Western Standard - August 18, 2026


NATION OF PEOPLE ｜ Canada’s biggest problem is hiding in plain sight


Episode Stats


Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

150.44

Word count

4,031

Sentence count

235


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Countries need a unified vision, like businesses need a mission statement.
00:00:04.920 What is Canada's unifying vision?
00:00:06.980 Well, there isn't one.
00:00:08.820 We'll see that there are actually three, each distinct and unrelated and often at odds with each other.
00:00:15.940 None of them acknowledge the existence of the other two.
00:00:19.760 It renders the nation deeply dysfunctional and accentuates our already deep regional divides.
00:00:27.500 What are they? Where did they come from? And how can they be addressed?
00:00:31.500 Welcome to the Nation of People.
00:00:50.500 Hi, I'm Natalie St. Hilaire. With me is Randy Royer.
00:00:54.500 royer how can a country survive and prosper without a sense of common purpose that comes from a
00:01:00.100 unifying vision instead of one unifying vision people across canada state their regionally
00:01:07.700 accepted vision and assume that the rest of the country is in agreement and they are not
00:01:14.420 and it is tearing the country apart literally
00:01:17.220 So we ended last episode talking about the great vision for Canada and the potential for bringing together all the different provinces and the seemingly impossible tasks that that might be.
00:01:33.280 And I'm wondering if we go back into the British North America Act, if there's actually some indication of a vision, of a unifying vision for Canada there.
00:01:42.780 The only thing that's there is peace order and good government, and that's not really very much
00:01:46.860 guidance. That's not really a vision. It's just sort of, I don't know, let's go and create a
00:01:51.820 government. What we actually have is we have three different visions. They're mutually exclusive,
00:01:58.220 and no one recognizes the other two. So we've got about three different ideas about, in Canada,
00:02:04.780 how things should be done and where we're going. And we're not talking about the conflict there,
00:02:10.220 is what you're saying that's correct and the the consequence of not talking about it is that we
00:02:15.580 lack a sense of national purpose what is the vision of the country what are we trying to
00:02:19.820 achieve what does it mean to the individual well if you listen to trudeau jr there's no we're
00:02:26.380 post-national we don't need to sort that out but uh i guess i i digress so tell me what are the
00:02:33.420 three different visions randy i i'm i'm actually going to confess that a vision in as it is in a
00:02:39.900 business plan, the vision of your company is important. We can cite the American vision,
00:02:46.060 we can cite the vision of many different countries, but we can't define what Canada's vision is.
00:02:53.740 So the three visions that are in Canada are number one, Big Brother Confederation,
00:02:59.500 number two, Equality Confederation, and number three, the two nation policy.
00:03:04.700 Well, I know it sounds better to me. So let's start with what sounds worse,
00:03:08.220 which is Big Brother Confederation. Can you explain what that is, Randy?
00:03:12.060 Sure. Big Brother Confederation comes from the original confederation.
00:03:16.460 It's held in Ontario and the Maritimes. And it is basically the concept that when the first four
00:03:24.380 colonies got together, it was really about the dominant position of Canada, which was
00:03:29.500 upper and lower Canada, Quebec and Ontario. Part of it was the deindustrialization of the Maritimes.
00:03:37.100 As we talked about in another intro introduction for the videos, that created the de-confederation
00:03:45.460 separatist movements in the Maritimes in the 1870s.
00:03:49.480 But Ontario and the Maritimes hold that today.
00:03:52.780 And that is, the country will focus in on the two main provinces, and they'll take care
00:03:58.940 of everybody else.
00:04:00.200 That worked until Quebec kind of hit their quiet revolution, and then their economy ended
00:04:06.340 up suffering over the years because they focused on linguistic and social issues and not economic
00:04:12.420 issues. And so it was all left to Ontario. And Ontario was actually a good big brother. I
00:04:17.060 mentioned in the last episode that when Alberta was trying to develop its its oil resources,
00:04:23.460 Ontario, even though it was more expensive, agreed to use Alberta oil and gas and whereas
00:04:30.580 Quebec didn't. And Ontario also was one of the early stage investors in the oil sands. I think
00:04:39.860 they bought it 5% of the oil sands. So Ontario has actually been a very good big brother to Canada.
