58.060 to make the fire bigger and look like it might be credible.

00:40:01.420 That's all I'm saying.

00:40:02.400 Yeah, yeah, fair enough.

00:40:03.000 As far as you and I agreeing, you know,

00:40:07.560 I'm in the Rimby riding.

00:40:11.360 Oh, yeah.

00:40:11.640 I voted for this referendum, okay?

00:40:14.040 So, okay, you're not going to...

00:40:16.860 That's the...

00:40:18.240 Now, I understand what, feeling like, yeah, I know the right answer, and I agree with you, Marty.

00:40:26.900 No, no, we're just having a debate.

00:40:29.140 We're having a debate.

00:40:30.680 It's not about agreeing or disagreeing entirely.

00:40:33.200 We're having a chat.

00:40:33.840 By the way, congratulations to you guys and Rimby.

00:40:35.760 I mean, what are the other writings?

00:40:38.120 Rimby, West Yellowhead, Graham Prairie, some great writings that sent a message.

00:40:45.600 Thank you for that.

00:40:47.000 Yeah, Stetler, not with Keith Notley, yeah.

00:40:50.400 So anyways.

00:40:51.600 I appreciate it.

00:40:53.680 My phone is beeping, beeping, beeping.

00:40:55.600 Lots of people want to come on the line.

00:40:58.040 I have one last comment for you, Marty.

00:41:00.140 Go ahead.

00:41:01.080 When I was younger, I went to step out to cross the road in the crosswalk.

00:41:05.900 And my dad said, hey, watching the car coming.

00:41:08.560 I said, I know, but I have the right way he has to stop.

00:41:11.480 Oh, yeah.

00:41:11.880 And he says, yes, but if you're dead, you'll be right, but you'll be dead. 0.82

00:41:15.160 We can be right all we want, but if we have an NDP government, we're dead. 0.60

00:41:19.420 I've heard that before.

00:41:20.420 I appreciate the call.

00:41:21.300 Thank you, my friend.

00:41:23.940 That was good.

00:41:25.300 I hope everybody can hear it.

00:41:26.680 John, I think the sound's better.

00:41:28.720 There was a couple of days ago where the sound was fantastic.

00:41:31.380 I don't know if it's mostly related to people's phones or what it is.

00:41:35.520 Okay, the line was beeping.

00:41:37.320 Go ahead, caller.

00:41:37.940 Let's keep having fun with this.

00:41:42.280 Yeah, hi.

00:41:42.900 It's Gordon calling.

00:41:45.900 Okay, what's on your mind?

00:41:48.680 Well, in regards to what happened here with the referendum,

00:41:53.920 you know, I was somebody who I did some volunteering.

00:41:56.500 I did some scrutiny work.

00:41:57.820 I've given donations.

00:41:59.360 And I've gone to all the rallies that they had here in Edmonton.

00:42:03.200 And I went to the last one on the 17th.

00:42:07.720 And, of course, I was very disappointed in the crowd.

00:42:10.620 I'm just going to say it all right.

00:42:11.740 I'm not going to try to fudge it.

00:42:12.860 I thought there was going to be a much bigger crowd, being the last one.

00:42:17.220 But in all three that I was at, I kept asking myself the same old question.

00:42:23.320 Where are the young people?

00:42:26.460 Everybody there was like in their 30-ish, whatever, up to where I am in seniors.

00:42:34.760 Where are the young people?

00:42:36.280 Why aren't they here?

00:42:37.840 We're doing this for them.

00:42:39.720 I'm 70.

00:42:40.840 I'm in my 70s.

00:42:41.840 If we would have, say, get through a referendum, the benefits to me would be marginal, maybe a little more pension money, maybe a little bit more taxes.

00:42:51.840 But I was doing this for them, for their futures.

00:42:57.160 Where are they?

00:42:58.260 And then when I hear that the Rebel News put out a statement earlier this week, you probably heard it, 120,000 young Canadians between the age of 20 and 40 departed from this country.

00:43:10.740 Now, I imagine the majority of them went to the U.S.,

00:43:13.780 but they were talking about all the different countries they went to.

00:43:16.720 And that's the route the young people are taking.

00:43:19.600 They're taking the easier option. 0.99

00:43:22.400 Pack my suitcase and I'm gone because they need me 0.99

00:43:25.680 and I don't have to put up with this crap. 0.97

00:43:27.600 Yeah, well, I'll say a couple of things. 0.98

00:43:33.440 Packing up and moving is not always the easier option.

