Western Standard - Can Alberta lead a new vision for Canada？

00:00:00.000 right now surveys indicate that 75 percent of albertans actually want to fix the relationship

00:00:06.480 with the federal government so what would that look like how can we in alberta help make that

00:00:12.320 happen. This is Nation of People. I'm Natalie St. Hilaire and with me is Randy Royer. Today we are

00:00:37.900 looking at a viable third option. It might not be exactly right yet, but it's a starting point for

00:00:43.840 adjustments and improvements. Okay, Randy, we've come a long way with all of this.

00:00:53.000 We've looked at how the country came together, how the country operates right now. We've had a,

00:01:00.800 we've spoken with Indigenous leaders. We've spoken with people from the entire spectrum of

00:01:07.220 the political, well, the political spectrum, people from everywhere. And there's also the

00:01:14.980 issue of the entire world order being in flux right now. And so is it, would you say it's the

00:01:22.500 case that maybe everybody needs to compromise a little? Well, I think that, you know, the

00:01:28.640 proponents have drawn the lines. We have a question in front of us that we have to adjudicate on,

00:01:34.620 decide what we're going to want and and surveys tell us that about you know those that want to

00:01:39.520 remain in canada uh they're about 90 convinced that that's their position they're going to stick

00:01:44.960 with it conversely uh those that want to continue the conversation about 70 of the people are saying

00:01:50.940 that they're stuck in that position so there's not a lot of room to compromise in this but when

00:01:56.180 we get past this coming referendum i think everybody needs to step back hopefully watch

00:02:02.320 this show uh and and and then take a look at it and say okay well this is what that's my ideal

00:02:08.040 world but i have to live with five other five million other people how can i compromise what's

00:02:13.900 it what's a common solution how do we how do we move forward so i'm hoping that uh it's not cooler

00:02:19.160 minds but it's you know more flexible minds will prevail i mean though things have gotten pretty

00:02:25.720 heated and uh i think there's a sense of urgency around the need for change a concern around where

00:02:34.280 canada is ultimately headed right now and a sense that if we don't do something soon we're going to

00:02:40.600 be on a sinking ship so you know in in all of that where's the where's the place where compromise can

00:02:47.800 be found well first let's talk about the sinking ship we actually addressed that in one of the

00:02:52.040 previous episodes when we talked about the canadian finances and they are you know as bad

00:02:57.640 as they were in 1995 when we hit the financial wall fortunately uh we have the leadership in

00:03:03.560 the country and in the province that understands that we actually have to do something so that

00:03:08.360 they're buying us time uh they're buying us time by saying canada is now a better place to invest

00:03:13.800 than it was uh in the 10 previous years and so that'll actually support our ability to finance

00:03:20.280 this transit transition so i think they're collectively they're doing exactly the right

00:03:24.920 thing they're buying us time so um yeah it kind of looks like we might be falling off the edge of the

00:03:31.160 of the cliff but i think that our political class gets it and they're doing something about it

00:03:37.480 so that gives us the opportunity to to sit back a little bit and say okay how does how does alberta

00:03:42.680 fix these kind of problems and whether it's in business or you know social endeavors or or even

00:03:47.720 our in a political past and what we would do is we would take a look at all the stakeholders

00:03:52.920 say what are the needs of all the stakeholders how can i find a common route uh that can weave

00:03:59.240 its way through those stakeholders and come up with a common solution that's kind of the alberta

00:04:04.440 way and maybe we need to do that right now okay well uh based on you know your your vision your

00:04:12.600 unique vision randy uh where do we start so let's put a stake in the ground and uh you know we

00:04:18.840 believe in participatory democracy so let's put a stake in the ground have everybody kind of circle

00:04:23.560 around it and have a discussion about how do we prove it change it you know what have you but at

00:04:27.880 least let's start with that so actually we have a an idea to put on the table and that is a proposal

00:04:33.000 to unify alberta to lead canada so it can in turn lead the world and and that print that you know

