Western Standard - April 06, 2026


MARTY UP NORTH： Alberta Independence petition meets threshold


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 4 minutes

Words per minute

175.30426

Word count

11,264

Sentence count

335


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 We'll be right back.
00:00:30.000 winter there you go okay i got sound now thanks john uh public service announcement folks keep
00:00:50.020 your winter tires on a little bit longer um i'm like i just drove you know i live in the northwest
00:00:55.840 west of calgary just drove down here and uh what is this april 2nd and counted about five or six
00:01:02.240 cars in the ditch i think a lot of people are pulling their tires off a little bit too early
00:01:07.380 um and then the other thing you know park downtown and walking through downtown
00:01:12.480 it it looks like the city workers have sort of given up on trying to remove snow or maybe more
00:01:18.740 accurately maybe they ran out of budgets to remove snow i don't know but uh i haven't seen this much
00:01:24.300 snow in a long time uh in april even though i know april's often a good snowy month definitely
00:01:29.500 nobody talking about droughts this year actually yeah i remember uh i remember you know i do a lot
00:01:36.340 of hiking i remember april uh sometime during covid when kenny was still premier remember that
00:01:41.720 year he instituted a province-wide fire ban like starting on april 1st so uh i think we're uh
00:01:48.840 probably pretty safe assumption that we won't have a province-wide fire ban not for a while
00:01:53.720 anyways all right um you know every morning before i come into the studio i send john a
00:01:59.720 couple of suggestions of things i want to talk about uh i said i wanted to perhaps uh and then
00:02:05.540 i told him today i said here's the things i want to talk about you pick the topic and so right at
00:02:10.080 the top of the list you can see the one he picked there uh the petition the big news about the
00:02:15.480 petition the independence petition that came out on monday actually maybe it came out officially on
00:02:21.560 tuesday but i i knew about it on monday so you guys know i'm a canvasser and um there's like
00:02:28.180 6 000 canvassers across the province monday uh during the day we all got an email telling us to
00:02:34.700 make sure we um call into a zoom call on monday night uh for a big announcement from mitch sylvester
00:02:42.320 directly i was in on the zoom call 54 pages of people uh you know 25 by or five by five like
00:02:49.960 Like what's 54 times 25, I don't know, like 1,300, 1,200 people on the call.
00:02:56.220 And Mitch announced very matter-of-factly that the threshold for the Citizens Initiative Act had been met.
00:03:05.560 So the way it works right now, there's writings across the province.
00:03:09.000 Canvassing is organized across the provincial writings.
00:03:12.980 So there's 87 writings.
00:03:14.120 So there's 87 little canvassing organizations, captains, and whatnot.
00:03:17.740 And then each right, each canvasser submits their forms, their completed signature sheets back up to a coordinator who gives it to the captain who then sends them on to Mitch Sylvester.
00:03:30.760 And so Mitch told us that he had in his possession enough to meet the threshold and then more than that to meet potential spoilage.
00:03:41.180 And this was what wasn't even April 1st. So he was done. He announced that March 28th or whatever.
00:03:47.740 And the reality is there's still an entire month, you know, we have officially until May 2nd to collect signatures. And I think, I'm pretty sure I know why Mitch did this, but maybe Mitch can call in if he wants to tell us otherwise.
00:04:02.460 I haven't seen him on a press conference since.
00:04:05.720 But, you know, there is this injunction that is looming over the horizon there to be heard.
00:04:11.100 The six chiefs that filed an injunction that's going to be heard, I guess, in Edmonton on Tuesday next week on the 7th.
00:04:19.700 And Mitch wanted to send a clear signal to the judge and people involved in this injunction that perhaps, you know, it's a moot point.
00:04:30.520 we already have the necessary signatures so so that was good to hear alongside that announcement
00:04:37.040 from mitch um and and i can vouch for myself like when he announced that he had the signatures i
00:04:43.000 knew that there's more to come in the next month because even my personal you know i've been
00:04:47.620 canvassing i had some in my possession i had like a whole stack of of sheets that i hadn't even
00:04:53.080 submitted and i know so so i'm guessing probably at this point there's probably two 250 000
00:04:58.980 signatures collected and then we have another month to keep going the other good news that
00:05:03.220 was announced as part of that um you know the legislature in edmonton has been busy and we'll
00:05:08.340 talk about a few things along those lines but uh danielle smith introduced bill 23 uh i believe
00:05:15.300 that was also on monday or maybe friday last and you know bill 23 is what we call sort of like an
00:05:21.140 administrative bill it's just one of those bill that fixes problems with other bills so bill 23
00:05:26.980 fixed about little issues fine-tuned for other bills. But one of the bills that fixed is the
00:05:34.660 Citizens Initiative Act and the Voting Act. And under Bill 23, Mitch Sylvester will be allowed
00:05:43.320 to have a scrutineer or more than one, I don't know, in present when Elections Alberta starts
00:05:50.120 counting the signatures and doing their quality control on the signatures. So that was good news
00:05:56.180 Because I was worried about that.
00:05:58.320 A lot of people were worried about that, right?
00:05:59.860 I mean, it's a sad state that we are now lacking trust in institutions, especially one as crucial as elections, Alberta.
00:06:10.920 But that's the reality.
00:06:11.920 People have lost faith in our senior bureaucrats and their ability to run fair elections and fair processes like petitions and recalls.
00:06:20.640 So Danielle Smith was cognitive of that, and she's made some quick announcements, adjustments.
00:06:27.800 By the way, happy birthday, Premier Smith.
00:06:30.140 It was her birthday yesterday.
00:06:32.620 Our Premier, our lovely Premier, turned 55 yesterday.
00:06:36.200 And I had to go verify because, you know, almost every story you see on April 1st,
00:06:40.020 you kind of double check because you think it might be a joke.
00:06:44.120 But no, that's no joke.
00:06:45.520 Danielle Smith's birthday is April 1st.
00:06:48.380 I imagine she's had quite a few jokes played on her.
00:06:50.640 um um anyways so yeah um you know and just just staying on the uh independence movement i'll i'll
00:07:00.120 share my personal experience i am canvassing so i was on the road last week uh as uh you know i did
00:07:06.120 the presentations in uh lethbridge uh drumheller leduc red deer and one here in calgary all well
00:07:14.060 attended but that took me away from my main duty of canvassing and so i went back to canvassing
00:07:20.460 earlier this week and the first two days immediately after mitch announced that i was
00:07:25.940 personally a little bit worried i thought oh maybe some people will take their foot off the gas and
00:07:30.400 not go sign and quite the contrary we you know monday tuesday were nice days and uh at my usual
00:07:36.120 pop-up all of a sudden i had a nice influx of people coming to sign and i was curious i asked
00:07:41.460 them like the does the did you hear the announcements and all of them and heard the
00:07:45.500 announcement and all of them still said no i want to sign um so you know i think that was a fear that
00:07:51.460 a lot of people had that once we met the threshold perhaps some people would no longer sign or would
00:07:57.080 no longer feel the need to sign but uh no that seems to be to not be the case people are still
00:08:02.600 signing uh everybody's got their reasons and and they're all generally you know very um very broadly
00:08:10.460 it all has to do with Carney and what's going on in Ottawa.
00:08:14.080 Like he's definitely Albertans are fed up with that.
00:08:18.140 All right.
00:08:18.800 So what were some of the other stories?
00:08:21.000 Oh, and again, please.
