Western Standard - Charlie Angus warns of foreign interference in Alberta independence debate

00:00:00.000 hello western standard listeners i'm willie tam tam reporting from ottawa i just sat down with

00:00:13.740 former ndpnp charlie angus for an interview discussing alberta's independence movement

00:00:20.520 and what he believes is a vulnerability for foreign interference specifically maga american

00:00:27.020 foreign interference. He says that he hears echoes of Brexit from online manipulation

00:00:33.640 to aligned meetings between Alberta independence activists and people tied to Donald Trump's

00:00:40.140 local circle. I spoke to him on why he believes the referendum process needs closer scrutiny

00:00:45.440 and what role he thinks MAGA-linked actors are actually playing. And I also asked him if he

00:00:51.480 believes there is an authentic, organic reason for Albertans to seek independence. Here's that

00:00:58.120 conversation now. Charlie, thanks for joining us. So you've made some headlines recently in Ottawa

00:01:04.600 at press conferences discussing the prospects of foreign interference or specifically MAGA

00:01:09.420 foreign interference in the Alberta independence movement. What exactly are you alleging?

00:01:15.240 Well, my concern from this stems from 2018, the Brexit vote.

00:01:21.260 We all watched it go down, shook our heads, thought we'd carry on in Canada.

00:01:25.140 It was far away.

00:01:26.480 But as the UK Parliament began to look into how the Brexit vote went down and manipulation and foreign actors,

00:01:34.780 and there was definitely a Canadian connection to it through Christopher Wiley, who was the whistleblower from Cambridge Analytica.

00:01:40.360 And then this group in BC, this aggregate IQ company that had a huge amount of the Brexit advertising budget, we decided in Parliament to do an investigation.

00:01:53.140 And I will say in my 21 years in Parliament was the only time where Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats actually all worked very much together because we understood this threat was bigger than us.

00:02:03.200 So I saw a lot of what foreign interference means in terms of an electorate that wasn't expecting that.

00:02:13.340 And I'm seeing a lot of the same patterns emerging with the Alberta referendum.

00:02:17.520 And what I'm also seeing is a complete failure in terms of regulators and the people whose job it is to make sure that everything is done on the up and up seem to be on top of this.

00:02:27.120 And they're not. So that's why I spoke up.

00:02:28.920 when you say foreign interference what does it mean in this context well i think one of the most

00:02:36.440 striking things was when we saw last april in 2025 when a group of the alberta separatists

00:02:46.120 met in washington they bragged that they were just steps from donald trump's office

00:02:51.000 there was talk about a 500 million dollar fund on the table which now i guess is blossomed to 500

00:02:58.100 or billion. I don't know what they're talking about with that. But if you have people bragging

00:03:03.200 that they're meeting with top foreign officials and talking about money to help break up the

00:03:08.460 country, that to me is a four alarm fire that has to be addressed. Imagine if a group in Canada went

00:03:15.540 to Iran or China, met with top officials and talked about money of undermining elections here,

00:03:21.500 there would be all kinds of outrage. And yet nothing was said. So I raised the question,

00:03:26.480 who was in those meetings who who who initiated those meetings was it was that initiated by these

00:03:32.800 guys from alberta did they just call up the white house and get in or was this mega attempting to

00:03:38.660 intervene in our affairs by supporting this group and to me that's very much like the brexit playbook

00:03:44.660 but it's also like the donbass playbook so i'm hoping we can get some answers i don't know if

00:03:49.620 we will but this thing needs to be examined so you're talking about the meetings that were

00:03:54.700 allegedly happened between, I can't tell you the names, but a few organizers and, of course,

00:04:00.820 members of the White House or White House officials. Rank and file, we have plenty of

00:04:07.240 officials here. The MAGA movement is a movement that exists inside the White House and outside

00:04:11.960 the White House and GOP as well. So when you say MAGA, I mean, what specifically and who specifically

00:04:17.760 are you referring to? Well, I mean, there is a large movement and you're very, very right about

00:04:22.740 that. My concern was that this group claimed that they had met with the top people tied to Donald

00:04:30.880 Trump. That to me is a concern. What concerns me is that we're dealing with a government on our

00:04:36.660 border that said that they would break us economically. I mean, we've had pressure before

00:04:41.280 from the Americans. I mean, that's par for the course. But to actually talk about moving the

00:04:45.920 border, as Trump has said, saying that our sovereignty wasn't valid. And then just literally

00:04:52.880 a few days after Prime Minister Trudeau then came back in February of 2025 and said, he's serious,

00:04:59.840 he's serious about breaking up our country. That's when this group, the Alberta Republican Party,

00:05:05.060 put in their papers. And then we started to see these meetings. So, you know, we have all kinds

00:05:10.520 of meetings back and forth between political activists of the right, people go down and help

00:05:15.300 the democrats back and forth that's that's common what's not common is a foreign government meeting

00:05:21.060 with a group who are dedicated to break up our country that is foreign interference of a whole

00:05:25.140 different level and that's what we need to focus on so besides the meetings are we talking about

00:05:31.300 in terms of foreign interference from the us and from the mega movement are you talking about money

00:05:37.620 advertising campaigns online messaging any other means that they're conducting this kind

00:05:42.100 of interference in your view well we saw with brexit there was uh interference at a whole bunch

00:05:47.620 of levels it was very much russian interference then uh i mean the russian ambassador was being

00:05:53.060 advised by some of the leave campaigns um we saw the internet research agency the notorious

00:05:59.940 internet research agency started by progosian who started the wagner mercenary group who did their

