Western Standard - October 18, 2026


NATION OF PEOPLE ｜ The ideas that shaped Nation of People

Mentioned
Peter McLeod Natalie St. Hilaire Danielle Smith Rachel Notley Jim Denning Roy Fox Carney
Pierre Poilievre keynote speech at the Canada Strong & Free Network in Calgary Bruce Pardy： The Canada in your memory no longer exists

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

153.69

Word count

1,563

Sentence count

90


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We want to thank you for joining us on what has been an incredible journey.
00:00:04.860 Today, we're providing a summary of what we have learned and our major conclusion.
00:00:09.060 This is Nation of People. I am Natalie St. Hilaire, and with me is Randy Royer.
00:00:13.920 Randy, why don't you get us started?
00:00:15.740 First, we conclude that the Premier is way ahead of all of us.
00:00:20.080 Whether it's through instincts or intent, she has been ahead of us this whole time.
00:00:26.140 She has pursued her, what we believe, to be her major raison d'être to be in politics,
00:00:33.100 and she's done it in a way that has been true to her beliefs and her principles.
00:00:38.900 Her goal, we believe, was to be the premier that would finally solve the 121-year riddle of Alberta, Western alienation.
00:00:50.920 To us, her guiding principles have been twofold.
00:00:54.740 First, listening to people.
00:00:57.000 And second, believing that people have value and importance.
00:01:02.440 So call it maybe servant leadership and libertarianism.
00:01:06.260 Here on Nation of People, we call it principle-based participatory democracy.
00:01:13.580 So some have suggested that she's in a trap of her own making.
00:01:17.480 We see it differently.
00:01:19.140 We think that there's either planning or inevitability.
00:01:21.860 and the eyes of the nation are on Alberta
00:01:24.760 and we have made the point
00:01:26.840 that we could have never made in any other way.
00:01:30.040 So even the Prime Minister is standing back
00:01:33.160 and saying it's time for Alberta to lead, not leave.
00:01:37.280 You can't buy that.
00:01:40.400 So in a sense, she's already won.
00:01:43.960 Change has started.
00:01:45.680 We are on the road to solving Western alienation.
00:01:48.640 and there is and there's one final thrust and that is the next phase of the project
00:01:54.420 now it's about defining what alberta wants and then incorporating it making it happen
00:02:01.120 across the 16 episodes of nation of people there have been some clear messages
00:02:05.200 albertans want to work together to build a strong country they're just frustrated about how to do
00:02:10.340 that well what we see is that the activists the hyper engaged want to be active in finding the
00:02:16.180 solution. However, moderates also want change and they want problems fixed, but they don't want high
00:02:22.840 risk or their lives to be turned upside down. And everybody still wants good government, stewardship
00:02:28.940 of our finances, and help creating good jobs and making life more affordable. So what did we learn
00:02:34.320 at Nation of People? How can we help the process? Well, there's three things. Number one, the premier's
00:02:40.500 instincts are right. Albertans need to be involved. And the activist community is standing ready to be
00:02:47.400 engaged in the next phase. Number two, as we heard with Roy Fox in episode 12, that there is a need
00:02:55.000 for a new modern relationship, in this day, as he called it, treaty, that drives us towards mutual
00:03:02.360 prosperity. And then number three is what we heard from Peter McLeod in episode 13. He showed us
00:03:10.040 that this can all work through citizen engagement.
00:03:13.580 We can find solutions without government getting needlessly tied up.
00:03:18.800 They can be better answers, ones that politicians frankly can't find or implement.
00:03:25.060 So here's Peter.
00:03:26.240 So what a citizens assembly does, and I think what's so powerful about a more participatory approach,
00:03:31.520 is it says, first of all, people have a lot more to contribute than just their vote.
00:03:36.080 and turns out people are much more giving of their time than we might assume reasonably people get
00:03:43.260 turned off from politics but if you ask people to help if you ask them to do something real with
00:03:49.420 their time if you ask them to use the stuff between their ears and really think hard about
00:03:55.060 some of these issues i've seen time and again canadians will put their hands up in the air
00:04:00.580 And they get to do something that most politicians will never have the opportunity to do.
00:04:05.920 And that's to actually spend 40 uninterrupted hours focused on just one topic.
00:04:12.100 These are Peter's comments on the concept of a citizen's assembly and where it came from.
00:04:16.560 True to form as Canadians, we don't always know our own stories.
00:04:21.800 And so the story I want to tell you is one that actually began a little more than 20 years ago now in British Columbia,
00:04:28.160 which for a variety of reasons had the world's first what would come to be known as a citizens
00:04:35.360 assembly so it took two of canada's great traditions a royal commission you know when
