Western Standard - Elections Alberta files legal action against independence advocacy group

00:00:00.000 All right, we're live.

00:00:27.740 um i i think it's going to be a good show today uh i just want to do a follow-up uh from last

00:00:35.060 week right so last week i got you know i was holding some callers on the line i was there

00:00:42.580 was a beeping in my headphones and i didn't know what the beeping was going on right uh i had a

00:00:48.180 different producer in the show and we were you know and i'm still getting familiar and what turns

00:00:52.660 out that happened last week is so many of you folks were calling. Apparently I had 30 calls

00:00:57.600 online all through last week. And I was dragging some discussions on because I didn't think there

00:01:03.680 was anybody on the line. So let's do that again this week. Let's have another show like that with,

00:01:08.220 you know, I got, I think I took nine callers last week. Let's try and take 10, 11, 12 this week.

00:01:15.020 Listen, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little bit disorganized right now because I just got into

00:01:21.080 calgary so i was in uh edmonton last night i i was uh speaking at an event by the way

00:01:28.600 i uh i got to experience something pretty cool uh yesterday and today i got to drive on the uh qe2

00:01:35.480 with the new speed limit right so the 120 kilometer speed limit there's a great big sign so when

00:01:40.280 you're going uh heading north just past i think it was lacombe or somewhere around there uh all

00:01:45.080 of a sudden there's a big you know big sign 120 and uh and then i sped up and then i got to do it

00:01:51.160 on the way down i mean quite honestly for me i usually drive around 125 you know my my truck

00:01:59.080 like at the at i drive a one-ton truck right so at speeds above that it starts to there's wind

00:02:06.280 noise and i don't find it pleasant right so i'm not one of those guys who would normally drive at

00:02:10.120 130 140 consistently unless in the good old days i used to do it when i had a a nice smaller car

00:02:16.680 but it's quite something to be passed on the highway you know you're you're cruising along

00:02:20.600 you're doing 130 and all of a sudden you'd see in that mirror you see a big uh we know what they

00:02:26.200 look like right that big one ton sometimes dually ford lifted up belching out diesel pulling a

00:02:32.840 enclosed trailer passing you at 150 kilometers an hour so i don't know what that experiment's

00:02:38.840 going to yield i had no problem i thought uh in the summertime on dry road conditions like that

00:02:43.480 everything was great oh actually that just reminds me of something if i drove in europe quite a bit

00:02:48.840 and a lot of places in europe have adjustable speed limits which i found pretty cool right so

00:02:54.680 the the the speed signs are digital and all of a sudden it'd be like 110 and then 10 minutes later

00:03:00.920 it's 120 and so that's because whatever some person has established that speeding up things is is is

00:03:08.040 warranted and vice versa they might lower it and over there i found that people obeyed the the

00:03:13.320 system but variable speed to me as an engineer sounds like an idea that makes sense right we

00:03:19.640 should have variable speed all right um so let's uh let's talk real quick about uh i i want to talk

00:03:28.120 about this but i don't know if i want to get into huge huge huge detail because we don't know all

00:03:32.840 the details but i was up in edmonton last night speaking at an event a small event put on by the

00:03:40.680 centurion uh project and about i don't know 150 people showed up to hear more about the centurion

00:03:49.160 project which is uh one of the i which is a brainchild of of david parker and i'm pretty much

00:03:56.600 on board with the idea of the centurion project because as i've said uh repeatedly we we we had a

00:04:05.480 we had a campaign recently where we collected signatures totally looking forward to monday

00:04:11.560 when mitch sylvester finally drops off those signatures to elections alberta

00:04:16.520 but i canvassed and i learned personally that collecting signatures and reaching out to people

00:04:23.720 and connecting with them and explaining all uh things whether it's independence or anything

00:04:29.800 anything else political is is complicated it's busy and it's harder than i even imagined and

00:04:37.880 and i think we're gonna be pleasantly surprised with the number of signatures but we're still

00:04:42.040 got a big step ahead of us which is there are courts fighting us and there there will have

00:04:47.960 to be a referendum and getting that you know by my estimate we're going to need something like a

00:04:54.040 million a million two votes in favor of independence to even have a chance at it and so getting that

00:04:59.960 to those million people is a challenge and that's what the centurion project is working on

00:05:06.920 and and i like generally speaking the approach that they're taking to engage with people but

00:05:13.720 what happened last night was kind of interesting so there um i we sort of talked about this last

00:05:21.320 week on the show right elections alberta right now is to me um maybe overreacting and coming down

00:05:32.440 hard on what they consider separatist groups right so and last night while i was on stage

00:05:40.760 there was a commotion while i was speaking and then all of a sudden i saw a bunch of people

00:05:44.440 moving and i continued doing my talk but i found out later that there was a um investigator call

00:05:53.080 it from elections alberta who came to this event and served papers to the people at the event to

00:06:00.920 the organizers of the event which is a centurion project and they served papers but that that in

00:06:07.240 and of itself is a bit unusual but what was really unusual about the whole thing for me is that they

00:06:12.200 came with seven police cruisers seven can you imagine so so maybe maybe elections out not maybe

00:06:20.280 i'm sure elections alberta has a valid reason to serve papers it's not something you just do

00:06:24.440 randomly decide you're going to go serve papers but so they wanted to serve papers but what i

00:06:29.320 found unusual is that somebody somehow somebody at elections alberta picked up the phone and called

00:06:35.000 i don't know somebody at edmonton police services and said hey i'm going to go serve papers i need

00:06:41.000 i don't know how many guys can you spare can you spare seven cruisers and somebody at edmonton

00:06:45.640 police said yeah sure and they spared seven cruisers you can see them in the picture there

00:06:49.400 and those seven cruisers showed up um just to serve the paper i think in hindsight like uh

00:06:56.360 edmonton police is a little bit embarrassed by that because they issued a statement this morning

00:07:01.160 kind of trying to distance themselves from this event saying hey we were sort of just doing our

00:07:05.800 job so boy you know so i want to talk about this a little bit more i mean that that's the that's the

00:07:14.760 that's the state of politics in alberta right now so we got we got a group that's we got two

00:07:19.720 groups that are battling out over independence we have a pro-independence group led by mitch

00:07:25.240 sylvester's and the uh the alberta prosperity project and on the other side we have thomas

00:07:30.760 lukasic's group and thomas lukasic let's remember an old former politician well connected on the

00:07:36.920 inside and and i dare say that what he's doing to me doesn't look necessarily totally above board

00:07:44.840 but he seems to be getting um a pass when it comes to all this stuff from from elections alberta so

00:07:51.720 Let me know your thoughts on that.

00:07:53.100 Are Elections Alberta just doing their job and doing it fairly,

00:07:55.980 or are they playing a bit of favoritism, and how's this all going down?

00:08:01.960 At the end of the day, me personally, I definitely really, really,

00:08:05.220 really look forward to Monday.

00:08:08.980 I think somebody from the Western Standard will be there.

00:08:12.880 There will be press coverage.

