Western Standard - MARTY UP NORTH： Does Alberta independence need a leader？

00:00:00.000 all right welcome back uh thanks for joining me again

00:00:26.720 On this beautiful Thursday afternoon in Calgary

00:00:31.800 I'm just sort of calming down a little bit

00:00:38.940 I had a busy schedule this morning

00:00:41.000 I was rushing to get here

00:00:42.520 I just want to show you something

00:00:44.260 I'm drinking this water

00:00:47.000 And I got it

00:00:49.120 I just ran back from CNRL's annual general meeting

00:00:53.840 I love this time of year

00:00:55.560 I'm a former oil and gas guy, right? I climbed through the ranks of a few companies. And in

00:01:01.560 retirement, I own shares in a lot of different companies. And I particularly love this time of

00:01:07.080 year because we get the annual general meetings. And one of my favorite annual general meetings is

00:01:11.240 the one put on by CNRL by Murray Edwards, a great Canadian company. And that's something I wanted to

00:01:17.800 talk about last week that I never got to talk about last week. Last week was the fact that

00:01:21.720 But another great Canadian company got bought out last week, Arc Resources, got bought out by Shell.

00:01:30.820 And, you know, and some people said that was good and some people said that was bad.

00:01:34.740 I mean, it's neither here or there for me.

00:01:37.320 Oil companies get bought out and sold and reacquired.

00:01:40.980 Shells come here and produced and sold and left and come back.

00:01:45.800 And, you know, those are the pros and cons.

00:01:48.220 That's capitalism.

00:01:49.180 I mean, and I'm not going to criticize that, but I'm just going to say I enjoy going to Murray Edwards, CNRL's presentation in particular.

00:01:57.640 Murray has a really cool style of presenting and explaining.

00:02:02.840 And I will say this about Murray when I was listening to him.

00:02:06.660 Man, that guy knows his business.

00:02:08.040 like he's literally up on stage and taking questions and he was taking like he'll take

00:02:12.660 complicated questions on uh the credit rating of the company and uh um you know the different

00:02:19.520 assets working with government uh land issues or whatever and it's a you know people often

00:02:24.240 criticize CEOs of large companies for the salaries that they make but I'll but but quite

00:02:30.400 honestly most of them maybe maybe making a thousand times more you know the salary of your

00:02:35.140 average employee might be a little excessive but i mean there's a reason why some of those guys take

00:02:40.060 on some big salaries they they generally are not idiots they know what's going on and they have a

00:02:45.020 lot of risk in you know i don't think murray leaves the business at home when he's um when he

00:02:51.880 goes home i think he probably thinks about the business all the time but and and then just back

00:02:56.240 to this water somebody uh the only place i've ever seen this water is at the agms i've been there

00:03:01.920 two three times in a over the years and i think it's murray's favorite water so uh maybe i'm

00:03:07.200 doing some some free advertising for murray right now it's not my intent um all right uh lots to

00:03:13.120 talk about again today just a reminder um you know we're we're this is i think this is about john

00:03:20.000 what my 12th or 13th show now like almost three months in a row of of doing the show and uh and

00:03:25.200 then we're experimenting with the call-in uh concept and the call-in show only works if you

00:03:31.040 guys call in and again it's about you right what you want to talk about uh but i will start off

00:03:38.380 with you know the topic of the day and and then perhaps we'll go from there i mean i i i give

00:03:43.760 myself a list of topics of things that i find of interest that i want to talk about actually let

00:03:48.540 me let me let me just remind you guys of that right online marty up north i'm known as marty

00:03:54.020 up north the unacceptable fact checker right and it's something i've said before it's something

00:03:58.680 i'm not a i'm i'm a participant in stuff but more important but more i think more of myself as an

00:04:05.320 observer not as an investigator i'm not an investigator i don't dive deep into stories

00:04:10.520 i'm not a journalist uh i'm a commentator i'm a guy who looks at what's happening and sometimes

00:04:16.200 i'm fascinated by not necessarily the exact obvious of what's happening but sometimes i'm

00:04:20.760 more fascinated by the reaction of people and um so i just wanted to to to bring that up because

00:04:26.680 Because a lot of people think I'm a journalist, but I'm not.

00:04:30.620 And so the topic today that so before I got here, right?

00:04:35.040 Yeah, I'm online every day.

00:04:36.300 But before I start and before I show up here, I just I just do a refresh.

00:04:40.120 I go through my timeline, see what I spoke about or tweeted about during the week, what

00:04:45.180 caught my interest.

00:04:46.020 Then I do a quick search on the Internet just to see.

00:04:49.760 And right now, quite honestly, here in Alberta, in the world that I exist in, which is not

00:04:55.420 the real world, right?

00:04:56.320 x is not necessarily the real world it's important to get out and touch grass but in the world that

00:05:00.600 i sort of exist in right now there's still only one topic and that's independence and uh so let's

00:05:06.480 start it off by just talking real quick about what happened this week which i think is an amazing

00:05:11.720 event so on monday mitch sylvester has been collecting all the petition sheets um for for

00:05:22.420 the last couple of weeks and on monday he started out the day with a video of him putting all these

00:05:27.220 bankers boxes in a trailer out in bonnieville and when i was on when i was when i saw the video of

00:05:33.300 him loading those boxes i'm like counting them i'm like okay five by eight deep looks like about

00:05:38.100 40 boxes and then i estimated about uh you know 2 000 signatures or 2 000 pages per box times five

00:05:46.500 signatures so there's 10 000 so 40 boxes i'm like okay on the on the mid side 400 000 signatures

00:05:54.020 but if they're packed in there loosely maybe less uh he drove all the way to elections alberta

00:06:01.540 had a big party uh i don't know john if you have any scenes from that but it turned out to be

00:06:07.060 people from uh all over the pro there's mitch holding one of those bankers boxes that's why

00:06:11.700 i was off right because he had sorted all the signatures i think literally by canvasser by

00:06:18.340 people who collected them and so they weren't all packed in there tightly so maybe less than 1800

00:06:24.020 or less than 2000 but um 100 oh and that that was another nice touch by the way mitch very nice touch

00:06:30.340 he put the uh for on each box he had the picture i just got goosebumps thinking about it on each

00:06:35.460 box he put the can a picture of a canvasser so was anybody there did anybody see my picture on

00:06:41.380 any of the boxes i hope uh that i got a picture on one of the boxes they drove him to edmonton uh

00:06:47.620 i'd say easily 100 people maybe 200 people showed up a few speeches flags waved everywhere and then

00:06:55.060 they they interestingly they weighed the boxes mitch says they they weighed each box and then

00:07:02.100 sealed it and then signed on a seal like kind of like presenting evidence right the boxes are sealed

00:07:07.860 Wade, and then turned over to Elections Alberta, who received them. So kind of an interesting,