00:06:04.980 horrific crimes in ukraine they were very much involved and now according to these reports we're

00:06:10.500 seen in the media the same internet research agency is setting up with offshore accounts

00:06:15.380 trying to intervene in alberta we see a flood of foreign actors pretending to be albertan

00:06:21.140 pretending to be canadian starting these fights this was very much the brexit playbook so

00:06:26.340 i think we need to look at uh is this playbook being used in canada how much of this online

00:06:32.580 debate and rage baiting is going on is it is it albertans versus canadians is it albertans versus

00:06:39.380 Albertans or is it offshore players and if they are offshore players how many of them are they

00:06:44.660 being tied to foreign money um and if that foreign money is tied to governments then that is serious

00:06:49.620 and I think we'd be incredibly naive to think it wouldn't happen in Canada because you look at how

00:06:54.260 this has been done in other countries uh it is it has been done again and again and you're again

00:07:00.100 you're not dealing with you know the traditional cross border stuff between political parties of

00:07:06.580 similar ilks you're talking about a government that has intervened again and again and you've

00:07:11.380 seen this with the the trump government intervening in europe putting pressure in the uk putting

00:07:17.380 pressure in romania putting pressure in germany and france so canada we're sitting ducks here so

00:07:22.820 we just need to be able to shine a light and say whoa who was in those meetings who put the offer

00:07:27.940 of money on the table let's be up front and let's be clear before we walk into what could happen in

00:07:33.060 October so a question for you Charlie is I think we're both awakened to the reality that you know

00:07:40.660 United States along with other superpowers have conduct and continue to conduct foreign

00:07:46.500 intelligence operations engage in the political domains of multiple nations sometimes to the

00:07:51.700 detriment of stability sometimes the detriment of one government over the other and sometimes

00:07:57.220 indeed in favor of an independence movement or recognizing the independence of that of one

00:08:02.980 entity that maybe the host country or the host nations on its border don't necessarily recognize.

00:08:08.180 So there's a lot of polarization in terms of the policy and practice and heritage there,

00:08:13.140 but I just want to get to the bottom of this from the Canadian angle and from the Alberta angle.

00:08:17.620 I mean, if we're looking at these stories, you talk about, you know, Europe, you're talking about

00:08:22.500 Brexit, just what have you seen and has there actually been any substantial, because I know,

00:08:29.220 So, you know, obviously, Daniel Smith's government is dismissing this prospect, the RCMP, the former ambassador to the U.S., the Canadian ambassador, that is.

00:08:39.100 So why do you believe that it is, at the behest of the Trump administration, a part of their agenda to support this movement, materially speaking, and, you know, actually, in your words, break up Canada?

00:08:54.540 Well, I mean, the MAGA administration has said it's one of their priorities.

00:08:59.720 Scott Passant said they want to support an independent Alberta.

00:09:03.580 An independent Alberta means an Alberta, not independent, but an Alberta that's fractured from Canada at a time when they're putting maximum economic pressure.

00:09:12.500 The threat from them has been clear.

00:09:14.200 Donald Trump's threats on our sovereignty have been clear.

00:09:16.600 So we're not dealing with politics, you know, normal politics and normal pressures.

00:09:21.360 We're dealing with a very different set of realities.

00:09:25.300 And again, I think it's incredibly naive to think that this is not going to have a detrimental effect.

00:09:32.240 We look at 3 million voters who had their information stolen.

00:09:36.700 Daniel Smith doesn't seem to think that that's the problem.

00:09:39.000 That's the biggest privacy theft, I think, in Canadian history.

00:09:42.860 And we know that it can be manipulated.

00:09:45.480 We know people can be tracked.

00:09:46.760 They can be targeted.

00:09:47.560 the big mistake they made in brexit was thinking that people would be all playing by the gentleman's

00:09:52.960 rules that you know um everybody would do it like a normal constituency race and that didn't happen

00:09:58.420 and what happened in brexit it wasn't the stolen voter information but it was basically the stolen

00:10:03.480 facebook data that allowed them to micro target people you didn't need to win a referendum by a

00:10:09.460 huge number of votes but if you could target people relentlessly which is what cambridge

00:10:13.740 analytica did and that's what the evidence showed you could start to up and how people thought about

00:10:20.220 things that they hadn't necessarily considered before so you're not dealing you're not dealing

00:10:25.100 with an equal playing field here in terms of a normal vote a normal canadian vote where we all

00:10:29.900 go and vote you pick your party and one side wins one side loses the other side cries and goes home

00:10:34.860 but that's democracy we're dealing with a different realm and that's my concern about

00:10:40.700 foreign interference we have to have these issues cleared up before anything else happens because

00:10:46.220 to trust that it's all going to be played fairly i think would be incredibly naive based on what

00:10:51.580 we've seen uh in donbass based on what we saw with the russians in georgia based on what we've seen

00:10:57.100 with brexit um and based on what we're seeing now with the trump interference again and again i mean

00:11:02.460 the romanian election the germans they uh the idf then france it's there's a pattern here

00:11:08.220 and Canada, we are sitting ducks if we don't lay down some clear rules and investigate where

00:11:15.040 allegations warrant investigation. So let's look at things from Alberta's perspective and the

00:11:21.380 perspective specifically of those that may or may not be supportive of independence, but at the very

00:11:26.360 least have supported the process initiated by the government of Alberta to create this question of

00:11:33.480 question that's coming up in this fall uh you know many albertans would say their frustrations

00:11:38.360 with ottawa effectively didn't begin during trump or the mega era i mean obviously trump's now

00:11:43.960 closer to the midterms this fall so it's been about two years since he took office and of course

00:11:50.120 with that being said the legacy of frustration you can point it to a little bit of a predated

00:11:56.680 point in history maybe uh all the way to the trudeau government's inauguration or or even before

00:12:02.600 So I just want to get into your viewpoint on this. Do you acknowledge that the movement is largely driven by legitimate grievances in Alberta?