00:08:22.340 So this, we're trying to make this into, not trying to,
00:08:24.980 I want to make this into a call-in show.
00:08:27.000 This is about you.
00:08:28.080 So please feel free to call in.
00:08:31.020 Don't be scared.
00:08:32.120 There's nothing brave about it.
00:08:33.580 Like I said, I'm just a guy.
00:08:35.520 And call in and maybe you just got a comment.
00:08:38.300 Maybe you got a question.
00:08:39.100 It doesn't have to be on the topics that are on the I mean, there's no topic on the screens, but you can call in.
00:08:46.160 It can be about independence. You know, what are the other stories that broke this week?
00:08:49.880 I mean, we still have the story about the gun grab. We still have April Fool's.
00:08:53.640 We have other bills that passed in the House of Commons. We got a Canadian on his way to the moon.
00:08:58.080 So anything you want to talk about, phone numbers down there, give a buzz.
00:09:01.580 And when you do, you know, name where you're calling from question, sometimes I'll ask you to stay on the line.
00:09:07.540 and we'll have a little bit of a back and forth.
00:09:10.180 And sometimes I'll ask you to, you know,
00:09:12.700 hang up after you've made your comments
00:09:14.440 so that others can call in.
00:09:15.680 Because right now, like I said,
00:09:16.660 we don't have a proper, proper switchboard
00:09:19.360 where we can just take in 15 calls
00:09:21.160 and have them all on wait.
00:09:22.520 You're calling on one number.
00:09:23.900 And when that line is busy,
00:09:25.440 you got to keep dialing, right?
00:09:28.500 Actually, so yeah, man on the moon.
00:09:31.540 I don't, oh, okay.
00:09:32.680 I was going to jump on man on the moon.
00:09:34.000 Let's go to the caller.
00:09:35.500 That's my favorite part.
00:09:36.640 So go ahead.
00:09:37.200 Who's on the line?
00:09:37.900 Where are you calling from?
00:09:42.980 Oh, hi.
00:09:43.820 Good afternoon, Marty.
00:09:45.540 Good afternoon.
00:09:46.740 It's Gordon calling.
00:09:49.040 I've called in before, and I just wanted to express the good news that Mitch has let out.
00:09:55.620 There was no doubt.
00:09:56.380 I felt strongly that we were going to get there, exceed the target, and we're going to move forward.
00:10:04.840 And I didn't do any canvassing.
00:10:07.120 but today i signed up with the insurance project i'm going to help them out as much as i can i
00:10:14.160 have no experience with that but i am going to try excellent um i'm a little familiar with the
00:10:21.760 project i won't talk about it too much today maybe i'll save that for another show but there
00:10:25.200 is a zoom call on that tonight so uh make sure you uh make sure you patch in on that zoom call
00:10:30.720 to hear more details all right uh where are you calling from gordon and you've told me before
00:10:36.720 i'm calling i'm calling from edmonton edmonton yeah and i just wanted to add too
00:10:41.920 as we move forward now and as these numbers continue to grow uh it's you know people got
00:10:48.960 to understand the role of mainstream media it's not going to be kind to the independence movement
00:10:55.440 they are going to really go have a hippo list of people who are going to go after and unfortunately
00:11:01.280 marty you're probably one of them and jeff and sylvester mitch sylvester and others like that
00:11:08.720 uh there's going to be a lot of dirt and a lot of it's going to be a lot of skill
00:11:12.480 skill degree is going to start up so albertans need to know that this is what's going to happen
00:11:19.520 and who knows what's going to come out of ottawa it wants this uh they see the strength of the
00:11:24.880 movement yeah well uh okay so so thanks for that gourd um if you don't mind hanging up but i'll
00:11:30.480 I'll address a couple of things you mentioned because you bring up a couple of points that
00:11:33.580 are interesting. So, um, Gord, you know, Gord just said he, he signed after he heard the message
00:11:39.880 and, and that's, um, that's good news. And I, and I'm also confident that, uh, you know,
00:11:45.460 in any event like this, whether it's canvassing, collecting signatures, selling chocolate bars,
00:11:49.600 selling tickets to an event, you do have people that rush in at the beginning and, and want to
00:11:55.120 be part of the early, you know, buying and movement. Then you got the middle period that
00:11:59.300 sometimes is slow and then you get that last rush at the end humans by nature like to procrastinate
00:12:05.040 and so um that's an i think that we're going to see that there's you know people are going to
00:12:11.260 sign in the in the last couple of weeks and then the other thing that happened with uh i don't know
00:12:16.920 if mitch intended to do this but the there's two other things that i think happened after he made
00:12:20.940 this announcement a you know up until now um independence was basically the voice where all
00:12:29.100 the proponents so people like myself people like mitch uh people like corin morgan we were the
00:12:33.700 ones talking about we want to separate and here's the reasons why and the other side was being quiet
00:12:39.200 so the people against us or who want to stay they've been quiet the media has been quiet right
00:12:45.180 and a lot of people were hoping that this was just a fringe movement that would go away
00:12:48.720 so by making his announcement mitch forced the other side to finally acknowledge that something's
00:12:55.080 happening. And by the other side, that includes the mainstream media. So that was one of the
00:13:01.000 things that was affecting the ability to collect signatures is that it was hard to get the message
00:13:05.400 out because the message was only getting out through private voices. But now you're going
00:13:09.580 to hear more talk about independence because the mainstream media is going to start getting in on
00:13:14.480 the action because now it's really news. They can't avoid it. And then the other thing that
00:13:20.420 I think is going to be interesting is it's pretty certain now that there will be a referendum,
00:13:26.640 right? We met the threshold. Danielle said that if we met the threshold, she would respect the
00:13:31.820 Citizens Initiative Act and that there would be a referendum on October 19th. The only thing that
00:13:35.980 could sort of hinder that right now is if somehow or other an injunction was successful or the court
00:13:42.720 stepped in or Elections Alberta said there wasn't enough signatures or something like that.
00:13:46.740 But barring something weird, we're going to have a referendum, which means we're almost starting to go into the campaign mode here. And now those who want Alberta to stay in Confederation, they can't be silent anymore. Because if they're silent, they're running the risk that the Leave side will dominate and get the votes necessary.