00:04:41.160 we've said in previous episodes that we need one founding vision and i propose that vision to be

00:04:48.920 where we are in alberta and that is to create a principle-based participatory democracy

00:04:56.200 okay just explain to me what you mean by principle-based so um we had a very good

00:05:03.080 discussion about this at the event uh we had this past week um and so there's there's two different

00:05:08.440 aspects of of principles uh one is that you personally have principles and i'm going to talk

00:05:14.680 about a little bit about the united states but uh there's it has 80 years of principles uh

00:05:21.320 based decision making uh where it led the world but they are fundamentally a they're not a

00:05:27.400 principle-based society they're a rules-based society so there's two aspects of it one is

00:05:32.920 having principles and the other is having your system based on those principles so canada before

00:05:39.480 1982 was a principle-based society and and we organized around our principles rather than

00:05:47.000 specific words of rules the united states is a country that has principles and has been great

00:05:53.480 with them and those principles have changed over the last few years here now but they're a

00:05:59.240 fundamentally a rules-based society so those are the two different things and i think we talked

00:06:03.080 about that in episode 13. yeah and i just want to remind and and remind myself and like sort of

00:06:09.320 restate what you're saying about principles versus rules because i think it's an important

00:06:15.000 theory or or way of looking at things for people to get their minds around which is like when i

00:06:21.160 have a principle say like telling the truth is important truth is a principle right okay so that's

00:06:28.440 from my inside out right so i'm going to do it because in my heart i believe telling the truth

00:06:33.960 is important now if somebody just imposes a rule on me you need to tell the truth but i don't care

00:06:42.280 about the truth in my heart it's not a principle for me right then i'm only going to tell the

00:06:47.880 truth as long as that rule is in place or maybe even just as long as i'll get caught that's

00:06:53.240 exactly right and so that's the difference is it's an internal locus of control versus an external

00:06:59.240 locus of control so what you're saying is that canada used to be principle based in the way that

00:07:05.640 it was structurally set up before the 1982 constitution but that the united states has

00:07:10.840 always been more rules based that's not to say people americans aren't principled people that's

00:07:16.600 right uh it's just this you're talking about the structure yeah of the society yeah and in 1982

00:07:23.320 the structure of our society changed to a more rules-based order correct okay and so to follow

00:07:30.120 on your example um in a rules-based order someone would listen to what you thought what you presented

00:07:36.440 as truth they would it would go to adjudication about whether or not it was in fact the truth

00:07:42.600 so there's a third party that adjudicates it and then you go into enforcement and so there's a

00:07:47.000 third party that enforces whether you did or you whether you the court rules that you did or did

00:07:52.920 not tell the truth so which is very different than on a principle-based society uh the adjudication

00:08:00.840 would be under the circumstances that you saw did you believe that you were sticking to the principles

00:08:07.720 so those are two very different considerations of society yeah i can see how that plays out

00:08:15.160 differently because one gives um more uh ability for a person to say well like in the situation

00:08:23.440 i was still adhering to this principle and it played out this way because of this versus

00:08:29.580 you know another situation in a rules-based order the situation and the way it's playing out

00:08:38.300 somebody's just going to say well no you were wrong it wasn't the truth you're going to jail

00:08:42.380 that's exactly right yeah so one gives a lot more latitude for people to be

00:08:46.260 good well and then the other piece of it is is to explain the nuances in canada is that as much as

00:08:51.920 the 82 constitution drives us towards the u.s system of rules based the courts have not actually

00:08:58.760 done that completely so they're kind of somewhere in between because they do like to consider the

00:09:04.460 circumstances and they still do uh consider circumstances around decisions that people make

00:09:09.920 and it's very complicated but the and that's why um the judges are uh they disagree with um like

00:09:18.480 enforced uh enforced jail sentences uh you know because everything has its nuance and everything

00:09:24.200 is based on principles. So the Canadian court system hasn't fully agreed with where the 1982