00:04:45.780 And as I mentioned in the previous episode, they were walking away from the crow rate,
00:04:54.580 which was an example which benefited Ontario, and it was detrimental to the West. But Ontario
00:04:59.620 accepted that we got rid of that. So Ontario really was a good big brother. And they were
00:05:05.320 quite prepared in my view to continue to pay reparations to the Maritimes and pay for
00:05:11.440 Confederation until they couldn't anymore. And then Alberta was the focus. They turned to Alberta
00:05:18.980 because Alberta could pay for it. But we don't view big brother Confederation. We view equality
00:05:25.820 confederation yeah there's sort of a natural tension there where if i'm paying for something
00:05:32.780 then i don't need a big brother i'm not being taken care of because financially taking care
00:05:38.300 of somebody is is sort of taking care of them so that i can see where that would naturally create
00:05:44.700 some real tension uh what about equality confederation what do you mean by that
00:05:49.740 the tension that it creates is that ontario doesn't understand why we don't want to pay
00:05:54.540 today, and it's because we believe in equality confederation.
00:06:00.860 And where this comes from is in 1931, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba received their
00:06:08.600 natural resources and became what in our eyes were equal provinces.
00:06:14.320 That wasn't exactly the idea that Ontario had and Quebec didn't have that idea.
00:06:19.600 But we thought that meant equality.
00:06:21.520 So throughout Alberta, we think equality is the essence, the vision of Canada, and we
00:06:28.340 think everybody's supposed to be equal.
00:06:30.380 And we base that on the 1931 Resource Act.
00:06:38.300 Ontario looks at the 125 years of the national economic policy, which focused attention on
00:06:44.840 the Big Brother, and believes that they're right because that's what the original confederation
00:06:50.180 and 125 years of economic policy.
00:06:53.120 That's what that indicates.
00:06:54.720 And then the 82 Constitution specifically says
00:06:58.580 that the BNA Act is still accepted in its entirety.
00:07:02.260 So they rationalized that the 82 Constitution
00:07:06.140 re-emphasized the Big Brother Confederation.
00:07:09.900 So we in Alberta, we believe that we have equality.
00:07:14.340 They don't believe that.
00:07:16.300 Well, I can see where that would cause conflict.
00:07:19.600 you said something was different about BC. What's that about?
00:07:23.680 So if Alberta is the abused child of Confederation, and the family analysis is a pretty good one,
00:07:30.480 they were the older brother, we're the younger brother, and we feel that we have been abused in
00:07:35.600 Alberta. British Columbia is the abandoned child of Confederation. They have a very distant view
00:07:43.040 of Ottawa. They don't look to Ottawa to solve their problems. They don't see problems coming
00:07:49.040 out of Ottawa, they're disassociated with it. And just nobody thinks about the federal government.
00:07:55.120 The coast is called the BC coast for a reason. It's not called Canada's west coast. It's called
00:08:00.560 BC's coast. So they're very disassociated and that has a lot of implications. And we talked
00:08:07.440 in a previous episode about the land issue in British Columbia. Well, they focus on what
00:08:12.960 province of British Columbia did to cause that. They don't focus on the 82 constitution or what
00:08:18.560 the federal government has done and so that's there there's got a bit of a variation they
00:08:24.880 kind of believe in equality but it doesn't really matter because ottawa is way way way
00:08:30.880 on the other side of the rocky so we don't care about it and another another example of that is
00:08:37.920 a friend of mine was the was the head of the gaming commission in british columbia and he saw
00:08:44.880 the period of time where it was guys going into the casinos with bags of cash. And he said that
00:08:50.400 the federal government knew what was happening. They knew that money was being laundered,
00:08:54.960 but they chose to do nothing. And they didn't really do anything until the money laundering
00:09:01.680 problem hit Toronto. Because in Ottawa's eyes, if it's just Vancouver, we don't care about it.
