00:05:05.180But before I go, before I dive deep into this, I think it's important to give ourselves a quick history lesson because, you know, history repeats itself.
00:05:16.560And I think we're back into one of those moments in history that's about to repeat itself.
00:05:21.720So I'm not going to go back too far, but I'm going to go back to to 2012, 2013, somewhere around there. Right. And conservatives in Alberta at that point had had had had conservatism in Alberta had fractured. Right. And so you had the conservative party and you had the Wild Rose.
00:05:44.420And the reason for that is because we've said this many times. Conservatives are a rowdy bunch. We have all sorts of different conservatives, right? We have people that are fiscally conservative. We have people that are institutionally or politically conservative. We have people that are environmentally conservative. I could even say religiously conservative.
00:06:07.400you know what i mean so you can you can there's not just one flavor of conservatism but generally
00:06:14.020speaking we have something in common which is we're trying to preserve something we believe
00:06:20.320in smaller governments we believe in governments that spend our taxes wisely we believe in freedom
00:06:26.560of speech and we believe in you know less interference in our lives by government so we
00:06:32.980have that in common, even though we come at it from slightly different angles. But where we don't
00:06:39.720have always commonality is how to move forward. Or we can identify the problems, but we don't have
00:06:48.060a common path to solving the problem. So that's where we differ. So in the 2000s, 2013, after the
00:06:55.460Klein era um conservatism conservatives got upset at in general and started to fracture and we had
00:07:02.440two groups and then um then there was the the the floor crossing with Danielle Smith which at the
00:07:10.040time she had a valid reason right she thought and we're seeing this pattern again she thought that
00:07:15.120she was going to unite the conservatives she thought that she couldn't be in because she was
00:07:20.000in the wild rose in opposition and the conservative of Jim Prentice were on the other side
00:07:24.840And she was basically in her mind, she's like, well, I can't I can't be the opposition when I'm kind of agree too much on things.
00:07:33.560And so she crossed the floor, Prentice called the snap election being opportunistic and the populace revolted and we voted in the NDP.
00:07:47.020And I think probably by accident at some point, it can be debated, but a lot of vote splitting because the wild rose continued to exist and the conservatives continued to exist, even though many had crossed the floor.
00:08:01.940The NDP existed, the liberal, lots of vote splitting.
00:08:04.640And we all wake up and holy smokes, we have an NDP government, which turned out to be a disaster.
00:08:10.400Then fast forward to just before 2019, just before the end of the Notley era, comes a savior in the form of Jason Kenney.
00:08:27.720And Jason Kenney says, I'm going to unite these conservatives.
00:08:33.480Now, and I'll be honest, I'm on the record for this.
00:08:37.220I held my nose and I voted for Kenny once they formed that party and I chose him as a leader
00:08:46.500because I'd seen his ability to bring people under a big tent.
00:08:52.060But I did not like Kenny personally and I also found him opportunistic, right?
00:08:57.380He had been a small fish, no pun intended, medium-sized fish in a big pond in Ottawa.
00:09:04.920He had had some roles in cabinet and whatnot, but he wanted to be a big fish in a smaller pond, I guess.
00:09:12.860So he came here. I saw him as opportunistic, didn't quite like it, but I plugged my nose and I thought he'll serve one term and he'll have a very specific purpose, which is unite.
00:09:23.480The purpose at that time was to defeat the NDP. So we succeeded in defeating the NDP with Kenny.
