Western Standard - August 30, 2026


MARTY UP NORTH： The trade war exposes Alberta’s biggest problem with Canada


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 12 minutes

Words per minute

153.15

Word count

11,042

Sentence count

356


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Marty Up North.
00:00:27.500 I'm not Marty. My name is Josh Anderson. I have commandeered Marty's show while he is off today.
00:00:34.200 And we have quite the show lined up. Let's start off by getting into the top story of the day so
00:00:40.400 far. American President Donald Trump has signed an executive order earlier today renaming Lake
00:00:46.220 Ontario, Lake America for official U.S. federal use, following through on a threat made as the
00:00:53.340 trade war with canada escalates and that's what today's show will come down to trade the elbows
00:01:00.780 up idiots are going to kill our economy the liberals spent the last 10 years pile driving
00:01:05.620 it into the ground they drove up taxes they buried businesses in red tape they ran chronic deficits
00:01:11.380 they made housing unaffordable they weakened investment they chased capital out of the country
00:01:16.820 they turned canada into a place where it is increasingly difficult to build anything
00:01:20.720 produce anything, or make a profit doing it.
00:01:23.560 And then, after spending a decade making Canada less competitive,
00:01:27.580 they decided the answer was to pick a fight with our largest trading partner.
00:01:31.500 Because this is not just a government that has been hostile to business,
00:01:34.640 it's been hostile to the industries that actually produce wealth.
00:01:38.020 The Liberals spent years attacking Canadian energy.
00:01:40.880 They imposed a carbon tax that raises the cost of transportation,
00:01:44.080 heating, manufacturing, and virtually everything else.
00:01:47.000 They brought in an oil tanker ban that has made it harder
00:01:49.860 for canadian energy to reach international markets they imposed a federal impact assessment regime
00:01:55.220 that created uncertainty and delay for major projects they introduced legislation designed
00:02:00.100 to restrict offshore energy development they killed northern gateway they stalled energy east
00:02:05.540 they watched as the trans mountain expansion was delayed over budget and ultimately purchased by
00:02:09.940 the federal government after they chased away all the private interests they treated pipelines as if
00:02:15.380 they were moral failures instead of infrastructure they treated canadian oil and gas workers as an
00:02:21.060 embarrassment instead of an economic asset and now after years of making canada poorer less
00:02:27.620 productive and less competitive the liberals appear determined to lead us into a trade war
00:02:32.260 with the united states determined i mean it's already happening and that would be concerning
00:02:37.620 enough what makes it insane is that they want to lead us into a trade war with donald trump
00:02:42.900 Donald Trump is not some playground bully Canada needs to stand up to
00:02:46.420 so we can prove that we have self-esteem.
00:02:48.600 He's the toughest guy in the league.
00:02:50.580 He's the president of the largest economy on earth.
00:02:53.600 He controls access to the market that buys more Canadian goods
00:02:56.600 than the rest of the world combined.
00:02:58.000 He has spent a decade telling everybody exactly how he thinks about trade.
00:03:02.640 Leverage, tariffs, market access, winning and losing.
00:03:06.560 You don't have to like it.
00:03:07.900 You don't have to like him.
00:03:09.360 But you have to understand the man that you're negotiating with.
00:03:12.080 And apparently, our strategy is to walk up to the biggest guy in the league, slap him across the mouth, puff out our chest, and announce that Canada will not be intimidated.
00:03:22.780 Okay, and what?
00:03:24.440 Because here's the part nobody in Ottawa seems particularly interested in discussing.
00:03:28.460 What happens if he hits back?
00:03:29.980 The United States imposed 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after negotiations collapsed.
00:03:38.800 In response, Carney announced retaliatory Canadian tariffs that begin on September the 8th.
00:03:44.380 This is escalation.
00:03:46.280 Escalation only makes sense when you have some reasonable theory of how you win.
00:03:50.780 So what is the Canadian theory of victory?
00:03:53.520 Are we going to economically exhaust the United States?
00:03:56.660 Are we going to make Americans more dependent on the Canadian market than Canadians are on theirs?
00:04:02.240 Are we going to replace the American customer in six months?
00:04:05.880 A year?
00:04:07.020 Two years?
00:04:07.580 Because in 2025, even after Canadian trade diversified somewhat, 71.7% of all Canadian
00:04:16.100 merchandise exports still went to the United States. 71.7%. That isn't a trading partner.
00:04:23.920 That's the gravitational center of the Canadian economy. And Carney wants Canadians to believe
00:04:29.120 that retaliating against that market demonstrates strength. No. Strength is understanding leverage.
00:04:35.560 Strength is knowing the difference between what you want and what you can actually compel another country to give you.
00:04:41.880 Strength is refusing to confuse national pride with economic strategy.
00:04:46.300 Donald Trump can hurt Canada far more easily than Canada can hurt Donald Trump.
00:04:51.340 That's not anti-Canadian. That's math.
00:04:54.320 The United States has more people, more capital, more domestic demand, more industrial capacity, more military power, and more bargaining leverage.
00:05:06.020 Canada's great economic advantage has never been our ability to overpower the United States.
00:05:12.200 It has been privileged access to the United States.
00:05:16.320 And if your government strategy is to jeopardize that advantage because you think Canadians will applaud you for standing up to Trump,
00:05:22.260 you had better have one hell of a plan B.
00:05:25.620 And then there's Doug Ford.
00:05:26.980 He gets angry.
00:05:28.220 He starts yelling.
00:05:29.340 He says something outrageous.
00:05:31.220 Everybody cheers.
00:05:32.380 The cameras show up.
00:05:33.880 Doug Ford becomes Captain Canada for another afternoon.
00:05:37.360 Great television, terrible economics.
00:05:40.180 Because this week, Doug Ford has decided that apparently the trade war isn't escalating quickly enough.
00:05:45.900 Ford says that Canada can put, quote unquote, massive pain on the United States.
00:05:50.720 He says Donald Trump is making a mistake by underestimating Canadians.
00:05:55.140 He says everything is on the table.
00:05:57.300 Electricity, critical minerals, oil, uranium, potash, fuel.
00:06:01.560 He says the premier should get together and throw everything and the kitchen sink at the Americans.
00:06:07.100 And that brings us to perhaps my favorite line.
00:06:10.520 Donald Trump can kiss Ford's ass.
00:06:12.900 That's the premier of Ontario.
00:06:14.860 The province with the largest manufacturing sector in Canada.
00:06:18.300 the center of the Canadian automotive industry, the province whose economic fortunes are perhaps
00:06:23.960 more closely connected to the American economy than anywhere else in the country. And Doug Ford
00:06:30.160 is standing there essentially saying, economic war? Bring it on. What could possibly go wrong?
00:06:36.820 Well, Doug, quite a lot. Because there is something deeply unserious about a politician
00:06:41.980 talking about inflicting massive pain on your largest customer, as though international
00:06:47.160 trade were a bar fight. This isn't roadhouse. You don't win because you're louder. You don't
00:06:52.780 win because you swear more. You don't win because you wear a hat that says, buy Canadian. You win
00:06:59.160 because you have leverage. And once again, apparently nobody wants to discuss the leverage.