00:08:14.960 Mitch Sylvester is driving over to the offices of Elections Alberta on Monday

00:08:20.020 and handing in the signatures that he collected as part of this petition we don't know the number

00:08:25.880 but he's going to reveal a number i guess we'll have to take his number on face value because

00:08:30.920 according to the state that's in front of the that the courts issued a couple of weeks ago

00:08:37.120 elections alberta can't start the process of validating the number of signatures what a world

00:08:42.300 we live in right um all right so uh so that's the topic so again uh folks don't be shy uh you see

00:08:50.060 the number on the screen there one eight six six four seven nine west or four seven nine john i

00:08:57.100 never know what west stands for four seven nine nine three seven eight extension seven one one so

00:09:03.900 make those uh make those lines beep and uh and let's go from there actually uh now i'll come back

00:09:10.700 to this all right so what else happened uh what else happened this week uh trying to think about

00:09:16.300 it i i definitely got distracted yesterday but what else happened this week i mean and and that's

00:09:21.420 the other thing whenever there's these weird distractions i start to wonder what's really

00:09:26.140 going on elsewhere what's the real story that they're perhaps trying to hide or or not so uh

00:09:32.620 the big i guess the big story this week in in ottawa is the spring um fiscal update

00:09:41.020 he used to be called the fall uh fiscal update because remember i've said this before right the

00:09:45.900 the fine the um the budgetary year the fiscal year in ottawa runs from april 1st to march 31st so

00:09:56.700 So March 31st is like a month behind us.

00:09:58.900 The fiscal year 2025-2026 ended a month ago.

00:10:05.280 So now we're technically in the 2026-2027 fiscal year.

00:10:09.700 And what we should be concentrated on is the government should be tabling a budget and everything else, right?

00:10:15.500 But everything's been shifted by about six months because last year the Liberals used the election as an excuse.

00:10:22.660 In fact, they used it as more than an excuse.

00:10:24.500 They didn't want to table a budget, but they were forced to table a budget.

00:10:27.820 I mean, the Liberals got elected in April last year, so they had plenty of time.

00:10:31.400 They could have tabled a budget right around the time that they're supposed to in May, but they put it off, put it off, put it off, and didn't table a budget until about November.

00:10:40.660 And then by then, you know, more than half of the year is over.

00:10:44.140 So it's messed up the entire budgeting cycle, and it doesn't help that we didn't have a parliamentary budget officer.

00:10:51.560 so everything's messed up and which is why yesterday or this week the uh all right we got

00:10:57.900 a call uh before i go so i was i was going to give a whole long speech on uh fiscal responsibility

00:11:03.300 but let's uh let's go ahead so remember please let me know name where you're calling from and uh

00:11:08.360 and we'll go from there go ahead

00:11:10.460 hi it's susan from strafford hi susan i have a question for you when the uh signatures and

00:11:20.640 everything gets dropped off on monday has he already made a count with an accounting firm

00:11:25.260 on the members yes i i mean i i'm hearing this yes yes i i mean i've heard it from from mitch

00:11:32.960 uh i'm assuming he's doing what he said he was going to do he all the signatures have been

00:11:38.000 forwarded to his office quote unquote i think it's his business and uh and they've been counting

00:11:43.940 them himself and he's hired an accounting firm to validate it is that and is he keeping copies of

00:11:51.820 them no he cannot do that um i i'm sure he wish he could but no he's gonna uh he's gonna just

00:12:00.840 count them and then uh rely on an accountant or a lawyer or somebody to to to confirm you know what

00:12:07.940 what happened i mean i would advise him he can't photocopy them but he can certainly we talked

00:12:11.840 about this last week he can put the pages you know sort of in uh banker's boxes and we're trying to

00:12:17.220 do the math the other day like how many how many pages go into banker's box let's say it's uh you

00:12:22.160 know let's say it's 5 000 pages going to banker's box then that's 25 signatures so i hope he does

00:12:27.360 something sort of visual to represent how many signatures are are you are you concerned or

00:12:32.500 no i just i just don't trust uh elections alberta yeah yeah you me both all right well thanks for

00:12:41.000 calling thank you so much yeah you're welcome um yeah i uh i encourage i definitely encourage

00:12:49.720 actually somebody somebody do that experiment how many how many how many single pages after they've

00:12:54.920 been sort of peeled away and stacked back into a banker's box how many pages go in there i think

00:12:59.240 we did it last week i think it's about 25 000 pages that seems high anyways back to the back

00:13:06.440 to the uh fall econ i keep saying fall economic update because that's what we had we always had

00:13:11.560 a fall economic update because the fall economic update used to be in the middle of the budget year

00:13:17.240 it was an update so now we got a spring economic update and uh boy oh boy what a nothing burger

00:13:24.600 right i i normally i normally take a lot of pleasure in going through government budgets

00:13:31.960 and breaking them apart and seeing what happened but in this case um all i need to look for me was

00:13:38.780 one number which is the fact that uh the liberals are still for la for for this year that that we're

00:13:45.740 in the middle of and i'm still confused or they haven't officially declared i i think officially

00:13:50.840 we should be they should be saying we're in the 2027 budget but they're still saying that the

00:13:55.400 deficit in the 2026 budget was 66 billion dollars and they're trying to make that sound like it's a

00:14:01.140 good deal because originally they had forecast something like 77 billion so even their original

00:14:08.100 forecast car in carney's first budget he said he his deficit was going to be 77 billion dollars

00:14:13.600 which is twice as much as anything trudeau ever had outside of covid right you remember during

00:14:19.380 covid like in 2021 i think trudeau ran 220 billion dollars in deficit like that's huge so carney in

00:14:27.340 his first budget comes out of the gate and swinging and like i'm gonna blow the budget by 77 i'm going

00:14:34.480 to spend 77 billion more than i have and now halfway through the budget cycle he's proud of

00:14:41.660 saying uh the deficit's only 66 like he tried to sell that as a win well i'm sorry folks but 66

00:14:48.780 billion dollars in debt is uh is is is a it's 10 of our budget we're living beyond our means

00:14:57.180 were and more importantly there's no plan in the fiscal update you the fiscal update is this year

00:15:04.860 and then five years looks forward five years in the next five years they're still running deficits

00:15:09.920 in the 50 plus billion like huge deficit year after year huge deficits and then and then there's

00:15:17.140 a line in there that's really uh shocking which is these all these deficits are borrowed money

00:15:24.460 So the total borrowed money that the government has borrowed, the total debt, interest-bearing debt of the Canadian government is $1.8 trillion.

00:15:36.940 Let me repeat that. $1.8 trillion. That's $1,800 billions.

00:15:43.200 So $1.8 trillion. And the debt, the interest on that debt, the debt that we're not even paying down, the interest on that debt is over $50 billion.

