Western Standard - Federalists trigger Alberta independence referendum？

00:00:00.000 Good day! Today is October 29th, 2025.

00:00:28.320 I'm Derek Fildebrandt, public of the

00:00:30.360 Western Standard, and you're watching the

00:00:32.220 Pipeline. I've got the usual

00:00:34.220 lineup here for the

00:00:36.380 show. We've got former Western Standard opinion editor

00:00:38.440 Nigel Hannaford. I thought you were

00:00:40.420 going to say the usual suspects. The usual

00:00:42.220 suspects. Yes, that works. Here I am.

00:00:44.440 Guilty as charged. Back from

00:00:46.160 crusading in the Holy Land is

00:00:48.060 Corey Morgan. Shallow.

00:00:49.740 it's all right he doesn't mean it i don't i don't know even where to go from with that

00:01:01.300 and uh western standard uh bc colonist at least mills i from the regulatory and political dumpster

00:01:09.400 fire of the country nice to be here very good uh well uh fun show today uh a group of kind of

00:01:21.060 ottawa suck up super federalists to think that uh it doesn't matter under any circumstance no

00:01:27.400 matter what no matter how much uh say the ottawa husband beats the alberta wife alberta should stay 0.97

00:01:33.700 in Canada no matter what. They say they have enough signatures to trigger a referendum on

00:01:39.920 staying in Canada. They didn't seem to think through the other side as if people vote no.

00:01:47.920 That would seem to imply Albertans would vote to leave Canada and become independent.

00:01:53.980 As that dawns on them, much hilarity is ensuing. So we're going to talk about what appears very

00:02:00.500 possibly to be an upcoming referendum on Alberta independence, started by those who do not want

00:02:07.860 independence. Thanks for coming up, guys. The Alberta teacher strike is over. They've been

00:02:15.200 legislated back to work. No one seems to really know what they wanted at this point. They were

00:02:19.980 given pretty much everything they wanted, and they kept on saying no, no, no. The Alberta UCP

00:02:25.480 government under danielle smith as legislated them back to work and uh union thugs are promising

00:02:33.500 war class war we're gonna have a general strike or something crazy we're gonna overthrow the

00:02:39.140 government because teachers should only have to work 20 days a year or something i i don't

00:02:43.440 really understand what their what their grievance is but we're gonna talk about those grievances

00:02:46.980 But first, Doug Ford swings and misses. He spent $75 million of Ontario taxpayers' money on an advertising campaign in the United States, making the case against tariffs.

00:03:08.280 prima facie

00:03:12.160 I mean I can see it

00:03:13.340 I actually didn't think it was a bad ad

00:03:15.760 Nigel

00:03:16.940 it took part of

00:03:19.980 something Ronald Reagan said

00:03:21.600 about tariffs while he was president

00:03:23.940 of the United States

00:03:24.940 Donald Trump threw a bit

00:03:27.960 of a fit over this saying it's taken out of context

00:03:30.260 misrepresenting the Gipper

00:03:31.240 I don't think that was the case

00:03:33.040 the Gipper was a pretty hardcore free trader

00:03:36.100 I don't think it was unfair

00:03:37.580 I don't think it was taken out of context.

00:03:40.240 I think what was trying to be achieved, you know, trying to fix our trade relationship with the United States is laudable. 1.00

00:03:47.860 But what I thought about it, at first I thought, this is just Trump being a jerk. 0.99

00:03:53.520 You know, he suspends trade negotiations. 1.00

00:03:55.420 Okay.

00:03:56.400 But then I thought, ah, we're not thinking about this from the perspective of Americans.

00:04:02.380 Because as much as Canadians are adamant, we are not 51st state.

00:04:06.100 We are not Americans.

00:04:07.240 we also still think of ourselves as Americans

00:04:09.160 that we're allowed to intervene

00:04:11.140 in their domestic politics

00:04:12.580 and spending three

00:04:14.740 quarters of a billion

00:04:17.020 75 million dollars

00:04:19.360 to

00:04:21.100 intervene in American domestic

00:04:23.320 electoral politics immediately

00:04:24.900 before the midterm elections

00:04:27.140 where house of the

00:04:29.100 control of the house is up for stake, possibly the

00:04:31.080 Senate, probably less of the Senate, but maybe

00:04:32.800 that is

00:04:35.040 foreign meddling 0.61

00:04:37.240 We don't think we think of ourselves as we're not American, but then we immediately think of ourselves as completely American and fully entitled to meddle in their politics.

00:04:46.620 So, you know, I asked Canadians who are thinking, you know, signing with Doug Ford here.

00:04:52.820 How would we feel if Donald Trump spent an American equivalent sum of money in Canada arguing against supply management?

00:05:05.220 I think supply management should be gone, but I would certainly think that is dangerous and illegal foreign meddling for a foreign government to run advertisements on stations in Canada telling us to change our foreign policy.

00:05:22.020 I don't know, that's how I take it.

00:05:23.280 Yeah, well, I think anybody who thinks about it would take it that way.

00:05:27.120 There's more to it, though, than there seems to be more to it.

00:05:30.720 First of all, Mr. Carney was apparently advised that these ads were going to run,

00:05:38.880 and he didn't kill the idea.

00:05:42.560 So why would it suit Mark Carney to have that out there?

00:05:47.320 First, to your point about whether there was any misrepresentation,

00:05:50.100 I gather that the order of Reagan's speech had been altered somewhat, but whether it was, it wasn't, or whether it was completely misrepresented, why did it suit Mr. Carney to poke Trump like that at this time?

00:06:05.600 It was the good cop, bad cop routine.

00:06:07.320 Carney plays the diplomatic good guy, Ford plays the pugnacious bad guy, but no one was following Ford this time.