00:07:05.560 Doug Ford says Donald Trump is underestimating Canada. No, Doug Ford is dramatically
00:07:11.300 overestimating Canada. Those are two very different things. Canada matters to the United
00:07:16.640 States? Absolutely. We sell them oil, uranium, potash, electricity, aluminum, steel, and auto
00:07:22.540 parts. We have deeply integrated supply chains that would be extremely expensive and disruptive
00:07:27.480 for the United States to replace. Doug Ford apparently wants to take every strategic economic
00:07:32.780 relationship Canada has with the United States, pile them onto the middle of the floor, pour
00:07:37.040 gasoline over them, and stand there holding a match. That's not negotiating. That's mutually
00:07:43.140 assured stupidity. Take electricity. Ford says Ontario could cut off electricity exports to the
00:07:49.720 United States. Sounds tough until you ask the obvious question. Then what? Canada exported
00:07:57.060 about 3.3 billion worth of electricity to the United States last year. More than 20 states
00:08:02.140 import some Canadian electricity, and New York and Michigan are the major customers for Ontario
00:08:07.300 power. So yes, Ontario can hurt them. Of course it can. Prices would increase in some markets,
00:08:12.720 utilities would have to adjust alternative generation would have to come online there
00:08:17.000 would be disruption but they're not going to turn manhattan off they're not going to shut detroit
00:08:21.860 down the united states produces vastly more electricity than the canada exports to it
00:08:27.200 the americans adjust eventually they replace what we sell them and then congratulations premier
00:08:32.180 ford you have transformed a reliable canadian export market into an american national security
00:08:37.720 vulnerability what do you think washington does next do you think they say boy those canadians
00:08:44.440 sure showed us we'd better become even more dependent on ontario electricity of course not
00:08:51.160 they build around us they develop alternatives they change regulations they increase domestic
00:08:55.720 production they build generation they build transmission mission they find another supplier
00:09:01.560 wherever possible and the temporary leverage you had becomes permanently less valuable
00:09:08.280 that's the danger of weaponizing trade once you demonstrate that you are willing to shut the tap
00:09:12.760 off the customer has an enormous incentive to make sure you can never threaten them with that tap
00:09:17.320 again the same applies to critical minerals uranium and it certainly applies to oil there
00:09:24.040 are certain strategic advantages they should be used to create long-term commercial relationships
00:09:30.200 that make canada indispensable instead our political class increasingly talks about them
00:09:36.280 like they are artillery shells fire this one fire that one maybe we'll shut off electricity
00:09:42.440 maybe we'll shut restrict oil maybe we'll withhold minerals maybe we'll tax exports
00:09:47.640 and after we've fired every weapon we have what then the american domestic market is considerably
00:09:53.560 larger than ours and that means that there is a fundamental problem with the entire elbows up
00:09:59.960 mentality. It treats economic pain as evidence of patriotism. Ford actually told the Associated
00:10:07.420 Press that Canadians understand that they're going to have to sacrifice. Think about that
00:10:12.380 sentence. They're going to have to sacrifice. Who's they? Doug Ford? Mark Carney? The people
00:10:19.100 standing behind the podiums? No. A guy working at an auto plant in Windsor. A woman running a small
00:10:26.260 manufacturer and kitchener a trucking company a farmer a steel worker a parts supplier a family
00:10:32.080 whose grocery bill goes up because somebody in ottawa decided tariffs to demonstrate a national
00:10:36.860 resolve those are the people who sacrifice politicians declare economic wars ordinary
00:10:43.600 people fight them and i am getting extremely tired of wealthy politicians talking about the
00:10:49.040 sacrifices we need to make so those politicians can demonstrate how tough they are doug ford wants
00:10:54.640 an economic war okay what's the victory condition i asked this about mark carney and i'll ask it
00:11:00.280 again about doug ford what does winning look like donald trump capitulates the united states
00:11:05.300 removes every tariff americans decide they're more afraid of losing canadian electricity
00:11:09.980 than canadians are of losing access to the u.s market what's the theory because we'll hurt them
00:11:16.920 too is not a strategy. It's an emotion. Suppose somebody punches you in the face. You can punch
00:11:25.040 him back. Maybe he deserves it. But if he's six foot seven, 280 pounds and standing there asking
00:11:30.540 if you'd like another round, you might want a little bit more of a sophisticated plan than
00:11:35.500 I'm Canadian and I've got elbows. This is what drives me nuts about Doug Ford. He should
00:11:41.900 understand this better than anybody. Ontario's automotive industry exists because of continental
00:11:48.620 economic integration. Cars aren't really Canadian or American products anymore. Parts cross that
00:11:55.140 border over and over again. Engines, transmissions, electronics, steel, components, finished vehicles.
00:12:02.700 A North American automobile can cross the Canada-US border multiple times during production.
00:12:08.040 That system was built over generations.
00:12:11.100 Canadian-built vehicles represented roughly 6% of U.S. vehicle sales last year,
00:12:16.080 and Ford, GM, Stellantis, Toyota, and Honda all have major exposure to Canadian production.
00:12:23.120 The latest tariff escalation has already thrown future investment decisions into uncertainty.
00:12:28.700 At some point, somebody needs to be in the adult in the room.
00:12:32.120 Somebody needs to say, our objective is not to prove that Canada can damage the United States.
00:12:36.920 Of course, we can damage the United States, but that damage comes at a deeper cost to ourselves than to them.
00:12:44.020 It's shooting ourselves in the foot to make a political point.
00:12:47.680 Canada's strategic objective should be painfully obvious.
00:12:51.800 Preserve access to the American market.
00:12:54.120 Negotiate down tariffs.
00:12:56.260 Use diplomacy and make the case directly to American businesses, governors, members of Congress, consumers who benefit from Canadian trade.
00:13:04.780 At the same time, diversify aggressively, build pipelines, build LNG terminals, build ports, build mines, build transmission, build processing facilities, knock down interprovincial barriers, make Canada the easiest place in the G7 to invest.
00:13:21.040 Get our products to Europe, get them to Asia, get them to India, get them anywhere someone wants to buy them.
00:13:27.640 For years, politicians in central Canada have treated energy as some dirty Alberta obsession.
00:13:33.220 Now suddenly they're discovering that depending overwhelmingly on one foreign market might be
00:13:38.140 dangerous. Economic independence isn't saying kiss my ass. Economic independence is having
00:13:45.040 somewhere else to sell your stuff after you say it. And that's the part Doug Ford seems to be
00:13:49.760 missing. Because there is also something dangerous happening psychologically in Canada right now.
00:13:55.520 We have been confusing anger with patriotism. The angrier you are at Trump, the more Canadian
00:14:02.420 apparently you become. Elbows up. Where does that end? Because economic nationalism has a habit of
00:14:09.420 sounding wonderful right up until the unemployment numbers come out. Patriotism means wanting your
00:14:14.860 country to succeed. It does not mean demanding that your country undertake economically self-destructive
00:14:20.000 policies because they make you feel good for 15 minutes. Well, but then there's Daniel Smith.
00:14:27.020 Because while Doug Ford is running around talking about throwing everything in the kitchen sink at
00:14:31.100 the American, Danielle Smith is asking an apparently revolutionary question. What happens
00:14:36.820 after we throw it? Smith came out yesterday and rejected calls to tax or restrict Alberta oil
00:14:42.400 exports to the United States. She was unequivocal. She said she could not imagine a more disastrous
00:14:48.600 policy decision than cutting off or taxing Alberta oil. And she's completely right. That's exactly the
00:14:55.340 distinction I'm talking about. There's a difference between having leverage and setting your leverage
00:14:59.740 on fire. Alberta's oil is leverage. It's enormous leverage. Roughly 4 million barrels of Canadian
00:15:06.500 crude move south into the United States every day. Canadian crude accounts for nearly one-fifth
00:15:11.900 of American petroleum consumption. That matters. American refineries, particularly in the Midwest,
00:15:18.380 have been physically designed around processing heavy Canadian crude. That's important. These are
00:15:23.780 jobs, refineries, pipelines, communities, and entire regional economies on both sides of the
00:15:29.040 border that depend on that relationship that matters so naturally the elbows up crowd looks
00:15:34.980 at one of alberta's most valuable strategic assets and says you know what we should do tax it
00:15:40.120 restrict it maybe shut it off brilliant this is the economic equivalent of noticing that you have
00:15:47.840 a really good hand in poker and immediately throwing your cards into the fireplace danielle
00:15:52.680 smith understands that's something that apparently doug ford does not when you weaponize a commercial
00:15:58.280 relationship, you change the nature of that relationship. Smith put it very simply. If Canada
00:16:04.220 takes an action against American energy supplies, we should expect an equal and probably more
00:16:10.100 forceful reaction. Suppose Canada slaps a massive export tax on Alberta oil. Americans retaliate.