00:15:53.540 dollars so we're going in the hole by 50 billion dollars plus every year we're also we're borrowing

00:15:59.320 50 billion dollars basically to pay the 50 billion dollars in interest you see how this is going

00:16:04.240 like it's only a matter of time before this absolutely collapses on itself right and and to

00:16:11.580 put that into context like 50 billion dollars just in interest payment that's more than ottawa

00:16:17.580 spends on health care or it's more than ottawa spends on defense so it's 50 billion dollars

00:16:24.380 it's huge right and then and then you look in that budget and they give a little update

00:16:29.660 and then they bring you know i'm by the way i want to go back to this too why why did they actually

00:16:36.960 why was the debt or the deficit this year only 66 instead of 77 what saved their bacon

00:16:43.820 nothing they did no the reason they're able to have a slightly lower uh deficit is because of

00:16:51.860 the war in iran let me let me note that down and i'll come back to that go ahead who's on the line

00:16:55.980 please oh marty it's donald smith here how are you doing today good good donald where are you

00:17:01.600 calling from oh back tover and back tover in the communist regime here basically you see something

00:17:08.200 the wrong way that you'll call

00:17:10.240 the cops on him. So let's talk about

00:17:12.180 what happened

00:17:14.160 yesterday. Why did the cops

00:17:15.860 show up to your

00:17:18.520 guys' event?

00:17:19.860 Why did Edmonton police

00:17:21.560 send six or seven cruisers

00:17:24.460 to an

00:17:25.900 elections

00:17:28.460 event? I want

00:17:30.300 to know why.

00:17:32.120 Nobody knows.

00:17:35.000 Imagine

00:17:36.000 they were

00:17:36.900 basically they were serving papers okay i i didn't i i talked to uh david afterwards and

00:17:43.460 basically they got served papers from elections alberta and the papers basically said cease and

00:17:48.640 desist stop doing what you're doing but but they didn't even stop the event like they they served

00:17:54.780 the papers and they walked away so no i i have no idea i mean i i i've i've uh i i i can't think of

00:18:03.920 an uh of i mean we don't even send that they don't even send that many cruisers to arrest some

00:18:09.100 somebody like i don't know what it was a show of force okay let me okay let this to me it's a show

00:18:15.860 of force and it's a show of intimidation i was on stage i get off stage and i hear about this right

00:18:21.320 then you joked about uh censorship and stuff like that i'm i'm i'm almost at that point now where

00:18:27.380 i'm looking over my shoulder i'm i'm it's no joke i think i'm going to get arrested in the next year

00:18:32.540 for comments online and that's that almost yeah that's what they're doing marty basically now the

00:18:38.940 minister now the minister i don't know what is then mark miller or something is basically now

00:18:43.260 going to introduce the online harms act basically what he said to those is basically oh um basically

00:18:49.580 he didn't say it properly so they're not so how he's going to force it but i think they're going

00:18:55.180 to basically now if you say something the wrong way or insult somebody the wrong way and trigger 0.97

00:19:00.540 like a left-wing lunatic like a man in the dress pig in the dress you know what i'm talking about 0.98

00:19:05.700 you're gonna have cops ticking your doors oh you know what now we're coming becoming close 0.99

00:19:11.120 as being east berlin and uh coming to cuba and and uh coming to uh soviet union very soon yeah

00:19:18.900 yeah no i um yeah it's an intimidation tactic i mean that's like uh it it had that feel right i

00:19:25.660 mean look at the picture on there like when there's there's three cruisers there there there was more

00:19:31.400 than that and uh you know you had like eight officers standing around all geared up and and

00:19:37.720 and forming a semi-circle around the guy who was handing the paper to the organizer oh they was

00:19:44.060 they really they wanted to prance on them they really wanted to basically edmonton police

00:19:48.860 wanted to prance on this guy they wanted brownie points because we know edmonton

00:19:54.060 is a left-wing run city by a cucked mayor who doesn't fix his roads,

00:20:03.740 doesn't fix his homeless population, doesn't fix anything. 0.94

00:20:07.320 And it's just disgusting what I'm seeing.

00:20:10.640 Yeah.

00:20:11.460 Cruisers.

00:20:12.380 For a political thing, when we have problems on the streets 0.97

00:20:15.980 where a man or a transgender person can be doing something to a baby, 0.75

00:20:20.500 then the cops won't do anything.

00:20:22.760 but if you say something about political oh no they come after you which which which i want yeah

00:20:28.120 okay so thanks don um uh if you don't mind hanging up and then um yeah i will yeah thanks don thanks

00:20:35.240 partner yeah yeah no it it's listen i i mean where i'm bouncing all over the place let let

00:20:42.680 let let me go back to that right so i mean it is for me it is nerve it is uh worrisome that um

00:20:52.520 that that that different groups whether it's it's stay free alberta or the alberta prosperity

00:20:57.960 project or the centurion project that the that elections alberta seems to be coming down hard

00:21:03.080 on them and i get it there's rules and i think these groups are working hard within the rules

00:21:08.520 but i see i see um uh i i see a double standard right i i can't help but see to me like in the

00:21:16.520 last week then she started his own you know for alberta for canada and he he he has a different

00:21:23.960 set of rules that he works by because apparently he's a party and he's allowed to campaign but

00:21:30.360 citizens like i've said this i'm a citizen trying to hold my government accountable by collecting

00:21:37.080 signatures or by voting or by trying to engage other citizens and in the process of engaging

00:21:42.200 citizens that seems to make governments and bureaucrats and institutions like elections

00:21:47.820 alberta nervous and they seem to be coming down on one side in particular even if it's not a side

00:21:53.360 they they they seem to be using a lot of scare tactics to that to basically scare away citizens

00:22:02.120 from exercising their democratic right i mean it it was intimidating to see that yesterday i feel

00:22:07.760 like now i know how poor uh kathy at the ostrich farm must have felt when you know you got you got

00:22:15.040 you got canada food inspection agents and now they show up and they got with them a tactical team a

00:22:21.280 swat team so that's the like are we getting there as a society where well there was a russian i think

00:22:28.400 it was i don't know who maybe maybe john can search it but there was a russian politician

00:22:33.960 sort of in the stalin era at one point right stalin was famous for his purges and this politician

00:22:39.780 said to stalin like you know uh show me a man and i'll show you the crime basically saying if you

00:22:45.880 want somebody to disappear and go off into the gulags or whatever show me the man and i'll tell

00:22:50.620 you the crime and and in russia they'd go as far as making up crimes and then all of a sudden there'd

00:22:56.000 be a knock in the night and then somebody disappeared right watch watch uh if you want to

00:23:00.460 see a comedy version of that watch the death of stalin which was a weird funny comedy but based

00:23:06.080 on sort of reality and and so show me the man and i'll show you the crime well are we like

00:23:12.140 canada's kind of getting the same way there's so many laws right now that you can that that anytime

00:23:17.600 you have an interaction with an officer it's almost guaranteed that if he wants to he'll find

00:23:23.020 you something if he pulls you over on the side of the road he'll find you for something i mean if

00:23:27.640 If you're doing 122 and he pulls you over, he can walk around and fine you for something.

00:23:33.060 I experience it when I'm hunting all the time.

00:23:35.240 When I go hunting, we're at the point where we're being harassed now because you got guys who show up and they want to see our rifles and they want to see our tags.

00:23:43.460 And by the way, they already know we're going to be there because they know because I bought the tag online and they know I'm going to be in zone 353 for the week for two weeks kind of thing.

00:23:51.780 Right.

00:23:51.960 So they and they show up and and and then it doesn't end.

