Western Standard - MARTY UP NORTH： Elections Alberta files legal action against independence advocacy group

00:00:00.000 all right we're live um

00:00:28.000 Um, I, I think it's going to be a good show today. Uh, I just want to do a follow-up, uh,

00:00:33.660 from last week, right? So last week I got, you know, I was holding some callers on the line.

00:00:40.860 I was, there was a beeping in my headphones and I didn't know what the beeping was going on. Right.

00:00:46.560 Uh, I had a different producer in the show and we were, you know, and I'm still getting familiar.

00:00:51.380 And what turns out that happened last week is so many of you folks were calling. Apparently I had

00:00:56.300 30 calls online all through last week and I was dragging some discussions on because I didn't

00:01:02.800 think there was anybody on the line. So let's do that again this week. Let's have another show like

00:01:06.640 that with, you know, I got, I think I took nine callers last week. Let's try and take 10, 11,

00:01:12.120 12 this week. Listen, I'm not going to lie. I'm a little bit disorganized right now because I just

00:01:19.880 got into calgary so i was in uh edmonton last night i i was uh speaking at an event by the way

00:01:27.080 i uh i got to experience something pretty cool uh yesterday and today i got to drive on the uh

00:01:34.200 qe2 with the new speed limit right so the 120 kilometer speed limit there's a great big sign

00:01:39.440 so when you're going uh heading north just past i think it was lacombe or somewhere around there

00:01:43.580 uh all of a sudden there's a big you know big sign 120 and uh and then I sped up and then I

00:01:50.020 got to do it on the way down I mean quite honestly for me I usually drive around 125

00:01:56.420 you know my my truck like at the at I drive a one ton truck right so at speeds above that it starts

00:02:03.840 to there's wind noise and I don't find it pleasant right so I'm not one of those guys who would

00:02:08.600 normally drive at 130 140 consistently unless in the good old days I used to do it when I

00:02:13.460 had a a nice smaller car but it's quite something to be passed on the highway you know you're you're

00:02:19.400 cruising along you're doing 130 and all of a sudden you'd see in that mirror you see a big uh we know

00:02:25.300 what they look like right that big one ton sometimes dually ford lifted up belching out diesel pulling

00:02:31.280 a enclosed trailer passing you at 150 kilometers an hour so i don't know what that experiment's

00:02:38.320 going to yield i had no problem i thought uh in the summertime on dry road conditions like that

00:02:42.960 everything was great. Oh, actually, that just reminds me of something. I drove in Europe quite

00:02:47.480 a bit. And a lot of places in Europe have adjustable speed limits, which I found pretty

00:02:53.140 cool, right? So the speed signs are digital, and all of a sudden, it'd be like 110. And then 10

00:02:59.760 minutes later, it's 120. And so that's because whatever some person has established that

00:03:05.360 speeding up things is warranted, and vice versa, they might lower it. And over there, I found that

00:03:10.980 people obeyed the the system but variable speed to me as an engineer sounds like an idea that

00:03:18.080 makes sense right we should have variable speed all right um so let's uh let's talk real quick

00:03:25.080 about uh i i want to talk about this but i don't know if i want to get into huge huge huge detail

00:03:30.880 because we don't know all the details but i was up in edmonton last night speaking at an event

00:03:36.700 uh small event put on by the centurion uh project and about i don't know 150 people showed up to

00:03:47.080 hear more about the centurion project which is uh one of the i which is a brainchild of of david

00:03:53.600 parker and i'm pretty much on board with the idea of the centurion project because as i've said

00:04:01.240 uh repeatedly we we we had a we had a campaign recently where we collected signatures totally

00:04:09.180 looking forward to monday when mitch sylvester finally drops off those signatures to elections

00:04:14.420 alberta but i canvassed and i learned personally that collecting signatures and reaching out to

00:04:22.440 people and connecting with them and explaining all uh things whether it's independence or anything

00:04:29.100 anything else political is is complicated it's busy and it's harder than i even imagined and

00:04:37.120 and i think we're going to be pleasantly surprised with the number of signatures but we're still got

00:04:41.740 a big step ahead of us which is there are courts fighting us and there there will have to be a

00:04:47.840 referendum and getting that you know by my estimate we're going to need something like a million a

00:04:54.160 million to votes in favor of independence to even have a chance at it and so getting that to those

00:04:59.840 million people is a challenge and that's what the centurion project is working on and and i like

00:05:07.700 generally speaking the approach that they're taking to engage with people but what happened

00:05:13.800 last night was kind of interesting so there um i we sort of talked about this last week on the show

00:05:21.440 right elections alberta right now is to me um maybe overreacting and coming down hard on

00:05:33.040 what they consider separatist groups right so and last night while i was on stage there was a

00:05:40.780 commotion while i was speaking and then all of a sudden i saw a bunch of people moving and that

00:05:44.580 I continued doing my talk, but I found out later that there was a investigator, call it, from Elections Alberta, who came to this event and served papers to the people at the event, to the organizers of the event, which is the Centurion Project.

00:06:02.820 And they served papers, but that in and of itself is a bit unusual, but what was really unusual about the whole thing for me is that they came with seven police cruisers.

00:06:14.580 seven. Can you imagine? So maybe elections, not maybe, I'm sure Elections Alberta has a valid

00:06:21.540 reason to serve papers. It's not something you just do randomly, decide you're going to go serve

00:06:25.520 papers. So they wanted to serve papers. But what I found unusual is that somehow somebody at

00:06:31.320 Elections Alberta picked up the phone and called, I don't know, somebody at Edmonton Police Services

00:06:36.820 and said, hey, I'm going to go serve papers. I need, I don't know, how many guys can you spare?

00:06:42.360 Can you spare seven cruisers? And somebody at Edmonton police said, yeah, sure. And they spared seven cruisers. You can see them in the picture there. And those seven cruisers showed up to serve the paper.

00:06:53.400 I think in hindsight, Edmonton police is a little bit embarrassed by that because they issued a statement this morning kind of trying to distance themselves from this event saying, hey, we were sort of just doing our job.

00:07:05.640 So, boy, you know, so I want to talk about this a little bit more. I mean, that's the state of politics in Alberta right now. So we got a group that's, we got two groups that are battling out over independence.

00:07:21.420 We have a pro-independence group led by Mitch Sylvester's and the Alberta Prosperity Project.

00:07:28.220 And on the other side, we have Thomas Lukasik's group.

00:07:31.420 And Thomas Lukasik, let's remember, is an old former politician, well-connected on the inside.

00:07:37.680 And I dare say that what he's doing to me doesn't look necessarily totally above board,

00:07:44.060 but he seems to be getting a pass when it comes to all this stuff from Elections Alberta.

00:07:50.680 So let me know your thoughts on that. Are Elections Alberta just doing their job and doing it fairly? Or are they playing a bit of favoritism? And and how's this all going down? At the end of the day, me personally, I definitely really, really, really look forward to Monday.

00:08:07.240 I think somebody from the Western Standard will be there.

00:08:12.280 There will be press coverage.

00:08:14.380 Mitch Sylvester is driving over to the offices of Elections Alberta on Monday

00:08:19.420 and handing in the signatures that he collected as part of this petition.

00:08:24.400 We don't know the number, but he's going to reveal a number.