00:09:07.360 But when it hit Ottawa, it became a national issue. And that was very, very clear about the
00:09:13.840 different views of different visions of Canada. Well I know that there's some rumblings in BC
00:09:18.880 about things that have been happening and the 1982 constitution so maybe that's going to change
00:09:24.000 but we still need to talk about the two nation policy which is the next vision. So this vision
00:09:29.520 is held by Quebec and the political elite and political establishment in Ottawa and this is
00:09:36.800 was created in the 1982 constitution and it is the vision of Canada that it is two separate
00:09:43.440 countries. That's probably why Justin Trudeau made that comment. They were post-national because we
00:09:49.120 have two different countries inside of Canada. One is an autonomous Quebec, and the other is
00:09:58.960 English Canada that is a unitary state, all run out of Ottawa, and the provincial governments
00:10:06.640 have whatever rights Ottawa decides that they have from time to time. So they can give very
00:10:13.520 different rights to Quebec versus Alberta. And there's been a lot of problems around that.
00:10:20.400 And so they rationalize it because they think that that's what the 82 Constitution was all about,
00:10:25.760 specifically, where it says in equality will be determined by the federal government.
00:10:32.040 So their view of it is that.
00:10:34.340 And then inside Ottawa, the Prime Minister has all the power.
00:10:39.600 There's no checks or balances on the power of the Prime Minister.
00:10:42.940 And he is only beholding to the electorate from Toronto to Montreal.
00:10:48.100 And that's whether you're a Liberal Prime Minister or a Conservative Prime Minister.
00:10:53.280 Your electoral base that you need to satisfy is that corridor from Toronto to Montreal.
00:10:58.880 Nobody else counts.
00:10:59.700 And that is the two-nation policy.
00:11:03.860 I see.
00:11:05.020 Well, if it indeed is true that these three separate visions of Canada exist all at the same time,
00:11:12.420 I feel like this would be very, very problematic for us.
00:11:17.580 And I can see where some problems could come from, these sorts of misunderstandings and goals and visions.
00:11:25.840 But do you have a list, Randy?
00:11:27.640 I certainly do.
00:11:29.460 Do you happen to have a list of grievances?
00:11:32.260 Yeah, I mean, the Impact Assessment Act, it was a clear infringement upon the rights of the
00:11:39.220 province, the sovereign rights of the province. The Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals in Alberta,
00:11:43.940 so it's not called the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals definitively said this is against the
00:11:48.180 Constitution. And so you have to ask, how did the federal government justify this? How did they
00:11:54.260 rationalize it? And why are they still doing it, even though the court said that they can't?
00:11:58.820 And the reason is, is because they view the country, their vision of the country is the two
00:12:03.380 nation policy. They think that they're the superior government, and the Alberta government
00:12:08.340 is inferior. So that's one example. BC trying to stop the pipelines. I mean, when you think about
00:12:16.740 it, they went to court to the Supreme Court to see if BC had the ability to stop the Alberta pipeline
00:12:23.540 years ago under Horgan. The court said, no, you don't have that right. But somehow, Quebec does
00:12:29.380 have the right to stop. And just nobody challenges it because everyone in the political elite
00:12:35.380 accepts the two nation policy strategy. Another example is healthcare. In Quebec,
00:12:43.060 they go by very different rules than they do in English Canada. The last one, and I'll repeat it
00:12:48.820 again as national energy policy. That was an example that even though section 92 of the 82
00:12:55.860 constitution says clearly that resources belong to the provinces, the NEP was an expression that
00:13:03.060 Alberta sovereignty was subservient to the federal government's sovereignty. And it was
00:13:08.340 an expression that the two nation policy says that the provincial governments are subservient.