00:23:56.460 they want to see the registration on the quad and they want to see that I have insurance for the

00:24:00.200 quad and they want to see this and they want to see that and it almost always ends up in a

00:24:04.180 financial transaction so we have a ton of laws and they have a ton of laws that they can find

00:24:09.400 and use those laws to arrest us uh harass us or engage us in lawfare right defending yourself

00:24:17.160 but then even when they don't have laws there's always that last little law at the bottom right

00:24:23.140 Which is mischief or something similar, right? 1.00

00:24:25.260 Remember, this is what happened to people like Tamara. 1.00

00:24:28.400 Tamara Lich got charged with mischief. 1.00

00:24:31.780 So show me the woman and I'll show you the law.

00:24:34.120 And at the end of the day, so I, you know, I'm rambling on a little bit.

00:24:38.760 It's not where I want it to go, but it is, it was intimidating.

00:24:42.420 And, hey, okay.

00:24:45.880 I mean, I wanted to talk about this.

00:24:47.680 Let's keep talking about it.

00:24:48.700 Maybe this will engage you guys.

00:24:50.620 But at the core right now of the debate, and again, this happened last night and there's been some, there's been apparently some injunctions and there's been some court hearings and a couple of things.

00:25:04.560 So at the, okay, I'll get back to it.

00:25:06.660 I got a caller on the line.

00:25:08.000 I want to give priority to callers.

00:25:09.540 So go ahead, caller.

00:25:10.220 Where are you calling from?

00:25:10.980 And name, please.

00:25:13.020 Hey, Marty, this is Sean from Red Deer.

00:25:15.960 Hey, I just wanted to get your take on Smith's press conference from the other week.

00:25:20.620 I think it was last week, talking about how she obviously wants Alberta in Canada, and that she hopes that that obviously is the outcome.

00:25:31.120 But I'm just wondering what your take is, like, if the court decides that rules against the State for Alberta on the petition verification,

00:25:42.640 I'm just wondering what you think happens like does she invoke the notwithstanding clause to

00:25:47.480 make sure that those get certified or what do you think about that uh well several things come to

00:25:54.600 mind Sean the the first one is um the the first one is that she actually technically has a petition

00:26:02.660 on her desk that's been validated right so she has the Thomas Lukaszek petition which is a

00:26:09.320 referendum question whether he believes it or not you know do you want to stay in canada yes or no

00:26:15.260 it's still a valid it's just the opposite of do you want to leave canada yes or no so it's still

00:26:19.940 a referendum question so so if the courts if if all sorts of things happen and mitch sylvester

00:26:25.980 doesn't get to validate his petition danielle has one so she could do something based on what i saw 0.92

00:26:33.020 Based on what I saw her say and heard, I don't think she will. 0.73

00:26:38.100 That's just my opinion.

00:26:41.000 And I'm getting more – and she did say one thing that made me very nervous last week.

00:26:46.160 She basically said that if – I was working it backwards from October 19th, right?

00:26:52.740 I was saying, okay, if the referendum is October 19th, then we need to validate the signatures by, I don't know, July or August.

00:27:00.520 And she can declare the referendum in August.

00:27:03.020 she said no she she worked she worked it way back and she said if the courts don't

00:27:07.820 adjudicate before i think it's june 19th or something like that then there won't be a

00:27:11.820 referendum so that that scared me and in the language she used i thought she wouldn't even

00:27:16.860 use the the the lucasic um paperwork so the next that's why i think monday is one of the

00:27:27.260 most important days in recent history when mitch deposits his signatures i i hope he's i hope he

00:27:35.580 says hey here's here's a u-haul full of boxes and there's 500 000 i mean that that should make any

00:27:41.260 politician think twice about doing something you know iffy but does that answer the question sean

00:27:46.780 or what's your thought well like it just he seems to be trying to it seems like you frame yourself

00:27:53.980 in a position where she can just kind of wash her hands of this or at least i think that's her hope

00:27:58.780 um but i could be wrong obviously but i think maybe she's looking for an easy out with with

00:28:04.700 the course it's kind of my take on it like she's just kind of hoping the court says that it can't

00:28:10.140 happen and it's like oh well of course that it can't happen we're not doing it yeah i mean you

00:28:14.620 know um just stay on the line for a second because i was going to tie this in this sort of ties into

00:28:21.420 the budget that i was talking about you know one of the things danielle has always been saying is

00:28:25.980 she wants a stronger alberta within a united canada that's her stance and i and i think

00:28:31.260 she's firm on that but but and i keep wondering when she's going to flip and realize this never

00:28:36.620 happened and i was going to give examples from the budget right the budget that came out there

00:28:40.540 was not a lot of additional spending but the additional spending that was announced in the

00:28:44.380 budget is all ottawa um overreaching and and and imposing on the provinces right like ottawa and

00:28:51.180 budget said yeah like what did they say we're gonna do um um we're gonna throw money towards

00:28:58.700 uh training more trades sounds great that's a great idea but that's not ottawa's jurisdiction

00:29:03.500 right and and then we're gonna spend more money building houses and then you read it and you go

00:29:08.220 where oh you're building houses in ottawa so ottawa's gonna spend our tax dollars to build

00:29:13.180 houses in ottawa and and then like danielle to me should have come out in and her reaction to

00:29:18.620 the budget should be angered but she's not going to be angry because if she gets angry she's kind

00:29:23.660 of admitting that hey that that deal you're trying to negotiate with like she keeps talking a good 0.94

00:29:28.220 talk i'm going to have a better deal for alberta but meanwhile carney keeps kicking her and doing

00:29:33.420 things that go against that anyways yeah um hey while you're on the call you you would experience

00:29:38.540 that do you do the drive uh north to edmonton once in a while what's your thoughts on increasing the

00:29:42.780 the speed limit oh i love it i'm on that road all the time yeah i mean everyone's driving 140 anyway

00:29:51.080 so whatever so yeah yeah whatever so how fast do you think guys are going to go before they

00:29:57.600 get pulled over so what's the new what's the new speed limit with the speed at 120 is it 145

00:30:02.920 yeah exactly it's like probably i mean we'll have to wait and see what people kind of get

00:30:08.680 comfortable with but i definitely think people are going to start going a little bit faster yeah

00:30:13.060 i felt it today it was it was moving pretty fast so anyways i appreciate the call sean thanks for

00:30:18.400 calling awesome thank you thanks john what's that so did you find that quote who who's the who's the

00:30:25.680 russian uh you you got the quote right down there show me the man and i'll show you the crime

00:30:30.620 uh yeah i mean god you know and that's so okay let's just stay on that topic right

00:30:39.740 i'm i'm i'm trying to draw a line in the sand personally for myself right where where do i

00:30:46.320 draw my line where does my government overreach and where do i where do i say enough is enough

00:30:51.740 is enough and i and i and i'm i think i've drawn a couple of lines and i'm getting nervous

00:30:56.740 and you know i joked last week i said that if there was an injunction that stopped me from

00:31:02.460 collecting signatures i would actually continue collecting signatures until somebody came to

00:31:07.960 arrest me i'm i'm i'm still thinking that i live in a country where if i get arrested i still get