00:08:27.580 I guess we'll have to take his number on face value

00:08:29.640 because according to the state that the courts issued a couple of weeks ago,

00:08:36.500 elections alberta can't start the process of validating the number of signatures what a world

00:08:41.620 we live in right um all right so uh so that's the topic so again uh folks don't be shy uh you see

00:08:49.380 the number on the screen there 1-866-479-west or 479 john i never know what west stands for

00:08:57.940 four, seven, nine, nine, three, seven, eight extension seven, one, one.

00:09:03.280 So make those, uh, make those lines beep and, uh, and let's go from there.

00:09:07.940 Actually, uh, now I'll come back to this.

00:09:10.620 All right. So what else happened? Uh, what else happened this week?

00:09:14.500 Uh, trying to think about it. I definitely got distracted yesterday,

00:09:17.940 but what else happened this week? I mean, and, and that's the other thing.

00:09:21.340 Whenever there's these weird distractions,

00:09:23.100 I start to wonder what's really going on elsewhere.

00:09:26.680 what's the real story that they're perhaps trying to hide or or not so uh the big i guess the big

00:09:33.160 story this week in in ottawa is the spring um fiscal update he used to be called the fall uh

00:09:42.280 fiscal update because remember i've said this before right the the fine the um the budgetary

00:09:49.560 year the fiscal year in ottawa runs from april 1st to march 31st so march 31st is like a month

00:09:57.720 behind us the the fiscal year 2025 2026 ended a month ago so now we're technically in the 2026

00:10:06.600 2027 fiscal year and what we should be concentrated on is the government should be tabling a budget

00:10:13.640 and everything else right but everything's been shifted by about six months because last year

00:10:18.440 the liberals used the election as an excuse in fact they used it as more than an excuse they

00:10:24.040 didn't want to table a budget but they were forced to table a budget i mean the liberals got elected

00:10:28.760 in april last year so they had plenty of time they could have tabled the budget right around the time

00:10:33.240 that they're supposed to in in may but they put it off put it off put it off and didn't table

00:10:38.280 the budget until about november and then by then you know more than half of the year is over so

00:10:43.800 So it's messed up the entire budgeting cycle,

00:10:47.280 and it doesn't help that we didn't have a parliamentary budget officer.

00:10:51.140 So everything's messed up, which is why yesterday or this week the –

00:10:56.380 all right, we got a call before I go.

00:10:58.640 So I was going to give a whole long speech on fiscal responsibility,

00:11:02.780 but let's go ahead.

00:11:04.160 So remember, please let me know, name, where you're calling from,

00:11:07.300 and we'll go from there.

00:11:09.440 Go ahead.

00:11:09.820 hi it's susan from stratford hi susan i have a question for you when the uh signatures and

00:11:20.040 everything get dropped off on monday has he already made account with an accounting firm

00:11:24.660 on the members yes i mean i i'm hearing this yes yes i mean i've heard it from from mitch uh

00:11:32.760 i'm assuming he's doing what he said he was going to do he all the signatures have been

00:11:37.400 forwarded to his office quote-unquote i think it's his business and uh and they've been

00:11:42.540 counting them himself and he's hired an accounting firm to validate it

00:11:47.720 is that and is he keeping copies of them no he cannot do that um i i'm sure he wish he could

00:11:57.320 but no he's gonna uh he's gonna just count them and then uh rely on an accountant or a lawyer or

00:12:04.600 somebody to to to confirm you know what what happened i mean i would advise him he can't

00:12:09.480 photocopy them but he can certainly we talked about this last week he can put the pages you

00:12:13.780 know sort of in uh banker's boxes and we're trying to do the math the other day like how many how

00:12:18.320 many pages go into banker's box let's say it's uh you know let's say it's 5 000 pages going to

00:12:24.020 banker's box then that's 25 signatures so i hope he does something sort of visual to represent how

00:12:28.980 many signatures there are are you are you concerned or no i just i just don't trust uh elections

00:12:36.080 alberta yeah yeah yeah you me both all right well thanks for calling thank you so much yeah you're

00:12:43.760 welcome um yeah i uh i encourage i definitely encourage actually somebody somebody do that

00:12:50.700 experiment how many how many how many single pages after they've been sort of peeled away and

00:12:55.880 stacked back into a banker's box. How many pages go in there? I think we did it last week. I think

00:12:59.820 it's about 25,000 pages. That seems high. Anyways, back to the fall economic, I keep saying fall

00:13:08.820 economic update because that's what we had. We always had a fall economic update because the

00:13:12.740 fall economic update used to be in the middle of the budget year. It was an update. So now we got

00:13:18.640 spring economic update and uh boy oh boy what a nothing burger right i i i normally i normally

00:13:27.520 take a lot of pleasure in going through government budgets and breaking them apart and seeing what

00:13:33.520 happened but in this case um all i need to look for me was one number which is the fact that uh

00:13:40.880 the liberals are still for la for for this year that that we're in the middle of and i'm still

00:13:46.400 confused or they haven't officially declared i i think officially we should be they should be

00:13:51.200 saying we're in the 2027 budget but they're still saying that the deficit in the 2026 budget was

00:13:57.200 66 billion dollars and they're trying to make that sound like it's a good deal because originally

00:14:02.720 they had forecast something like 77 billion so even their original forecast car in carney's

00:14:08.960 first budget he said he his deficit was going to be 77 billion dollars which is twice as much as

00:14:14.560 anything trudeau ever had outside of covet right you remember during kobe like in 2021 i think

00:14:20.240 trudeau ran 220 billion dollars in deficit like that's huge so carney in his first budget comes

00:14:28.320 out of the gate and swinging and like i'm gonna blow the budget by 77 i'm gonna spend 77 billion

00:14:35.360 more than i have and now halfway through the budget cycle he's proud of saying uh the deficit's only

00:14:42.640 66 like he tried to sell that as a win well i'm sorry folks but 66 billion dollars in debt is uh

00:14:52.000 is is is a it's 10 of our budget we're living beyond our means we're and more importantly

00:14:59.520 there's no plan in the fiscal update you the fiscal update is this year and then five years

00:15:04.960 looks forward five years in the next five years they're still running deficits in the 50 plus

00:15:10.720 billion like huge deficit year after year huge deficits and then and then there's a line in

00:15:16.960 there that's really uh shocking which is these all these deficits are borrowed money so the total

00:15:25.360 borrowed money that the government has borrowed the total debt interest bearing debt of the

00:15:31.520 Canadian government is $1.8 trillion. Let me repeat that. $1.8 trillion. That's $1,800

00:15:41.360 billions. So $1.8 trillion. And the debt, the interest on that debt, the debt that we're not

00:15:48.800 even paying down, the interest on that debt is over $50 billion. So we're going in the hole by

00:15:54.960 $50 billion. Plus every year, we're also, we're borrowing $50 billion basically to pay the $50

00:16:01.200 billion dollars in interest you see how this is going like it's only a matter of time before this

00:16:06.260 absolutely collapses on itself right and and to put that into context like 50 billion dollars

00:16:13.400 just in interest payment that's more than ottawa spends on health care or it's more than ottawa

00:16:20.580 spends on defense so it's 50 billion dollars it's huge right and then and then you look in that