00:09:28.980and then poor kenny you can say what you want he got hit by covid so that was unfortunate he didn't
00:09:36.600have the ability to show exactly what he could do in the beginning of covid but uh covid dragged on
00:09:43.560and i think he dragged on with covid and he did some draconian things right he locked us down he
00:09:49.180did the vaccine mandates he arrested pastors he did all of that stuff so uh we had a leadership
00:09:56.620review he got like 52 percent or 51.3 whatever it was and i was surprised he did the the proper
00:10:05.560thing and he stepped down okay and i thought perfect that is the natural evolution kenny
00:10:11.800came in united us and as a united conservative party and then the party had uh will have other
00:10:18.960phases along the way will will transform itself it's a new party right the united conservative
00:10:23.440party exists since whatever 2018 so it's a relatively new party so we we we get rid of
00:10:30.680kenny we bring in danielle smith through a proper leadership race and things seem to be going
00:10:36.200according to plan and smith is got elected and so smith first she got appointed premier then she
00:10:43.820got elected in 2023 okay so she got elected in 2023 and um at that point the conservative party
00:10:53.060the united conservative party had become a pretty active party through the efforts of a lot of
00:10:57.660people over time and groups like take back alberta and others had appeared and the the citizens of
00:11:06.980alberta especially in the ucp became very active and in 2023 2024 2025 we had ucp annual general
00:11:18.100meetings in Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary, if not in that order, that were extremely well attended,
00:11:25.200like five, six thousand people attending those events. And we were discussing policies on the
00:11:31.360floor and we were, and in my opinion, I think, and I think many people think this way, and it is the
00:11:39.380way it's kind of structured, parties have a board of directors, like the members elect a board of
00:11:44.820directors and then debate on policies and things like that and then and then candidates appear
00:11:51.600candidates are elected in the election but they take they're supposed to sort of adopt and and
00:11:57.760and promote the policies of the party but they also represent their constituents that's the
00:12:03.460democracy we live in right you rep you you choose which party you're going to be on depending on
00:12:10.220your personal values and then you run but you ultimately represent your constituents and and
00:12:16.360so the party that was working for the party things were and and we were giving guidance to the party
00:12:21.640to danielle smith to the mlas and they were moving the province in a direction now
00:12:29.980Now, while all of this is going on, we are constantly under attack by the liberals, right?
00:15:02.400We don't have the right number of seats proportionally in the House of Commons or in the Senate or in the Supreme Court.
00:15:08.440So we're misrepresented statistically, even if we had the right number of seats, we'd be misrepresented because we're outnumbered. We don't like the transfer payments. We don't like several processes that exist, equalization, transfer payments. We're getting shortchanged on CPP, EI, things like that.
00:15:28.140So we have structural problems that are extremely complicated to fix.
00:15:32.280And we have, and not we, but people, I think, better than Smith have attempted to fix these problems.
00:15:39.300And we have had periods in our history where the provinces, other provinces had similar grievances and other provinces were willing to try and work together.
00:15:48.680So we had the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord, attempts to fix the Constitution because the Constitution was repatriated in 1982.
00:17:28.220She fought him, but she's not responsible for getting rid of him.
00:17:32.360She's not responsible for getting rid of Stephen Gilboa.
00:17:37.340Carney or Smith can, sure, genuinely make the claim that that that she's been working better with Carney.
00:17:46.960But I think Carney is responding to overall pressures and he's pivoting. But Carney has told us very clearly in a 600 page book called Values what he plans on doing.
00:17:59.400So he still believes in climate change. He believes that that capitalism out on uncontrolled capitalism is bad, that it will serve the interests of the capitalists only and not serve the broader purposes of society.
00:18:13.760And he believes that capitalism needs to be reined in with a lot of rules by government.
00:18:20.840And he believes that government should choose the winners and losers and the companies and the projects that go forward and all that kind of stuff.
00:18:27.020So he's exhibiting that. And he also believes, I'd say to a certain extent, that a lot of industries should be nationalized.
00:18:34.460So we already have a ton of national companies like Via Rail and Canada Post and whatever.
00:18:40.920And now he's in the process of nationalizing, let's say, Stelco and others.
00:18:45.900And then he's even thinking of getting us in bed with the EU.
00:18:53.660So, OK, I'm going to take the caller because I value the callers, but I really wanted to finish this.
00:19:01.120But I'll take the caller. Try and be quick caller because I don't want to get distracted.
00:19:05.640Go ahead. What's on your mind? Where are you calling from?