00:13:12.820 subservient so lots of examples and the toughest thing about it is that we don't even communicate
00:13:19.060 what the underlying problem is you know we we communicate on the superficial problems but we
00:13:24.260 never say you actually view the country differently than i do and we need to decide who's right or
00:13:29.940 who's wrong and that's the problem that the country is going to be stymied until it actually addresses
00:13:34.900 this issue i can see where that would be the case and so uh say i want to do something about it say
00:13:42.020 I'm the kind of crazy person that decides I'm going to get into politics and I want to actually
00:13:48.500 contend with the situation in front of me, like in reality, not just in an ideal way.
00:13:53.780 What can I actually do about it? How do I handle it based on what political party I'm in?
00:13:59.460 What do they do? What are they currently doing to deal with these conflicts?
00:14:03.860 Nobody, nobody addresses the conflict. It's just, it's verboten. Nobody talks about it.
00:14:08.340 nobody addresses it. Nobody even wants to admit it. The Premier of Alberta is talking about
00:14:15.060 equality. They want equality. The Premier of Quebec says, we want sovereignty and autonomy.
00:14:21.460 And Ottawa is talking about the two nation policy. They don't talk about it. They don't address it.
00:14:28.260 And in terms of the actual parties themselves, the Liberal Party is all in for either a combination of
00:14:35.220 Big Brother Confederation in Ontario, or the two nation policy in Quebec, they kind of fudge it
00:14:40.100 and say, those are what we do, particularly the Trudeau Liberals. The Conservatives trying to
00:14:46.820 push the equality side, but when they're actually in power, they have to realize that they got to
00:14:52.020 treat Quebec differently. And they really have to accept the two nation policy. So they campaign on
00:14:57.940 one and do something different. The NEP is their structure in their constitution is very similar
00:15:06.260 to the two nation policy that all provincial NDP parties have to adopt the federal policies
00:15:14.660 and Quebec is completely independent. So they're all in on the two nation policy.
00:15:19.860 So what I'm gathering from what you're saying is that because there's something structurally
00:15:25.700 set up in our constitution that requires us to be governed a certain way like electoral districts,
00:15:33.460 etc. Even when we have a conservative government that might campaign on equality,
00:15:39.780 they can't govern that way. It won't work for them. That's correct.
00:15:43.620 Okay, so that's one of the, I think, areas where people really start to feel alienated,
00:15:50.980 you know, is even when we get what we want, we don't get what we want because it's structurally
00:15:55.620 impossible, is what you're saying. Yeah. Stephen Harper, for example, he famously wanted to have a
00:16:04.340 single financial control. And that, of course, was going to be the OSC in Ontario. And so he's
00:16:13.580 going to move all financial stuff out of Calgary and move it to Ontario. And that was a progressive,
00:16:18.520 a conservative government. And the court said that finance was a provincial sovereign right,
00:16:28.500 and so he didn't do it. But that expresses that even in the conservative party,
00:16:33.480 they really have to play to Ontario and Quebec in order to get elected again.
00:16:38.220 Well, I mean, I think that it's not gone without my noticing and a lot of other people's noticing
00:16:42.840 in Alberta that change is really difficult and that getting that sense of equality or action
00:16:48.100 in an equal way is really difficult for our province.
00:16:51.100 What's new for me here is how connected it is to the Constitution.
00:16:55.140 Yes.
00:16:55.760 So how does this end up impacting the relations that Ottawa has
00:17:01.080 with the various provinces and regions in the country?
00:17:04.600 Well, Alberta is probably the wealthiest of the equality confederation provinces.
00:17:12.980 The other ones are Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and to some degree, British Columbia.
00:17:17.140 And so it's the odd, you know, the odd child out.
00:17:21.240 It's the one that raises the most fuss about it.
00:17:23.520 It's the one that says we demand equality.
00:17:26.140 And the 82 Constitution fudges it.
00:17:30.120 It kind of says, yes, you know, the BNA Act.
00:17:34.640 Yes, everything that you assume is correct, but also we're going to have the two nation policy, which is also correct.
