Western Standard - CORY MORGAN SHOW： The Alberta independence campaign must clean itself up

00:00:00.000 Good day and welcome to the

00:00:29.080 Cory Morgan show. Oh man, what a, what a week it's been a whole bunch of good and a whole bunch

00:00:34.320 of bad. If you're an independent supporter, I'm kind of going to cover a little bit of both of

00:00:38.640 that in the, in the, my monologue that I'm going to read in a moment. My interview is going to be

00:00:42.980 a little unusual today in the sense that it had to be prerecorded, but it is Eric Duham of the

00:00:48.260 Conservative Party of Quebec, the leader of it. People forget there is a Conservative Party over

00:00:52.840 there and it's been making gains. I mean, they're not looking to, to be winning this fall's election

00:00:57.620 probably, but they could certainly be impacting it in a big way. So it was an interesting

00:01:01.900 conversation with him, a rational politician out of Quebec. Otherwise, let's see some of

00:01:07.540 the folks. I see commenters already, Wayne and John. Good to see you, John and Wayne

00:01:12.860 and NB Lakes and Paradoxia. Yeah, lots to discuss, lots to talk about and lots breaking,

00:01:19.520 but we'll get into the area. What I wanted to speak of, as I said, it's been a really good

00:01:25.360 weak for the independence movement and and it's really been bad and we've got to do better but

00:01:31.480 uh i'll explain a little of that so alberta i mean we're at a turning point in history mitch

00:01:37.100 sylvester and i get nothing but good things to say about mitch with stay free alberta presented

00:01:41.760 over 301 000 signatures to the election elections alberta office demanding a referendum be held on

00:01:48.020 the word independence the signature collection was process it was meticulous there's over 7 000

00:01:53.940 volunteers registered. They took training and then demanded the identification for every signature

00:01:59.440 offered to the petition. The bar to trigger a petition for a referendum or to trigger a

00:02:04.180 referendum with a petition was set at 178,000, comfortably surpassed. It was a remarkable

00:02:10.160 accomplishment achieved during the darkest, coldest months of winter. And anybody claiming it was an

00:02:14.720 easy thing to achieve is either lying or they've never actually petitioned before. And that petition

00:02:20.060 presentation the other day was celebratory as it should be. Hundreds of supporters gathered for the

00:02:26.000 event and the energy was palpable. I wish I could have made it up. Alas, I was stuck down here.

00:02:31.200 Unfortunately, though, a dark cloud of controversy also hung in the background during that event due

00:02:36.420 to the alleged leak of voter information by David Parker's Centurion Project. A news cycle that

00:02:41.940 should have been overwhelmed with positive imagery of the independence movement passing an important

00:02:46.680 milestone was disrupted with constant chatter about laws being broken and privacy being

00:02:52.340 violated. It doesn't crush the movement by any means, but it was a self-inflicted setback that

00:02:58.520 never should have happened. With the petitioning finished, the independence movement must now

00:03:03.240 evolve into a campaigning phase in anticipation of a fall referendum. And this is going to be

00:03:08.440 different than the petitioning campaign. In petitioning, people who already supported

00:03:12.660 independence engaged themselves, and they sought out the signatures of hundreds of thousands of

00:03:17.240 Albertans who wanted to see a referendum question on the issue. And while the process in itself

00:03:22.740 surely led to converting many to the independent side of the fence, it still left a large and mushy

00:03:28.040 undecided middle of the population who must be won over by October 19th, and it's not going to

00:03:32.660 be easy. To begin with, this independence movement must be squeaky clean. There can be no whiffs of

00:03:39.760 corruption or misdoing or it will sink any chance of winning the trust in support of citizens by

00:03:44.860 voting time. Perhaps the mess caused by the Centurion Project debacle is something of a

00:03:50.100 blessing as it offered this hard lesson while there's still nearly six months to recover from

00:03:54.720 it and to campaign. A mistake made by many independent supporters when the news broke

00:03:59.500 of the apparent misuse and public sharing of information from the electors list though was

00:04:03.680 to circle the wagons and try to defend it. Some tried to liken the information to that contained

00:04:08.500 in a phone book, and others tried to claim the leak was all part of a conspiracy orchestrated

00:04:13.220 by Elections Alberta. Both approaches only created mistrust within the general population,

00:04:19.520 which now must be countered. The breach of information should have been immediately

00:04:23.920 condemned and quarantined. When the referendum on independence is held in Alberta this fall,

00:04:29.540 it's going to be a yes or no question on the ballot, but the voters are going to have to

00:04:32.460 answer two questions to themselves before making their mark. They're going to, of course,

00:04:36.640 have to determine if they want Alberta to be independent, but they're also going to be asking

00:04:41.600 themselves if they trust the independence movement to lead the province after that into a better

00:04:46.140 place. A person committed to independence could still end up voting no if it appears the movement

00:04:50.640 is dominated by corrupt or inept players within it. Mitch Silvestri responded excellently when

00:04:57.260 asked about the Centurion Project mess. He said that David Parker had approached him with the

00:05:01.260 concept, but that he felt there could be issues with the legality and chose not to be associated

00:05:05.360 with it. That apparently led to friction between Sylvester and Parker, which is a good thing.

00:05:10.320 Mitch directly addressed the issue and stated clearly how it has nothing to do with the group

00:05:14.580 petitioning. It also exposed actually a glimmer of David Parker's nature. The independence movement

00:05:20.660 is made up by a number of groups, and that's been an advantage and a disadvantage. It's allowed

00:05:24.460 people to move forward together towards a shared goal, but it also leads to some mixed messaging.

00:05:29.520 There will be no political party or singular organization speaking for the independence

00:05:33.220 its movement in the next few months. The movement still, though, it must try to centralize some of

00:05:37.960 the messaging to a degree and ensure only credible people like Mitch speak for it. Characters like

00:05:43.260 David Parker and Cam Davies, who already have well-established checkered histories, must be

00:05:47.560 kept as far out of the movement as possible. People like Mitch, Sylvester must step up and

00:05:53.040 take a more active role in speaking for the movement. He should be the one speaking to the

00:05:55.820 press guys, nobody else. The middle must be one, and Sylvester's rational, positive, and calm

00:06:01.960 approach wins people over. If the movement is represented by a loud, corpulent caricature of a

00:06:08.200 cowboy screaming about commies, it will be lost. It'll take some strength and potential conflict

00:06:14.240 to move the damaging elements within the movement into the background or out of it altogether.