00:09:31.320 constitution is trying to take it. So that's why in Canada we still have that resilience, that we

00:09:36.440 still are a principle-based society. So interesting to look at it that way. Okay, so really though,

00:09:42.800 who are we in Canada? So we've talked about this in past episodes that we're really made up of

00:09:48.600 of four different influences uh the first and fundamental one in alberta is we're you know

00:09:55.880 children of treaty and that treaty gave us a couple of things one was that sense of

00:10:01.720 self-sovereignty from the indigenous and that concept of bottom-up governance which is you

00:10:06.520 see it again and again in alberta politics second uh from our heritage of from ontario

00:10:14.280 atlantic canada and great britain uh we have that principle-based society so that foundation of of

00:10:21.160 of our society based on principles rather than rules the third one is i kind of accredited to

00:10:26.200 sort of quebec and our and our cold winters is that we have a sense of social responsibility

00:10:30.760 you know when your car breaks down and it's 30 below you stop and help people here otherwise

00:10:34.920 people are dead and and but it's also very much a quebec thing that you know bastion quebec has

00:10:39.720 has social cohesion and uh the fourth piece is from our pioneer heritage and from that we get

00:10:46.840 you know self-initiative can-do attitude we can fix this and uh and the search for freedom democracy

00:10:54.600 and a chance to build your own life and this is one of the things that

00:10:58.520 certainly i heard over from the separatist group this weekend is the federal infringement upon

00:11:05.800 our desire to have freedom, democracy and express our own character is really at the root of a lot

00:11:12.460 of people's thinking relative to why they think separation is the right answer. So all four of

00:11:18.320 those things, that's us. Okay, and what's the Alberta way? Well, the Alberta way is to look

00:11:23.960 at all the stakeholders and say what's needed and can we find a path through that, deliver as much

00:11:30.920 as possible to the various stakeholders and come up with a solution that everybody, you

00:11:38.320 know, you don't get 100% of what you wanted, but you get most of what you want, and it's

00:11:43.600 a common solution for everyone.

00:11:44.960 So that's the Alberta way.

00:11:46.140 You see it in business, you see it in politics.

00:11:48.840 So let's talk about, if we may, talk about the various components.

00:11:53.440 So there's four that I want to talk about, the West, Quebec, Ontario, and the Indigenous.

00:11:58.320 So the West, particularly in BC, they have huge land rights issues. They have a sense of individualism. And across the West, we have this concept of equality. And we particularly dislike the two nation policy that came out of the 1982 Constitution.

00:12:19.580 And then Quebec wants sovereignty, Ontario wants continuity, and the Indigenous want respect for the contributions that they've made and an integral place in the economy. So those are the four things.

00:12:34.000 okay so how would you suggest that we combine like how would how could we possibly meet all

00:12:43.240 those stakeholder needs at the same time aren't they in conflict with each other i mean what you

00:12:48.460 know how how could that come together so there's two pieces to it um the first piece is to redefine

00:12:55.220 our foundations and that is is that we have to take uh the sovereignty right down to basically

00:13:01.140 the level that quebec wants whatever it is and uh and then give it to all the provinces so that

00:13:06.820 takes care of the equality side give quebec sovereignty give all the provinces the same

00:13:11.700 degree of equality so you're taking care of quebec and you're taking care of the west partially

00:13:16.740 and then what you need to say is well but we're not all equal geographically so there there's a

00:13:23.700 requirement for economies of scale in the maritimes because the provinces are too small you know 180

00:13:29.060 thousand people in pei you can't run a full government there especially with all the

00:13:33.540 sovereignties that we're talking about quebec having so and they're having and then in the west

00:13:39.220 we've got the issues of we don't have coastal access for alberta and british columbia so what

00:13:44.900 this weaving solution is to have regions that are created and have the regions uh gain that full

00:13:52.740 autonomy and the provinces surrendering some of their sovereignty to that region so for example

00:13:59.380 then alberta saskatchewan would have access to um to the oceans and the atlantic canada would have

00:14:07.860 a regional government that did a lot of the services even though each of the provinces

00:14:12.340 could make their own decisions so then what we'd end up with is is four regions in canada

00:14:17.840 They come together as equals in Ottawa,

00:14:20.920 and so you change the function of what the Federation is.

