Campaign to Stop Independence Movement Accidentally Sets Referendum in Motion
Episode Stats
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178.0378
Summary
The Alberta Prosperity Group has enough signatures to trigger a referendum on independence from Canada. Is this a good or bad thing? And what does it mean for the future of Alberta as a sovereign country?
Transcript
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All right. Well, speaking of fights in Alberta, we're headed to a referendum on independence.
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I don't know how to say it otherwise. So this goes back. The Kennedy government brought in
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Citizens Initiative legislation, had an extremely high bar to set on being able to get the signatures
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to trigger it. It was unreasonably high. It's obviously theoretically possible to get it.
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I didn't think these guys would do it. It appears prima facie, they have got the numbers.
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So it's called Forever Canada. It's this group led by Thomas Lukasik. The media like to call him the
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former progressive conservative premier of Alberta. And then they neglect that he's actually been an
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NDP supporter provincially and a liberal supporter federally ever since. He was from the hard left
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wing of the old progressive conservatives when that party was around. So he's never actually been a
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united conservative member in Alberta. He's never been a member of the conservative party of Canada,
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as far as I know, at least. But the media like to try and portray him as a conservative,
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even though there's not a single conservative who would take ownership over this guy in Alberta.
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So he wanted to preempt the independence movement from going out and triggering a referendum on
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independence, which would have words that meet the Clarity Act requirements for a constitutionally
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valid referendum. The wording that had been proposed by the Alberta Prosperity Group was
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something to the effect of, should Alberta become an independent and sovereign country?
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Something like that. And that should, I think, meet the Clarity Act definition. These guys wanted to
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get, they wanted to frame the question differently. Should Alberta remain in Canada? I think,
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is that the question or? Yeah, it is actually, you know, but still by asking Albertans whether the
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province should remain in Canada is one step closer to being voted. So that would give them more
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favorable wording, I guess. But the implication is if people then voted no to that, is that Albertans
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then voting to become independent. So these guys have triggered, these guys went out and they've,
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they've triggered a referendum, it seems on, on independence. Now it's not a hundred percent
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sure yet. Uh, they have, they got over the threshold required for the number of signatures,
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but these signatures now need to be validated and checked against eligible, uh, the eligible
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voters list. So you, you need some margin of error. So it's possible that they actually fall short a bit
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if, uh, if they don't have enough signatures that turn out to be valid, but prima facie, let's just say
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they, they, they, they've got the signatures now. Uh, Corey, does that mean that the, the referendum
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question that goes forward is exactly this one? Or I feel like regardless of what side you're on,
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the question should be as neutrally worded as possible. Like if you want independence,
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the question should not be, should, you know, the kick-ass land of the free Alberta be the coolest,
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richest, most amazing country in the world and leave those dirtbag freeloaders of Canada?
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You can't, that's not a fair question. Um, you know, I, I, I, a fair question here should be,
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you know, if you wanted to word it from their side, should Alberta remain in Canada or should
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Alberta become an independent country? I think that would be a very, that'd be fair. And I'd still
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ask the question with the yes on their side, the no, the no on the independent side. Um, is there
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any opportunity, like, is the question as is, is that it or no, it's no. It has to go to the
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legislature and that's where the referendum, if it were to be called, gets called and they can
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rejig the framing of the question. So if they're staying true to the question, I mean, if they,
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you know, made it a question about something completely unrelated, that would be violating
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the basis of the thing, but they could change it to, uh, you know, should Alberta become an
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independent province? It's the same question. It's just asking a different way, uh, which would put
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it into the more positive yes end of it, but it's still a referendum on independence. The other thing
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is too, it seems like Lukasik's already backtracking a bit. He's saying, no, no, no, no, I, this, I wasn't
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trying to trigger a referendum. We're, we're trying to just have the question go to the legislature, but
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his own initial paperwork says, no, you're going for a referendum. Hold on. Let's play that clip
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from Danielle Smith at the press conference where, uh, okay, just roll. I don't want this
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operates. Um, Mr. Lukasik's vote is, um, uh, yes, no question. It is a separatist referendum. He may
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be trying to characterize it differently, but if you ask people, if you want to remain in Alberta,
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yes or no, there are implications if people answer no. Okay. So, so Danielle Smith says, uh,
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all right, thanks for coming out, Tom. Uh, you just triggered an independence referendum.
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He's like, no, that's not what I'm meant to do. He's like, well, that's what you did do.
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Yeah. And then, hey, you know, the father of Alberta independence found his father of
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Alberta's Republic, Thomas Lukasik. Well, I mean, to the credit, you know, that was quite an effort.
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400 some thousand. They did more than I would imagine. That was a sign of good organization,
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but it comes right down to careful what you wish for Fabio, because you just got it. And, uh,
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the campaign will begin, uh, sometime next year. Yeah. Uh, at least, uh, I, I don't know how much,
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you know, this, this, this clown or not, but, uh, I do. Okay. I didn't think they could do it. Uh,
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I, I, at some point, someone's going to check the tape to when this started. And I was like,
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you know, Bob's my uncle, if they can actually get the signatures, because it credit where it's due.