00:06:15.200 no i know nor should they have ford is actually a bit of an airbag this is the guy who uh

00:06:23.200 who right at six months ago threatened to cut off the electricity supply to three northern tier

00:06:31.760 united states uh states of the u.s and um i i think that lasted 45 minutes he got a call from

00:06:40.080 harvard lefnick the american commerce secretary said look you'd be opening a can of worms if you

00:06:45.760 did that if you think that's funny watch what we can do and it was all over and he just got his

00:06:51.680 little moment in the headlines of pugnacious dougie ford sticking up for canada he's not didn't

00:06:58.960 solve a problem and he didn't solve a problem with this what the two of them did is they gave mr

00:07:06.000 Carney, an excuse to say, well, of course I haven't got a trade deal with Mr. Trump.

00:07:13.080 You know, all the negotiations.

00:07:16.280 Meanwhile, he's off to China, and what's it going to be, Chinese cars for canola?

00:07:20.980 I don't know.

00:07:21.620 We'll see, I guess.

00:07:22.820 But these two are ups to something, and it's skullduddery.

00:07:26.860 But I am not impressed, but I wouldn't give Mr. Ford being, if he's a patriot, he's the

00:07:31.940 worst kind.

00:07:32.440 at least i they've been doing this good cop bad cop routine and so yeah it's until now

00:07:40.560 at least not been called on um i'm not positive who put it this way it may have been jen gerseth

00:07:46.000 in the line put it this way yeah they're doing good cop bad cop and trump just shot the good

00:07:51.300 cop and the bad cop and burned down the police station uh because it's obvious they're working

00:07:56.940 in cahoots they're obviously coordinated these the ford government and the carny government or

00:08:01.300 Trudeau government before it were not hostile. They had extremely warm relations. They've been

00:08:06.880 working in cahoots together. And I don't think it mattered at all to the Trump administration that

00:08:13.420 on paper, this was not the Canadian government. This was a subnational government doing this.

00:08:20.620 I don't know. What was Ford's motivation here? Was it thinking that the commercial is going to

00:08:25.520 change minds or that it would lead to the defeat of republicans in the house and somehow the

00:08:31.760 democrats are going to use their new leverage just to help canada or or was it just for domestic

00:08:36.560 consumption in ontario that doug ford gets to look like he's captain canada again um i i get

00:08:42.920 that and then to the second how is it now do you uh are ontarians gonna say ah he tried he was

00:08:49.080 fighting for us it felt good even though trump has now completely suspended trade negotiations

00:08:54.700 so let's just roll back the tape this is a small man Doug Ford is a very small man

00:09:04.220 and that small man mentality uh with a splash of which reveals I think an inherent misogyny

00:09:12.860 uh took us that propelled him to take a massive swipe out of Daniel Smith who was working towards

00:09:22.100 building a relationship because she trusted her instincts and they were right what canadians have

00:09:27.960 forgotten about is likability and common values are not just okay they're essential to this

00:09:34.060 particular administration they like the conversation they like the familiarity they

00:09:38.780 like to understand who we are i personally have had an incredibly uh positive time and i will tell

00:09:45.260 you there's no rudeness it's very diplomatic uh with the washington team but doug ford i think it

00:09:52.840 i think carney is way out of his depth he is not a prime minister he's a banker uh he likes to think

00:09:59.480 he's canada's chief economist in fact his spokesperson said that the a couple of weeks

00:10:03.640 ago now that he's essentially canada's chief economist um i he is carney i expected to see

00:10:11.040 more finesse. But I want to say this, I don't understand why car I think it's a weakness on

00:10:16.920 Carney's part that he wants to I think he's sort of overwhelmed by Doug Ford, which is not a good

00:10:22.700 sign. But from all I understand, the Canadian team was doing really well before that ad dropped. And

00:10:31.800 I would say a couple of days before that ad dropped, things started to the milk, the cream

00:10:37.500 started to curdle. And there were a couple of reasons that I, I'm not pretty, I'm not allowed

00:10:44.160 to necessarily talk about we're off the record. But the ad was like, was a punch in the nose

00:10:50.120 and a thumb on the scale. And I wrote about that not in our paper, but on Twitter, it really was

00:10:55.700 a punch in the nose and the thumbless scale. The reason it's landed that way, and it doesn't matter

00:11:00.800 what anyone's opinion is, it doesn't matter what my opinion is, or Doug Ford's, that's in material

00:11:05.480 to this this is a trade crisis this is one of the worst things i've ever seen and i worked this off

00:11:10.040 with lumber deal um they the way that this gop the way that this white house the way that this

00:11:17.480 uh new generation of republicans envisioned ronald reagan is a really important thing that

00:11:23.160 we canadians need to understand if we want to get in the business of appropriating their guy

00:11:29.560 it's also ironic because that speech has been manipulated when in reality that was the beginning

00:11:35.160 of a speech where he lays down some of the highest tariffs on japan there was a huge trade deal or

00:11:40.840 trade argument there um but ronald reagan was standing up what he said bullies against against

00:11:46.760 american workers and um it was the beginning of sort of the tech revolution as well context

00:11:53.240 matters here then you're right um jerek there is the thumb on the scale not just midterms or it

00:11:59.480 being an off year but there is the supreme court issue the supreme court is currently weighing

00:12:04.840 whether Trump's tariffs are legal. And that is not something they want to see during what they

00:12:11.240 believe is their national pastime. And now we've rolled into what I think is an even more concerning

00:12:16.740 issue, which is the trouble that we're seeing and reports that we're seeing with the U.S. ambassador,

00:12:23.040 who, by the way, the stories that you're hearing about David Patterson, the Ontario's rep to D.C.,

00:12:29.580 is not 100% accurate. And I'm not here to defend the ambassador, but I will tell you,

00:12:34.640 I'm seething I wish I could speak about it but I think this is a far bigger issue and I can tell

00:12:39.600 you the ambassador has said directly no now no longer will there be a deal done by American

00:12:45.280 Thanksgiving and we were we were much closer to that deal than we had ever been before all of

00:12:51.280 these shenanigans popped out all right uh I don't know I did Trump uh Corey had mentioned the Supreme

00:12:58.660 Court, you know, is going to try to influence the Supreme Court. I'm doubtful that advertisements

00:13:04.000 would ever have an impact on a Supreme Court decision. Maybe I'm wrong. But I definitely

00:13:11.280 think, you know, they're doing this right on the cusp of the midterm elections. That's where it's

00:13:17.140 meant to have an impact, I think, mostly. But, you know, let's perform a thought exercise here.