00:07:14.020 and I'll touch on why that was. And then Mitch told us that there was 301,000 plus change

00:07:24.660 signatures. So that's impressive, right? So over the, there's a great picture right there of what

00:07:30.620 it looked like, like just flags everywhere. By the way, I'm so happy now you can finally get an

00:07:35.980 alberta flag at canadian tire i i always found that this is disappointing that for the longest

00:07:40.940 time if you went to canadian tire you can get a canadian flag but you couldn't get uh an alberta

00:07:46.060 flag so they've they've smartened up and they saw the value now and they're selling uh alberta flags

00:07:50.380 but anyways um 300 000 signatures is i think is quite an accomplishment because like i said i

00:07:57.740 collected signatures right i had to um to everybody who came to me to sign the petition i had to ask

00:08:04.940 for their driver's license or some proof of because i had to ask three questions actually

00:08:09.820 here's my speech here's what i said every time somebody came to see me i'm like i'd see them

00:08:14.140 step out of their truck walk towards me as like hi good morning how's it going are you here to

00:08:17.820 sign the independence petition and most people say absolutely darn rights i am once in a while

00:08:24.060 somebody turn around go oops wrong petition and then i'd say have you signed it before no uh okay

00:08:30.380 then uh then they'd say what do i need from you and i'd say well i need proof that you're in

00:08:34.700 an Alberta citizen over 18 eligible to vote here. And I'd say, typically, I need your driver's

00:08:41.260 license. And as soon as somebody handed me their driver's license, I would look at their driver's

00:08:44.740 license. And I was quickly zooming in on one thing, which was the address to make sure that

00:08:49.460 it wasn't a P.O. box. Now, I live in the country. So a lot of people who handed me their driver's

00:08:54.480 license, I'd be like, oh, P.O. box, do you have something with your physical address on it? And

00:09:01.380 And then people would be scratching their head.

00:09:03.300 I'd be like, maybe it's your registration in the car.

00:09:05.300 Maybe you got a picture of your 911 sign for your property or something like that.

00:09:10.620 And then I would get, sometimes I had to turn away somebody and say, sorry, you'll have

00:09:15.180 to go home and get a proof of physical address, your gas bill, your tax assessment or something

00:09:19.280 like that and come back.

00:09:20.060 But we validate and every signature I collected, I was almost never alone.

00:09:25.620 Very, very, very rarely alone.

00:09:27.700 I always had my wife with me or some friends, other canvassers.

00:09:30.720 And so everybody witnessed each other behaving according to the code of conduct and collecting signatures.

00:09:36.060 So the fact that Mitch got 300,000 signatures in the weather conditions that we had was amazing.

00:09:42.340 And I'll come back to the weather and I'll come back to the conditions.

00:09:45.540 But I got a caller on the line.

00:09:47.240 So, again, quick reminder, just let me know your name, where you're calling from, and make a comment or ask a question.

00:09:55.760 Go ahead on the line.

00:09:56.520 hi i'm george from calvary good morning how are you or good afternoon how's it going

00:10:04.120 how's it going pretty well how are you good good what's your what's your question what's on your

00:10:10.180 mind uh um we had quite a bit of uh news from uh from traditional media regarding the experience

00:10:19.520 from Russia and U.S. and so on and so on, and it looked like a playbook for me that happened

00:10:28.640 several years ago with Russian interference in the U.S. election, which seems to be wrong.

00:10:38.240 Also, very close to what happened in Eastern Europe, year and a half ago,

00:10:49.520 can't put in an election

00:10:52.140 there too

00:10:53.900 what are your thoughts?

00:10:56.480 so let me ask you then

00:10:58.500 when you read those stories

00:11:00.660 do you think there's interference

00:11:02.300 you mentioned Russian interference

00:11:04.840 but where do you think most of the

00:11:06.740 interference occurs in our

00:11:08.420 elections or in our democratic

00:11:10.560 process here in Alberta?

00:11:14.600 well I think

00:11:16.720 it's somewhere else other than

00:11:18.720 and the united states um personal i think it's uh for what we can see right now without having

00:11:26.560 the proof right allegedly depending interference from china and uh um interference from from india

00:11:36.320 but other than that i have no other yeah yeah awesome yeah okay no appreciate the comment thanks

00:11:41.680 for calling yeah so okay thanks yeah that's um it's on my list of things that i wanted to talk

00:11:51.200 about today maybe we'll come back to interference because there were some some some interesting

00:11:54.880 discussions on that online but i just want to go back to what happened on monday so mitch handed in

00:11:59.120 the signatures 301 000 i think it uh very uh collected under extreme like very tight uh

00:12:07.840 protocols and rules and i have no doubt that everybody all the canvassers followed the letter

00:12:14.480 the rules very closely and and the signatures are legit on my way here to work uh you know i

00:12:21.360 walked down stevens avenue it's like a lunch time and i mean the patios are out and everybody's in

00:12:26.960 in mass like the difference between the people outside versus today versus say a month ago it's

00:12:32.240 night and day it's dramatic right and everybody's in a good mood and and and as i'm walking down

00:12:38.400 that's all i kept thinking is man when i was sitting on the side of the road collecting those

00:12:41.920 signatures through january february march how miserable it was and how little how how how i

00:12:48.000 still accomplished getting a lot of signatures despite the weather and i can't help but think

00:12:52.720 if i was out there collecting today how easy it would be right so i think that 300 000 signatures

00:12:58.720 were very hard to obtain they were obtained in uh in according to the rules set out by

00:13:05.360 by by by the by the legislature and by elections alberta and then and then i hear a lot of people

00:13:12.340 comparing it to um thomas dukazic's uh forever canada or for whatever his name is of his and

00:13:20.320 he claims to have gotten just over 400 000 and they were collected under a different time under

00:13:26.380 different rules and and it's not really an apples to apples comparison but i but in a sense it is i

00:13:32.460 mean uh make no mistake this is not a fringe movement there was 300 000 people who put their

00:13:38.060 name on a piece of paper now given that what's the next step right so how come mitch how come they

00:13:44.940 were sealing the the signatures and boxes and weighing them well if you remember uh back on

00:13:52.460 On April 7th, 8th, 9th, the several First Nations up in northern Alberta, specifically around Sturgeon there, around Valley View, filed an injunction trying to stop this whole petition process.

00:14:07.840 And both sides were heard.

00:14:09.820 And the judge on April 10th, after hearing all the comments from both sides, couldn't make a ruling quite yet.

00:14:17.720 And so the judge says, I need time to make my ruling.

00:14:20.360 And but while I'm making my ruling or pondering or adjudicating, I will stay not the signature collection, but I will stop Elections Alberta from counting the signatures.

00:14:35.320 So that's why they were delivered on Monday. They have them in their possession, but Elections Alberta at this point cannot count them, cannot start the process of validating them, you know, picking out a random number of them and calling people to make sure that they were done properly, validating whatever signatures.

