00:01:36.420That's right. The premier who was supposed to make Ottawa answer to Alberta became deeply invested in convincing Alberta to trust Ottawa.
00:01:45.220I, for one, will not be convinced to mistake her optimism for our security.
00:01:50.120we were supposed to be addressing the conditions that made Alberta vulnerable in the first place.
00:01:56.300The uncertainty, the political interference,
00:02:00.320the endless requirement to negotiate our way through federal obstacles
00:02:04.680before we can turn our own resources into prosperity.
00:02:08.680The structural deficiencies in Confederation that continue to create these conditions.
00:02:15.040Now the sales pitch revolves around what Mark Carney might approve.
00:02:20.120Today, Carney designated the proposed Pacific Link Pipeline a project of national interest.
00:02:28.200That advances it through a, quote-unquote, faster federal process, with the government targeting September 2027 for the remaining approvals.
00:02:38.880This faster federal process will cost taxpayers approximately $4 billion.
00:02:44.180Apparently, they're going to get that back once the oil starts flowing through it.
00:02:47.520But, I mean, that is if the oil starts flowing through it.
00:03:31.720Project here, an agreement there, another announcement that we're making progress.
00:03:36.960Meanwhile, where does this leave the next project?
00:03:40.320And the one after that. Does every major investment in Alberta need its own political bargain with our savior, Mark Carney?
00:03:49.180If this pipeline gets built, celebrate the pipeline.
00:03:52.120But do not tell me that securing special treatment for one project has fixed the conditions that made the special treatment necessary.
00:03:59.600No shovels are in the ground. Nothing's been built.
00:04:01.920The fiscal imbalances grow with every federal spending announcement that a ribbon-cutting cabinet minister gets to announce.
00:04:11.840Federal liberals are still federal liberals, no matter how desperate the Alberta legislature is to fold the entire government into Mark Carney's open arms.
00:04:20.680I understand why she wants an agreement.
00:04:22.840Any premier should pursue new markets for Alberta energy.
00:04:26.120If she gets a pipeline built to the Pacific, like I said, she deserves credit.0.53
00:04:30.740but Albertans are entitled to demand something more substantial
00:04:34.380than confidence in her relationship with the Prime Minister.
00:04:37.800What happens when that relationship stops being useful to Mark Carney?
00:04:42.980Smith recently defended staying at the negotiating table
00:04:45.840by asking why Alberta would walk away when it was finally winning.
00:04:49.740In that same appearance, she acknowledged that a future federal government,
00:05:22.840Alberta's future extends beyond Mark Carney's time in office, and it extends behind your time in office.
00:05:29.600Businesses making investments that take decades to pay off need a foundation that lasts longer than what could be an unproductive meeting between two politicians.
00:05:39.080And look at what it actually is on paper.
00:05:41.680The May Implementation Agreement sets out Alberta's industrial carbon pricing commitments through 2040.
00:05:46.800On the pipeline, it describes conditional designation, further assessment, and best efforts to deliver a conditions document by September 2027.
00:06:01.200It also makes pipeline construction and the Pathways Carbon Capture Project mutually dependent.
00:06:07.440Alberta has accepted a detailed policy framework, while the pipeline still has consequential hurdles ahead.
00:06:13.500The province's own project page says the construction has not started and could begin as early as, again, September 2027, once consultation and the required approvals and permits are complete.
00:06:26.740There may be progress here, but there is also a considerable distance between progress and oil reaching a new customer.
00:06:34.040Albertans have every right to withhold the victory parade until that distance has been covered.
00:06:39.120And Carney does not have to secretly be plotting against Alberta for this arrangement to become a problem.
00:06:44.800He only has to behave like a politician.
00:06:47.540He has his own voters, his own caucus, his own electoral calculations.
00:06:51.280If keeping Alberta happy becomes more politically expensive than disappointing us, what protects our interests then?
00:06:58.040What happens when the elbows-up trade war with Donald Trump starts to have real economic implications in Ontario?
00:07:04.720It's already starting. Factories are closing.
00:07:07.520despite Doug Ford's efforts to prop them up with taxpayer money,
00:07:10.880which, you know, real conservative look there, Dougie.
00:07:13.680But what happens if the political conditions, you know,
00:07:16.560the ones attached to Carney upholding his end of this unholy Ottawa-Edmonton bargain,
00:19:00.660I just, for whatever reason, think that she has been charmed by Mark Kearney.