00:19:07.080hi marty it's uh ken cong central alberta how's it going ken what's on your mind
00:19:13.740um so i just want to state that i'm uh i'm conservative on so many levels
00:19:20.460but i'm disappointed with the results of this referendum however um i'm more disappointed
00:19:28.540with danielle smith and her victory lap i feel she's a bit of a chameleon with her base to get
00:19:34.560elected from the get-go and now it seems like she's handling that base to cater to a potential
00:19:42.080new basis uh you know forever canadian crowd that supported the nine questions
00:19:49.040yeah um i just i just feel that uh we're really being let down on all levels of government here
00:19:56.880i i can't disagree ken i'll i'll um i'm not going to respond to your comment directly unfortunately
00:20:02.880i want to just finish what i was talking about but but uh but i agree ken thanks for that call
00:20:09.120okay thanks have a great show you thank you john i i don't know if they i could hear it but barely
00:20:15.360just you know maybe we needed a fine tuning but anyways okay so i'll i'll rush through my comments
00:20:20.160and then and then we can open up the floors and really have some discussions right so um
00:20:25.440so so so then so we we still have issues so danielle believes that she can get us a better
00:20:30.480deal and danielle believes that in her mind confederation works and can work okay that's
00:20:35.700fair that's her that's her strategy i disagree with it i don't think so and and i'm not unique
00:20:41.220in my thinking there's a lot a lot a lot of people so i would say based on the election
00:20:46.560the referendum results so far i would say about 50 of the members of the ucp think like i do which
00:20:56.340is um this constant having to fight for everything with ottawa is unhealthy and there's other problems
00:21:04.240over the horizon immigration's out of control we can see what's happening in europe carney wants
00:21:08.940to join the eu um you know the economy's tanking wokeism is still alive and well in the east and
00:21:16.160we see all these other problems so we can agree on some of the existing problems we don't necessarily
00:21:21.760all agree on the path forward but there's kind of two camps right now the status quo camp and
00:21:27.980we need to get out of here camp and then so then which brings us to this weird exercise we just had0.97
00:21:37.180we the two groups uh use this and danielle is so danielle is a conservative but she's also0.98
00:21:44.680believes in democracy and based on all sorts of events that have happened in the last couple of
00:21:49.140years you know failures of the recall uh like recall legislature and things like that she gave
00:21:54.880us a brand new tool called the citizens initiative act which allowed us supposedly to petition and
00:22:01.840demand things from the government such as a referendum well that turned out to be
00:22:07.220a piece of legislation that needs a lot of fine tuning because it came out too quickly and and
00:22:13.780Any law that comes out needs to be tested. That's normal, right? So this law came out and it failed its first test because the court said you can't do a referendum without separation, without first consulting with First Nations. And there was other issues and other issues and other issues. And the courts were adjudicating on this. And there's an appeal and there's a process with the courts that's going to take time.
00:22:37.200but there was a window and i think the window is important right there's an election coming up in
00:22:43.020a year from now and so i think there's a reason why we just had this referendum this referendum
00:22:49.100was just not it wasn't just about giving a consolation prize to um to the separatist okay
00:22:57.560or to the people who started the petition there's something more to that but i'll get back to that
00:23:02.280a second so so danielle gets elected does a few minor things okay well not so minor i mean you
00:23:10.360know gives us a new bill of rights um change you know curt curtails all this uh dei and wokeism
00:23:18.600that's going on in alberta but she still runs high deficits and so forth and and she you know
00:23:25.640as a politician you're supposed to do the big unpopular things in your first year do a few
00:23:29.960few of them in your second year and then your third year and fourth is spent doing nothing and
00:23:34.040your fourth year is spent trying to get reelected see where I'm going with this so now we just had
00:23:38.460the third year and what did she do in the third in the part of the second and third year she did0.96
00:23:43.000this nonsense Albertan X panel we've had three or four of those in the past she pulled Canadian
00:23:48.720or Albertans we told her pretty clearly what we wanted but she said I need a further mandate
00:23:57.780and so she put questions on a referendum
00:24:00.700which questions which aren't even the ones
00:24:02.780that came out of her Alberta Next panel
00:24:04.800but so she put these questions on the referendum
00:29:03.600Well, that's a crazy thought, a crazy comment from her,
00:29:09.200or even crazier from Kenny, who said the same thing,
00:29:14.540because there are 515,000 people who voted for option two.
