Western Standard - Alberta’s success paints a target on its back

00:00:00.000 Good day.

00:00:28.320 welcome to the cory morgan show yeah we got another good one ahead lots going on summer

00:00:33.860 things haven't really slowed down politically that much often it gets a little hard to find

00:00:37.260 things to cover but there's been no shortage of stuff to go on about these days the show is live

00:00:42.900 be sure to use that comment scroll guys send those questions my way comments ideas i see a jordan

00:00:48.860 lunt saying tall poppy syndrome yeah that leads into what i'm going to talk about in a bit and

00:00:52.560 it's a good uh analogy for for what i'm talking about sean wright talking about a a referendum

00:00:58.120 shouldn't even happen. We're going to talk a little bit about that as well because Canada's

00:01:02.580 collapse will bring about Alberta's independence. That's another way to look at it. It might come

00:01:06.260 that way. Who knows? I'm going to have Jonathan Dennis come on. He was a former Justice Minister

00:01:10.460 of Alberta. We're going to talk a little bit about the tail end of the progressive conservative

00:01:14.360 government back in the past and now the current UCP and sort of the resurgence of some of the

00:01:19.240 worst of the progressive conservatives as Fabio Thomas Lukasik keeps popping up in the news scroll

00:01:24.600 still, whether we want to hear from him or not. All right, but again, I'm wanting to rant about

00:01:29.540 here in a bit here. It's on the news, of course. Just the announcements are always the same,

00:01:34.220 it seems, out of Prime Minister Carney. He's now tossing, what, a billion and some dollars

00:01:38.600 at the BC forestry sector. And I know they're hurting. I know the trade mess is causing

00:01:43.000 pressures, but Carney's answer to everything is just tossing more money at it. And guys,

00:01:48.040 this doesn't bode well for us. I mean, Alberta's doing well, despite Canada, not because of it.

00:01:53.220 And so Saskatchewan is doing pretty good too.

00:01:55.180 Alberta is surpassing the rest of the country in most economic measures.

00:01:59.040 Even though oil prices have been tumultuous, Alberta's economy is going strong.

00:02:02.900 Unemployment is below the national average.

00:02:05.160 Our provincial government posted a surplus of over $8 billion.

00:02:08.140 And new housing units even created will reach a record high of nearly 60,000 this year.

00:02:12.780 Having a low tax rate in a welcoming business environment has diversified the local economy and it's paying off.

00:02:18.280 By comparison, Canada's economic outlook is a basket case.

00:02:22.100 Under Carney's brilliant guidance, the deficit went from $62 billion from when he was elected to a staggering $92 billion and growing.

00:02:29.620 Carney's spending spree is making his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, look like a cheapskate.

00:02:34.120 We're just paying the interest on the current national debt costs as much as the government brings in every year on the GST.

00:02:39.220 That's as much as the federal government sends out in annual health care transfers to the provinces.

00:02:44.660 It gets worse, though. Carney's fiscal irresponsibility is sure to lead to a credit downgrade for the federal government soon.

00:02:50.620 And that means interest rates will rise on the federal debt as the balance grows by nearly $100 billion a year.

00:02:56.200 Look, Canada's swirling into a debt catastrophe and Carney's showing no indication of trying to stop it.

00:03:02.080 Carney was sold to Canadians in the last election as some sort of economic and diplomatic wizard.

00:03:06.520 Well, so far his economic ineptitude is only being overshadowed by his utter failure to get a deal with Canada's largest trading partner done.

00:03:14.740 And now rising tariffs are devastating some Canadian industries.

00:03:17.920 The elbows-up approach has been a total failure.

00:03:21.360 Not to be outdone by the federal government, though, Doug Ford's bumbling management of Ontario has put the province into have-not status,

00:03:27.180 and they rely on equalization payments to pay their bills.

00:03:31.260 Ford jumped into bed with Justin Trudeau on subsidy sinkholes such as battery plants that never began construction and edible cricket factories that went broke.

00:03:39.620 The unemployment rate in Ontario is nearly 8%, while the cost of living continues to rise.

00:03:43.720 despite having three times Alberta's population, Ontario only managed to build the same number of

00:03:48.660 housing units in one year. Too much government has made increasing housing at a sustainable rate

00:03:54.460 impossible. Mass immigration, though, it continues to pressure the country while billions are spent 1.00

00:03:58.820 to house refugees and hotels. The influx has contributed to a near collapse of health care 1.00

00:04:03.460 systems in every province, and despite constant spending increases, it's just not getting better.

00:04:08.080 And of course, then there's the Maritimes. They remain in perpetual state of dependency,

00:04:11.340 while unemployment in Newfoundland sits at 10% with no relief on the horizon.

00:04:15.400 Canada prefers to subsidize people to stay in the regions without resources

00:04:18.820 rather than move the people to the regions that need the labour.

00:04:21.260 Then they bring in more mass immigration to fill the labour needs in other areas.

00:04:24.960 It's a recipe for national population imbalance.

00:04:27.560 And of course, let's look at Quebec.

00:04:29.220 Well, Quebec's in it for Quebec. 0.65

00:04:30.620 They control the national agenda and keeping terrible policies

00:04:33.900 with everything from supply management to imposed bilingualism upon the West.

00:04:37.980 And they'll happily hinder Western economic development

00:04:40.180 while sucking in billions in equalization payments and other bribes.

00:04:44.340 Manitoba and BC, they both elected socialist governments

00:04:46.660 which are opposing pipeline development and stunting their own economies.

00:04:50.100 BC is likely going to join the majority of Canada 0.58

00:04:52.440 as a have-not province and begin collecting welfare through equalization soon too.

00:04:57.420 Atlas leaves Alberta and Saskatchewan to pay the nation's bills, guys.

00:05:01.080 Rest assured, being the national sugar daddies

00:05:03.020 won't earn the prairie province's gratitude or respect.

00:05:05.780 Alberta and Saskatchewan will get nothing but contempt and ire

00:05:07.880 from the Canadian power brokers.

00:05:09.540 Rather than emulate Alberta's success, they'll strive to tear the provinces down,

00:05:13.320 prairie provinces, to their economic level and social failure.

00:05:17.380 Canada's Laurentian leader driven by ideology and entitlement.

00:05:20.520 They'd rather sink the nation than admit their ideology is one of failure.

00:05:24.760 Alberta and Saskatchewan's success has painted a target on their backs.