00:43:36.860 I did that in my life.

00:43:38.240 And it's pretty, you know, it's not something people take lightly.

00:43:41.760 I mean, you leave family behind in a bunch of things.

00:43:44.140 So I'll just say that.

00:43:46.180 But as to where they are, it's a question that came up all the time.

00:43:51.100 They are there, okay?

00:43:52.300 They're just probably not at the same events as you.

00:43:54.680 Like, I went to town hall, same as you, right?

00:43:56.660 I go to the town hall in Cremona, and you look around, and the crowd looks pretty old.

00:44:01.100 But that's how that crowd got their information.

00:44:04.920 It would go to town halls.

00:44:05.940 but when we did the town and i'm speaking truly from experiences when we're doing these town halls

00:44:11.480 we are often filming it and streaming it we call it and online we usually have more people watching

00:44:18.400 online than in the town hall and and we know that the people watching us are younger people on on

00:44:24.900 youtube and stuff like that so just because you're not seeing the young people at some of the events

00:44:29.960 that did not mean that they're not there they're just they're just they just take in information

00:44:34.260 differently does that make sense no maybe so maybe yes but i i still think that when it came

00:44:41.500 pushing to shove and you needed to go and put your x on paper yeah i'm still saying they were

00:44:47.860 boys um yeah anyway that's all i wanted to say no no i i'm gonna be uh i'm gonna be zooming in

00:44:54.140 on the call tonight uh alberta prosperity project and maybe i'll get a chance to say something i

00:44:59.960 I don't know, but I do want to attend it tonight and see what they've got to say.

00:45:03.880 Maybe get a chance to say something or text something.

00:45:06.980 But I do have more to say, but, you know, you're a place enough to do it.

00:45:10.620 You probably have other calls and people to entertain here, so that's great.

00:45:14.820 I'll be on that call as well.

00:45:16.380 That's the way I saw it.

00:45:17.780 And when I was scrutinizing, the same thing, people coming into the hall.

00:45:23.300 It was all the mid-30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s crowds.

00:45:30.520 There were very few, if any, 20-something-year-olds.

00:45:35.540 It was just, it wasn't there, man.

00:45:37.940 Appreciate the call.

00:45:38.780 Thank you.

00:45:40.500 See you later.

00:45:41.340 Cheers.

00:45:42.320 Yeah, he's talking about Mitch Sylvester's hosting a Zoom call at 7 o'clock.

00:45:47.320 If you're a member of the APP, you probably got the email, and I'll be tuning in.

00:45:51.800 And I want to hear what Mitch has to say.

00:45:53.380 And I've said it before.

00:45:54.920 I still think we owe a debt of gratitude to Mitch.

00:45:58.020 He picked up the ball and ran with it and brought us pretty far.

00:46:02.380 And, you know, I think in part the referendum was an opportunity because of him.

00:46:10.260 By the way, yeah, good comment.

00:46:14.460 You know, did the youth come out?

00:46:15.920 I think that's something we'll be able to look at in the full data when it comes up.

00:46:22.400 But right now, the participation rate, like there's 2 million votes already.

00:46:26.420 And I think there was 3.1 million electors.

00:46:29.160 So, you know, it's 66%.

00:46:31.020 Wasn't a huge turnout, not as big as expected.

00:46:35.500 And I don't think that the data is granular enough for us to be able to tell if the youth came out or not.

00:46:41.200 But that's always been a reality, regardless.

00:46:44.560 This youthful people are less political than older people.

00:46:48.100 It's just a fact.

00:46:49.700 Go ahead, caller.

00:46:50.340 Where are you calling from?

00:46:51.040 What's on your mind?

00:46:53.200 Hi, Marty.

00:46:54.240 Yeah, my name's Ryan.

00:46:56.020 I'm from southern Alberta, just an hour from the U.S. border.

00:47:00.680 But this whole referendum, I think it was great.

00:47:08.140 Like all this voting, this is awesome.

00:47:10.360 we went through everything that they wanted us to go through we did the signing we did the voting

00:47:19.440 everybody should be just proud of themselves the work they've done they put in and I just

00:47:26.700 want to say everybody just take a deep breath and just kind of relax

00:47:31.500 this question 10 if if it went the other way um and we had the opportunity to continue

00:47:44.760 well we would still be in canada and it would maybe take another six months it could have taken

00:47:51.520 another year before we even got the binding referendum so right now is a perfect time for us

00:48:00.380 with danielle smith what she's saying let her say what she says keep her there now she has the ball

00:48:09.720 in her court she has to prove what she's been saying all along that she can make a better deal

00:48:17.820 everything like that the um canadian albertans that voted in this referendum the 15 uh

00:48:27.200 1,500,000 people, they're expecting her to do something now.