00:13:25.280 Doug Ford can do no wrong

00:13:28.220 and Daniel Smith seems to be able to do

00:13:30.180 no right in the eyes of the national media

00:13:32.280 and the chattering classes 0.79

00:13:34.080 you know, Smith was the one saying

00:13:36.040 you know, don't overreact

00:13:38.800 cut off our nose to spite our face here

00:13:40.540 it might feel good 0.80

00:13:41.660 slapping a maple leaf on your backpack

00:13:44.320 but

00:13:44.780 don't overly provoke the Americans

00:13:48.320 let's do a deal

00:13:49.360 she turns out to have been right 0.56

00:13:52.480 almost no one said

00:13:53.620 you know sorry but um but let's just go through a thought exercise if danielle smith had done 1.00

00:14:01.960 something i don't know what maybe run an ad i don't think this is what how she would have 0.80

00:14:06.320 handled the united states but uh say she'd say she had run an ad saying uh the united states

00:14:11.980 should um uh lift all tariff should build pipelines you know but that's conceivably

00:14:19.320 something she'd like to do but she had said uh you know and done it in a way that would be

00:14:23.740 disadvantageous to republicans you know days before the midterm election and donald trump

00:14:30.160 reacted the same way suspending negotiations how do you think then mark carney and the national

00:14:39.040 legacy media i don't rephrase it because i know exactly what you're gonna say yeah but like why

00:14:44.820 Maybe that's more interesting. Why would the national media, the chattering classes, the political classes, why would they do you think they would react so differently if Daniel Smith had done something similar and had the same catastrophic result come from it?

00:15:00.020 Well, it's because we have a political culture war going on in this country, really.

00:15:03.660 And the battle lines are drawn almost between the Ontario legislature, the federal parliament, and Premier Smith, who's really kind of the last bastion of an unapologetic conservative in this country.

00:15:13.580 Scott Moll, I guess, arguably could be the same thing, but she's the figurehead of it.

00:15:18.540 And the legacy media, for the most part, are supportive of this progressive approach, this nouveau liberal approach.

00:15:25.820 and they want to take any opportunity they can

00:15:28.820 to undercut Premier Smith.

00:15:30.220 They can't allow her to have successes.

00:15:31.860 They can't allow to have her look competent 1.00

00:15:33.500 and they will go far out of their way

00:15:36.720 to put a spotlight on any errors she makes.

00:15:41.040 So there's a motivation going on out there

00:15:44.260 and we're only going to see more of it.

00:15:46.180 So there is that double standard. 1.00

00:15:47.960 Ford stepped in it, in my view, stupidly, 0.99

00:15:50.480 but they're going to give him a pass 0.99

00:15:53.280 because he's on the right side of the fence

00:15:54.780 as far as they're concerned, and

00:15:56.440 it's not going to change anytime soon.

00:15:59.320 Yeah, this elbows

00:16:00.460 up performative

00:16:02.880 stuff. As long as it feels good,

00:16:04.880 you get a pass. It doesn't matter if it's the smart thing

00:16:06.720 to do or not. It feels good, you get

00:16:08.700 a pass. Speaking of

00:16:10.820 passing or failing, let's talk about

00:16:12.860 Alberta teachers.

00:16:16.500 Failing grade, obviously,

00:16:18.380 what they've done.

00:16:20.720 So, Alberta

00:16:21.580 has legislated the teachers back

00:16:24.760 to work. They've used it. Made a

00:16:26.740 preemptive use of the notwithstanding clause

00:16:28.660 here so that there's no uncertainty.

00:16:30.660 No, they're just back to work. There's

00:16:32.620 no real avenue for appeal here.

00:16:34.940 And that's a fake made-up charter right.

00:16:37.140 The union rights

00:16:38.880 are as a charter right. That's a made-up

00:16:40.800 one that was read into it by activist

00:16:42.800 judges after the charter

00:16:44.500 was passed into law as a part

00:16:46.820 of the Constitution of Canada. There is

00:16:48.760 nothing in the charter about unions.

00:16:51.500 I'm not wrong on that, right?

00:16:53.360 You're under very association.

00:16:54.760 association would be the yeah but i don't think it says everyone is required to be a part of the

00:16:59.020 union and that uh yeah yeah anyway so the union that we're forming here is not uh no i shut down

00:17:06.520 the company for you uh i'll go work for rebel um but um they preempted it and it it seems very

00:17:19.300 common sense to me at this point uh actually i i i actually didn't think they should have

00:17:23.760 legislated my idea was that no we'll continue to negotiate but every single day this goes on we're

00:17:28.460 converting a public school into a charter school and then in week two we're going to do two charter

00:17:32.300 schools a day week three three charter schools a day the union would get the point you could

00:17:37.040 actually probably negotiate them to a lower salary than they're currently at uh gonna gonna get uh

00:17:42.420 but you know these guys were given everything they were given big raises 12 for most up to 17

00:17:48.100 for some depending on where you're on the grid uh commitments the higher that was like 2500

00:17:53.280 new teachers,

00:17:55.560 3,000. 0.99

00:17:57.460 I mean, pretty damn

00:17:59.480 big commitments, and these guys just weren't

00:18:01.540 agreeing to anything. It seemed

00:18:03.120 extremely political. They rejected the

00:18:05.380 advice of their own negotiating teams,

00:18:08.500 negotiating committees

00:18:09.540 at the ATA.

00:18:11.600 So they've sent them back to work,

00:18:13.380 and the NDP are

00:18:15.120 predictably saying,

00:18:17.280 well, this is the end of democracy.

00:18:19.580 Alberta is now

00:18:20.700 So, you know, the Neck Reich, and, you know, it's been nice. 0.99

00:18:27.400 We're done here.

00:18:30.980 I guess I was just with you, Corey, but I'll start with you.