00:16:26.660 budget and they give a little update and then they bring you know i'm by the way i want to go back

00:16:32.540 to this too why why did they actually why was the debt or the deficit this year only 66 instead of

00:16:40.960 77 what saved their bacon nothing they did now the reason they're able to have a slightly lower

00:16:49.560 uh deficit is because of the war in iran let me let me note that down and i'll come back to that

00:16:54.300 go ahead who's on the line please oh marty it's donald smith here how are you doing today good

00:17:00.220 good donald where are you calling from oh vancouver and vancouver in the communist uh regime here

00:17:06.440 basically you see something the wrong way that you'll call the cops on you so let's talk about

00:17:11.580 what i like to talk about what happens yesterday why did the cops show up to your guys to your

00:17:17.960 guys this event that why did edmonton police send six or seven cruisers to an uh to a um to

00:17:26.720 an elections event like i want to know why i've no nobody knows like i mean yeah no like imagine

00:17:35.720 they were basically they were serving papers okay i i didn't i i talked to uh david afterwards and

00:17:42.860 basically they got served papers from elections alberta and the papers basically said cease

00:17:47.860 and desist stop doing what you're doing but but they didn't even stop the event like they they

00:17:53.820 served the papers and they walked away so no i i have no idea i mean i i've i've uh i i can't think

00:18:03.120 of an uh of i mean we don't even send that they don't even send that many cruisers to arrest some

00:18:08.480 somebody like i don't know what i it was a show of force okay let me okay let's to me it's a show

00:18:15.260 of force and it's a show of intimidation

00:18:17.160 I was on stage I get off stage

00:18:19.540 and I hear about this right then you joked

00:18:21.320 about censorship

00:18:23.040 and stuff like that I'm

00:18:24.800 almost at that point now where I'm looking

00:18:27.140 over my shoulder

00:18:27.960 it's no joke I think I'm going to get arrested

00:18:31.020 in the next year for comments online

00:18:33.320 and that's

00:18:34.220 yeah that's what they're doing

00:18:37.320 Marty basically now the minister

00:18:38.820 now the minister I don't know what is doing

00:18:40.980 Mark Miller or something is basically now going to

00:18:43.040 introduce the online harms act

00:18:45.260 basically what he said to those is basically oh um basically he didn't say it properly so

00:18:50.320 they're not so how he's gonna force it but i think they're gonna basically now if you say 0.84

00:18:55.760 something the wrong way or insult somebody the wrong way and trigger like a left-wing lunatic 0.97

00:19:01.840 like a man in the dress pig in the dress you know what i'm talking about you're gonna have 0.98

00:19:05.920 cops ticking your doors oh you know what now we're coming coming close as being east berlin 0.94

00:19:11.840 and uh coming to cuba and and uh communist uh soviet union very soon yeah yeah no i um yeah

00:19:20.100 it's an intimidation tactic i mean that's like uh it it had that feel right i mean look at the

00:19:25.540 picture on there like when there's there's there's three cruisers there there there was more than

00:19:30.980 that and uh you know you had like eight officers standing around all geared up and and and forming

00:19:38.060 a semicircle around the guy who was handing the paper to the organizer oh they was they really

00:19:44.220 they wanted to prounce on them they really wanted to basically edmonton police wanted to prance on

00:19:49.980 this guy they wanted brownie points because we know edmonton is a left-wing uh is a left-wing 0.52

00:19:56.860 run city by a uh cox mayor who doesn't fix his roads doesn't fix his homeless population doesn't

00:20:05.100 fix anything and it's just it's disgusting what i'm seeing yeah cruisers for a political thing 0.99

00:20:12.700 when we have problems on the streets where a man or a transgender person could be doing something

00:20:18.540 to a baby then the cops won't do anything but if you say something about political oh no they come

00:20:24.380 after you which which which i want yeah okay so thanks don um uh if you don't mind hanging up and

00:20:31.580 and then um yeah i will yeah thanks don thanks part of yeah yeah no it it's listen i i mean

00:20:38.780 where i'm bouncing all over the place let let let let me go back to that right so i mean it is

00:20:46.120 for me it is nerve it is uh worrisome that um that that that different groups whether it's

00:20:54.720 it's stay free alberta or the alberta prosperity project or the centurion project that the that

00:21:00.160 elections Alberta seems to be coming down hard on them and I get it there's rules and I think these

00:21:04.940 groups are working hard within the rules but I see I see um uh I I see a double standard right

00:21:12.760 I I can't help but see to me like in the last week Nenshi started his own you know for Alberta

00:21:20.100 for Canada and he he he has a different set of rules that he works by because apparently he's

00:21:25.940 a party and he's allowed to campaign but citizens like i've said this i'm a citizen trying to hold

00:21:34.240 my government accountable by collecting signatures or by voting or by trying to engage other citizens

00:21:39.940 and in the process of engaging citizens that seems to make governments and bureaucrats and

00:21:45.840 institutions like elections alberta nervous and they seem to be coming down on one side in

00:21:51.160 particular even if it's not a side they they they seem to be using a lot of scare tactics

00:21:57.220 to that to to basically scare away citizens from exercising their democratic right i mean

00:22:04.160 it it was intimidating to see that yesterday i feel sorry like now i know how poor uh kathy at

00:22:10.760 the ostrich farm must have felt when you know you got you got you got canada food inspection

00:22:16.380 agents and now they show up and they got with them a tactical team a swat team so that's the

00:22:22.660 like are we getting there as a society where well there was a russian i think it was i don't know

00:22:29.080 who maybe maybe john can search it but there was a russian politician sort of in the stalin era at

00:22:35.180 one point right stalin was famous for his purges and this politician said to stalin like you know

00:22:41.340 show me a man and I'll show you the crime basically saying if you want somebody to disappear and go

00:22:46.960 off into the gulags or whatever show me the man and I'll tell you the crime and and in Russia 0.56

00:22:52.340 they'd go as far as making up crimes and then all of a sudden there'd be a knock in the night and 0.63

00:22:56.600 then somebody disappeared right watch watch if you want to see a comedy version of that watch

00:23:01.720 the death of Stalin which was a weird funny comedy but based on sort of reality and and so show me

00:23:08.360 the man and i'll show you the crime well are we like canada's kind of getting the same way there's

00:23:14.140 so many laws right now that you can that that anytime you have an interaction with an officer

00:23:18.780 it's almost guaranteed that if he wants to he'll find you something if he pulls you over on the

00:23:23.920 side of the road he'll find you for something i mean if if if you're doing 122 and he pulls you

00:23:30.060 over he can walk around and find you for something i experience it when i'm hunting all the time when

00:23:34.780 i go hunting i i'm we're at the point where we're being harassed now because you got guys who show

00:23:40.320 up and they want to see our rifles and they want to see our tags and by the way they already know

00:23:43.780 we're going to be there because they know because i bought the tag online and they know i'm going

00:23:47.080 to be in zone 353 for the week for two weeks kind of thing right so they they and they show up and

00:23:53.780 and and then it doesn't end they want to see the registration on the quad and they want to see that

00:23:58.480 i have insurance for the quad and they want to see this and they want to see that and it almost

00:24:02.060 always ends up in a financial transaction.