00:06:18.800 But this must be done if the trust of voters is going to be gained. They don't see a bunch of

00:06:23.880 different groups, guys. They just see one independence movement. And if Mavericks are

00:06:27.720 continued to be embraced, it's only going to give the opponents ammunition. The independence movement

00:06:33.060 has flourished almost despite itself. To get over this largest hurdle that's coming now though,

00:06:37.460 it must begin acting strategically and prove it's trustworthy. It can't sustain scandals

00:06:42.660 and to prevent those, the known bad actors must be ejected sooner rather than later.

00:06:49.520 That's my thoughts on this week so far. All right Dave, what else have we got going on our news

00:06:54.300 that had lost to cover corpulent i wanted to make a certain person look up a dictionary i wonder who

00:07:00.620 that could be i don't know there's lots of people like it could be the the michelin tire man there

00:07:04.780 you go you've had a busy week on twitter haven't you holy cow wearing out the finger you've been

00:07:09.820 fighting with everybody yeah yeah it's a but your own people right you i would say you've been

00:07:15.340 fighting with other independents well you know i won't fault i mean a lot of the people who are

00:07:20.460 are pro-independence folks and they aren't communicators they aren't campaigners that's

00:07:24.820 been the great thing of this movement you know all these new people getting involved but they

00:07:27.400 better understand and i don't think they do the dangers of what just happened and they're doubling

00:07:32.580 down on it and it's making it worse and i i just i'm gonna try and counter it as much as i can

00:07:37.740 guys if you go out there you know jason kenny had his information exposed and for people saying well

00:07:42.100 kenny did this kenny did that kenny fine but you're not addressing the problem that a former

00:07:48.920 premier's personal information was exposed. You've got to call that out. And I'm going to call these

00:07:54.060 guys out. Guys, you're making this worse. Yeah. There's a couple of groups here that I think

00:07:59.280 are in big trouble. And here's, I think, another one of your problems is the slow moving pace of

00:08:05.900 the RCMP. They're likely to have people arrested or people charged in the weeks coming up in October

00:08:13.540 leading up to the election.

00:08:15.240 Oh, yeah.

00:08:15.500 The referendum, sorry.

00:08:17.020 That's it.

00:08:17.600 This can't be...

00:08:18.480 People say, well, we've got to wait

00:08:19.320 for the legal investigation.

00:08:20.460 Guys, the referendum will be over by then.

00:08:22.520 Yeah.

00:08:22.900 You've got to quarantine these guys now

00:08:25.700 because you're going to be waiting

00:08:27.920 a long time for this to be resolved.

00:08:29.520 Exactly.

00:08:30.080 And we've talked about this before.

00:08:31.540 I think one of the problems

00:08:32.480 is the group does not have a singular leader.

00:08:35.320 No, and it's hard.

00:08:36.440 And there's not a mechanism for it now

00:08:37.980 because, you know, there isn't a party.

00:08:39.640 There isn't time,

00:08:40.580 even if there was something like that,

00:08:41.940 to hold an election and so on

00:08:43.340 all that distraction. But I think they could still just consciously start putting more of those other

00:08:48.140 voices. You know, when Mitch did his press scrum the other day, it was really good. Why isn't Mitch

00:08:53.100 more often the one speaking to the media? They've got to kind of choose who their official

00:08:58.460 spokespeople are and keep that message controlled at least to the people who tend to speak a little

00:09:03.660 better on those things. Too many egos in there, I think. I think so. Let's see what happens. I'm

00:09:10.460 getting hate mail again but whatever it's nothing new to me i just i'm usually used to getting it

00:09:13.820 from the left no exactly strange strange days so uh the whole mess here is sort of leading off our

00:09:20.060 our website with jason kenney saying he's gonna get a lawyer i'm gonna go uh sue david parker in

00:09:26.700 the centurion project as for those who don't know what happened they were having a seminar for for

00:09:33.580 people and uh they put up his his personal information that they got from the uh from

00:09:41.100 the elections uh alberta people you know his home address and stuff like that it's in this day and 0.74

00:09:47.180 age very dangerous right i mean there's lots of kooks out there as we know oh yeah uh so you know

00:09:53.900 if i'm jason kenny i'm pissed too so i i'd be suing uh i'd be suing david parker for whatever

00:10:00.460 money he's got well i mean it might be just whatever you can get a chip for the institution

00:10:05.420 commissary might be the only uh assets that he has pretty soon but we'll see there you go uh

00:10:13.100 my favorite story of the week is and it's a morbid one is the uh the rat infested uh hantavirus death

00:10:19.660 ship oh it's horrible it's crazy uh turns out today we find out that it was uh it was brought

00:10:26.460 onto the ship by an argentinian couple who had been bird watching in argentina and then they

00:10:33.020 started rare cases of human to human transmission so there's three people dead on a boat now they're

00:10:42.060 finding that people who have left the boat or you know left the cruise they're coming down with it

00:10:47.180 now there's a man and a man and his wife in uh in switzerland who have been tested positive they

00:10:53.980 they were on the cruise and, and left it.

00:10:56.080 So, uh, that ship was supposed to dock in the Canary Islands to get some people

00:11:01.000 medical help and the, uh, the government there refused permission.

00:11:05.080 So there's like this ship wandering the ocean blue with nowhere to go.

00:11:09.820 Well, with a bunch of sick people on it too.

00:11:11.440 I mean, imagine that it's gotta be, you know, this is serious.

00:11:13.660 Like this isn't even just talking COVID level things.

00:11:15.760 That virus will kill people.

00:11:16.900 It's a mortality rate is 40%.

00:11:19.360 Yeah.

00:11:19.960 So, I mean, if you get it, I did need to be locked on that.

