00:00:00.000I'm sitting down today with Alberta lawyer Jeffrey Rath.
00:00:29.680Jeffrey Rath is one of the leaders in the Alberta independence movement, and he has been in court quite a bit over the years as regards citizens initiative petitions to launch a referendum.
00:00:42.260As many or most of you know, the initial attempts to have a citizens-initiated referendum on Alberta independence with a clear question was disallowed by two court decisions or injunctions from Indigenous groups who were able to block it on the very strange grounds that they had not yet been consulted.
00:01:03.480but how are we supposed to consult indigenous groups on independence if we haven't yet decided
00:01:10.280as a body politic in Alberta that we want to pursue independence it's it's messy and it's fraught
00:01:15.680as a result we have a very strange and more convoluted question that's going to go to
00:01:21.960Albertans on October 19th essentially asking Albertans in a referendum if they want to have
00:01:26.760another referendum that would be binding in the future on independence it's a mess and I want to
00:01:33.120make a bit of sense with it so I've got Jeffrey Rath with us in studio today here downtown Calgary
00:01:39.000thanks for joining us Jeff yeah well thanks for having me on Derek so you're a lawyer I'm not so
00:01:44.900I get a bit of a handicap for perhaps being a maybe a prison study on this issue but
00:01:49.480I want to hear your side about why you don't think it's necessary to word the referendum
00:01:58.320this way, essentially a referendum to hold a future referendum. You argue, if I understand
00:02:05.240correctly, that the two injunctions that were placed against counting or verifying the Citizens
00:02:12.920Initiative referendum petition, that those injunctions would not stop it somehow.
00:02:19.800Well, just to be clear, the first, you know, there was an injunction, but it was, you know,
00:02:24.200it was very temporary. The second decision of Justice Leonard actually quashed the decision
00:02:29.400of the electoral officer to allow the petition in the first place, right, which leads to some
00:02:35.540very convoluted reasoning, which is now the subject of not one but two appeals to the Alberta
00:02:39.780Court of Appeal, one by Mitch Sylvester and one by the government of Alberta. The first decision
00:02:45.680of Justice Feesby's, again, was not an injunction, but it was a decision that in effect said that
00:02:52.240the referendum question being proposed by Mitch Sylvester was not allowable under the wording
00:03:01.980of the Citizens Initiative Act at the time, Section 2, sub 4, which, you know, had some,
00:03:09.860you know, strange wording about, you know, the impact of a proposal, you know, on the Constitution.
00:03:17.040And of course, what Justice Feasby did with the aid of two very left wing, you know, amicus curiae that had been hand selected by Elections Alberta to come and argue against Mitch Sylvester's question going forward said, oh, you have to look at the absolute end result of the process, specifically that it would lead to, you know, the independence of Alberta from Canada.
00:03:40.720And by definition, that's unconstitutional. Of course, what Justice Feasby refused to acknowledge
00:03:46.560is that by definition, that would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada.
00:03:51.460And by definition, any legal amendment to the Constitution of Canada is not constitutional.
00:03:58.040It's constitutional and lawful, right? So, you know, Justice Feasby's decision to start off with
00:04:03.640was based on a faulty legal premise and faulty legal reasoning, right? And even in Feasby's
00:04:10.140decision itself at paragraph 247 that says, this case has not decided that First Nations have a
00:04:16.800veto over Alberta independence, nor has it considered whether or at what stage of the
00:04:22.200referendum process Alberta might have a duty to consult with First Nations. Treaty rights,
00:04:27.780and this is, again, we say that strictly speaking wrong on the part of Justice Feasby,
00:04:32.180would be contravened by Alberta independence, but whether such contraventions must be justified
00:04:38.240or might be justified has not been considered because that's not required under section
00:04:43.180two sub four of the citizens initiative act right and then he goes on to say which is really
00:04:48.540interesting because this paragraph we put it directly to justice leonard in her case
00:04:52.740completely ignored by her this is another ground of appeal justice fees be said nothing in this
00:04:58.480decision should be understood to mean that the constitution cannot be amended or that alberta
00:05:04.220cannot hold a referendum on separation. The decision only stands for the proposition that
00:05:09.420Alberta and the CIA did not give citizens the power to initiate a referendum question
00:05:15.180on the independence from Canada. And of course, Feesby said directly in his decision,
00:05:20.480as did Justice Leonard, that it was completely open to Premier Smith to call Mitch Sylvester's
00:05:27.880question under section one of the referendum act just not permissible for a process under the
00:05:34.460citizens initiative act to lead to that same result i mean it's very convoluted legal reasoning we say
00:05:40.620it's wrong and that's why we're going to the court of appeal but that's what we're dealing with and
00:05:45.180of course what both of these judges also completely ignored right was and gee we were brought up in
00:05:52.280Canada under, you know, what we understood as lawyers to be what's called, you know,
00:05:56.760the system of common law, legal precedent, stare decisis, where you have binding precedent in
00:06:03.500Canada. Well, the leading case, the binding precedent in Canada on independence referendums
00:06:09.640comes directly from the Supreme Court of Canada in the secession reference, which both of those
00:06:15.360learned justices completely ignored in the context of their decisions, because the Supreme Court
00:06:22.180in that case, in the secession reference, stated clearly that no one's rights are at issue
00:06:29.540in a referendum on independence or on secession. And they said that the reason that no one's rights
00:06:36.300are at issue is that a referendum on independence, including a yes vote, is merely consultative.