00:19:06.580And that despite his track record, despite his public positions,
00:19:12.400the books he's written on climate change and how we have, like, all of that.
00:19:17.140Is everything that he's done up to this point completely bunk?
00:19:20.940Well, I don't know. And I also think that there's internal pressure, that there are senior government officials who hate the concept of independence, even as a leveraged threat.
00:19:33.800They just hate it. They are so proudly patriotic that the concept of being called a separatist makes them freak out.
00:19:44.680and they also sit at the cabinet table so they have a voice in every decision that this government
00:19:51.680makes i think there's 24 cabinet i think there's too many anyways we have a call on the line
00:21:01.960Do I believe that it was an accident that the independent signs were taken down
00:21:07.580and that the no to the nine signs are still up is a accident no but um i think it's hard to i0.98
00:21:16.380i think it's hard to point that one directly at farkas because like it very easily could have
00:21:21.200just been some city worker that took it upon themselves to take the signs down that vehemently
00:21:28.420opposes it but farkas has you know contributed to that attitude he has definitely that's right
00:21:35.300Um, I mean, he, he's, he's creating more tension there than is necessary. And yeah, I don't believe every report that comes out that says that independence will be economically devastating. I do believe that we have to take some time to develop institutions that have longevity.0.59
00:21:58.880uh we do uh one of the things that we need to do is become less reliant on the federal government
00:22:04.900for basic services and and the key way to do that is to just you know do them ourselves like
00:22:11.740we should like the health the canada health act we can get into that um but that's that's like
00:22:17.540like i talked about that earlier like it's another example where the federal government
00:22:21.760sends us money for health care but they've taxed us way more and but we still take the money we
00:22:27.740need that money to spend it on the health care but if they were out of our pockets i think that
00:22:31.660would be a lot easier so i i think that there's a significant constituency of establishment figures
00:22:40.180in this city right and left that have congregated around this concept that we have to defeat the
00:22:47.580independence question damn the consequences it doesn't matter we take whatever we can get right0.99
00:22:54.360now say whatever you can right now let's kill this thing and what it's going to do is it's just0.99
00:23:00.940going to embed the structural deficiencies at a level that makes it harder for them to fix it and
00:23:09.800another thing too is is economically speaking yes our population has grown substantially faster than
00:23:17.720it should and that is a federal immigration issue and smith has put these referendum questions on
00:23:25.080the ballot and i think that she's correct to do so but the fact is that we are going our economy
00:23:33.540and i'm just gonna say it our economy has typically grown faster than the rest of the
00:23:39.760country and that requires a lot of young workers and they come from the rest of the country and
00:23:44.880they they they get jobs that's why we consistently have the youngest population in the country
00:23:49.520and if we have public officials like farkas and and others that are slamming the that are like
00:23:56.260refusing to acknowledge the structural deficiencies because it could weaken this fragile agreement that
00:24:04.100we have with mark carney i mean we're jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop to get a
00:24:07.840single pipeline and by the way the hoops are costing billions of dollars to jump through
00:24:11.340why it costs four billion dollars to get a pipeline approved is beyond me
00:24:15.620i mean i'd like to see that costed but it's we have it it's the the establishment the
00:24:23.220establishment is so fundamentally against this concept that they are doing whatever they can
00:24:28.840to crush it you've got the the mainstream media i mean globe and mail is hammering it uh ctv news
00:24:36.080i can't watch global news like i watch like shows on global sometimes and as soon as the news comes
00:24:41.280on it's like this like you know when you're just sitting there scrolling you're not really watching
00:24:45.220but i have to change channel because something annoys me like you're preaching to the choir on
00:24:50.060that yeah yeah it's frustrating and you you it gets to the point where you just people even my
00:24:56.980mom who's a 72 and a cbc watcher goes no i've listened to all points of view and i'm like i
00:25:02.460know but you're just kidding so you know but we have good discussions but back when the health
00:25:07.640If you were talking about health transfers, there's something there that is a real significant issue.
00:25:13.060It seems like it's something you're keenly interested in.