00:14:24.260 But it's really, frankly, closer to 1867 than we are now.

00:14:28.820 It really reflects that we've pushed it down.

00:14:32.440 And so what we end up with in the West

00:14:34.560 is what I call the Pacific Prairie Autonomous Region.

00:14:37.580 We think about it, it would be 13 million people.

00:14:40.360 If we include the North, we would have access to three oceans.

00:14:44.240 It would have access to Asia, Europe, and closest entity to Russia on the north.

00:14:50.840 It would have, you know, it'd be the wealthiest part of Canada, incredible resources, great cities.

00:14:56.520 So it would actually create a really formidable regional entity and about, you know, almost the same size as Ontario.

00:15:04.820 And within 10 years, it would be larger than Ontario in population.

00:15:08.060 so the second part of it and we've talked about this in episode i think with roy was episode 13

00:15:15.460 i think uh the concept of a new national treaty and so i won't go over that again but it's the

00:15:22.040 idea that um we find a treaty with all of the indigenous nations and so that they can get on

00:15:30.520 the same page uh for our that they can benefit from our from the financial development of the

00:15:35.460 country and so that we can prosper together. Yeah, well, I mean, I think that that takes us

00:15:41.940 all the way back to episode one and what you're trying to accomplish is a single unifying vision

00:15:49.020 for all of the lands we currently call Canada by a restructuring and a redesigning of our

00:15:55.860 agreements. Is that right? It is. And we push the autonomy down to, you know, the regions or Ontario

00:16:02.080 in quebec and if they want to have as we we talked about in later episodes you know where they want

00:16:07.600 to defer to authority and stuff like that they can do it in their province and they can make the

00:16:12.240 decisions that they want you know in their region or in their province but they don't expect the

00:16:17.920 other regions to pay for it and then what the federal government does is it looks at best

00:16:22.080 practices what what you know statistically which one works the best so that we can like peter

00:16:27.440 mcleod talked about uh in one of our episodes where you know the glory is that we can try

00:16:32.640 different things and and let's allow people to try different things and then measure whether

00:16:37.760 it's successful or not so but the key thing that if we have a single vision which is a

00:16:44.560 principle-based participatory democracy we need to support it and and there's kind of four legs

00:16:50.080 uh that needs to support uh the this fundamental thing which is the self-sovereignty of all

00:16:56.400 canadians and that's uh principle being principle based it's having a participatory democracy it's

00:17:02.560 having everyone the shared model of economic growth so that the indigenous and everyone

00:17:08.240 everyone is involved with it and the final one is that we need to when we allocate the

00:17:14.480 responsibilities to the two levels of government we need to make sure that authority and

00:17:20.400 responsibility on the same page and that's on end with the same person and that's very much

00:17:25.520 a business-oriented solution that we have in Alberta.

00:17:30.440 Well, I mean, it makes sense at the level of theory and structure,

00:17:34.240 but a lot of people are quite honestly angry at Canada, at Ottawa.

00:17:43.380 And I'm just wondering if this structure that you're talking about

00:17:46.960 addresses the source of that anger at all.

00:17:51.180 Well, we need to turn the pyramid upside down.

00:17:53.980 You know, we need to have, right now we have the, maybe the pyramid is turned upside down, where we have the people in power control and enforce their wishes on the population.

00:18:07.280 We need to reverse that.

00:18:08.900 And where we need to say is that the sovereignty is with the people.

00:18:14.260 That's step number one.

00:18:16.540 Step number two is to draft a document that respects that and respects our social interaction.