00:11:23.080 I mean, most of the people presumably still stuck on it

00:11:25.000 are healthy, but you want to get off this thing.

00:11:27.880 Exactly.

00:11:28.840 Sooner than later.

00:11:30.520 We've got a good story on a Calgary lawyer.

00:11:32.980 He was previously charged with harassment,

00:11:36.400 harassing a Calgary city police officer.

00:11:39.540 He's now being done with multiple counts of child luring

00:11:42.360 and weapons offenses.

00:11:44.380 So I guess the question is, is he going to represent himself?

00:11:49.840 And lawyers are a special breed.

00:11:51.460 Even realtors, I always find they're just kind of people who are, there's good and bad, but they're unusual folks.

00:11:58.320 Parks Canada says they're redoing the way they manage forests.

00:12:03.900 Jasper Fire 2024, caused by a lot of deadwood.

00:12:07.620 They're now trying to clean that up, be more proactive instead of waiting until the town burns down.

00:12:13.860 And Honda has put a hold on a $15 billion electric vehicle plant in Ontario.

00:12:21.460 so i just wonder what the total is that canadian taxpayers are out because of what governments

00:12:26.900 what was it the stellantis one a bunch of others and ends we just tossed something like tens of

00:12:31.860 billions of dollars somebody kindly on my behalf pulled up a tweet i threw at justin trudeau a

00:12:37.300 couple of years ago talking about this is what's going to happen with it i thank them for watching

00:12:40.900 my stuff to give me that i told you so moment there you go boy that's a lot of money flushed

00:12:45.220 on this and uh we're nearing the end of the bc conservative leadership race so our alex zoltan

00:12:51.140 out there and lotus land is has got an update on what the latest uh promises are right on well

00:12:57.140 yeah alex has been covering it excellently yeah he's doing a good job it's a big deal the ndp

00:13:00.900 are going into the toilet so this is a very good chance whoever wins this race could be bc's next

00:13:04.660 yeah they're uh i think we had to pull they're up by 10 points now aren't they and they don't

00:13:08.900 even have a leader huh it shows up bad yeah yeah he's dead man walking right on well i'll let you

00:13:14.340 get back and catch uh caught up i know this morning's been uh it's been a bit of a hectic

00:13:18.180 Good morning.

00:13:18.800 I appreciate you taking the time to share the headlines with us.

00:13:21.600 And I'll see you after the show.

00:13:22.720 You bet.

00:13:23.100 See you on Pipeline.

00:13:23.760 Right.

00:13:24.140 You bet, Dave.

00:13:24.740 Thanks.

00:13:25.940 So that is our news editor, Dave Naylor.

00:13:27.820 Yes, laying down all of this stuff breaking and going on.

00:13:30.660 So I got to remind everybody the reason we can do that,

00:13:32.400 the reason Dave can have that pack of reporters to manage

00:13:36.200 and get those stories out is because you've subscribed.

00:13:38.840 And if you haven't yet, westernstandard.news slash subscription.

00:13:41.580 $10 a month, guys.

00:13:43.020 $100 for a year.

00:13:44.120 And you get past that paywall, and it supports all of this stuff.

00:13:47.300 and keep us putting those news out there

00:13:50.500 rather than relying on the legacy media folks.

00:13:53.100 So let's see some of these.

00:13:56.740 See, here's some of the commenting. 0.99

00:14:00.160 You're the only one who is inept Ukraine baffoon. 0.96

00:14:04.680 See, this is the commentary from the independence movement. 0.98

00:14:08.160 And I know you can't control it.

00:14:09.320 These are individuals at the bottom.

00:14:11.460 There's the nature of social media now, though.

00:14:13.360 Some individuals can throw stuff out

00:14:14.700 and it gets thrown at the whole movement.

00:14:16.540 we need to be a little more careful with uh who's speaking for things in general this person of

00:14:20.400 course clearly isn't another person saying we need a leader to move this forward yeah i'm not sure

00:14:23.700 like how do we do that um red tide making a good point you know self-inflicted how do you stop

00:14:28.400 people from doing this crap okay red tide so someone will explain quickly before i get to my

00:14:32.000 guest is the characters behind this were well known to those of us who have already been in 0.97

00:14:37.860 politics for some years we always knew that parker and davies were toxic we really did then most of

00:14:45.280 us wisely stay the heck away from either of those two others some of the senior levels within this

00:14:49.220 movement should have known that uh thankfully they didn't fully jump into bed with the centurion

00:14:54.500 project but they already should have been putting up walls between the two of them right off the

00:14:58.320 bat and the second this broke they should have said whoa we got nothing to do with that that's

00:15:04.160 crazy dave not us either way we'll talk more about that after my guest as i said it's a rare

00:15:09.360 one it was pre-recorded uh eric duham he is the leader of the conservative party of quebec he

00:15:14.360 came out here to Alberta and had a chat in studio the other day. So have a listen to this and we'll

00:15:17.740 talk some more. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us today, Mr. Dahem. I guess

00:15:23.620 the first question I got to ask though, as a provincial politician in an election year

00:15:27.020 from Quebec, what brings you to Alberta right now? Well, first off, thank you for welcoming me.

00:15:31.880 What brings me to Alberta and everywhere all across Canada, because we're touring Canada,

00:15:36.080 I was in Saskatchewan earlier last week and BC leaning to Ontario tonight. So what brings us

00:15:43.600 here is that I just launched a book, Destination Autonomy, where, you know, we're talking in favor

00:15:49.360 of decentralization, giving more powers to provinces, respecting the constitution of this

00:15:54.720 country, because there's a huge, you know, sentiment right now of unfairness all across

00:16:01.140 Canada. And we have a liberal government in Ottawa that is centralizing more and more and more,

00:16:05.920 that is running huge deficit, historic deficits year after year. It's worse than Trudeau right

00:16:11.460 now. And people get frustrated in regions. The separatist movements are growing out west and in

00:16:17.640 Quebec because of that. And we need to make sure that, you know, it's not because they call

00:16:23.180 themselves Captain Canada in Ottawa that the liberals are. They're actually the ones feeding

00:16:27.760 the separatist movement right now and the frustration in all of our regions. And we need

00:16:32.740 to push back. We need to create alliance with autonomous just like me, just like here, Premier

00:16:37.400 Smith or Premier Moe or the BC Conservatives, we need to make an alliance together to give

00:16:44.220 ourselves a bargaining power so we defend provincial rights and jurisdictions.