00:16:17.840 Fine. Who gets hurt? Alberta does. But it obviously doesn't stop at Alberta. Eastern Canada imports
00:16:24.240 refined petroleum products from the United States. Gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel. Ontario and
00:16:30.200 Quebec are connected to the American refinery infrastructure too. So now Canada has deliberately
00:16:36.020 turned a deeply integrated continental energy system into a weapon and we are betting that
00:16:41.320 the Americans blink first. And what is exactly the basis for that confidence? Smith warned that
00:16:47.740 an escalating energy fight could cost hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs and push American
00:16:51.740 refiners towards alternative heavy crude supplies, including Venezuela. This is the strategic
00:16:57.360 insanity of using energy exports as a political weapon. You get one shot, one, and after you fire
00:17:03.740 it, the customer spends the next 10 years making sure the gun is never pointed at him again.
00:17:08.700 That's why Smith's position is actually more hard-headed than the people screaming about
00:17:12.600 retaliation. She isn't saying Alberta oil is unimportant, she's saying the opposite. It is
00:17:18.500 too important to squander. And look at the numbers. Alberta exported nearly $111 billion worth of oil
00:17:24.780 to the United States in 2025. $111 billion. And someone wants to explain to me that the
00:17:31.620 patriotic thing to do is deliberately disrupt that trade. Who's petroleum? The workers? The
00:17:37.620 drillers? The welders? The engineers? The small town business owners? The provincial treasuries?
00:17:42.660 Because once again, the people proposing these grand dressers are usually not the people whose
00:17:47.280 livelihoods are being put on the negotiating table. Jason Kenney has now joined calls to
00:17:52.380 consider using energy exports as leverage on the very same day, essentially the same day that he
00:17:58.780 announces a new partnership with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, taming up with former NDP
00:18:04.020 Premier Rachel Notley to defend staying in Canada. And the entire provincial NDP is moving in that
00:18:11.700 direction. Doug Ford wants everything on the table. Danielle Smith is saying, no, oil stays
00:18:18.720 flowing. There's something deeply ironic about Alberta having to explain free trade to the rest
00:18:25.840 of Canada. For years, we begged for pipelines. We begged for market access. We begged for export
00:18:31.580 capacity. We begged Ottawa to understand that selling energy into one market was a strategic
00:18:37.060 vulnerability. Build West, build East, get to Tidewater, sell LNG, sell oil, find Asian customers,
00:18:44.540 find European customers, diversify. And for years, Central Canada has treated that argument as if it
00:18:49.960 was some pericule Alberta complaint. Now suddenly, everyone has discovered the danger of depending
00:18:57.700 on the United States. Great. Welcome to reality. If Alberta has one dominant customer, America has
00:19:05.140 leverage if alberta has five serious customers competing for its energy alberta has leverage
00:19:10.020 canada has leverage it's that simple and yet canadian governments have spent decades making
00:19:15.460 that harder even today trump is publicly talking about keystone xl well another project the smith's
00:19:23.380 west coast pipeline is being explored as a way to move out more alberta crude and this brings
00:19:30.740 us to the question that i think is becoming much more important than anybody in alberta wants to
00:19:37.300 admit what happens on october the 20th because on october the 19th alberta is voting on whether we
00:19:45.220 should remain a province of canada or whether the provincial government should begin the legal
00:19:49.860 process required to hold a future binding referendum on independence now smith has been
00:19:54.420 unclear about when this will happen says maybe in the spring i think she says probably not in
00:19:59.300 in the spring because there's laws that well you wrote so uh yeah we'll get i don't know if we'll
00:20:05.540 get into that but uh if option two wins uh danielle smith has said she intends to move fairly quickly
00:20:11.900 towards that binding vote fine we we know what happens if option two wins if canada enters one
00:20:18.120 of the most consequential constitutional debates in its history alberta has to respond alberta has
00:20:24.620 to define what independence actually means there are negotiations there are questions about debt
00:20:30.480 pension pensions borders citizenship treaties currency trade assets resources federal lands
00:20:37.280 military facilities everything it's it's it's an enormous undertaking but i want to ask the
00:20:44.060 opposite question what happens if option two loses what happens on october the 20th because
00:20:51.120 i don't think anybody has really thought through that possibility do all of the people who support
00:20:56.520 alberta independence just disappear do they wake up the next morning and say well we tried
00:21:02.880 canada forever problem solved of course not of course not the referendum can settle a ballot
00:21:10.120 question but it cannot automatically settle the political conditions that produce the question
00:21:15.400 those conditions did not appear six months ago because somebody created a facebook page they've
00:21:20.860 been building for decades. Equalization, fiscal transfers, energy policy, pipelines, federal
00:21:26.240 environmental regulations, Senate representation, federal intrusion into provincial jurisdiction,
00:21:33.220 western alienation. A sense, justified or not, that Alberta has expected to provide
00:21:38.700 enormous economic benefit to the federation while accepting political decisions made elsewhere.
00:21:44.240 Those issues still exist on October the 20th. Now add something else. Look at the language
00:21:49.960 that's entered into this debate treason think about that word it's not misguided they don't
00:21:58.400 use wrong they don't call it economically reckless or constitutionally difficult they're calling it
00:22:04.740 treason the assembly of treaty chiefs went so far as to ask the rcmp to investigate whether smith
00:22:11.540 and members of her government had potentially committed treason in connection to the referendum
00:22:16.180 Smith called the accusation disgraceful and said that that kind of language had no place in
00:22:22.400 democratic debate whatever you think about the underlying treaty dispute she was right about
00:22:28.280 that because treason is one of the most serious words available in political language it means
00:22:32.880 betrayal of your country historically it means betrayal so profound that it becomes a crime
00:22:38.000 against the state and now we're throwing that language around about people who want to vote
00:22:42.500 people who want to put a constitutional question to the electorate that's dangerous not because
00:22:48.560 alberta independence must win it may lose it may lose badly that's just democracy but if you spend
00:22:55.600 an entire campaign telling one side that their political beliefs amount to treason what exactly
00:23:01.680 do you expect those people to find feel when the campaign is finished will they feel welcomed back
00:23:08.000 into confederation do they feel heard do they feel reassured or do they conclude that the
00:23:14.720 federation they were questioning never had much interest in understanding them in the first place
00:23:19.220 referendums have consequences even when they fail sometimes especially when they fail
00:23:25.920 if ref if option two receives 20 of the vote that's one political reality if it receives 35
00:23:33.140 percent that's another if it receives 45 percent and narrowly loses that's something else entirely
00:23:38.740 if it wins it wins i think uh most of our viewers want that to happen but imagine that suppose 45
00:23:47.200 percent of albertans vote to begin the process towards independence then what are they all
00:23:53.480 traitors are we going to spend october 20th celebrating the fact canada defeated them
00:23:59.320 Is Ottawa going to declare the matter closed?
00:24:02.940 Is the national media going to announce that separatism has been crushed?
00:24:08.040 Because that would be an extraordinary mistake.
00:24:11.640 45% doesn't disappear because 55% won.
00:24:16.020 Those people still live here.
00:24:17.360 They still vote.
00:24:18.300 They still pay taxes.