00:24:05.160 So we have a ton of laws

00:24:06.320 and they have a ton of laws that they can find

00:24:08.800 and use those laws to arrest us,

00:24:12.760 harass us or engage us in lawfare, right?

00:24:15.740 Defending yourself.

00:24:16.960 But then even when they don't have laws,

00:24:19.440 there's always that last little law at the bottom, right?

00:24:22.580 Which is mischief or something similar, right? 1.00

00:24:24.640 Remember, this is what happened to people like Tamara. 1.00

00:24:27.780 Tamara Lich got charged with mischief. 1.00

00:24:30.800 So show me the woman and I'll show you the law. And at the end of the day, so I, so I, you know, I'm rambling on a little bit. It's not where I want it to go, but it is, it was intimidating. And, and, and, hey, okay. I mean, I mean, I wanted to talk about this. Let's keep talking about it. Maybe this will engage you guys.

00:24:50.000 But at the core right now of the debate, and again, this happened last night and there's been some, there's been apparently some injunctions and there's been some court hearings and a couple of things.

00:25:03.960 So at the, okay, I'll get back to it.

00:25:06.060 I got a caller on the line.

00:25:07.400 I want to give priority to callers.

00:25:08.940 So go ahead, caller.

00:25:09.620 Where are you calling from?

00:25:10.380 And name, please.

00:25:12.560 Hey, Marty, this is Sean from Red Deer.

00:25:15.380 Hey, I just wanted to get your take on Smith's press conference from the other week.

00:25:20.000 I think it was last week, talking about how, like, she obviously wants Alberta in Canada, and that she hopes that that obviously is the outcome.

00:25:30.520 But I'm just wondering what your take is, like, if the court decides that rules against the State for Alberta on the petition verification,

00:25:42.720 I'm just wondering what you think happens.

00:25:44.600 Like, does she invoke the Nalvistani clause to make sure that those get certified?

00:25:49.760 Or what do you think about that?

00:25:51.700 Well, several things come to mind, Sean.

00:25:54.760 The first one is that she actually technically has a petition on her desk that's been validated, right?

00:26:04.240 So she has the Thomas Lukasik petition, which is a referendum question.

00:26:09.760 whether he believes it or not you know do you want to stay in canada yes or no it's still a

00:26:15.340 valid it's the it's just the opposite of do you want to leave canada yes or no so it's still a

00:26:19.520 referendum question so so if the courts if if all sorts of things happen and mitch sylvester doesn't

00:26:25.720 get to validate his petition danielle has one so she could do something based on what i saw 0.54

00:26:32.420 based on what i saw her say and heard i don't think she will that that's just my opinion

00:26:38.860 um and and i'm getting more one and she did say one thing that made me very nervous last week she

00:26:45.640 basically said that if um uh i was working it backwards from october 19th right remember i was

00:26:52.940 saying okay if the referendum is october 19th and we need to validate the signatures by i don't know

00:26:57.340 you know july or august and and she can declare the referendum in august she said no she she worked

00:27:04.400 she worked it way back and she said if the courts don't adjudicate before i think it's june 19th or

00:27:09.820 something like that then there won't be a referendum so that that scared me and in the

00:27:13.820 language she used i thought she wouldn't even use the the the lucasic um paperwork so

00:27:21.640 the next that's why i think monday is one of the most important days in in recent history when mitch

00:27:29.500 deposits his signatures

00:27:32.680 I hope he's

00:27:34.520 I hope he says hey here's a U-Haul

00:27:36.780 full of boxes and there's 500,000

00:27:38.880 I mean that should make any

00:27:40.740 politician think twice about

00:27:42.600 doing something you know iffy

00:27:44.500 but does that answer the question Sean or what's your

00:27:46.620 thought?

00:27:48.520 Well like it just he seems

00:27:50.600 to be trying to it seems like

00:27:52.560 you frame yourself in a position where she can

00:27:54.580 just kind of wash her hands of this or at least

00:27:56.580 I think that's her hope

00:27:57.480 um but i could be wrong obviously but i think maybe she's looking for an easy out with with

00:28:04.160 the course it's kind of my take on it like she's just kind of hoping the court says that it can't

00:28:09.660 happen and it's like oh well of course that it can't happen we're not doing it yeah i mean you

00:28:14.160 know um just stay on the line for a second because i was going to tie this in this sort of ties into

00:28:20.840 the budget that i was talking about you know one of the things danielle has always been saying is 0.99

00:28:25.420 She wants a stronger Alberta within a United Canada. 0.99

00:28:28.980 That's her stance.

00:28:30.020 And I think she's firm on that.

00:28:32.600 But I keep wondering when she's going to flip and realize this never happened.

00:28:36.620 And I was going to give examples from the budget, right?

00:28:38.640 The budget that came out, there was not a lot of additional spending, but the additional spending that was announced in the budget is all Ottawa overreaching and imposing on the provinces, right?

00:28:50.040 Like Ottawa and the budget said, yeah, like what did they say?

00:28:54.120 we're going to do um um we're going to throw money towards uh training more trades sounds great that's

00:29:00.580 a great idea but that's not ottawa's jurisdiction right and and then we're going to spend more money

00:29:05.620 building houses and then you read it and you go where oh you're building houses in ottawa so

00:29:09.820 ottawa's going to spend our tax dollars to build houses in ottawa and and then like danielle to me

00:29:16.020 should have come out in and her reaction to the budget should be anger but she's not going to be

00:29:21.320 angry because if she gets angry she's kind of

00:29:23.320 admitting that hey that that deal you're

00:29:25.280 trying to negotiate with like she keeps talking 0.99

00:29:27.400 a good talk I'm going to have a better deal for Alberta

00:29:29.520 but meanwhile Carney keeps 1.00

00:29:31.500 kicking her and doing things that go

00:29:33.460 against that anyways

00:29:34.540 hey while you're on the call you

00:29:37.160 would experience that do you do the drive

00:29:39.180 north to Edmonton once in a while what's your

00:29:41.380 thoughts on increasing the speed limit

00:29:42.760 oh I love it

00:29:45.220 I'm on that road all the time

00:29:47.380 yeah I mean everyone's driving

00:29:49.500 140 anyway so

00:29:51.320 whatever so yeah yeah whatever so how fast do you think guys are going to go before they get

00:29:57.140 pulled over so what's the new what's the new speed limit with the speed at 120 is it 145

00:30:02.320 yeah exactly it's like probably i mean we'll have to wait to see what people kind of get

00:30:08.080 comfortable with but i definitely think people are going to start going a little bit faster

00:30:11.880 yeah i felt it today it was it was moving pretty fast so anyways i appreciate the call sean thanks

00:30:17.640 for calling awesome thank you thanks later john what's that so did you find that quote who who's

00:30:24.320 the who's the russian uh you you got the quote right down there show me the man and i'll show

00:30:29.340 you the crime uh yeah i mean god you know and that's and so okay let let's just stay on that

00:30:38.560 topic right i'm i'm i'm trying to draw a line in the sand personally for myself right where where

00:30:45.340 do I draw my line? Where does my government overreach? And where do I, where do I say enough

00:30:50.720 is enough is enough? And I, and I, and I'm, I think I've drawn a couple of lines and I'm getting

00:30:55.560 nervous. And, you know, I joked last week, I said that if there was an injunction that stopped me