00:14:52.200 They can't do their quality control. They can't count them. And they certainly can't do the next step, which is turn them over afterwards to Alberta's Justice Minister, Mickey Amory.

00:15:06.640 so we're on hold now right we're on hold and um and that and april 7 8 the judge passed that stay

00:15:17.040 on april 10th now it's it's kind of a indefinite stay but in principle it's kind of like a month

00:15:25.520 long stay 30 days and so april 10th comes to 30 days later is like may 10th right if i'm looking

00:15:31.680 at my watch and may 10th is just around the corner basically it's monday so i think a couple

00:15:37.520 of things will happen either on monday this would be either on monday the judge comes out and says

00:15:44.560 i approve the injunction or i reject the injunction and then the process continues

00:15:51.360 depending on which other path or a third option is that the judge on monday or in the very near

00:15:56.320 future says i haven't made my full decision and therefore i extend the the stay for whatever

00:16:04.240 another period i imagined another 30 days and which means that elections alberta couldn't

00:16:09.200 continue the process and couldn't start counting for another 30 days um now of course me being an

00:16:16.440 end you know separatist my favorite outcome would be if on monday the judge said i reject the stay

00:16:22.320 the citizens process is valid and let it continue that'd be my number one choice

00:16:27.140 uh the worst scenario would be uh if on monday the judge said i approve the stay

00:16:34.320 and the petition is invalid either of those scenarios on monday for or against i think

00:16:42.580 triggers uh appeals right if the if the first nations are unsuccessful they'll appeal

00:16:48.840 if uh if we're unsuccessful we'll appeal you know what i'm saying so uh there's a lot of steps to to

00:16:57.620 go on and then in the back of my mind what worries me all the time is the fact that october 19th has

00:17:04.940 already been set as the target date to hold referendums and to have this question added there

00:17:10.080 that's because alberta has set election dates the next provincial election is next year i think it's

00:17:16.920 October 19th or 20th next year, 2027.

00:17:19.920 So a referendum has to be held, you know, a year and one day in advance of that election.

00:17:25.720 And then it takes time for the whole for the election, for the signatures to be counted,

00:17:31.760 for the government to decide something, for the question to be added to a referendum and so forth.

00:17:36.440 So if I if I count back from October 19th, the government of Alberta needs to make a decision

00:17:41.840 on an independence question somewhere around, you know, mid to late July.

00:17:46.920 And then there's the camps that talk about the fact that the Lukasik petitions valid, etc, etc, etc.

00:17:55.200 So we're not done yet, but it was an important step that was crossed.

00:18:02.620 And now I think Mitch and a few others are going to take a little bit of a break, take a week off.

00:18:10.880 Everybody deserves a week off. Enjoy the summer.

00:18:13.020 go have a couple beers on the patio and then they'll get back on the campaign trail even though

00:18:18.300 there's some uncertainty about the future i think we need to continue educating albertans about

00:18:24.760 the value of um of independence um and and and then since i'm on that topic a big news last week

00:18:36.080 i just want to just keep talking just ever so slightly about this one right so we we still have

00:18:42.520 all the development around, um, this data breach. And I just want to, all I want to say about that

00:18:55.360 is that for me, it's been interesting to watch the event in and of itself is interesting,

00:19:01.860 but the reactions around it are interesting how people are, how different camps are reacting to

00:19:07.160 and so forth and so forth but i just want to put a question out there to the general group to you

00:19:13.160 guys and call in and let's chat about this one perhaps but one of the things that we keep

00:19:19.320 referring to when we talk about the independence movement is the fact that it's grassroots

00:19:24.360 and and grassroots mean it's not led meaning in this instance it's not led by a political party

00:19:31.080 of some sort it's citizens through the citizens initiative and other things so it's grassroots

00:19:35.720 and the the advantage of so grassroots has advantages and disadvantages right so grassroots

00:19:42.440 means there's no specific leader there are some spokespeople there are people that are more

00:19:47.520 prominent as leaders you know mid sylvester jeff rath uh dennis modry others like that

00:19:53.660 um but but officially there isn't a leader and grassroots means that there's a lot of

00:19:59.820 organizations that are doing their things whether it's stay free alberta the alberta prosperity

00:20:05.540 project uh different parties uh you know uh the ndp have their for canada or for alberta for

00:20:13.680 canada so you can see like the they're on the other side but they're you know they're they're

00:20:18.560 they're attacking but on the on the independent side there's a there's a whole bunch of groups

00:20:24.000 that are popping up you know uh i've said it before i i forget his name but um or not his

00:20:29.000 name is his group's name but chris scott at the whistle stop like he's very active doing some

00:20:34.040 touring uh uh cory morgan who who's you you guys are familiar with here at the western standard he

00:20:41.060 goes on speaking tours tanya clemens let's be i've spoken right so lots of people are speaking so

00:20:45.480 that's grassroots and and then i keep hearing people say uh there's pros and cons so i'd say

00:20:52.380 what happened with the centurion group this week shows a definitely a a negative side of a

00:20:59.020 grassroots because when it's grassroots you don't have control of everybody who's doing stuff

00:21:03.600 there isn't a central group you know monitoring the situation and saying yeah that's a good idea

00:21:08.720 that's a bad idea it's grassroots so and um and so some people now are calling saying that it's

00:21:16.000 time to unite the groups together and have one group continue in the campaign and one leader

00:21:22.120 and i'm i'm a little undecided still yet i don't know i've said before i think i think

00:21:29.020 I think the advantages of of being grassroots right now and not having a very specific leader outweigh the other side, because I'll tell you the I fear that once we have one leader, then the attacks will be all coordinated and aimed at that one leader.

00:21:47.440 So that's my fear. So I'd appreciate if you guys want to call in and talk about that. You know, what's your thoughts on on grassroots movements and whether it's time to to to to organize around one leader?