00:18:34.000 Your thoughts first on, you know, is this a political win?

00:18:39.640 A lot of polls have showed support, I guess, for the teachers,

00:18:42.340 because teachers are a nice, happy profession to have,

00:18:44.440 even though they're very greedily just demanding more money from taxpayers

00:18:48.560 when they only work 200 days a year.

00:18:51.620 But I don't know.

00:18:52.140 Who was the political winner, I think, in the end of the year?

00:18:54.620 I've got a feeling in the long run it still might be Smith.

00:18:57.000 I mean, as people watch and dig into this,

00:18:58.880 I know people don't watch and dig into enough things in depth at times.

00:19:01.580 No one's reading the contract.

00:19:02.980 This was at an impasse.

00:19:05.020 I mean, if Smith had come in while, say,

00:19:06.880 there was some sort of offer on the table from the teachers

00:19:09.320 and they were negotiating something,

00:19:11.140 then you've gone and cut off a negotiation.

00:19:14.080 But there was nothing.

00:19:15.180 They were spinning their wheels.

00:19:16.260 People kept asking, well, what do you guys want?

00:19:18.240 What do you guys want?

00:19:19.560 They won't say what they want.

00:19:20.800 All they'll say is what they don't want.

00:19:22.580 And what they really don't want is charter schools, private schools, which have nothing

00:19:26.220 to do.

00:19:26.580 A union shouldn't be negotiating that sort of policy anyways.

00:19:30.040 So I think with more nuanced discussion in the longer run, I mean, as I've been pushing

00:19:36.040 and coming in my column, coming up in a bit too, I think we're going to see more support

00:19:41.600 for people looking for charter schools because they want stability for their kids and looking

00:19:45.720 for non-union options because again they want stability for their kids and not this this push

00:19:50.800 and pull going on even if they like the teachers they don't like the fact that their kids have to

00:19:54.440 pay the price during these labor disputes so i i think in the longer game the teachers have really

00:20:00.620 well done themselves harm as far as a union idea goes i think maybe it's a good thing for all of

00:20:04.700 alberta because we'll start to reimagine our whole education system yeah i mean my uh my kids didn't

00:20:09.520 miss a day of school one's one's in preschool so i didn't count but the other one uh you know

00:20:13.660 third grade she's in charter school it's not private uh there's no tuition uh but it's not

00:20:18.920 the government union school she didn't miss a single minute of school because of the strike

00:20:24.120 i mean i know there's you know other kids in the neighborhood and they're like oh why is my

00:20:27.820 daughter going to school and say that's because her teachers aren't greedy um but uh no what was

00:20:34.040 the union trying to achieve here that like they were given like i was angry at smith and education

00:20:39.300 minister demetrios i was angry at them for giving them too much i was like why are you giving these

00:20:43.260 guys so much. No one in the private sector is getting this stuff right now. Everyone's just

00:20:48.280 happy to keep their jobs. These guys have got damn near guaranteed jobs. You've got to be

00:20:53.120 particularly appalling and downright criminal to lose your job as a teacher in Alberta.

00:20:58.840 They work 200 days a year. They got pension. They got benefits. They're getting a big 12 to

00:21:04.840 70% raise, depending on where you're on the grid there. What the hell do they want? Why did they

00:21:10.020 strike like this i still don't understand it you know i don't think they actually were honest about

00:21:15.140 what they want i i struggle to be fair to the teaching profession at large but individual

00:21:23.060 teachers some of whom are my friends and are actually conservative teachers they're

00:21:27.860 part of that 11 that actually voted in favor of the of the contract you know the problem here is

00:21:35.700 immigration we have had so many people brought into alberta in the last couple of years that it

00:21:42.980 is very hard for teach some teachers in some classrooms to get their heads around it what are

00:21:49.460 you going to do if you've got a class of 50 kids and that's not typical but it does happen um and

00:21:56.900 and you know 30 of them don't speak english very well and five of them don't speak english at all

00:22:03.780 now it's not you're not in your own in there on your own you do have assistants but the

00:22:10.820 the satisfaction that comes from teaching is actually seeing your students learn and do well

00:22:18.420 i mean the school that you go that your little girl goes to that's how they see it that's why

00:22:25.060 those those people teach in that in that environment so the satisfaction of the job

00:22:32.820 isn't there for quite a few people but they won't come out and say this is the problem

00:22:38.340 they just say oh well the government is terrible and there are i'm i'm afraid there's an awful lot

00:22:43.780 of people who make a lot of noise at the teachers at a meetings i actually wouldn't even want them

00:22:49.780 teaching my kids you know like these are the other people who uh think that they should be running

00:22:54.900 the education system determining the wages determining the curriculum and parents stay

00:22:59.540 out of it well to the degree that danielle smith is taking on that mentality we've got to back her 1.00

00:23:05.220 all the way but there is a there is a bit of an issue with uh too much too much being thrown out

00:23:11.220 of the system all at once well yeah i guess i mean immigration never really got into the debate

00:23:19.540 on the teacher strike in alberta elise uh on on any of the surface level like it just wasn't

00:23:25.540 mentioned well i'd be racist wouldn't it it would be anyway so you see how that's you know that's

00:23:30.500 why you're racist and um and uh you know it's uh no one wanted to talk about it you're talking

00:23:38.500 overcrowding in schools how is it that we're overcrowding in like how how is it possible

00:23:44.100 We are building schools like mad in Alberta.

00:23:47.640 We are building a lot of schools.

00:23:50.220 We're hiring a ton of teachers.

00:23:53.140 We're paying them extremely well.

00:23:55.700 And our birth rate might be the highest in Canada, but it's still not high.

00:23:59.900 It's still not even close to a replacement birth rate.

00:24:04.520 So it's obviously a lot of people coming here.

00:24:06.780 Now, we have the biggest interprovincial migration in Canada,

00:24:09.760 which I've always considered a good thing.