00:24:19.500 They still work in the oil patch.
00:24:20.840 They still own businesses.
00:24:21.960 They still raise family.
00:24:23.280 They are still Albertans.
00:24:25.120 And if you want Alberta to remain in Canada over the long term,
00:24:28.480 these are precisely the people you need to persuade that Canada works for them.
00:24:33.300 Not humiliate, not criminalize, not demonize.
00:24:36.760 Persuade.
00:24:37.720 That's how a federation is supposed to function.
00:24:41.180 And this is where Danielle Smith's comments about oil become much bigger than the argument about export taxes.
00:24:47.280 Because listen to what is happening.
00:24:50.220 The rest of the country is openly discussing using Alberta's greatest economic asset as a weapon in a national trade dispute.
00:24:57.060 tax the oil, restrict the oil, use the oil as leverage, make Alberta energy part of Canada's
00:25:03.660 retaliation against Donald Trump. And then some of those same voices turn around and wonder why
00:25:09.620 Albertans wonder whether they have sufficient control over their own economic future. You
00:25:15.260 can't have it both ways. You can't say that Alberta's resources are a national weapon when
00:25:20.260 Ottawa needs leverage and then say that Alberta has no legitimate when Albertans ask who should
00:25:25.680 control those resources. That contradiction is going to matter enormously over the next two
00:25:31.360 months. Section 92A of the Constitution did not appear by accident. Provincial jurisdiction over
00:25:38.020 natural resources is not some technical footnote. It is a fundamental bargain of Canadian federalism,
00:25:44.020 a bargain that appears to be coming a part of the scene. Alberta controls Alberta's natural
00:25:49.100 resources. And right now, Smith is saying something very simple. We're not going to
00:25:53.980 destroy our own industry so Ottawa can look tough in a trade war? Good. But the independence
00:26:01.400 movement is going to ask the next question. What if Ottawa eventually decides otherwise?
00:26:07.900 What if federal political pressure becomes overwhelming? What if another federal government
00:26:13.560 decides Alberta's resources must once again be subordinated to some national objective?
00:26:19.880 What mechanism does Alberta possess to stop it?
00:26:23.040 That's where this debate goes.
00:26:25.000 And saying treason does not answer that question.
00:26:28.820 Calling independence supporters disloyal does not answer that question.
00:26:32.800 Waving the Canadian flag does not answer that question.
00:26:36.160 You have to answer the argument.
00:26:38.160 Why is Alberta better off inside Canada?
00:26:40.780 What does Confederation offer Alberta?
00:26:43.420 What constitutional protections will actually be respected?
00:26:46.820 How will federalism work differently?
00:26:48.520 What happens when Ottawa and Alberta fundamentally disagree?
00:26:52.340 These are legitimate questions and federalists should want to answer them, but they won't because they don't have the answers.
00:27:00.560 If Canada cannot make a compelling case for itself without demonizing the people asking questions, Canada has a much bigger problem than one referendum.
00:27:10.480 Danielle Smith now says herself that she is voting to remain in Canada.
00:27:14.760 She has defended holding the referendum anyways, arguing that hundreds of thousands of Albertans demanded a resolution and the province needs clarity about what Albertans actually want.
00:27:24.560 I think that's important, but the problem already exists.
00:27:28.960 The referendum reveals it and doing what the NDP and some of the Federalists want by canceling the referendum won't make the problem disappear.
00:27:39.900 It doesn't postponing.
00:27:41.140 It doesn't make equalization disappear.
00:27:43.300 Calling it divisive doesn't resolve constitutional grievances.
00:27:47.580 Calling the people behind it traitor certainly doesn't solve anything.
00:27:51.500 At some point, democratic societies have to be willing to ask difficult questions.
00:27:56.880 And sometimes, yeah, the answer is no.
00:27:59.360 Maybe Albertans vote overwhelmingly to remain in Canada.
00:28:02.100 Maybe they look at independence and decide the risks are too great.
00:28:05.020 Maybe they decide reforming confederation is preferable.
00:28:07.960 It's a perfectly legitimate result.
00:28:09.560 but then october the 20th becomes incredibly important because the responsibility shifts if
00:28:16.180 alberta is saying we're saying then canada has to decide what staying means does it mean going
00:28:22.780 back to the status quo does it mean ottawa pats alberta on the head says well glad that's over
00:28:29.060 and carries on does it mean that the next federal governments go straight back to fighting alberta
00:28:34.440 over energy emissions resource development and provincial jurisdiction because if that's what
00:28:39.300 happens congratulations you haven't defeated alberta independence you've scheduled the next
00:28:43.900 referendum that's what people need to understand a no vote cannot simply be interpreted as an
00:28:50.400 endorsement of the status quo there will be people voting option one because they love canada there
00:28:56.400 will be people voting option one because independence frightens them there will be
00:28:59.800 people voting option one because they don't think the economic case has been made there will be
00:29:04.160 people voting option one because they think the constitutional options are too great who are
00:29:08.940 people who are furious with ottawa just not prepared to leave like that those things are
00:29:13.820 not the same and if ottawa interprets every option one vote as everything is fine not then nothing
00:29:20.080 has been learned which brings me back to the trade war right now alberta is being presented
00:29:27.040 with a fascinating demonstration of its place inside confederation our industries are suddenly
00:29:32.620 indispensable when canada needs leverage against the united states our resources suddenly become
00:29:38.820 national strategic assets it's funny how that works the industry canada spent years constraining
00:29:45.060 suddenly becomes a thing everyone wants to put on the negotiating table and danielle smith is saying
00:29:50.620 no so i'm kind of a little like it's frustrating so i guess uh now i can move into the calls do we
00:29:59.800 have any nothing okay join the conversation uh call us at 866-479-9378 i guess i can kind of go
00:30:09.820 a little bit uh let's talk about the canadian chamber of commerce's recent announcement to put
00:30:14.340 jason kenny and rachel notley on stage together um i i don't uh i don't think this is going to go
00:30:20.660 the way that kenny and or notley sorry kenny and notley uh oh there's questions in the chat
00:30:27.280 let me pull that up good call all right let's let's go through the chats here this is a good one
00:30:35.360 new york times oh here's a good one i don't i didn't get to uh canadian officials confirmed
00:30:47.060 that carney has his jack boot on the neck of albertans for leverage keystone xl is blockaded
00:30:53.420 by Ottawa and Carney is trying to trade for benefits to subsidize Laurentian industries.
00:30:58.640 And yeah, like I didn't even get a chance to talk about supply management and some of
00:31:04.040 these, these areas, like every time I see Doug Ford standing in front of a protect Ontario
00:31:08.920 sign, I think I'm, I'm done with this country.
00:31:12.020 Everything we do is geared towards helping the East.