00:05:27.680 The Liberals have nothing to lose in enraging prairie voters,

00:05:30.640 and they see the accumulating wealth of the West as a plum to be harvested for the East,

00:05:34.820 rather than an asset earned by Westerners, which must be kept by Westerners.

00:05:38.720 Premiers Mo and Smith both recognize this threat.

00:05:40.740 That's why legislation like the Sovereignty Act was created.

00:05:43.080 And while the provincial governments aren't overtly supporting independence,

00:05:45.700 they aren't hindering independence movements from growing and pursuing a referendum either.

00:05:49.180 The West has to prepare for another economic assault from the eastern Canada. 0.74

00:05:52.320 It's going to happen.

00:05:53.440 It'll be the last gasp from a central government going broke.

00:05:56.300 Alberta and Saskatchewan can't save Canada.

00:05:58.360 We can save ourselves, though, through pursuing independence,

00:06:01.020 rather than letting misguided Federalists pull us into economic insolvency with the rest of the nation.

00:06:06.860 So watch it, guys.

00:06:07.660 strap in it's coming they're going broke and we're sitting with a full wallet you know they can't

00:06:12.460 leave it that way for much longer all right let's see what else going on out there with

00:06:16.460 who's editor dave how's it going yeah i wish i had a full wallet well the province is a full one

00:06:21.820 well yeah we're an independent media oh yeah it doesn't do me any good whatsoever so i'm hearing

00:06:27.500 that uh duke the wonder dog acted heroically earlier this week he got up in the middle of

00:06:33.500 the night and shook the windows and barked at the dog door because uh uh he sensed a bear outside

00:06:38.380 yes so yeah you had a black bear strolling on your uh your cam heading for the honey he was heading

00:06:43.020 that way but uh the hives were intact in the mornings because of the heroic actions of duke

00:06:47.740 the wonder dog i'm sure duke believes that don't tell him otherwise yeah i think the electric fence

00:06:53.420 might have more to do with it but we'll see but yes duke did get up and bark his brains out and

00:06:56.940 our other dog volstag went tearing out into the hill hoping to get himself killed but uh the bear

00:07:02.380 didn't bother there you go how do you have this area protected you say electric fences it's an

00:07:07.500 old chicken coop and it's got a wire around that and then i've got electric fence around that and

00:07:11.740 then i got a motion detector spotlight and i got a halloween decoration that makes a screaming noise

00:07:16.380 whenever something comes near it and it's worked so far for the last few years because yeah my

00:07:20.140 first year at attempted beekeeping went great until a bear came in and completely devastated

00:07:24.220 my yeah and yeah well so but stays that way because you're having a great uh great year with

00:07:28.300 that are we gonna load of it uh yeah man it had to be 150 pounds in the last harvest or something

00:07:33.740 like that 100 pounds maybe and just about as much more to come with nice good for you

00:07:38.540 now you got to find a new hobby i'll find something the news uh you you talked about

00:07:44.700 immigration did you know that uh since mark carney became prime minister uh the liberals

00:07:50.300 have refused to release in immigration numbers he used to come out once a month but it just

00:07:56.380 stop since March. So Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel-Garner got up on the soapbox today and

00:08:04.220 demanded they restart it. But I don't think there's much chance of the Liberals telling us

00:08:10.540 how many people are coming in, do you? So they just don't want to admit that the mass immigration 1.00

00:08:13.820 is continuing. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be in Nova Scotia this summer,

00:08:19.580 they banned walking in the woods uh the the fire uh fire uh danger is extreme up there

00:08:26.700 so uh the premier houston uh this morning banned people from going on walks in woods

00:08:31.740 well you know since we really have a very flimsy charter of rights things like mobility and so on

00:08:36.700 don't even come into play if the premier you know frivolously wants to ban people from going on

00:08:40.620 public land what can you do yeah exactly and it includes things like uh you know the the dirt bikes

00:08:47.260 and the quads and all that sort of stuff so well we get that occasionally here when it gets really

00:08:51.500 hot and dry they stuff atvs and so on but they never stop people no and i mean yeah i know some 0.99

00:08:57.020 people will say oh but somebody will go out there and flick a cigarette but you know the idiot who's 0.99

00:09:00.140 going to flick a cigarette and digress isn't going to be smart enough to stop going in the woods if 0.98

00:09:04.940 premier houston told him not exactly so yeah not uh summer of no fun shaking up in uh in nova

00:09:12.700 scotia our summer is no fun because of rain yeah and it won't stop every day and as i said it's

00:09:19.500 good for the bees but otherwise i need something else at my place like a jungle when you go inside

00:09:23.260 my fences like boy there's no fire risk back there even if i wanted them exactly uh yet again another

00:09:28.940 active shooter in the united states this time at a military base corey uh this morning in georgia

00:09:33.820 fort stewart uh five soldiers shot uh transported to hospital and really that's only that's only

00:09:41.100 the details we know at the moment uh suspect is in custody uh but i'll be updating that story

00:09:47.340 uh throughout the afternoon so here's my favorite story of the day seattle kraken

00:09:53.020 nhl hockey team they've got a furry mascot called boy like boy you know as in boy boy yeah that

00:10:02.140 might be the better way to pronounce it so every year they do a thing with an alaska

00:10:05.980 hockey school, try and keep interest in Alaska and hockey.

00:10:10.080 So they decided the thing to do would be to go to the epicenter of grizzly bears in the

00:10:15.360 entire world, Brook Falls, where the hundreds of bears sit and wait for salmon, and put

00:10:22.340 this stuffed animal mascot in the middle of the river, fly fishing, with a player, a Seattle

00:10:31.380 Kraken player.

00:10:32.140 And then, of course, you see the grizzly approaching on the pathway, and his eyes light up.

00:10:39.960 Oh, exotic food, sushi, or something nice and fluffy out there.

00:10:46.760 So, of course, the bear charges into the water, and the poor buoy and the hockey player, I mean, I'll give them credit.

00:10:54.760 They didn't scream like little girls like I would have done. 0.90

00:10:57.300 No, I would have too.

00:10:57.980 It would have been a cold brown.

00:10:58.900 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:00.080 But, you know, the bear sort of went towards them, charged towards them, and then kind of veered off at the very end.

00:11:05.640 So they're very lucky, very lucky.

00:11:08.260 But there's some great video on the website, and you can go check that out.