00:22:02.360 all right let me take a quick sip of murray's favorite water please call folks you're making

00:22:09.740 me talk too much here which it gets um i'm not a i like talking but i you know i like debating and

00:22:17.480 some of these issues right now i find they don't lend themselves very well to just a monologue

00:22:24.120 because there there's the i can view them through such a broad broad lens

00:22:28.920 john's highlighting a comment for me what's the highlighted comment better be

00:22:36.260 uh better be leaderless look at what they did to tamara oh yeah yeah that's um

00:22:43.760 that's an interesting that's a great comment i mean that's well you know i want to talk about

00:22:49.280 that is something i wanted to talk about in in the again in the lens of of of the events that

00:22:54.560 happened in this last week and what what can happen right that's a great example like um when

00:23:01.360 when when you start to when you start to push too hard against the establishment and i've talked

00:23:07.780 about this right the trucking convoy was an example the ostrich farm i think was an example

00:23:11.900 you know you you question and then and maybe you're you're pushing a little too hard and then

00:23:17.800 you see this pushback from the government and um and tamara is a perfect example of that i i've

00:23:23.980 i've listened i've met her in person i've listened to her talk and i think uh i'm i'm i'm so glad

00:23:29.820 that she's still strong and she's still doing what she's doing because it would have been

00:23:33.980 easy to just retreat and disappear after what she'd been subjected to and i think that was

00:23:40.460 kind of what the government wanted right to make an example of her and they were unsuccessful

00:23:46.060 imagine that like um what a great uh what's the word role model and and an example for us like

00:23:56.300 you know you talk about the david and goliath that's what i want to do you know let's let's

00:24:00.060 use that david and goliath right tamara is like tamara and goliath i mean tamara i've met her in

00:24:05.740 person i don't even think she's five feet like i think she's four foot eleven or something like 1.00

00:24:10.140 that she she even got charged at one point with uh intimidation like she's the perfect example of 1.00

00:24:17.760 the smallest person imaginable and then the government throwing its full force uh against 0.80

00:24:24.960 her i i think that is just a shameful chapter in uh in in our history what they did to her

00:24:32.000 the the trucking convoy and the protest in ottawa on the other hand is one of the most

00:24:38.280 amazing chapters in our history and i think that will be talked about um in in academia

00:24:43.880 and for a long long time uh go ahead caller on the line where are you calling from

00:24:50.840 all right when i'm calling from calgary marty i see you're not very important there they said

00:24:56.840 if i want to talk to cory dial several one once you're going to have to get them to change that

00:25:01.640 courier marty oh so i went up to edmonton on uh on monday sorry just being sarcastic yeah i went

00:25:10.680 up to edmonton on monday it's a great time you know lots of people you know we've got our signatures

00:25:18.120 and as uh the one lawyer said now we've got seven thousand or seven hundred thousand signatures for

00:25:24.680 a referendum 300 from us and 400 from the other side and my biggest deal was people

00:25:33.880 who didn't want to sign because of a trucker's convoy they already had their bank account seized

00:25:38.600 once and they didn't want to have a teeth again so that was a major concern when i was out

00:25:44.200 collecting signatures so it's great and lastly marty if you want we're going to false pizza on

00:25:50.680 friday at five o'clock i know you look close to edry so we're gonna be out there for pizza on five

00:25:55.240 o'clock some of us canvassers i don't know how many are gonna show up so if you want to show

00:26:00.040 up you're welcome okay i appreciate it yeah um i was just there on uh saturday um but i wouldn't

00:26:07.960 mind going back as i uh when i was there on saturday farooq wasn't there and i wanted to have

00:26:12.840 a chat with him uh cool thanks for thanks for thanks for the actually are you still on the line

00:26:18.360 yes how how was the uh i'm still on you want to go ahead how was the atmosphere

00:26:26.840 go ahead say what it's that's positive like it's positive like we're everybody's i'm positive it's

00:26:34.760 not if we're gonna win it's when we're gonna win uh and i'm the leader i know you're asking about

00:26:40.840 that i'm like you i have next about that but for now i just like it's like the papa groups when

00:26:46.600 and we're getting signatures, it's just nice to have people pop up.

00:26:50.480 And we just can't quit now.

00:26:52.140 We have to keep being out there, showing people about Alberta, informing people.

00:26:58.540 We're not in a political campaign.

00:27:00.700 We're not restricted to 30 days.

00:27:03.040 So I'm going to try and be out every weekend, wave on my flag, just put my signs up for independence,

00:27:11.400 spend a couple hours every weekend or during the week, whatever I can.

00:27:15.140 and hopefully people come and talk to you and just want to be informed awesome all right thanks for

00:27:21.760 that yeah hopefully i see you on friday um yeah paul's no no saturday saturday at five okay thank

00:27:28.540 you cheers have a great day saturday at five you too bye-bye um yeah paul's pizza um you know an

00:27:38.700 example of uh paul paul's pizza right now okay so paul paul's pizza it's an old business i think

00:27:46.200 it's at least 15 years in in the eds or in the airdrie was bought out in the last four or five

00:27:52.100 years ago by somebody else and um it's not the first time that he's been in the middle of a

00:27:59.460 little bit of a storm for some comments online or whatever i mean he kind of made a joke

00:28:04.140 uh about uh the lbgtqias plus community whatever the the alphabet is he made a joke about them

00:28:12.580 and then and then people started attacking the business uh online saying don't go there

00:28:18.620 um uh you know people would go as far as ordering 100 pizzas and not picking them up and i don't

00:28:24.760 think he fell for that one um and and and anyways in in in their case the bad publicity had what we

00:28:33.080 call the Streisand effect right sometimes when you the the bad publicity uh flips and turns into good

00:28:39.440 publicity and so I I can't tell you the number of people I know who suddenly discovered uh Paul's

00:28:45.400 pizza just for that reason and went out there just because of all the negative publicity they were

00:28:50.180 getting and by the way um he wouldn't even need the bad publicity or the like word of mouth is

00:28:56.960 sufficient for him the pizza is actually amazing I mean he serves a deep dish pizza like that that

00:29:02.040 is this thick i went there on saturday last week with a buddy and i ordered the greek and you're

00:29:09.240 even the little one well some of you guys i'm sure can finish it but i couldn't even finish the eight

00:29:13.480 inch never mind you know the the bigger ones and then the other thing i really like about paul's

00:29:17.400 pizza how alberton is it because i've done this before he knew what he was doing uh if i go in

00:29:24.840 my if i'm if i'm going to the gun range and i needed uh some targets to shoot at i would often

00:29:29.880 just go into my recycle bin in the garage and then you'd have a bunch of pizza boxes and then

00:29:34.760 you took the pizza boxes in the truck and then you pizza boxes were always perfect at the gun range

00:29:40.360 or out in the bush not at the gun range because there we have proper targets but if you're just

00:29:43.880 going in the bush to shoot with some buddies and you just want to cite something in the pizza box

00:29:48.200 is always perfect and then you just drew a circle on it you got a nice piece of cardboard you know

00:29:51.640 what i mean and paul figured that out so if you take a paul's pizza box and flip it upside down

00:29:56.760 on the backside of his pizza boxes there's actually a target how cool is that so uh proper good alberta

00:30:04.600 roots there um all right so i think all right well let's let's uh we're done talking about

00:30:10.600 the independence movement for today i guess unless you guys call in and want to talk about it and let

00:30:15.400 me just go down my list then of other things i wanted to talk about because actually that's

00:30:21.240 another good point that i wanted to raise right i said to you guys i'm a commentator and often when

00:30:26.040 When I see stories, I'm I'm I'm I'm fascinated by the story and the events, but sometimes I'm more fascinated by the by the reaction and what else might be going on.