00:06:43.540And even a yes vote on independence, where it happened in Quebec, does not affect the
00:06:48.500Constitution does not affect anybody's constitutional rights, and that constitutional
00:06:53.240rights themselves are not engaged until all of the provinces, the government of Canada,
00:06:59.640and according to Section 35.1 of the Constitution Act, the First Nations of Alberta and Canada
00:07:06.960are invited to a constitutional table under Section 35.1 to have this consultation with
00:07:15.260First Nations over the devolution of federal power to the provinces under section 35.1 of
00:07:21.620the Constitution Act. So we'll circle back to actually where I was pursuing on the original
00:07:26.080question. I want to actually follow down this rabbit hole first while we're on it. Well, I just
00:07:30.100wanted to give you the legal case. Yeah. The way I understood this was that this federal court in
00:07:37.040Alberta, was in a sense ruling against the secession reference case of the Supreme Court.
00:07:45.740And law courts can't rule against higher courts, but in this case, it seemed like the secession
00:07:52.300reference case talked about clear questions, clear majority. These things were reflected
00:07:56.760at least somewhat in the Clarity Act that came after. We talk a lot more about the Clarity Act
00:08:01.700rather than the secession reference, but it came from the secession reference.
00:08:07.040So, you know, the Supreme Court in the secession reference said we have to have a clear majority on a clear question, and then that starts a duty from Ottawa and the other provinces to negotiate as if this was essentially a super constitutional amendment, more or less.
00:08:22.040But then this ruling seemed to ignore that, saying like, no, you can't have a clear question. It doesn't matter if you get a clear majority on a clear question, you're just more or less not allowed to do that.
00:08:32.360that's how i'm understanding it how did you did you see it as essentially the lower court
00:08:37.000ruling against the higher court absolutely absolutely and of course i even told justice
00:08:41.600feasby when we were in front of him the first time because i was citing um the secession
00:08:45.660reference and saying look whether you like it or not you're bound by it and i jokingly in court
00:08:49.820said i hope i don't have to cite master fundac to you on the principles of stare decisis and
00:08:55.060justice feasby laughed nobody else in the courtroom about the joke but the joke is we had a master in
00:08:58.960alberta years ago who did not like a higher court decision in alberta and of course masters at that
00:09:04.320time they're they now call the motions judges but masters at that time were the lowest level
00:09:07.960of the uh you know of the federally appointed judiciary in alberta and he you know he went
00:09:12.740on to a great explanation of the system of stare decisis and he says you know it's a system of
00:09:16.820precedent in effect the higher courts you know by by uh virtue of their precedence within the system
00:09:23.500set the rules for the you know the lower courts um in effect we have a pecking order and little
00:09:29.520peckers can't tell big peckers what to do i swear to god that's written into a court decision in
00:09:34.700the province of albert word for word i'm sure no we are exactly that it was exactly that so for
00:09:40.200years law students and lawyers we'd all laugh at one another and laugh with one another and say
00:09:44.060well i hope i don't have to cite fun duck on story decisis so but that's effectively what
00:09:49.140happened. We have both, we have two justices of the court of King's bench for, I say, political
00:09:53.680reasons, rendering political judgments, not legal decisions, right, have decided to ignore the
00:09:59.820Supreme Court of Canada, where the Supreme Court in the secession reference says that no legal
00:10:05.440rights are impacted by a referendum on independence. And that becomes important in the context of
00:10:10.740consultation law, because there's not a right at law for First Nations people to be consulted.