00:16:48.780 Great. Mr. Riet, so you're running the Conservative Party of Quebec.

00:16:52.100 Yes.

00:16:52.260 There is a Conservative base of support out there, but it's been difficult. I mean,

00:16:58.040 you've got very much of a mixed legislature of the National Assembly there.

00:17:02.120 Look, we started at 1% five years ago.

00:17:04.420 And when I took over as leader, we did 13% in the last election.

00:17:09.120 We're at 15% right now.

00:17:10.860 We had our first member crossing the floor three, four weeks ago.

00:17:14.900 The former Natural Resource Minister, Maïté Blanchet-Vizna, came over and joined us.

00:17:19.520 So we're present now in the National Assembly.

00:17:21.620 If there were an election today, according to the latest polls, we would have somewhere between 10 and 14 members in the National Assembly.

00:17:28.340 We'd actually have the balance of power in a minority government.

00:17:31.520 So it's not too bad for a start after only four or five years.

00:17:35.340 I can tell you that Conservatives are back in Quebec

00:17:38.260 and they're going to be back in the National Assembly

00:17:40.820 in significant numbers on October 5th.

00:17:43.700 So that balancing, as you pointed out, with Scott Moe, Premier Smith,

00:17:48.300 particularly in Alberta right now,

00:17:49.660 I mean, there's a very lively independence movement going on in Alberta right now.

00:17:53.820 Premier Smith isn't overly supportive of the independence movement,

00:17:57.780 but she understands that Ottawa is a problem, the Liberal government is a problem, or possibly the

00:18:03.540 system is a problem. That balancing act for conservative leaders right now is very difficult

00:18:08.740 to achieve. How can you maintain, I guess, the support for conservatism while still convincing

00:18:15.380 the voters that you would stand up for the autonomy of the vote?

00:18:18.100 Well, you're right that it's a battle because it's an equilibrium and we want to tell people,

00:18:23.780 you know don't give up and make sure that we can win battles and that's why we keep pushing

00:18:29.140 and that's why i'm publishing a book and that's why we're going to campaign on that because

00:18:32.980 uh you might know but the separatists right now the party quebecois is leading in the polls right

00:18:38.020 now in quebec so if there were an election today we would have a separatist government in quebec

00:18:42.260 city um which is not a good news for national unity obviously but uh which is not a good news

00:18:48.100 for Alberta neither, because I think both our provinces are allies in many ways, forms and

00:18:54.100 shapes when it comes to Ottawa. We're sick and tired of the Ottawa knows best. And we have to

00:18:59.300 realize that, you know, we need to build bridges between us. We have much more in common than

00:19:06.180 anyone else. And that's my purpose. And that's why I think we should even have the leaders of

00:19:12.980 of the conservative parties in each province to meet together at least once a year to talk about autonomy

00:19:18.780 and give ourselves a bargaining power.

00:19:21.780 You know, this country was not bad initially.

00:19:23.480 I mean, we have a constitution where the fathers of confederation decided that there's going to be two sovereign government

00:19:29.700 in their own jurisdictions, the provinces and the federal government.

00:19:33.740 But unfortunately, when the liberals are in power in Ottawa, they think they have a government that's dominating the provinces.

00:19:38.560 And they don't even seem to understand the basis of the constitution of this country.

00:19:44.480 So that's why we need to fight back.

00:19:48.560 And there has been successful things happening in Alberta.

00:19:52.360 If you look at Danielle Smith, she adopted a law on the sovereignty of Alberta within the United Canada Act.

00:19:58.720 In Saskatchewan, they adopted Saskatchewan first.

00:20:01.800 They're doing things that are giving them more power.

00:20:04.380 They won over the environmental evaluation for their natural resources programs with a new pipeline.

00:20:10.960 Like, there's issues that they were able to move.

00:20:13.560 And it's not because of Ottawa.

00:20:14.800 It's because of the pressure that Alberta is putting on the federal government and the bargaining power that they gave themselves.

00:20:20.940 They even had their minister resign in Ottawa.

00:20:23.220 A guy from Quebec, Stephen Guilbeault, resigned because he disagreed with Mark Carney having to sign a deal with Daniel Smith.

00:20:30.780 And that's the kind of thing we like to do and we want to do and we want to imitate Alberta.

00:20:34.380 You know, Quebecers have inspired Alberta in terms of autonomy for a long time.

00:20:39.020 And now it's kind of the reverse a bit. I mean, Alberta is inspiring us.

00:20:43.020 I have the book here that I want to show you just to make sure.

00:20:46.620 Discination autonomy. People see it. It's in French also. Of course, it's bilingual.

00:20:54.460 And can I tell you an anecdote about this book?

00:20:56.140 By all means.

00:20:56.780 I launched it a little bit more than two weeks ago in Quebec city at a bookstore and the radical

00:21:03.580 left decided that they don't like me launching a book. So they started the boycott of the bookstore.

00:21:08.220 It's a small bookstore, independent bookstore, and it's a tough business these days.

00:21:14.140 And they attacked, you know, the owners of the bookstore are not political activists. They're

00:21:19.500 just, they're doing that with any author that wants to launch a book at their bookstore.

00:21:23.580 and you know the cancel culture today is so crazy that they wanted to you know attack the them

00:21:31.900 professors at a college came out saying that asking their students to also boycott the

00:21:39.180 bookstore where they normally buy their books and so on so it's it became kind of a controversy by

00:21:45.180 itself even if the issue is not that controversial to talk about the evolution of power but we live

00:21:51.020 in a woke culture now so that's what happens. It's unfortunate with the cancel culture and

00:21:55.100 particularly again when they come after conservatives I mean you aren't coming from a

00:21:58.460 fringe you're just coming from a good classical liberal or conservative position typically.