00:12:12.140 I think the problem here is that suddenly this Republican Party of Alberta, I mean, at least they could come up with a credible Albertan name as opposed to being a mega front name, set up just as Donald Trump was threatening it.

00:12:25.780 So that changes this debate altogether.

00:12:28.800 This push for a referendum comes as they're threatening our sovereignty.

00:12:33.040 And the problem with this referendum question is that it's been struck down twice by the courts.

00:12:38.780 To then say we're going to have a referendum on whether there should be a referendum is Daniel Smith playing, I think, very dangerous games.

00:12:46.680 What you do when you have frustrations as a region is you negotiate, you play hardball,

00:12:53.180 You push for government and for the public, and that's fair.

00:12:57.680 That goes back to Peter Lougheed, and I don't think you're going to meet anybody in Alberta

00:13:01.980 who has a bad thing on any other side of the political spectrum on how Peter Lougheed defended his province's interests.

00:13:10.500 But this is a very, very different thing, being that this Alberta Republican Party is self-styled MAGA,

00:13:17.140 being that this is happening as our sovereignty is being threatened,

00:13:20.000 and being that Daniel Smith changed the rules on the question

00:13:24.600 and overruled the courts twice.

00:13:28.360 You know, Thomas Lukasek's Forever Canada referendum or petition

00:13:32.880 easily met the target.

00:13:34.820 That should be the question, but she doesn't want that question,

00:13:37.300 so she wants the divisive question,

00:13:38.860 and that's where it's starting to get dangerous.

00:13:42.600 If an Albertan, let's say, somebody hypothetically supports

00:13:47.600 Operate Independence simply because they believe that Confederation isn't working for them.

00:13:52.800 Are they part of the problem that you're describing? Are they a tool? Or how do you

00:13:57.500 feel about their stance? Because there are those people out there in number.

00:14:01.040 Listen, I'm from Northern Ontario. We've been wanting to separate from the South since we

00:14:04.720 were formed. This is Canada. We always have regional differences and divides, and people 0.99

00:14:11.400 can take whatever position they want. This is a different scenario, though, where we're saying,

00:14:17.600 uh that a question of breaking up the country should go ahead of the question that was already

00:14:23.540 put which was about supporting the country and then putting a question that has been struck down

00:14:28.340 twice by the courts this is not a credible referendum question this is not a credible

00:14:33.380 process and I think what's what I'm hearing from people in Alberta and I talk to people from Alberta

00:14:39.180 pretty much every day on this issue their concern right now is the crisis in the health care system

00:14:44.300 and their concern is the crisis in the schools,

00:14:47.640 they are not concerned about breaking up the country,

00:14:50.460 or actually they are concerned that it's coming is this question.

00:14:53.100 So Daniel Smith has manipulated the question.

00:14:55.620 That's the problem here.

00:14:57.100 This isn't about what people feel about Ottawa.

00:14:59.660 This is about whether or not you have a credible process

00:15:02.240 that's being interfered with.

00:15:03.660 It's being interfered with by the Smith government,

00:15:05.980 and obviously it's being interfered with if you have people in Washington

00:15:09.840 putting money on the table.

00:15:12.460 We need to know who that is.

00:15:13.520 and then let Alberta voters consider these prospects.

00:15:17.720 I have a pretty good feeling where Albertans are coming down on this,

00:15:21.280 but my concern is the manipulation and the anger and the falsehoods

00:15:25.160 that will be created by all these offshore players. 0.99

00:15:27.860 They're dirty, dark players. 0.99

00:15:29.760 Well, Charlie, if one of your criticisms was that the Alberta independence movement 1.00

00:15:33.480 is a disorganized machine, I would 100% agree with you.

00:15:36.280 Coming from the Ottawa side, when I try to cover this topic,

00:15:38.920 I always find that there are more than one voice

00:15:41.060 And there's a very incoherent or lack thereof a central message, frankly, or a central organizing committee.

00:15:47.280 But overall, I'm just trying to focus because I can tell it perhaps I'm supportive of Daniel Smith's government and her direction with this referendum question.

00:15:55.980 I understand that. I'm just more curious about the people politics of this, because if she is doing this, she's doing this for a certain reason.

00:16:02.600 And that could definitely point to politics and point to the society where we're looking at a poll of 25, 30 percent, you know, comparable to even Quebec, which has, of course, this long independence heritage, longer than pretty much any other province in terms of actually expressing it in the referendum and actually having this process of, you know, overseen by history.

00:16:25.320 So, I mean, look, you're dealing with Alberta today where you have that frustration.

00:16:31.480 It's quite high compared to perhaps years in the past.

00:16:35.000 It's not new.

00:16:36.480 It wasn't invented yesterday.

00:16:38.060 But I'm just trying to get the sense from you.

00:16:41.300 Do you not believe that there is some credible frustration, incredible sense of mind from enough people in Alberta that this should be something that they have a forum to express?