00:10:15.880I mean, I pioneered all of this law. I argued these cases at the Supreme Court of Canada. I developed this law, right? I know it better than probably, you know, 99.9% of the lawyers in this country. You don't have an obligation to consult as a government unless a right is going to be potentially infringed.
00:10:32.880infringed. Well, if the Supreme Court itself says that rights are not engaged even by a yes vote
00:10:40.100in a referendum, therefore there's no rights infringement and there's no obligation to consult.
00:10:46.780So Justice Leonard, you know, we obviously made those submissions clear as day to Justice Leonard,
00:10:51.560both in writing and orally in court. She completely ignored the law to find this weird,
00:10:58.040amorphous ongoing duty to consult whether a right was engaged or not because we said to her tell us
00:11:04.760what right is infringed right to hunt trap fish or even take the broadest right under treaty eight
00:11:10.380the right to carry on your modent way of life throughout the track surrendered as if you never
00:11:14.100entered into treaty by a bunch of Albertans putting their signatures on a piece of paper
00:11:18.000to tell the government how they feel about whether a question should be asked right we both agree
00:11:23.440that these were bad decisions and that there's a very good chance that this gets overturned on
00:11:29.080appeal to higher courts. It would go directly to the Supreme Court at this level, right?
00:11:32.620No, no, we're off to the Alberta Court of Appeal. And in fact, I'm in the Alberta Court of Appeal
00:11:36.840next Thursday, the 18th. We're applying for a stay of Justice Leonard's decision
00:11:42.360so that the signatures of 301,620 Albertans can be counted by Elections Alberta and have that
00:11:49.680result transmitted to the attorney general as per the statute okay but we're in agreement that
00:11:54.140these were pretty at best flimsy decisions uh that more or less we have to consult before
00:11:59.940verifying signatures bizarre stuff our position is that yeah the decision the the the justice
00:12:05.540leonard's decision is legally indefensible so that then raises the point that regardless of what
00:12:12.880reasoning was given in there they've already made too bad there was the the temporary injunction and
00:12:18.540then the bigger injunction they've already justice leonard's already demonstrated that this is the
00:12:24.780way he's going to rule um she's she's going to she's going to roll um that then raises i think
00:12:32.000the very real prospect that if if if she's already made these bad decisions that you know if if say
00:12:37.920the premier smith had put uh the original alberta prosperity project question the clear more concise
00:12:43.800question the clarity act compliant question yes yeah that if that had been put uh as a government
00:12:49.160referendum uh question rather than a citizen's initiative uh question it likely would have got
00:12:54.920struck down to on some other grounds that it just would have faced endless uh endless injunctions
00:13:00.920and we never would have actually got to a question in well you know that would be that would be
00:13:05.560dependent on whether or not another politically motivated judge was appointed to the to the to
00:13:10.360the case right I mean there's lots of you know here for me there are lots of good judges in the
00:13:15.340province of Alberta there's a lot of justices on the you know on the courts that I have you know
00:13:19.960an inordinate amount of respect for and you know in fact I think Justice Feesby is a phenomenal
00:13:24.640justice I have him on other cases but you know on this because it's so emotional and people are so
00:13:30.200you know concerned about Alberta leaving Canada and they're just it's such a fraught issue for
00:13:35.700them. I just don't think people can think clearly when it comes to these issues. But even that,
00:13:40.580you know, that being said, again, look at Justice Feesby's decision. You know, he literally says at
00:13:45.360the end that his decision was extremely limited, right? His decision, sorry, at the end literally
00:13:52.300says that he made, decided no constitutional issues, decided nothing to do with First Nations
00:13:58.200rights or anything else. He actually said at paragraph 249, after writing 61 pages of what
00:14:05.340we call obiter dicta or you know things that don't aren't binding or don't count says nothing
00:14:10.420in this decision should be understood to mean that the constitution cannot be amended or that
00:14:15.620alberta cannot hold a referendum on separation this decision only stands for the proposition
00:14:20.780that alberta and the cia did not give citizens the power to initiate a referendum on the question of
00:14:27.280independence from canada yeah you've cited that already and i that is a powerful point but
00:14:32.360But again, if we've already seen the courts make these poor rulings already, there's not much time because October 19th is not very far away.