00:22:03.740 Speaking of the autonomy more though I mean Alberta I think we're hearing more of that

00:22:07.100 language here saying you know we should be learning from Quebec rather than complaining

00:22:09.820 about Quebec as much as we used to. There is a lot of ability within the constitution to assert

00:22:15.500 ourselves we just haven't been effectively doing it as much whereas Quebec has more of an attitude

00:22:20.300 of, well, we're going to do it anyway and move ahead, but is there ever going to be a chance

00:22:25.260 for constitutional reform? Because there are some issues we have in Cal, in Alberta, where

00:22:30.380 the system has some problematic things within it, but nothing shy of constitutional reform will

00:22:34.860 help us with that. We've been that way. We tried that path. It was a huge fiasco and I don't think

00:22:42.140 there's a lot of appetite to reopen the constitution and start a new round of negotiations and trying

00:22:49.020 to find seven provinces out of 10 with 50% of the population or all sorts of rules that are needed

00:22:56.060 to change any kind of thing. But the problem is not necessarily the constitution per se. The

00:23:02.060 problem is the interpretation that the Liberals did and the spending power that they gave themselves.

00:23:07.020 When you have a federal government that is having a $60 billion deficit, it's because they're not

00:23:12.300 minding their own business. And that's not because the constitution is not proper, it's because the

00:23:18.300 government in Ottawa is not well intended. There are ways to put pressure. Anyway, the model,

00:23:28.220 the federal liberal's model is not sustainable in the long run. They're going to run out of money.

00:23:33.740 You can't keep going the way they are. They can't implement their federalism vision for the long

00:23:40.700 run because we can't afford it. I think that we can work within the current framework and at least

00:23:47.980 you know, push forward to that and see where it leads. But for a new round of constitutional

00:23:54.140 negotiations, I don't know in Alberta, but in Quebec, I can tell you that the appetite is not

00:23:57.980 quite there. No, and the appetite isn't here either, but that's part of what's leading to

00:24:01.180 the independence movement because there's issues such as the Senate and equalization that people

00:24:05.900 would like to see changes with, but can't change without constitutional reform. Well, when we talk

00:24:10.860 about autonomy, the autonomy is also about money. And that's why, as you know, I'm someone who

00:24:17.500 supports the exploitation of natural resources in Quebec, particularly natural gas.

00:24:23.980 I think it's important. We have to stop depending on transfer payments and depend more on our own

00:24:29.500 people and our own natural resources. Autonomy, yes, it's power and it's constitution, but it's

00:24:35.260 also financial. We're talking about sovereignty and independence, but the first sovereignty and

00:24:42.140 independence and especially nowadays it starts with our energy i mean if you can't if you're

00:24:47.980 dependent on your energy about from other people coming from elsewhere you you have a huge problem

00:24:53.660 and it goes with some people are realizing that when these bills are coming in right now

00:24:57.660 we have to realize it it's a huge problem we're in quebec we thought we had energy forever you

00:25:02.220 know because we have hydroelectricity and we thought that quebec was very wealthy well now

00:25:06.780 we realize we have a shortage. So even in Quebec, you know, and there are some very

00:25:12.540 large gas deposits that could be developed if the will was there. So I guess moving on though,

00:25:17.900 you're in a campaign year, you got about five and a half months to go. I imagine most of your time

00:25:21.340 is going to be in Quebec pretty soon. Of course. What is your platform into Quebecers, which you

00:25:25.740 were reaching out to them with? Well, we're a small C conservative party. So obviously we want,

00:25:30.380 you know, to stop the deficits. We had the highest deficit in our history last year.

00:25:35.100 The agencies even lowered our ratings last year.

00:25:42.100 We also want to make sure we downsize the bureaucracy.

00:25:47.100 The bureaucracy has been booming over the last few years.

00:25:51.100 Something that could be a little bit more controversial in English Canada,

00:25:54.100 but is more accepted in Quebec.

00:25:56.100 We also want to give greater access to healthcare by adding the contribution of the private sector.

00:26:04.100 We do believe that it's time to have an open debate about private health care in Canada and in Quebec and talk about the Canadian Health Act.

00:26:13.340 We think it's important to, you know, the current model is not sustainable neither.

00:26:19.820 I mean, we're putting more and more money every year and the results are not there and the winning lists keep going higher and higher.

00:26:26.480 Other than that, we also want to exploit our natural gas, as I said earlier on.

00:26:31.020 That's for us. It's very important.

00:26:32.280 we need to create wealth stop depending on alberta's transfer payments money um so it's

00:26:38.760 the kind of policies and and of course and that's why we came up with the book uh lately and of

00:26:43.800 course increase quebec's power within the canadian constitution uh the confederation and and for us

00:26:51.880 that's uh that's that center because the other parties the liberals you know they're the liberals

00:26:57.640 provincial or federal. They love centralization. They love abusing provincial powers. The

00:27:04.520 separatists, they just want to break up the country. They don't want to do a good deal,

00:27:07.640 a better deal for Quebecers. And we're positioning ourselves in between.

00:27:12.040 Great. So, I mean, those cooperative efforts, if it was a minority government,

00:27:16.360 and perhaps you're in the balance of power, you know, I know you're campaigning to win.

00:27:21.640 I imagine that'd be the sort of thing, could we have some sort of summit with premiers,

00:27:24.920 There's things to put that pressure on from multiple provinces rather because we come in as 10 individuals rather than five or six together.

00:27:31.640 I think it could make a difference.

00:27:33.660 And that's why I'm meeting Premier Smith this afternoon just to talk about that.

00:27:39.800 It's very, very important that we understand that we're stronger when we're together.

00:27:45.620 And conservatives in Canada, we all work in each of our provinces or at the federal level.

00:27:50.060 But unfortunately, we don't connect as well.

00:27:53.140 And in Quebec, we've been absent. We've been out of the National Assembly for close to nine decades.

00:27:58.780 So, and in BC, it was not as long, but almost. Now they're back in force, but they were out of it.

00:28:04.900 So, I think the conservative movement in Canada, especially at the provincial level, is gaining momentum.

00:28:09.860 And we need to build on that and to put even more pressure on Ottawa.