00:31:01.520 from collecting signatures, I would actually continue collecting signatures until somebody

00:31:06.900 came to arrest me i'm i'm i'm still thinking that i live in a country where if i get arrested i still

00:31:15.960 get a pretty good treatment but then there's a little thing inside of me that's that you know

00:31:20.480 i go listen to tamara lich and i see what happened to the coots four and i see what others it's like

00:31:25.300 could i handle could i handle just being in solitary confinement for 40 days sure i could

00:31:31.160 and the harassment but could i handle what it does to my family could i handle them freezing

00:31:36.940 my bank accounts and threatening my my livelihood for the rest of my life and and those things so

00:31:42.980 now you know what i'm saying like i can handle misery but they're using tactics that go beyond

00:31:49.080 misery and it's it makes a person think right so i'm i'm they're succeeding and i'm and people say

00:31:56.120 to me like marty you're brave i'm not brave you could like i've said this you could teach yourself

00:32:00.320 bravery. And you can also if you're if you're strong in your conviction, then you will naturally

00:32:05.780 be brave. So I'm pretty strong in some of my convictions. I have an amazing network of support

00:32:10.800 and friends who are like minded. Plus, I've worked my life to be to the point where I'm not

00:32:16.200 completely dependent. I don't work for anybody. And I've accumulated a little bit of money and I

00:32:20.700 own my own land. So I've done things that allow me to be quote unquote brave. But I'm even at that

00:32:26.960 point now where i'm having those second thoughts and and so they're reaching me i know they've

00:32:32.840 reached a whole bunch of people a long long time ago a whole bunch of people now just are scared

00:32:37.340 of the state are scared of their government and don't want to do anything so that's insane right

00:32:42.980 and and and i keep staring at this book and i want to go back i want to show you something

00:32:48.200 because it's it's it's related to this right you'll you'll hear in the news today based on

00:32:57.360 what happened yesterday you'll hear about this elector list this famous electoral list whatever

00:33:03.880 the heck that electoral list is who's an elector in in alberta an eligible voter in alberta is

00:33:12.380 somebody who's over the age of 18 who lives here and is a canadian citizen that's it right and

00:33:19.560 that's the list and everybody apparently there's this magical list somewhere called the list of

00:33:25.100 electors eligible electors and i just want to show something right and i know it doesn't exist today

00:33:30.980 necessarily but this is a phone book this is the edson phone book i lived in edson for years i got

00:33:38.120 another one here this is this is the uh grand prairie phone book let me show you guys because

00:33:44.680 maybe some of you guys don't even remember this but the phone books had the white pages at the

00:33:48.360 front and then you had the yellow pages so when i was younger and you wanted to find out about

00:33:53.240 tow truck company or whatever you had to go through flip through this book and uh and find

00:33:58.120 the tow company and and in here this is edson if i open it up and i find my page my my my name is

00:34:08.360 there uh my address and my phone number is in here like isn't that insane and and that is this use

00:34:17.160 this was delivered to every household uh once a year and uh you accumulate i don't even my wife

00:34:24.120 still had this one maybe this one is uh is a keepsake because i'll tell you a quick story i

00:34:29.800 may i i met my wife at boston pizza and edson on my birthday and uh we we shared drinks and i and

00:34:37.400 we we we hit it off pretty good but uh all i knew was her name and then she didn't give me her phone 0.98

00:34:43.240 number well back in those days all i had to do was open this little phone book find her in there

00:34:48.680 and give her dingle so um and so everybody's making a huge huge huge big deal about this list

00:34:55.480 but i just want to show you this is a phone book and john maybe i'm putting you on the spot here

00:34:59.640 but can you find the canada post website just search canada post uh rental lists or rental

00:35:08.840 database it it you almost land on it on the canada post site when you go to it

00:35:13.960 and while john is searching that and he's just going to provide proof but i just want to tell

00:35:19.260 you this exists you can go to canada post and you can there you go rent our prospect list and if you

00:35:26.180 you know if you zoom in on it a little bit like acquire new customers right can you try and zoom

00:35:31.300 in a bit on that john thanks and just show that uh acquire new customers anyways they basically

00:35:38.280 Canada Post will rent you the modern version of the phone book, but it's digital. They'll rent

00:35:44.280 you that list and they rent them. And if you click on there, you'll see case studies. So they rent

00:35:49.880 their list to Costco and businesses and Canada Post will rent you the names of people, their

00:35:58.380 address, their phone number, and a whole bunch of other things. And so a lot of people are paranoid

00:36:04.680 it online thinking oh my god there's been a breach of whatever perhaps there has been and i'm not

00:36:09.420 saying there hasn't been and i'm not saying there aren't lists that are highly confidential

00:36:12.800 and and need to be protected but i'm also telling you right now that there are a lot of your name

00:36:19.060 if you search your name online you might be shocked at what you'll find out about yourself

00:36:23.460 and there are businesses like canada post and others lots of businesses do this i mean when

00:36:28.080 you sign up for when you sign up for your facebook account or some of these other even when you sign

00:36:33.780 for your cell phone provider or whatever everybody glances over the fine print they ignore the fine

00:36:38.740 print but somewhere in there often it says that uh you've agreed to uh sharing parts of your

00:36:46.020 information and you know i i always say this to people in general if the card or the loyalty card

00:36:53.060 that you're getting is free then you're the commodity right so so when you join up and you

00:36:59.460 go to i don't know you're getting a sobeys card or an air miles card or one of these cards that are

00:37:04.580 free that seems to come with a benefit the benefit that they're giving you is literally

00:37:09.540 the transaction they're paying you for information so when you got that sobeys card and you go to

00:37:14.900 sobeys every week and you and you use an email and a phone number to get that card boy they know they

00:37:21.060 know where you live they know what you buy generally and then if you're using your sobeys card

00:37:27.140 on a cell phone or something like that there's data attached to it so i'm you know i'm i'm just

00:37:32.260 bringing that up because at at the root right now of the debate is what kind of data was being used

00:37:40.020 and so we'll get to the i'm sure elections alberta and everybody will get to the bottom of this

00:37:44.100 there's some data maybe there was some breaches i don't know but but at the end of the day if

00:37:49.220 they start like what i said as a joke to somebody is you know let me take this and you find five

00:37:55.780 people in there you know and circle their names and tell me if they're pro or against independence

00:38:01.060 and then when you're done that i'm going to pass it on to somebody else and say you find

00:38:05.300 five people you know and tell me if they're pro or against independence that's what i just did

00:38:09.460 is sort of a form of campaigning and boy if that becomes completely illegal then i'm going to have

00:38:15.700 another problem right so you see you see where i'm going with this and so there's definitely a lot to

00:38:19.940 unpack and i think it's going to be an interesting coming few weeks and uh and and and then we'll go

00:38:26.060 there boy the show is moving on and uh again folks uh phone number is up there i met a bunch of you

00:38:31.740 uh over the course of the last couple of weeks who say you call i'll remind you i'm i'm just uh

00:38:36.720 i'm i'm just a guy who's uh wearing his uh golf shirt and uh and uh his ratty jeans and i'm i'm

00:38:46.480 nobody special. I'm just the guy. So just call me. All right. I think we, we beat the, well,

00:38:51.240 actually I wanted to just finish it off on the, um, budget. It came outside the budget. So I,