00:24:11.580 um but it obviously begs the question it that's still not even close to the number that that's

00:24:18.500 coming in you know and uh i i've known teachers who teach in parts of calgary that are very heavy

00:24:24.480 on on migration and they're just they don't it must not even be sad it must be less satisfying

00:24:31.240 i even thought it from the fact perspective i thought it from the perspective of how frustrating

00:24:34.900 it is they need all these teaching assistants in the class because half the kids don't aren't even

00:24:41.440 functionally speaking English.

00:24:43.680 They're not speaking English in the home,

00:24:45.380 so they're not really getting it there either.

00:24:49.100 But yeah,

00:24:49.720 I don't think

00:24:51.100 this debate, it's a big debate, but it

00:24:53.460 didn't reach the surface level because

00:24:55.260 the two parties in this was

00:24:57.440 the government, which is going to be politically

00:24:59.400 risk-averse, and then the teachers' union,

00:25:01.580 which is hyper

00:25:02.420 woke, loves mass

00:25:05.340 migration.

00:25:07.080 But yeah, we just don't hear the unions

00:25:09.540 at least saying, perhaps

00:25:11.300 we should just not bring in three million people in a single year kind of thing that might alleviate

00:25:17.540 our class size issue yeah well and you have us naughty british colombians uh you know crossing 0.59

00:25:23.360 the border running across the border speeding across the border to albert and you have a lot

00:25:27.460 of our teachers so you've imported a lot of socialists and you know the blue-haired people

00:25:32.280 with the rainbow t-shirts and all the alphabets in there uh so i apologize that's also largely

00:25:38.780 to do with why your politics have changed

00:25:40.780 from between Atlantic Canada coming out for oil and gas

00:25:43.220 and British Columbians escaping,

00:25:45.240 the fabric of your conservative union

00:25:47.540 is slowly, you know, pushing and pulling.

00:25:51.900 But I do think as a parent,

00:25:53.560 what I did notice in British Columbia

00:25:54.980 is ground zero for strikes, teacher strikes specifically.

00:25:58.820 My daughter had six years of rolling strikes 1.00

00:26:00.840 from kindergarten to grade six.

00:26:03.080 And we don't have the same situation

00:26:07.520 as you do in alberta so number one we can barely build a school um you know we can't even get

00:26:12.840 ferries built as well so we're terrible at delivering and executing on on that type of

00:26:18.840 funding so we are um teachers have a very i i'm supportive of their concerns about what's in their

00:26:25.340 classrooms like and in regards to the demographic but there's the other issue is that um canadian

00:26:30.260 parents whether you're in alberta and i think if you're in albertan you have a better chance

00:26:34.520 economically, socioeconomically than the rest of us do, especially in British Columbia.

00:26:39.940 But there's the breakdown of family. And it's the breakdown of family in a sense of

00:26:43.620 this country is so hard to survive in if you are not making more than, say, $75,000, $80,000.

00:26:52.580 And that used to be a lot of money. It doesn't matter where you are. You've got parents that

00:26:57.200 have arrived from different countries. Yes, English is a second language, and they're not 1.00

00:27:01.160 spending the time with their children to integrate them like my friend's parents did, for example.

00:27:06.560 So you've also now got onsets of all different types of learning disabilities. There are some

00:27:12.160 now that I can't even catch up with. My daughter's out of the school system now. But I empathize with

00:27:20.200 teachers because I agree with what Nigel said. You don't get into teaching because you're just

00:27:24.160 looking for a soft landing. That is hard, especially when you're an early new teacher.

00:27:29.220 You have to really cut your teeth in there and work.

00:27:32.820 Now, later on, you can kick, there are ways to kick your feet up and actually not work,

00:27:37.000 especially in British Columbia, but we'll leave that for another day.

00:27:40.400 But I am concerned.

00:27:42.260 I think the social fabric of our country is just shredded.

00:27:46.520 And I know how I feel after a long day.

00:27:49.520 I'm not so sure I could, especially as a single parent, which I was, I don't know if I'd have

00:27:56.500 the energy to deal with every single i it's the bullying is the social media it's the phones then

00:28:02.500 it's then maybe a learning disability and that's the fact that my child can't get the attention of

00:28:07.120 her teacher there's all these things happening and i'm also working 80 hours a week to make sure

00:28:12.500 that i can we can have the things that we need there's no time for family and teachers used to

00:28:17.460 rely on parents to be they're sort of co-pilots in the education as well and um and so i think

00:28:23.980 there's a there's something there um and i'm not making excuses for what the union did the union

00:28:28.860 i think what the membership and just watching what was going on there with the ata i think the

00:28:33.980 membership generally were would have taken that that initial deal and by the way our teachers in

00:28:40.700 bc uh or that that is that is amazing what they have out there but i think the union played a

00:28:48.300 shell game and i think it's a revenge thing i think it has everything to do about with the

00:28:52.460 quote-unquote book banning i think it has to do with um certain pieces of legislation that

00:28:58.200 that smith has taken on and it's and it's not just social i think it's their environmental

00:29:03.000 policies i think they just were looking for a fight um and i think that union can walk into

00:29:08.360 an empty room and make a fight yeah all right uh well speaking of fights in alberto

00:29:14.880 we're headed to a referendum on independence

00:29:20.540 I don't know how to say it otherwise

00:29:21.980 so

00:29:23.800 this goes back

00:29:27.000 the Kennedy government brought in

00:29:28.640 Citizens Initiative legislation

00:29:30.100 had an extremely high bar to set

00:29:32.740 on being able to get the signatures

00:29:34.840 to trigger it

00:29:35.680 it was unreasonably high

00:29:38.020 it's obviously theoretically possible to get it

00:29:40.980 I didn't think

00:29:42.740 these guys would do it

00:29:43.820 it appears prima facie

00:29:45.940 they have got the numbers

00:29:47.160 so it's called Forever Canada

00:29:49.320 this group led by Thomas Lukaszek

00:29:51.120 the media like to call him the former progressive conservative

00:29:53.120 premier of Alberta

00:29:54.580 and then they neglect that he's actually been an NDP

00:29:57.180 supporter provincially and a liberal supporter

00:29:59.020 federally ever since

00:30:00.240 he was from the hard left wing of the old

00:30:03.160 progressive conservatives

00:30:04.220 when that party was around

00:30:05.940 so he's never actually been a united conservative

00:30:09.080 member in Alberta he's never been a member of the

00:30:11.020 conservative party of Canada as far as I know at least

00:30:13.000 But the media like to try and portray him as a conservative, even though there's not a single conservative who would take ownership over this guy in Alberta.