00:16:52.840 like perhaps maybe not the referendum and it's in its current wording or language but

00:16:57.080 something along those lines because ultimately i'm looking at a number that i have not seen

00:17:01.200 in a fairly long time from from out west frankly well what you're looking at though of course is

00:17:06.900 what happens with with the uh this is again outside manipulation the online stuff trying

00:17:13.460 to build rage hate where people didn't have necessarily a lot of anger before people are

00:17:18.020 being forced to make decisions that they may not have been interested in. The Forever Canada

00:17:23.960 petition easily beat the mark. Why isn't that the question? It's because Daniel Smith doesn't want

00:17:29.160 that question. And the reason Daniel Smith doesn't want it is that she has pandered to her base of

00:17:35.780 people who would rather break up the country than build a country. And I don't have a lot of time

00:17:39.920 for that. If you want to be angry at Ottawa, if you want to divide or you want to debate politics,

00:17:44.920 That's fantastic. That's what Albertans should do. That's the Albertans I know do. But if you're going to manipulate the question and then sit back as 3 million people's data has been stolen, everybody's phone numbers, their addresses, and not think that that's a problem and not think that that should be addressed and not think that it's an issue of a foreign government offering to put money on the table to break up our country.

00:18:08.180 Yeah, I got a big problem with that. And that's the issue that I'm here to talk about. And that's the issue that needs to be addressed. And Daniel Smith is culpable in this because she's playing with fire. And I think she's manipulating people's feelings, their pride as Albertans, their pride of being in a strong people who've always stood their ground on things.

00:18:28.420 I don't like people manipulating those proud feelings that people have we're not having a

00:18:34.340 fair question so without a fair question then there's not a lot to talk about when Daniel

00:18:40.580 Smith and Pierre Polly I think they adopt almost the same language on this but when they say that

00:18:44.880 they want to see a strong Alberta in United Canada do you believe them well I mean Pierre

00:18:52.580 Polly ran on Canada's broken Canada's broken Canada's broken I don't believe Canada's broken

00:18:57.460 And when I'm in Alberta, I meet amazing people who really are excited by the prospects of building a better country.

00:19:04.360 You know, we have come through so much together.

00:19:07.400 That's the message.

00:19:08.360 When I talk with Thomas Lukasek and all the volunteers going door to door, I focus on them.

00:19:14.060 And I think that Pierre Pauly have missed the moment.

00:19:16.300 And I think Danielle Smith has shown again and again, she is not Team Canada.

00:19:19.880 She's never, ever shown this.

00:19:21.700 When the rest of the premiers were standing up to Donald Trump, she was hanging out with Tucker Carlson.

00:19:25.960 So she's going to do what she's going to do.

00:19:29.180 I think the issue at the end of the day comes down to making sure that if there's issues of foreign interference and foreign governments undermining our country, that's got nothing to do with us being independent.

00:19:41.160 That's about making us subservient.

00:19:42.980 That's why I went to Ottawa.

00:19:44.260 That's why I'm calling out.

00:19:45.100 And that's why I continue to call this out, because I'm not seeing the regulators whose job it is to protect us doing their job.

00:19:52.140 And we saw what happened in Brexit when people trusted that it would all work out.

00:19:55.960 not going to work out unless we have clear ground rules and we don't have them right now

00:20:01.400 you just mentioned briefly that uh you know daniel smith met or she invited tucker carlson over and

00:20:06.360 he had a you know an event in alberta i believe i was in edmonton if i can remember correctly a few

00:20:12.040 years back uh do you think that kind of engagement is appropriate i mean frankly tucker carlson maybe

00:20:16.520 perhaps fast forward to today is no longer as close in the trump circle as maybe he once was

00:20:21.560 But, you know, overall, do you think that kind of engagement would have been useful in the Jamil Javani relationship with J.D. Vance?

00:20:27.680 I mean, obviously, you can you can go after it politically speaking.

00:20:30.440 But I mean, given the fact that they are in power in the United States, the Republicans, isn't that kind of engagement helpful sometimes?

00:20:36.660 I think, you know, I think this question is really important because it's not about engaging with the governors that Daniel Smith would know.

00:20:46.260 It's not about going down and trying to meet and find like-minded people to push Canada's issue.

00:20:54.320 Tucker Carlson's talked about regime change in Canada.

00:20:57.880 I would think that a premier would say to someone who's talking about regime change in Canada, hell no, that she went down to Ben Shapiro, who said that we shouldn't even be a 51st state.

00:21:07.960 We should be like Puerto Rico.

00:21:09.380 And she went on his show.

00:21:11.220 I think that's outrageous.

00:21:12.540 I think that's unbelievable that an elected representative of Canada would hang out with someone who said we don't even deserve to get a vote if we get taken over.

00:21:21.340 So if Daniel Smith was standing up for Canada and Alberta, she would be down there with Alberta business leaders.

00:21:27.320 She would be down there with Alberta labor leaders, Alberta chiefs out there meeting all the leaders in the West, in the United States,

00:21:34.760 and that that she could be calling on for us to get a better deal.

00:21:37.900 And she didn't do that. 1.00

00:21:38.840 she opted to go with the sort of mega clown show people. So I think that's pretty fair criticism

00:21:44.620 of her. You know, I mean, I got a lot of criticism of Doug Ford's handling of this,

00:21:48.760 but he has been down meeting state governors. And that's what you do as a leader. You put your

00:21:55.160 personal politics aside and you try and negotiate with whoever's on the other side. And if it's

00:22:01.020 MAGA, yeah, you sit down with them. But sitting down with people saying that we should have regime

00:22:05.960 change here she could have done a lot better for canada and she she didn't well i i watched a little

00:22:12.440 bit and try not watch too much american uh news and political commentary and i i've stumbled upon

00:22:17.480 very recently i think it was earlier this week a uh republican senator from alaska who did an

00:22:23.080 interview with conservative political commentator from the us megan johnson where they're joking

00:22:27.480 about uh alberta itself becoming a 51st state on its own um and of course perhaps even the prospect

00:22:35.400 maybe just joining Alaska. Anyhow, regardless of the cynical nature of those comments,

00:22:41.520 I just want to ask, at what point and at any point do you believe that kind of commentary

00:22:45.620 coming from a setting U.S. politician, a senator in this case, is perhaps for an interference

00:22:51.860 in a different kind of form? Well, I mean, I think what it shows is that they have no respect

00:22:59.060 for us as a nation. I think it shows they treat us with a dismissive attitude.

00:23:05.400 I am less concerned about some bozo governor or senator saying stupid things about Canada. 0.98

00:23:11.360 I'm more concerned about people like Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, talking about it being a priority. 0.99

00:23:17.120 That's when it becomes a concern to me.

00:23:19.600 Canadians got thick skin.

00:23:21.820 We've heard insults before.

00:23:23.600 That's not the issue.

00:23:24.680 The issue is, okay, Scott Besant, were you or any of your officials part of this meeting about money on the table?

00:23:31.480 That's what I want to know.

00:23:32.660 I want to know who was in the meetings in Washington.

00:23:35.400 Because then we'll get a sense of whether or not these guys are just, you know, blowing smoke from the Alberta separatist movement.

00:23:43.200 Or are they meeting with people who actually can put pressure on us?

00:23:47.860 That's the issue.

00:23:49.540 And all the other stuff to me is like, it's just sort of gong show politics.

00:23:53.460 And we got a lot of gong shows.

00:23:54.900 Let's stay focused on what we can do in Canada to protect our sovereignty and our democratic right to make decisions without interference.

00:24:02.940 That's what we're dealing with at the end of the day.

00:24:05.400 As of the recording of this interview, this is the most recent press conference you had.

00:24:09.400 You discussed Christine Ohm's appointment to the Nova Red Minings Advisory Board.

00:24:14.540 That's a BC mining company.

00:24:16.600 Why do you believe, and just in short, why do you believe her appointment presents a national security concern?

00:24:22.420 Well, I mean, you know, I'm going to just say I grew up around mining.

00:24:25.980 I grew up around penny stocks.

00:24:27.520 I've seen it all.

00:24:29.800 If you're from the north, you've seen all kinds of mining deals go down.

00:24:33.940 This is very different because, again, Christine Noem attacked our country again and again and again. 0.67

00:24:40.860 She said that we represented a threat to the United States.

00:24:45.400 So I got a problem with someone who says that we represent a serious threat to the United States being involved in a project, a potential project on a strategic mineral like copper.

00:24:57.400 I think also from a mining perspective where they have to have proper, you know, the environmental sustainability governance rules, the ESG rules, and that includes human rights.

00:25:08.860 This woman, I mean, she set up Alligator Alcatraz. 1.00

00:25:12.320 Her relations with Indigenous people is atrocious. 1.00

00:25:15.180 The last thing we need is someone like her screwing things up in British Columbia because these are really sensitive negotiations.

00:25:22.240 So I've been trying to speak to Nova Red Mining.

00:25:24.920 They've gone to ground.

00:25:25.840 Again, you're a publicly traded mining company. You've set yourself up in Canada. Explain why

00:25:31.100 Kristi Noem is your choice of strategic advisor. What does she bring to the table? And I'll tell 0.93

00:25:36.380 you, people are pissed at this. People don't like Kristi Noem and they want answers. So

00:25:40.640 these are questions that I think are worth asking. And, you know, I can see that some of our elected

00:25:45.040 MPs may be a little shy about asking it. Well, I figure I can ask that question.

00:25:50.640 So, I mean, besides her politics and her political background as a figure, I mean,

00:25:54.920 She's the governor of South Dakota, she was working under the Trump administration for now a little over a year and a half, two years.

00:26:02.680 Now she's left that position and joined this company and is engaging in the private sector across the border as well.

00:26:08.480 So, you know, what exactly, I mean, besides her politics, which I'm sure you don't like, what exactly is a threat that she poses?

00:26:17.920 Well, I'm really trying to figure out what she brings to the table.

00:26:22.260 This company is looking for copper in British Columbia.

00:26:25.660 Donald Trump said copper from Canada was a national security threat.

00:26:29.980 I mean, that's what you say about narco gangs. 0.98

00:26:32.780 It's a ridiculous statement. 0.74

00:26:34.880 But as he said that, he appointed her as his envoy, as shield of the Americas. 0.86

00:26:39.400 Now, I don't want to sound like I'm getting paranoid, but she was appointed as his quasi-diplomatic envoy of the shield of Americas.

00:26:47.560 and then she gets appointed to a board in an area where they're looking for critical minerals,

00:26:52.280 I think we need some answers.

00:26:53.780 I don't think she has any business being in Canada.

00:26:55.920 I don't think she has any business being anywhere near copper projects that could go ahead 0.99

00:27:02.420 because she's got really bad blood with Indigenous people.

00:27:06.620 And if we want to get things through in BC right now,

00:27:09.020 we've got to, those negotiations have to be done right.