00:31:16.780 a pretty good treatment but then there's a little thing inside of me that's that you know i go

00:31:21.340 listen to tamara lich and i see what happened to the coots four and i see what others it's like

00:31:25.900 could i handle could i handle just being in solitary confinement for 40 days sure i could

00:31:31.760 and the harassment but could i handle what it does to my family could i handle them freezing

00:31:37.540 my bank accounts and threatening my my livelihood for the rest of my life and and those things so

00:31:43.580 now you know what i'm saying like i can handle misery but they're using tactics that go beyond

00:31:49.700 misery and it's it makes a person think right so i'm i'm they're succeeding and i'm and people say

00:31:56.720 to me like marty you're brave i'm not brave you could like i've said this you could teach yourself

00:32:00.920 bravery and you can also if you're can if you're strong in your conviction then you will naturally

00:32:06.380 be brave so i'm pretty strong in some of my convictions i have an amazing network of support

00:32:11.400 and friends who are like-minded plus i've worked my life to be to the point where i'm not completely

00:32:17.240 dependent i don't work for anybody and i've accumulated a little bit of money and i own my

00:32:21.640 own land so i've done things that allow me to be quote unquote brave but i'm even at that point now

00:32:28.040 where i'm having no second thoughts and and so they're reaching me i know they've reached a whole

00:32:33.960 bunch of people a long long time ago a whole bunch of people now just are scared of the state are

00:32:38.840 scared of their government and don't want to do anything so that's insane right and and and i

00:32:45.160 I keep staring at this book and I want to go back. I want to show you something because it's related

00:32:51.080 to this, right? You'll hear in the news today, based on what happened yesterday, you'll hear

00:32:59.420 about this elector list, this famous electoral list, whatever the heck that electoral list is.

00:33:07.120 Who's an elector in Alberta? An eligible voter in Alberta is somebody who's over the age of 18,

00:33:14.880 who lives here and is a canadian citizen that's it right and that's the list and everybody

00:33:22.560 apparently there's this magical list somewhere called the list of electors eligible electors

00:33:28.080 and i just want to show something right and i know it doesn't exist today necessarily but

00:33:33.120 this is a phone book this is the edson phone book i lived in edson for years i got another one here

00:33:40.000 this is this is the uh grand prairie phone book let me show you guys because maybe some of you

00:33:45.840 guys don't even remember this but the phone books had the white pages at the front and then you had

00:33:50.160 the yellow pages so when i was younger and you wanted to find out about a tow truck company or

00:33:54.720 whatever you had to go through flip through this book and uh and find the tow company and and in

00:34:02.160 here this is edson if i open it up and i find my page my my my name is there uh my address and my

00:34:12.800 phone number is in here like isn't that insane and and that is this use this was delivered to every

00:34:19.280 household uh once a year and uh you accumulate i don't even my wife still had this one maybe this

00:34:26.240 This one is a keepsake because I'll tell you a quick story.

00:34:30.380 I met my wife at Boston Pizza in Edson on my birthday, and we shared drinks, and we hit it off pretty good.

00:34:40.320 But all I knew was her name, and then she didn't give me her phone number.

00:34:44.280 Well, back in those days, all I had to do was open this little phone book, find her in there, and give her a dingle.

00:34:50.400 And so everybody's making a huge, huge, huge big deal about this list.

00:34:56.240 but I just wanna show you, this is a phone book.

00:34:58.480 And John, maybe I'm putting you on the spot here,

00:35:00.340 but can you find the Canada Post website?

00:35:03.620 Just search Canada Post rental lists or rental database.

00:35:11.200 You almost land on it on the Canada Post site

00:35:13.740 when you go to it.

00:35:15.300 And while John is searching that

00:35:17.120 and he's just gonna provide proof,

00:35:19.140 but I just wanna tell you, this exists.

00:35:21.340 You can go to Canada Post and you can, there you go,

00:35:25.020 rent our prospect list.

00:35:26.400 And if you, you know,

00:35:27.360 if you zoom in on it a little bit,

00:35:28.980 like acquire new customers, right?

00:35:31.160 Can you try and zoom in a bit on that, John?

00:35:33.020 Thanks.

00:35:33.320 And just show that acquire new customers.

00:35:36.980 Anyways, they basically,

00:35:39.100 Canada Post will rent you

00:35:40.680 the modern version of the phone book,

00:35:43.260 but it's digital.

00:35:44.440 They'll rent you that list

00:35:46.280 and they rent them.

00:35:47.320 And if you click on there,

00:35:48.420 you'll see case studies.

00:35:50.020 So they rent their list to Costco and businesses

00:35:53.780 And Canada Post will rent you the names of people, their address, their phone number, and a whole bunch of other things.

00:36:03.800 And so a lot of people are paranoid online thinking, oh, my God, there's been a breach of whatever.

00:36:08.740 Perhaps there has been.

00:36:09.620 And I'm not saying there hasn't been.

00:36:10.920 And I'm not saying there aren't lists that are highly confidential and need to be protected.

00:36:16.020 But I'm also telling you right now that there are a lot of your name.

00:36:19.680 If you search your name online, you might be shocked at what you'll find out about yourself.

00:36:24.220 And there are businesses like Canada Post and others.

00:36:27.060 Lots of businesses do this.

00:36:28.400 I mean, when you sign up for when you sign up for your Facebook account or some of these other, even when you sign up for your cell phone provider or whatever, everybody glances over the fine print.

00:36:38.580 They ignore the fine print.

00:36:39.700 But somewhere in there often it says that you've agreed to sharing parts of your information.

00:36:47.240 and you know i i always say this to people in general if the card or the loyalty card that

00:36:53.880 you're getting is free then you're the commodity right so so when you join up and you go to uh i

00:37:01.320 don't know you're getting a sobeys card or an air miles card or one of these cards that are free

00:37:05.680 that seems to come with a benefit the benefit that they're giving you is literally the transaction

00:37:11.040 they're paying you for information so when you got that sobeys card and you go to sobeys every week

00:37:16.460 and you use an email and a phone number to get that card boy they know they know where you live

00:37:23.420 they know what you buy generally and then if you're using your sobeys card on a cell phone

00:37:28.780 or something like that there's data attached to it so i'm you know i'm i'm just bringing that up

00:37:33.820 because at at the root right now of the debate is what kind of data was being used and so we'll get

00:37:41.500 to the i'm sure elections alberta and everybody will get to the bottom of this there's some data

00:37:45.500 maybe there were some breaches i don't know but but at the end of the day if they start like what

00:37:50.780 i said as a joke to somebody is you know let me take this and you find five people in there you

00:37:57.340 know and circle their names and tell me if they're pro or against independence and then when you're

00:38:02.300 done that i'm going to pass it on to somebody else and say you find five people you know and

00:38:06.860 tell me if they're pro or against independence that's what i just did is sort of a form of

00:38:11.180 campaigning and boy if that becomes completely illegal then i'm going to have another problem

00:38:16.940 right so you see you see where i'm going with this and so there's definitely a lot to unpack

00:38:21.020 and i think it's going to be an interesting coming few weeks and uh and and and then we'll go there

00:38:26.860 boy the show is moving on and uh again folks uh phone numbers up there i met a bunch of you uh

00:38:32.620 over the course of the last couple of weeks who say you call i'll remind you i'm i'm just uh

00:38:37.100 And I'm just a guy who's wearing his golf shirt and his ratty jeans.