00:30:21.340 So he wanted to preempt the independence movement from going out and triggering a referendum on independence, which would have words that meet the Clarity Act requirements for a constitutionally valid referendum.

00:30:38.800 the wording that had been proposed by the Alberta

00:30:41.940 Prosperity Group was something to the effect of

00:30:43.940 should Alberta

00:30:45.620 become

00:30:46.780 an independent and sovereign country?

00:30:50.060 Something like that.

00:30:51.380 That should, I think, meet the Clarity Act.

00:30:54.160 These guys wanted to get, they wanted to

00:30:55.460 frame the question differently.

00:30:57.060 Should Alberta

00:30:58.180 remain in Canada? I think, is that the question?

00:31:03.000 Yeah, it is

00:31:03.860 actually.

00:31:05.420 The children are asking Albertans whether the

00:31:07.580 The province should remain in Canada and is one step closer to being voted.

00:31:11.280 So that would give them more favorable wording, I guess.

00:31:14.360 But the implication is if people then voted no to that,

00:31:19.740 is that Albertans then voting to become independent.

00:31:22.920 So these guys have triggered, these guys went out,

00:31:26.140 and they've triggered a referendum, it seems, on independence.

00:31:30.280 Now, it's not 100% sure yet.

00:31:32.760 They got over the threshold required for the number of signatures,

00:31:36.380 but these signatures now need to be validated and checked against the eligible voters list.

00:31:41.900 So you need some margin of error.

00:31:43.940 So it's possible that they actually fall short a bit if they don't have enough signatures that turn out to be valid.

00:31:51.360 But prima facie, let's just say they've got the signatures now.

00:31:56.220 Corey, does that mean that the referendum question that goes forward is exactly this one?

00:32:00.880 or I feel like

00:32:03.040 regardless of what side you're on

00:32:05.280 the question should be as neutrally

00:32:07.160 worded as possible like if you want independence

00:32:09.120 the question should not be

00:32:10.520 should you know the kick-ass

00:32:13.500 land of the free

00:32:15.140 Alberta be the coolest

00:32:17.060 richest most amazing

00:32:19.160 country in the world and leave those 0.99

00:32:20.940 dirtbag freeloaders of Canada 0.98

00:32:22.740 you can't that's not a fair 0.59

00:32:25.000 question you know

00:32:26.900 a fair question here should be

00:32:28.760 you know if you wanted to word it

00:32:30.360 from their side, should Alberta

00:32:32.340 remain in Canada, or should

00:32:34.620 Alberta become an independent country?

00:32:36.840 I think that would be a very...

00:32:38.760 That'd be fair, and I'd still ask

00:32:40.500 the question with the yes on their side,

00:32:42.700 the no on the independent side.

00:32:45.120 Is there any opportunity...

00:32:46.440 Is the question as is, is that

00:32:48.320 it, or... No, it's no.

00:32:50.540 It has to go to the legislature, and that's

00:32:52.420 where the referendum, if it were to be called,

00:32:54.500 gets called, and they can

00:32:56.260 rejig the framing of the question.

00:32:58.480 So if they're staying true to the question, I mean, if they, you know, made it a question about something completely unrelated, that would be violating the basis of the thing, but they could change it to, you know, should Alberta become an independent province? It's the same question. It's just asking a different way, which would put it into the more positive yes end of it, but it's still a referendum on independence.

00:33:19.400 The other thing is, too, it seems like Lukasik's already backtracking a bit. He's saying, no, no, no, no, I wasn't trying to trigger a referendum. We're trying to just have the question go to the legislature. But his own initial paperwork says, no, you're going for a referendum.

00:33:32.740 Hold on. Let's play that clip from Danielle Smith at the press conference where, okay, just roll it. I don't want this to operate.

00:33:39.440 Mr. Lukasik's vote is a yes, no question. It is a separatist referendum. He may be trying to characterize it differently. But if you ask people if you want to remain in Alberta, yes or no, there are implications if people answer no.

00:33:55.820 Okay, so Danielle Smith says, all right, thanks for coming out, Tom. You just triggered an independence referendum. He's like, no, that's not what I meant to do. He's like, well, that's what you did do.

00:34:05.800 yeah you know the father of alberta independence found his father of alberta's republic thomas

00:34:12.120 lucas well i mean to the credit you know that was quite an effort 400 some thousands they did

00:34:18.520 more than i would imagine that was a sign a good organization but it comes right down to careful

00:34:23.160 what you wish for fabio because you just got it and uh the campaign will begin sometime next year

00:34:29.720 yeah at least uh i i don't know how much you know this does this clown or not but i do

00:34:35.800 Okay. I didn't think they could do it.

00:34:38.760 At some point, someone's going to check the tape to when this started, and I was like, you know, Bob's my uncle if they can actually get the signatures.

00:34:46.860 Because credit where it's due, that's a lot of signatures to get, and it may or may not be valid after they verify every single name on the voters list.

00:34:54.720 They've hired, like, a ton of staff to go through it.

00:34:57.900 But yeah, we've got this guy here who's just on the side of every single left-wing cause.

00:35:05.480 He never appears on the conservative side of anything, but the media try to portray him as a conservative because he was a progressive conservative under Alison Redford.

00:35:11.920 That's like saying, I was a moderate in the Bolshevists at some point, you know.

00:35:18.560 But yeah, I don't know, just your reaction that we've got a hardline left wing federalist in Alberta who just seems to have woken up to the realization that his referendum is a referendum on independence.