00:25:31.440and the facilities and so we fall we're falling behind because of that rapid uh growth of our0.90
00:25:40.020we should like they like every single fact like danielle smith when she was shortly after she
00:25:49.900was first elected but it was like very early in her term uh her government passed the provincial
00:25:54.140priorities act the provincial priorities act was designed to look at every federal agreement that
00:25:59.520we have whether it be the health act agreement i don't know what they call that but we did sign
00:26:04.500something like every agreement that we have to just to see how much we get back and how much we
00:26:11.740spent but if you add all of them up that's where you get the massive uh fiscal imbalance numbers
00:26:18.680like equalization i think only accounts for like seven and a half billion a year but it's it is
00:26:23.320it's the it's that four i guess more than four percent on the fiscal imbalance side like again
00:26:29.660we pay 15 16 in federal taxes again i haven't done the numbers in a couple years so this
00:26:34.680has probably changed but like the attitude from the political establishment is that right now
00:26:43.380it's all all pushing to try and crush the independence movement like that's all they
00:26:50.620care about and i she made a statement the other day that you know if we vote yes to the other nine
00:26:57.780that she will have leverage and i i'm not there i think that the independence vote is
00:27:06.400a the biggest chip that we had in the negotiation and i think by crushing that number
00:27:13.640and but and i'm i will comment on the polls like the polls don't look good but they're
00:27:18.560also fluctuating wildly like i'm seeing 35 i'm seeing 22 like if you've got two numbers coming
00:27:23.980out that are that different within two weeks of each other either your methodology is completely
00:27:28.860wrong or nobody knows what's going on so that might be a lot of times we're both yeah i think
00:27:34.580a lot of times we're both both i mean which you know that the people that do those polls
00:27:39.640more often generally are closer to center or left yes i do know most of us typically there's like a
00:27:47.360Yeah, so that's a contributing factor, but I also know that there's been a chilling, a cooling on people wanting to step up and say, yes, I am, because think about Freedom Convoy and even people who just donated and their bank accounts frozen and so forth.
00:28:08.180So that really impacted people willing to stand up publicly and say, yeah, yeah, I'm for this.
00:28:13.780And I know that the people just I talk to in Calgary and I have property up near Gull Lake, so in the Penelope County area, it doesn't matter if I'm rural or if I'm in the urban area.
00:32:04.660We do need to have a message that the people can do with it.
00:32:09.860It's unfortunate that Polio cannot get the support in the East that would be necessary to form a government.
00:32:16.140His message yesterday is that the answer is that it is that we can fix it from within.
00:32:23.620We can't unless you can get the support down there.
00:32:27.200It's that simple, and that's the whole point of this entire thing.
00:32:30.440Now, you were mentioning something earlier about Daniel Smith saying about the voting the nine and even voting for option one, and then it would give her the leverage.
00:32:40.400The question I have about, on the first five questions, she doesn't need any leverage.
00:32:47.560Those are all provincial things, and they have the authority to do those things if you want to do anyway.
00:32:53.000She put those out there just to grant cover
00:33:22.360uh so uh appreciate you taking the time what was your name it's rick rick thanks for calling in
00:33:28.800rick um yeah i i i can touch on that a little bit um
00:33:34.280smith my frustration is especially right now i don't there was a point uh when when she was early
00:33:50.400on uh where she can be like decisive like you know when she makes a decision and it's a good0.88
00:33:58.000decision and she she just sticks to her guns and and she's made a decision to gamble everything
00:34:05.980on this this mark carney deal and and i'm gonna also comment on uh polyev because again
00:34:15.160it's it is unfortunate it's it's it's rough i mean the last poll came out and there's this i
00:34:22.460think it's 16 17 point gap like things haven't been this bad since before joke like i don't
00:34:28.880think we've ever had such a dominant liberal party but pierre was better before he became
00:34:38.220the establishment. I think the problem is the establishment. I think there's too many people
00:34:45.760that jump from Jason Kenney's government to Pierre Polyev's leadership campaign and are now
00:34:55.220working their way back into the Alberta legislature. Some of them have moved on to
00:34:59.320the BC conservatives with the shotgun campaign. I think they're the problem. So anyways, I got a
00:35:04.120call on the line um can you hear me good afternoon marty it's uh rimby john from rimby alberta how
00:35:13.420are you sir well i'm good i'm not marty but i'll uh i'll consider myself an almost as good looking
00:35:18.860version how's that i'm josh well no it's all good sure um josh um i just tuned into your show
00:35:27.320um thank you for your show thank you for your calling i appreciate it sir i appreciate you
00:35:33.460call it in do you have a comment or a question well my comment would be sir um i'm from rimby
00:35:41.740alberta i'm a freehold all mine and mineral owner 21 of the province is owned privately
00:35:50.080by mineral owners some of us uh about eight or nine percent um you know wait 11 is owned by
00:36:01.380indigenous you know my comment would be sir um i am for um separation in alberta i think we've
00:36:10.560been abused for far too long sir um i think anybody in alberta sir i think all we ever wanted
00:36:20.040was for 50 years now we just wanted a fair deal we want to be treated fairly sir i agree with
00:36:29.760equity with equity integrity and that goes for my indigenous friends in hovima um all my
00:36:37.720friends in alberta um we just want to be treated fair with equity we pay all the bills in canada
00:36:45.640that's okay we just want to be treated fair my friend and we haven't been and that's why we have