00:38:46.620 And I'm nobody special.

00:38:48.180 I'm just a guy.

00:38:48.820 So just call me.

00:38:49.960 All right.

00:38:50.220 I think we beat the – well, actually, I wanted to just finish it off on the budget.

00:38:56.660 It came outside the – so I mentioned a couple of things, you know, that to me are interfering in Alberta politics.

00:39:02.960 uh the the you know the funding of trades and the funding of businesses or housing and stuff like

00:39:08.280 that but everybody also saw the weird announcement this week right all of a sudden uh um mark carney

00:39:14.900 was all proud of announcing the canada strong fund and he announced a um what did he call it he called

00:39:22.200 it a um a sovereign wealth punt i almost spit out my coffee when he said that right a sovereign you

00:39:30.040 i just told you we're 1.8 trillion dollars in debt a sovereign wealth fund is a great idea

00:39:35.960 and there's only a handful of sovereign wealth funds in the world right norway has a good one

00:39:40.360 abu dhabi has a good one alberta tried to have one and alberta's keeps getting pilfered all the

00:39:46.280 time but let's talk about norway's right norway's sovereign wealth fund is truly the result of

00:39:52.680 surplus money they produce their oil they got their royalties and they had extra money and every

00:39:58.360 year when they had the extra money they put that extra money in a fund and that fund grew

00:40:03.000 and was properly managed and then that fund is used to invest and in the case of norway

00:40:08.360 there's almost it's almost by mandate doesn't invest in norway it's the way to really diversify

00:40:15.000 so norway has a great one abu dhabi's famous for doing this too abu dhabi produced a ton

00:40:19.480 of oil and created a giant uh wealth fund over time alberta tried right we have the heritage fund

00:40:25.720 um uh an idea from way back when and it hasn't grown quite as much as some of the other funds

00:40:34.700 because we kind of end up being in not having a lot of surplus money at the end of the year to

00:40:39.620 put in this uh in our in our heritage fund and we've used it on rainy days in the past so it so

00:40:46.640 it's been depleted a little bit but what carney announced is nothing like that i mean carney

00:40:51.600 literally announced this fund and he says i'm going to put 25 billion dollars in there and

00:40:55.520 then if you guys want to put a few billion then we'll invest it well he's gonna have to borrow

00:41:01.360 money to put it into the fund to start with and um so so it's a non-starter right it's a non-starter

00:41:09.040 and the other thing i find upsetting about that fund is that some people were applauding it but

00:41:14.480 then they quickly how quickly do they forget that the liberals started another fund like that one

00:41:21.040 um john can you find just the landing page the web page for the canada infrastructure bank

00:41:27.360 and uh put that up on the screen and show their um so their landing page

00:41:33.760 or maybe did i get their name wrong or it's the canada i'm pretty sure it was the canada

00:41:39.120 infrastructure bank there you go cib right we are um so the canada infrastructure bank was founded

00:41:46.720 by by the liberals in it's a crown corporation that was founded in 2017 with the same exact idea

00:41:54.400 oh we're going to start a fund we're going to put money in there and we're going to use this money

00:41:57.840 to invest in projects which usually are interfering in provincial affairs anyways and look at that fun

00:42:04.000 performance right so um 54 billion dollars invested i i can't believe they actually even

00:42:11.520 brag about this they've invested 54 billion dollars and a variety of weird projects and

00:42:16.720 then they claim that the fund's worth 18. so it's a mutual fund seeded with your money that's

00:42:23.040 actually lost 60 of its value in the last uh or maybe not 60 50 of its value a little more

00:42:29.760 30 anyways so this fund failed and so the liberals answer is we're going to do another

00:42:35.840 fund that's going to be a similar failure and by the way 25 billion dollars

00:42:39.120 uh i want to get back to that uh caller on the line go ahead please name where are you calling

00:42:44.520 from uh hi francis uh from near ottawa oh cool yeah just um yeah but you're giving me hope for

00:42:55.160 the future of canada you're separating you guys okay um yep so interesting comment though so why

00:43:05.040 do we give you hope in ottawa or in ontario so our our government is corrupt because of port

00:43:15.840 so um we got no way out once you guys leave we gotta be poor so more people will have trouble

00:43:23.840 so we might my way of thinking of this is that you guys gotta separate do a new consultation

00:43:31.200 then after that the country will break up and we're gonna have like 10 province

00:43:36.420 can compete for who has a better idea for the new future of the yeah yeah and

00:43:44.100 no I hear you Francis so but you're saying something that we often repeat

00:43:49.920 here in Alberta it's a shame it's it's unfortunate that us leaving might cause

00:43:54.540 a little pain in the rest of Canada but at the same time us leaving could be a

00:43:58.420 wake-up call for the rest of canada you'll finally have to you'll finally have to give

00:44:02.900 up on some bad ideas is that make sense yes yes yep and basically yeah and francis uh not to offend

00:44:11.620 my listeners me merci d'appeler parce que tu es un accent franco-ontarien moi je viens de la même

00:44:16.020 We speak the same language, so we speak the same French.

00:44:23.020 All right, folks, there you go.

00:44:25.020 Thank you, Francis.

00:44:27.020 Have a good day.

00:44:28.020 Thanks. 0.90

00:44:29.020 Our first caller, so just that was French, folks.

00:44:32.020 I know, I know, I know.

00:44:34.020 We're an English show, but maybe I'll do a French show one of these days

00:44:38.020 and broaden our audience.

00:44:40.340 and uh actually john do we have uh do we have journalists in uh in in quebec or someplace

00:44:47.620 like that we don't have french all right western standard there's an opportunity there derek we can

00:44:52.100 expand um okay so i've got to go back to my notes so i was talking to the infrastructure bank right

00:45:00.020 oh yeah and i wanted to just again just you know this is what i like doing right i like talking

00:45:05.540 about stuff and giving you guys food for thought right so the budget was lousy um there's there's

00:45:12.340 the debt is out of control and then they brag about things that in the past they didn't want

00:45:17.380 us to know about so why so why was the shortfall uh the deficit not as big as they predicted like

00:45:24.260 six months ago and this again this is pure irony this is beautiful right so they predicted a 77

00:45:28.980 billion deficit but it only came in at 66 why because of the gulf war right the war in iran

00:45:36.100 and and the value of oil so even though alberta produces oil and alberta pays royalties here in

00:45:41.860 alberta a little bit of of extra revenue from from uh when con when alberta companies when the price

00:45:50.180 of oil goes up the government of alberta benefits directly from increased revenues but it also

00:45:54.820 benefits from increased corporate taxes because the companies become more profitable and some of

00:45:59.860 those taxes also go to ottawa so when ottawa so when oil does well it's proof that oil is important

00:46:06.820 to the uh alberta to the overall economy of the country in fact it's so important that when you

00:46:13.060 look at that report uh the fall the spring economics uh update at the beginning of the report

