00:21:18.220Instead of making the decision for a huge rupture, an enormous risk that will throw us into years of uncertainty, investor uncertainty, the outflow of capital, of people, half of Albertans who say they would leave if this province votes to separate,
00:21:31.620First Nations going from productive relationships to potentially 47 Ocas across the country.
00:23:21.520First Nations absolutely have been clear that they will refuse to have their counterparty in their treaties from the 1870s
00:23:31.620reassigned from Canada to Alberta. Right now we cannot develop our
00:23:37.300resources or function our economy without the cooperation of First
00:23:40.980Nations and if instead we turn that into a period of extended conflict after
00:23:47.280this first vote it would be catastrophic for investor confidence for our economy
00:23:51.660just on that one point alone. Mr. Phil de Brown, if the Leave side loses 70 to
00:23:59.04030. Has not the leverage argument just been tested and failed? One minute, please.
00:24:06.040Well, I might surprise some in that I at least somewhat agree with statements I know my opponents
00:24:13.440here have made in the past that this referendum should not be used as a leverage argument.
00:24:19.040I don't believe you. You know, I grew up shooting from a young age. You don't point a gun at
00:24:23.840something unless you intend to shoot it and i think that is applicable here too and i do believe
00:24:29.820to its credit the people who have put forward the referendum and the citizen initiative that's why
00:24:34.920they had a clear question we don't have a clear question now and there's reasons we got to this
00:24:39.440point if this does become a point of leverage it depends on how we play it i think that with all
00:24:47.460due respect to the premier she made a terrible mistake in scheduling the constitutional reform
00:24:52.460questions at the same time as an independence referendum those should have been had right now
00:24:59.900and then an independence vote should have been scheduled six months after give people a chance
00:25:04.700to vote on reform and put it to our other fellow canadians to see if they pick us up on it and if
00:25:09.180not then we should have voted on it we've we've done it passed backwards and the 30 second rebuttal
00:25:15.820Look, so if the vote of Alberta is that we choose to remain, which I hope it will be, I think there's still a strong message that will have been sent by the folks who chose to vote to leave.
00:25:30.160I think a remain vote should be understood narrowly.
00:25:34.640Albertans will have chosen to remain in Canada, but this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the status quo.
00:25:42.580this question is to no specific member of the leaf side treaties six seven and eight cover
00:25:51.380nearly all of alberta how would an independent alberta deal with first nations who say they are
00:25:57.480staying with the crown one minute please well that is up to the powers that be in alberta at the time
00:26:06.020it depends upon what kind of country the people of alberta decide to have but let me make the
00:26:10.760constitutional point about the new Alberta, and this is again in accordance with what the Supreme
00:26:15.840Court has said. Independence is a repudiation of the existing constitutional order, and in your
00:26:24.280negotiations on your departure, there will be no conclusions predetermined by law on any issue,
00:26:33.680any issue. The existing treaties are part of the existing constitutional order in Canada.
00:26:40.220Now, Alberta can choose to do what it thinks is best for the future country.
00:26:47.140But these things are not predetermined by law, by the Constitution, or by the Supreme Court.
00:26:53.700The Supreme Court is very clear about this.
00:26:56.300If you are going to become independent, you are reputying the Canadian constitutional order,
00:27:02.220you are turning the page, you have a blank slate,
00:27:05.180you can determine for yourself what your new constitutional order is to be.
00:27:12.580Send it over to 32nd Fruber, Battle Police.
00:27:15.560I've always appreciated Bruce's honesty on this.
00:27:18.280His position is that it's a tabula rasa.
00:27:33.500If a punitive Republic of Alberta were to abrogate, were to be seen as imposing itself as the new counterparty in those treaties, or just abrogating the treaties, we would go from the essential relationships that we have that have allowed us to become the third largest oil producer in the world, and overnight that would be turned on its head.
00:27:55.580We would have rail and roadblock days across the province that would be kryptonite for future investment.
00:28:01.060I'll have to go to our next question to the Leave side.