00:28:14.140 Are you seeing one of the trends that we're seeing with conservative support, actually, in BC and some others,

00:28:17.860 is more of a younger demographic leaning there now than traditionally, mostly because of housing

00:28:23.140 costs, education. They're realizing they're not seeing a good future for themselves right now

00:28:28.180 under these current governments. You're absolutely right. Even in Quebec,

00:28:30.740 it's the same thing. We're at 3% among seniors. We're at 15% in general population, over 25%

00:28:38.980 for the 25, 35, 40. It's a generational shift and it could be explained also by the media.

00:28:47.220 the traditional media. And I don't want to attack the Western standard. It's quite the opposite.

00:28:51.700 But like for us in Quebec, I'm going to give you a real example. We have 1% to 2% of the coverage

00:28:58.900 in the traditional media. We're at 15%, 16% in the polls. Quebec City, the radical left,

00:29:04.580 they're on the left of the NDP, the provincial level in Quebec. They're getting, for example,

00:29:08.820 on CBC, 17% of the coverage. They're at 8% in the polls. So it gives you an idea that the older

00:29:16.260 people they watch more and they'll you know they're more into the mainstream media uh and so

00:29:20.980 they they don't know us or what they know of us is very negative while the youth they're on social

00:29:25.620 media they see all the things we're doing directly uh and we're much more popular among those crowds

00:29:31.460 and also because we're talking about their issues we're talking about housing the fact that they

00:29:34.820 can't afford a house anymore the fact that they can't even pay their grocery uh these days the

00:29:39.700 fact that the education system has huge problems so we're talking their language and the message

00:29:44.740 resonates. I'm old enough to recall that it used to be the opposite.

00:29:50.100 Yeah, it's a total flip. It's a total flip. It's been interesting to watch across the country.

00:29:54.500 Well, the time went quickly, but before I let you go then, I mean, one more time,

00:29:57.540 where can people find a copy of your book and information about your party and such to

00:30:02.260 watch or participate or support if they're interested?

00:30:04.420 They could go on Amazon, actually. It's on sale everywhere. Destination Autonomy or Destination

00:30:10.660 autonomy if you're looking for the french version and uh what's coming up for the party well the

00:30:15.860 it's the election in october so we're already on a campaign move we're announcing candidates we're

00:30:20.260 presenting our platform so it's going to be a very interesting year and quebec politics is

00:30:25.700 something different there's five parties that are going to be competitive so it's very unusual

00:30:29.700 they our system normally it's two maybe three but not much more uh us it's five so uh i think it's

00:30:36.500 It's going to be a very, very interesting thing.

00:30:39.260 Everything could happen.

00:30:40.860 And, you know, we could make history

00:30:44.260 because I think that the Conservatives getting back in Quebec City

00:30:47.880 with a strong, you know, caucus could change things

00:30:52.040 constitutionally and politically in Canada.

00:30:54.940 Well, I really hope you guys do well.

00:30:56.420 I know you're taking this seriously when you're taking time away

00:30:59.080 from Quebec during the Montreal playoff run that's going.

00:31:02.480 So I wish you the best and I hope we get to talk again soon.

00:31:05.680 It's a pleasure.

00:31:06.500 Well, there you have it, folks. Conservatives do exist in the province of Quebec and do have, you know, some degree of support. And Mr. DeHemp, I think, speaks with good common sense and things. And, you know, I'll have those interviews. I mean, I would like to see, say, for example, an independent Alberta, an independent Quebec, kind of as Roadsend, one of the commenters just said, you know, Canada's too large to govern and we need independence in all the provinces. I fully agree with that.

00:31:33.380 But, I mean, I don't wish ill on Quebecers.

00:31:36.980 Get somebody like Mr. DeHemmin and start developing your natural gas.

00:31:40.520 Start acting properly.

00:31:41.860 Either way, his book's worth checking out, and it was a good conversation.

00:31:46.020 But we should get back, I guess, a bit to the hot discussion, you know,

00:31:50.160 which has been going on this week and what's going on with the independence movement,

00:31:53.120 what's happening.

00:31:53.740 Look, what we're seeing is how strong the opposition is going to be against us.

00:31:59.660 we kind of always knew it was going to be. What my issue is, don't give them bullets though. Don't

00:32:06.260 make it easier for them than it has to be. And that's kind of what happened here. And it's going

00:32:13.280 to be hard to prevent all of that. Because again, there's that difficulty with it being

00:32:17.520 a decentralized movement. But at the same time, you know, you've got other individuals who are

00:32:24.800 considered to be speaking for it. So Van Fashens, you know, puts a good point saying, anybody

00:32:27.920 proposing it needs to be a party or have a single leader likely work with an inchie i i don't know

00:32:32.240 about that but i mean it it's it's probably just not the way to go with this but way too late

00:32:37.000 anyways if they wanted to find a singular person to speak for the whole movement that would have

00:32:41.360 been done prior to all of this i mean there's five and some months left that's the point i keep

00:32:46.320 making to people the campaign is on now we don't have time i talked about that uh on a video i put

00:32:53.000 up on my own channel a little while ago too because there's some people pushing saying that

00:32:56.020 we got to get involved with the UCP. Okay. Not necessarily a bad thing,

00:32:59.120 but then to push the UCP into having a special general meeting in August on

00:33:02.740 independence, like guys, you only got so much energy and so much campaign time.

00:33:07.760 You don't have time to do that sort of activity.

00:33:10.540 We're going to get the referendum. That's a given.

00:33:12.740 It's just whether or not we're going to win it. That's a big,

00:33:15.260 big F and a huge one. And how we,

00:33:21.020 we can't get one voice is going to speak for the whole movement.

00:33:25.400 but that's just not the nature of it now.

00:33:27.560 And it would just be too difficult to establish that.

00:33:31.260 Most of what I'm making as a point

00:33:33.300 is that we do have to make clear, though,

00:33:35.540 who doesn't speak for the movement,

00:33:38.520 particularly when they step in it,

00:33:42.220 as Parker and Davies appear to have done.

00:33:46.640 Again, by the way, Google those guys.