00:46:20.180 they list a couple of parameters that are used in their forecast right they list a couple of

00:46:25.220 things that are important that that affect the overall uh accuracy of the report and the modeling

00:46:31.060 and some of those things in there are um their their prediction for interest rates their prediction

00:46:37.620 for the population their prediction for the growth in gdp and one commodity they predict the price of

00:46:45.220 oil okay so canada produces hundreds of different commodities but there's only one commodity that's

00:46:51.060 included in the annual in in this update because of its importance so again i find that weirdly

00:46:57.220 ironic that you got carny constantly constantly slamming our oil and and and promoting a green

00:47:05.380 future and a net zero future and trying to distance himself from oil but at the end of the

00:47:10.180 and that's ideology but at the end of the day when reality meets ideology reality always wins

00:47:15.540 and what we saw this week with the this past month with the gulf wars that everybody wants oil and

00:47:20.580 when the oil does well the country makes more money and it's good for the country

00:47:25.300 uh go ahead on the line where are you calling from

00:47:30.740 uh yeah this is uh mark calling how are you doing marty good good how are you

00:47:34.500 I might have missed the last couple of minutes of what you were saying, just so we don't

00:47:41.740 get that delayed at, but we were talking about the sovereign wealth fund, and I just caught

00:47:48.740 the last few seconds, and yeah, where exactly does the sovereign wealth come from? It comes

00:47:54.220 from assets within the country, right? And so, are they going to build a fund up for

00:48:01.180 the steel industry, through fishing?

00:48:03.240 No, it's going to be through oil.

00:48:05.800 Like Norway has.

00:48:07.560 Norway has every project in Norway.

00:48:09.800 It's 50% government ownership.

00:48:12.460 Saudi Arabia, UAE, well, they'll speak to themselves.

00:48:15.840 Those are kingdoms or whatever.

00:48:18.300 So they have to take a stake in ownership for this.

00:48:23.480 Well, what is that?

00:48:24.180 That's National Energy Program 2.0.

00:48:27.320 That's all that is.

00:48:29.460 If you have to get it, where's he going to get it from?

00:48:31.800 What's going to feed that?

00:48:32.720 And the idea behind all this was to actually kind of divest economies and not necessarily have rainy day funds,

00:48:41.380 but it's to move the money into something else that perhaps a state could use.

00:48:48.940 But this guy, he's off the rails.

00:48:52.380 He's absolutely off the rails.

00:48:54.420 I agree.

00:48:55.080 And then the other thing it disguises is the fact that he keeps claiming that, hey, Canada's back and we're going to be the greatest economy in the G7.

00:49:04.600 He makes these really bold claims.

00:49:07.080 But the reality is we didn't need any of these kinds of funds in the past because companies came here and wanted to invest here.

00:49:15.880 And I've talked about this before.

00:49:17.560 The liberals of the last decade have scared away investors.

00:49:21.220 like they just don't want to invest here unless there's huge subsidies right like the battery

00:49:26.340 plant and the car plants and whatnot they're they they used to come here willingly because we had

00:49:31.420 great labor we had cheap electricity and resources and and a close proximity to markets but we've

00:49:37.900 scared away all the capital and so a fund like this is just is just a is disguising that failure

00:49:43.720 like we wouldn't need a fund like this if if investors were willing to come here you know

00:49:48.440 gladly so um yeah i appreciate the call thank you would i be able to just add one little thing

00:49:56.580 yeah yeah go ahead the caller that you had last week the caller that you had last week saying he

00:50:01.680 was going to take you alberta oh yeah taking you something to be to alberta like i look on your

00:50:09.140 face said it all it's like you're you're coming here to take the advantages of alberta to protest

00:50:16.500 alberta wanting to separate you can you can argue about that was just unbelievable thanks for

00:50:23.700 reminding me of that one yes i forgot about that one yes we had one caller last week saying he was

00:50:28.480 moving here to vote no in the upcoming referendum that's awesome all right thanks okay thank you

00:50:34.400 very much yeah yeah um actually that nice little segue right there when we were talking about

00:50:39.960 investors and whatnot um that's a double-edged sword one of the things that happened this week

00:50:45.840 here in calgary right so arc energy was a pretty big canadian company you know there's like there

00:50:54.880 there's not a lot of good canadian companies it's true that there's a lot of foreign investors and

00:50:58.880 it's a double-edged sword right it's a double-edged sword i mean we do not have enough capital in this

00:51:03.440 country like we're 40 million people i think we're three percent of the world's money supply is here

00:51:09.040 but we have more resources so when we want to build big things here we have no choice we have

00:51:14.800 to bring in foreign capital and one of the foreign capitals that has always uh even despite the

00:51:21.920 liberals all their attempts to kill it foreign capital has continued to invest in our energy

00:51:28.880 in our oil and in our gas but i'm but i but i was always happy to have some good canadian companies

00:51:35.280 the cnrls the synovuses arc and now this week in a double-edged sword um arc got sold and bought

00:51:45.120 out by shell which is that which is definitely foreign so i have mixed feelings on that one

00:51:49.920 because yes i believe that it's important to bring in foreign capital but i wish we were bringing in

00:51:55.280 foreign capital in other areas there's enough foreign capital in oil so i i see that as a bit

00:52:01.360 of a dilution of uh of of of of our number one resource here falling more and more into foreign

00:52:08.560 hands um but i would definitely not advocate some people will say well then if you believe that way

00:52:13.280 we should nationalize the oil no no no no no i mean it's it there is a double-edged sword to

00:52:18.800 being in favor of capitalism which is you take the good with the bad sometimes um you know the

00:52:24.640 capital comes from somewhere else uh go ahead caller on the line

00:52:31.520 uh yeah marty uh good afternoon it's canadian spider-man steve calling from vernon steve how's

00:52:37.600 it going bud hey it's going fantastic it's beautiful sunny it's my birthday today oh happy

00:52:44.320 birthday right on happy birthday to me yeah it's been fantastic listen i just want to uh

00:52:50.000 And to touch on what you and the previous caller had said, I think if Alberta separates or when, because history shows maps always change, so when they separate, it will force provinces like where I grew up.

00:53:07.720 I spent 27 years in New Brunswick. They have a lot of potential. They have a lot of potential, but they're not forced to do anything with it.

00:53:15.960 They have natural gas. 0.96

00:53:18.360 They've got to drop bilingualism.

00:53:20.180 It is crushing them financially.

00:53:22.160 They're the only bilingual province in all of Canada. 0.99

00:53:25.120 Chirp-au-Français, but my French suck. 0.93

00:53:27.660 And it's just not worth it. 0.98

00:53:28.980 It causes division amongst the population there.

00:53:31.220 I can tell you that for now.

00:53:32.840 So that's my thought.

00:53:34.060 It might actually force them to drop the useless programs

00:53:36.620 and really get motivated to develop their potential.

00:53:41.620 Well, yeah, no, you're not alone in that thought.