00:11:11.800 But that's the story of the day.

00:11:14.500 Our editorial we can talk about is praising American Eagle for standing by the lovely Sidney Sweeney

00:11:21.820 and not collapsing in the face of all that incredible woke outrage.

00:11:28.900 And incredible it was.

00:11:30.520 It was crazy. 0.97

00:11:31.220 It's ridiculous. 0.99

00:11:32.360 I mean, you know, even moving towards a celebration of ugly, 0.98

00:11:36.220 it kind of comes more towards that one of my commenters

00:11:37.860 talking about the tall poppy syndrome.

00:11:39.300 There's just certain people who just feel,

00:11:40.420 we're going to tear everybody down.

00:11:42.000 Okay, we didn't all get the good genes of Sweeney,

00:11:44.160 but you can still put them out and advertise

00:11:46.000 and appreciate them for crying out.

00:11:47.200 Oh, exactly. 1.00

00:11:47.980 It's just stupid. 1.00

00:11:49.640 There was a 16-year-old murdered in Calgary last week. 1.00

00:11:52.580 Corey, we've got an update on that coming up shortly, including a family statement.

00:11:57.780 And I've got to give you a plug. 0.73

00:11:59.320 I've got to give my friend Corey Morgan a plug.

00:12:01.800 He makes the second-best honey in Alberta, admittedly.

00:12:07.060 And he will be at the Longview Craft Market this weekend.

00:12:10.700 It was a farmer's market.

00:12:11.980 Farmer's market in Longview.

00:12:13.120 And he will have his honey for sale there.

00:12:15.780 hundreds of pounds that he's already harvested best honey why in my opinion

00:12:20.460 but I haven't tasted the other guys but yeah go ahead and buy my quarry's by

00:12:24.960 quarry's honey I appreciate the the plug and I still think it was a flaw in the

00:12:28.380 judging on the last one but either way there's no complaints about the honey so

00:12:31.320 thanks for that yeah exactly it'll be there all day too with her barn quilt 1.00

00:12:34.860 so good well hopefully a successful day and the rain stays away yeah there you

00:12:39.300 go thanks Dave and I guess it's gonna be a couple of weeks before we see you in

00:12:42.840 here yeah i'm taking some time off uh grandson time my first grandson out in uh in vancouver

00:12:47.960 i've got some relatives flying in from england so it should be a great two weeks for me right

00:12:51.880 on well enjoy the break and uh see you when you get back you bet all right that is our news editor

00:12:58.360 dave naylor busy and getting his stuff done before he can escape to the coast and enjoy

00:13:03.160 his grandson as he should i just want to like to remind you guys uh the reason us

00:13:08.280 independent media guys you know as much as their wallets aren't that fat we're getting by

00:13:11.880 and it's thanks to you guys who have subscribed we don't take tax dollars we won't take them

00:13:16.720 but we rely on subscribers and I know most of you watching have already subscribed and we really

00:13:21.040 appreciate it it's 10 bucks a month 100 for a year but if you haven't subscribed check it out

00:13:25.780 guys I mean come on 10 bucks a month helps keep us rolling keeps things moving and beats the

00:13:30.660 legacy media outlets who are sucking the money out of your wallet anyway through tax dollars

00:13:34.840 so get on there westernstandard.news slash subscription take one out and uh help support

00:13:41.200 all of this independent journalism out there. You can see the other Dave behind me there. He's not

00:13:45.240 eating Shanghai noodles today as he was the other day, but he will be joining me for news updates

00:13:49.700 while Dave Naylor is on vacation. So we'll have fun with him when that show gets rolling. I won't

00:13:54.780 allow him to bring his lunch in with him. All right, I see Jonathan already in the lobby. Maybe

00:13:58.100 I'll pull him in. I've been looking forward to this. This is Jonathan Dennis, former cabinet

00:14:02.260 minister. He was the justice minister, solicitor general, attorney general. So many titles they

00:14:06.760 give to that thing. We're back with the Redford government in the past and now runs Guardian Law.

00:14:12.680 How are you doing, Jonathan? I'm better now that I'm on your show, Corey. How are you doing?

00:14:16.040 Good, good. No, I really appreciate you coming on today. You've got a voice that you can really

00:14:22.100 add to this because I think we're still in a transitional place in politics in a way. I mean,

00:14:26.840 you were kind of on the tail end of an incredible dynasty, I guess, of progressive conservatives.

00:14:31.280 uh it it you know we went through the turning point of putting the NDP in for a while and then

00:14:37.360 the the UCP is back in they've changed a leader it's like they're still trying to find their footing

00:14:42.100 uh but I mean so where to begin I mean towards the end of the progressive conservatives there

00:14:48.360 was kind of some problems going on within every party has that and uh one of the people who's

00:14:53.060 been coming up we've been hearing the news again for example is Thomas Lukasik you served in

00:14:57.380 cabinet with him. Did he indicate, I guess, some of the divided people within the past

00:15:04.060 progressive conservatives? Well, so I'll tell you, oddly enough, he and I were appointed cabinet the

00:15:08.760 same day. It was January 15, 2010. Never forget that day. And I remember my uncle Jerome showing

00:15:14.380 up and saying that he had taught him at St. Joseph's High School up in Edmonton. So Thomas

00:15:19.680 was elected in 2001. I came in in 2008. If there's one thing I really got to give him credit for,

00:15:25.320 though he put a lot of uh work into ukraine relief uh him and and stalmak put together like

00:15:32.180 a whole plane of of relief items to ukraine so good on him for that like i don't care what side

00:15:38.020 of the spectrum you're on when you're doing charity work like that kudos man that's great

00:15:41.960 now some of the problems that the pc party had towards the end is it was the only game in town

00:15:48.760 for literally 44 years peter laughe came to power in 1971 uh we were out in 2015 that's the second

00:15:55.140 longest streak of any government in Canadian history. So it's not insignificant. The problem

00:16:00.860 towards the end, and Ted Morton had talked about this, he was there a term before me. He had noticed

00:16:07.400 that the PC party was starting to try to establish a different base. And so what ended up happening

00:16:13.880 is in doing that, we alienated a lot of our traditional supporters. And I'll be honest,

00:16:19.280 I really did not find a lot in common with Mr. Lukasik when I was in office.

00:16:25.880 He has some different views.

00:16:28.320 And the fact that he has actually openly supported the NDP in the last two provincial elections,

00:16:34.200 has openly been working with Trudeau in the last couple of federal elections,

00:16:38.620 that doesn't really seem that conservative to me.

00:16:41.840 No, and that's what I kind of wanted to get at.

00:16:44.580 I guess some people would say, well, that's a good sign.

00:16:46.660 It was diversity in the governing party.

00:16:48.480 You had some people of very different ideologies within the same government, but realistically, that's kind of what led to the instability, probably, which led to the end of things later.

00:16:57.440 You've remained, you know, quite consistently conservative-minded ever since, even after leaving government.

00:17:03.080 Mr. Lukasik, as you said, is now leaning more towards the NDP and the Liberals.

00:17:08.200 Now, we've got a different outlook going on.

00:17:09.860 There's a two-party system sort of happening.

00:17:13.260 Mr. Lukasik really is becoming a public person.

00:17:15.560 And do you think he might be, though, looking at pursuing a political role again?

00:17:19.600 Well, again, only he could answer that question.

00:17:22.760 But I'll just say this, is that either he is, he's quite good at drawing attention to himself.

00:17:29.000 I'll give him that as well.

00:17:30.220 But the question is, one of my neighbours got an email from his Forever Canada campaign.

00:17:36.380 And I'm starting to think, you know, this is a really good way to amass a lot of data, names, addresses, emails,

00:17:43.440 and also somebody's voter intention, like what are your biggest issues?

00:17:48.420 It's a really, really good way to amass a lot of data,

00:17:51.520 potentially tens, even hundreds of thousands of potential names.

00:17:54.940 So my question is this, is he just looking for attention

00:17:57.980 or is there something else afoot here?

00:17:59.820 Because I really, really get the feeling even anecdotally

00:18:03.380 that Nenshi is not catching on as the NDP leader.

00:18:06.280 So is he looking to succeed him?

00:18:08.140 I don't know.

00:18:08.760 Is he looking to, the Alberta party is going to have a couple more MLAs here.

00:18:12.020 Is he looking to go there?

00:18:13.440 don't know the answer to that question but it is interesting yeah well and i want to bring that up

00:18:18.960 too actually yeah with peter guthrie and and he was talking about kind of re you know bringing

00:18:24.000 the progressive conservative name back but it turns out he can't legally do that so now he's

00:18:27.920 looking at the alberta party whether or not they'll go anywhere with that or not i mean time will tell

00:18:33.440 but it's one of those indications again of a conservative party that that premier smith has

00:18:37.600 got to worry about trying to maintain some degree of unity or or she could you know get into some

00:18:42.880 devastating splits before the next election well that's absolutely true but to go back to an earlier

00:18:47.600 point as well um i do believe it's important to build coalitions i also think that it's important

00:18:52.560 to like let past fights go you and i've been on some opposite sides of the past i think you're a

00:18:56.240 great guy you know you can have friends across the aisle but the caveat to that is you cannot

00:19:01.520 get too broad to the point where you tolerate everything and stand for nothing there isn't a

00:19:05.680 point where a party has to ask itself what are our core values what makes us conservative and

00:19:10.960 There's different, there's economic conservatives, social conservatives, environmental conservatives.

00:19:15.500 You know, there's a lot of common ground there, but it just can't get too broad.

00:19:20.640 Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:22.360 And, I mean, you were just in such a diverse cabinet.

00:19:28.740 How well, I mean, with a leader trying to hold that together, when you get somebody on such a, they were trying to be everything to everybody, I think is kind of what led to the end, to a degree with the PCs.

00:19:38.480 people knew as well if you wanted to get into a government seat you had to join the pcs back then

00:19:43.980 so even if you're only gig in town yeah if your ideology was more left-leaning ndp-ish and there

00:19:49.520 were a number of people with the pcs that way well they pursued that route but there must have

00:19:53.560 been some pretty uh scorching battles in there occasionally then between some of the individuals

00:19:57.860 i don't expect you to breach confidentialities but that makes a challenge for a leader the

00:20:02.280 confidentiality continues uh after the fact so i'm not going to get not yeah thank you for that uh

00:20:07.220 that out uh but you know i do remember one time like uh mr mccas really didn't like being challenged

00:20:12.340 in uh in caucus i remember an altercation not physical one uh that he and i had had a government

00:20:18.360 house after after the fact um reality though is um the uh i would just i like us to ask as a movement

00:20:26.180 what are our core values what makes a person an environmental conservative a social conservative

00:20:31.360 a fiscal conservative like myself uh what defines us as a movement there's certain

00:20:36.660 non-negotiables that a person must have or that a party really should have what makes us the party

00:20:43.400 that we're at and you start straying too far from that what ends up happening is you alienate

00:20:48.180 your traditional supporters and i think maybe you were in that category you felt alienated

00:20:53.280 at that time one of the biggest moments of the decline though is i have seen um pride and

00:20:59.080 arrogance ruin more people in this business than any scandal ever will and when a leader thinks

00:21:05.060 that he or she is all that in a bag of chips that's when the consultations stop and that is

00:21:11.140 at that very moment is when the bad decisions start yeah when they start looking for whether

00:21:16.540 finding hills to die on rather than perhaps examining ways of compromise to hold things

00:21:20.660 together uh i just see uh a perilous or not perilous but a challenging outlook for the ucp

00:21:29.860 going ahead i mean as we are in a two-party system sort of you're kind of all or nothing

00:21:33.920 The PCs had that vent. There was the Alberta Alliance Wild Rose coming along, but there was also still some degree of the Liberal Party was going on. There was the NDP. Now you've really just got two. And, you know, holding that together. I mean, Nenshi's got his challenges as well, trying to keep things capped up with the NDP. But Premier Smith, now she's got kind of a newer element to it. So there's some core conservative principles, but not every conservative, for example, is supportive of Alberta independence.

00:22:02.660 but that's a strong portion of her party base does support that and she's got quite a balancing act to 1.00

00:22:09.860 to juggle there too because that that's the sort of issue that could be a deal breaker for some

00:22:13.300 people well i gotta really commend the premier here because she and i have been on some opposite

00:22:17.000 sides before i've known her since 1998 uh we uh uh it comes a time to let some of these things go

00:22:23.180 but again what you want to ask really the direction the government is going if the government is going

00:22:29.820 She's done a very good job at standing up for this province.

00:22:34.240 I think that's one thing where she has shone at.

00:22:37.700 But that in itself, like, we want to ask ourselves, what do we want to do?

00:22:42.160 We want more balanced budgets.

00:22:43.580 She's delivered on a tax cut.

00:22:45.320 That's great.

00:22:45.780 I'm not saying that I support everything that the UCP is doing.

00:22:48.700 There's some really bad insurance legislation that's coming out that's going to take everybody's rights away.

00:22:53.300 But, you know, I'm a supporter of this government.

00:22:55.100 And the reason that we were able to win PC seats like in Edmonton is because there were two left-wing parties.

00:23:02.080 There was the NDP and the Liberals.

00:23:03.860 That now is only the NDP, and that's why we keep losing in Edmonton.

00:23:07.200 It's a vote split. Simple as that.

00:23:08.800 But the flip side to that is if we have multiple conservative parties again, that poses a problem for us, even in Alberta, as we saw in 2015.

00:23:19.000 Yeah, well, that could be a real problem going on.

00:23:22.760 uh it's funny when you're talking though about and i mean you're you're a lawyer uh you've been

00:23:28.400 actually you know outspoken on with that that's a whole separate issue we would talk about with

00:23:31.860 some of the law societies and challenges going on there uh and and independence in those areas

00:23:36.660 uh but with data mining i mean it's understandable okay the exercise for example that mr lakasik's

00:23:42.040 got going on uh those signatures though any signatures going towards a referendum that data

00:23:48.360 should not be used for any other purpose aside from giving to the electoral officer to invoke

00:23:54.740 an election, right? Or a referendum. So that's a bit of a complex issue. Just like every legal

00:23:58.680 issue, the answer is it depends. Okay. So our privacy legislation, there's a Freedom of Information

00:24:03.700 Protection Privacy Act. And then there's the Personal Information Protection Act. There's an

00:24:07.840 exception there for politics. Okay. So for example, if I knock on your door and your issue are people

00:24:13.920 using your washroom at your at your uh at your uh restaurant i will write that down i can give that

00:24:19.840 to a different candidate it's a little bit different though with something like this is that

00:24:24.080 it should not be used for other purposes and i happen to know that the chief electoral officer

00:24:28.560 will salt lists for example we'll put a john q simpson and that doesn't exist and then if that

00:24:35.200 john q simpson is called from somebody else that discloses that that's been used so it's not

00:24:40.240 against the privacy legislation but something like this as you point out it is actually against

00:24:45.760 the the elections act yeah actually that that salting lists we did that with one of the wild

00:24:50.960 rose leadership contests going on as well just to make sure that people weren't sharing lists

00:24:55.680 elsewhere and we let them know don't don't be surprised if that list actually was shared yeah

00:25:03.600 either way you know it's it's it's uh we want to be preventative with it uh but yeah it's a good

00:25:08.480 thing i don't own that bar anymore i don't want people voting on whether or not they could use

00:25:11.200 my bathroom uh but i mean it is complicated if you're petitioning door to door you can technically

00:25:17.760 have two clipboards one is for the potential signature another is for so well that i've also

00:25:22.080 met this person and they're supportive of this party and i'm going to share the other clipboard

00:25:25.440 information with the party of my choice uh nothing stops that nothing stops that so the question is

00:25:32.400 is where is this data going? I suspect that it is for more purposes than simply this Forever Canada

00:25:39.200 campaign. What that is, I don't know. Yeah. Well, we have to wonder, I mean,

00:25:45.520 is Mr. Lukasik, it's a lot of work on his part and he's not a fool. He knows this won't go

00:25:53.120 anywhere. Even if he gets it across the finish line and then there's a referendum held, his

00:25:57.920 question is saying, do you want to support the status quo? So I mean, no matter which way a vote

00:26:02.680 goes, nothing's going to change. So what is he really going for with this? Just trying to throw

00:26:08.740 sand in the gears? Or is there an ulterior motive? I mean, we can only speculate. We can only

00:26:13.440 speculate at this point. But my prediction is that neither referendum question gets the requisite

00:26:18.920 amount of signatures. It's a very high bar. And you only have a limited time to go through and

00:26:24.040 get those particular signatures in. So that's a very, very high bar to go and meet. That's a lot

00:26:30.400 of organization. Yes, there's 5 million people in this province. Some of them are under 18. Some of

00:26:35.040 them are not Canadian citizens who are coming. That's great that they're coming here. But you're 0.99

00:26:41.060 going from a very large group that you need to go and attract in a very short period of time.

00:26:49.240 Yeah, so now the electoral officer has, you know, put forward the Alberta Prosperity Projects

00:26:55.780 question to the Court of Kings bench to have them review it for constitutionality.

00:27:00.000 Premier Smith has expressed ire with that.

00:27:03.300 But I mean, the Premier doesn't want to get into a scrap with the chief electoral officer.

00:27:06.620 That's got some of the worst optics you could possibly have.

00:27:09.540 But at the same time, does this need to go before that?

00:27:13.020 I mean, I thought the Supreme Court and the Clarity Act pretty much laid it out.

00:27:15.540 as long as you have a clear question, it shouldn't be a problem. So the Clarity Act says it must be

00:27:20.560 a clear question and a clear majority. So the clear question, if you go back to the 1995 Quebec

00:27:25.100 referendum, that was a very, very long question that Lucie Bouchard had put up. I actually think

00:27:31.180 the better question that would be there is, do you want to separate from Canada or something very

00:27:34.840 similar to that? So a clear majority would mean something more than 50%, probably not 80%,

00:27:40.260 but something more than 50%. So that's the Clarity Act. I want to just preface this comment

00:27:45.600 that I'm not criticizing any judge, not criticizing any court here whatsoever, but I do question why

00:27:51.720 does this need to go to a court? To me, that this is a political exercise. This is something that

00:27:57.220 can be cited by our elected officials. I don't know why it's going to a court.

00:28:01.600 Well, and it does, and you know, I've dealt with elections in Alberta. I've always actually,

00:28:06.380 despite a lot of people having conspiracy theories and everything, I find they bend over

00:28:09.440 backwards very hard to remain as unbiased as possible when it comes to partisan things I mean

00:28:14.740 that's the very core of their being they cannot apply a bias or it's the worst possible area for

00:28:21.220 such a bureaucracy it's the elections but when he's taken it upon himself to put that towards

00:28:27.280 the court of king's bench it kind of raises a little questions on you know does he feel that

00:28:32.620 it's worth I don't want to question the integrity of chief electoral officer but no no actually no

00:28:37.160 For the most part, I've acted on a few judicial recounts at different levels of government.

00:28:41.280 For the most part, our democracy in Canada is pretty good.

00:28:43.660 It's never going to be perfect, but it's pretty good.

00:28:46.340 You don't really have like these mass voter fraud issues and stuff like that you see in other democracies.

00:28:50.640 It's pretty good.

00:28:51.460 So the chief electoral officer, they've always been pretty good as well.

00:28:55.340 I don't really think that there's a conspiracy going on there, but it does also raise a bit of an access to justice point.

00:29:03.400 Lawyers aren't cheap.

00:29:04.320 okay when you've actually got to go to court to get a referendum question established um it can

00:29:10.860 be costly and not everybody can afford that no and it can take some time i mean how long do you

00:29:16.100 think it'll take before a judge could look at that and then give a ruling whether it's a thumbs up

00:29:20.100 or thumbs down well there's always a bit of mystery when it comes to the judges and they

00:29:23.940 often talk about the lack of judicial resources which is real alberta by the by every metric

00:29:29.360 to our ratio of judges to population

00:29:31.880 has always been at the lower margin.

00:29:34.200 And that's largely because of the people

00:29:35.860 from Saskatchewan like me who keep coming here.

00:29:39.100 People from other provinces, other countries

00:29:40.800 keep coming here, but we have to keep up.

00:29:42.940 It can take a very, very long time

00:29:46.200 to get an answer to that question.

00:29:48.540 And there's an old adage in my business,

00:29:51.560 the wheels of justice turn slowly.

00:29:53.660 That's entirely true.

00:29:54.780 And the judge can issue it at any time.

00:29:56.700 So the other question I would ask is,

00:29:58.320 is this a political move to delay this closer to the next election in 2027 that's a valid question

00:30:04.400 yeah and i don't feel that the premier is going to want to have to juggle that issue with a

00:30:10.200 referendum happening close to a general election we go that's my point so she would probably be

00:30:15.620 if she wants to get this done she wants that band-aid peeled off next year so that whatever 1.00

00:30:19.140 way that uh referendum goes she's dealing now with an election the year after not that 0.58

00:30:22.840 but you can't speed a judge up. You can't speed basic judicial independence. I remember the

00:30:28.360 back of the day Jean Charest got kicked out of cabinet in the 80s for even calling a judge.

00:30:35.780 You don't go anywhere near them. They have independence as to when and when they want

00:30:42.180 to send it out and it's independent of any political direction. Once a judge is appointed

00:30:46.220 he or she can do whatever they want. Yeah and that independence is very important. It is.

00:30:50.820 It's just I'll leave with one final thing, though. Would it be possible then, even if there hadn't been a ruling for the Premier just to say, well, we're pulling the trigger. We can allow these guys to start petitioning now regardless, and we'll find out the constitutionality of it later.

00:31:02.660 That could be a little dangerous because what could happen is the party could apply for an injunction stopping that.

00:31:09.520 But on top of that, there's such a matter of a judicial independence order.

00:31:12.660 The Chief Justice of Alberta can then go and issue a judicial independence order.

00:31:16.220 I'm reminded once a conversation I had with Mr. Nenshi in 2012 when he wanted me to put the arrest processing unit at the bottom of the Calgary courthouse.

00:31:23.720 I said, buddy, I will get a judicial independence order slapped against me if I go and do that.

00:31:29.180 You're quite correct, Corey.

00:31:30.720 That actually is a very important principle in our democracy.

00:31:34.060 All right.

00:31:34.740 Well, I appreciate you coming in to, you know,

00:31:36.180 share some of your political and legal wisdom with us here

00:31:39.680 in these crazy, unique times.

00:31:43.080 You know, where can people find what you're up to?

00:31:45.240 You're not as public as you used to be.

00:31:46.480 I know, you know, you've got Guardian Law on the go

00:31:48.400 and you've been taking on some great cases.

00:31:51.180 We have offices in both Calgary and Regina.

00:31:54.180 We're an interprovincial office.

00:31:55.800 Just bring a couple more people on. 0.62

00:31:57.660 Anybody has any questions for me?

00:31:58.940 you know, I just like to talk about this business. Give me a call and ask me for coffee. And you and

00:32:03.520 I will review for that. Great. Well, thank you very much again. And I'll let you get back on.

00:32:07.940 I know you're on the road today. So I appreciate it. And I hope we talk again soon. Thanks again

00:32:11.420 for having me on, Corey. Take care. Thanks. So that was Jonathan Dennis. Yeah, I was from folks

00:32:16.440 might remember past political figures in Alberta. And yeah, he's still out there and active with

00:32:22.300 things. And there's just so many questions with this, right? You know, you hope for clarity,

00:32:26.840 you hope for clear cut, straight pass. And then the ambiguity gets thrown in. I'm kind of frustrated

00:32:33.940 in my view, but again, I'm not a judge. I'm not a lawyer. The question from the Alberta Prosperity

00:32:39.440 Project is pretty straightforward. You could tell what they tried to do was very purposeful in

00:32:43.620 saying, do you want, and I'm paraphrasing, I might have it a little off. I should have written it

00:32:48.080 down. But do you want Alberta to become a sovereign nation of its own outside of Canada?

00:32:52.740 You want to leave Canada. You know, just as clear as that. Jonathan said it should be just as basic

00:32:59.520 as do you want to separate, even a little more cut down from that. But separate, I guess, the worry

00:33:05.900 you get people, well, ambiguity, does that mean with this or that, or is that a sovereign nation

00:33:09.620 of Alberta, or is that in conjunction with others? They made it pretty clear in a sentence in some

00:33:13.480 of the Prosperity Project. As Jonathan mentioned, the Quebec referendum, for those who remember

00:33:17.500 from 1995, that question was a giant word salad of ambiguity and ugliness. And that's why it went,

00:33:27.100 you know, because you could read that 10 different ways. And how are you going to get people to vote

00:33:30.180 on something? It should be pretty much stay or go. And I'm pretty, I'm confident, though the judge

00:33:36.240 might not agree with me, I'm confident that what the Alberta Prosperity Project put forward is

00:33:40.900 clear. So why are we delaying on this? And I mean, while we got Lukasik, I've seen some of the

00:33:47.980 discussion on the comment scroll. So I mean, just to, to, for some people who don't watch it as

00:33:53.000 closely. So Alberta's referendum legislation just came into being, or just at least got amended

00:33:59.460 recently. Jason Kenney first brought it in and he set it to a ridiculous bar that made it pretty

00:34:05.140 much impossible for anybody to meet it. That's why the, that's the recall legislation's in there as

00:34:09.980 well. That's why to recall Jody Gondek under that old legislation took more signatures on a petition

00:34:15.720 than people who actually voted in the election. It was ridiculous. And it's been scaled down, 0.88

00:34:23.220 but Lukaszek thought he jumped the gun and he applied to petition to have a referendum held

00:34:29.360 before the new legislation came into power. And it starts getting complicated. There's

00:34:37.680 policy referendums and their referenda and there's constitutional ones. Now his would be under a

00:34:44.040 policy one under the old legislation. It means he needs nearly 300,000 signatures and he only has

00:34:50.020 90 days to get them. I'm hearing different numbers from them. I mean, they already flubbed up and

00:34:55.260 stepped in it by attacking Alberta's flag in a safe way and embarrassed themselves and shut down

00:34:59.460 one of their Facebook groups that gets them going. They have not been doing well, though they've been

00:35:04.180 getting a lot of legacy media coverage. Chorus just seems to be determined to pump the tires

00:35:09.340 for Lukasik's petition. To get 300,000 signatures, you've got to remember, this is a real petition.

00:35:14.760 This isn't online. This isn't anything like that. You've got to have a person registered

00:35:18.840 holding that clipboard to another person, witnessing them to fill out their full name,

00:35:23.860 home address. You can't use a mailing address. Just for people with the APP, I'll give that tip.

00:35:28.000 Don't take a box number. That's invalid. It's got to have contact information in it. It's got to

00:35:33.840 be legible. And to get 300,000 of those is massive. It is massive. They need 3,300 of those a day for

00:35:43.560 90 days pretty much to pull it down. And you got to remember, you got to be closer to over 300,000

00:35:49.640 because you know they're going to throw some out. Or as Jonathan said, the chief electoral officer

00:35:53.280 will actually have some fake names in there to make sure you're not abusing the lists. And what

00:35:56.820 they'll do is they won't check every name, of course, that would take them years to check the

00:36:00.680 300,000 people, but they'll task a bunch of staff to check a whole bunch of the names. They'll watch

00:36:07.140 for duplicates. Duplicates are going to be thrown out. If you're doing it, you see part of what

00:36:11.000 Fabio there, Lukasik is doing is he's going to farmers markets and public events and they're

00:36:15.440 getting signatures there. That's fine in the short term, but what you find at those is it's the same

00:36:20.180 people who come weekend after weekend after weekend. They can only sign once. And if they

00:36:24.460 sign multiple times, you're going to get in trouble because they do cross-check some of this

00:36:27.880 And they're going to check some others. And if this is a fake person, that's going to get stricken off the list. And if they find too many invalid ones in the petition, they could throw the entire thing out. So it is no small task to get these 300,000 signatures.

00:36:44.960 Now, the Alberta Prosperity Project, theirs was filed after the new legislation came in.

00:36:52.920 So they only need, and it's still a lot, 170-some thousand signatures.

00:36:58.960 And they'll have 120 days to do it rather than 90 days.

00:37:02.820 So a much, much lower bar than what Thomas Lukasik has.

00:37:09.360 And they've been organizing for years.

00:37:14.340 they've been gathering names for years. They've been holding meetings around the province for

00:37:17.800 years. They, this is the game. This is what they've been waiting for. This is what they're

00:37:21.320 up for. So I'm pretty confident if they can just get the go ahead, they're going to get it done.

00:37:27.440 But if now the electoral officer has thrown this into the courts, how long is it going to be before

00:37:34.680 they're allowed to actually start collecting these signatures? This is a more sand in the

00:37:40.020 years than Lukasik possibly could have done. So are there going to be two referendum? I doubt it.

00:37:46.300 I just, I don't, I really don't believe Lukasik's going to get that 300,000 in. But as, as Jonathan

00:37:54.640 pointed out, this could have a different agenda, right? You're also data mining while you're at it.

00:37:59.860 You're campaigning while you're at it. You're doing a whole separate thing while you're at it.

00:38:04.180 So even if you never get the question on, suddenly you see data is everything. Those lists, those

00:38:08.620 identified people, it is worth a lot to somebody running a campaign. And Lukasik and his volunteers

00:38:17.540 are building up a whole lot of names of people. Not saying that they're photocopying the petition

00:38:21.980 form. That would be an abuse of it. But as I was saying with Jonathan, if you're there with two

00:38:25.820 clipboards and you write down one and write down the other, I tell you what, I'll give this tip

00:38:29.960 to people with the Alberta Prosperity Project. Once they get on the real petition, once they get

00:38:34.820 with this. Volunteers should carefully, carefully, should carefully do this. You're going door to

00:38:41.780 door. And that's what it's going to take is people going door to door in the end of it. That's a lot

00:38:45.140 of work. But you're going door to door and you find somebody who is, yes, I am gung-ho. I want

00:38:52.240 independence. Not only that, I'll sign your petition, but I want to see a sign on my lawn

00:38:57.440 when the campaign for the referendum actually begins. And I want to donate to the referendum

00:39:01.100 campaign. Well, you got to have a separate clipboard and write that stuff down and you

00:39:04.860 should. Don't lose out on those ones. Also, if you get somebody who comes to their doorstep and

00:39:10.020 says, I'm going to kick you in the privates if I ever see one of you guys on our doorstep again 1.00

00:39:14.120 or anything like that, you should probably note that in the other clipboard too so you don't 0.98

00:39:17.700 waste time going out there. Because you see, there's two campaigns. Right now, we're just

00:39:22.140 in the petitioning campaign part. Just the part of trying to get the question on a referendum

00:39:30.200 a ballot. Then a date has to be set for the referendum. As Jonathan said, politically,

00:39:38.620 I think Premier Smith will want this sooner rather than later because she doesn't want to 0.99

00:39:43.760 be dealing with whatever way this goes when a general election comes. We're looking at, what,

00:39:49.620 two years now? She won't want that to be hanging over onto that. And then a referendum campaign 0.98

00:39:56.500 means you have to convince a clear majority of Albertans. And there's another one of those