00:14:09.320 so you're going to see a more dialogue on the subject which is what a lot of people wanted a
00:14:15.540 lot of people just want a discussion on this right i mean i talk about separation all the time and i
00:14:20.240 got people who immediately jump into telling me why i'm wrong but they never stop and ask
00:14:24.780 you know why are you upset why would you want to leave so i think we're going to see a lot of
00:14:29.240 dialogue uh and and on that line you know there's already now we've already seen who the pro um who
00:14:37.080 the no side is who the stay side is and jason kenny's already sort of stepped up and and others
00:14:43.560 so it's going to be interesting in the coming months to see how that all starts to play out
00:14:48.040 i think there's going to be some interesting debates kenny in particular by the way kenny
00:14:52.180 um i think he's pretty brave kenny's going to go up against keith wilson here twice uh he's agreed
00:14:58.640 to debate keith wilson in uh in emington and calgary i can't remember which uh which one goes
00:15:04.320 first but uh i'm gonna be i'm gonna be a betting man here and say that uh keith is going to win
00:15:10.640 the first debate pretty handily and i don't think jason kenney will stick around for a second fight
00:15:16.100 but uh we'll see we'll see what happens um so so speaking of uh so we were where was i gonna go i
00:15:24.040 was gonna go uh let's go to a fun one let's go let's go to the moon story let's go to the moon
00:15:29.360 story real quick um you got you know i was canvassing yesterday and i rushed home because i
00:15:35.520 knew that uh artemis 2 was launching yesterday at 4 30 and man they were almost spot on like that i
00:15:42.740 think they launched at 4 36. artemis 2 is the second artemis mission to go to the moon the first
00:15:49.560 one went to the moon uh without a crew they just sent the capsule it went around the the moon and
00:15:55.420 came right back didn't actually orbit the moon and that was about two years ago they learned a
00:16:00.580 few things they weren't too happy with the capsule design they weren't too happy with the heat shield
00:16:05.140 blah blah blah but now they they got it all fine-tuned and they were and now they launched
00:16:09.700 another one but to me i mean there's two stories there i a personally i'm an engineer and i'm
00:16:14.480 fascinated by the moon and i think it's a you know it's from an engineering point of view it's pretty
00:16:19.040 cool that humans are trying to go back to the moon but i think the bigger story for me in the last
00:16:24.620 couple of months is the complete and almost total lack of coverage of this story i bet you some of
00:16:31.580 you guys are probably almost watching right now and saying huh we're going to the moon because um
00:16:36.700 it's a big story in the us but here in canada nobody's talking about it which is extreme and
00:16:41.740 and i think i know why there's a canadian on the spacecraft right so there's a there's a canadian
00:16:47.180 named uh jeremy hansen uh jeremy is like uh you know born in born about a decade after me maybe
00:16:55.420 he's 55 years old ex-air force guy uh cf-18 pilot probably you know uh ontario born but did some
00:17:03.020 training here and in uh cold lake and places like that and by all by all means a really really
00:17:08.780 intelligent man been practicing got chosen to go on this mission like almost a decade ago been
00:17:15.900 practicing non-stop and he's on the mission right so they're sending four people we haven't humanity
00:17:21.900 has not sent people to the moon not just the surface but around the moon nobody's nobody's
00:17:28.220 seen the dark side of the moon in like 50 years and we're sending it and the americans are going
00:17:33.340 and they're taking a canadian with them which makes jeremy hansen the first non-american
00:17:40.780 ever to go to the moon and nobody's talking about that because i honestly think it's about
00:17:47.100 trump derangement syndrome right this is an amazing collaboration between canada and the
00:17:51.900 united states and the media doesn't want to talk about it because it doesn't fit the narrative
00:17:56.220 they're trying to remember they're constantly trying to portray trump as evil but here's
00:18:00.700 here's the americans doing something absolutely wonderful john did we have a caller and they they
00:18:05.500 left or are they back on all right go ahead and put that put them on please hi there
00:18:13.420 oh hey marty uh my name is rob i'm calling you some dog problems
00:18:19.500 first of all thanks very much to you and everyone else that's volunteering their time
00:18:24.140 and the independence movement it's really appreciated thank you um i want to take you
00:18:30.940 back to the LNG ship that
00:18:32.840 showed up in eastern Canada
00:18:34.380 liquefying natural gas
00:18:36.260 for those of you who are listeners
00:18:38.680 that don't know what LNG is
00:18:40.220 so a couple of things
00:18:43.780 you know the average
00:18:46.260 boat may not know that
00:18:48.020 you need to reduce that
00:18:49.960 gaseous material
00:18:52.700 down to 161 degrees
00:18:54.740 centigrade to liquefy it
00:18:56.360 so there's a cost involved in that
00:18:58.940 and then you know you've got to put it on the ship
00:19:00.940 ship's got to turn fuel to get here you know whether it came around the horn or
00:19:06.700 to the panama canal i don't know it doesn't matter it's too far and it's just it's absolutely
00:19:13.100 nonsensical that this country would even think about importing lng when we should be
00:19:20.220 the exporter back to your enterprise that was trying to sell canadian natural gas
00:19:27.020 You can look by state to Germany.
00:19:30.860 That's another story, I guess.
00:19:33.320 My question is, and again, I only know this because I was in the industry like you,
00:19:39.400 you know, LNG is required to be regassed or requires regaspitation equipment.
00:19:46.800 And I don't think I heard you talking that not only did we sail a ship halfway around the world,
00:19:54.020 but it doesn't get here and then just automatically feed that gas into a system that has to be
00:20:00.420 regasified so my question is is it a portable regasification unit is it permanent in either
00:20:07.260 case again like it didn't just magically yeah yeah no up and all of a sudden yeah yeah great
00:20:13.280 who owns it and yeah yeah great question rob um yeah so yeah of course back to the original
00:20:21.080 statement we we we should be we should be an exporter of lng i agree so we should be exporting
00:20:26.440 it on the east coast and on the west coast uh i i guess carney did approve one of the major projects
00:20:32.840 will be a west coast lng uh facility but but even if we aren't in exporting um it's ridiculous that
00:20:41.880 we're importing and especially when we have so much natural gas so the people in new brunswick
00:20:46.200 should be using uh canadian natural gas and like i said in an earlier show there is a path to get
00:20:52.380 canadian natural gas all the way to nova scotia new brunswick and places like that quebec so uh
00:20:58.620 it's political willingness we we can do it to the technical answer uh i worked on an lng facility
00:21:05.040 and if we if i was going to do it again today they'd be it'd be much more small and they would
00:21:10.500 be on a boat. I mean, I think that's, you know, the regasification facility, they're
00:21:17.680 portable now, they're on boats. And I think there are even boats that have it built in,
00:21:21.680 you know, they do both storage and transport. So, but, but good question. But I also know
00:21:26.540 that there are some regasification facilities in Quebec and places like that. So yeah, it's
00:21:33.120 still uh absolutely a travesty that um that uh that we're missing out on on that market right
00:21:40.280 now especially when we're seeing uh what's going on uh in in iran and places like that and and and
00:21:46.440 and rob brings up a great point uh lng has to be i think he said minus 162 like you have to
00:21:53.700 really chill it so that it becomes liquid and and the reason you want to do that you you can get a
00:22:00.340 gas liquid in two ways either you increase the pressure and squeeze it and then it stays liquid
00:22:05.140 or you chill it and it will become liquid um so the the the technology these days is to chill it
00:22:12.160 to extreme temperatures some of the boats that are stuck in the uh strata hormuz right now with
00:22:18.100 liquefied natural gas or helium apparently helium like all these things that are becoming critical
00:22:23.040 right so we talked about it last week uh petroleum how many countries are starting like there there's
00:22:29.180 a time there's a clock now ticking there's a half a dozen countries that are going to run out of
00:22:33.500 gasoline in a couple of weeks in the next couple of weeks helium is becoming in short supply because
00:22:39.420 i guess qatar makes a lot of helium actually that's another draw uh advantage of uh liquefying
00:22:44.300 your own gas when you liquefy huge quantities of natural gas in the process you liquefy things like
00:22:50.540 carbon dioxide and helium and so we could have created a market for helium with our with with
00:22:55.340 their own LNG. But yeah, there's tankers full of this stuff all over the Gulf right now and I guess
00:23:01.580 they're going to have to start venting that stuff because if a big storage tank full of helium starts
00:23:08.140 filling up, you know where that's going to go. So back to... Are you still there, Rob?