00:18:23.240 So I'm proposing that the first step in a new constitutional structure is a charter of rights and responsibilities, and so that people have all of the rights, and they're absolute rights, not conditional rights, as they are, conditional rights as they are certainly in our 82 Constitution, but they're absolute.

00:18:46.940 and and then they also have absolute responsibilities to each other so we have a cohesive society

00:18:53.760 and then the next step is that the people then in turn empower the governments and the bureaucracies

00:19:01.940 and the judiciary so the the people are empowering them not the other way around and so they say to

00:19:09.900 each of those three entities here's your rights here's your responsibilities to us the people

00:19:16.180 And so that everyone clearly understands that the government, the political side, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary are working for the people.

00:19:27.440 And to your point about people feeling oppressed, that's how you turn it around.

00:19:34.160 And then just to continue the four things, the next one is the shared benefit model.

00:19:39.800 And the final one is, as we learned from Peter in whatever episode that was, we can, in fact, have a participatory democracy.

00:19:50.420 And so that empowers people to get involved, to measure whether the governments, the bureaucracy and the judiciary are actually living up to our expectations on an ongoing basis.

00:20:02.520 So people are actually involved.

00:20:04.180 And that's what that idea of the guilds is all about.

00:20:07.600 So we need people to step up, and so suddenly it reverses it completely.

00:20:13.640 Well, I think that if there was a situation where that pyramid was slipped upside down and the people had the authority, the ability to really direct government and to participate in democracy, as they've been told that they do in a democracy, if they had actual pathways to do that,

00:20:38.520 But I think that some of that anger might start to dissipate.

00:20:44.020 It's true.

00:20:45.020 Yeah?

00:20:46.020 Well, you know, the anger is justified.

00:20:48.200 And we were both at a seminar or an event this weekend where a lot of people expressed

00:20:54.280 their anger on a myriad of things.

00:20:57.160 And what was sort of missing for me was sort of, okay, how do you actually deal with that

00:21:03.560 anger?

00:21:04.560 And that's what's missing in society.

00:21:05.980 So, for example, some things that people were talking about where the authorities have just clamped down on people, particularly related to COVID, there's no protection for them.

00:21:15.140 You know, it's not just a court issue.

00:21:17.260 There should be a guild that says, okay, let's take a look at your situation.

00:21:21.680 What's fair?

00:21:22.520 What is this event?

00:21:24.800 How does it relate to the principles of our country?

00:21:27.060 And they can actually have friends around them that support them.

00:21:30.940 And to me, that was what was missing.

00:21:33.720 And I think we desperately need it because, you know, the simple reality is there are injustices.

00:21:39.260 There always will be.

00:21:40.480 The question is, how do you deal with them?

00:21:43.920 Well, there's a lot of people, you know, that have, there's quite a community of people that have experienced a lot of injustice.

00:21:50.560 And I think that's really driving some of the requests and action around social change right now.

00:21:56.120 So something needs to be done because they don't think that that energy and that sense of injustice is going to go away.

00:22:03.300 And people have been harmed.

00:22:05.020 People have been harmed.

00:22:05.720 A lot of people were harmed.

00:22:07.280 And the rational route to solve that problem is more appropriate than just lashing out at trying to solve other things.

00:22:19.440 You know, lashing out at other things.

00:22:22.260 And so, you know, I think, and the thing is, there's always going to be injustices.

00:22:28.700 And so let's have a system where those injustices can be addressed, adjudicated, and fixed.

00:22:35.540 And so that's what we're hoping to do.

00:22:38.560 Yeah.

00:22:38.980 Well, I think there's lots of people that feel that way, not to mention the Indigenous.

00:22:42.800 I think that they've, that's what the whole thing's really resting on, injustices that have never been addressed.

00:22:48.620 So it's a repeated issue in Canadian society.

00:22:53.620 Absolutely. And not collectively and individually.

00:22:57.760 You know, there's been a lot of injustice.

00:22:59.080 I mean, I have a friend that felt, you know, the injustice of the system and ended up taking his own life, which was a terrible tragedy.