00:30:37.420 Right. And so when I see like as as an example, when stories get released on Friday, like when the government puts out a report on Friday at 530, you know, they don't want us to see it.

00:30:48.400 Right. Because part of the news cycle is everything's done and they put out the bad story on Friday and then they hope that by Monday it's over.

00:30:55.180 right we call that so that's an example but the other thing is like when you have an example like

00:31:00.220 what's happening this week there's a bit of storm right there was a storm uh around the independence

00:31:04.380 movement and uh and by the way i don't think this was enough to to to ultimately um you know destroy

00:31:13.420 the independence movement it's more powerful than that i mean you you like as much as there's efforts

00:31:18.140 to destroy the independence movement there are guys like mark carney that are doing a lot to

00:31:22.220 promote the independence movement but but back to what i was saying when there's a storm like this

00:31:27.180 i like to look more sometimes to see what's the story that we're all ignoring while this storm

00:31:33.500 is going on because sometimes there's another story that we're being that we're ignoring and

00:31:37.180 that's the that could be a bigger story because i think some of these storms are done on purpose

00:31:42.620 to to distract right and uh not saying this one was done for that um but but there are some

00:31:49.180 interesting stories that didn't get talked a lot about this week for me one of the interesting

00:31:53.820 stories that did not get talked a lot about this week was mark carney's visit to uh to europe like

00:32:00.540 he went to um a european uh conference i can't remember the name of the conference john i think

00:32:07.180 it was uh i think it's just an annual european conference in armenia and uh he was quote unquote

00:32:14.060 invited and then he gave an address and i and i love his address where he he referred again it's

00:32:20.860 the second time he's talked about the fact that you know uh canada is the most um european non-european

00:32:29.660 country and he brings that up and i challenge that but uh but he likes to bring it up i guess

00:32:35.900 the fact that we have uh you know he's admitting in that sense that that our ancestry is that we've

00:32:42.700 been you know populated by wave after wave of european immigrants and maybe we've used

00:32:48.380 a common law system and a westminster system and things like that so that in a sense makes

00:32:53.660 us european but i could say the same thing about australia i can say the same thing about new

00:32:57.500 zealand i can in fact almost say the same thing about uh several other countries most of the

00:33:02.300 caribbean uh the us at one point but he goes there and he brags that up and then and then

00:33:08.940 And he says, thank you for the invitation.

00:33:12.540 But if you listen to the sort of the subtle words that he's saying,

00:33:17.460 it's a continuation of something that I don't like.

00:33:22.160 Carney is throwing the U.S. under the bus.

00:33:26.140 He keeps saying it, right?

00:33:27.360 The Americans are no longer, can't be trusted.

00:33:30.040 They're not our allies.

00:33:31.420 And now he's going to form this new world order and he's going to Europe to do it.

00:33:36.220 And, okay.

00:33:38.940 I want to I you know what it's all about the callers I want to take the callers the callers

00:33:42.380 are more important so go ahead did we lose the caller John or somebody's on the line go ahead

00:33:46.140 if you're on the line hey Marty it's Sean from Red Deer yeah just calling in about your question

00:33:53.980 about leaders quite an interesting topic I think brought up but I think like Canadians for the last

00:34:02.620 10 years have some for some reason become obsessed with leadership and um we have to remember that

00:34:09.580 the west and specifically north america was built on uh individual liberty and freedom therefore

00:34:17.260 not to say that leaders are not important but i think in the last 10 years in politics there's

00:34:22.220 just been a growing obsession with who's your leader and who do you follow and at the end of

00:34:28.220 of the day, it really doesn't matter if we live in a society built on individual liberty

00:34:35.040 and freedom.

00:34:37.420 Excellent comment.

00:34:38.560 So fair to say then you're in the keep it as a grassroots movement as long as possible

00:34:43.920 or not necessarily?

00:34:47.940 Well, like absolutely.

00:34:49.420 That's what built this nation in the first place was, you know, what can you do for yourself

00:34:57.660 and what can you do for the country,

00:34:59.400 not necessarily what can you do for someone who you're following.

00:35:03.720 And at the end of the day, too,

00:35:04.840 if you view yourself as not a leader of yourself,

00:35:10.020 then you're following somebody.

00:35:12.460 And, you know, like communists are big on following people.

00:35:19.340 Yeah, no, I think we're in the same camp on that one.

00:35:26.160 Yeah.

00:35:26.900 Okay.

00:35:27.660 i don't know like i'm 35 i've i've watched politics basically my whole life and it's like

00:35:35.600 just in the last 10 years where the leader leader leader thing has just gone out of proportion i

00:35:41.200 think excellent yeah i know um well and and and then the okay let me flip it this way then let

00:35:48.120 me just uh put you on the spot if we needed a leader who who would that leader be like that's

00:35:54.580 another interesting way of thinking about it right do you have a play devil's advocate who

00:35:58.800 would be a good leader for the independence movement at this point well i mean it's i don't

00:36:05.800 i don't know i don't know right like that's kind of something that can be determined at a later

00:36:11.220 date but yeah especially right now i think it's and the other thing too as soon as you put a

00:36:16.640 leader on to the enemy knows who to go after right so i don't think it's a smart move at all

00:36:21.820 Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. Okay. Thanks for the call. Have a great day in red deer. Um, yeah, yeah. Cheers. Um, yeah. Uh, cult of leadership, cult of following cult of personalities. I, I, I'm in the same boat. I, I, uh, it, and, and I experienced that online all the time. Right. I've been, um, like when I was, when I was critical of, uh, let's say Justin Trudeau, everybody loved me.

00:36:48.900 But then the moment I started criticizing Poilievre a little bit, all of a sudden everybody was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?

00:36:55.320 And I was reminding people, like, I'm not criticizing the person based on their political colors or stripes or the uniform they're wearing.

00:37:06.000 I'm criticizing them based on the policies that they're implementing.

00:37:09.980 And that also applies closer to home.

00:37:12.460 I mean, I was very, very critical of Danielle Smith, especially in the early part of her mandate, like back in 2023, 2024, those first few budgets she put out there were were doozies.

00:37:25.660 And and I thought that, you know, I didn't like that. And so I just like to remind people of that. I'm not going to give it goes both ways.

00:37:35.980 In fact, if I see somebody with the wrong stripes, supposedly, who does something good.

00:37:41.740 So I'll come back to Mark Carney's an example.

00:37:44.000 So I was in the process of criticizing Mark Carney, but I could actually give Mark Carney a bit of credit.

00:37:49.900 So so let's stay on that thought.

00:37:51.700 So he wasn't he was in Europe last week.

00:37:54.080 And I don't like what he's been doing.

00:37:56.160 I like I'm at the point where I really, really am starting to get scared because this this this it was cute at first to use Donald Trump as a as a villain.