00:33:49.080 I'm not just shooting at them

00:33:51.300 because of a, you know, a dislike, though I've got some, it's a long history with those two.

00:33:59.700 Those don't speak for it. And other people who are getting larger profile things, but say

00:34:03.620 controversial or crazy stuff, and they are some crazy stuff out there. It should at least be

00:34:08.880 pushed back on. Who? I don't know. Michael saying, what, you think one voice doesn't matter? No,

00:34:14.740 every voice matters. Every voice matters. And that's, that's the interesting thing with social

00:34:19.900 media. This is all uncharted waters. This is new. This is not like 30 years ago where only those

00:34:25.680 who would get into legacy media would speak to a large amount of people. Now anybody with a phone

00:34:30.300 can get out there on a social media platform and put a message out that might go to four people

00:34:36.200 or might go to a hundred thousand people. And that comes again with good and bad is true grassroots,

00:34:42.060 but it also leads to, you know, a lot of disinformation getting around or people who

00:34:49.360 We're just making things worse.

00:34:54.560 Yahoo News.

00:34:55.420 This is from Feisty Fry, a commenter saying,

00:34:57.220 Carney says he has plans to meet with the Alberta Premier when she's in Ottawa.

00:35:00.200 I wonder if it's true.

00:35:01.200 I don't know.

00:35:01.740 Probably.

00:35:02.600 The Premier will meet with the Prime Minister if that happens.

00:35:04.820 You know, I'm not that concerned about it.

00:35:08.520 I'm not going to get anywhere.

00:35:09.640 Just wasting more time.

00:35:10.780 Get more mealy-mouthed stuff out of Carney.

00:35:13.060 But people talk about, you know, where Smith's going with things.

00:35:15.960 I don't mind when she goes up and fails with the Kearney government, because it just keeps, that helps build the independence movement.

00:35:25.200 It shows the futility of trying to play nice.

00:35:28.460 It shows the waste of time of playing within the system.

00:35:32.260 But Premier Smith's role right now is to try, but we know it's going to fail.

00:35:38.080 It's been laughable.

00:35:39.440 The Western Standard reported on that recently.

00:35:41.540 the big project office that was supposed to fast track all these major projects. It's been almost

00:35:49.960 a year and it hasn't approved one. Do they even understand their own stinking mandate? You don't

00:35:57.580 navel gaze for a year as a group that's tasked with fast tracking things. All it is is kicking

00:36:04.880 the can down the road and uh it's it's harming us well it's not harming us actually it's helping

00:36:12.980 the independence movement but things that aren't helping the independence movement are just having

00:36:17.560 people blasting off from all over the place the vote is going to be based for a lot of people

00:36:23.060 much more on trust rather than the nuts and the bolts and the economics and the stats

00:36:32.780 this is a gut feeling vote for a lot of people and that is a lot of that mushy middle look at it

00:36:39.200 as three big circles you know you see those things with that overlap in the middle

00:36:42.640 you got the far end that's definitely never going to vote for independence you got this

00:36:47.000 end that's definitely going to vote for it but the huge part in the middle because that's where

00:36:50.780 that line is going to matter those need to be won and a lot of them are going to vote based on how

00:36:57.780 they feel about one side or another. And if the independent side appears not to be trustworthy,

00:37:07.360 not to be principled, people will vote the other way. And that will lose the referendum.

00:37:15.640 How do we stop it? I don't know. Somebody else pointed out that CBC was reporting as if

00:37:19.500 Parker was the leader of the independence movement. Of course, those of us within it

00:37:23.140 No, he is not.

00:37:25.340 But Legacy Media and our opponents are going to lump everything together.

00:37:30.220 As I said, we can't prevent all of that.

00:37:31.860 They're going to keep doing it.

00:37:33.280 But we can mitigate and reduce it as much as humanly possible.

00:37:38.640 They were thrown a gift.

00:37:39.940 That's part of the way I am so upset.

00:37:42.740 Monday should have been such a great day.

00:37:45.440 As I said at the start of my monologue, history was made.

00:37:48.600 We've never had anything like that.

00:37:50.180 I did go out to see those people on the highway working their butts off in city areas, getting people, giving them the finger, all of that on their own time as volunteers, following the rules, only to have opponents now questioning the legitimacy of their work, their petitioning because of what Parker's group and the Centurion Clowns did.

00:38:15.160 they undercut so much trust and yes it's being unfair to lump that on that I've seen no evidence

00:38:23.400 and I don't believe for a second that Parker's access to the list had anything to do with the

00:38:29.880 petition signatures going in that's a clean petition all the volunteers the others it's fine

00:38:35.040 and you know to be verified uh some people wondering about that you know how does that

00:38:39.420 work with elections Alberta and so on with other petitions whether it was your petitioning to run

00:38:44.280 for office or petitioning for a referendum or things like that. They will bring in, they don't

00:38:50.520 check every single one of them. First thing though, they will check a whole pile of them against the

00:38:54.940 electors list. That's just their way to make sure these people exist. You can't just make up an

00:38:58.640 address. You need to kind of cross-reference. And they won't do it with all of them, but they'll do

00:39:01.980 it with a lot. On top of that, they will actually phone a bunch of them. They'll follow up. They'll

00:39:10.120 say, pardon me, sir, this is Elections Alberta. We're just calling. We'd like to just confirm

00:39:14.560 that you did sign a petition. And if say they checked on 10,000 signatures, let's just say,

00:39:23.280 I'm just throwing a number out there. And they found that 90% of the signatures were validated,

00:39:29.340 they were good, everything else. They will reduce 10% from the petitioning number and put the

00:39:35.960 petition in as it is. See, that's what happened with Lukasik's 400 and some thousand. If people

00:39:44.080 remember when he put it in, it was 440,000 or something like that. Elections Alberta, when

00:39:48.120 they did follow up on that, found about a 13% error rate. And those errors could be all sorts

00:39:51.800 of things. It doesn't mean corruption or bad things, but it does mean that, you know, maybe

00:39:56.100 there were names that couldn't be read or addresses that were wrong or people, again, that just

00:40:01.840 weren't on the list. So they kind of did that. And then they sucked about 40,000 signatures off

00:40:05.860 of their total. That's how Elections Alberta works with those things. And that's what'll happen

00:40:11.720 with this one. But with 301,000 signatures, and I've seen how meticulous and careful people were

00:40:17.220 with getting them, I'd be surprised if more than 5% even, it turns out to be the number they take

00:40:22.380 off at. There's no way it's going to be knocked down below 178,000. The only thing that could be

00:40:27.780 add, you know, overall with this and problematic is if they found one of the salted names

00:40:35.460 in a petition. And I'll explain that a bit because not everybody necessarily understands

00:40:40.620 how these electoral lists work. Okay. And I don't see why they'd find one of those salted names.