00:27:12.240 And I've talked to a lot of people in the industry because, you know, again,

00:27:15.320 I come from mining country and they're that last they say the last thing the industry needs is

00:27:20.360 is some kind of polarizing toxic figure you've got to do this on the low key you got to be careful

00:27:25.700 you got to have respectful negotiations and these copper projects move ahead that's how it's done

00:27:30.660 she is the antithesis of that so it's certainly for me I'd love to hear the company explain

00:27:35.700 what they expect to get out of her strategic advice but for Canadians it's like are you

00:27:40.500 kidding me what's she doing here well you've spent years in parliament and frankly we miss

00:27:47.320 you out there i'd love to see you more often uh so do you i mean going back to your time i mean

00:27:54.620 you were an mp with justin trudeau and of course now we have mark cardi uh liberals have shifted

00:27:59.880 some policies and some directions specifically targeting um gains in in the west potentially

00:28:06.300 especially when you're talking about this impending announcement of the West Coast Pipeline proposal.

00:28:13.500 Has Mark Carney, in your view, done anything differently or more effective than Justin Trudeau when it comes to dealing with Alberta?

00:28:20.260 Well, I think where Justin Trudeau failed is selling what he did.

00:28:26.000 I mean, he got the Canadian public to spend $34 billion on a pipeline.

00:28:30.780 That's an enormous amount of money.

00:28:33.000 It allowed the oil industry in Alberta to go from, you know, 2.9 million barrels a day to 5 million.

00:28:40.100 That's a massive increase.

00:28:42.080 And yet he got trashed again and again by, you know, Pierre Polyev and Daniel Smith, et cetera, for hating Alberta.

00:28:50.000 I think Trudeau didn't sell what he'd done.

00:28:52.580 I mean, that TMX pipeline was a massive boost to an industry that was doing pretty well.

00:28:57.420 also uh the industry didn't want to pay the toll fees uh on so the canadians could recoup their

00:29:04.640 money and the last i had heard it was about 50 cents on the dollar for barrels going down the

00:29:08.980 pipe that were still subsidizing i think justin trudeau should have said listen we gave you this

00:29:13.940 this is what we put on the table and in terms of issues like uh clean energy regs i think most

00:29:19.400 people would think those are pretty reasonable but he didn't sell it and i mean his carbon tax

00:29:24.360 policy was a disaster because you couldn't figure out what the heck it was. I used to say to people,

00:29:29.840 I'm not going out and defending this carbon tax because I don't know what it does. That was

00:29:34.940 Trudeau's big failures. He put a lot on the table, but he didn't sell it. I think Mark Carney has

00:29:40.840 put stuff on the table, but he's coming across better. I think Carney's going to run into a lot

00:29:46.380 of trouble down the road domestically if he doesn't understand how to... He's going to have

00:29:52.680 balance the the development and environmental angles i don't know what he's doing on that yet

00:29:58.360 he's done pretty darn good on the international front um but you know justin trudeau failed i

00:30:04.920 think to sell um to the west and when he should have been selling hard so just on the liberal

00:30:11.160 party politics i want to just let you know that i i heard from a former conservative mp and now

00:30:17.880 a Liberal MP, Matt Jenner, the day that it was announced that the board would be resigning

00:30:23.140 and stepping aside, that he said it was a good day for Alberta, essentially.

00:30:27.580 And again, it reveals the possible Big Ten politics in action in the Liberal Party, where

00:30:33.400 you have the environmentalist faction and have the more pragmatic, econ-focused faction

00:30:39.600 that are, let's say, a bit more supportive of these new projects tabled by, you know,

00:30:45.620 Western proposals and by Mark Carney himself. So how exactly are you are you watching this? And of course, do you view the departure of Guy Bowe and the departure, frankly, of his style of environmentalist policies as a good thing for Ottawa's relationship with Alberta, as some people happen to suggest, even within the Liberal caucus?

00:31:04.140 Well, I think Big Ten politics, the Liberals, they're kings of it. They ought to do it a lot better.

00:31:11.760 I mean, the Conservatives used to be pretty good at it back in the days of the progressive

00:31:15.760 Conservatives, because again, in Ontario, there's a lot of middle-of-the-road Conservatives,

00:31:19.780 same in the Maritimes. I think the problem with Stéphane Guibault going out the way he did

00:31:25.140 is that he does represent, particularly in the West and in parts of the country,

00:31:30.340 you know there's concern for the environment um i don't know if people was that effective as a

00:31:36.240 minister i was on his back all the time uh i came a real hard time when i was mp so you know uh but

00:31:43.160 i think carney needs to like again the big tent you have to figure out how to maintain all your

00:31:48.980 flanks so right now he's dealing with the the alberta issue but he's gonna have to be able to

00:31:54.000 also say to canadians uh this is what's on offer because i mean hell this is one hell of a hot

00:31:59.440 summer and people are starting to think environment again. So maybe it was time for Guy Baud to go.

00:32:04.340 Maybe he was from the Trudeau era, but he's going to need to find someone, I think, a Quebec voice

00:32:09.820 who could fill that void or the Big Ten starts to fall apart.

00:32:15.580 Fair. I just want to look at your view again of Carney's political strategy. I mean,

00:32:20.540 it really did shock me with what I do across the floor as well. I'm just thinking to myself,

00:32:25.700 Is that just Big Ten politics or is there just now this complete abandonment of rigid lines on a certain number of issues, social, political issues, you know, even the most simplistic issues of starting from, you know, horseshit and other kinds of views that have been expressed from that particular member?

00:32:43.620 Or do you think Carney's kind of go-to victory strategy right now

00:32:49.720 is simply just eating the lunch of the red Tory base, essentially? 0.99

00:32:53.500 Because that's what I'm happy to see.

00:32:55.120 I mean, Don Jermont made sense to me.

00:32:56.680 That's maritime territory.