00:29:19.620Only 990,000 people voted for Danielle Smith in the last election.
00:29:26.980But beyond that, I'm not a separatist because I'm pushing an ideology.
00:29:33.280i'm a separatist because i think that's the solution to our global our core problems
00:29:42.480and she's not a separatist because she thinks she has a different solution
00:29:47.120we're both conservatives everybody who voted everybody who's a member of the ucp is a
00:29:53.040conservative being separatist is not a reason to exclude us from a party being separatist is because
00:30:02.220we have different solutions to the problem but the party needs to stay together and talk and
00:30:11.020that's and that there's a lot of talk going on lately about i don't want i don't want to see
00:30:18.100what happened so this is where history repeats itself we're back to where we were in 2013
00:30:24.5802013, with two groups that disagreed on the path forward, we agreed on the basic problems.
00:30:35.760We need better government. We need smaller government. We needed to be fiscally responsible.
00:30:40.440We needed to respect our rights. We need this, this, this. But we disagreed on the path forward.
00:30:46.200We fractured. We let the NDP in. We got back together. We're about to fracture again.
00:30:51.240So can we finally realize as a group that we can have different solutions and we need to talk about that, those differences behind closed doors, on the floor of the AGM and in all sorts of places.
00:31:08.260But if Danielle just strictly excludes a group of people because their solution is not the same solution as others, she's going to say, we already talked about the solution and my solution is the right way.
00:31:23.340No, it's not because 50% of your party chose a different solution.
00:31:29.760So when you got a 50-50, you don't have a victory.
00:31:33.440You can't claim, Danielle, that your solution is the only path forward.
00:31:37.320There are clearly a difference in opinion on the path forward.
00:31:43.960And right now, my olive branch to you is don't kick me out and people like me, but embrace us.
00:31:52.000Bring us into the party and don't try and quiet me.
00:31:54.940We're going to keep having that debate.
00:31:57.020But I think that the solution going forward is not to try and open the Constitution and get us a better deal.
00:32:02.500The solution going forward is to put a heck of a lot of pressure and ultimately separate.
00:32:07.320but i'm open maybe there's a third solution or a fourth solution but we don't know that solution
00:32:14.660if we don't get together and talk about it so right now we're stuck on two solutions that are
00:32:19.04050 50 and and that's the problem that i have right now so wow i'm amazed that i was able to keep that
00:32:27.700straight in my head so please now let's chat so somebody give me a call because i mean i got other
00:32:34.900topics on here i don't even want to go into them i think they're boring right now i mean do i want
00:32:39.880to talk about the parliamentary budget officers report sure i'll always love talking about that
00:32:44.060france is in chaos inflation's going up the incident at wainwright tragic by the way but
00:32:49.680let's talk about what i just said so go ahead caller where are you calling from what's on your
00:32:53.260mind are you talking to me right yeah yeah absolutely oh i wasn't sure if there was
00:33:03.520someone else ahead of me okay uh the question on the point um i certainly have is that i agree with
00:33:11.060you as far as our perspective on canada i think alberta looks in canada's cup to see if they have
00:33:18.520enough and canada looks in alberta's cup to see if we have more than them and that's kind of the
00:33:26.380difference between most comedians in Albertan but I understand the frustration right now
00:33:36.300within our province and within the party and I fear that like you said we're going to head back
00:33:46.280to 2013 where we were and that is if we don't get on board with what we just saw
00:33:53.700and get behind Ms. Cramer, who is a strong leader
00:33:58.180and has done plenty of things and tried to lead from the middle.
00:34:03.100We are just heading towards an NDP government.
00:34:07.220And I understand that you agree or that you think,
00:34:09.780and I do agree with you, what the solution would be for us,
00:34:13.600but there isn't enough support for it.
00:34:18.400And I understand that you're frustrated
00:34:20.100that she wants to shut down that open conversation on that within the party for now.