00:38:05.980 and to say, you know, hey, I'm the best guy to defend against Donald Trump.

00:38:11.080 And of course, Donald made some funny comments at first, right?

00:38:13.680 I wish he had never joked about the 51st state and taken this over economically and stuff like that.

00:38:19.480 I wish he had never done that. He did it. It gave Carney some ammunition.

00:38:23.420 Carney positioned himself as the better person to deal with Donald.

00:38:27.060 But then he took it too far. And I think he took it personally, right?

00:38:30.080 So it's one thing to banter back and forth, but it's a whole other thing when Carney says, we can't trust the Americans anymore.

00:38:38.560 They turned on us.

00:38:39.600 This partnership is unrepairable and so forth and so forth, by the way, which is a contradiction from what the king said.

00:38:46.380 Our own king came here last week and toured the White House.

00:38:52.360 And the king said the opposite of what Carney said.

00:38:56.180 The king reminded everyone that the relationship between England and the Commonwealth and the Americans goes back 200 years, and it's an important partnership.

00:39:05.840 They protected each other in the war.

00:39:08.040 They supported each other.

00:39:10.140 They're allies.

00:39:11.320 They speak the same language.

00:39:12.560 They have so much in common.

00:39:13.900 They're trade partners.

00:39:15.300 And to just throw that all away, the king is being pragmatic at this point and diplomatic, whereas Mark Carney, I think, is playing this a little too far by saying the relationship's broken.

00:39:25.540 we need to diversify what he goes as far as saying we're going to be the biggest economy in the g7

00:39:31.460 seriously the americans are 13 times bigger than us and now carny's going to the china one one week

00:39:38.180 and making deals there and and you know you all heard that speech like the new world order said

00:39:43.700 slowly in an evil tone um i i don't like that and then what happened this week is a continuation of

00:39:51.500 that to go to europe which i think europe is a continent that has a whole mess of problems right

00:39:57.800 it's ugly what's going on in europe and do i want us to join the eu he can try and make that sound

00:40:04.560 as positive as he wants but i think if we join the eu which i think is a real possibility at this

00:40:10.840 point if we were to join the eu and everybody's passport like people go oh that's great we can

00:40:15.880 travel back and forth and better deals for for commerce which way do you think the floodgates

00:40:21.240 of immigration would open if we joined the eu do you think it's canadians that would rush to go work

00:40:27.240 in uh in spain and portugal and france or do you think it'd be a rush of of people suddenly using

00:40:33.800 their brand new eu passport to come to north america like i i i don't like that at all and

00:40:40.520 that just continually scares me and it is a story that was got almost no air time this week and uh

00:40:48.520 well i did get air time it got positive air time and and i think it's uh it's a scary story now

00:40:54.200 that said uh i did say that i would if carney did something positive that i would and you know i

00:41:01.080 just finished saying it the news this week that um air what was the airline uh air asia air asia

00:41:11.160 i don't know who air asia is john can you find their logo like are they uh are they a regional

00:41:16.120 i don't know who they are they are startup like west jet but a company called air asia just bought

00:41:21.000 a 150 airbus a220 so the a220 i had to look it up because i fly a lot so i'm familiar with the a320

00:41:29.320 the a330 and the a340 you know those are similar to the 737 and the 757 and uh so to me i thought

00:41:39.240 But the A220 was similar to the Boeing 737, but it's it's it's actually a nice smaller plane with Canadian roots.

00:41:47.460 Like it's a proper it's it was developed by Bombardier and then I guess in partnership or maybe bought out.

00:41:55.220 That's something I have. I didn't have the chance to look it up.

00:41:57.840 Did Bombardier sort of sell out to Airbus or did it just join forces with Airbus?

00:42:02.460 But anyways, the A220 is a former Bombardier plane and they're going to build the area. AirAsia took an order for 150 of them and they'll be built in Montreal. It's 4,600 jobs.

00:42:19.540 I think, I think those are, that is definitely an industry that Canada should be, you know, excelling at.

00:42:27.000 I always find it a little bit sad that we didn't have a bigger aeronautical, not aerospace, not the jet ports or the rocket ports in Nova Scotia.

00:42:36.460 That's a, that's a joke.

00:42:37.820 We don't need that.

00:42:39.060 But we have a long history here.

00:42:40.900 you know in world war ii we were building uh we had avro and we were building uh the um uh the

00:42:48.420 avro mosquito and the lancaster bombers and the liberators under license and then during the

00:42:53.940 korean war like when the jets first appeared the the the f86 saber had a canadian variant the f104

00:43:01.160 the voodoo i mean we had the long nice tradition of building planes and then that sort of came to

00:43:06.280 abrupt end with the avro arrow in uh during the cold war and then seriously i think the problem

00:43:11.240 with the avro arrow is that it was so technologically advanced that the americans forced us to scrap it

00:43:17.480 for god knows what backdoor deal and then we never quite recovered after that we had bombardier got

00:43:23.160 into a few jets but it's a shame that we don't have a bigger aerospace in this aeronautical industry

00:43:28.360 it is you know it's a great it's in a it's a tradition that we have just like i always find

00:43:34.040 it's a shame that we don't have a shipbuilding industry anymore but these are like you know if

00:43:38.680 we're going to diversify our economy and get back to um competing those are things that i think we

00:43:44.520 can compete again but just back to what i said so kudos for uh for carney and the teams and and

00:43:51.560 whoever and helping to secure that deal uh no matter what selling 150 planes at the car like

00:43:58.680 it's a 16 billion dollar deal i think that's fantastic and i'm happy for that uh but on the

00:44:05.800 flip side then i'll give uh now i'll go right back to being critical of carney which is um

00:44:10.840 you know some of the other announcements this week we learned that the honda plant that everybody was

00:44:15.960 bragging about out east that trudeau was all happy about you know we're going down net zero and we're

00:44:20.760 going to build batteries right canada's contribution to electric vehicles is not cars themselves but

00:44:27.640 batteries the batteries that go in cars and uh and the big honda plant at first was sort of put on

00:44:34.840 hold it's a shame that only companies that will come and invest here if there's subsidies so we

00:44:39.560 gave them huge subsidies and at the end of the day this week honda announced that that whole plant is

00:44:44.120 kaput so uh so carney you win one but you lose a lot uh go ahead caller where are you calling from

00:44:50.600 hi it's uh melissa from diamond valley hey melissa diamond valley is that the new name

00:44:59.000 yeah that's the new name right what was it that's that's the new name of turner valley

00:45:03.640 and black diamond right on how are things down there what's going on what's on your mind

00:45:08.760 um i was just uh wondering like you know it's it would be nice to know kind of like

00:45:18.120 what our new constitution would be you know um one of the things that really got me excited was

00:45:25.240 listening to that one lawyer from toronto talking about you know what what our new constitution