00:31:15.860 If, if Keystone was really on the table and not being used as a bargaining chip to protect
00:31:21.240 um oh uh to protect supply management like we'd have a a different conversation we do have a call
00:31:30.640 on the line um hello can you hear me uh good morning yes i can uh can you make that louder john
00:31:41.220 hello hello yeah you're on the air hello good hi there yeah my question was i just
00:31:50.980 one of the outfits regards to if the referendum should fail um is this is there anything where
00:31:58.540 we could start some sort of name it what you will independence provincial political party
00:32:04.700 i i think there's a lot of ways this will go and it really depends on that the number like if it's
00:32:12.620 a 80 20 split um which i don't think it will be i think it's going to be much higher um
00:32:19.220 i think uh creating a new party there's going to need to be conflicts within the existing ones
00:32:27.020 um and and leadership races are a great way as we've we're seeing in bc right now the fallout to
00:32:33.480 the uh the leadership race where peter millibar supporters are leaving the bc
00:32:38.240 conservatives that if there's a a vacancy at the top uh it has a tendency to create more friction
00:32:44.880 within it. And, and at a federal level, I think, uh, I'm watching the, uh, state of Pierre Polyev's,
00:32:51.540 uh, uh, his leadership very closely. Uh, Pierre, I like Pierre. I, I wish I had an answer for him
00:32:59.940 to help, uh, with the polls. I think, uh, I think again, just the elbows up the, the anti-Trump
00:33:05.580 patriotism is kind of working against him, but let's say Doug Ford, Corey Tanek, those guys,
00:33:12.080 they get rid of them they manage to either by getting enough MPs or or through a leadership
00:33:18.240 review process uh in the conservative party constitution they they turf them and there's
00:33:24.340 a leadership race to replace them and we get some Laurentian establishment figure I don't know
00:33:29.580 Carolyn Mulrooney for example I don't think the party will stay together and and I don't know how
00:33:37.340 it'll play provincially uh we can get into that in a second but if that's the case then i do think
00:33:45.880 that there will be an impetus for a new western base party or perhaps a alberta block a block
00:33:52.620 alberta um you've obviously changed the name but um i think that that anger has to go somewhere
00:34:01.800 um and and honestly there's i had uh former cabinet ministers uh alberta cabinet ministers
00:34:09.480 i've had conversations with them that there's always a latent independence movement in alberta
00:34:14.260 like i'd say there's it when times are fantastic uh when we have conservative part uh conservatives
00:34:22.080 in power in ottawa and we have uh you know republicans in the u.s and things are going
00:34:28.540 good and our western alberta's economy is booming ottawa is not imposing uh draconian measures on
00:34:37.520 our industries that even then there's a latent 20 support but what you have uh in the federal
00:34:46.220 party are distinct regions that don't always align and we're seeing that right now we're
00:34:52.320 seeing that with the ontario conservatives uh that are very much it's this is about protecting
00:34:57.560 their industries above above the nation they're they're much more paternalistic in the way that
00:35:02.840 they approach governing uh doug ford uh wears the conservative logo but a lot of people out west
00:35:08.640 would you know it's one of those things like i worked at the uh alberta legislature before coming
00:35:13.680 back here and i always said if it's coming out of queen's park which is the ontario legislature
00:35:17.060 i don't want it i don't want to see it uh so i think that kind of creates tension within the
00:35:23.420 federal party um provincially it's a different story i think a lot of the anger is already
00:35:29.840 internalized i think the uh ucp membership is strongly in support of at least taking a stronger
00:35:39.500 stance on ottawa i think in terms of independence that we'll see where the vote lines up but
00:35:44.420 obviously the the large portion of independent supporters are already embedded within the ucp i
00:35:50.520 have heard rumors out of Edmonton rumors not fact that Smith is planning on pivoting away from the
00:35:58.160 this pro Ottawa stance sometime in the fall I think now is probably the time to move on that
00:36:05.640 like especially if Keystone was being used as a bargaining chip and it's not just in the
00:36:14.040 conversation and Carney's pulling it off the table like that to me is like an absolute red
00:36:19.140 flag that you can't trust this MOU you can't trust the federal government to to follow through on
00:36:25.040 this so provincially I think uh within within Alberta there's less of a chance of a split
00:36:31.820 I think uh Smith does have an opportunity or at least will be given an opportunity uh to
00:36:37.220 reverse course but I mean I don't know if it's too little too late I mean I think that was one
00:36:43.300 of the issues with her trying to re-establish herself after crossing the floor to the PCs I
00:36:48.300 mean the pc party rejected her at her own riding level because they didn't trust her so it's one
00:36:55.200 of those things where there is a tremendous amount of anger towards the premier on this particular
00:37:02.060 topic and whether she can find her groove again and and this is one where i was going to come on
00:37:10.240 the air a couple weeks ago um and basically declare rob anderson's free alberta strategy dead
00:37:15.760 um i'm not gonna i'm not there right now um obviously i had to deal with some personnel
00:37:22.100 stuff in the office so i had to can the episode but i think uh their approach to trade has been
00:37:28.620 an area that the free alberta strategy shines um it's the concept that alberta should have
00:37:34.880 uh its own negotiation strategy it should be representing its interests on the international
00:37:42.420 stage because we can't trust the federal government to negotiate for us and based on
00:37:47.520 what we're seeing now with keystone being used as a as a chip i mean i i think that proves that
00:37:53.860 point but the rest of it uh you know like i'd like to see the sovereignty act used more i think
00:37:58.880 we're going to need to you know oh actually that was working for a second there's a lot that we
00:38:04.860 have to do so um yeah i i think uh internally to the ucp she's gonna have to pivot otherwise
00:38:13.600 there's going to be a revolt i don't think uh it's gonna happen immediately but
00:38:19.660 she's losing me pretty quickly here uh do we have any other callers no i can go through the comments
00:38:25.940 uh oh i'm still here yes uh howdy from parkland county oh is he still on the line
00:38:34.540 can you go ahead
00:38:36.340 yeah I don't hear him
00:38:40.760 okay
00:38:43.200 Carney doesn't understand
00:38:46.920 David W. Carlson says Carney doesn't
00:38:49.220 understand how important
00:38:50.720 Trump's national security strategy or Monroe
00:38:53.060 doctrine is to the safety and security
00:38:55.280 of the western hemisphere
00:38:56.580 it's a great point I think
00:38:58.440 Mark Carney's next public appearance
00:39:01.000 I'm guessing will be at the European
00:39:02.760 parliament uh coming up there's an important speech that somebody's giving i don't pay
00:39:06.760 attention to the european parliament but uh you also have uh carney's position on china
00:39:14.400 and stockwell day was just uh if i could find the article here he was just talking about this the
00:39:19.760 other day i the whole thing annoys me about the liberals and how close they are with the federal
00:39:31.220 government or with the Chinese government China is not a democracy we've seen Justin Trudeau
00:39:38.700 talking about it is it you know like the the language that he uses is rather you know kind
00:39:45.480 to the Chinese and and Trump's right in the sense that you can't trust the Chinese so what we could
00:39:53.440 have uh in terms of north american trade is a trade agreement in which carney tries to push
00:40:02.560 some new world order on us um one that you know gets us closer with china and europe and it just
00:40:11.680 ignores the fact that you know the united states like historically and currently is the economy
00:40:17.420 that drives the world economy i mean when the u.s economy collapses you get a situation where
00:40:24.220 the rest of the world follows suit fairly quickly 2008 started in the united states uh 1929 started
00:40:32.200 in the united states like since probably the 1900s the united states is the most powerful economy in
00:40:40.400 the world our growth our economic like if you even look at where we situate ourselves in this country
00:40:46.200 I mean, something like 95% of the population lives within two hours of the border.
00:40:52.040 I mean, we are in the position we're in as a country because of our proximity to the United States.
00:40:57.780 It's not because of, you know, innovations within our economy.
00:41:02.720 The greatest of innovation in what's the, in the last 50 years, since penicillin,
00:41:08.540 what's the greatest invention that a Canadian has contributed that has become its own industry?
00:41:14.780 there isn't one like ai's not canadian computers like microsoft apple that's american like we
00:41:25.580 aren't in a place where we can say like look at how great we are as a country like elbows up like
00:41:31.940 we are it makes me laugh it literally makes me laugh that this is where we are um but yeah no
00:41:39.300 it is a hundred percent like we need to be concerned about our economy and if we move away
00:41:47.580 from the united states i think that's going to lead to economic issues down the road so yes
00:41:53.000 thank you for pointing out the uh minor doctrine national security
00:41:57.280 i don't uh rucking hound says what do you think about peter navarro and his comments on the trade
00:42:08.540 deal i haven't seen them i am taking questions from the comments until somebody calls in so
00:42:16.300 there's the 1-800 number at the bottom of your screen what doug ford wants according to jacob
00:42:21.800 snyder uh what doug ford wants is a permanent export tariff on oil and gas so they can get
00:42:27.360 subsidized like prior to 1931 yeah potentially i mean i i can't speak for doug ford in that fact
00:42:34.840 But I do think that one of the issues with losing, with option two losing in October is you got to think, like, what can we lose here?