00:40:44.440 Again, the State Free Alberta has been on the up and up all the way through. So it shouldn't be a

00:40:48.840 problem. When Elections Alberta gives out the information to political parties, they give out

00:40:57.360 the voter list to every political party. They salt the list. They will have some fake names in there.

00:41:03.120 They'll have some other identifiers in there that are unique only to that list. And if that name

00:41:09.960 pops up anywhere else, you know where the list came from. So what has happened, and I will say

00:41:16.620 that not allegedly, what has happened is that salted names appeared in the database that the

00:41:25.080 Centurion project put out for, and again, for people to publicly access that information.

00:41:30.680 That's another level of the problem with this. They found those unique salted names. The only

00:41:36.740 possible way those names could show up in the Centurion database is that it had an electors

00:41:42.440 list in it. That's confirmed. Now, Mr. Parker, I guess, can make his defense as to how that ended up

00:41:48.100 in his database. We'll see, I guess, what happens with that. But it was in there. That's why the

00:41:53.720 injunction was served so quickly because they could show the evidence for the elections of

00:41:58.040 Alberta say, look, we logged into this site. We typed in a few of these names and bang, we got

00:42:02.460 hits. The other thing it proves is where it came from. So they know there's no denying that this

00:42:10.400 list came from the Republican party of Alberta. Cam Davies has some questions to answer. Was it

00:42:16.680 stolen from them? Did they sell it? Was it hacked? Was it given away? I don't know, but it did come

00:42:25.060 from there. That's confirmed too. And it's problematic. It really is. What I think it's

00:42:31.780 going to lead to, I think the government's going to change the legislation. This happened in Calgary

00:42:35.880 with the municipal elections as well. They used to give the electors lists to all the candidates

00:42:38.880 until some crackpot candidates started making bad use of the list. There was a guy who was talking

00:42:44.340 about sharing information about people who worked in health services from the list and giving their

00:42:49.380 addresses out in public. So then because of that nut, they just took away those lists from

00:42:54.000 politicians altogether. I won't be surprised if these lists get pulled out of the political

00:42:58.260 realm provincially altogether too eventually. Just nobody will have it anymore. Whatever.

00:43:03.640 But for the immediate term, those lists were leaked wrongly.

00:43:12.280 And I just can't say it enough, guys, to try and compare it to a phone book is dismissive. 1.00

00:43:17.940 It's stupid. 1.00

00:43:18.800 It's not like that. 1.00

00:43:21.120 And for others, they say, well, you can just find that information anywhere.

00:43:23.320 No, you can't, actually.

00:43:24.780 There's some public people who keep their locations very discreet.

00:43:28.260 They try very hard because they do have nutcases out there coming after. 0.93

00:43:33.480 them. Now, I conclude myself in that. You should see some of the emails I get. I don't want people

00:43:37.680 easily finding my house. And I understand they have other ways they can find it and whatever.

00:43:42.740 There's ways to get people's addresses. But when you're entrusted with a list like that, it doesn't

00:43:47.080 matter if that information is available somewhere else. You were responsible for that bloody list.

00:43:52.280 So how are we supposed to trust a movement when there's a whole bunch of people who say, well,

00:43:55.820 I don't care if somebody's personal information got leaked out and they may come to harm from it.

00:44:00.120 An analogy I used on X not long ago, would you guys be okay if, again, so let's say Mitch Sylvester became the president of an independent republic of Alberta, and then people shared what his address was?

00:44:12.920 It's the same thing, and it's wrong, because there will be crazy people going after Mitch.

00:44:19.320 When you see these violations happen, don't try to dismiss them. Try to look at how it might apply to you and your side.

00:44:25.760 That's what it comes to when people are talking about allowing the government to violate free speech or things like that.

00:44:31.800 When it's an authoritarian sort of law, even if it's your side, always imagine a government that's not on your side having that power.

00:44:42.100 So please, movement.

00:44:44.560 I want it to move.

00:44:45.560 I think it's fantastic.

00:44:46.560 It was a great week.

00:44:47.760 There's going to be a referendum.

00:44:49.140 But guys, we've got to clean it up.

00:44:51.600 We've got to win trust.

00:44:53.520 And trust took a blow this week.

00:44:55.760 We can get it back, got five months to do it, but for starters, you got to clear out

00:45:01.960 the problems and you got to show that you won't accept any of that. And you will condemn that

00:45:08.060 and you will distance yourself from that. Show that you're better. You know, there's a lot of

00:45:12.140 whataboutism too. Oh, the NDP did this, the NDP did that. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. By

00:45:16.180 the way, they're legally allowed to send you texts. I know it's annoying, but they are allowed

00:45:19.020 to. That's within the ability of the list. Whataboutism and saying the other guy did it too,

00:45:24.160 two wrongs make it right defense doesn't work it just makes you look untrustworthy all right guys

00:45:28.960 that's it for today thank you very much for tuning in hopefully it'll be more positive next

00:45:32.600 week we'll see i am optimistic about the whole thing i honestly am tune into the pipeline tonight

00:45:37.340 we're going to talk a bit more about that on a panel with a bunch of us and make sure like

00:45:41.500 subscribe share do all that good stuff so all our shows can get out there and let's keep at it

00:45:46.460 thanks a lot and we will see you on the next one

00:45:54.160 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 09, 2026

CORY MORGAN SHOW： The Alberta independence campaign must clean itself up

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