00:48:33.500 Right.

00:48:33.720 And so, yeah, what I'm saying is, let her stay there. 0.84

00:48:41.140 Let her do her thing.

00:48:43.200 And then the independence people, the solidists, the separatists, whoever you are,

00:48:49.840 We have time to continue and educate people like we've seen the shenanigans of the Alberta elections in Alberta.

00:49:06.160 And we can show people that now, that the mail-in ballots, this and that, whatever, we can educate people.

00:49:15.380 Yeah, okay.

00:49:17.180 Yeah, I'm just saying that everybody relax.

00:49:23.900 I got lots of calls, and I've got 10 minutes left,

00:49:26.260 so I'd like to get to a few more.

00:49:27.400 Appreciate the call, then.

00:49:28.440 Thanks, my friend.

00:49:29.560 Thank you, Marty.

00:49:30.620 Thank you.

00:49:32.420 Oh, John, is there another call online right now?

00:49:36.780 Sorry.

00:49:37.380 Okay, they'll call right back.

00:49:41.100 Boy, I guess we're going to continue this next week, right?

00:49:44.800 I mean, I never even touched on, actually, next week when we meet, we'll be discussing the results of the BC election, I think.

00:49:51.660 But, you know, one of the things I wanted to, as the viewer said, or the listener, we're not going to kick her out.

00:50:01.000 I mean, there's no mechanism to kick her out.

00:50:03.060 And then when she says she's going to kick us out, there's no mechanism.

00:50:06.980 It's sort of not practical at this point.

00:50:09.680 I don't think a new party will have time to get created.

00:50:15.500 But we'll see.

00:50:18.060 We'll see.

00:50:18.520 I mean, there are people talking about a new party,

00:50:20.680 but I'm not advocating for that at this point.

00:50:23.000 Now, the risk for Danielle is even though there is no mechanism

00:50:26.620 to kick her out, there are people scheming to do that right now.

00:50:31.580 Go ahead, caller.

00:50:32.300 Where are you calling from?

00:50:33.020 What's on your mind?

00:50:35.900 This is Jack from Medicine Hat.

00:50:38.040 Hey, Jack.

00:50:38.580 How are you?

00:50:38.920 Oh, from Danielle's own writing.

00:50:42.820 Yeah, very same one.

00:50:44.800 Um, I'm just calling in regard to the, your guys' concern with the NDP split and the youth.

00:50:52.520 For being a 31-year-old guy, I grew up remembering the good times, but I never thought to experience them myself.

00:51:00.140 And I think the trouble is, is after 10, 11 years of the Trudeau government, a lot of these younger people grew up in this world.

00:51:07.740 They just think this is what it is.

00:51:09.120 They don't, they were too young to remember the good Alberta times.

00:51:12.860 Excellent point.

00:51:13.740 I mean, I feel sorry for somebody who's 32 years old or 33 or you said 31, I think like, yeah, you I'm 59.

00:51:21.680 You know, I was I was when I was 32 years old in I'm having a hard time doing the math here.

00:51:27.480 I think I was 32 years old in 1998. Right. I mean, life was booming, was so good for me in 1998. So good.

00:51:37.340 Yeah, I remember it as a kid, like my father was a pipeliner and most of my family in the oil film.

00:51:42.660 And I remember how it was, but you're fighting that.

00:51:45.640 You're fighting an indoctrination system in the public schools, too.

00:51:49.420 Like, they want to paint this country as something that it's not.

00:51:52.980 And I don't think there's a lot of initiative for them to go look for the answers either themselves.

00:51:58.720 And maybe that's the step going forward we need to take.

00:52:02.740 Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

00:52:04.760 So what's your, I'll ask you a quick question.

00:52:08.240 Any big winners in this referendum?

00:52:11.100 Let me give you, who's the bigger winner between, let's say, Smith, Nenshi, Thomas Lukasik, and Mark Carney?

00:52:19.700 Any big winners among those four?

00:52:23.600 I think they all lost in a way. 1.00

00:52:25.780 I think Danielle put herself in a corner where she can't deliver on her nine questions. 0.99

00:52:30.660 Like, I think it'll just drag it out and create a civil war within the UCP party. 0.55

00:52:37.220 I don't see how she didn't get out of that in a way.