00:23:15.420 Yeah, sorry. I'll just ask you this clarifying question, Marty, then I'll hang up so I don't
00:23:22.940 you know take over the whole call here but i i guess to me that it's one thing for the ship to
00:23:29.340 show up but the actual fact that somebody in this government has planned ahead to have
00:23:36.140 re-gasification equipment and then buy or maybe they floated it over with with the lng ship i
00:23:42.780 don't know but my point is this is how silly this country has become when we spend money not just to
00:23:52.380 get it here but to actually have the equipment available to be able to consume the product that
00:23:59.180 we already have under our own feet right including internet so anyway with that i'll hang up thanks
00:24:04.380 very much yeah yeah 100 no no it's uh silliness all around but then our governments keep doing
00:24:09.580 silly things and you know you yeah i'm not gonna go there uh so i i guess i was finishing then the
00:24:18.080 story on the astronaut so that that was my theory is that um this is an amazing story uh we we
00:24:24.300 amazing collaboration between our two nations and the poor canadian astronaut you know jeremy
00:24:29.980 uh hansen is is been preparing this for well basically his whole life i'm sure he's probably
00:24:35.520 one of those guys who dreamed of being an astronaut when he was a kid actually he would
00:24:39.320 have been one of those guys because uh he was born after the last man went to the moon so i'm
00:24:44.900 guessing that's part of his uh persona but he's getting unfortunately almost no attention just
00:24:50.380 because orange man is bad and we can't give uh you know we can't we can't set aside our differences
00:24:56.340 even for a couple of days we should have been this should have been a monumental moment
00:25:00.060 probably didn't help that they launched on april fool's day i talked about this yesterday with
00:25:04.920 somebody else and they thought it was they actually thought it was an april fool's joke
00:25:07.840 that the launching of the rocket was an April Fool's joke.
00:25:13.380 Yeah, what a sad day when that kind of thing happens.
00:25:17.640 Actually, speaking of April Fool,
00:25:19.620 hopefully none of you got caught by too many jokes.
00:25:25.820 I saw a couple of stories yesterday that I thought,
00:25:28.740 I got caught by one.
00:25:29.840 I saw a couple of stories that I thought were real.
00:25:32.320 The one that I thought was real was that
00:25:34.700 um, that, uh, this hour is 22 minutes by the CBC was being canceled.
00:25:39.400 But again, you know, that's not really an April fool's joke when it's that close to
00:25:44.420 being reality.
00:25:45.100 I mean, I, I've watched this hour.
00:25:47.140 I remember watching this hour is 22 minutes.
00:25:49.400 It wasn't the funniest thing, but they were a little bit, they were okay.
00:25:52.240 They were relevant at a time past, but these days are completely irrelevant.
00:25:56.460 And so when I read the story that I thought they were being canceled, I honestly thought
00:26:00.000 that was a real story.
00:26:01.060 I had no idea it was just an April fool's joke.
00:26:03.540 did I see again John a flash on the screen we got a caller or somebody left okay no worries
00:26:09.180 um but speaking of so yesterday was April 1st and uh apart from the April Fool's jokes there
00:26:15.220 were some real news stories that uh that affect all of us right so yesterday here in Alberta it
00:26:22.220 was a deadline for that MOU so that MOU between uh Danielle Smith and Mark Carney that uh was
00:26:30.540 signed just before the agm there back in october 2025 they had an mou that they were going to you
00:26:36.280 know work on pipelines and work on uh in exchange for alberta negotiating a change to the carbon
00:26:42.480 the industrial carbon tax and a few other things well that date came and went and gone uh i i i
00:26:49.940 don't think we're going to see a pipeline anytime soon i don't think carney's going to commit to
00:26:54.080 anything significant to Alberta, not until he has his by-elections in a couple of weeks
00:27:02.080 and not until he keeps seeing where this referendum is going.
00:27:06.300 So that passed yesterday, the MOU.
00:27:09.620 Let me know your thoughts on the MOU.
00:27:11.280 Do you guys think we will ever get that Carney's serious about promoting pipelines
00:27:17.180 as part of the infrastructure projects?
00:27:19.060 The other thing that happened yesterday, alcohol taxes went up for everyone about, you know, not a huge amount. Minimum wage for industries affected. No, sorry. Minimum wage for industries regulated by the federal government went up.
00:27:35.520 I mean, I don't know anybody who works in an industry regulated by the federal government who makes minimum wage, right?
00:27:41.820 What are those industries? Telecommunications, banking, the airline industry.
00:27:46.900 You know, I don't see that being a big one.
00:27:50.240 And but perhaps the most offensive thing about April 1st yesterday was that the MPs and senators and judges and all those people gave themselves a big raise.
00:28:02.580 And, you know, they gave themselves Carney's Carney, who got an extra $14,000 a year, and the average MP got like an extra $8,000 a year. And there, and again, that, you know, their raises are automatic and indexed inflation and things like that.
00:28:20.220 So politicians and senior politicians, federal politicians in this country have no incentive for keeping inflation down under control because they don't care.
00:28:28.460 They get a raise and you pay for it regardless of their performance.
00:28:32.860 So I thought that was, you know, that's one of the lousy things about April 1st.
00:28:38.140 And it's almost a sick joke that they use April 1st as the date to to to to pass those raises.
00:28:45.400 um okay let's go we got another one uh caller on the line please go ahead name where you calling
00:28:52.340 from uh yes my name is jerry and i'm calling from calgary hi jerry what's on your mind how are you
00:29:01.880 good good um yeah the petition um i know we've already got the numbers already but you know a
00:29:11.040 A lot of times when I'm speaking to a lot of my friends and just co-workers and stuff,
00:29:17.200 you know, a lot of them aren't seeing any positive stuff about the referendum.
00:29:21.420 Like most of them don't even know what's about to happen.
00:29:24.620 Is there any way you could probably put a positive ad on mainstream media in order to get more of the information out there?
00:29:34.820 Yeah, good point.
00:29:37.700 Yes.
00:29:38.260 I think let me let me explain it the way I I see it unfortunately in this province and across the
00:29:46.820 country there's so many rules around advertising and raising money during elections right and and
00:29:55.140 so and yeah and at this point the petition is basically a private effort right so it was a
00:30:01.700 group called the Alberta Prosperity Project pretty much on their own dime going around volunteering
00:30:06.980 and getting the word out now ultimately once they triggered once they triggered the petition they
00:30:12.000 were allowed to start advertising and spending but their budget's only 500 000 that's the limit
00:30:16.360 so um yeah yeah so they're they're they're spending their money by going and doing speaking events
00:30:23.480 and and they're being frugal with their money let's put it that way um but i think i think you
00:30:29.400 and i are kind of on the same page right okay they they've been frugal now they're going to
00:30:33.660 have to for the referendum they're going to have to start spending a little bit more and and that's
00:30:39.180 also be realistic like um they're we're not going to get cheap ads on ctv or cbc right like that
00:30:46.640 they're literally going to block us they're not going to they're not going to allow us to average
00:30:50.900 so no you bring up a good point and it's a challenge um keep doing what you're doing right
00:30:55.340 talk to friends nothing beats that yeah no it's just that like they said that you know and like
00:31:02.740 the last 30 days alone i think i've spoken to maybe a dozen people i think one or maybe two
00:31:08.900 of them actually have been listening to what's going on the rest are not catching it they're
00:31:13.620 too busy with their lives the kids and everything else going on but you know the the two minutes
00:31:20.100 they get to sit down in front of anything informational it's usually you know ctv
00:31:24.820 whatever all the dark ones you're watching so yeah it'd be nice if we got a message out there
00:31:32.840 a positive public message of course yeah we're going to keep trying i mean i say we i use the
00:31:38.560 royal we i'm not a you know i'm not a leader in that in the movement i have a strong voice but
00:31:43.540 i'm not the guy who decides how to spend the money but i um you know like i said the the
00:31:49.000 announcement yesterday i i watched the news curiously i watched the news and i saw you know
00:31:53.000 CTV had to speak about it a little bit and global did. So there's a little bit more voice. But I'll also say this. There were a lot of people scared to sign a petition in the first month and a half. You know, it's sad that people are fearful of their own government. They're fearful of the perception of their friends. So people were hesitant. I can tell you my again, my observation in the last two days, I told you a lot more people suddenly came out to sign.