00:23:08.740 And to be honest with you, it propels my actions a little bit.

00:23:14.200 But he wasn't able to find support and justice, you know, at the time.

00:23:20.860 So, anyway.

00:23:21.740 Terrible.

00:23:22.360 Yeah.

00:23:22.980 I have a feeling that that happens more frequently than we know.

00:23:26.260 Absolutely.

00:23:28.220 Okay, so you have designed a potential solution or at least something to put on the table to start a discussion from.

00:23:36.960 Exactly.

00:23:37.600 But how would we get the rest of Canada involved in that discussion?

00:23:42.580 Dan? Well, great question. The, you know, that takes us back to, I think, episode three, where

00:23:48.780 we talk about the character of the West versus the character of the East. And they're neither

00:23:53.600 right or wrong, just they're just just different. And so in the West, we can talk about fixing

00:23:58.160 things. You know, we, that's the way we are, we just want to fix things. So we can talk,

00:24:02.740 we can talk that way. In the East, they like continuity. And, you know, reform is maybe not

00:24:09.000 the happy thing for them that's not their happy place so instead of talking about fixing things

00:24:14.040 we have to need to inspire them and so how do you inspire eastern canada well you look at the two

00:24:19.760 big population centers uh toronto and montreal uh in toronto there's 280 different ethnic groups

00:24:27.660 180 different languages uh they it is the most ethnically diverse city in the world and just

00:24:34.620 jokingly we talk about you know toronto being the center of the universe well what about having a

00:24:39.900 strategy where we actually part of solving our colonial issues with ottawa how about part of

00:24:46.940 that solution is that we actually make toronto the center of the universe like just as a joke

00:24:52.780 why don't we do that and then look at montreal the big thing in montreal is they want help

00:24:58.380 supporting their language and their culture so what about making montreal the center of the

00:25:04.780 francophone world outside of europe so so how do we do those two things right you're really talking

00:25:13.020 about serious uh foundational change to the way canada operates so that would definitely have an

00:25:18.940 impact on you know international and geopolitical relationships also so how would you support the

00:25:26.460 structure that you're proposing uh in an international way well the reality of the times

00:25:32.460 are that you know our best friend has always been the united states and they are not our friends

00:25:37.260 uh the same way that they were in the past and that's probably going to continue on and

00:25:40.620 and they've also uh you know the world's sorry the rules-based order of the world is also collapsing

00:25:47.980 uh and everybody recognizes that and and our view that we expressed earlier is it's okay

00:25:53.100 United States doesn't want to do that anymore we're going to move on so what does move on look

00:25:57.260 like well it means and and the Prime Minister has said this that we need to find new friends

00:26:02.700 so who are the best friends for us to kind of cozy up to and I would argue that they are the ones

00:26:09.580 that really share our principles that are the closest to us and so if you look at this chart

00:26:16.620 uh we talked about this in in an earlier episode that uh a rules-based society leads one to one

00:26:25.900 sort of one direction and and they uh and the principle-based society leads you another

00:26:30.940 direction so on this chart uh the united states is at the top where they have over 50 percent

00:26:37.260 i think 53 percent of the population thinks that their neighbors are not uh morally good

00:26:42.700 so they think they're morally bad and in canada 91 of people think that their neighbors are

00:26:47.900 morally good well if you look at that chart four of the bottom eight countries where they are more

00:26:55.020 inclined to think that their neighbors are morally good are also commonwealth countries and i'm sure

00:27:02.380 new zealand is going to be in that category down there so so uh so what we look at is is you know

00:27:08.780 there are countries that actually share that principle based and they're typically parliamentary

00:27:13.660 style democracies so what i would propose is that we reach out to great britain australia new zealand

00:27:21.820 india and south africa and say why don't we form start forming a block and we can start with you

00:27:28.700 know trade agreements we can start about alignment of our you know business laws open up information