00:14:42.940It seems to stand that the courts will be open to these endless injunctions.
00:14:47.680Citizens initiative, called by citizens initiative or called directly by the government, one way or another, they'll just be pummeled with these injunctions no matter what.
00:14:56.100And so that is the argument the Alberta government is advancing to say that this is the best question you can get away with in this time.
00:15:05.140I'm actually surprised that the First Nations haven't brought an application to have Daniel Smith's decision to have a question, to have a question quashed.
00:15:13.520Because, you know, you and I were having a private conversation before, you know, before we sat down in the studio and, you know, you made the excellent point that the first referendum question from Quebec, the 1980 question was effectively, even though it was much more convoluted than that, was effectively a question to have a question, you know, et cetera.
00:15:30.500Right. So, you know, if a citizen's initiative question, you know, initiating this process, right, could be struck because of a lack of consultation with First Nations, that's a Clarity Act compliant question.
00:15:44.520Why aren't they running to court to have the question to have a question struck? Because it's the same thing. It's initiating a process that they would say there's no coming back from.
00:15:53.920Because quite frankly, if we succeed on the question to have a question, then Danielle is between a rock and a hard place politically.1.00
00:16:00.760You know, if she campaigns against us and we win, she might have to resign as premier either, you know, or, you know, call the question.0.95
00:16:07.680I think a lot of us that are, you know, inside baseball politics don't think there's any way in hell Danielle will call a referendum question in an election year on independence.
00:16:15.400But that's a different subject, right?
00:16:17.860So, you know, I'm surprised that the First Nations
00:16:20.440haven't run to court to try to quash this decision.
00:18:43.240And there are conservative federalists in Alberta who are real conservatives.
00:18:46.580But, you know, but I think a lot of them are very dangerously cheering these injunctions.
00:18:53.340And you've noticed they're very quiet on it because they understand that if these injunctions were to become precedent and somehow be baked into case law here, then they understand this.
00:19:03.880Well, we can literally never build a pipeline.
00:19:07.500As a treaty and aboriginal rights lawyer, this Leonard decision means that every time you go to court, you're going to win because you only have two things to prove.
00:19:15.080One, that there's a treaty relationship, e.g. that the treaty exists, which nobody denies.
00:19:20.200And two, that your client wasn't consulted.
00:19:22.220like there's millions of things that happen every year in this product like we're not even
00:19:25.680consultation we want to say open a new oil sands mine or or or a coal mine we're talking about
00:19:31.240citizens initiative with that that's going well yeah why why they weren't consulted they weren't
00:19:35.240consulted with regard to the core blunt petition the core blunt petition i mean that would certainly
00:19:40.680affect uh treaty rights in areas where uh you know saying no coal mining on the east slope of the
00:19:45.680rockies that surely touches on some treaty rights well should they not be consulted there so i think
00:19:50.380federalist conservatives who are cheering this i think they're they're very quietly knowing like
00:19:57.460i'm glad the injunction is here for now but i hope even they hope it doesn't stand the uh on
00:20:03.780appeal because they understand how economically destructive and socially destructive uh these
00:20:08.520standing on appeal would be it would mean no more economic development we couldn't even build a road
00:20:12.540well it's just bad law right it's just really bad law and i mean the funniest thing is too and i
00:20:17.320wanted, this is just another passage I wanted to take your viewers to. Justice Leonard basically
00:20:22.300quashed the decision because of this lack of, or, you know, the petition, because there was lack of
00:20:27.840consultation, right? So in paragraph 232, she says, nevertheless, I've already found that the
00:20:33.820framework of the amended CIA provides that upon the CEO verifying the second proposal complies
00:20:39.640with the statutory requirements, including verifying that the signature thresholds are met,
00:20:45.240it's mandatory for the executive to undertake the subsequent actions outlined in the amended cia in
00:20:51.280the referendum act but what she's forgetting is and this this is preceded by a discussion
00:20:56.540of the fact that the chief electoral officer as you know is a former mla is a officer of the
00:21:02.320legislature he's an administrative decision maker so by definition the ceo has no duty to consult
00:21:08.860or obligation to consult she agreed with that right but what she did bizarrely in paragraph 232
00:21:15.720was she showed exactly where the government's obligation to consult would arise and that's
00:21:20.820only upon the counting and verification of the signatures so if anybody prevented the government
00:21:26.480of Alberta from consulting with First Nations Justice Leonard prevented the government of
00:21:32.000Alberta from consulting with First Nations by stopping the process. Well we're in agreement
00:21:36.240that this is a crazy decision it seems unlikely to stand on appeal at the end of the day but we
00:21:41.280know how slow these appeal processes are i mean you are going to court very soon yeah next week
00:21:45.280but uh these things off you know say you know alberta taking the federal government to court
00:21:49.880on the the federal carbon tax and things these take years and years and i think there's there's
00:21:58.020there's a desire to to get a sense from albertans which way we want to go and that's that's why