00:36:51.840the referendum vote on october the 19th i am voting number two on question 10 um and i gotta
00:36:59.040to say my friend I'm an immigrant sir I'm from Norway my family came from Norway in 1895 to
00:37:09.080America to Hender Minnesota we prospered very well there sir I'm I'm a part American yeah a lot of
00:37:17.920people in Canada a lot of people sir and I could just cry on the phone call my grandfather who
00:37:26.240came from ontario he lied about his age as a kid he's like 16 years old he went into world war one
00:37:34.520he fought for the dominion of canada sir he fought for this country and people in alberta call me
00:37:43.160i'm a traitor i'm i'm a racist i'm a this and that because i i want alberta to be better
00:37:51.780independence i'm not a traitor my my family fought for the dominion of canada sir my grandfather was
00:38:00.880gassed with mustard gas in 1917 and yet mark carney sits down during the veteran ceremony
00:38:10.720at opening night at rogers center or rogers place last night again that's alleged but
00:38:16.100no i mean that's i i'm the same way like my all four of my grandparents were born in this province
00:38:21.520but all four of their families came up through the united states from another country whether
00:38:26.240it be sweden or well actually not all yeah like well half not all of them but like enough um they
00:38:33.860all came up through the states from places like sweden or germany or you know france like that
00:38:41.140we're all like that is the the genesis of what this province is and and and and with that like
00:38:49.620the migration patterns especially when we developed as a country we brought a lot of
00:38:54.860the ideals from the americans up with that migration people were just they like there
00:39:00.400wasn't enough room in pennsylvania and so instead of working in the mines they came up for an
00:39:05.500opportunity to have a farm in you know innisfail or ecville or rimby um like that's that is what
00:39:13.080has been the genesis and i think that gives alberta a different culture i do i believe that
00:39:18.960we are a province and pierre said it the other day like we are an innovative province we've had
00:39:24.400to be innovative the federal government's 3 000 kilometers away from 2000 or from 1883 when we
00:39:32.320started calling or settling out here to probably when when did airplanes uh 1940s airplanes became
00:39:41.540kind of a bigger thing like we were three it took three days to get across the country
00:39:45.200like we've had to to stand on our own we can't historically rely on the federal government and
00:39:52.300and i think that has established us as as our own kind of a culture like we are pioneers and and and
00:39:59.540that pioneering spirit shows up in every industry that we create uh look at the wildcatters uh that
00:40:06.160were drilling for oil in the 40s that struck black gold and we now have a downtown calgary core with
00:40:13.840office buildings in a skyline that really rivals any other city in this country and and many in
00:40:19.680the united states um alberta should have fair treatment but we don't and simply signing an
00:40:28.300agreement for a single pipeline to get approved by the major projects office does not deal with
00:40:34.080destructural deficiencies in this province that that pioneering spirit and entrepreneurial and
00:40:41.000innovative thought process that has been ingrained in generations of Albertans has created this
00:40:50.580economy that the federal government then takes way more than we pay in or doesn't give us like
00:40:58.940the services that we pay for I think that's the issue like and I the thing that worries me about
00:41:07.320this this this deal with Carney is that Smith can't even talk about the grievances without
00:41:13.000making this deal look like it's less than it than she says it is she says this deal is the reason
00:41:20.820that we look at we can show that you know Canada works for Alberta we got one pipeline that might
00:41:28.340be built in September of next year that's what we got but she can't say anything about the
00:41:35.600structural deficiencies. Like that's the frustrating part I have. I, I, I, and I don't
00:41:41.860think she's completely cooked, but she, if, if this deal doesn't happen, like if Mark Carney
00:41:49.260finds a reason to wiggle out of it, she's, she's put all of her eggs in this basket. Like she needs
00:41:56.700this unholy agreement to hold and produce more than it is. It can't just hold for the next
00:42:04.500three weeks it has to hold through september of next year and it has to lead to more
00:42:11.520it's we need more like this is a frustrating situation to be in um what does um oh why can't
00:42:24.880mark boucher says why can't conservatives take yes for an answer i don't know what the question is0.93
00:42:31.080you dumbass but but sir god has blessed alberta with the third you can argue about it the third0.91
00:42:42.820or largest third or fourth largest oil reserves in the world and we want to share that with0.99
00:42:50.600everybody sir you cannot meet more generous people in the world than albertans we want to
00:42:59.000share our wealth we want to share it with everybody we're not greedy but you can't hold us back
00:43:05.880like let us go let us prosper the other thing sir do you realize um Ralph Klein a lot of people
00:43:14.540don't know this sir Ralph Klein when he was in the premiership in Alberta there are six seats
00:43:22.700on opec alberta has one of those seats invited i don't know if we're still there or not sir
00:43:29.140we are so wealthy what god gave us these resources sir to help everybody in the world
00:43:39.860every albertan that i know cowboys oil men real alberta and we've been here my family crummy
00:43:47.240sturdow when be 118 years we are very generous family people christians we help everybody and
00:43:57.180we love to share the wealth and we're not able to do that because of i think there's a difference
00:44:05.120between willful philanthropy and uh forced redistribution um i agree with you i
00:44:17.100I love the fact that we can contribute. I think the issue is that there's a lot of federal policies that create areas in which we as a province need to address the fiscal imbalances.