00:27:35.180 corridors you know and just like the eu did just continue to improve improve improve but also have

00:27:41.020 a mechanical parliamentary system where we can all come together as sovereign entities with sovereign

00:27:47.420 people and work things out and as we improve i would recommend that we go to all of the commonwealth

00:27:54.620 and then through quebec bring in the francophonie outside of europe and so what you'd end up with

00:28:00.380 eventually and it takes some time huge amount of effort what have you you end up with an entity

00:28:05.740 that has 33 trillion dollar economy the us is a 29 trillion dollar economy so we'd actually be

00:28:12.700 bigger than us we'd have countries on every continent on earth it would be 40 of the world's

00:28:19.020 land mass i think it's uh almost 40 of the world's population of 3.5 billion uh it would have

00:28:26.540 incredible resources in gold oil potash uh you know all the all the rare minerals and would have

00:28:34.620 the greatest financial centers in the world in london singapore toronto and uh and sydney

00:28:40.460 australia and so it would be an incredible entity and ultimately maybe end up having the same

00:28:46.300 currency uh and so canada can get out of that teeter-totter trap that we've talked about

00:28:51.900 and so suddenly you're inspiring montreal and toronto and places around them to say you can be

00:28:59.980 the center piece you can be the king and queen of this incredible international order that we

00:29:07.420 would be creating and then the cool thing about it is then we are replacing this rules-based world

00:29:14.940 order with a principle-based world order and and which is completely different it sounds like like

00:29:23.660 whenever you talk about world order and uh you know new world order like those kinds of words

00:29:30.260 they connect me to thinking about that international rules-based order that we've heard um you know

00:29:39.020 Kearney, etc., talking about the loss of. And what you're talking about is lose it and create

00:29:44.980 something principle-based. Absolutely. Principle-based. And that global elite that you talk

00:29:50.620 about, what they did was they filled a void of international cooperation. And what we're

00:29:56.260 talking about is a new structure that's based on self-sovereignty of all individuals, that there's

00:30:03.520 actually a structure that will usurp them structure around this global elite to think

00:30:09.120 they have so much power that they've never been given and we'll actually replace it with a

00:30:13.840 structure that has tears and has a process but it all comes back to personal self-sovereignty

00:30:20.720 and responsibility at the lowest level and so will there be coordination yeah but it'll be

00:30:26.000 coordination of equal partners with respect for each other and uh and pity the poor global elite

00:30:32.480 that will not have any power anymore well randy i i deeply admire the level of thought and uh

00:30:40.880 intention you've put into this vision i i think it's a a very interesting discussion and i like

00:30:47.280 that at the heart of it what i sense you're really seeking to honor through everything

00:30:53.200 you're suggesting is the sovereignty of the individual and i i can definitely really

00:30:56.960 appreciate that so thank you i think my last comment is that it's sort of um there's a term

00:31:02.480 for it in french it's uh which means it puts us all into the mille mille is a english word also

00:31:11.920 but we all have to become involved and and and this just just starting with the discussion of

00:31:17.440 an idea a complete idea that's us getting involved and so uh i i think it would be fun to do and it

00:31:24.560 And it'd be interesting that it emanates out of Alberta.

00:31:28.960 Amen. 0.97

00:31:30.020 This is where participatory democracy could actually take over.

00:31:34.280 The idea is simply to put a stake in the ground, a start.

00:31:40.000 Now, the process is to discuss it, improve it, take it in another direction,

00:31:44.920 but always have in mind the compromise, collaboration, the needs of others,

00:31:50.000 and the objective to have a complete answer.

00:31:53.480 We at Nation of People have started that process by having a wonderful evening with about 100 or so

00:31:58.440 people. They were folks from every walk of life and through their generosity and openness, the

00:32:03.320 ideas improved, the plan improved. Join us next time on A Nation of People to continue this incredible journey.

00:32:22.760 You

Western Standard - October 13, 2026

Can Alberta lead a new vision for Canada？

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