00:38:57.660 I mentioned a couple of things, you know, that to me are interfering in, in Alberta politics,

00:39:02.320 uh, the, the, you know, the funding of trades and the funding of businesses or housing and stuff

00:39:07.500 like that. But everybody also saw the weird announcement this week, right? All of a sudden,

00:39:11.660 um mark carney was all proud of announcing the canada strong fund and he announced a um what

00:39:20.740 did he call it he called it a um a sovereign wealth fund i almost spit out my coffee when

00:39:26.740 he said that right a sovereign you know i just told you we're 1.8 trillion dollars in debt

00:39:32.320 a sovereign wealth fund is a great idea and there's only a handful of sovereign wealth funds

00:39:37.460 in the world, right? Norway has a good one. Abu Dhabi has a good one. Alberta tried to have one

00:39:43.300 and Alberta's keeps getting pilfered all the time. But let's talk about Norway's, right? Norway's 0.89

00:39:48.720 sovereign wealth fund is truly the result of surplus money. They produced their oil, they got

00:39:54.880 their royalties and they had extra money. And every year when they had the extra money, they put that

00:39:59.500 extra money in the fund and that fund grew and was properly managed. And then that fund is used to

00:40:05.880 invest. And in the case of Norway, it's almost by mandate doesn't invest in Norway. It's the

00:40:11.560 way to really diversify. So Norway has a great one. Abu Dhabi is famous for doing this too.

00:40:17.860 Abu Dhabi produced a ton of oil and created a giant wealth fund over time. Alberta tried,

00:40:23.820 we have the Heritage Fund, an idea from way back when. And it hasn't grown quite as much as some

00:40:33.540 of the other funds because we kind of end up being in, not having a lot of surplus money at

00:40:38.300 the end of the year to put in this, in our, in our heritage fund. And we've used it on rainy days in

00:40:45.000 the past. So it, so it's been depleted a little bit, but what Carney announced is nothing like

00:40:49.760 that. I mean, Carney literally announced this fund and he says, I'm going to put $25 billion

00:40:54.120 in there. And then if you guys want to put a few billion, then we'll invest it. Well, he's going

00:41:00.020 to have to borrow money to put it into the fund to start with and um so so it's a non-starter

00:41:06.580 right it's a non-starter and the other thing i find upsetting about that fund is that some people

00:41:12.860 were applauding it but then they quickly how quickly do they forget that the liberals started

00:41:18.460 another fund like that one um john can you find just the landing page the web page for the canada

00:41:24.300 infrastructure bank and uh put that up on the screen and show their um so their landing page

00:41:33.180 or maybe did i get their name wrong or it's the canada i'm pretty sure it was the canada

00:41:38.540 infrastructure bank there you go cib right we are um so the canada infrastructure bank was founded

00:41:46.140 by by the liberals in it's a crown corporation that was founded in 2017 with the same exact idea

00:41:53.820 oh we're going to start a fund we're going to put money in there and we're going to use this money

00:41:57.260 to invest in projects which usually are interfering in provincial affairs anyways and look at that fun

00:42:03.420 performance right so um 54 billion dollars invested i i can't believe they actually even

00:42:10.940 brag about this they've invested 54 billion dollars and a variety of weird projects and then

00:42:16.300 they claim that the fund's worth 18. so it's a mutual fund seeded with your money that's actually

00:42:22.940 lost 60 percent of its value in the last uh or maybe not 60 50 percent of its value a little more

00:42:29.180 30 anyways so this fund failed and so the liberals answer is we're going to do another fund that's

00:42:35.660 going to be a similar failure and by the way 25 billion dollars ah i want to get back to that

00:42:41.260 uh caller on the line go ahead please name where are you calling from uh hi apprentice uh from

00:42:47.500 near ottawa oh cool yeah just uh yeah but you're giving me hope for the future of canada you

00:42:56.060 separating you guys okay um yep so interesting comment though so why do we give you hope in

00:43:06.220 ottawa or in in ontario so our our government is corrupt because of ford

00:43:13.180 so um we got no way out once you guys leave we gotta be poor so more people will have trouble

00:43:22.200 so we might my way of thinking of this is that you guys gotta separate do a new consultation

00:43:30.360 then after that the country will break up and we're gonna have like 10 province can compete

00:43:36.660 for who has the better idea

00:43:38.220 for the new future of the

00:43:40.480 Canada group.

00:43:44.040 No, I hear you, Francis.

00:43:46.660 You're saying something that we

00:43:48.240 often repeat here in Alberta.

00:43:50.320 It's a shame. It's unfortunate

00:43:52.200 that us leaving might cause a little

00:43:54.300 pain in the rest of Canada, but at the

00:43:56.280 same time, us leaving could be a wake-up

00:43:58.240 call for the rest of Canada. You'll finally have to

00:44:00.420 give up

00:44:02.500 on some bad ideas.

00:44:04.300 Does that make sense? Yes.

00:44:05.560 Yes.

00:44:06.560 Yep.

00:44:07.560 That's basically it.

00:44:08.560 Yeah, and Francis, not to offend my listeners,

00:44:11.560 but thank you for calling because you have a Franco-Ontarien accent.

00:44:14.560 I'm from the same region, so we speak the same French.

00:44:19.560 I've made your show with Ian and Frank.

00:44:22.560 All right, folks, there you go.

00:44:24.560 Thank you, Francis.

00:44:26.560 Have a good day.

00:44:27.560 Thanks. 0.90

00:44:28.560 Our first caller, so just that was French, folks.

00:44:30.560 I know, I know, I know.

00:44:32.560 It's it's we're an English show, but maybe I'll do a French show one of these days and broaden our audience.

00:44:38.580 And and actually, John, do we have do we have journalists in in in Quebec or someplace like that?

00:44:47.480 We don't have French. All right. Western Standard. There's an opportunity there, Derek.

00:44:51.200 We can expand. OK, so I've got to go back to my notes.

00:44:56.920 So I was talking to the infrastructure bank. Right. Oh, yeah.

00:45:00.180 and i wanted to just again just you know this is what i like doing right i like talking about

00:45:05.220 stuff and giving you guys food for thought right so the budget was lousy um there's there's the

00:45:11.860 debt is out of control and then they brag about things that in the past they didn't want us to

00:45:16.980 know about so why so why was the shortfall uh the deficit not as big as they predicted like

00:45:23.620 six months ago and this again this is pure irony this is beautiful right so they predicted a 77

00:45:28.340 billion deficit but it only came in at 66 why because of the gulf war right the war in iran

00:45:35.460 and and the value of oil so even though alberta produces oil and alberta pays royalties here in

00:45:41.220 alberta a little bit of of extra revenue from from uh when con when alberta companies when the price

00:45:49.540 of oil goes up the government of alberta benefits directly from increased revenues but it also

00:45:54.180 benefits from increased corporate taxes because the companies become more profitable and some of

00:45:59.220 those taxes also go to ottawa so when ottawa so when oil does well it's proof that oil is important

00:46:06.180 to the uh alberta to the overall economy of the country in fact it's so important that when you

00:46:12.420 look at that report uh the fall the spring economics uh update at the beginning of the report

00:46:18.740 they list a couple of parameters that are used in their forecast right they list a couple of