00:17:40.500 So, you know, what we need to do is as a family is we need to grow up and admit who we are.
00:17:45.240 And even if, you know, parts of Canada separate, they need to understand the vision of what that part is.
00:17:51.680 So this is a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed.
00:17:55.720 Okay.
00:17:56.800 So what's the, at the end of the day, what's the conclusion here?
00:18:02.340 How can this even work?
00:18:04.140 Like what's, I mean, you know, even you just said like, even if parts of Canada separate, like what, because I know you've thought about this a lot.
00:18:12.780 you've written books. And I know you do have a suggestion or two for how we can find ourselves
00:18:20.460 out of this mess. So I'm curious, Randy, to hear from you what that is. Well, I think there is
00:18:26.180 an opportunity to weave a solution. And the three most vocal provinces are Quebec, Ontario, and
00:18:34.220 Alberta. And the objective is to weave a solution that works for everyone. The two-nation policy
00:18:42.160 is in direct conflict with the concept of equality, so we can't have that. The Big Brother
00:18:48.760 Confederation, it's run its course. All of the participants need to grow up, and they need to
00:18:55.380 contribute, and contribute whatever they can to the prosperity of the country. And so Big Brother
00:19:01.260 has got to kind of go by the wayside. And so if we look at Alberta promoting equality, Quebec wants
00:19:10.340 autonomy, and Ontario wants unity. Well, those three things are not mutually exclusive. We can
00:19:17.660 actually work with those things. And so what does that mean? It means that we define what autonomy
00:19:23.640 means. And by the way, there's 40 countries in the world that have autonomous regions within them.
00:19:30.060 And Canada is considered to be one of those regions already. And they work well. And the
00:19:35.060 reasons for autonomous regions is either cultural differences or geographic differences and industry
00:19:43.540 differences. We certainly have that. So one possible direction to go in is to say, okay,
00:19:50.740 Quebec, you can have autonomy, but we also have equality. So all of the provinces have that same
00:19:56.920 autonomy. Now, some provinces are too small that they are not, I mean, Prince Edward Island is 180,000
00:20:04.720 people. You can't have a full provincial government in that it just doesn't have the
00:20:10.400 economies of scale. So for example, perhaps the maritime provinces, sorry, Atlantic Canada,
00:20:16.960 needs to come together, and that includes Newfoundland, needs to come together and form
00:20:21.440 a regional autonomous zone. Western Canada, for example, Alberta and Saskatchewan don't have
00:20:30.240 ports, we don't have access to the sea. So we need that. So perhaps, and this is what I talk
00:20:35.440 about in my most recent book, perhaps British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba
00:20:41.200 need to come together and form a regional autonomous district. And I actually call that
00:20:46.400 the Prairie Pacific Autonomous Region, PAPAR, which all the golfers like that name.
00:20:51.360 Pa-par. Pa-par, pa-par. But then that Pacific Prairie Autonomous region would be 14 million
00:21:02.820 people. They'd have common access to two oceans. It would have some of the greatest resources in
00:21:10.680 the world in oil and potash and lithium and agriculture. It would be an incredible autonomous
00:21:17.960 region then ontario is 14 15 million now quebec is almost 10 million maritimes is almost 5 million
00:21:26.520 so we could be a country of regions rather than this confusion that we have of what we are and
00:21:32.440 what we aren't to summarize where we're at so far we need a single vision yes and what you're saying
00:21:41.160 is that we need some economically viable solution that has us on equal footing with Ottawa or
00:21:52.280 Eastern Canada or other regions in the country. And so you're proposing these autonomous regions.
