Western Standard - EXCLUSIVE： Alberta Sovereignty Act “Simply put, we need less Ottawa in our lives,”

00:00:00.400 Sovereignty Act. There's a unique policy stance right off the bat, and it certainly stands out,

00:00:06.440 and it's a pretty loaded word right off the bat. So perhaps you can expand on what does that

00:00:11.040 encompass? Well, remember how our constitution is written. Our constitution is written so that

00:00:16.420 different entities have sovereignty over certain areas of jurisdiction. We are accustomed to hearing

00:00:22.520 our First Nations talk about sovereignty. They have the authority to make rules within their

00:00:27.300 boundaries. We're accustomed to hearing Quebec talk about sovereignty and how they have a right

00:00:31.680 to make their own rules, and they often invoke the Charter Notwithstanding Clause in order to

00:00:36.300 pretty well invoke whatever it is that they want. We've seen in both Quebec and Saskatchewan say that

00:00:43.420 they want to be nations within a nation. We've seen British Columbia ask for exemption from criminal

00:00:49.080 code laws. They for years didn't enforce cannabis regulation, and now they've asked for an exemption

00:00:54.320 so they don't have to enforce any possession or criminal code laws against fentanyl and cocaine

00:01:01.160 and crystal meth possession. And in addition, when you look at what happened at the federal level when

00:01:05.720 they came in with the Emergencies Act, the National Assembly in Quebec, they convened a special meeting

00:01:09.860 and said, we're just not going to enforce that here. So it's not actually that we would be proposing

00:01:14.080 doing anything different other than what other provinces are already doing, which is recognizing that

00:01:19.700 we have defined areas of constitutional powers. You can check it out in section 92. 92A is the one that

00:01:26.600 I find the most important, which is that we have the exclusive jurisdiction to develop our own resources

00:01:33.060 in our own way, which is an area that the federal government violates routinely. We just got a Supreme

00:01:38.040 or an appeals court decision a few weeks ago saying that they have no jurisdiction in interfering in

00:01:45.480 intra-provincial projects. Those are the ones that that exist completely within our borders. And with that

00:01:50.340 backing us, I think we need to just put some teeth to it saying, we're going to make sure that Ottawa is on

00:01:56.320 notice that when they try to invade our areas of jurisdiction, we're going to fight back.

00:02:00.800 Well, we know we would have to fight back. I mean, the government never really makes a secret of the double

00:02:05.960 standard. If Quebec wants to do something on their own, they will look the other way or even BC. But I mean, in

00:02:11.100 Alberta, we will need teeth. I mean, they're unapologetic about, you know, when Quebec has their

00:02:15.740 own pension plan, that's their God-given right. When Alberta does it, that means we're being selfish

00:02:19.940 and nasty. So this act would have some means then to push further if we do have a conflict with the

00:02:27.760 federal government? This is just one area. I mean, the ones where I think it would obviously come into

00:02:31.800 effect are, for instance, if they dare to invoke the Emergencies Act again. And we're watching with the

00:02:36.640 testimony. It was a false pretext that they used to try to invoke the act in the first place. And

00:02:40.920 they're getting busted on that. We would do what Quebec did and said, it's not going to apply here.

00:02:44.600 If they try to order our credit unions to start seizing accounts, we'll say, no, we have a

00:02:48.780 jurisdiction over our credit unions. That isn't going to apply here. If they decide that they want to

00:02:54.280 start punishing us because a new respiratory virus season, they want to start trying to impose

00:03:00.200 federal sanctions on us, we can say, no, we're going to take a different approach. I mean, I look at

00:03:04.420 what's happened in the U.S. on that issue in particular. The fact that Florida and South Dakota and other

00:03:10.380 red states were able to chart a different course that was different than the blue states or the

00:03:13.900 federal government, why didn't we? We can too. And I suspect it had something to do with the federal

00:03:18.240 government putting pressure on us. When it comes down to all of the provisions of Bill C-69, I mean,

00:03:24.700 we can't even build a 75 kilometer stretch of highway without the federal government declaring it

00:03:29.300 a federal project. We're not even able to approve a 200 megawatt power plant. I've talked to some of the

00:03:37.400 folks from the nuclear industry. Our oil sands operation want to decarbonize by bringing in

00:03:41.880 small modular nuclear. Once again, because this is an area that the feds have declared their

00:03:47.240 jurisdiction, it's going to delay us implementing that by 10 or 12 years. So I would say that we can

00:03:53.840 do a better job in managing our own affairs. Those are just a few examples, I think, of areas where we

00:03:59.880 would want to forge ahead on. And then let's reverse it. What they do is they invade our jurisdiction and

00:04:04.900 then they force us to go to court to fight back. Well, let's just say we're asserting our jurisdiction

00:04:08.860 and let them take us to court if they think that we've got it wrong. But there's so many things that

00:04:12.980 we can do that we've got to take the lead on. And I think it's about time we started doing that.

00:04:16.640 Great. Well, and that policy certainly gets you out of the gates and distinguishes you from some of the

00:04:20.980 other campaigns right off the bat. But while I got you for a few minutes, and since it's the

00:04:24.400 kickoff of the campaign, what else are you offering, you know, in your bid for the leadership?

00:04:29.740 What else can Albertans expect from you, presuming you win this?