00:32:57.800 That's the PC party.

00:32:59.200 That isn't the reform alliance.

00:33:02.180 Same thing can be said about Michael Ma,

00:33:03.840 who hasn't really established himself much as a conservative,

00:33:06.480 totally speaking, since he's only been in that spot for eight months

00:33:09.180 before he crossed the floor.

00:33:10.840 Matt General was a tight margin.

00:33:13.620 you know, riding in Alberta, but it's still in the Calgary area, so that's still the urban liberal

00:33:18.200 base that he can deal with. Glad it was the one that shocked me, and I think there might be a

00:33:23.200 bigger, more important story to cover there. But essentially, it seems to be Carnegie's energy

00:33:27.940 is eating up that red Tory. Do you agree with that assessment and kind of what you have to say about

00:33:32.780 that? Well, I think what we're dealing with is the fallout of the last election. You know,

00:33:37.680 when Pierre Paglia dropped a 25 point lead that, I mean,

00:33:41.440 that's without precedent. I think, you know, I mean, I, I've been known,

00:33:44.980 I'm not going to hide my dislike of Pierre Paglia of style,

00:33:47.680 but I think with Pierre Paglia,

00:33:50.060 the big mistake he made was that he was, you know, Harper really had his front

00:33:55.980 bench. All of them looked like they could be government. You know,

00:34:00.040 Jim Prentice, Monty Solberg, Chuck Straw.

00:34:02.800 They were all really, really solid players in terms of reassuring people who might not wanted to vote for him that these people knew what they were doing.

00:34:12.700 Pierre Paulyev, I think it was just sort of the rage drum.

00:34:16.400 And it worked.

00:34:17.000 It worked up until Trump.

00:34:18.640 And as soon as Trump came, it fell apart.

00:34:20.720 Same thing, like, look at the New Democrats.

00:34:22.620 I mean, that last campaign, I mean, I'm a New Democrat.

00:34:25.000 That was a disaster.

00:34:26.460 I mean, that was one of the worst things I've ever seen.

00:34:29.040 And so we lost a ton of people who went to Carney.

00:34:31.880 And I hear from a ton of people who voted for Carney that they didn't want to necessarily vote. But what Mark Carney offered was a sensible wartime prime minister. And Pierre Polyev didn't. And certainly Jagmeet Singh didn't. And Canadians wanted that. So I think the picking up those members to get them to majority status from the Conservatives is still the fallout in the Conservative caucus ranks.

00:34:53.520 and whether or not Pierre Polyev will be able to sort of do that.

00:34:58.440 It's not necessarily even a big tent thing, but sort of the big vision thing.

00:35:01.700 And I don't think that that's what he was offering.

00:35:04.800 Jagmeet didn't offer the big vision thing or a sense of being able to stand up to Trump.

00:35:10.660 Carney's been very effective on that.

00:35:12.820 I will say, and I can't believe I'm talking to the Western Standard

00:35:15.340 about what I'm thinking about politics these days, but here we go.

00:35:18.160 I think Mark Carney has been extraordinary with his speeches on the international stage.

00:35:25.520 My advice to him is you better start speaking more to Canadians.

00:35:29.380 Canadians are on side with tough times.

00:35:32.220 They're on side with doing what we got to do.

00:35:34.340 But they need to hear from the Prime Minister more.

00:35:37.020 So it's great that he's over in Finland.

00:35:38.740 It's great.

00:35:39.280 I mean, I think it's important.

00:35:40.440 I'm not dissing that.

00:35:42.020 But I'd like to see him.

00:35:43.740 What's the vision in Canada in the coming three years?

00:35:47.280 that's that's that's domestic politics is always where it comes down it's always local so that's

00:35:53.600 where he's going to have to learn from and that's where the conservatives and the democrats also need

00:35:58.320 to figure out what's their space uh in in carving out a message for canadians that could work from

00:36:05.120 coast to coast to coast where do you see this alberta debate heading i mean october is when this

00:36:14.160 referendum of a referendum is happening what's your expectations now well again i don't think

00:36:20.640 the numbers are there and so i guess i shouldn't be worried but i think what i saw with brexit was

00:36:25.440 the manipulation and the interference and i don't believe that the players involved are going to be

00:36:31.280 playing you know by the old parliamentary rules that we expect so i don't know what's going to

00:36:37.680 happen um i think that people that i'm talking to in alberta every day are out there they're really

00:36:44.480 galvanized i'm really inspired by people in alberta right now who understand the importance

00:36:48.960 of democracy um i i would like to see some of that spirit for democracy be you know really

00:36:56.080 elevated and cheered on because i think the rest of canada can learn a lot of lessons from alberta

00:37:00.960 right now in terms of people are out there they're door knocking their rallies um they're really

00:37:06.320 they're engaged in our country and and that to me is the alberta spirit and i i think this idea

00:37:11.280 that alberta's angry and alienated and sitting on the sidelines and not heard is a misrepresentation

00:37:18.000 of that big that big spirit big vision thing that i've always seen in alberta which is why i've

00:37:23.360 always felt so comfortable there i'd like after october that vision to be really brought in as a

00:37:28.480 national vision but we don't know where we're going with any of this until we get through

00:37:32.880 because we are in such uncertain times.

00:37:36.980 What do you believe is the most effective advocate for federalism

00:37:40.020 that happens to be an elected politician at any level of revenue

00:37:43.580 that you've seen, in Alberta specifically, but also at the federal level?

00:37:48.480 Well, I supported Heather McPherson in the NDP leadership race.