00:40:01.000 areas of big ambiguity. And this is going to be one of the huge ones. A clear majority of

00:40:06.160 Albertans saying they want to go. And I've been fighting with a few independence minded people

00:40:11.800 about that already. There's not a clear majority yet, not even close. We're talking about numbers

00:40:17.520 330%, 40% at the highest. Realistically, if we don't want it in the courts forever,

00:40:24.820 it's got to be at least 55% voting on that. And that's a big campaign. That's a big swing in

00:40:32.020 public opinion. But as I said, my opening monologue, Alberta's in a perilous position. 0.53

00:40:37.080 We've got a surplus is going. We've got a different attitude here. We're doing well,

00:40:40.720 and we've got a country that's swirling the toilet. So I got a feeling there could be a

00:40:47.920 big cash grab. That number can turn from that 30 or 40% for independence and get a lot bigger

00:40:52.620 really fast if the feds make a move on us. A question from one of the commenters saying

00:40:57.340 is, if I do a segment on how to obtain a commissioner of oath certification, I do think

00:41:03.460 we'll need many. Yeah, because as pointed out with that, when you're petitioning, every

00:41:09.240 person who does that, then they got to bring their petition and swear an affidavit to a

00:41:13.060 commissioner of oaths that they witnessed the signatures is on it. This is not a minor

00:41:16.400 affair, folks. And the more people who are commissioners of oaths, the better. I don't

00:41:21.980 know the process. My wife, Jane, I don't even know if she still has that status any longer,

00:41:26.560 but she was a commissioner of O's. She did that for a while when she ran a business center. 1.00

00:41:32.340 And I'm pretty sure the process is online. I don't know what everything that goes into it

00:41:37.340 necessarily. But I mean, some of the discussions of what's going to be needed. Dark Group saying

00:41:42.700 APB needs more canvassers than commissioners of O's. Yeah, well, you need both. That's the bottom

00:41:47.120 line. It'll save you some grief. If you've got a bunch of people working the doors, you don't

00:41:51.080 want to slow things down if there's only two people who can witness that, who only have certain

00:41:55.080 periods of time to witness those signatures and sign off. If there's 10 of them, that'll make it

00:41:58.460 easier. But the realism is you need thousands. You do. You need thousands of volunteers getting out

00:42:05.420 there and getting those signatures. And central organization. They've got to be bringing all of

00:42:14.800 those petition forms into one area. You've got to make sure that somebody hasn't, you've got to

00:42:19.260 think of the sabotage that people are going to do. Somebody could put a whole fake bunch of

00:42:24.260 petitions things in just to screw with what's being brought in. They got to watch for that.

00:42:31.340 This is a big, big game, guys. And it's going to be an interesting one. Nothing else. Another

00:42:38.560 thing on that, it's going before, I guess, the first hearing before a judge, which I think is

00:42:42.360 optimistic with that question. I believe it's tomorrow. It's going before the judge, at least.

00:42:46.900 The only problem is the judge might sit on it for four months before making a ruling.

00:42:50.720 But Alan Adam, he's a former First Nations chief.

00:42:55.160 He was from an Athabasca area.

00:42:56.980 He's got a couple of claims to fame, but he's been having temper tantrums over it.

00:42:59.720 Oh, he's been jumping up and down and saying he's not going to let us.

00:43:02.100 He's saying we don't have the right to vote on Alberta. 1.00

00:43:03.760 He's full of crap. 1.00

00:43:06.220 Alan Adam, as you hear that in the news reports, you've got to remember, he's a rent-a-chief. 1.00

00:43:10.120 He's a rent-a-chief.

00:43:11.120 He got busted already.

00:43:12.100 He got $55,000 from the Tides Foundation.

00:43:16.900 to oppose oil sands development. So if I see him suddenly jumping up and down so hard

00:43:22.760 in opposition to the independence referendum, kind of makes you wonder who's paying his bills.

00:43:29.040 His other claim to fame, you can see, is him getting roughly busted and impaired and a whole

00:43:36.040 number of things outside of a casino up north. That video went a little viral some years ago,

00:43:40.600 too. Anyways, Mr. Adam is not exactly a credible individual, but Legacy Media, of course, is

00:43:47.100 reporting on it. Look at this, a chief, and I think he's even a former chief, not even a current

00:43:50.780 one. I could be wrong. He might be back in. I don't know, but he's opposing this. Thus, it can't

00:43:54.960 happen. I've covered that in past videos. I cover that on this show, and the Supreme Court has

00:43:59.860 covered it many, many times when it comes to things like things happening on Crown land,

00:44:04.880 projects consultation, despite what some people are trying to spread out there, First Nations,

00:44:12.080 Indigenous people, whatever the term of the week is for them, do not have a veto power over

00:44:16.460 developments. They don't have a veto power over referendums. They don't have a veto power over

00:44:21.600 much of anything outside of their own bloody reserve. And the Supreme Court has ruled on that

00:44:27.860 many times. We have an obligation to consult. And people are blurring that line between consult and

00:44:33.760 Consent. Big, big difference between the two. Some First Nation advocates and lefties and other jerks are saying we need consent. No, you do not. But we do need to consult. What better way to consult than holding a referendum? That's exactly what a referendum is. It's consulting. It's consulting everybody. And the Indigenous people will have just as many votes as everybody else. One per person. They don't want to give consent. They vote no. They lose the majority. Life sucks. Move on. You still have your reserve. Your treaties are still intact.

00:45:03.360 but the federation is done and the new government around you is now an independent province or at

00:45:08.800 least working towards it. This has been covered a lot, but in legacy media won't cover it. It won't

00:45:13.820 break that down. It won't give you those details. It'll act as if guys like Rent-A-Chief Adam

00:45:18.140 is an authority and he's not. He's not an authority on much of anything, I assure you.

00:45:24.280 All right. That kind of covers it today, guys. Thank you very much for tuning in.

00:45:28.820 uh, watch for the pipeline coming on tonight. We're going to have a panel with Nigel and, uh,

00:45:33.580 Erica Barutis and some others. And, uh, Oh, I held that call almost to the end.

00:45:39.100 Uh, be sure to tune in again next week, guys. And I'll have a whole new, uh,

00:45:42.420 bunch of subjects and another guest to talk about. So thanks again. See you then.

00:45:58.820 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - August 06, 2025

Alberta’s success paints a target on its back

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