00:45:30.760 would be like and um i think more people would probably want to know more about that

00:45:37.400 yeah um you're referring i think to um bruce party from uh he's a lawyer and

00:45:47.560 an academic from queens is that the man you're referring to

00:45:52.680 um i'm not really sure it doesn't matter

00:45:58.920 there's there's a several ways i can answer this but let before and

00:46:02.280 before i give you my thoughts what's your thoughts what what would you like to see

00:46:07.400 well I would like to see more power to the people I think some of the things

00:46:15.240 that United States has done is good that we could kind of go off of but not

00:46:20.200 everything maybe there's some things but more power to the people you know where

00:46:28.960 senators and politicians have a term limit you know where we can remove people easier you know

00:46:39.640 just people having more power okay well you and i are on the same same page then i actually love

00:46:45.920 the american constitution so okay so so what bruce says the the truly pragmatic answer to what you

00:46:53.000 asks is we don't know right like the independence at this point is a leap of faith and we vote to

00:46:59.800 separate and then the day after the vote when we're successful then we get to work and we have

00:47:04.960 some people bruce proposes like a constitutional conference where people from across alberta like

00:47:12.360 hundreds of people would come together for weeks on end and and hash out a new constitution all

00:47:18.840 sorts of things like that. So that's the really pragmatic answer is that we can talk about it in

00:47:24.120 advance, but anything we talk about at this point is just ideas and suggestions and how we'd like

00:47:29.820 to see it. So what we're going to have to do in the coming months is have the debate, but there's

00:47:34.320 no definitive answer, right? Because we don't know. That's the problem. But I'm with you.

00:47:40.120 Me, in my way of thinking, I hope that we turn into, I hope that we abandon the whole Westminster

00:47:45.880 system that we don't just simply become a mini version of canada and yeah exactly yeah and and

00:47:52.380 and then i agree i mean the american constitution to me is so brilliant you just take it take their

00:47:57.000 amendments take a few out that you don't like and add a few and then yeah i mean i love i love the

00:48:03.320 first three words of the american constitution we the people like absolutely yeah yeah is there

00:48:10.560 some part of the american constitution that you might not be in favor of like however how hate to

00:48:16.000 put you on the spot but how's your thoughts on say uh gun rights or right to self-defense things like

00:48:21.360 that um i i i like the united states uh pretty like i i'm in favor for most of it but i think

00:48:32.240 you know if if we are going to hash it out that maybe um the constitutional lawyers or someone can

00:48:38.960 And because I don't fully know the whole thing, but the point I was trying to get at was, I mean, I was kind of on the fence.

00:48:47.500 But then when I started hearing about all this Constitution stuff and listening to these constitutional lawyers debating it, it kind of got me excited.

00:48:55.900 And it's kind of nice to dream about it.

00:48:58.360 And I think there's no harm in, you know, trying to think of what it would be like.

00:49:08.240 Thank you for that. That is the message of Bruce Party. I don't know if Bruce has been on the show, John. I mean, he'd be a good guest to bring back. But Bruce says, dare dream big. That's what he says, right? Take that leap of faith.

00:49:22.380 um because because you know you and i can you and i can come up with a lot of reasons why we should

00:49:28.840 leave and then and then i could come up with reasons in the future but in the future let's

00:49:33.960 just make it big right and um so okay cool um so i take it you signed the petition and you're on

00:49:40.620 board then i did but i was one of the scared people i can tell you that good i was scared

00:49:48.140 But I did. And and so anyways, thanks. All right. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for calling. Have a great day, Melissa. Bye bye. Bye bye. Yeah. So, yeah, there to dream big. I mean, I yeah, I've said it before. I think something similar to the American Constitution and the American Constitution is a republic, right?

00:50:11.680 It's a republic versus, it's democratic, but it's slightly different than a democracy.

00:50:19.560 It's a democratic process, but it's not a democracy.

00:50:22.940 It's a republic.

00:50:24.620 And the republic is really for the people.

00:50:27.980 The sort of basic concept of the American constitution is that government is just a necessary evil.

00:50:35.760 You, full on anarchy, everybody does their own thing, doesn't work.

00:50:40.500 So the American Constitution recognizes that there needs to be a core government to adjudicate between parties, set some basic ground rules so that we can trade with each other, protect the borders, do a few things like that.

00:50:56.740 But the government of the U.S., the Constitution of the U.S. has a lot of things in place to make sure that at the end of the day, it's always the people that are in charge and government can't be too big and can't tell the people what to do.

00:51:08.040 And so I like that because a pure democracy on the other end is kind of scary, right?

00:51:14.560 A democracy is everybody gets one vote and majority rules.

00:51:19.280 And majority rules can be scary, right?

00:51:21.480 Because it implies that minorities are excluded.

00:51:27.700 And it was a good segue into the other topic that I wanted to talk about.

00:51:31.640 But let's go with the caller on the line.

00:51:33.160 Go ahead, please.

00:51:33.780 Where are you calling from?

00:51:34.620 Name.

00:51:34.780 uh jeff from bc hey oh jeff where in bc uh about three and a half hours north of vancouver okay

00:51:44.760 yeah yeah go ahead that's nice nice sunny day um i'm moving to alberta and uh just a heads up

00:51:53.080 for anybody else who's coming from any other province when you go to change your driver's

00:51:57.200 license over um your driver's license isn't good enough id you need your passport or first certificate

00:52:04.040 get awful so i just pat that on in in what sense to to

00:52:11.000 prove citizenship i guess that's what i'm pointing i can think of so oh yeah let me explore that a

00:52:16.120 little bit so you you've you're in the process of doing something right like you've applied for an

00:52:19.960 alberta's driver's license or not yet yeah well no i did i'm professional driver so i went there

00:52:26.120 changed my class one bc class one over and i got my medical because supposed to and then i went to

00:52:31.480 the uh to the office or do it then they said no i needed the uh passport and person or either one

00:52:37.960 of them okay news to me i i i would have thought that just showing up and um oh i guess you okay

00:52:46.600 maybe they're tightening up the rules with all this stuff that's going on right i mean it basically

00:52:50.760 sounds like you had to prove that you're a citizen like a canadian citizen oh okay no or just knowing

00:52:57.480 what citizenship you had you know whether it be you know here or somewhere else oh but you know

00:53:03.400 what okay okay thanks i think i know what that is right uh in alberta they're doing a pilot thing

00:53:09.480 maybe you didn't have to do this maybe i'm wrong but i know that they're piloting something in

00:53:13.240 alberta they announced it uh late last year they want to add the word canadian to our license so

00:53:20.360 they're they're they're you know because right now if you show a driver's license in alberta

00:53:25.000 i don't i can't speak for other provinces it doesn't prove that you're a canadian citizen it

00:53:28.680 just proves that you live here um so maybe that's why you were asked that maybe it's part of the