00:37:52.940 You know, Heather's from Edmonton, Heather's strong.

00:37:56.720 I've seen Heather handle liberals and conservatives very well.

00:38:00.200 So I think she's done a very good job up in that.

00:38:05.860 How do you view the leadership of the Hedon NC at the provincial level and the NDP and specifically the differencing of messaging coming from him and Avi Lewis?

00:38:14.140 I mean, he talks about scrapping the gas tax at the provincial level, which is something the Daniel Smith's government hasn't done.

00:38:19.740 Of course, the revenue factor is big there.

00:38:22.880 The federal government has, you know, paused and put aside that gas tax.

00:38:27.860 um so kind of you know of course avi lewis being you know a different kind of thinker on the

00:38:34.920 environmental side how do you view that dynamic between the two and do you feel like the hidden

00:38:39.380 she's more effective and do you think avi lewis is possibly undercutting him for for the you know

00:38:45.560 provincial federal politics i mean i mean i don't know i had rachel notley throw me over the boards

00:38:52.440 a couple of times i never took it personally she had her job to do i had my job to do uh i always

00:38:57.300 got along very well and I had enormous respect for her, even though I might have lost one or

00:39:00.880 two teeth along the way, but that's okay. I think what's going to be really important

00:39:05.580 for Abbey as a new leader is getting in. He's done a big tour through Saskatchewan.

00:39:10.480 I think getting into Alberta is really important and meeting people. I didn't think that

00:39:16.620 the statement made by Nemshi and the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan about Abbey winning,

00:39:23.080 I think it actually helped Abby so I think the thing is is yeah you guys can disagree I mean

00:39:28.460 there's a million things we disagree on federally and provincially but how do we work together on

00:39:32.920 on the big picture so I think all that's going to work out uh you know I don't I don't I don't

00:39:36.780 have I don't take a I don't pay much too much attention to that actually I think it's it's

00:39:41.200 just politics is normal well I asked Abby himself I've asked him quite a few questions since he's

00:39:47.000 visited the hill a few times in the last session and uh one of the questions I asked him he gave

00:39:51.380 me one answer one word answer and it was uh you know do you believe his style of politics on the

00:39:55.880 environment is any cause or inspire a greater frustration in alberta and he said no and of

00:40:01.040 course other reporters in the gallery pressed on that and i continue to defend his positions but

00:40:06.260 do you believe that there is that potential possibly from avi lewis of not really picking

00:40:10.260 up too much support out west given some of his environmental priorities i i think it's all going

00:40:15.360 to come down to building their relations you know when i'm in calgary i meet people who have

00:40:19.380 wide variety of views on the environment saying, you know, in other cities in Alberta, I mean,

00:40:24.740 Alberta is a complex place and people understand environment, they understand energy.

00:40:29.440 You know, this is not a black and white world. But what it is in politics is being able to build

00:40:35.620 trust. I think the danger with politics is just trying to reduce it to black and white trying to

00:40:40.060 say either or all the time, but saying, we got a lot of complex issues. We have a lot of things

00:40:45.720 Like, for example, I mean, I spent four years in my last four years in Parliament working with people in Alberta on the clean energy file.

00:40:53.040 I mean, there was, I think, $170 billion worth of projects ready to go.

00:40:57.420 Alberta is the clean energy capital of the world.

00:41:00.380 Daniel Smith shut it all down. 1.00

00:41:02.380 That's stupid. 0.99

00:41:04.660 I think the understanding I got when I talked to workers, I talked to, you know, Chambers of Commerce, people understand energy in Alberta. 1.00

00:41:13.160 So there's a huge way of talking about energy.

00:41:15.720 And there's a lot of potential.

00:41:17.260 So again, it's a complexity of issues.

00:41:19.900 You got to be in there.

00:41:20.800 You got to start meeting people.

00:41:21.880 And you got to feel comfortable talking about these issues with a wide variety of people.

00:41:25.660 And you end up finding that often you are not as far apart as some who would rather have us be in a black and white world would make us.

00:41:33.260 And that's why I'm angry about the offshore bots interfering in our Canadian conversation.

00:41:40.120 I think as Canadians, we can handle our conversations.

00:41:42.720 Thank you very much.

00:41:44.240 Finally, if you had one message directly to Albertans who feel ignored by Ottawa and feel that Alberta independence is the answer, what's your message to them?

00:41:53.760 My message to Albertans is your spirit for Canada is inspiring.

00:42:01.000 Don't let the rage and the angry people tell you that it's failing.

00:42:06.640 Canada is a success, and it's a success because Alberta is so much a part of it.

00:42:11.480 And I want to just thank everybody that I know in Alberta who are out there all the time with a really positive vision for building a better world.

00:42:19.420 Because that's what this is about.

00:42:20.580 That's the frontier spirit.

00:42:21.880 And we've got to maintain that. 0.63

00:42:23.260 So, yeah, there's some negative Nellies. 0.98

00:42:25.860 They're in every coffee shop in the country.

00:42:27.780 If I spent my political career worrying what the negative Nellies say, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.

00:42:32.360 So, Alberta, keep doing what you're doing.

00:42:34.260 And I can't wait to get back to Alberta.

00:42:36.380 I get inspired every time I'm there.

00:42:39.180 And I got family from Alberta.

00:42:40.740 So I'm looking forward to coming back.

00:42:43.580 Charlie Angus, thank you very much for joining us today.

00:42:46.100 Thank you so much for having me.

Western Standard - July 14, 2026

Charlie Angus warns of foreign interference in Alberta independence debate

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript