00:02:36.320Maybe talk about a citizen's assembly.
00:02:38.980So one example that Peter McLeod, who we interviewed in episode 14, talked about was that the city council in Lethbridge, for example, wanted to give themselves pay raises.
00:02:52.080But of course, that's a highly toxic kind of issue.
00:02:57.460So they hired Peter's company to come in and form what is effectively a citizens assembly.
00:03:02.800And what they did was they sent out 10,000 mailers, and just like one would do in a jury selection, put together 15 people at random that were willing to go through this process.
00:03:16.740And then Peter's company took them through this process where they gave them information, statistics, opened it up for ideas and how to approach it, and walked them through ultimately to giving a recommendation to city council.
00:03:30.780and City Council accepted the recommendation just as it was and then
00:03:36.240told the city about it and amazingly everybody was happy you know the
00:03:40.320citizens were happy that the council kind of got off a delicate topic and and
00:03:45.420the process worked really well okay that's cool and that's right here in
00:03:48.520left you know in Lethbridge yeah my hometown Lethbridge okay so what do you
00:03:54.960think this would kind of look like to help kind of solve Alberta's kind of
00:03:59.100frustration inside of Canada well I think our frustration is that that you
00:04:04.140know we historically through our character of how you know our forefathers
00:04:10.380came to came to Alberta was that we came in search of freedom democracy and a
00:04:16.140chance to build our lives and that's kind of different than colonial Canada
00:04:20.820we talked about that in episode 3 and so we have different expectations and the
00:04:25.140nation has really never recognized our expectations and never achieved our expectations. So what we're
00:04:32.700saying is, well, let's actually tell them what we want. And so what we want is we want freedom
00:04:39.920and we want participation. And you see it in Alberta's history, our political history that,
00:04:46.580you know, like Ralph Klein's kitchen cabinet, that's how he stayed in touch with the population.
00:04:51.200You know, when the leadership of the province kind of goes off on a tangent and doesn't keep that respect for the population, they tend to get booted out.
00:05:05.200And so that doesn't happen in other provinces the same way it does in Alberta.
00:05:10.020So what we're saying is, well, great, that's the way we are.
00:05:13.420I propose that that is actually the future, because generally the free world is going into that direction where there's more and more participation.
00:05:22.480So why don't we actually put it into a document, memorialize it, tell the rest of the country that this is what we want, and particularly get on side our neighbors.
00:05:32.000Like British Columbia, we talk about, you know, as much as Alberta has a unique character, you know, BC is probably more individualistic than we are in Alberta.
00:05:40.500And they have a huge land issue and a duty to consult issue.
00:05:46.520So let's address all those issues, put it into a document, and propose it.
00:05:51.780And that's what we talk about, about reconfederating Canada.
00:06:37.400And I think that it emerges from, you know, the United States has had, you know, 250 years
00:06:45.120of constitutional structure, which is basically like everything ends up in a court, because
00:06:50.660the Supreme Court is, the court system is the highest order of democracy.
00:06:56.000We don't have that history, although the 1982 Constitution has tried to change us, but
00:07:01.340our history was that we were just people and we had to work out our things together and so we had
00:07:09.080to compromise and so we had to respect the view of other people whereas in the United States you
00:07:15.100you don't do that because you end up in front of a judge so you take the most extreme position
00:07:19.020you call the other side names and make them look as bad as they can and then when you when you lose
00:07:25.140you walk away and say okay how can I get this in front of another judge so that he can make my
00:07:29.280decision. So it's a very adversarial system. Our system has been collaborative. And again,
00:07:34.900that's before the 82 constitution where we didn't have a codified constitution. And so we just had
00:07:40.640people. And I think what emerged from that is that the United States is what I call the rule-based
00:07:46.980society. So here's the rules. You have to live to those rules. And then part of that rules-based
00:07:53.960society is that there's first the rules, then there's adjudication of the rules, and then
00:07:59.220there's enforcement of the rules. On the Canadian side, because we're principle-based, even in front
00:08:05.980of Canadian judges, they still say, okay, what were the circumstances under which you made that
00:08:11.660decision, you know, whatever the action is? And were you reasonably successful in thinking about
00:08:21.800the principles that we hold dear and so they have more room in it and then so the net result of that
00:08:28.640is you know there's two societies go down very different paths and the net result is that number
00:08:35.380one Americans have an incarceration rate in jails that uh it's about five times Canada's rate so for
00:08:43.220every hundred people in jail per capita for every hundred people per capita uh in Canada that are in
00:08:51.220jail. There's 500 in the U.S. So that's that enforcement side of it. Number two is that
00:08:59.160they have actually used enforcement and this rules-based law to actually do things that are
00:09:08.700outside of their stated morals. So, for example, their constitution says all men are created equal,
00:09:15.200But somehow they made rules that enslaved African Americans for the first hundred years.