00:35:31.460 i this was what i never understood about him i mean i understand that he's a um edmonton

00:35:39.040 coattail rider so that's how he was in the pcs he knew he could win um and you know he's from

00:35:45.460 edmonton um but you know i that's what i never understood about him and i i don't tangle with

00:35:51.760 him because there's no point there's no point in calling him out on twitter but it was very obvious

00:35:56.840 to many of us conservatives in bc and i think uh federally as well that it seemed counterintuitive

00:36:02.680 but as i said to one former wild rose mla uh nate did he need a job and he didn't seem to think so

00:36:11.400 because he has a whopping pension um from his time at the alberta legislature so i didn't understand

00:36:18.200 it and i didn't understand that he didn't understand it no alberta mlas haven't had a

00:36:23.720 pension since 1993 oh there were something called transition allowances that were that's what i'm

00:36:29.320 talking about yeah a transition they're they're a temporary thing it's not like a lifetime pension

00:36:35.400 the way say members of the federal parliament it's not quite the same system yeah that i we

00:36:41.000 were speculating on what he did with that money and it doesn't matter it's his money it's his

00:36:45.480 business but it seemed really like make a job for him and then when you were i was inundated with

00:36:51.320 his instagram post and i don't know why this is showing up in my feed but i thought it was just

00:36:56.040 so creepy i mean he did the bedroom files from his rv uh you know and pjs with his hand on his

00:37:03.080 you know with his legs kicking up at the back and i just thought this is a sexual harassment

00:37:07.480 case waiting to happen uh you know boys or girls i could not unsee fabio laying there

00:37:15.240 Oh, you know what I'm talking about. And I just felt like he needed something. And I just thought, you know, his wife was once a respected CTV news anchor. And I thought, is she even in the picture anymore? Because a good wife would just literally take the, you know, the cane and pull him off the stage. Because he's made he's so foolish and so embarrassing. But you know, there are Albertans that really believe in staying in the in the knitted into Canada. But

00:37:45.240 I think we also and I'm sure you guys would agree. There are Alberta Albertans that do support

00:37:50.760 staying, but there are it's conditional. It's not, hey, the relationship is awesome. Let's throw a

00:37:56.920 party if we win. It's not about that. But all of us were sort of waiting for Thomas to understand

00:38:03.280 his own punchline to all of this, that you're going to trigger a referendum. But again, I think

00:38:09.160 just as it always is with Thomas, it's about his own bank account, his own image, his own social

00:38:14.660 media and building out what

00:38:16.580 might be further contracts or opportunities

00:38:18.900 to show his mug off.

00:38:21.020 Yeah.

00:38:22.100 I don't know what the guy does for money, but

00:38:24.560 as far as I could tell, the guy doesn't

00:38:26.700 really appear to have had much

00:38:28.800 in the way of gainful employment since

00:38:30.660 he

00:38:31.460 lost and since he was

00:38:34.720 done from cabinet when Alice

00:38:36.560 Redford went down and then lost his seat

00:38:38.740 in 2015.

00:38:41.020 He does not appear to have done

00:38:42.500 anything other than

00:38:43.980 rant against conservatives on Twitter

00:38:46.780 since, I guess, a decade now.

00:38:49.100 It's been a decade, for God's sakes.

00:38:50.740 Well, he was a menacing caucus.

00:38:52.680 He was a menacing caucus, too.

00:38:55.060 Yeah, I don't know the caucus.

00:38:56.100 Like, the guy, he's...

00:38:58.360 I don't know, I think he saw this as his way of...

00:39:00.620 A little trust for significance?

00:39:02.240 Yeah, he's trying to be relevant again.

00:39:04.220 Now, I don't doubt that the guy's

00:39:06.380 a hard-line federalist, that he believes...

00:39:08.180 He actually believes in what he's doing.

00:39:09.900 But, I mean, it was a way of...

00:39:11.680 I don't know.

00:39:12.240 I think most people who are out of politics want back in the main reason I

00:39:19.860 don't want back in is because I get my fill of politics doing what I'm doing

00:39:23.320 and I don't have to deal with most of the bullshit of actually being in 0.88

00:39:25.440 politics. 0.67

00:39:26.660 Fabio hasn't been relevant in any way.

00:39:29.560 He's just got like,

00:39:31.160 you know,

00:39:31.900 he just gets a tweet into the dark and it doesn't lead to anything.

00:39:37.520 I don't know,

00:39:38.160 but maybe he tries to see this as an on-ramp to become a part of the NDP

00:39:40.980 caucus.

00:39:41.420 at some point i don't know uh but uh the end of the day nigel uh captain uh canada here has i mean

00:39:52.540 are we going to erect a statue one day to uh general fabio as you know our george washington

00:39:59.520 who led us to independence you know we opened the program talking about doug ford and what a

00:40:09.200 windbag he was. That was my phrase, not yours, but I think there was a consensus leading that way

00:40:15.380 that he swung, he missed. And you ask, why does he do it? And the answer is, it puts him in the

00:40:23.440 headlines that news media are generally favorable to those kinds of gestures. And as we get into

00:40:31.480 the last minutes of the program, bless my soul, we find ourselves talking about Mr. Dukasik,

00:40:37.920 who is also making these wild, patriotic gestures.

00:40:46.520 As Derek said, I dare say he believes in what he is doing.

00:40:51.400 But do you know the common thing between Ford and Bukashic

00:40:55.240 and so many other people who have yet to be in the headlines?

00:41:00.020 They don't have any solutions.

00:41:02.820 You know, you can make a little tiny fest and wave it

00:41:05.320 and say, I'm proud to be Canadian, and I want to, you know,

00:41:10.640 Alberta will stay, and we've got to stand up to the United States.

00:41:15.940 How? In what way exactly do you want us to do that?

00:41:19.120 And you contrast that with genuine conservatives,

00:41:22.820 and our own premier would be, obviously, in Alberta, the one to call upon,

00:41:27.720 who actually have ideas and are driving ideas that change things

00:41:32.680 and will make Canada a better place.

00:41:36.660 So I have to wonder why Mr. Lukashik gets the ink he does.