00:28:03.500it's not fair this is only a minute this is quite a question but what currency
00:28:07.220pension plan and debt share would Alberta have on day one you have one
00:28:12.180minute well as we all know if if there was a clear question with a clear
00:28:18.980majority voting for it the Clarity Act process at least leads us into
00:28:23.240negotiation and that would be you know we should be under no illusions that's
00:28:27.400not easy that's not fast and it's messy but these would be negotiated Alberta
00:28:33.180pension, Alberta should have a pension plan for an independent country or not
00:28:36.720for God's sakes. We should have done this at least 20 years ago. The assets and
00:28:44.060liabilities between pensions and debts, I mean let the Canadian forces keep you
00:28:50.040know broken down tanks and planes. Most of the CF-18s were built before even I
00:28:53.280was born, so you know there's some assets they can keep. These get negotiated debt.
00:28:57.960We'll take our fair share based on per capita. I think that's probably one of
00:29:01.940the easier ones to negotiate. The bigger question is if under, you know, we have a successful
00:29:09.860referendum and Ottawa does not negotiate in good faith and that is where we would come to more
00:29:15.300troubled waters about how we would divide this. But I do believe Alberta would have immense
00:29:19.860leverage in these debates because Ottawa needs our money a hell of a lot more than we need theirs.
00:29:24.820okay look I advise on large transactions I'm a tax advisor I can tell you that when I hear the
00:29:35.980words we'll work out the details later that gives me a great deal of onions and rarely does that go
00:29:43.540well I would suggest the same as potentially true here now and just to make the other point you know
00:29:49.120so currency what are we going to use probably the Canadian dollar but we would then have no
00:29:54.340say with the Bank of Canada. We would be at the mercy of another sovereign nation. I think
00:30:02.020this leaves a lot to be desired, a lot of uncertainty.
00:30:11.020One last nonspecific question to the Leaf side. How would you answer reports of separatist
00:30:15.840contacts with operatives in the United States? One minute please.
00:30:21.900not much to respond to. Unlike, you know, nationalist movements in other places around
00:30:28.220the world, there's no clear hierarchy to Alberta's independence movement. Anyone who wants to
00:30:32.760put up their hand and say, I'm a leader of it, can do it. And so if a few self-appointed
00:30:37.420people go down and, you know, met with an intern who makes coffee to a, you know, to
00:30:44.420a first-term congressman from Wisconsin, I think that's unfortunate. I don't think that's
00:30:51.520in the interest of Alberta, I don't think it's in the interest of the independence movement.
00:30:56.040But I think it is of zero consequence when someone who merely self-appoints themselves
00:31:01.680a leader and might jump up and down for the cameras does something like that because they
00:31:05.620have no authority to negotiate on behalf of Alberta or the independence movement.
00:31:10.400Well, that begs one of the biggest questions.
00:31:47.360Actually, I'm going to have to catch you up there with you, because this question is for you.
00:31:53.460Mr. Kenney, as Premier, you held a 2021 equalization referendum that won 62% and changed nothing.
00:32:01.040Why should Albertans believe fix it from within this time?
00:32:05.640I don't agree that it changed nothing.
00:32:06.960It created a clear fact that Albertans wanted reform of the equalization program.
00:32:10.740And I can tell you, while we didn't get a constitutional amendment around the table with the premiers, they were suddenly very focused on Alberta's interests, the premier of Quebec in particular.
00:32:21.100And my effort, successful effort, to get eight other provinces, including Quebec, to support us in our traditional reference, our challenge of the C-69 No More Pipelines law,
00:33:00.720The Canadian Constitution is impossible to reform, impossible to amend on any controversial subject, except, ironically, the secession of a province.
00:33:28.640Look, government matters. There is no need to use suspending power of the federal government as aggressively as liberals do and have.
00:33:39.380There is nothing that dictates the precise design of federal regulatory and assessment regimes that can't be changed legislatively.
00:33:47.840Even equalization is up for renewal. It's a five-year process. It's up for renewal in March of 2029.
00:33:56.880There are significant changes. The concept of equalization is guaranteed in Section 32 of the Constitution, but how it's actually applied and enacted is not. And I would say, if you've been paying attention to what's happening in Quebec, the new Premier of Quebec was here some months ago, and he opened with the comment, Alberta, we don't want your money. I think that's an interesting point.