00:21:59.720 It's like a way of establishing your sovereignty without leaving, finding ways to have agreements
00:22:08.680 that respect people's equality or provinces' equality. So one specifically would be the Pacific
00:22:16.520 Prairie Autonomous Region. Okay, got it. And so there would be, I'm thinking,
00:22:23.560 other ways that we would also support each other that would be equal and a-partisan,
00:22:28.520 and that would create some sense of fairness between the provinces and the regions of the
00:22:34.440 the country? So the idea is to give all the provinces equal sovereignty, and then they
00:22:41.360 take that sovereignty and they work together in the region. So for example, building a pipeline
00:22:46.180 or railroad to Hudson Bay, the three provinces can work that out. Building something to the West
00:22:52.900 Coast, the two provinces, and I'm going to include the Indigenous on both of those,
00:22:58.280 we can work together. We don't need Ottawa's interference in that. We can actually take our
00:23:03.920 sovereignty, and agree to work with our neighbors under a regional sovereignty.
00:23:10.400 I mean, that all sounds really good. But when I hear you say that, I immediately think
00:23:15.200 Ottawa isn't going to like that. Like what you're saying is, guess what? We don't actually need
00:23:20.140 Ottawa. What we need Ottawa for is to promote best practices across the country, to promote
00:23:29.740 that each province and each region needs to be a contributor,
00:23:35.760 economically, socially, environmentally, in every way.
00:23:40.420 Each province should put on their big boy panties
00:23:43.100 and do something and be positive.
00:23:44.880 This idea that we have Atlantic Canada
00:23:47.580 is basically a award of the national government.
00:23:51.660 And it's eternally getting equalization payments is a bit insane.
00:23:55.440 And again, because we believe in equality, and Ontario believed in the Big Brother Confederation,
00:24:04.540 it was willing to pay those reparations, as I call it, but Alberta is not.
00:24:09.660 And so I think that's actually, our lack of willingness to do it is actually something
00:24:14.560 positive for Ontario and Quebec.
00:24:17.620 What on the Ottawa government, nobody's going to like losing power, but what's the alternative?
00:24:25.440 But Ontario, sorry, the Ottawa government needs to look at different things.
00:24:32.500 We're going to talk about that in future episodes.
00:24:35.180 Things like how does Canada brand itself?
00:24:38.500 How do we make us the exporter of preference in Europe, in Asia?
00:24:45.560 You know, it needs to be supporting all of the provinces equally.
00:24:51.180 They have a big role to play.
00:24:52.640 It's also in defence too.
00:24:54.080 and so we just need to redirect them.
00:24:58.020 Well, I like what you're saying, Randy,
00:24:59.660 and I have a lot of questions specifically
00:25:01.860 about how we can possibly get to what it is that you're saying
00:25:05.540 based on our current construct
00:25:09.000 and the fact that nobody likes to lose power,
00:25:12.300 particularly not Ottawa.
00:25:13.940 But I'm sure we'll get there as we discuss more and more
00:25:16.900 or at least have some good ideas along the way.
00:25:19.020 Well, I think the first step is what we've talked about already
00:25:21.800 is we have to break the egg.
00:25:24.080 And breaking the egg is voting on the Constitution and rejecting it.
00:25:29.580 And so then if we do that, and if British Columbia does it, if Saskatchewan does it, if Manitoba does it, you have all of the West, which fundamentally has the same character that we talked about in the last episode, we can break that stranglehold that the Constitution has over us.
00:25:46.640 And this is trying to distinguish, extinguish, extinguish our character, extinguish our concepts
00:25:53.480 of our vision of Canada.
00:25:55.940 And we can say, no, this is what we want.
00:25:58.020 And the four Western provinces can come together, in my view, and say, this is a Canada that
00:26:03.840 we think works.
00:26:05.320 And it can be prosperous.
00:26:06.860 It can defend itself.
00:26:08.400 And it can have a very bright future that can influence other parts of the world.
00:26:12.820 And that's kind of my dream.
00:26:14.500 That actually is my dream.
00:26:15.740 Well, thank you for that, Randi, and for giving us all a vision of a different future.
00:26:23.740 Join us next time and find out how Canada has two separate social contracts.
00:26:28.740 Find out how the two are mutually exclusive.
00:26:31.740 And once again, the West is left paying the bill for the East.
00:26:35.740 See you then on A Nation of People.
00:26:45.740 Should I go now?