00:32:19.260 and i even uh i even put it out on x on on my own platform you know i i i asked people like
00:32:26.720 did you sign and people commented more than i expected people suddenly came out and said yes
00:32:32.320 i signed so um yeah yeah no great question uh what do you think of all the snow around town am i am
00:32:39.540 imagining things or did the city give up on trying to remove the snow yeah i think they just blew
00:32:46.500 through the budget the first month and now they're just probably getting the last guy who's still on
00:32:51.940 the payroll to go over to the road yeah yeah yeah yeah thanks for that rob okay cheers yeah you know
00:32:58.160 uh i was joking at the beginning of the show leave your snow tires on i have a feeling some of the
00:33:02.180 city uh crews probably took the sanding equipment off the back of the trucks and started parking
00:33:07.160 the plows and yeah yeah excellent okay thanks for calling yeah yeah oh i appreciate it you're
00:33:13.940 welcome yeah yeah um yeah that was uh uh interesting um okay well i'll uh i guess i'll
00:33:24.460 just keep going down my my list i i know you know the the top three topics that i had suggested
00:33:30.440 actually i just realized i was talking about danielle and i was talking about uh bill 23
00:33:36.860 i want to continue along those lines danielle smith introduced this week two really really
00:33:42.560 interesting bills and i think uh and i and i'm i'm really happy with them and that's bill 25 and
00:33:48.340 bill 26 now bill 25 i i'm sure you guys had more of a chance to uh hear about that one that one
00:33:55.700 came out two days ago i can't remember john can you find a title somewhere or a new story on bill
00:34:00.920 25 it's broadly labeled as a an act to uh to reform education or take politics out of the
00:34:09.260 schools or something like that it's got an interesting title uh i know cory's talked about
00:34:14.140 it a lot but i but i also i i want to talk about a little bit uh and take and give you my spin on it
00:34:20.060 um what's it called an act to remove politics and ideology from classrooms and amend the education
00:34:26.080 act so you know pretty black and white it tells you exactly what what it wants to do there's a
00:34:30.260 lot of people here in alberta i heard this this kind of message um i think actually i think this
00:34:35.520 is a direct result of the agm this this is a topic that was talked about at the annual general
00:34:41.780 meeting of the ucp back in october november people are getting are upset about um education in this
00:34:50.460 province you know teachers going on strike uh some of the some of the ideology that's being taught
00:34:56.540 and the level of of critical thinking that the kids lack when they come out of school and so
00:35:01.820 Danielle's addressing a few of those things. And here's my take on it. You know, she's been
00:35:09.080 elected. One of the things that she was elected on that she promised to do was to try and bring
00:35:14.740 the budget under control, right? That's one of the things I'm really upset about. I think
00:35:19.800 government spending in this province is outpacing population growth and inflation. And I think
00:35:26.060 Danielle went in there well-intentioned, but realized that the two big unions, the teachers
00:35:30.160 union and health side, which are the two biggest portfolios, right? Like, I don't know, between
00:35:35.240 education and healthcare, that's probably 60 to 70% of Alberta's budget right there. So and that's
00:35:42.000 where you'll make the big gains, right? If you're trying to cut costs, you don't try and cut costs
00:35:45.980 in the smallest little departments, you go to health and you go to education, and that's where
00:35:51.040 you cut costs. If you got 10% of the health budget, and by the way, and by cutting doesn't
00:35:56.800 necessarily mean reducing service like I think you can reduce the spend and keep the efficiency
00:36:01.480 at the same level and not affect the service delivery and and so she's having a hard time
00:36:07.840 getting the government size under control and she has to tackle the unions and I think she picked
00:36:13.260 the right one so she's tacked to me she's she's kind of going after the teacher's union first
00:36:19.000 which is perhaps the smaller union and I'd say it's the more vulnerable union right the that
00:36:24.300 That union tried to hold the country, the province hostage last year by holding that
00:36:28.860 strike and Danielle regulated them back to work, but also they were unsuccessful.
00:36:35.180 People were upset with the teachers trying to hold us hostage.
00:36:38.940 And so their bargaining power is limited.
00:36:42.020 Their bargaining power of the teachers also diminished considerably during COVID.
00:36:48.680 When we sent all the kids home during COVID and they started learning from school, I thought
00:36:52.880 that that was showcasing what's possible that ai can replace people that online learning that
00:36:58.780 zoom calls can replace the classroom and teachers so you know that's a double-edged sword so teachers
00:37:05.020 i think are kind of vulnerable so danielle's going after them first and and she'll kind of
00:37:11.380 bring them under control and maybe send a message to the health care unions but i also think it's a
00:37:18.700 win-win two birds with one stone by going after the teachers union because there is a real problem
00:37:24.140 which is they are i feel this honestly some of the teachers in some of our schools are
00:37:29.800 indoctrinating the kids i've talked to teachers i've talked to too many teachers who are at their
00:37:34.300 wits end and self-censoring in their classrooms because they don't fit the they they're they're
00:37:39.680 not wanting to teach the ideology and so um so i think it's important that we bring this under
00:37:46.340 control so the act addresses that directly right that that under this new act teachers are to keep
00:37:52.740 their political and and whatever ideology out of the classroom and stick to the curriculum
00:37:58.660 and and and the curriculum is meant to create young adults ultimately who are capable of critical
00:38:06.720 thinking and so um and if you're a teacher who's opposed to this act that kind of tells me that the
00:38:13.100 reason you're opposed to it is because you're pushing your ideology because if you're not
00:38:16.760 pushing your ideology and you're simply teaching the curriculum there's nothing in this act that
00:38:21.060 will upset you but there's already a lot of teachers that are upset about it i mean and
00:38:25.600 the act brings up a few other things you know bringing back the national anthem in the class
00:38:30.280 and one another important one is like getting rid of of of non-approved symbols right you can't like
00:38:36.900 the pride flags in the classroom they're they're going to be gone if once this act passes right
00:38:41.420 The only flags that should be in a classroom is is the Alberta flag, the Canadian flag, maybe the city flag.
00:38:47.320 And, you know, and depending on a few events, the Métis Nation or things like that.
00:38:53.480 But, you know, do we do we fly the pride flag or the Palestinian flag?
00:38:58.380 I mean, you can have the Palestinian flag if it's part of a of a teaching curriculum on geopolitics, but not to be hanging up there as a political statement.
00:39:08.140 Definitely no Black Lives Matter flags or stuff like that.
00:39:11.420 But the other part of that, like I said, it's two birds with one stone. It's bringing the unions under control. It's stopping the indoctrination. But the important thing about stopping the indoctrination is that you're also preparing future voters because that's one of the problems we're facing right now.
00:39:29.060 So as you know, it's the schools are indoctrinating future people and that are literally turning against the province.
00:39:40.080 So I thought that I thought that was I'm happy to see Danielle going down this path with that.
00:39:46.680 It was voted on very by the by the membership at the UCP.