00:34:26.880Albertans did vote to end equalization and it did establish a political fact of what Albertans think
00:34:35.380and the same logic applies to an independence referendum but we have to ask ourselves if 62%
00:34:42.220of Albertans voted for something eminently reasonable like removing equalization from
00:34:46.240the constitution and we were met with crickets or derision how were we going to be met with any
00:34:52.360other reforms. Mr. Pierre Polyev stood on this stage just hours ago, making the case to Albertans
00:34:59.200to stay in Canada. And did he even mention the word equalization once? In the last campaign,
00:35:06.720he stood on the status quo. There's a nonspecific question to the Remain side. If almost half of
00:35:14.600UCP voters back leave, what do you say to them on the morning after? To respect democracy and to
00:35:21.820understand that if people continue to push the separatist agenda, what
00:35:25.960they're going to do is, perhaps for a generation, divide the conservative
00:35:29.880movement here in its heartland in Alberta. The vast majority of traditional
00:35:34.540conservative voters and mainstream Alberta voters do not want to end up
00:35:38.920locked into a permanent political civil war, arguing with their neighbors, instead
00:35:44.020of focusing on growing and building and moving forward. They don't want to stare
00:35:47.820in the rearview mirror. Look at the Calgary Shaw by-election, an area I used to
00:35:51.760win 80% of the vote in, went to the New Democrats a month ago, in part because mainstream conservatives
00:35:58.140have very little patience with this. And we now see the Liberals today would win half
00:36:03.540of the federal seats in Alberta. So I would say to conservatives, if you want to strengthen
00:36:08.660our voice, let's come together behind Mr. Polia, behind Premier Smith, and continue
00:36:14.340to fight for a strong Alberta in the United Canada.
00:36:21.760That Forever Canada, the largest federalist organization in this campaign, did not have to apply with election finance law is besides the point.
00:36:32.100If the Remain side wins, the independent side has to respect that.
00:36:36.540But like in any election where you lose, you are not required to disband your political party and never try again.
00:36:44.160That means that independent supporters in the UCP have to accept that, and they have to accept working within the UCP if that's where they want to be.
00:36:50.960but the federalist side of the UCP is in no position to expel independence supporters.
00:36:57.320Unity for the UCP was hard fought, and it shouldn't be given away that easily.
00:37:05.660One more nonspecific question to the Remain side.
00:37:09.000Does a big Remain win help or hurt Alberta's leverage on equalization, pipelines, and the emissions cap?
00:37:17.980But this seems to be one of the major arguments for the Leave side, that we need the leverage, just vote for the leverage. And I reject that argument. Alberta is a major part of the economic strength of this country. We're 5 million people and we have substantial constitutional jurisdiction on our own. As many of the, as Jason has referred to, we've won a number of important court cases that changed the country.
00:37:44.340I do not think that if we vote to remain, that that in any way hurts our leverage.
00:37:50.640And in fact, it potentially makes it stronger, because we'll receive more investment and more prosperity in this province.
00:37:59.480What leverage have you had over pipelines the past few months?
00:40:16.420Exact same question to the Remain side. If Remain wins, should the Alberta
00:40:20.420Prevention Plan and the Provincial Police Force still go ahead one minute?
00:40:23.420Well, I was going to say ditto, except the last sentence. Bruce is absolutely right.
00:40:26.420Why are we talking about this radical divisive, massively risky prospect of tearing the country apart when we haven't even begun to exercise the full range of our constitutional powers? He's absolutely right.
00:40:40.420By the way, coming out of the Fair Deal panel, we began the work on assessing the viability of a provincial police and pension plan.
00:40:48.420And I believe that a pension plan would be the single, the Alberta pension plan would be the single biggest fiscal win that this province could make.
00:40:57.320But those should be on the ballot right now.
00:41:02.160Because all the polls indicate that large majorities of Albertans are opposed to both ideas.
00:41:07.400So why do you think they're actually going to accept the radical option of total rupture when Albertans still have not yet been persuaded about the prudence of developing our own constitutional powers, such as provincial police and pensions?
00:41:22.240Let's do this the smart way, incrementally.
00:41:24.940You need to persuade people on incremental progress and deepening our provincial autonomy.
00:41:31.780I think we can, but it takes hard work.