00:09:24.160And then after the Civil War, when they brought in the 13th and 14th Amendments
00:09:31.720that were specifically to say, yes, all men are in fact equal,0.54
00:09:37.540the South figured out a way of getting around and created Jim Crow laws
00:09:40.760and basically segregated the United States for another 80 years afterwards.0.59
00:09:45.200And so that's what rule-based systems actually do.
00:09:51.360And then the final piece of it is, and we talk about this on the episode, Pew Research asked 27 countries, do you think your neighbors are morally good or morally bad?
00:10:04.320In Canada and the United States, we're at the exact opposite ends.
00:10:09.060In the United States, 52% of people said their neighbors were morally bad.
00:10:14.520In Canada, 91% of people said that their neighbors were morally good.
00:10:20.860So that's the consequence of a rules-based system for the Americans and a principle-based system for Canada.
00:10:30.880So the consequence is, do you think your neighbors are good or bad?
00:10:35.280So it's a big difference. It's a very big difference.
00:10:37.400So that's why we've added the concept of a principle-based participatory democracy.
00:10:42.980So the net result, and this is not to say that the United States doesn't have principles.
00:10:48.560Lots of good people, and the government has acted with principles.
00:10:52.680We see the change of principles over the last 80 years versus what they're doing now.
00:10:57.480But it's not to say that having principles or not having principles is different
00:11:02.700than the concept of a principle-based society versus that rules-based society.
00:11:09.000So what we're saying is, let's incorporate that.
00:11:12.420And let's, in our laws, define what the principles are associated with it.
00:11:17.640You know, the principles of be kind to your neighbor.
00:11:20.740You know, don't try to force your decisions on them.
00:11:24.060And then let the courts make that part of their decision-making process.
00:12:05.160And then also, does the enforcement of the laws relate to our principles?
00:12:12.520So, for example, in Alberta, we have a principle of equality, that all Canadians should be equal.
00:12:20.800Well, some of the attacks that have been on Alberta over the previous 10 years during the Trudeau era,
00:12:28.400they absolutely contravened that principle of equality.
00:12:31.880So if the country accepts the concept of equality, that Citizens Guild should be able to take action, which I propose is first in the courts and then ultimately through referendum to say the government is not acting under the principle of equality.
00:12:52.960And so that actually gives us the opportunity to address what the separatists are quite, you know, they're angry about is that Alberta was treated in without equality.
00:13:06.440And so that gives us an opportunity to actually do, you know, to enforce it and to police it, measure it and do something about it.
00:15:51.640Why don't you talk a little bit about your upcoming episode,
00:15:54.760episode 16 that's coming out on Tuesday.
00:15:57.080So in episode 16, we are putting our third proposal on the table.
00:16:01.720And we're very concerned that we don't want the voice of change to be lost.
00:16:10.820If the referendum goes to stay in Canada, which the polls indicate that they would, that that's the direction we're going in, we don't want that to be the end of the story.
00:16:21.360We want, you know, 75% of Albertans want change.
00:16:28.020And so what we're proposing is that our leaders take us to a discussion about the Constitution and start doing these citizen assemblies, what have you, and ultimately ending up where we actually have a choice and possibly a referendum.
00:16:47.140You know, there's benefits to, there's direct benefits, and we've talked about this, I think, in episode five or six.
00:16:53.840if we actually vote on the referendum,
00:16:57.720which is a vote we should have had a long time ago,
00:17:00.420we can actually recover unemployment insurance.