00:42:45.540 I mean, we lose our leverage.
00:42:49.540 We just we just voted to stay in the country.
00:42:52.540 And the loudest advocates for federalism are the ones that have provided none of the solutions.
00:42:58.960 Like, we're going to stay.
00:43:01.700 And then what?
00:43:02.800 what does Kearney do do we get a national energy strategy we know the budgets have been atrocious
00:43:09.820 we're running massive deficits they're desperate for money where are they going to get it how are
00:43:15.300 they going to get it there's only one way to get it fast and that's to come after Alberta that's
00:43:20.980 to come after our resources that's the tax the crap out of us to pay for services that aren't
00:43:26.340 paid here Albertans as of right now as of I think the last time I did this was 2024-25 numbers
00:43:32.460 But we pay about 15% of all federal taxes, like all the money that goes into the federal coffers, 15% of it comes from Alberta. And there's about 11% of the people of the Canadian population that lives here. So every time that there's a federal transfer, a fiscal transfer, it's 11%, 11.6 or whatever.
00:43:52.780 Like, so there's a discrepancy of, well, if you think about every dollar in federal tax, 4 over 15, that's 25%, 20% of every federal tax dollar that Albertans pay just goes to everyone else and we don't see it back here.
00:44:11.500 That could get worse.
00:44:13.480 Like, I think that's kind of the issue.
00:44:16.220 um kenny and notley say we should stay in canada that's even more of a reason to be independent and
00:44:24.820 that again yeah like i i thought about doing a poll uh asking people to rate the last five
00:44:30.560 prime ministers to see you know what people thought of kenny and notley relative to the
00:44:36.200 situation but it's you have two former premiers that were virtually tossed from office one tossed
00:44:45.100 the other one out and to me it's almost like a perfect political transformation that jason kenny
00:44:50.500 goes from being a you know true blue driving his blue dodge round ram around the province acting
00:44:57.360 like he's some savior of conservative politics in this country that is now sharing stages with
00:45:04.640 liberal mp cory hogan and by the way he's a liberal mp there is a conservative candidate
00:45:10.200 it in that writing i can't remember who it is but you have like he is i he's a traitor he's a traitor
00:45:17.480 he's a traitor to this province like he all he cares about is how many tweets he can do he is
00:45:23.840 like just so dismissive like it's his demeanor personally i think every time he opens his mouth
00:45:30.920 at least five people that read his tweet decide i'm voting i'm voting to leave like it's the
00:45:35.620 and then he cherry picks the worst examples he can find and then props them up like it is
00:45:43.800 literally straw man i i had a lot of respect for him in 2017 i have no time for him and plus
00:45:51.900 we have actually reached out to him and i'm gonna say it on the air we have we have challenged jason
00:45:57.420 kenny to a debate with derrick fildebrand twice he has not answered us he won't get on a stage
00:46:02.840 with Derek Fildebrandt.
00:46:03.840 Why would he do that?
00:46:05.440 He's got nothing.
00:46:09.880 Moving on.
00:46:14.920 Oh, we got, uh, hi, Blitz DC 20.
00:46:18.500 Hi, I'm from Brazil and sending a hug to everyone in Alberta.
00:46:22.220 Well, thank you.
00:46:26.120 Uh, what else do we got here?
00:46:32.840 they want a 25 tax on oil and gas and they want to force us to shut down all our power plants and
00:46:43.180 pay huge transmission costs from new nuclear plants in ontario yeah i think that's kind of
00:46:49.500 worst case um but again we got to be concerned about what happens on october the 20th and
00:46:56.600 i think that's why for a lot of people like i'm very much in the camp that option two needs to
00:47:02.300 win uh and it's not because i want to leave the country tomorrow it's because i want all the
00:47:11.000 leverage like if we lose that referendum what are we gonna do to stop carney like we know what he
00:47:18.380 really is or at least what he's written he is over the years we know how he ran the bank of
00:47:24.060 england into the ground we know how big of a role he played in the remain side of the brexit vote
00:47:30.120 and how that went for him i mean he wasn't exactly a brilliant bank of canada governor
00:47:36.780 i think he was good as the bank of canada or sorry bank of england governor i think he was
00:47:42.320 better as the bank of canada governor but i think that was mainly because stephen harper was the
00:47:46.320 prime minister i mean if carney had his own way i think things would have gone differently
00:47:50.160 oh we got uh one person bobber carney is the only one who can stand up to trump yeah okay um
00:47:58.840 do to do take questions in the chat
00:48:02.340 Carney's a conservative
00:48:03.600 wow they are coming in fast
00:48:05.140 yes I mentioned
00:48:07.600 off the top Laurie Dodd says Trump just
00:48:09.760 renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America
00:48:12.020 executive order effect
00:48:13.580 live immediately
00:48:15.560 I mean it's
00:48:21.860 a bit childish but Doug
00:48:23.800 Ford hasn't exactly made the situation
00:48:25.700 any better I mean his
00:48:27.880 comments have been equally as irascible i it's it's one of those things where like i i don't want
00:48:36.940 i want this trade well i i'd like a deal i'd like a deal i'd like a deal that protects the energy
00:48:43.260 industry i mean the energy industry is the industry that powers every other industry you
00:48:46.800 can't have affordable anything without affordable energy um yeah kiss my ass he says it's you're
00:48:56.520 asking for it at this point like you're literally asking for it like as far as i'm concerned
00:49:01.740 trump does or ford deserves it like this is you are asking to get punched in the face
00:49:10.300 by the most powerful man in the world
00:49:12.320 like yeah and and again it's not like we've had we've been we it's not like we've matched them
00:49:21.100 in economic growth over the last 10 years it's not like we've matched them in investment it's
00:49:25.480 not like we've matched them anywhere else like we are very much a middle power i mean we finished
00:49:32.600 what ninth at the winter olympics like we're the like ninth we didn't even win golden hockey
00:49:39.440 um what else we got we got some debates in the comments go check out the comments if you want
00:49:50.060 to see something interesting can you just start throwing them up on the screen so i'm not scrolling
00:49:54.520 option two loses canada will immediately have a snap election win his super majority and then
00:50:02.240 he will implement a tax on alberta oil exports to the usa and our economy will crater yeah that's
00:50:09.460 a possibility i mean nothing's off the table it's it's one of those things where like yeah they're
00:50:15.360 using fear to kind of try to drive this pro canada stance but i think like it for albertans we need
00:50:21.180 to be afraid of what happens if this referendum goes the other way like if like we're that's what
00:50:26.620 goes back to my earlier comments like you've got a situation where the the rhetoric and the voices
00:50:33.180 that are coming out of the federal government or out of the stay in Canada side is is is framing
00:50:39.260 things as if for proposing the concept of independence you're a traitor like you're the
00:50:44.060 worst person and and if that's the feeling you get and if that's what the polls are reading in
00:50:50.120 Ontario, if that's what the polls are reading in Quebec, if that's what the polls are reading in
00:50:54.200 anywhere, the reaction of the federal government is going to be that much harder. They're going
00:50:59.940 to be harder on us. They're going to be, they're going to have all the flexibility to do this.
00:51:04.560 And they're going to have, they're going to say, these guys just traitors, traitors, get them.
00:51:10.200 So yeah, no, I'm worried about what happens after that is my main thrust right now.
00:51:15.100 Why is it only William Campbell says, why is it only team Canada when the rest of country
00:51:19.980 West rest of the country wants Alberta to do something, but when Alberta wants something, we get told no.
00:51:26.540 I think this time Alberta needs to tell Canada to kiss my ass.
00:51:31.440 I agree. Mark Carney can kiss my ass.
00:51:35.280 Is that good enough for you?
00:51:38.460 The Canadian federal government is captured by the CCP.
00:51:42.220 Alberta independence is the only way to save a piece of Canada.
00:51:45.880 And I actually think that's a good point. And I haven't read the article recently, but our publisher, Derek Fildebrandt, wrote a very, very thoughtful column where he taught where he reminisced about what Canada meant to him, about what, you know, he was an army brat, grew up, you know, all over the country.
00:52:01.960 And there is a certain way that this country has gone in the last 10 years where it's almost recognizable, not only on an economic level, but on a cultural level.
00:52:16.900 It's hard to explain. I think you get it.
00:52:19.580 But we have seen a loss in certain values, values like hard work, entrepreneurship, innovation.
00:52:31.240 like why would you create something if you're going to get taxed to sell it like at the rate
00:52:37.220 that we're getting taxed on it's it's brutal cp cb fixes all 9202 says her only move is to
00:52:46.260 implement the firewall letter immediately to push for alberta sovereignty yeah actually i think
00:52:54.620 there's quite a few things that she can do um let's start with is it still up
00:53:00.940 uh
00:53:05.860 let me find it here
00:53:11.340 yeah like and i think the frustrating part is that
00:53:24.620 The anti-Alberta independence sentiment, the Canadian pride at all costs, is permeated not just through the public sphere in the rest of the country.
00:53:41.220 I think that it has firmly entrenched itself in the Alberta legislature building.
00:53:44.340 I think the concept of standing up for Alberta against federal intrusion, which is, in my opinion, the absolute baseline of what a new deal should look like, is off the table as long as we have this attitude.
00:54:00.100 It's amongst the cabinet ministers. It's amongst the staffers. It's amongst maybe not the backbenchers, but that's kind of what I see is a situation where Smith is being pulled one way by forces within her party.
00:54:16.640 And then the professional conservatives, as I like to call them, now that they've burned Pierre Polyev's chances at prime ministership to the ground are now being hired in senior government positions after four months of experience in a losing cause.
00:54:31.860 I mean, if they won, we'd be having a different conversation entirely, but they lost.
00:54:35.860 So we have this. It's it's it's the culture.
00:54:38.920 The culture in the legislature does not adhere to standing up for our province.
00:54:45.420 even the bare minimum like the firewall letter which we haven't seen any of them implemented we've
00:54:51.500 seen certain aspects you know looked at uh but at the end of the day like pension plan for example
00:55:03.740 we released a report fumbled it and then uh moved forward we get a call on the line let's go to the
00:55:09.380 hi there hello how's it going hi this is bridget i'm good how are you good
00:55:18.280 okay all right i'm just wondering what you think that daniel smithson that could have done
00:55:24.200 differently when she got elected like i worked for her campaign i really believed in her and now
00:55:31.780 i'm just like incredibly disappointed where i know she seems like she got body snatched
00:55:36.820 Like, she was still against a nationalized energy program, but now she wants the taxpayer to foot 90% of the bill, you know, which is pretty much just nationalizing her energy.
00:55:50.920 And I think, well, this is an opinion more of a question, I guess, sorry.
00:55:55.940 i think that um she really she made some major mistakes when she got elected and she kept so
00:56:03.720 many bureaucrats that have been entrenched in edmonton for so long and i think that happens
00:56:09.480 to all the politicians that we elect i don't know what do you think yeah i i that was what i
00:56:13.740 experienced when i was up there i mean the people that i brought with the most were the ones that
00:56:18.540 were there for the longest and and they're it's hard to get rid of them because of the unions
00:56:25.800 but is what i was told it's what i was told that's what i was told but i i think that's the issue is
00:56:32.720 like you have in certain departments especially more social departments they're bureaucrats
00:56:40.060 they are more uh supportive of ndp policies than they are of ucp policies and so that work
00:56:48.360 for the ucp yeah and then you get like cabinet staff caucus staff that are younger they're easier
00:56:54.240 to you know push push around the feedback that gets to the minister is skewed in that direction
00:57:01.840 and then that creates issues of the cabinet table when it comes to decision making but you asked
00:57:06.960 what uh what she should be doing differently and and i don't think it was anything there yes there
00:57:13.860 needed to be more of a clean clean house um i think that's part of the issue um but i i do think
00:57:20.760 that uh what she's done um or what she did what she was elected to do which was the alberta
00:57:28.300 sovereignty act the provincial priorities act which was designed at least to look at every
00:57:33.700 single agreement we have with the federal government and determine which ones were good
00:57:36.820 and which ones were bad 90 of them if you're following the formulaic you know like did we get
00:57:42.900 all of our tax dollars back those those that that's not the case like i'd say there's a lot
00:57:48.420 of them that are just like you know it's a grant for fireworks for municipalities or whatever like
00:57:53.380 i'd say i think that's like 90 of the agreements we have with auto but the big ones they and i'd
00:57:58.600 like to see her be heart like there was a moment a couple weeks ago where we were talking about
00:58:03.700 um private health care like uh not necessarily privatizing health care but creating an avenue
00:58:10.920 for individuals to get a hybrid yeah the hybrid model and uh you have federal ministers federal
00:58:18.340 minister saying you can't do that according to the confeder to the canada health act and smith
00:58:22.320 saying it's our jurisdiction and that's an area where yeah she said it but like drive yeah push
00:58:29.380 like i honestly like yeah i don't know i i'm sure the bureaucrats will laugh at me for saying this
00:58:34.520 but why don't we challenge the canada health act in federal court like i mean i get it it's an
00:58:39.380 agreement that we signed to but health care is provincial jurisdiction and the canada health
00:58:44.260 transfer is another ripoff we again we pay 15 percent of all federal taxes collected they
00:58:49.820 transfer us back 10.6 11 percent based on our percentage of the population and this is our
00:58:57.180 area of jurisdiction like every probably even worse than taking on the mail cartel
00:59:02.140 like they're calling so many lobbyists for the medical industry for the cousins that have been
00:59:09.080 hired by the liberal federalists for that bureau and that bureau i bet you that's even well and
00:59:16.020 the lobbyists too right like there's i mean there's like the lobbyists that all have even
00:59:23.160 the most conservative lobby organizations have former ndp mlas or mps on senior positions like
00:59:31.800 this is these are the people that get to the officials that make the decisions like you don't
00:59:36.880 get to them they just think you know oh yeah this constituent email we think are gonna yeah we hire
00:59:44.720 the people that we think are gonna fight those people and then they get into the system and
00:59:49.200 they're just got so many little nitsicking nd peers in their ears saying well that's not really what
00:59:56.560 people want but no you are a minority in alberta and then essentially our conservative premier
01:00:04.080 start talking like a liberal and it only takes yeah if i can jump in too i i was in washington
01:00:14.800 yeah i was in washington a little bit uh like in july and i had a a former uh senior level
01:00:21.600 official with uh i think it was the newt gingrich uh when he was a speaker of the was he the he was
01:00:28.400 the speaker of the house i think um he said the one the people that you need to be the most concerned
01:00:34.000 about are the professionals the professional conservatives because what they'll do is they'll
01:00:38.480 come in they will consult they will bleed you dry and they will leave you dead on the side of the
01:00:44.400 road because everything they suggested was a terrible idea and i think that's the big issue
01:00:49.600 that smith has right now is the professionals are in the legislature they are the ones who
01:00:55.280 err on the side of caution i don't want to read um yeah like yeah they like they're the ones that
01:01:05.200 are advising the premier and her her team to do what they want and they're the they're the ones
01:01:11.560 that like yeah they they've been in and out of the federal conservative party over the last
01:01:16.200 10 years again no election victories um they were part of they were the ones that drove jason kenny
01:01:22.920 the ground during covet it's the same people like they and so they'll go to the lobby firms and then
01:01:27.640 they'll go back into the legislature and then they'll go back to the lobby groups then the
01:01:31.080 lobby groups will get in and they'll you know they're working on behalf of a company we want
01:01:36.520 to do an announcement and then the press secretary all he cares about is getting the podium and being
01:01:42.520 able to do the announcement so you can get the press coverage and i think that's one of the most
01:01:48.280 challenging things to deal with uh in dealing with this government so um yeah yeah well if
01:01:56.920 there's one thing i have faith in it's albertans for sure i think they do not like being played
01:02:03.800 yeah it's it can be frustrating i like what you guys are doing on your show though it's very good
01:02:08.760 i appreciate that thank you okay hang out i'll let you okay sounds good thank you very much
01:02:18.280 All right. I saw. Have a good day. Thank you. And David Wim here says Alberta will make a free trade deal with the U.S. independent.
01:02:27.360 Now that that caller is offline, you can call in. Alberta will make a free trade deal with the U.S. independent of eastern Canada.
01:02:35.200 Thank you very much. And yeah, that is very much why the free Alberta strategy should be playing a bigger role in the way that this premier is governing.
01:02:44.340 The free Alberta strategy is very clearly outlines that the province, in order to best represent itself on the international stage, should engage in negotiations independent of those of the federal government, because we can't trust Ottawa to take us seriously straight up.
01:03:00.960 We just can't like they only use us for leverage when they need to, as is happening right now.
01:03:07.320 and the fact that it's it's just a never-ending cycle of crap so yeah um what else have we got
01:03:18.940 here alberta needs to pull out of supply management yeah i agree i think supply management is the
01:03:24.780 biggest i hate paying six bucks for a jug of milk i hate paying twelve dollars for a block of cheese
01:03:35.080 knowing that i mean i go drive through rural alberta and you see a dairy farm it's like whoa
01:03:41.160 look at that that is like fancy stuff it is a it's class warfare in ag is what it is and it's
01:03:50.860 government controlled the government controls the amount of milk and dairy products that are
01:03:57.140 produced they do so so that they can control how much the producers make it has nothing to do with
01:04:03.820 the cost of the product for the consumer the consumer they don't care about the consumer this
01:04:09.320 is all about protecting interest polyev in fact came out in support of supply management saying
01:04:16.280 that it should absolutely never be on the table um carney's pretty much said the same thing and
01:04:22.540 and i'll give jason credit kenny credit where credit is due no more no more than what is due
01:04:27.760 i will assure you but he's even come out and said that it needs to be eliminated i mean now
01:04:35.440 10 years later but i mean it's it's one of those things and then he turned around and blamed stephen
01:04:41.760 harper for the fact that it's still in effect so yeah that's an old one out of the liberal playbook
01:04:46.880 there jason western canada has been played since 1905 says waniska 5324
01:04:54.300 what else have we got
01:05:00.560 I'm an Albertan
01:05:10.460 and absolutely disgusted
01:05:12.640 with 12 years of Trudeau-Carney
01:05:14.520 liberals, NDP
01:05:16.140 WEF puppets selling out Alberta
01:05:18.740 Canadians and Canada
01:05:20.360 it's not Trump's fault
01:05:22.360 It's Trudeau, Kearney, Liberal, NDP.
01:05:26.320 Yeah, and I think the reaction to the feds,
01:05:30.460 nationalism is now almost linked with Trump derangement syndrome.
01:05:41.640 Like, if you say that, yeah, like, if I was an American,
01:05:45.120 like, if I lived in Texas, I'd be all for this.
01:05:49.000 I'd be 100%.
01:05:49.920 Yeah, rename it Lake of Ontario.
01:05:52.360 Like Lake Erie can be renamed to something else.
01:05:56.480 Like, I mean, I'd be all for it.
01:05:58.640 But because we're Canadian and because our mainstream media is so adamantly in line with the liberals, you don't get that.
01:06:13.280 And I will say one thing before we go, because we are actually past clock.
01:06:19.520 But one thing that I do think that this referendum is going to have an impact in terms of the public discourse is long run, it will code Canada as a left wing country.
01:06:35.800 There aren't enough conservatives that are standing up for Canada in the way that people are, you know, feeling good about.
01:06:51.040 And in Alberta, I think there was a decision recently made to revisit the flag policy in schools.
01:06:58.600 And obviously, Berta Prouddad, he was on Cory Morgan yesterday.
01:07:01.960 He talked about that.
01:07:02.920 And I think that decision, from what I heard, was made because Cabinet didn't want the inflammation of the situation.
01:07:12.520 They didn't want to deal with the backlash.
01:07:16.380 I think a bunch of teachers flying pride Canadian flags would be more benefit to the Alberta government and to the, well, maybe not to the government, maybe not the press secretaries probably hate that.
01:07:31.100 i don't give a shit about the press secretaries though so uh sorry um but in terms of just
01:07:37.680 positioning i think it would definitely code canada on left and right and that i think is where
01:07:45.880 the divide is it is very much that canada is not a conservative country it is the growing disbelief
01:07:55.900 that it ever will be again if an if a free enterprise conservative like Pierre Polyev
01:08:01.400 gets brushed aside at the mere mention of Donald Trump then maybe this thing's over
01:08:05.840 maybe we're just waiting for somebody to to vote to leave and maybe that's Alberta maybe that's
01:08:12.400 Quebec I don't know their elections coming up we'll see but it's I see that there's an American
01:08:18.340 in there what does that say William Roble I'm an American and live in Texas and I support Alberta
01:08:24.200 to independence see i knew we had one thanks william that's exactly it like there's a certain
01:08:30.580 degree of and there's another one canada's inferior complex will sink it like that's
01:08:38.460 exactly the point we are an inferior country we are not great we are a middle we we've got
01:08:48.440 prime ministers that are bragging about being a middle power there's no ambition to become great
01:08:54.060 i mean i we get we got participation medals from the hockey at the gold medal games
01:09:01.580 at the olympics so that was something we can be proud of i guess i mean we're not even the best
01:09:06.680 at what we're supposed to be the best at anymore
01:09:09.360 we're not a great country we need to stop acting like we can do the damage that we think we can do
01:09:20.180 Doug Ford's out of his mind
01:09:22.220 like
01:09:24.140 what are you
01:09:25.760 you're poking him now
01:09:26.820 like you think
01:09:27.640 like Trump's just gonna be like
01:09:29.060 oh yeah
01:09:29.480 oh USA
01:09:31.060 or sorry
01:09:32.240 ooh Canada's
01:09:33.100 oh my goodness
01:09:34.040 no
01:09:34.980 they're way bigger than us
01:09:36.360 they're better than us
01:09:37.720 we suck as a country
01:09:40.120 okay I think that's pretty much it
01:09:43.280 unless we got a caller on the line right now
01:09:45.120 I am going to wrap up the show
01:09:47.380 so first off
01:09:48.740 thank you to our callers thank you to our viewers uh we've gone a little bit over time but uh i
01:09:56.140 always enjoy being on the air apologies to anybody that i may have offended just kidding
01:10:02.820 and uh yeah marty will be back on next thursday at 12 o'clock so check that out and be sure to
01:10:10.360 subscribe go to www.westernstandard.news subscription it's uh 10 bucks per month
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01:11:27.260 next week this has been marty up north
01:11:35.920 We'll be right back.