00:22:03.440you know there's there's a rush to get it on for october when we're going to be having these other
00:22:08.440government referendums on immigration and constitutional reforms that'll never happen
00:22:12.840these kinds of things um so i know when smith announced uh this question a lot of us were
00:22:20.160disappointed because it's it's not clear it doesn't comply with the clarity act but
00:22:24.800some would say it's the best we can have you disagree with that you think we can go straight
00:22:30.960to a clarity act question that was originally put in the citizens initiative it just has been
00:22:35.160called as a government question rather than right section one of the referendum act so you then you
00:22:40.760know you've said that smith has got to go we you know we can't trust her on this issue anymore0.98
00:22:45.740she's she's clearly too far on the federalist side um perhaps but that would be fighting a
00:22:55.240two-front war at the same time oh sure and i and i know as a german it's now ingrained deep in your
00:23:00.620no two front wars they're really hard and they yeah uh yeah i mean you know we got world cup
00:23:07.200right now and it's like we can't play brazil and england at the same time we can play one at a
00:23:11.320time so the way i'm seeing what you're proposing is that the independence movement would be fighting
00:23:16.940a two front war one on the referendum question and then at the same time an insurgency i mean
00:23:22.660the insurgency against kenny worked but that was a one front war it was just everybody against kenny
00:23:26.540there was no referendum at the same there was not like there was a referendum on covid going on at
00:23:30.200the same time sure so i don't know i i i'd put it to you that that fighting a two-front war to
00:23:36.160remove smith from the leadership at the same time before the referendum is done is a recipe to make
00:23:41.300sure because the federalist side is more organized more unified better funded uh it's got big business
00:23:47.980big labor almost all the media they've got the stronger cards going into this and and they're
00:23:56.880you know beating the independent side in the polls right now how much is debatable
00:24:00.480but pretty consistently ahead in the polls so while taking on that mammoth you know taking
00:24:07.600on something that powerful uh to also then fight smith at the same time that seems to me to be a
00:24:13.360recipe to probably not win that well you know and as far as that goes it's like i think we need to
00:24:18.720back up a little bit i mean i was extremely hard on premier smith after her announcement of the
00:24:24.800the question to have a question. And the reason was, as far as I was concerned, she looked Albertans
00:24:28.660right in the eye and she lied to us. She knew full well that both judges said that she could0.97
00:24:32.680call the question under section one of the referendum act. Her own people told her that,
00:24:36.420the two judges told her that. What she said in that announcement was simply untrue. And for a
00:24:42.280lot of us, this was just the fourth or fifth lie that she's told to us. And it was just a step too
00:24:50.400far you know like it was like you know when she got that uh 91 percent level of support at the
00:24:55.380red deer uh agm you know a couple years ago that was on the basis and a lot of us were involved in
00:25:00.820whipping votes for i was you know getting people that were on the black hat side saying hey look
00:25:04.820gotta vote for danielle she's promised us that they're going to amend the um uh you know the
00:25:09.180bill of rights to protect our gun right you know our rights to our firearms from federal incursion
00:25:14.220etc etc she lied to us they didn't they didn't actually amend the bill of rights to protect our
00:25:19.100gun rights they weakened them because had they amended the bill of rights to say that your rights
00:25:23.360to own firearms in a province are only subject to provincial law under section 92 13 we all would
00:25:30.420have been happy but they just said generally oh your gun rights are subject to law so again massive
00:25:34.940lie misled a bunch of us why do you think mitch is so unhappy because this is like the second or
00:25:39.740third time that she's promised things to us and established in the back so i mean it's not you
00:25:45.120know but i mean whether getting back to your two front war question you know i don't necessarily
00:25:49.880agree with you i think we need to get focused on winning the question to have a question
00:25:53.220um i think it's eminently winnable you know notwithstanding but can you win both at the
00:25:57.920same time well no i'm kind of acknowledging um or conceding the point that i understand your
00:26:02.680position on the two front war thing and i think we all need to focus on uh you know on winning
00:26:07.280the question to have a question and with any luck that'll force danielle to resign anyway0.99
00:26:10.980you know and again you know through this process when people see her campaigning against alberta0.99
00:26:16.340because look who she's in bed with now oh my god nenshi lukasic kenny carney i mean could she
00:26:23.400chain herself to a more motley crew i mean oh my goodness right i want to come i'll come back to0.95
00:26:30.880that point um but you know you said that she she lied when she announced that uh question
00:26:36.340at the risk of sounding naive i at least i make an attempt um you know with with the experience i
00:26:46.320have of trying to um give the benefit of the doubt to those i disagree with and it's not always
00:26:55.540deserved but we often don't do this in the political arena with those we were on the
00:27:00.020a different side from is give them the benefit of the doubt that they believe what they're saying
00:27:04.000Now, that's very often not the case because politicians, even the good ones, lie or at the very least bend the truth.
