Western Standard - September 02, 2022


HANNAFORD Sovereignty Act is all politics, nothing about law


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

134.10466

Word count

680

Sentence count

56

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Nigel Hannevoort argues that if Alberta were not already part of Canada, who would sign up on today s terms of Confederation? 1. A better deal in Confederation for Alberta 2. Better deal in confederation for Canada 3. Straight talk about equalization

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The people who say Daniel Smith's Sovereignty Act is unconstitutional may be dead right,
00:00:06.320 but that's the whole point of it. It's not a law. It's a political document, an attention-getter,
00:00:12.080 the kind of stick in the ear you use when all else has failed. And Albertans have tried all else.
00:00:19.680 Premiers Jim Prentice, Rachel Notley, and Jason Kenney all have banged on Ottawa's door
00:00:25.440 to none of them has it been opened. It's time to try something else. Let's face it,
00:00:31.120 if Alberta were not already part of Canada, who would sign up on today's Terms of Confederation?
00:00:37.840 Three things about that. First, the sheer unfair distribution of cost and benefit alone has been
00:00:44.320 staggering. Since the mid-60s, Alberta has sent two-thirds of a trillion dollars more to Ottawa
00:00:53.040 than it has got back in transfer payments. Do the maths. That averages out to more than $14,000
00:01:01.280 for a family of four every year for 60 years. Who would vote for that?
00:01:07.760 But we could shrug it off because what made Alberta strong and what made it possible
00:01:12.480 as one of Canada's smaller provinces to bear the national equalization burden almost alone some years
00:01:19.520 was its highly efficient energy industry. Which leads to the second thing. Since they took power
00:01:26.800 in 2015, with their climate change fixation, the Trudeau liberals have been trying to kill Alberta's
00:01:33.760 energy industry. You know, the No Pipelines Act, the No Tankers Act, the cancellation of the Northern
00:01:40.640 Gateway Pipeline, the crucifixion of Energy East on a regulatory cross, carbon taxes, and more carbon taxes,
00:01:48.800 and always more restrictions, more requirements, and targets for the beleaguered oil and gas industry
00:01:55.040 to meet. Mr Trudeau says he intends to phase out the oil sands. Believe him. And God forbid that we
00:02:05.920 should give Germany a hand by selling them Alberta gas. No business case for that. So here's the thing. The
00:02:14.000 Fed's used to skim the cream and half the milk from Alberta's pail, but they still left half the pail,
00:02:20.960 and Alberta had the highest standard of living outside downtown Toronto. But that's going to change.
00:02:28.720 For Mr Trudeau to get what he wants, Albertans must become poor. Many of us already know what that feels
00:02:35.680 like. Head offices quitting the province, tens of thousands of energy workers laid off, and tens of
00:02:42.400 billions in cancelled investments. Get used to it. If Mr Trudeau has his way, that's our future.
00:02:53.280 But here's the third thing. Do you ever get the feeling it's personal? That the liberals just don't
00:02:59.280 like Albertans? Remember Mr Trudeau being interviewed in French while Mr Harper was in office, and he said,
00:03:06.880 Canada isn't doing well right now because it's Albertans who control our community and 1.00
00:03:12.720 socio-democratic agenda. It doesn't work. Really. Maybe it's our pickup trucks. But again, believe him.
00:03:22.160 Now, it's not that Albertan governments haven't tried to push back. Jim Prentiss and later Rachel
00:03:28.320 Notley tried to obtain social license. Premier Kenney asked for and received a mandate from Albertans
00:03:34.880 to make Ottawa talk about equalization. But none of this went anywhere. So, how do you get Ottawa's
00:03:45.600 attention? Maybe with a big fat political crisis. Danielle Smith's Sovereignty Act may not be 1.00
00:03:54.400 constitutional. Hard to say until we see it. But it would be a political document, pure and simple,
00:04:02.000 intended to embarrass Ottawa and to force change. That is, a better deal in confederation for Alberta.
00:04:10.800 Now that makes a ton of sense. Let's see. Let's pass it. Let the Government of Canada signal that it
00:04:19.840 doesn't want to play. Proceed as if it were signed. Establish an Alberta police force. Maybe start
00:04:26.880 collecting our own taxes. Do things our own way. Then, if nobody is paying attention, and only if
00:04:34.400 nobody is paying attention, do what Quebec does. Invoke the Clarity Act. That would start a conversation.
00:04:43.200 And the conversation would start with straight talk about equalization. For the Western Standard,
00:04:51.120 I'm Nigel Hannevoort.
00:04:58.880 You can become a Western Standard member for just $10 a month or $99 a year for unlimited access.