00:53:34.680 pilot project they're they're asking it might have been voluntary and you misunderstood i don't know

00:53:39.640 it's just a thought i know it wasn't voluntary i know that for sure because i i did say you know

00:53:46.200 you know i did say why and they said they just said no sorry this is our this is the rules okay

00:53:51.080 i don't i don't mind it that's good you know let's let's know who's uh who's here yeah yeah

00:53:56.360 cool interesting do you okay i mean i don't want to get intrusive but apparently okay so the what

00:54:00.840 was supposed to happen then is our driver's license then would have something on it that

00:54:04.440 shows you're a citizen i don't know what they were thinking of doing for that like uh okay so the pro

00:54:09.880 so maybe it is what's happening then are there uh as people renew hey anybody else got the same

00:54:15.240 experience let us know i mean my my driver's license is up for renewal in july so i'll see

00:54:19.800 if they ask me for my passport interesting uh how's everything else how's uh uh that's something

00:54:26.040 i want to i've said it online i want to start following what's going on in your neck of the

00:54:30.920 woods is it true that the conservatives are really gaining the lead over there and eb's days are

00:54:35.640 numbered yeah i'm probably hearing the same stuff you are you know just the same numbers on there

00:54:42.520 i watch alternative news so it's mostly uh yeah they're they're they have no leader in their game

00:54:48.120 or they're past them so that's good yeah excellent okay well thanks for calling uh it was jeff right

00:54:53.560 thanks for calling yeah cool thanks cheers um listen uh because i have just a bit of time left

00:55:01.480 i wanted to you know we were talking about um a republic in canada and and again this week we get

00:55:07.960 this weird reminder that we are a constitutional monarchy i talked about the king visiting uh the

00:55:14.280 us well now here in canada we get the big fat reminder that we are a constitutional monarchy

00:55:20.840 and our sovereign lives over that way or wherever it lives in the uk and how that we get reminded

00:55:27.320 of that this week we get a new governor general so a governor general is the king's representative

00:55:33.000 in canada it's an unelected position some people say it's an honorary position if it's honorary

00:55:39.320 why does it exist but um and and there was so the new governor general is somebody named uh let me uh

00:55:50.280 i wrote it down somewhere um louise arbour there you go louise arbour and so a couple of things

00:55:59.160 she's like 79 years old okay the career career civil servant like worked in courts in canada

00:56:06.440 courts in ontario courts in quebec uh even worked on the international court in uh in the hague or

00:56:12.600 whatever in prosecuting like war crimes and stuff like that and um and just get selected she'll take

00:56:20.840 uh her seat the uh somewhere around uh late july i think july 25th i think um she's the fourth 0.56

00:56:29.720 female quebecer in the last six positions right i mean i'm trying to go before her was

00:56:39.520 the current mary simmons the current governor general is officially from quebec she's a first

00:56:47.380 nation from quebec the one before that was julie payette julie payette famous for being an astronaut

00:56:54.060 but then julie payette had to resign in disgrace i can't remember the whole story i mean she was

00:56:59.200 divorced she had been in an abusive relationship she was the abuser i think in the relationship

00:57:04.600 with her husband anyways i mean a governor general like the king's representative uh had to quit you

00:57:11.400 know vetted by the apparently there's a whole committee that that uh like it's not just a king

00:57:16.560 who appoints somebody right we're past that nowadays it's more complicated they they they

00:57:21.600 they get vetted i that's one thing i like about the u.s systems right when they vet like a supreme

00:57:26.720 court judge or somebody like that like it's a committee meeting and it's open to the public and

00:57:30.900 we can all see somebody presenting their credentials and the back and forth i mean i i don't remember

00:57:36.540 seeing anything about louise arbor being vetted in the last couple of days all of a sudden it's

00:57:40.800 like boom we got a new governor general um so okay so she's from quebec before that was mary simons

00:57:47.640 julie payette and before that uh i think there was david johnson who i if i don't i think was

00:57:54.740 also from Quebec and Ontario. And then before that was Michael Jean, who is a former journalist

00:57:59.260 who was also from Quebec. And then so like, that's a little bit, that's breaking with tradition for

00:58:07.860 females from Quebec in the last, you know, 15 years. Traditionally, governor generals sort of 1.00

00:58:16.680 go back and forth. Like you got, you got somebody from Eastern Canada, somebody from Western Canada,

00:58:21.180 eastern canada western canada and we were i thought we were long overdue for uh an albertan

00:58:26.560 or british colombian or somebody from saskatchewan we haven't had an alberta uh governor general

00:58:33.580 since uh i'm gonna say ray nutrition i think ray nutrition was the last um alberta governor general

00:58:42.780 but anyways just a reminder that we are a constitutional monarchy and this person gets

00:58:47.500 appointed and um we'll see i mean to me uh louise albor looks a little more qualified than some of

00:58:55.900 the other people but to be determined i've already seen online she's got quite a bit of baggage 0.57

00:59:01.160 i said this online right to me uh in ottawa um blackmail is sort of a currency right everybody 1.00

00:59:09.280 knows dirty little secrets on each other and i have a feeling this lady knows a lot of little 1.00

00:59:13.260 dirty secrets on a lot of people. And so, you know, Carney appointed her maybe to have her close 1.00

00:59:18.260 as an ally in the near future. There was also quite a bit of controversy around Mary Simon

00:59:24.320 and the fact that she didn't speak French. Remember the president of Air Canada got fired

00:59:29.760 for not speaking French and everybody was quick to point out that, you know, the highest position

00:59:34.740 in our land, the governor general in this country doesn't speak French. So now I think maybe Carney

00:59:40.240 fix that problem by um by by doing this anyways all all super interesting um well i think

00:59:51.280 yeah i think i'm out of time i'm i'm looking at the other stories here but we'll save a

00:59:55.360 save a couple of stories for next week all right folks uh thanks hey reminder again

01:00:02.080 you got the website right there thanks for the western standard for uh letting me use their

01:00:06.880 studio extend my voice a little bit out there appreciate everybody calling in on thursdays

01:00:12.780 i'll be here next thursday i'm toying with the idea of going of getting guests i got to get on

01:00:18.100 board with getting some guests every week i keep talking about guests i got to get a couple of

01:00:21.800 guests on board um and definitely don't forget to uh subscribe if you can to get away from that

01:00:29.920 paywall the website is down there westernstandard.news you know that already if you're

01:00:34.880 watching. It's $10 a month. It's $100 a year. That's not very expensive. And I think just as

01:00:42.100 early as yesterday, excuse me, I saw a $40 discount. So anyways, thanks for calling in.

01:00:49.860 See you next week. Same time. Cheers, folks.

01:01:04.880 We'll be right back.

Western Standard - May 10, 2026

MARTY UP NORTH： Does Alberta independence need a leader？

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