00:39:55.500 And then the other bill that came out yesterday, and I haven't had a chance to really go into this one because this one is really, really hot off the press, but that's bill number 26, which again, bill 26 now, immigration oversight is one, it's kind of, again, it came out at the AGM.
00:40:16.100 these were things that the membership wanted, right? At the AGM, she got an earful from people
00:40:22.340 saying that immigration was out of control. And by the way, immigration is a federal mandate.
00:40:27.240 So somebody comes, Ottawa decides who comes in and out of the country. So Ottawa decides, but
00:40:32.260 the reality is once they're in, and let's say they land in Toronto or they land in Montreal or
00:40:36.980 Vancouver, even in Calgary, once an immigrant lands in the country, they're free to go wherever
00:40:42.320 they want and a lot of them are choosing to come into Alberta so that so we don't choose who gets
00:40:48.540 to come into the country and then they come into the country and then they overwhelmed us
00:40:51.820 and they seriously overwhelmed us in the last couple years right we grew our population by
00:40:56.340 about four percent which is a completely unsustainable level uh it stressed our schools
00:41:02.000 it stressed our hospitals our other infrastructure our housing and all sorts of things like that
00:41:07.400 And Danielle was told clearly to start addressing that. And, and, and that's what this act does. So, and as an example, in this act, there's something in there that says, if a, if an Alberta business wants to take advantage of the temporary foreign worker program, and potentially hire, I could get into so much there.
00:41:31.540 But if somebody wants to take advantage of that, they have to register and get permission from Alberta to do it.
00:41:38.200 That's just an example, right?
00:41:39.540 And there's a couple of other examples like that.
00:41:42.180 So Danielle is going to use every tool at her disposal to take control of immigration, even though it's not her total purview.
00:41:52.080 Go ahead, caller.
00:41:53.240 Where are you calling from and what's on your mind?
00:41:57.940 Good morning.
00:41:58.820 I'm calling from Battle River Crowflip.
00:42:01.540 my name is sylvie the famous battle river crowfoot home of the home of the poiliev
00:42:08.820 by-election that cost 2.3 million i'll talk about that but what's on your mind sylvie
00:42:14.180 okay my mind is bill 25 i was fortunate enough to be a child of the military
00:42:20.980 who spent a decade in germany in what was west germany at the time so i learned from old fascists
00:42:29.300 reformed fascists i learned from hitler youth and then i went over on the ussr side and i
00:42:35.860 learned all about communism and i saw the wall fall the problem is is the teachers for the last
00:42:41.620 30 years have been pushing communism good socialism great what we've done is bad we can't have this
00:42:51.540 capitalism they've brainwashed a whole youth sorry did you say you're a teacher yourself or
00:42:59.760 or no no no i i i wasn't a teacher i said what the teachers have done i pulled my children's
00:43:08.020 early 2000s from school good yeah yeah actually that'd be an interesting statistic i wonder if
00:43:15.180 i kind of have a sneaking suspicion that albertans uh more more kids in alberta are
00:43:20.720 homeschooled per capita than probably any other province it seems to be con is that what you did
00:43:25.600 you homeschooled a hundred percent yeah yeah okay no um yeah i agree you know an interesting
00:43:36.960 perspective that you bring it up so so you experienced it in germany now how come you
00:43:41.680 didn't succumb to it because i well like i said i experienced i talked to so many people i went to
00:43:49.680 all the battlefields i went to the camps i walked through the showers i was in berlin when the wall
00:43:55.920 fell i was actually over in the ussr poland yugoslavia all those areas before and after the
00:44:04.400 wall fell so that was my moment as a team okay so as firsthand you saw the negative devastating
00:44:13.120 impacts of people who promote socialism and communism that's yeah that's powerful that's
00:44:19.120 powerful and what do you say to somebody like i i mean i'm amazed that people still like you know
00:44:25.840 i haven't even talked about the ndp convention this weekend like the ndp convention was basically
00:44:30.800 socialism gone bonkers but what do you say to people who you know one of the arguments you
00:44:36.000 always hear is like well nobody's done it properly you ever heard that argument that it's never been
00:44:42.160 tried and done properly like what do you say to avi lewis who wants to try it again
00:44:47.120 I have heard that over and over and over again. And I give them the last hundred years, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, USSR, Japan was even in. Vietnam is still actually a communist country, but they've got lots of capitalism in it.
00:45:09.540 right you know but really it hasn't been done right because you look at over a hundred million
00:45:15.860 people that have died right yeah and then the other example yeah and then those countries you
00:45:21.460 mentioned those are countries people are trying to escape nobody ever tries to escape uh you know
00:45:27.220 nobody tries to escape norway nobody tries to escape uh you know the usa but people try to
00:45:32.980 escape those countries thanks for the call that's uh yeah yeah great feedback thank you so much um
00:45:37.940 Um, yeah, have a great day. Uh, I, I, I didn't want to talk about, uh, I didn't want to talk
00:45:44.320 about the NDP convention too much. Cause I think it was, you know, it's, it's been talked a lot
00:45:48.100 about, but let me just mention this because there is a context, there is an Alberta context.
00:45:54.380 First of all, if, if, if you had, if a person had never seen or heard of Avi Lewis and had never
00:46:00.460 seen the NDP and just saw the convention this weekend, you would have, you would have sworn
00:46:04.720 that it was comedy there's no way it could be real right the the the the ideas that avi lewis
00:46:10.880 has and then watching the comedy of like uh equity cards at the ndp have you shown clips on that
00:46:17.360 we don't need to show clips on that right maybe maybe show a picture of somebody holding an equity
00:46:21.680 card i mean uh like the ndp that's how uh you know that that's one of their weird ideas is that they
00:46:29.040 they, the reality of humanity is that we're not all equal. Okay. Some of us have different talents.
00:46:36.760 Some of us have different skills. Some of us, you know, some of us can, are early morning risers.
00:46:42.140 Some of us are late evening workers, whatever. And so we all have different skills, different
00:46:47.220 mindsets, different talents. And this whole idea that you can make us equal almost always fails.