00:46:24.740 things that are important that that affect the overall uh accuracy of the report and the modeling

00:46:30.180 and some of those things in there are um their their prediction for interest rates their prediction

00:46:37.020 for the population their prediction for the growth in gdp and one commodity they predict the price of

00:46:44.660 oil okay so canada produces hundreds of different commodities but there's only one commodity that's

00:46:50.420 included in the annual in in this update because of its importance so again i find that weirdly

00:46:56.660 ironic that you got carny constantly constantly slamming our oil and and and promoting a green

00:47:04.740 future in a net zero future and trying to distance himself from oil but at the end of the day and

00:47:09.780 that's ideology but at the end of the day when reality meets ideology reality always wins and

00:47:15.140 what we saw this week with the this past month with the gulf wars that everybody wants oil and

00:47:20.020 when oil does well the country makes more money and it's good for the country uh go ahead on the

00:47:25.780 line where are you calling from uh yeah this is uh mark calling how are you doing marty good good

00:47:33.540 how are you? I might have missed the last couple of minutes of what you were saying,

00:47:40.580 just so we don't get that delayed. You were talking about the sovereign wealth fund.

00:47:47.380 I just caught the last few seconds. Where exactly does the sovereign wealth come from?

00:47:53.060 It comes from assets within the country. Are we going to build a fund up to the steel industry,

00:48:01.620 through fishing no it's going to be through oil like norway has norway has every project in norway

00:48:08.980 it's 50 government ownership saudi arabia uae well those speak to themselves those are

00:48:15.940 kingdoms or whatever so they have to take a stake in ownership then for this well what is that that's

00:48:23.780 national energy program 2.0 that's all that is if you have to get it where's you going to get it

00:48:30.820 What's going to feed that?

00:48:32.720 And the idea behind all this was actually kind of divest economies and not necessarily

00:48:38.820 have rainy day funds, but it's to move the money into something else that perhaps a state

00:48:46.820 could use.

00:48:47.820 But this guy, he's off the rails.

00:48:51.820 He's absolutely off the rails.

00:48:53.820 I agree, and then the other thing it disguises is the fact that he keeps claiming that, hey,

00:49:00.820 back and we're going to be the greatest economy in the g7 he makes these really bold claims

00:49:06.260 but the reality is um we didn't need any of these kinds of funds in the past because companies came

00:49:13.060 here and wanted to invest here and and i've talked about this before the liberals of the last decade

00:49:18.660 have scared away investors like they just don't want to invest here unless there's huge subsidies

00:49:24.820 right like the battery plant and the car plants and whatnot they're they they used to come here

00:49:29.620 willingly because we had great labor we had cheap electricity and resources and and a close proximity

00:49:36.020 to markets but we've scared away all the capital and so a fund like this is just it's just a is

00:49:41.700 disguising that failure like we wouldn't need a fund like this if if investors were willing to

00:49:46.740 come here you know gladly so um yeah i appreciate the call thank you would i be able to just add

00:49:54.740 I have one little thing there.

00:49:56.260 Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

00:49:56.800 The caller that you had last week,

00:49:58.860 the caller that you had last week saying he was going to take you to Alberta.

00:50:02.820 Oh, yeah.

00:50:03.260 Take you to Alberta.

00:50:07.040 The look on your face said it all.

00:50:09.800 It's like, you're coming here to take the advantages of Alberta,

00:50:15.060 to protest Alberta, wanting to separate.

00:50:18.960 You can argue about that.

00:50:21.780 It was unbelievable.

00:50:22.680 Thanks for reminding me of that one.

00:50:24.100 Yes. I forgot about that one. Yes.

00:50:25.880 We had one caller last week saying he was moving here to vote no in the

00:50:29.880 upcoming referendum. That's awesome. All right. Thanks.

00:50:33.120 Thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah.

00:50:35.780 Actually that nice little segue right there when we were talking about

00:50:39.360 investors and whatnot, that's a double-edged sword.

00:50:43.360 One of the things that happened this week here in Calgary, right?

00:50:46.480 So Arc Energy was a pretty big Canadian company.

00:50:51.500 You know, there's like there there's not a lot of good Canadian companies.

00:50:56.200 It's true that there's a lot of foreign investors and it's a double edged sword, right?

00:50:59.520 It's a double edged sword. I mean, we do not have enough capital in this country.

00:51:03.200 Like we're 40 million people. I think we're three percent of the world's money supply is here, but we have more resources.

00:51:10.420 So when we want to build big things here, we have no choice.

00:51:13.900 We have to bring in foreign capital.

00:51:15.740 And one of the foreign capitals that has always, even despite the liberals, all their attempts to kill it, foreign capital has continued to invest in our energy, in our oil and in our gas.

00:51:29.900 but I'm, but I, but I was always happy to have some good Canadian companies, the CNRLs, the

00:51:35.920 Synovuses, ARC. And now this week in a double edged sword, um, ARC got sold and bought out by

00:51:45.040 Shell, which is that, which is definitely foreign. So I have mixed feelings on that one because yes,

00:51:50.040 I believe that it's important to bring in foreign capital, but I wish we were bringing in foreign

00:51:55.060 capital in other areas there's enough foreign capital in oil so i i see that as a bit of a

00:52:01.140 dilution of uh of of of of our number one resource here falling more and more into foreign hands um

00:52:09.060 but i would definitely not advocate some people will say well then if you believe that way we

00:52:12.820 should nationalize the oil no no no no no i mean it's it there is a double-edged sword to being in

00:52:18.580 favor of capitalism which is you take the good with the bad sometimes um you know the capital

00:52:24.340 comes from somewhere else uh go ahead caller on the line uh yeah marty uh good afternoon it's

00:52:33.620 canadian spider-man steve calling from vernon steve how's it going bud hey it's going fantastic

00:52:41.060 it's beautiful sunny it's my birthday today oh happy birthday right on happy birthday to me yeah

00:52:46.580 It's been fantastic.

00:52:48.320 Listen, I just want to touch on what you and the last caller,

00:52:54.100 a previous caller, had said.

00:52:55.660 I think if Alberta separates or when,

00:52:59.140 because history shows maps always change,

00:53:01.440 so when they separate, it will force provinces like where I grew up.

00:53:07.160 I spent 27 years in New Brunswick.

00:53:08.700 They have a lot of potential.

00:53:10.780 They have a lot of potential, but they're not forced to do anything with it.

00:53:15.360 They have natural gas. 0.96

00:53:17.740 They've got to drop bilingualism.

00:53:19.580 It is crushing them financially.

00:53:21.560 They're the only bilingual province in all of Canada. 0.98

00:53:24.520 Chirpau-Francais, but my French suck. 0.95

00:53:27.060 And it's just not worth it. 0.98

00:53:28.360 It causes division amongst the population there.

00:53:30.620 I can tell you that for now.

00:53:32.220 So that's my thought.

00:53:33.440 It might actually force them to drop the useless programs

00:53:36.000 and really get motivated to develop their potential.

00:53:41.020 Well, yeah, no, you're not alone in that thought.