00:52:40.400 Like, she doesn't have a strong enough mandate, my opinion, on the ninth question.

00:52:43.820 You even go to the feds and say, look, they'll just say, look,

00:52:46.800 there's a bunch of people riding the fence from our end of it, right?

00:52:50.180 Yeah.

00:52:51.100 Okay.

00:52:51.520 No, good.

00:52:52.380 I'm sort of on the same place as you.

00:52:54.320 Thank you.

00:52:54.680 I got a couple of calls on the line that I want to take before the end of the hour here.

00:52:58.100 I appreciate the call from Medicine Hat.

00:53:01.140 What was your name?

00:53:01.760 Steve, right?

00:53:02.380 No.

00:53:04.140 Oh, he's probably.

00:53:04.500 Yeah, Jack.

00:53:05.280 Oh, Jack.

00:53:05.760 Sorry.

00:53:06.020 All right.

00:53:06.240 Thanks, Jack.

00:53:07.100 All right.

00:53:07.360 Let's try and get a couple more callers in or maybe three more.

00:53:09.760 Go ahead, caller.

00:53:13.800 Where are you calling from?

00:53:15.240 Oh, lost it again.

00:53:16.260 That's okay.

00:53:16.980 That's the problem right now, folks.

00:53:19.280 It's not a problem.

00:53:20.420 It's a limit.

00:53:21.660 It's a constraint that we have.

00:53:22.920 We only have one line, and you're being put on hold,

00:53:26.000 and I think some people drop while they're waiting.

00:53:28.460 But it's, yeah, the winners and losers,

00:53:32.500 everybody's going to have a hard time claiming a victory, right?

00:53:36.740 Lukasik campaigned hard on say no to the nine,

00:53:39.420 So he got, I'm going to say he got five out of nine.

00:53:43.180 He might claim five out of ten or six out of ten if he has question ten.

00:53:49.100 So did he get a full victory?

00:53:50.880 I don't think so. 0.99

00:53:52.460 Danielle Smith, I don't think she got anywhere near a victory. 1.00

00:53:56.160 I mean, she was using this as an excuse to get a mandate.

00:54:01.120 She didn't get a clear mandate, I think,

00:54:03.280 or she got a mandate on something that's going to be hard to change.

00:54:06.120 I don't know what she's going to campaign on next year.

00:54:09.420 Nenshi was campaigning as

00:54:12.340 I'm Captain Canada, you know,

00:54:14.380 and Nenshi was

00:54:16.320 campaigning on the fact that

00:54:17.780 Danielle was a separatist. Well, I think

00:54:20.220 it's pretty clear that Danielle's not a separatist

00:54:22.420 and he didn't

00:54:24.380 need to be Captain Canada. Nobody

00:54:26.180 took him seriously. And Nenshi,

00:54:28.580 I think Nenshi

00:54:29.580 would have liked this to go

00:54:32.340 differently so that he could have

00:54:33.960 campaigned against it all through next year,

00:54:36.320 right? So Nenshi needs to find, like,

00:54:38.140 what's nenshi gonna nenshi wants to campaign against the referendum because he sure as heck

00:54:44.060 doesn't want to campaign on his track record right so now nenshi next year he's stuck trying

00:54:48.720 to campaign on this track record all right caller go ahead hi can you hear me yeah yeah perfect

00:54:56.480 hello yep oh hey uh hey marty this is seph um i was thinking uh the other day i was in your shop

00:55:03.580 and we were having a chat and i think at this point the most important thing might be for us

00:55:10.560 to stop talking about this separation movement and for the third party advertisers to just park

00:55:16.360 it for the next year because if it becomes an election issue i think we're finished

00:55:21.640 yeah no i like i said to one of the early callers i have no problem parking it i have no

00:55:27.500 like if somebody asked me sort of nicely with a very valid plan going forward you know hey can

00:55:32.720 you just park it for a year this is why so forth and so forth i can park it but if somebody says i

00:55:37.880 want you to park it permanently and if you don't park it permanently then you're out of this movement

00:55:42.140 and out of this or out of this party i have a difficulty with that do you know what i'm saying

00:55:46.160 like yeah i can park it like anybody i mean i'm gonna uh i'm not gonna i'm gonna park the

00:55:53.340 separatist issue and what i'm gonna do for the next year is continue to highlight how we're

00:55:57.480 getting a bum rap in confederation that i'm not gonna stop like i'm not gonna stop showcasing

00:56:01.840 all the bad things that Ottawa is doing to Alberta.