00:44:31.220I think Smith pointed out that the federal immigration policies that have brought, I don't know how many people into Alberta, but they cost about a billion dollars in taxpayer-funded services.
00:44:42.760So, you know, health care, education, so on and so forth.
00:44:45.580And they contribute about $150 million in tax revenue.
00:44:50.160Now, the issue that we have is that when we pay our federal taxes, we don't get all of it back in the province.
00:44:56.780And when we grow faster than the rest of the country, we need to build services that everybody can rely on.
00:45:04.300And, yeah, I am voting to support options one for, I'm probably going to vote yes to the 10.
00:45:12.380Actually, maybe that should be a slogan, yes to the 10.
00:56:45.580I don't know how angry Keith Wilson is going to be on October the 20th.
00:56:50.820I don't know how motivated he's going to be.
00:56:52.800I don't know if an opportunity will present itself where maybe the MOU collapses and Smith just looks like a clown and approval ratings are worse than they are now and the leadership is open and your options are, I don't know, Jeff Rath running or Keith Wilson running.
01:00:53.160i think they're going to take the result and say that you know what the grievances aren't that bad
01:00:59.600obviously that's the way i think they're going to take and i think that's going to create more
01:01:05.860issues there's a lot of people that are voting for this referendum there are a lot of people
01:01:10.300that are voting to stay that that do not want to become politically subservient to ottawa no matter
01:01:14.900how many one-time projects, approval waiver periods, or whatever bureaucratic hoops you
01:01:26.240got to jump through are waived. So, yeah, I'm going to leave it on that. We need, the
01:01:37.560The United Conservative Party needs to develop a vision of how we can deal with the true underlying grievances in Confederation to fix these problems that have existed for 120 years.
01:02:04.720because if not we're going to be right back here there's going to be just as much
01:02:09.340vitriol from the both sides the entire national establishment will line up against
01:02:15.740against the independence supporters like it's going to be the same thing but
01:02:19.980every wave is larger than the last we've never had an independence referendum in this province before
01:02:25.840when i for one don't think that this will be the last one but the province and the government that
01:02:33.160was elected to represent it have to take legitimate steps to fix it but they won't
01:02:42.280i'm telling you right now i have zero faith that the existing political establishment in this
01:02:48.760province will take any steps to resolve the underlying difficulties i believe wholeheartedly
01:02:55.000in this moment that the political establishment will take the results of the referendum if it
01:03:00.520fails and they will decide that the national status quo is the way to go anyways that's all
01:03:09.720for me i've been josh anders covering marty up north today please visit us at www.westernstandard.news
01:03:16.180subscription subscriptions options are ten dollars a month uh our standard membership is a hundred
01:03:22.300dollars for a year you can also get the editor circle if you want regular uh access to our
01:03:28.020insider calls we do those uh oh we were doing it once a month but people aren't really showing up
01:03:32.500so we're thinking about going one once a quarter uh that is a i probably shouldn't have said that
01:03:36.540on the air but uh that is what we're having conversations about uh in the background uh
01:03:41.720again thank you for everybody for watching and have a wonderful afternoon i've been josh i've
01:03:47.580I've been Josh Andrus and this is Marty Up North.