00:53:43.720 lots of lots of people think that way in fact um last week the new not the new but the leader of the

00:53:51.320 um separatist party in quebec the party quebecois he dropped a pretty interesting podcast and in his

00:53:58.120 in his podcast he almost went as far as saying that he he he he tried avoiding he avoided talking

00:54:04.840 about alberta but he talked about quebec how quebec needs to separate and and that's what he

00:54:10.120 he was saying that quebec needs to separate because he went as far as saying quebec's been

00:54:14.440 held back by by the rest of canada i thought that was hilarious but but in a sense uh there is some

00:54:20.580 truth to that right they they the the equalization formula and stuff like that has as it's a

00:54:26.360 disincentive to do well for for quebec and other places so um yeah i appreciate that uh yeah i

00:54:34.060 agree i fundamentally agree okay yeah all right thanks have a good one happy birthday

00:54:39.180 oh is that another call on the line or just hearing a beep um all right wow again just

00:54:47.620 like last week i had a whole bunch of topics i wanted to talk about uh that uh well i got a

00:54:53.200 couple of minutes i i can uh so arc is gone sad to see that um oh there's a question in the chat

00:55:00.880 Can you find that question for me?

00:55:03.300 Which one is that?

00:55:05.360 Would it not be better to hand in the petition this Friday?

00:55:08.100 I'm worried this could potentially let an activist bureaucrat say it was handed in late.

00:55:17.940 You know, I mean, yeah, at some point you got to the the the word on the street is that the petition was due on May 2nd, sort of like at 6 p.m.

00:55:26.340 Right. And May 2nd is what, Saturday or Sunday?

00:55:29.200 And so Mitch talked to Elections Alberta. Mitch was prepared to hand it in under the wire exactly before it was due. And apparently Elections Alberta said, OK, since it's the weekend and we're closed, you can hand it in on Monday before, I don't know, 6 p.m.

00:55:46.640 So I got to, I got to trust that there aren't shenanigans being played there. That would be, that would be, that would be brutal. Imagine you show up and, and you, you know, I hope Mitch has an email or a phone recording conversation saying do it at four. But me personally, I'd love it if he dropped it on Friday tomorrow, because then I, then I wouldn't, then I'd sleep better all weekend knowing what the, what the outcome was. Hey, I'm confident. I am truly confident. I mean, there was a, you know, I've, I've shared the math, right?

00:56:15.880 In the writing that I was in, we collected over 7,000 signatures.

00:56:20.820 Doesn't sound like much, but there's 87 writings, which will be a topic of discussion, right?

00:56:26.560 We're going to 91 writings in the near future.

00:56:28.900 I think that's crazy.

00:56:30.180 But 87 writings, if my writing was sort of average and we brought in 7,000 signatures, you know, instead of 87, make it 90.

00:56:39.120 Nine times seven, you know, so there's the opportunity for 500,000 signatures.

00:56:43.940 But there was one really, really good story that came out this week. I think it was the Sylvan Lake Sundry writing. There's a writing in that area where they supposedly got something like 22,000 signatures. They divulge how many they had collected. And there's something like 28,000 voters in that writing.

00:57:04.780 So people are like, wow, 28,000 voters, you guys collected 22,000 signatures, they're doing the math, and they're like, you know, it's 80% plus in a rural writing that was totally in favor of separatism.

00:57:16.560 So when I see a number like that, I keep hope that maybe there will be a big surprise on Monday, and maybe it's a really big number.

00:57:22.120 Okay, we've got time for a couple more callers.

00:57:23.960 Go ahead, on the line.

00:57:26.620 Hello?

00:57:27.320 If it's a surprise on Monday, maybe it's a really big number.

00:57:30.460 Okay, we've got time for a couple more.

00:57:31.820 that's my feed

00:57:34.700 yeah yeah go ahead

00:57:37.140 go ahead

00:57:42.560 I think you need to do a 90 minute show

00:57:49.580 I think you need to do a 90 minute show

00:57:57.740 yeah um i i'm a little uh worried about uh how carney

00:58:06.460 whoever's on the line you got a lot of carney is a little

00:58:11.260 not not making any comments about the separation and how he

00:58:17.980 so i'll i'll call doc next up okay yeah yeah um i i tried to get the gist of it i think

00:58:27.020 basically saying carney's not making a lot of comments i i right now um there's there's no

00:58:34.060 i understand why practically speaking there's no referendum at this point right let's all be

00:58:38.940 honest there's no referendum until they're counted until danielle smith says there's a referendum

00:58:44.380 there's a lot of people right now that are not pronouncing themselves on either side because

00:58:49.660 there's no referendum uh but there are some definitely you know thomas lukasic

00:58:54.300 uh is is coming out guns a-blazing uh naheed nenshi came out guns a-blazing so i think that's

00:59:00.040 the yes uh that's the no side interesting uh there's going to be a debate uh this week or

00:59:06.300 next week uh jason kenney is coming out strong on the no side and he's debating keith wilson

00:59:13.200 and i think the first debates in edmonton and then there's a subsequent one here in calgary

00:59:17.820 um so we'll we'll we'll see but i'm not surprised that carney's not saying anything at this point

00:59:23.520 as far as the 90 minute show yeah i want to do a 90 minute show uh we're going to keep doing this

00:59:29.280 format for a little while longer if i do 90 minute i would definitely bring in guests for

00:59:33.020 about 30 minutes because right now i've been reluctant to bring a guest if i bring a guest

00:59:37.580 they'll you know they'll get 15 minutes and i don't think that's very fair so um i appreciate

00:59:42.940 the offer or the the thought all right this will probably be the last call so go ahead

00:59:47.900 the name, where are you calling from?

00:59:49.900 I'm Jesse, GP, how's it going, Bert?

00:59:53.900 Good, how are you?

00:59:54.900 Good.

00:59:55.900 I'm sorry, I have a question, but in regards to the fear surrounding the shell purchasing

01:00:05.900 uh sorry i i can i don't know if it's our side or i i i i i maybe hang up and call back we're

01:00:31.740 running out of time you'll i think you'll have to call next week we would like uh appreciate it but

01:00:36.700 we're running out of time sorry folks um all right wow another hour just flies by and uh i didn't

01:00:43.980 get through all my topics i didn't get the actually i got almost through everything the only one i

01:00:48.380 didn't get about is the bank of canada keeping its interest rate at 2.25 and there's a whole bunch

01:00:53.980 unpacked there maybe i'll do that next week and i wanted to talk a little bit about the united arab

01:00:58.780 emirates pulling out of opec which to me was a super interesting uh story i'll try and circle

01:01:04.260 that one and bring it up next week somebody put a comment maybe and remind me to talk about that

01:01:08.420 next week anyways um so once again thanks for calling in it's every thursday join me next week

01:01:15.540 same time one o'clock make sure uh to get a subscription the the website is right there on

01:01:22.720 the page westernstandard.news backslash subscription and john is reminding me we're

01:01:29.320 offering 40 off right now for new subscribers and he put a code on can they find the code online

01:01:35.520 easily the code is western 40 wow that's a great deal i mean the the best deal right now was uh

01:01:41.600 instead of ten dollars a month was a hundred dollars a year which was about what a 20 discount

01:01:46.220 so an additional discount running right now uh code western 40 all right join me next week folks

01:01:52.460 Thanks. Have a great weekend.

Western Standard - May 04, 2026

MARTY UP NORTH： Elections Alberta files legal action against independence advocacy group

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