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That's a lot of signatures to get. And it may or may not be valid after they verify every single
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name on the voters list. They've hired like a ton of staff to go through it. Um, but yeah, um,
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we, we've got this guy here, who's just on the side of every single left-wing cause. He never
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appears on the conservative side of anything, but the media can try to portray him as a conservative
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because he was a progressive conservative under Alison Redford. That's like saying I was a moderate
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in the Bolshevists at some point, you know? Um, uh, but yeah, uh, I, I don't know, just your
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reaction that we've got a hardline left-wing federalist in Alberta who just seems to have
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woken up to the realization that his referendum is a referendum on independence.
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I, this was what I never understood about him. I mean, I understand that he's a, um,
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Edmonton coattail rider. So that's how he was in the PCs. He knew he could win. Um, and you know,
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he's from Edmonton. Um, but you know, I, that's what I never understood about him. And I, I don't
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tangle with him because there's no point, there's no point in calling him out on Twitter, but it was
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very obvious to many of us conservatives in BC. And I think, uh, federally as well that it seemed
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counterintuitive. But as I said to one former wild rose MLA, uh, Nate, did he need a job? And he didn't
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seem to think so because he has a whopping pension, um, from his time at the Alberta legislature. So
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I didn't understand it. And I didn't understand that he didn't understand it.
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No, uh, Alberta MLA's, uh, haven't had a pension since 1993.
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Oh, there were something called transition allowances that were brought in.
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They're, they're a temporary thing. It's not like a lifetime pension the way, say,
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members of the federal parliament. It's not quite the same system.
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Yeah. I, we were speculating on what he did with that money and it doesn't matter. It's his money.
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It's his business, but it seemed really like make a job for him. And then when you were,
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I was inundated with his Instagram posts and I don't know why this is showing up in my feed,
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but I thought it was just so creepy. I mean, he did the bedroom files from his RV, uh, you know,
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and PJs with his hand on his, you know, with his legs kicking up at the back. And I just thought,
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this is a sexual harassment case waiting to happen. Uh, you know, I could not unsee Fabio
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lay in there. Uh, you know what I'm talking about? Like, you know, Oh, and I, I just felt
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like he needed something. And I just thought, you know, his wife was once a respected CTV news anchor.
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And I thought, is she even in the picture anymore? Because a good wife would just literally take the,
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you know, the, the cane and pull him off the stage. Um, because he's made, he's,
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he's so foolish and so embarrassing, but you know, there are Albertans that really believe in staying
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in the, in the knitted into Canada. But I think we also, and I'm sure you guys would agree. There are,
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are Alberta Albertans that do support staying, but there are, it's conditional. It's not,
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hey, the relationship is awesome. Let's throw a party. If we win, it's, it's not about that.
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But all of us were sort of waiting for, for Thomas to understand his own punchline to all of this,
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that you're going to trigger a referendum. Uh, but again, I think just as it always is with Thomas,
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it's about his own bank account, his own image, his own social media and building out what you might
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be further contracts or opportunities to show his mug off. Yeah. Uh, look, I, I don't know what
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the guy does for money, but, uh, as far as I could tell, the guy doesn't really appear to have had
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much in the way of gainful employment since he, uh, lost in, you know, since he was done from cabinet
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when Alice Redford went down and then lost his seat in 2015. Uh, he does not appear to have done
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anything other than like rant against conservatives on Twitter since, I guess, a decade now. It's been
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a decade for God's sakes. Well, he was a menacing caucus. He was a menacing caucus too.
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Yeah. I know in the caucus, like the guy, um, he's, I don't know. I think he saw this as his
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way of trying to be relevant again. Now I do. I, I don't doubt that the guy's a hardline
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federalist that he believes he's actually believes in what he's doing, but I mean, it was a way of,
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uh, I don't know. I think most people, setting himself up. Yeah. Most people who are out of
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politics want back in the main reason I don't want back in is because I get my fill of politics
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doing what I'm doing and I don't have to deal with most of the bullshit of actually being in politics.
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Fabio hasn't been relevant in any way. He's just got like, you know, he just gets a tweet into the
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dark and it doesn't lead to anything. Um, I don't know, but maybe he tries to see this as an on-ramp
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to become a part of the NDP caucus at some point. I don't know. Uh, but, uh, the, the end of the day,
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Nigel, uh, captain, uh, Canada here has, I mean, are, are we going to erect a statue one day to, uh,
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general Fabio as you know, our George Washington who led us to independence?
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You know, we opened the program talking about Doug Ford and what a windbag he was.
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That was my phrase, not yours, but I think there was a consensus leading that way that, uh, he swung,
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he missed and you ask, why does he do it? And the answer is it puts him in the headlines.
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The news media are generally favorable to those kinds of gestures.
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And as we get into the last minutes of the program, bless my soul, we find ourselves talking
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about Mr. Lukasik who is also making these wild, uh, patriotic gestures. Um, as Derek said, I dare say
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he believes in what he is doing, but do you know, the common thing between Ford and Lukasik and so
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many other people who have yet to be in the headlines, they don't have any solutions. You know, you can make
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a little tiny fest and wave it and, uh, say I'm proud to be Canadian and I want to, you know, I will,
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Alberta will stay and we got to stand up to the United States. How? In what way exactly do you want
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us to do that? And you contrast that with genuine conservatives and our own premier would be obviously
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in Alberta, the one to call them on, who actually have ideas and are driving ideas that change things
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and will make Canada a better place. So I have to wonder why Mr. Lukasik gets the ink he does.