00:27:12.000But, you know, we both know Keith Wilson, who is a staunch independent supporter.
00:27:18.180But I know you have your differences with him.
00:27:20.000Well, just on this one issue, frankly.
00:27:23.160So but on this issue, he I think he does tend to agree.
00:27:28.020You know, so he's another lawyer in the independent space like yourself.
00:27:31.020I think you've even jointly argued cases.
00:27:33.020No, no, Keith. No, we haven't. But Keith and I are, Keith and I, you know, are friendly. And the only thing we disagree on is, you know, he's actually described himself to me as a Daniel Smith fanboy, which is fine. I mean, he loves Daniel Smith and will never say anything bad about Daniel Smith and will always defend Daniel Smith.
00:27:48.520I'm at a point now where I honestly believe if push comes to shove with regard to independence, whether it's negotiating from a principled position on behalf of Alberta, you know, if necessary, you know, issuing a universal declaration of independence, whatever it is, Danielle is not to be trusted and is not the person that we need in office.
00:28:08.020So my point is, Keith Wilson, you know, who's on the different side of this about, you know, could she have gotten away with putting forward, you know, the Clarity Act compliant question that was originally proposed in the APP Citizens Initiative petition.
00:28:24.280He also thinks that the courts are so mocked right now that they probably would have gotten an injunction against it.
00:28:29.440And so I don't take it as granted, I do take it as granted that every politician lies at least a bit, or at least bends the truth, you know, to some extent, always, even the very best. But I'm not necessarily convinced that she believed that, yes, I can hold this question, and I'm not going to, and I'm going to lie and say we can't, and to do this.
00:28:55.800I don't know. We have really, really, really good sources in Danielle's office.
00:29:00.500And we were we were told. Hold on. Just go ahead. Sorry.
00:29:02.980Just that I would say that there is there's at least a possibility that she believed the Wilson side that, hey, the courts are going to have already made two bad rulings.
00:29:16.340They're probably going to make a third if we do that. So this is our only path forward so that it's not necessarily a lie.
00:29:21.680It might be a question that you're unsatisfied with and unhappy with, but it's not necessarily an act of dishonesty.
00:29:30.860She's got too much of a track record.0.99
00:29:32.180I mean, from stabbing every member of the Wild Rose Party in the back when she crossed the floor before our election, which led to, you know, Premier Notley, you know, which led to Premier Notley in the NDP governing Alberta.
00:29:44.060And, you know, the, you know, the example of the amendment to the Bill of Rights that she screwed us on. She promised us a provincial firearms license last summer. She screwed us on that. You know, and this, you know, what she did on this question after promising, you know, 301,620 Albertans that if they go out and bust their asses through a freezing cold winter, wait in line to sign petitions, you know, do everything that we did in accordance with the rules.0.99
00:30:10.700we almost delivered double the required amount that she would put our question on a ballot.
00:30:14.860She didn't. And she knew damn well, the two judges said she could, but she wouldn't. And we believe1.00
00:30:20.640it's, you know, and again, you know, we have sort of good sources in her office. We were told that
00:30:24.780from somebody that was in the room with her and Carney, that she promised Mark Carney that there
00:30:28.600would be no referendum on independence in Alberta this year. And this is her way of keeping the
00:30:33.560promise. So, you know, I just don't buy it. I don't think that this was done in good faith.