00:53:44.340 lots of lots of people think that way in fact um last week the new not the new but the leader of the

00:53:51.860 um separatist party in quebec the party quebecois he dropped a pretty interesting podcast

00:53:57.700 and in his in his podcast he almost went as far as saying that he he he he tried avoiding

00:54:04.500 he avoided talking about alberta but he talked about quebec how quebec needs to separate and

00:54:10.180 and that's what he was saying that quebec needs to separate because he went as far as saying

00:54:14.340 quebec's been held back by by the rest of canada i thought that was hilarious

00:54:18.260 but but in a sense uh there is some truth to that right they they the the equalization formula and

00:54:25.300 stuff like that has as it's a disincentive to do well for for quebec and other places so um

00:54:32.100 yeah i appreciate that uh yeah i agree i fundamentally fundamentally agree yeah all

00:54:37.940 right thanks have a good one happy birthday oh is that another call on the line or just hearing a

00:54:43.460 beep um all right wow again just like last week i had a whole bunch of topics i wanted to talk about

00:54:51.700 uh that uh well i got a couple of minutes i i can uh so arc is gone sad to see that um

00:54:59.780 oh there's a question in the chat can you find that question for me which one is that

00:55:05.780 would it not be better to hand in the petition this friday i'm worried this could potentially

00:55:10.020 let an activist bureaucrat say it was handed in late uh you know i mean yeah at some point you

00:55:20.740 gotta the the the word on the street is that the petition was due on may 2nd sort of like at 6 p.m

00:55:26.900 right and may 2nd is what saturday or sunday saturday and so mitch talked to elections alberta

00:55:32.900 mitch was prepared to hand it in under the wire exactly you know before it was due and apparently

00:55:39.780 elections alberta said okay since it's the weekend and we're closed you can hand it in on monday

00:55:45.620 before i don't know 6 p.m so i gotta i gotta trust that there aren't shenanigans being played there

00:55:50.820 that would be that would be that would be brutal imagine you show up and and you you know i hope

00:55:56.260 mitch has an email or a phone recording conversation saying do it at four but uh

00:56:01.860 me personally i'd love it if he dropped it on friday tomorrow because then i then i wouldn't

00:56:06.420 then i'd sleep better all weekend knowing what uh what the outcome was hey i'm confident i i am

00:56:11.700 truly confident i i mean there was a you know i've i've shared the math right i belong in the

00:56:17.940 in the writing that i was in we collected over 7 000 signatures doesn't sound like much but there's

00:56:23.220 87 writings which will be a topic of discussion right we're going to 91 writings in the near

00:56:28.900 future i think that's crazy but 87 writings if if if my writing was sort of average and we brought

00:56:35.460 in 7 000 signatures you know instead of 87 make it 99 times seven you know so there's there's like

00:56:42.100 there's the opportunity for 500 000 signatures but there was one really really good story that

00:56:47.220 came out this week uh i think it was the sylvan lake um sundry writing there's a writing in that

00:56:54.900 area where they supposedly got something like 22 000 signatures they they they divulge how many

00:57:00.580 they had collected and there's something like 28 000 voters in that writing so people are like wow

00:57:06.500 28 000 voters you guys collected 22 000 signatures they're doing the math and they're like you know

00:57:11.540 it's it's 80 plus and in a rural writing that was totally in favor of separatism so when i see a

00:57:17.620 number like that i keep hope that maybe there will be a big surprise on monday and maybe it's

00:57:21.220 a really big number okay we've got time for a couple more callers go ahead on the line

00:57:25.300 hello

00:57:27.620 maybe it's a really big number

00:57:30.440 okay we've got time for a couple more

00:57:32.500 that's my feed

00:57:35.300 yeah yeah go ahead

00:57:37.740 go ahead

00:57:43.140 I think you need to do a 90 minute show

00:57:55.300 i think you need to do a 90 minute show yeah um i'm a little uh worried about uh how carney

00:58:04.120 whoever's on the line you're you got a lot of feedback

00:58:09.880 not making any comments about the separation and how he

00:58:16.420 so i'll call doc next up okay yeah yeah um i i tried to get the gist of it i think

00:58:27.240 basically saying carney's not making a lot of comments i i right now um there's there's no

00:58:33.840 i understand why practically speaking there's no referendum at this point right let's all be

00:58:39.260 honest there's no referendum until they're counted until danielle smith says there's a

00:58:44.100 referendum there's a lot of people right now that are not pronouncing themselves on either side

00:58:48.920 because there's no referendum uh but there are some definitely you know thomas lukasik uh is is

00:58:56.100 coming out guns a-blazing uh naheed nenshi came out guns a-blazing so i think that's the yes

00:59:01.140 that's the no side interesting uh there's going to be a debate uh this week or next week uh

00:59:08.600 Jason Kenney is coming out strong on the no side and he's debating Keith Wilson and I think the

00:59:14.440 first debates in Edmonton and then there's a subsequent one here in Calgary so we'll see

00:59:21.000 but I'm not surprised that Carney's not saying anything at this point as far as the 90 minute

00:59:26.640 show yeah I want to do a 90 minute show we're going to keep doing this format for a little

00:59:30.560 while longer if I do 90 minute I would definitely bring in guests for about 30 minutes because

00:59:34.980 right now i've been reluctant to bring a guest if i bring a guest they'll you know they'll get 15

00:59:40.200 minutes and i don't think that's very fair so um i appreciate the offer or the the thought all

00:59:45.640 right this will probably be the last call so go ahead the name where are you calling from

00:59:50.520 good how are you

00:59:55.960 Good. I have some statement in the question, but in regards to the fear surrounding the

01:00:04.600 independence and Shell's purchasing, it's going to show one of these indicators that

01:00:11.960 no industry has to worry about how can it separate the community would be perfectly

01:00:17.080 sorry i i can i don't know if it's our side or i i i i maybe hang up and call back we're running

01:00:32.600 out of time you'll i think you'll have to call next week we would like uh appreciate it but

01:00:37.320 we're running out of time sorry folks um all right wow another hour just flies by and uh

01:00:43.560 uh i didn't get through all my topics i didn't get the actually i got almost through everything

01:00:48.440 the only one i didn't get about is the bank of canada keeping its interest rate at 2.25 percent

01:00:53.240 and there's a whole bunch unpacked there maybe i'll do that next week and i wanted to talk a

01:00:57.840 little bit about the united arab emirates pulling out of opec which to me was a super interesting

01:01:03.280 story i'll try and circle that one and bring it up next week somebody put a comment maybe and

01:01:07.720 remind me to talk about that next week anyways um so once again thanks for calling in

01:01:13.520 it's every thursday join me next week uh same time one o'clock make sure uh to get a subscription the

01:01:21.840 the website is right there on the page westernstandard.news uh backslash subscription

01:01:28.080 and john is reminding me we're offering 40 off right now for new subscribers and he put a code

01:01:34.640 can they find the code online easily the code is western40 wow that's a great deal i mean the the

01:01:40.560 best deal right now was uh instead of ten dollars a month was a hundred dollars a year which was

01:01:45.280 about what a 20 discount so an additional discount running right now uh code western

01:01:51.040 40. All right. Join me next week, folks. Thanks. Have a great weekend.

Western Standard - April 30, 2026

Elections Alberta files legal action against independence advocacy group

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