00:34:26.720But in order to maintain the coalition of the different, the big tent, we'll say,
00:34:34.960we have to not have that distraction or we are going to end up with an NDP government.
00:34:43.380Because you can say that it's a 50-50 thought process right now or ideas, but it isn't.
00:34:49.060it is three to one we're in the 25 because there are other albertans here that are on the other
00:34:56.100side and right now all the polls some polls have the ndp flight we have called and most of them
00:35:02.740have us kind of neck and neck but you know what i'm saying yeah yeah that's the risk i think we
00:35:07.220have no i've i stay on the line i mean i like that's what i want to do right i want to explore
00:35:13.460this i hear your comment and i heard it in 2013 and i heard it uh after ken uh after kenny right
00:35:19.940i heard the same thing i mean basically what you're what you're saying i think if i paraphrase
00:35:28.100is hold off for a year and the most important thing right now is not letting the ndp in the
00:35:35.060in power so that's more important than than the threats of ottawa and so i i can wrap my head
00:35:40.580around that i can wrap my head around that and i can hold my nose and or hold my my my my talk and
00:35:48.100my and and just sit back and do nothing and just to make sure that the ndp doesn't get elected i
00:35:54.660can do that but i'll tell you it's difficult because i've done it once and now i'm going
00:35:58.820i'm being asked to do it a second time and the first time i did it you know everybody said let's
00:36:02.980just worry about not getting rid of knotley and then we'll make changes we got rid of knotley
00:36:08.340but i dare say nothing got better not dramatically afterwards so i i i hear that but the other
00:36:14.840hang on but the other pushback i also present to that argument is that do we exist like it
00:36:23.360do we exist is is just like is let's not let the ndp get in power a a goal like is that a valid
00:36:31.380goal what am i preserving what am i being conservative if that's all i'm doing you know0.53
00:36:36.100what i mean i understand what you're saying but what are the chances of accomplishing the goal
00:36:46.800we do have if the ndp do win yeah yeah no that is absolutely that is the um what do they use for a
00:36:56.560term right now existential threat the existential threat is that because you have abby willis as
00:37:06.080as the national leader of the NDP, right?0.89
00:37:09.600As the, no, no, no, keep all the oil in the ground.
00:37:12.760And regardless of how much Nadi Natsi wants to separate himself
00:37:16.360or distance himself from that, that's just the policy of that party.
00:37:51.320What I'm proposing is that somebody like Danielle Smith has to say,
00:37:56.180she has to kind of retract some of the comments that she made this week,
00:37:59.180and she has to say, I will accept everybody, all conservatives into this party,
00:38:04.880She has to say that. And then if she said to me, if she said, I will accept you into this party and I recognize that your way forward is different than mine and I'm asking you to pause this battle temporarily while we fight the NDP, if she phrases it that way, then I'm on board.
00:38:25.260But if she phrases it the way she did, sorry, but if she phrases it the way she did, then I'm going to say, let's go the way it is, and I'm going to blame her for splitting the vote, not me.