00:41:43.400 All right.

00:41:44.220 All right.

00:41:45.140 Well, let's give Elise the first shot on parting shots today. 1.00

00:41:50.340 So as we were just talking about your independence,

00:41:53.640 and then obviously there was the question of, you know,

00:41:55.840 what would happen with your treaty or ceded lands, right?

00:41:58.460 It made me think about what's happening in British Columbia

00:42:01.860 where we have unceded territories all over the place and specifically what's happening in

00:42:06.360 Richmond. And that's why I have my, you know, my point of view here today is that John Rustad,

00:42:14.540 the leader of the Conservative Party in British Columbia, or the BC Conservative Party, I should

00:42:18.540 say, my message is to him. It is painfully obvious that you cannot win an election. And it is

00:42:25.700 painfully obvious that you have a caucus cowering to a large degree, because they don't understand

00:42:31.340 what they're the avenues to take you out but the reality is we've had three poles and three

00:42:37.420 poles in the last seven days have told us that you're at least 10 points behind this province

00:42:42.700 is in a regulatory political dumpster fire we are economically vulnerable and there are financial

00:42:49.500 and fiscal liabilities all over the place not including the loss of homeowner or land ownership

00:42:56.220 for property rights in British Columbia.

00:42:58.200 So it's time that Mr. Rustad stepped down.

00:43:01.300 All right.

00:43:02.680 Corey.

00:43:03.840 Well, just back to BC for a bit,

00:43:05.800 but again, with how the woke have gone well beyond the goalposts

00:43:11.800 and have just gone mad.

00:43:13.180 We had race-based parking fees now happening.

00:43:16.360 You know, was this what Martin Luther King envisioned?

00:43:19.880 They've come full circle and they're segregating now,

00:43:22.380 so it's not just park access,

00:43:23.580 but the parks where we allow mixed access

00:43:25.680 of races, the First Nations

00:43:27.700 get to park for free. I'm not sure how they're going to

00:43:29.740 check for that blood test or

00:43:31.700 a color-shaded strip or something.

00:43:33.400 They'll have license plates you can have

00:43:35.740 or little cards you can put

00:43:37.760 on your windshield. What that's going

00:43:39.800 to be is everyone's going to get their native 1.00

00:43:41.660 license plates stolen or they're going to get

00:43:43.560 their windows broken. People are going to

00:43:45.760 steal their parking passes. Either way, it's

00:43:47.680 just absurd, but just another small

00:43:49.800 march towards the lunacy of

00:43:51.800 racially divided society that progressives are bringing us.

00:43:54.680 Michael?

00:43:55.880 Well, you know, a few years ago, Bill Gates and Mark Carney were together at a meeting

00:44:02.200 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and they were talking about how climate change

00:44:08.280 was going to kill us all. Well, now Bill Gates has done a complete 180 and says,

00:44:14.600 climate change is important, but it isn't the existential crisis. He thought it was.

00:44:18.840 other things are more important than climate change and that leaves mr kearney who has yet

00:44:27.760 to recant running canada with the idea that climate change is all that matters and driving

00:44:35.620 policy from emission caps to decarbonized oil because we've got to save the climate

00:44:42.720 Mr. Gates has thought it through

00:44:45.720 Mr. Carney needs to think

00:44:47.860 you know, some of us have been saying this

00:44:49.880 for 30 years

00:44:51.380 what is it going to take

00:44:53.060 I want to

00:44:56.380 throw some attention

00:44:57.960 to Fred DeLore's

00:44:59.540 substack, he's an interesting

00:45:01.080 guy, he was the executive director of the Conservative Party

00:45:03.980 of Canada under Aaron O'Toole

00:45:05.480 he's got an interesting substack

00:45:07.800 kind of political analysis

00:45:09.820 and whatnot, people across the spectrum, he doesn't really

00:45:11.700 argue ideologically for anything it's just it's generally pretty smart analysis he's arguing

00:45:16.300 there's going to be an early election uh i feel so strongly there's not going to be an election

00:45:23.020 imminently here that i've got that's with uh two people here uh news editor dave nailer and uh

00:45:29.460 oh yeah you can see him right in the corner here uh jeremy borg oh yeah he knows i'm talking about

00:45:34.840 him hi jeremy yeah there you are hi um i've i've given these guys three to one odds i bet i'm just

00:45:41.540 just five bucks but give them three to one odds there's not going to be an early election before

00:45:45.620 december here the math just doesn't add up mark carney and the liberals have a de facto majority

00:45:51.660 government they're essentially one seat short uh all they got to do is you know uh plant a tree

00:45:57.860 for elizabeth may to get her vote um and you know bribe one member of the ndp with a cabinet spot or 1.00

00:46:05.220 something and then they've got their seats the only way we're getting an early election is that

00:46:09.940 the Liberals call it themselves. And they're not

00:46:11.900 going to call one this early.

00:46:14.000 They're sitting pretty, pretty.

00:46:15.720 If they call one, it'll be maybe

00:46:17.940 next year when they think they can get

00:46:19.940 a majority government or something, if they

00:46:21.740 do even that, because I've got a de facto majority

00:46:24.100 right now. So,

00:46:25.820 anyone else want to take me up on

00:46:27.980 the bets? I'm giving three to one odds. Just put it

00:46:29.920 in the comments, and you're

00:46:31.700 welcome to give me your money.

00:46:34.740 Alright, Corey,

00:46:36.440 Nigel, Elise,

00:46:37.620 Thank you very much. And John on production. And all of you watching at home or in the car

00:46:43.180 or mowing the lawn, whatever you're doing, thank you very much for joining us. Remember,

00:46:47.300 we need you to support us by becoming a member. It's only $10 a month or $100 a year. Go to

00:46:52.600 westernstandard.news. Just click on subscribe to support our work and get unlimited access

00:46:58.020 to all Western Standard content. Thank you very much for joining us today, and God bless.

00:47:07.620 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - October 30, 2025

Federalists trigger Alberta independence referendum？

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