00:56:07.420 Yeah, absolutely.

00:56:08.780 It's going to be tough for people like Jeff Brath to be quiet, though.

00:56:12.320 That's what kind of concerns me.

00:56:14.040 But I really hope that everyone can just calm down

00:56:17.600 and wait for the year to pass and then return to it.

00:56:20.980 Yeah, I might have to try and get Jeff on the show one of these days.

00:56:24.120 You're right, but Jeff's a lawyer, right?

00:56:25.580 That's what he does.

00:56:26.400 I mean, it's part of his personality.

00:56:29.240 He's a big personality.

00:56:30.640 We'll see.

00:56:30.960 Yeah. Thanks for the call, Sepp. And like I said, invitations open. If you want to change the bearings on that quad of yours, let me know. And they're not that expensive and they're easy to do. All right, bud. Have a good one.

00:56:42.460 Perfect. That sounds great. Yeah. Right on. Bye.

00:56:45.180 I got great neighbors live in a nice neighborhood where everybody helps each other all the time. And and that's what neighbors and that's what Albertans do. And that's what conservatives do. Right. I've always said that, like, I don't need the government to tell me to be nice to my neighbors. I'll do it.

00:57:00.960 I actually, I hate being told what to do by my government.

00:57:04.720 I just, I just hate it.

00:57:07.120 And all right.

00:57:07.780 Okay.

00:57:07.980 I'm kind of, we're getting low on, I can stretch it.

00:57:12.400 Actually, I've never asked John, how far past the hour am I allowed to go?

00:57:15.840 Are there rules?

00:57:19.760 Okay.

00:57:20.240 So I can go a little bit past.

00:57:21.640 If you guys were like really, really, really wanting to talk,

00:57:24.800 although this was a great chat.

00:57:26.060 Keep, okay.

00:57:26.460 So let's, let's, let's set it up for next week, right?

00:57:29.280 We're going to have the BC election results next week.

00:57:32.300 So we're going to have to try and digest how Carney pivots with all this.

00:57:37.180 Because I think the conservatives are going to, or the non-NDP are going to win in BC.

00:57:42.320 I've got to stop calling them conservatives because I don't think they're quite conservatives.

00:57:46.620 And next week we will have had finally all the results.

00:57:49.820 I don't know if Danielle will do some kind of retraction or what she will do or some adjustment. 0.58

00:57:54.740 Because I think she needs to.

00:57:55.960 Compared to what she said two days ago, this is a big change.

00:58:00.280 She did not get four of those constitutional questions,

00:58:03.380 which was a big part of her strategy going forward.

00:58:07.100 So next week, I think we'll be exploring the winners and losers

00:58:10.400 a little bit more, and who knows what else.

00:58:13.000 I mean, welcome to Canada.

00:58:14.700 My bingo card is, I take my bingo cards every week

00:58:18.900 and I throw them in the garbage because I don't have,

00:58:22.020 you know, there's so many events.

00:58:23.100 I did not have an MMA fighter getting on stage at the legislature telling us to vote for independence on my bingo card last week.

00:58:34.220 And I didn't have the U.S. sending Canada a letter saying stop interfering in our elections.

00:58:40.560 I didn't have that on my bingo card last week.

00:58:42.820 So, all right, folks, it's the top of the hour.

00:58:46.220 It's a great conversation.

00:58:47.720 I am going to go home and finish working on my truck.

00:58:49.940 As usual, we can't bring you content like this for free.

00:58:56.440 We rely on subscriptions and we had the paywall down.

00:59:00.620 I believe the paywall is back up.

00:59:02.320 We need to make money to run this operation and pay a few salaries.

00:59:07.040 So if you can, westernstandard.news backslash subscription,

00:59:11.280 it is still $10 a month or $100 a year.

00:59:15.300 I hope you got a chance to see a lot of the content

00:59:17.780 while the paywall was down.

00:59:19.560 I think most of you guys that are listening are already subscribers.

00:59:23.860 I encourage you to subscribe.

00:59:26.860 And Marty up north saying thanks for tuning in.

00:59:31.580 Enjoy these last few days of fall, summer,

00:59:36.040 and we'll see you next week at the same time.

00:59:38.300 Cheers, friends.

00:59:49.560 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - October 22, 2026

Alberta’s referendum is over. Now the UCP faces the real test

Episode Stats

Transcript