00:46:53.600 And so then the NDP, their idea for this was they, they call it these equity cards, right? You could
00:46:58.780 walk up to the mic and, and rather than wait in line to make sure that somebody who, who had less
00:47:06.620 equity than somebody else, meaning wasn't blessed with the same skills or talents that you got a
00:47:12.840 card and allow, anyways, it was, I don't want to get into too much of that, but I do want to get
00:47:18.140 into this bit. The election of Avi Lewis causes an interesting problem for Nahid Nenshi in this
00:47:25.960 province, right? Because the NDP party across the country is one where there is a parent-child
00:47:33.100 relationship. So the federal NDP does implement policies that the provincial NDP kind of have to
00:47:41.620 follow. And Nahid Nenshi right here, right now, he's battling for his political life. He's losing
00:47:48.760 popularity. You know, he's up against Smith. Smith is hugely popular doing things like Bill 25,
00:47:55.120 26 and others doing great work and then she's trying to stay relevant and then we've seen
00:47:59.980 nenshi in the last couple of weeks try to move you know try to appear more common sense saying
00:48:05.460 i'm a little i'm okay with pipelines i'm okay with this and then boom he has a new boss right
00:48:10.920 for all intents purposes abby lewis is his new boss and his new boss says he's totally against
00:48:15.400 pipelines he's totally against hydrocarbons he wants to nationalize grocery stores and things
00:48:21.320 like that so it's going to be interesting to watch nenshi uh danielle's own words was uh you know
00:48:27.280 square that uh hole like he's he's got a uh you got a picture yeah you know they that's that's
00:48:35.380 nenshi's new boss and and by the way and nenshi's pretty savvy politically avi lewis has never been
00:48:41.920 a politician in his entire life he comes from he's he is sort of political royalty his father
00:48:48.340 was uh stephen lewis who by the way passed away i think yesterday and uh you know his father was uh
00:48:55.140 an ontario mp had been um ambassador to the un and things like that and so uh avi is going to
00:49:02.480 have a hard time navigating the political landscape doesn't have a seat i'll come back to that i see
00:49:06.700 i got a call don't like to make the callers wait too long go ahead caller where are you from and
00:49:10.020 what's on your mind hello yeah timothy calling here from edmonton how's it going good timothy
00:49:16.980 how are you oh not bad yeah um yeah i guess touching on the ndp there it was pretty ironic
00:49:24.060 to see there after doing all the efforts that they did in order to discriminate basically against men
00:49:29.680 yeah within the convention there um they still ended up and they also chanted i believe it was
00:49:34.960 they chanted at one point eat the rich yeah but they still ended up electing a multi-millionaire
00:49:39.580 white guy
00:49:40.520 that's pretty ironic
00:49:43.700 who became probably
00:49:46.140 richer after his father passed away
00:49:48.100 yesterday not wishing that
00:49:50.160 on anyone losing a parent is
00:49:51.640 always a terrible thing but yeah
00:49:53.520 I know what you're saying
00:49:54.720 so
00:49:56.360 go ahead
00:49:58.720 oh the reason I was calling though mainly
00:50:01.800 was to touch on what you
00:50:03.840 talked about with the previous caller earlier
00:50:05.600 just regarding getting the word out
00:50:07.780 about the petition and such
00:50:09.420 But yeah, up here in Edmonton, I'm obviously paying attention to the Western standard and the news that's going on and such, and quite up to speed on it.
00:50:18.840 But my wife, who's less politically involved, commented that she was like, if it wasn't for you, she said, I wouldn't even know that this petition was going on, which I thought was quite something to say.
00:50:31.880 For you referring to you or referring to me?
00:50:34.960 Yes. No, to myself.
00:50:36.840 Okay.
00:50:37.040 Yeah. So if it wasn't for connection to politics through me, she would have no idea.
00:50:41.800 Like with no advertising going on, yeah, in some of the bigger cities and probably especially Edmonton, obviously, because it's a left wing stronghold.
00:50:52.420 It is tough to get the word out just to the average person on the street.
00:50:57.660 And I guess that's a question for you.
00:50:59.520 I don't know. Do you think after the petition period, things will kick up more in earnest in terms of advertising and getting word out?
00:51:07.040 You know, with third party advertisers and stuff like that, because it seems like so
00:51:11.600 far the state free Alberta petition campaign has only been doing town halls and these pop
00:51:17.880 up events and that's about it, but there's been no actual advertising on billboards or
00:51:22.760 the news.
00:51:23.760 Well, stay on the line, stay on the line, but you know, what about this, right?
00:51:27.580 It could be a double edged sword, right?
00:51:29.100 So, okay.
00:51:30.100 So there's a referendum.
00:51:31.100 The referendum is not coincident with any other election.
00:51:34.580 So literally it's a standalone referendum.
00:51:36.660 So we're going to there's going to be a people are going to be asked to go vote on October 19th.
00:51:42.260 So there won't be. So it's not even a political campaign.
00:51:44.860 It won't be a lot of advertising. So what if maybe this is a strategy?
00:51:48.660 Maybe the only people who should promote it are the separatists among people that are already sold on the idea and then just get them out.
00:51:57.520 Right. Like if only if only separatists come out, you know what I mean?
00:52:02.000 You see where I'm going. So that could be a strategy.
00:52:06.260 But I also but but at the same time, I do think the other side will have to will will catch on to that and they'll get worried.
00:52:12.800 And so they'll try and mobilize the stay group.
00:52:17.000 And that's where I think it's going to be interesting, because like I said at the beginning of the show, what are they going to how are they going to sell it?
00:52:23.220 Right. Like, you know, there's a referendum to leave.
00:52:25.620 How do they convince people to stay?
00:52:27.420 Is it just they're just hoping that people are happy with status quo and will come out to vote on it?
00:52:31.940 Like, I don't know. What's your thoughts on that?
00:52:33.480 Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I think we've seen all that they have to provide so far based on even Jason Kenney's last debate with Bruce Party there where, I mean, what did he offer? He didn't offer anything positive, any positive vision for Alfredo within Canada.
00:52:49.080 Right. Basically, his entire argument was fear mongering about, you know, what all could potentially go wrong.
00:52:55.380 You know, the effort that it's going to take to create new agencies to cover what the federal government has been doing and outdated nostalgia for a Canada that's long past, essentially.
00:53:06.440 Yeah. But it wasn't a positive vision at all.
00:53:09.160 And so I think that's going to become even more clear once you have this debate with Keith Wilson, because Keith Wilson is very good at pointing out the gaps within the federal arguments and the positive vision that Alberta presents as an independent country.
00:53:26.120 Yeah, no, great question. I'll have to think about that, right, in the coming weeks. Like, do we need to really advertise it hard or do we sort of keep it under the radar and then suddenly, because I know there's groups, there are people like that.
00:53:38.400 We canvass. We know there are people well interested in this, and I think we're going to keep focusing on that group, which is why we want to get the 500,000 signatures. If we get 500,000 signatures, we basically have 500,000 people voting. And what if only a million people come out to vote or 900,000, right?
00:53:57.480 That's not out of the possible because, you know, don't quote me exactly, but, you know, there's 3 million electors.
00:54:04.360 And if there's 3 million electors and only 30% decide to come out because it's October 19th, too close to Halloween and they're busy, only a million people come out.
00:54:12.900 Well, to win the referendum, we need 600,000.
00:54:15.820 Like, I, you know.
00:54:19.380 Well, even if you consider in the last election, there was only 1.7 million that voted in the last provincial election.
00:54:25.300 Right.
00:54:25.700 Right. And out of that, I mean, it was 930,000, I think, that voted for the UCP, which determined the provincial government.
00:54:35.540 So, you know, if the same number came out as last time, we would need 130,000 votes.
00:54:41.960 But yeah, if the number that comes out is even smaller, potentially, yeah, we might not even need as many.
00:54:47.380 It's tough to say, though, because in previous referendums, you know, if you look at Quebec, for example, the turnout was extremely high.
00:54:54.260 But that was making major waves across the entire country, and there was a huge campaign
00:54:59.660 going on.
00:55:00.660 Literally, everyone was talking about it.
00:55:02.160 Plus, they had something that we don't have, which was the proponent was the party itself.
00:55:08.080 They elected a separatist party.
00:55:10.320 Can you imagine if the UCP was pro-independence, boy, we'd have a pretty strong voice.
00:55:16.940 It's going to be interesting, and then let's not forget, I wanted to talk about it.
00:55:22.740 I think Carney is still the wild card in this.
00:55:25.060 He can keep pushing people over to the separatist side.
00:55:30.200 I think if he cheats in the coming weeks and wins these three by-elections
00:55:34.360 and does something silly like pro-rogue parliament afterwards,
00:55:38.740 he's going to push more people onto our side.
00:55:42.380 Honestly, he's been our best advertising so far, has been Carney.