00:38:39.660okay so the question i have for you is that if danielle smith comes out and does exactly what
00:38:47.740you just said hey guys what we really need to do is just put this to bed for a bit until we get
00:38:55.360reelected what do you think the cbcpv and eventually comes up to the we told you she's a secret1.00
00:39:02.120separatist she has a hidden agenda for down the road she was lying about being a federalist and0.94
00:39:08.660what do we get out of that they're gonna just get another and you get it yeah yeah no they're
00:39:13.420gonna say that stuff anyway but they'll have something to point to now you're playing the
00:39:18.780what ifs i like what you're doing which is okay you're trying to you're you're you're making it
00:39:23.600before you move your chess piece you're trying to figure out what the other side is going to do i
00:39:27.700like that i get that but um i'll just push back this way no matter what she does cbc and ctv will
00:39:35.580criticize her you know what i mean like it's it's a it's a zero-sum game for her like it so so so in
00:39:41.980that mindset me personally in that mindset i move ahead with what i think is right regardless of
00:39:48.780what the city i do understand that yeah yeah no i do understand that i just don't want to give them
00:39:54.220the fuel to make the fire bigger and look like it might be credible that's all i'm saying yeah yeah
00:39:59.340as far as you and i as far as you and i agreeing you know i i'm in the i'm in the rimby writing
00:40:08.060oh yeah for this referendum okay so i okay you're not gonna that's the that's the now um
00:40:17.180i understand what feeling like yeah i know the right answer and i agree with you marty
00:40:22.300no no we're just having a debate we're having a debate it's not about agreeing or disagreeing
00:40:29.480entirely we're having a chat by the way congratulations to you guys in rimby i mean
00:40:32.880uh what are the other writings rimby uh west yellowhead uh grand prairie some great writings
00:40:39.980that that that sent a message thank you for that yeah yeah stetler not the chief notley yeah
00:41:40.980kate what's on your mind well in regards to uh what happened here with the referendum
00:41:49.720uh you know i was somebody who i did some volunteering i did some scrutiny work i've
00:41:54.760given donations but uh and i've gone to all the rallies that they had here in edmonton
00:41:59.380and uh and i i went to the last one on the 17th and of course i was i was very disappointed in
00:42:06.700the crowd i'm just going to say it all right i'm not going to try to fudge it i thought there was
00:42:10.740going to be a much bigger crowd being the last one but in all three that i was at i kept asking
00:42:17.800myself the same old question where are the young people everybody there was like in their 30-ish
00:42:26.860it's whatever up to where i am in in seniors where are the young people why aren't they here
00:42:34.440We're doing this for them. I'm 70. I'm in my 70s. If we would have, say, get through a referendum, the benefits to me would be marginal, maybe a little more pension money, maybe a little bit more taxes.
00:42:48.240But I was doing this for them, for their futures.
00:46:01.280the referendum was an opportunity because of him um by the way like yeah good comment you know did
00:46:11.700the youth come out um i think that's something we'll be able to look at in the uh full data when
00:46:18.740it comes up but right now the participation rate like there's two million votes already and i think
00:46:23.500there was 3.1 million electors. So, you know, it's 66%. Wasn't a huge turnout. Not as big as
00:46:31.420expected. And I don't think that the data is granular enough for us to be able to tell if
00:46:35.900the youth came out or not. But that's always been a reality, regardless. Youthful people
00:46:42.700are less political than older people. It's just a fact. Go ahead, caller. Where are you calling1.00
00:46:47.540from what's on your mind hi marty uh yeah my name is ryan um from southern albarta just an hour from
00:46:55.760the u.s border but uh this um whole referendum i think it was great that like all this voting this
00:47:06.400is awesome we went through everything that they wanted us to go through we did the signing uh
00:47:15.220we did the voting everybody should be just proud of themselves the work they've done
00:47:21.300they put in and i just want to say everybody just take a deep breath and just kind of relax
00:47:31.140this question can if if it went the other way um and we had the opportunity to continue
00:47:41.540well we would still be in Canada and it would maybe take another six months it could have taken
00:47:48.300another year before we even got the binding referendum so right now is a perfect time for us
00:47:57.160with Danielle Smith what she's saying let her say what she says keep her there now she has the ball
00:48:06.520in her court she has to prove what she's been saying all along that she can make a better deal
00:48:14.600everything like that the um canadian albertans that voted in this referendum the 15 uh
00:48:25.8001 million 500 people they're expecting her to do something now right and so and so yeah what i'm
00:48:34.360saying is oh let her stay there let her do her thing and then the independence uh people the
00:48:43.480solidists the separatists whatever whoever you are we have time to uh continue and and educate people
00:48:54.040Now, like we've seen the shenanigans of the Alberta elections, Alberta, we and we can show people that now that the mail-in ballots, this and that, whatever, we can educate people.
00:49:12.160Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying that everybody.
00:49:19.160Okay. I got lots of calls that I got 10 minutes left. So I'd like to get to a few more. Appreciate the call then. Thanks, my friend. Thank you, Marty. Thank you. Oh, John. Is there another call online right now? Or? Sorry. Okay. They'll call right back.