00:30:38.600I think it's all part of a, you know, a political machination that's, you know, come out of
00:30:43.140her comm shop and out of, you know, you know, the fertile mind of Robert Anderson, chief
00:31:32.420and then we tell everybody that supports independence which is danielle's base right
00:31:37.080well if nenshi gets elected independence is going to be dead for four years right so you better vote
00:31:43.400for danny or i'll kill the baby right that's what i think they're doing it's you know it's i think0.84
00:31:48.100it's pretty cynical and it's pretty obvious that that's what they're doing from our from my0.96
00:31:51.860perspective so i want to circle back to something we were touching on and something we uh we talked
00:31:55.760about in our uh our quick chat over coffee before we came on here is uh you know i i was very and
00:32:02.820i'm still unhappy about the question i'd like like really the clarity the question that was in the
00:32:08.180uh the petition was uh compliant with the clarity act uh it was straightforward unambiguous this
00:32:15.280is less good but the more i've thought about it the more i think that it is likely that we would
00:32:21.520have two referendums anyway. The wording of each one could change. But, you know, so we were talking
00:32:28.900about the 1980 referendum in Quebec put forward by René Levesque at the time. It was essentially
00:32:35.660a referendum to have a referendum. It was more, even more convoluted than this one. It was just
00:32:39.360like, you know, do you give the Quebec government the right or a mandate to negotiate sovereignty
00:32:44.360in this new weird thing with Canada that would result in kind of sovereignty, of which this will
00:32:51.300be ratified in a second referendum so this is a somewhere between the 95 question was even worse
00:32:57.680if you read it pursuant to this agreement and this statute and if you hold it up to the light
00:33:03.520sideways it might get us there and if you play it backwards uh yeah yeah your fall is dead yeah
00:33:09.420yeah and so i think you know it is the great credit of the alberta independence movement that
00:33:13.520it's like yeah we want none of that crap we want a straight question let's just do it yeah um and
00:33:18.380we're very simple folk yeah yeah but then then the courts the federally appointed the federal0.71
00:33:23.400liberal appointed judges here say no you can't do that because that would be no heaven forbid you do
00:33:28.280that because that's what right at it yeah it's like oh they called us on it so um yeah but you
00:33:35.540know as i've tried to game this out it seems that you know we have a referendum one way or another
00:33:41.520to begin you could interpret this as a reference a question to have another question q2q but it
00:33:49.020also could be interpreted as okay there is now a mandate to pursue this and that means beginning
00:33:53.120negotiations now one way or another i don't think ottawa ever agrees to independence clarity act or
00:33:58.840no clarity oh i'm with you 100 it's not happening regardless we've already heard carney backpedaling
00:34:03.100on a clear majority and yeah he's going to decide what's a clear majority even if there was a clear
00:34:08.240majority is going to be like 66 percent it's going to be a super majority even if it was 99
00:34:12.780percent um they simply cannot agree to let alberta go because it would bankrupt canada it would
00:34:18.040probably start a chain reaction because quebec probably leaves oh yeah how dare they leave first
00:34:22.740the whole thing but then quebec would leave because then come back to saskatchewan would
00:34:27.520join us they would probably nwt in the yukon yeah so there's just no way they can agree even if we
00:34:33.040had a super majority if even it was virtually unanimous um so i think it would probably come
00:34:38.580to a then a second referendum anyway uh i disagree though because i think your entire line of
00:34:45.340argument is premised on the fact of you know in quebec there's going to be a second referendum
00:34:49.020because of the wording of the 1980 question or the 1995 question in this case we were pursuing
00:34:54.380a crystal clear binary yes no question with that complied with the clarity act and if canada
00:34:59.920Our strategy and our thinking going forward was always then, if you say no to this, that it's clearly Clarity Act compliant and we have a clear majority, which for us is 50% plus one, if you refuse to negotiate, the Supreme Court itself said in the context of bad faith that a UDI could follow and that might actually be lawful under international law with international recognition.
00:35:27.060And off the bat, I mean, the only country we need to recognize this right now is the United States of America.
00:35:31.820And oddly enough, I feel like Quebec would probably recognize Alberta independence as a provincial government.
00:35:36.500Depending on who's in power, I think they probably would.
00:35:38.560And now maybe if we get a conservative premier in British Columbia, we'd have, you know, maybe a conservative premier in British Columbia would also recognize Alberta.
00:35:45.760It really changes the constitution.0.97