00:55:46.520 Oh, yeah.
00:55:47.280 Everything that he's been doing has been drawing more people towards the independents, I think.
00:55:50.760 Like, even this $90 billion high-speed rail transit link in the east, yeah, which is going to be of no benefit to us out here, but every Canadian taxpayer is going to be shelling out $4,000 in order to fund it.
00:56:04.720 That's just another case for Alberta independence out here.
00:56:07.860 Like, we want our tax dollars to be spent here to actually benefit things that we can use.
00:56:12.900 I mean, how many people in Alberta go to Ottawa regularly or at all?
00:56:17.780 Yeah, it's going to be zero.
00:56:18.580 Pretty much the only time that people go to Ottawa is for a field trip,
00:56:22.420 maybe in school and that's about it.
00:56:24.500 So all this money being spent out there isn't benefiting us.
00:56:27.540 Yeah. And just stay on the air for a second.
00:56:29.540 But I wanted to tweet about this this week and I haven't had a chance to.
00:56:33.220 But anybody go look up Lac-Mégantic.
00:56:37.700 So Lac-Mégantic was a rail disaster that occurred in Quebec about 12 years ago.
00:56:43.380 And the government's been trying to build just a bypass,
00:56:46.260 It's a 12.5-kilometer rail bypass around Lac-Mégantic, and they haven't done it yet.
00:56:51.340 It's been 12 years.
00:56:52.260 The website exists, and they've spent almost a billion dollars doing it.
00:56:56.060 So if the government can't build 12 kilometers of rail, how are they going to build a high-speed rail?
00:57:02.060 My God.
00:57:02.920 Yeah, yeah.
00:57:04.160 Oh, yeah.
00:57:04.660 Well, in the meantime, too, it was also just in the news this week that it was reported in the National Post
00:57:10.960 that the Liberals have $200 billion that they've advocated towards saving the climate.
00:57:16.260 towards their various climate initiatives.
00:57:18.880 And our emissions have barely been impacted at all across Canada.
00:57:24.260 And meanwhile, the rest of the world doesn't care at all about it.
00:57:26.980 Carbon taxes have been removed at various countries around the world.
00:57:30.960 Europe is desperate for energy.
00:57:32.520 They're trying to reverse some of their previous disastrous policies.
00:57:36.260 And meanwhile, Canada is just doggedly hanging on to this idiocy.
00:57:41.260 Again, another reason why Alberta should be independent.
00:57:43.840 Then we could make our own decisions regarding this.
00:57:45.920 we could allocate billions of dollars towards like hospitals, for example, instead of failed
00:57:51.200 attempts at changing the climate, which we can't really impact significantly anyway.
00:57:55.760 Awesome. Listen, appreciate the call. Yeah, call next week. Tell your friends to come watch the
00:58:01.280 show, but appreciate the call. Thanks, bud. Okay, you bet. Yeah, have a great day. This is awesome.
00:58:07.520 Okay, so folks, everybody stepped up and got a bunch of calls. I still have about three or four
00:58:13.520 topics i wanted to talk about that i never got around to i will mention them real quick just
00:58:18.280 because i i did want to talk about you know i mentioned carney potentially pro roguing parliament
00:58:24.480 right that was a rumor that came out and today he came out let me let me put some context real quick
00:58:28.580 um so there's three by elections on april 13th two in ontario and one in quebec and if if carney
00:58:34.680 wins those by elections um he will have a majority by the slimmest of margins but he will have a
00:58:42.220 majority and there was a rumor that he was contemplating proroguing parliament kind of like
00:58:47.820 what justin did which in effect allows he could go really go far not just prorogue parliament and
00:58:53.860 restart it he could launch an election if you look at the polls right now if you believe the polls
00:58:58.580 he's he's leading like in a huge way and so i keep i keep saying this he can taste the real
00:59:04.540 majority he doesn't want just a little majority he wants a big one but but keep this in mind folks
00:59:09.680 that story got uh appeared out of nowhere last week and that's not by coincidence right so the
00:59:16.640 part the the liberals because because afterwards carney came out uh you know violently saying oh
00:59:23.700 i won't prorogue i won't prorogue i won't prorogue that was the mainstream media working for the
00:59:28.780 liberals testing an idea how do canadians how how are canadians going to react to proroguing right
00:59:34.500 and then the other story that came out this week which was interesting and we had a lady call from
00:59:39.180 Battle River Crowfoot. What story came out this week? It's a year old story, but a story came
00:59:44.160 out this week that the by-election in Crowfoot cost $2.3 million. Okay. Why would they suddenly
00:59:52.500 a year later talk about that? Well, again, they're testing Canadians' appetite for an election,
00:59:58.260 because if Carney drops the writ and we have a snap election, that's like a $600 million touch.
01:00:05.540 So it's no coincidence, right? So when you see these weird stories, that's the media through the liberals testing ideas to see how we react to it. So I just want to talk about that real quick. And then I had two other stories, and I guess we'll go with those stories next week. But it was part of the April 1st, right? Yesterday was April 1st. Well, April 1st is the start of the budget cycle for the federal government.
01:00:33.200 So, you know, you and I mostly run on a January 1st to December 31st budget cycle.
01:00:38.840 The federal government runs from April 1st to March 31st.
01:00:42.560 So the 2026 or 2025, 2026 year came to an end a couple of days ago.
01:00:49.240 And right now we're into the next budget cycle.
01:00:53.000 We just got the last budget approved way out of cycle.
01:00:57.200 So right now the Liberals owe us a budget.
01:00:59.460 By all means, they should be working on that budget, getting ready to present it in May or something like that, which is another reason why potentially proroguing Parliament changes a whole bunch of things.
01:01:10.060 So I just wanted to bring that up where the budgeting is completely out of whack federally.
01:01:15.700 And and so now we're going to see the books for last year.
01:01:18.580 And I'm going to make a bet here that in 2025, 2026, Carney blew past the hundred billion dollar deficit.
01:01:26.940 it. That's my bet. And we'll see how that goes. And then the other thing I was going to talk
01:01:30.800 about, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I was I was complaining that we didn't have a
01:01:34.780 parliamentary budget officer. A lady named Annette Ryan was proposed, brought they brought
01:01:41.740 her up. She she has a role in finance somewhere in government right now, but she's being
01:01:47.280 suggested as a as a new parliamentary budget officer. She has to be approved in the House
01:01:54.940 of commons so we'll see uh the house of commons in a week-long recess right now and then we'll
01:01:59.360 see what happens when they come back in the coming weeks hopefully we have a pbo she comes
01:02:03.920 highly recommended and other people seem to like her so uh hopefully that's the case john was there
01:02:09.760 a call that we're just showing up or that's all good uh i guess we're kind of running out of time
01:02:15.360 hey that's uh that's another show for this week uh hey thank you thank you thank you you're not
01:02:20.640 making me rant as much or not rant but the my monologues are getting shorter so great show
01:02:25.920 thanks for calling in like i said man it's it's not uh it's don't be shy call we'll have a chat
01:02:31.700 the show's about you um and and uh you know please continue to call in like this and and and tune in
01:02:40.860 every thursday uh at one o'clock i know some of you guys are working and gals but uh you know
01:02:47.140 call-ins are are are important to the show uh hope you'll join me again next week at the same time
01:02:53.720 and and i gotta put out my uh my little uh promotion here thanks to the western standard
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01:03:27.500 slash subscription. All right, folks, hope to see you next week. Cheers.
01:03:45.260 We'll be right back.