00:04:41.440 something's really difficult we think all right let's get some very clever people maybe
00:04:45.860 former judges and university presidents and journalists and whomever the great and the good
00:04:51.480 we're going to impanel them we're going to give them the opportunity to study an issue and in bc
00:04:57.740 which randy just rightly i think observed quite individualistic in its outlook a bit populist
00:05:03.140 thought to itself instead of getting the great and the good what if we were to replace them with a
00:05:08.220 randomly selected group of british columbia residents and so that connects to the second
00:05:14.160 great tradition part of our common law inheritance of having a jury so you bring together a jury of
00:05:21.540 people and the policy focus of royal commission you get something called a citizens assembly
00:05:26.840 And in Canada, we've had about 50 of them, beginning in BC and then Ontario.
00:05:32.620 But here's the bit that maybe connects to the idea of an industry.
00:05:36.440 There have been a thousand citizens' assemblies inspired by what took place here around the world over the course of the past 20 years.
00:05:44.680 And every year, we see more assemblies taking place, dealing with intractable issues that, for a variety of reasons, elected politicians really struggle to address.
00:05:56.840 But would it work for our constitution?
00:05:59.620 What I never expected to see was a way in which other jurisdictions like Ireland would
00:06:05.460 get inspired from Canada.
00:06:07.940 They've changed their constitution three times using citizens' assemblies that came out of
00:06:14.820 our country.
00:06:15.820 And if you ask someone in Dublin, what do you think about a citizens' assembly?
00:06:19.180 It's one of the few cities in the world that's going to give you a clear answer.
00:06:22.720 understand that democracy can work in new and better ways,
00:06:26.540 and they want to be a part of it.
00:06:27.900 It's cool that Canada is actually exporting that to the world.
00:06:32.080 We are the global leader in participatory democracy.
00:06:35.960 That's something to be proud of.
00:06:37.620 We are also the preeminent principle-based society in the world.
00:06:41.680 Randy, you discussed this in episode 9,
00:06:44.160 describing it as the primary difference between Canada and the United States.
00:06:47.840 The Americans went to a constitution and they said,
00:06:50.440 here's the rules, here's how we must act. And Canada, through the British, said,
00:06:56.460 well, here's our principles. Conduct yourself according to those principles.
00:07:00.640 I see. It seems like principles are, you know, a deeper way of understanding the world than
00:07:06.040 rules because there's sort of like a why inside of a principle versus just a you may do this,
00:07:10.620 you may not do that. Seems to me that way. But how did that end up playing out?
00:07:14.960 They asked the question, do you view your fellow citizens as moral or amoral, good or bad?
00:07:24.100 And 53% of Americans said that they view their fellow citizens as fundamentally morally bad.
00:07:33.900 Canada, same question was asked. And in Canada, 92%, 92% of Canadians felt that their fellow citizens were fundamentally good. 7% said that they were bad.
00:07:48.780 So to me, that is the difference between a rules-based approach versus a rule-based society with strict enforcement, strict laws and all that stuff, versus a principled base.
00:08:04.140 You just trust people more because you know they're acting on the same set of principles that you are.
00:08:10.420 Of the 25 countries in that survey, U.S. was the worst and Canada was the best.
00:08:15.660 But to do this, we need a grand vision that everyone can rally around.
00:08:20.340 Well, Carney said it.
00:08:22.020 Jim Denning and his group said it.
00:08:23.920 Rachel Notley said it.
00:08:25.140 Danielle Smith endorsed it.
00:08:26.620 And Randy, you were the first to say it in your book, Alberta should lead and not leave.
00:08:31.040 That vision is to unify Alberta, to lead Canada and lead the world.
00:08:36.000 So how does Alberta lead Canada?
00:08:37.900 It does so by laying out a people-based constitution, get rid of all that colonial
00:08:44.360 stuff that we hate. So how does Alberta lead Canada to lead the world? Well, we've just seen
00:08:51.400 it. Canada has two great traditions. It is the world's leading principle-based society,
00:08:58.660 and we started Citizens Assembly. So we are exporting those ideas, both of them.
00:09:05.900 that is infectious yes let's lean into them let's find friends that think the same way
00:09:11.480 in episode 16 we suggest that those start with commonwealth countries we are replacing this
00:09:18.340 rules-based world order with a principle-based world order and and which is completely different
00:09:26.160 sure it's an audacious idea and an audacious approach but premier smith took a huge risk
00:09:33.860 in letting this past develop now it's us to be equally courageous to release our imagined results
00:09:42.740 and focus in on achieving our basic goals so let's showcase alberta's unique nature and willingness
00:09:49.620 to build something new and better weaving a solution for all of the stakeholders make this
00:09:56.180 our own field of dreams, because if we build it, they will surely come.