00:04:32.600 I think you're going to see a lot more policy around this issue of how do we assert ourselves

00:04:37.240 in confederation. I mean, the important thing that came to my mind as I've been writing about

00:04:41.980 this over the last number of years is Alberta is going to be the second largest economy in the

00:04:47.480 country within the next couple of years. If you project out on our population growth, especially

00:04:51.900 since Quebec is stagnating, they don't seem to want to attract new population. At some point,

00:04:56.440 those lines will cross. And somewhere around 2050, we will be the second most populous province

00:05:01.080 in the country as well. So I have to ask the question, why are we acting like a junior partner?

00:05:05.720 We're going to be the senior partner in confederation. And so we should be collecting

00:05:10.320 our own personal income taxes. We should be enforcing our own laws with our own Alberta

00:05:14.340 provincial police. We should be providing for our seniors with our own Alberta pension. We should

00:05:19.800 be providing for our workers with our own employment insurance. We've got huge shortages of labor

00:05:24.860 that we need to be able to fill the gaps in construction, in oilfield, in farm work. We

00:05:31.280 should be taking control over attracting workers here as well, the same way Quebec and Manitoba do.

00:05:36.140 I think we've just been entirely too passive, really. I get the sense that we are still traumatized by

00:05:40.840 the NEP. And I guess we figured, well, if we just keep our heads down, we work really, really hard,

00:05:46.140 we keep generating revenue for the rest of the country, they'll leave us alone.

00:05:48.840 They won't. They're still coming at us. They won't leave us alone. And as a result, I think we've got

00:05:54.720 our marching orders. We've got to do something completely different. We've got to assert ourselves

00:05:57.960 and we've got to start acting like the senior partner that we're going to be.

00:06:02.120 So likewise, I mean, we've got some policies coming from the federal government that aren't regionally

00:06:06.280 targeted so much, but they're still pretty problematic when you'd be looking at provincial

00:06:11.040 challenges to things such as C11, C18, C21. I mean, all those Cs, the lists of authoritarian actions on

00:06:18.000 this government is getting really long and we need to find some sort of ways to counter these.

00:06:23.580 Yeah, I have this adage, anything Ottawa can do, we can do better. And so I would love to actually

00:06:29.300 start looking at ways in which we can maybe step on their turf and push into their territory. If they

00:06:34.560 can't seem to manage an effective way of managing our airports, maybe we should take that over.

00:06:38.680 If they can't manage our border crossings, maybe we should take that over too. If they are going to

00:06:43.400 over-regulate our radio and television internet broadcasters, maybe we should have a regulatory

00:06:49.180 process so that we can have them provincially regulated. It's interesting the way our constitution

00:06:53.900 is set up is that there does, we do have two tiers of regulation. Like for instance, with the banks,

00:06:59.240 the feds regulate the banks, but we get to regulate credit unions. The feds regulate cross-border

00:07:04.080 transportation and trucking, but we regulate our own boundary, transportation and trucking.

00:07:09.300 Why can't we just expand that concept out that if we feel that the federal government

00:07:13.800 is acting in a way that's intrusive, deficient, and doesn't respect our Charter of Rights and

00:07:18.340 Freedoms, why don't we see if we can develop our own areas of provincial regulatory authority

00:07:23.140 so that we can enact laws that are in keeping with what our citizens want. I'm prepared to push

00:07:28.580 the envelope as far as we actually need to, in order to make sure that Albertans' interests are protected.

00:07:33.540 Great. Now I'll close this out with a question I promised a first responder that I'm going to put

00:07:39.860 to every leadership candidate I get on. What would your plan be to address these ambulance response

00:07:44.900 times and this difficulty we're having all across the province that just seems to not go away?

00:07:49.300 I mean, we've been told now we need four months to study this. I got a feeling we could study it to

00:07:53.320 death. We know some of the answers. I know exactly what the answers are. Rick Fraser was one of my

00:07:57.920 colleagues in the legislature at the time. And what you have to do is have either a paramedic

00:08:02.100 or a nurse practitioner on site at every single hospital who can onboard patients and off-board

00:08:08.500 patients from ambulance so that ambulance are able to do a very quick turnaround. The issue is that

00:08:13.140 nobody wants to take responsibility when a patient is dropped off. And so they sit and make our ambulance

00:08:19.060 drivers wait for six or eight hours and sometimes an entire shift. That doesn't have to happen. We should

00:08:26.020 have a very efficient process where there's practitioners who have the same level of medical training,

00:08:31.700 able to receive patients so that we can get those ambulance back out and in their community. That

00:08:35.540 would be one thing. I've also talked to one community. I don't want to name them because I

00:08:39.220 don't want them to get into trouble, but they have two ambulances that get deployed in the regular

00:08:43.780 service and they keep one back so that their community is never left without having ambulance

00:08:49.380 in their territory. If we're going to make sure that we've got an integrated system, that we have to

00:08:54.340 have that same kind of backup so that no rural community is ever left without their seniors worrying that

00:08:59.860 they might not be able to to get an ambulance when the call is made. These are not difficult

00:09:04.500 problems to solve. It takes political will and it takes the federal, the provincial government

00:09:09.780 taking some control back from Alberta Health Services, which is mismanaging this and has been

00:09:14.100 mismanaging this from the start and start being more directive so that we can actually solve the

00:09:18.020 problems. Excellent. Well, thank you for a good quick, clear, concise answer on that. I'll let you go. I know

00:09:24.660 you're on a tight schedule today. I appreciate you coming in to talk to us and I hope and imagine

00:09:29.060 we'll talk a time or two again before the end of this race. Sure will. Thanks, Corey.

Western Standard - June 16, 2022

EXCLUSIVE： Alberta Sovereignty Act “Simply put, we need less Ottawa in our lives,”

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript